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I Was Wayne Gretzky's (Hungover) Linemate: An NHL Journeyman Picks The Wrong Night To Drink

To say I was a Wayne Gretzky fan as a child would be like saying that my brother has a small gap in his teeth. The Oilers were my team and Wayne was my idol. When Chris and I played hockey in the basement, I was always Gretzky and he was always Mike Bossy. Two of the most creative offensive forwards...

Save The Black Quarterback

Drew Magary's Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday during the NFL season....

Kill The HOF Character Clause, For The Sake Of The Writers

Originally published in Bloomberg View....

Sammy Sosa Has The Best Pinterest Page Ever

I can't even. This is amazing. Sammy Sosa is making an effort to get his name back out there, and that includes joining social media. He set up a Twitter account in October (it's confirmed as him), and a few weeks ago joined photo sharing site/social network for middle-aged women Pinterest. So forge...

Which NFL TV Markets Got Stuck With The Worst Games This Season?

People often split up NFL fanbases by state. As in: Michigan=Lions, Wisconsin=Packers, Illinois=Bears. There are two reasons for this. First, it's easy. We're used to looking at maps and dividing stuff up along state lines (like electoral votes). Second, most major college sports are dominated by la...

The Health Of An NFL Player Belongs To Everyone But The Player Himself

"Greatness is not given," Robert Griffin III says in his national Gatorade spot. "Greatness is taken, when the weak and distracted are resting on their reputations."...

The Boy On The Edge Of The Bathtub: Sam Lipsyte On Growing Up A Sportswriter's Son

Whenever somebody makes the connection between my father, Robert Lipsyte, the legendary sportswriter, and me (usually because Lipsyte is a rare name, unique to our family, a family that may or may not include a Lithuanian paratrooper I once found online who boasted in emails about our fierce mountai...

Hall Of Famers Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Curt Schilling, Tim Raines, Mike Piazza, And Edgar Martinez Not Elected To Hall Of Fame

A grand total of zero perfectly excellent baseball players have been deemed worthy of joining luminaries like Tom Yawkey, Ty Cobb, and Kenesaw Mountain Landis in Cooperstown....

Here's An Easy Trick For Blocking All Bleacher Report Results From Your Google Searches [UPDATE]

We've all been there: Googling for news on, say, RGIII's knee only to find 873 SEO-optimized posts from Bleacher Report crowding out actual information. Posts like these:...

Baseball Writers Would Like You To Know That Filling Out A Hall Of Fame Ballot Is Super Hard

The Baseball Hall of Fame vote is released at 2 p.m. today, but why wait that long to treat yourself to the collective moral grandstanding of the world's baseball writers? We've already got their "I filled out my ballot like this, because I must do what is right" columns—each very special one a remi...

In Defense Of Mike Shanahan

Three months ago, the head coach of a professional football team made a terrible, terrible decision. On Sept. 30, up by a point with less than two minutes to go, Carolina's Ron Rivera decided to punt the ball away to the Atlanta Falcons, even though it was fourth-and-1, even though his team was on A...

We're Commemorating Ohio State's Outlaw 12-0 Season With Customized Temporary Tattoos. Want One? [UPDATE: We Have Run Out Of Tattoos]

The Ohio State Buckeyes, the lone undefeated team in college football after the Notre Dame Fighting Irish woke up this morning and realized they were supposed to play a game last night, finished the season ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press poll. The Buckeyes—bowl ineligible because some players w...

Phil Simms Just Gets Worse And Worse

Your letters:...

"Dangerously Excessive": How Washington State Football Confronted, And Didn't Confront, The First Bad News Of The Mike Leach Era

"There are no signs of abuse," Washington State University athletic director Bill Moos told reporters last month, after the school had concluded an internal investigation into claims that football coach Mike Leach and his staff had mistreated players in his debut season there. Based on interviews wi...

Nick Saban Is The Ultimate Freakshow

Nick Saban won his third BCS title in four years last night, and given the likelihood that he'll reject the idea of sucking in the NFL one more time, he's probably going to win a lot more. He gets the best players and he trains those players better than any other coach possibly could. By the time h...

Brent Musburger Is A Bit Too Infatuated With A.J. McCarron's Girlfriend, Katherine Webb

As often happens during boring, blowout bowl games, the cameras and commentary shifted tonight from the action on the field to the stands and Alabama QB A.J. McCarron's girlfriend Katherine Webb. Okay, sure, mention she goes to Auburn and how scandalous that is—that's normal. ESPN announcer Brent...

Was Knute Rockne Killed By The Mob? Tracing The Origins Of One Of The Stranger Urban Legends In Sports

On the morning of March 31, 1931, TWA Flight 599, en route from Kansas City to Los Angeles, fell out of the sky over the Flint Hills of central Kansas, near the community of Bazaar. Farmers on the ground reported hearing a bang before the right wing snapped off, sending the plane into a dive. All ei...

College ShameDay: Is This One Of The Best Notre Dame Teams Ever? And Other Absurd Questions, Answered

Our weekly college football shame index previews the national championship game. ...

All 256 Regular-Season NFL Games, Ranked According To Watchability

Robert Griffin III Twisted His Knee On A Dead Patch Of Sports Language

LANDOVER, Md.—After the Redskins' 24-14 playoff loss to the Seahawks, Washington's players and head coach talked about the "difference between being injured and being hurt," the importance of being there for your teammates, and how, in the words of Robert Griffin III, "you have to step up and be a m...