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The Enigma That Is Billy Donovan
Well, now that lawyers are involved, we can reclassify the Billy Donovan saga from curiously entertaining to officially ugly. We'd love to know the real reason that Donovan balked on his Orlando Magic contract a mere two days after signing it; did he discover the team's troubling history of unprovok...

Probably Just Best To Stay In The Tunnel, Ma'am
What happens when a Canadian attempts to sing the U.S. National Anthem? Nothing short of comedy gold, that's what. We don't know exactly how old this is, or what game it's from, but we've seen enough boring renditions of our country's cherished song to wish that they'd do it this way every time. Any...

Rickey Will Make It Back To the Majors, And Also Catch Your Dinner
One good thing has come from all of this Roger Clemens hoo-haw; noting that he is only four years older than The Rocket — and a year younger than Julio Franco — Rickey Henderson says that he is considering coming out of retirement. Henderson, now a special instructor for the Mets, last played baseba...

Jay Gibbons Has Amazing Aim On His Foul Balls
Could spousal abuse be a stepping stone to career advancement? Hey, ask Brett Myers. (Or Bobby Cox, for that matter.)...

Mnookin: Another Crazed Night At Fenway
Last night, Fenway Park came alive once again, in that weird, psychotic way that only Fenway Park can come alive. Even though it turned out to be the King Felix show, it still had the feel of a historic night ... well, for April, anyway....

The Big Lead, Schrutebag And The Feisty New Ombudsman
Say what you will about ESPN executive editor John Walsh, but he definitely made a fascinating choice hiring Le Anne Schreiber as the Leader's new ombudsman. Schreiber weighed in on the whole Schrutebag-Big Lead issue over the weekend, and she pulled no punches....

The Big Lead: Still Down. Thanks, Schrutebag.
If you have attempted to access The Big Lead over the last 24 hours, the attractive image above — good Lord, those rectangles are ENORMOUS ... and they're headed straight for us! — is all you've been able to see. It's pretty, but it ain't that pretty....

Finally, MLB Will Allow You To Pay Them
We've been burned a couple of times on this, so we're still in cautious, believe-it-when-we-see-it mode (it's still not up on our Time Warner system, for example), but it appears Major League Baseball finally came to its senses extorted itself the best possible deal: Extra Innings will be available ...

Billy Packer's Curious Choice Of Words
By now, many of you have heard about the Billy Packer "fag out" comment — to Charlie Rose, of all people — but if you haven't seen the video, here it is, at the 35:34 mark....

At This Rate, Florida's Gonna Win An Oscar This Year
It was rather difficult not to admire Greg Oden in this game, but Florida, man, those guys are good. Not the epic game we were hoping for ... but when you go 4-for-22 from the 3-point line, it doesn't really matter if you have a 64-year-old Bill Russell under the basket....

Tony Parker Would Like To Talk To You About His Feet
Via the outstanding Pounding The Rock, we proudly introduce you to Get Your Game Feet On. It's a product promotion from Lamisil featuring Mike and Mike from ESPN Radio — one's gay! one's fat! — and Spurs guard Tony Parker. And it's called Get Your Game Feet On....

Bill Simmons Isn't Going Anywhere
For years now, Bill Simmons has notched considerable comedic mileage out of the supposed battle between his desire to say what He Really Wants To Say and what ESPN Will Allow Him To Say. There'd been enough supposed friction there that many wondered, when his contract with the network ran out at the...

How Can We Live In A Sports World Without George Solomon?
After 21 months of gentle tsk-tsking and slight, bemused wags of the finger, ESPN ombudsman George Solomon said goodbye in his last column yesterday. Surely, he dramatically changed the landscape of ESPN and ... uh ... well ... all right, maybe it was a mostly inconsequential and tame column that ne...

Baseball Season Preview: St. Louis Cardinals
You might remember, from back at the beginning of the NFL season, when we previewed each team by having a writer we liked write about their favorite team....

Even Geniuses Sometimes Forget To Put The Car In Park
So, you've just won your first non-earthquake-related World Series and are on top of the baseball world. You're preparing your team for a mostly unheard of (these days) title repeat. Everyone over the age of 40 thinks you're a genius, and everyone under 40 can't figure out why you still think it's c...

Iowa Stifles Online Dissent (Almost)
So here's a clever idea: To make sure that no enterprising and surly fan starts a campaign to take down the head coach at your program, the University of Iowa has bought the rights to FireKirkFerentz.com....

NCAA Tournament Live Blog: Friday, 2:40 p.m.
Who has Texas A&M Corpus Christi fever?! For crying out loud, we're talking about the corpse of Christ, people!...

NCAA Tournament Live Blog: Friday, 12:20 p.m.
OK, so, maybe we didn't have the most ecstatic day of NCAA basketball yesterday — other than Duke, of course — but we have big hopes for today. (Besides, the most fun we had yesterday afternoon was reading Shanoff's live blog and your comments.) So, we rev it up yet again today. Here are the early g...

NCAA Tournament Live Blog: Thursday, 2:40 p.m.
After that first set, hey, who's up for some more? (No upsets, but hey: Stanford totally came to play.) And by "more," we mean "endless nonstop lunacy for the next 72 hours." Four more this afternoon, all coming to you from Mr. Shanoff, whom we hope you enjoyed from the first set of games....

NCAA Tournament Live Blog: Thursday, 12:20 p.m.
All right, kids, it's time: Any minute now, the first game is going to tip off, stepping up at 12:20 p.m. with Davidson vs. Maryland in Buffalo. Here are the first three games:...