tribute Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Argentina to honor Lionel Messi with 10th-minute tribute
All soccer matches in Argentina this weekend will be paused in the 10th minute for a 60-second round of applause to honor superstar Lionel Messi, the Argentine Football Association announced.,The tribute follows Messi announcing his retirement from the national team on Monday. Messi, 39, has worn th...

Figure skating community gathers for tribute to D.C. crash victims
The figure skating community will gather Sunday in Washington, D.C., to remember the victims of the Jan. 29 aircraft collision that killed 67 people, including 11 young skaters and members of their families.,The event, "Legacy on Ice," will be co-hosted by Olympic gold medalists Brian Boitano (1988)...

Dirk Nowitzki Calls It A Career
Following the Mavericks’ 120-109 win over the Suns on Tuesday, the team held a postgame ceremony to honor the career of Dirk Nowitzki. On the floor were Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen, Shawn Kemp, and Detlef Schrempf, who spoke about the legend’s career. When the mic finally reached Now...

The Bulls Made A Kirk Hinrich Tribute Video And Set It To U2, Again
Kirk Hinrich is, if not quite a Bulls legend, than certainly a Bulls stalwart. He was drafted by Chicago back in 2003, and across two stints with the team racked up the third most games played in franchise history, only behind two guys named Michael and Scottie. ...

Timberwolves Play Heartrending Tribute To Flip Saunders Before Home Opener
The Minnesota Timberwolves host their first home game of the season tonight, and beforehand played a long and heartfelt tribute to Flip Saunders, who died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma a week ago. Saunders was the Timberwolves’ coach and president of basketball operations, but to residents of Minnesota, Fli...

The "Average Professional Baseball Player" Who Changed Sportswriting
Jim Brosnan, the pitcher whose book about his 1959 season offered an uncommonly candid look at life within baseball, died last month at the age of 84. In 2007, Brosnan was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals. Writer John Schulian gave the following speech on Brosnan's beha...

Legendary Shark Puncher Louis Zamperini Dies
Louis Zamperini died Wednesday in Los Angeles. He was 97. You may remember Zamperini from Laura Hillenbrand's bestselling biography of him, Unbroken, which everyone read and then yelled at you to go read. There are many completely insane things that happen in Unbroken. Zamperini becomes a famous ...

L.C. Greenwood: The Smiling Badass Of The NFL's Baddest Front Four
The Steelers of the 1970s had the scowl of Mean Joe Greene and the gap where Jack Lambert's four front teeth should've been. But there was nothing quite like the menace presented by the smiling L.C. Greenwood, who died Sunday of kidney failure at the age of 67. A smile on that front line was like a ...

Nostalgia Done Right: The <em>Family Ties</em> Creator Who Gave Me A Shot
In the summer of 1991, I was sitting next to my sister in the back seat of my parents' Toyota Previa, reading a book about Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World." We were driving across country because my parents were afraid to fly, Hopewell Junction, N.Y., to Los Angeles, California, where ...

Fare Thee Well, Carlos Marmol And Your Extreme Aversion To Contact
Every baseball team has its pitcher—generally a reliever—who could really be something if he someday put it all together. He invariably has a big fastball, and a secondary pitch that toggles between "unhittable" and "so hittable it might as well have been tossed underhand by Coach Fred at little-lea...

A Tribute To Rolando McClain's Brief, Brilliant NFL Career
23-year-old Ravens linebacker Rolando McClain retired from the NFL today, general manager Ozzie Newsome announced. But McClain will not be known as a Raven. He signed there just a little more than a month ago. He will instead be remembered as one of the Raideriest Raiders that ever Raidered....

Pat Summerall: The Last Of The Hard Voices
At my gym the other day, half of the television screens were showing an episode of Dr. Phil. You don't need me to tell you that Dr. Phil sucks, so I grabbed a magazine and went about the business of not looking at his big stupid head. But then I saw Pat Summerall in the studio with him and suddenly ...

<em>Chicago Tribune</em> Sports Page Pays Tribute To Boston
Here is the front page of today's sports section....

Jerry Buss, Surrounded By Boobs: A Tribute To The Greatest NBA Owner Ever
Jerry Buss died today. The 80-year-old was arguably the greatest NBA owner in the history of the league. He was also a world-class Playmate aficionado who frequently dated teenage girls and used to host his birthday party at a brothel. To put it in more appropriate obituary terms, the man was "known...

Jerome Lane's Backboard-Smashing Dunk Was 25 Years Ago Today
Like any other 12-year-old in Western Pennsylvania whose favorite television program was any game involving any teams from The Old Big East, I was captivated by Pitt basketball in 1988. But the biggest memory—and biggest regret—I have of Jerome Lane’s dunk is that I missed watching it live....

Richard Ben Cramer: Play All The Big Chords
Richard Ben Cramer was a journalist who wrote great, shambling, unafraid sentences that weren't so much lively—though they were that—as they were lived-in....

This Guy Died In 2012: Lonesome George, The Last Of His Kind
What's your greatest fear? There's a very good chance you said "dying alone," because that's pretty much the worst way to end a life. No legacy, no testament to the things you've accomplished, no hope that anything you've done will outlive you. Very few of us die as alone as Lonesome George, who pas...

This Guy Died In 2012: Norman Sas, The Brains (Bzzz) Behind (Bzzz) Electric (Bzzz) Football
Before fantasy football, before Madden NFL, before even Tecmo Bowl, there was Electric Football, the wonderfully aggravating tabletop game that sent players scurrying aimlessly (so it seemed) about a miniature metal field. Powered by a small motor—and subject only to the whims of metallic vibration—...

Marvin Miller, The Man Who Beat Some Sense Into Baseball
He was in the phone book. That's the thing that always got me about Marvin Miller, the former head of the MLB players association and the man who pulled baseball out of its crude prehistory. You expect your heroes to be unlisted. You don't expect to find one of them in the white pages, right there b...

Remembering Hector 'Macho' Camacho, Boxing's Original Showman
There is a simple rule to predicting boxing stardom: knockouts equal success. A quick look at the biggest draws in boxing's recent years confirms this: Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Arturo Gatti, Manny Pacquiao, Oscar De La Hoya, Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., Ricky Hatton, and Felix Trinidad all won a pr...