tim Page 134 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Vote For Mike Timlin, World Champion Of Baseball
Over the next few weeks, we'll be examining the merits—and relative lack of merits—of all 36 players on this year's Hall of Fame ballot for the purposes of better informing the electorate, i.e., you. All entries in the series can be found here....

Back In The Hobbit: <em>The Desolation Of Smaug</em>, Reviewed.
Expectations are such tricky things when it comes to movies. Before the first installment in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy debuted at the end of 2001, there was no guarantee that it would go on to become one of Hollywood's most profitable and Academy-approved franchises. Jackson an...

ESPN Says The Ravens (Who Won) Had A Sub-Zero Chance Of Winning
The graph above, tweeted out by ESPN Stats & Info last night, shows the win probability for the Ravens and Vikings over the fourth quarter of their ridiculous Sunday game, which saw five lead changes in the final two minutes....

Here's A Story About LeBron Being Really Nice To A T-Wolves Fan's Mom
Here's a nice story from a Reddit user who sits courtside at Timberwolves games about how LeBron James was really nice to his mom on multiple occasions. Suck it, LeBron haters....

Adrian Peterson Says Baltimore Has "The Worst Fans In The NFL"
Just a horrible day all around for Adrian Peterson, who exited in the second quarter with a foot injury and had a prime seat for late-game nuttiness that saw the lead change six times in the fourth quarter. Peterson vented afterwards, splitting his anger between officials and fans....

Who Said Girls Can't Jump?
Check out this winning piece by Mireille Silcoff for the New York Times Magazine:...

Accept The Mystery: The Brilliance Of The Coen Bros' Character Studies
Joel and Ethan Coen have been making movies long enough now that it's possible for fans not just to have a favorite film of theirs but a favorite type of film. Perhaps you love their loopy comedies: The Hudsucker Proxy, Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski. Maybe you're partial to their heist-gone-wr...

Mexico City Smoke-Out Only Second Strangest Delay In Spurs History
The NBA's "Global Games" are off to a hilarious start. I mean, it wasn't funny for the 22,000 Mexico City fans who didn't get a chance to watch the Spurs and Timberwolves thanks to the arena filling up with smoke, but images like Tony Parker masking up and rushing into a burning building are pretty ...

Here's The Smoky Arena Before The Wolves-Spurs Game
You had one job, Mexico City. One. Job....

Nuggets Announcer Praises Timofey Mozgov's "One Hand Jobby"
Nuggets center Timofey Mozgov had a fantastic game last night, finishing with 17 points and 20 rebounds against the band of desiccated corpses that currently makes up the Nets roster. But none of Mozgov's points were as impressive as the two he scored here, after executing a smooth "one hand jobby."...

"Real America," Minus The Condescension: <em>Out Of The Furnace</em>, Reviewed.
When Barack Obama made his comment during the 2008 presidential campaign about some Americans clinging to "guns and religion" during hard times, he might have been referring to the characters in Out of the Furnace, the new drama from Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper. A subdued portrait of a blue-co...

Why Wasn't Unconscious Le'Veon Bell Given A Touchdown?
Your first thought is, Oh man, he's dead. His head came off or his brains are scrambled and Heath Miller is trying to cover up the on-field camera because he's dead. And then your second thought is, What do you mean it's not a touchdown? His limp, vacated body totally collapsed across the plane! Foo...

Mike Tomlin Steps Onto Field, Prevents Jacoby Jones From Scoring TD
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin sees Jason Kidd's staged soda spill and raises him an "'accidentally' step onto field and prevent Jacoby Jones from reaching the end zone on a kickoff return."...

Sports Figures And Sports Books Are No Longer Notable
Grant Wahl noticed today that the New York Times found no nonfiction sports titles among its 100 notable books of the year ... for the third straight year....

Joe Flacco Says Mildly Interesting Thing
Current Super Bowl champion Joe Flacco has already thrown a career-high 14 interceptions this season. The Ravens are third in the AFC North with a 5-6 record. The offense is crap. Flacco isn't happy, and he justifiably doesn't think some bullshit Wildcat plays will help anything....

<em>Sports Illustrated</em> Goes Long On The Quarterback Who Couldn't
A 15,000-word piece about Tim Tebow is such a self-evidently bad idea that you would assume, not having read it, that this Sports Illustrated #longform offers something special to justify its claims on the time and attention of readers: fresh reporting, uniquely elegant writing, original ideas....

Chart: A Week In The Insane Life Of An NFL Head Coach
Over on ESPN, Ravens head coach John Harbaugh was kind enough to provide a schedule of his work week leading up to Baltimore's game at Chicago on Nov. 17 (the story will appear in the Dec. 9 edition of ESPN The Magazine). It's not an easy job—Harbaugh spends about 69 hours a week in meetings (or mee...

Bill Belichick And The NFL's Unexpected History Of Overtime Kick-Offs
Yesterday was 11 years to the day that Marty Mornhinweg declared that the Lions would kick off to start overtime. Chicago scored on its first series, and Mornhinweg wasn't Lions coach much longer. Yesterday, Bill Belichick pulled a Marty Mornhinweg, with better results....

Worst Coaching Staff Ever Stole Playbooks, Vandalized Own School
Last week, an assistant coach at a Tennessee high school was arrested after it emerged that he had vandalized his own fieldhouse in an attempt to fire up his team before the big game. He's not the only Keystone Kop on staff. Three assistants were apparently involved with the vandalism, and one is ac...

A Three-Man Front Is A Late-Game Defensive Formation For Suckers
The weekend, as I watched the absurd denouement of the Northwestern-Michigan game, something struck me as familiar — beyond the now-routine bumblefuckery that inspires the Wildcats to turn fourth-quarter leads into triple-overtime losses. No, it wasn't simply that Michigan drove in the dregs of game...