ti Page 1879 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Brett Myers is Full of Trickery
When not occupied with domestic abuse or calling reporters retards, Phillies pitcher Brett Myers fancies himself quite the mischievous clubhouse presence. Here, he's gotten manager Charlie Manuel, some beat reporters and GM Ruben Amaro in on the act of fooling pitcher Kyle Kendrick into thinking he...

Not the Greatest Career Swing for Lord Byron
The Falcons yesterday parted ways with seven players, including four-time Pro Bowl tight end Alge Crumpler and quarterback Byron Leftwich, who has capped a rapid descent from starting quarterback to journeyman with an unsure future....

If You Can't Play As The Vikings, Might As Well Ransack Like Them
Having just been alerted by the Mid-Atlantic Hockey League that their season was over at the halfway mark, the Jamestown Vikings decided that they were still vikings after all and proved as much by trashing the historic Viking Lodge in Jamestown, NY....

Ook-ook. You Folks Ready to Go Ape?
Greetings, Deadspinners. I am Christmas Ape, the latest in a glorious succession of Kissing Suzy Kolber writers to serve as your Weekend Editor. Those of you who are regular readers over there probably know me for chronicling the imaginary exploits of Philip Rivers and posting the occasional picture...

Media Approval Ratings: Linda Cohn
In that book thing we just wrote, we referred to Linda Cohn as "competent, and seemingly pregnant every three months." We're not sure that's true anymore, but it really did seem like that for a while, didn't it? Every time you turned on "SportsCenter," there was Linda Cohn, all preggers again. We re...

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition: The Lost Photographs
For all of you aspiring Sports Illustrated swimsuit model photographers out there (or, if you're just cold and/or horny), here's a behind-the-scenes look at several of the photo shoots for the magazine's 2008 swimsuit edition. Busted Coverage found the stash of photos on Flickr, via someone obviousl...

About Last Night
What you missed while releasing Hurley from the closet ... • College basketball: ASU topples No. 7 Stanford in OT. You may now proudly display your Jeff Pendergraph Fathead. • NBA: Suns beat Mavericks 109-97, to the delight of no one who thought they were going to see Jason Kidd vs. Shaquille O'Neal...

To Watch Tonight
What to watch as you absolutely refuse to evolve ... • College basketball: North Carolina State at Boston College (7 p.m., ET); Michigan at Iowa (9 p.m., ET) [ESPN]; Rutgers at West Virginia (7 p.m., ET); Fordham at Massachusetts (9 p.m., ET) [ESPN2]; Stanford at Arizona State (10:30 p.m., ET) [FSN]...

V-Day Plans Of The "Stars"
We don't mean to harp on John Rocker lately; as we've said, we legitimately like the guy. We think it's probably because we've been impersonating him so much on this book tour. He has gotten in our head. We aren't quite ready to admit that we were wondering what he and the lovely Alicia Marie were u...

So Who's Ready For Another Run At An Undefeated Season?
Which is harder: Completing an undefeated season in the NFL, or in college basketball? I NEED TO KNOW! With its 68-59 win over Houston on Wednesday night, Memphis improved to 24-0, looking to become the first Div. I team since Bobby Knight's 1976 Indiana squad to finish unbeaten. Hmm, a current team...

Media Approval Ratings: Greg Gumbel
To introduce today's Media Approval Ratings discussion feller, we thought we'd head to Wikipedia and see what fascinating facts we could drum up about Greg Gumbel....

Beijing Olympics To Be Devoid Of Dramatic Closeups, Mechanical Sharks
Bad news for all those who actually watch the opening and closing ceremonies at the Summer Olympics; Steven Spielberg has dropped out as director at the Beijing Games. Or actually he was going to be the "artistic adviser," whatever that means. All I know is that now my dream of watching Dennis Weave...

Media Approval Ratings: Chris Mortensen
Mr. Mortensen, ESPN's NFL reporter who isn't a cranky old coot, has been on the air less and less in recent years. We always enjoyed him bickering with Bill Parcells, back when they were on NFL Countdown together. Mr. Mortensen certainly receives some credit for siring an actual, real live football ...

To Watch Tonight
What to watch as you enjoy your free pancakes ... • College basketball: Michigan State at Purdue (7 p.m., ET); Kentucky at Vanderbilt (9 p.m., ET). Please give a big Memorial Gym welcome to the Commodores! [ESPN] • College basketball: North Carolina at Virginia (8 p.m., ET). Game too close to call, ...

In Which The SI Swimsuit Edition Struggles (Again) To Stay Relevant
The 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition is out, folks; gaze upon its wonders. And in other news, there's still a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. What year is this again? Aren't naked women on the Internet now? At any rate, our aquatic, clothing-challenged model is Marissa Miller, making he...

Media Approval Ratings: Jim Gray
True story: Way back in 1998, when we were a wee lad logging agate text at The Sporting News, one of the magazine staffers sent a company-wide email after Jim Gray's famous Pete Rose interview demanding that all writers sign a petition saying that Gray should be fired. We found this a bit extreme, a...


Introducing The Media Approval Ratings
One of our favorite features ESPN.com has run is the NFL Coach Approval Ratings. We liked watching the fluctuation, seeing a coach go from 81 percent to 20 percent with one loss. But mostly, we liked the collective wisdom of Crowd. We trust Crowd's judgment. Therefore, we've decided to start a new f...