ty Page 717 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Why Are Ray Lewis And <em>Friday Night Lights</em>' Peter Berg Shilling For The NFL On Player Safety?
We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries....

Kevin Hart, Who Lied About Being Recruited, Says He's Being Recruited
Way back in 2008, Kevin Hart, a two-star offensive lineman prospect out of Nevada, held a press conference to announce he was choosing Cal over Oregon. It turned out that none of it was true: Hart hadn't been recruited by anyone. At first he claimed that he had been scammed by someone posing as a re...

Dave McKenna: I Just Wanted To Write About Dan Snyder Selling Beer In The Bathroom
The former Washington City Paper columnist and famed foil of Redskins owner Dan Snyder will discuss his work at the next Gelf's Varsity Letters Event on Thursday at 7:30 at The Gallery at LPR in Manhattan's West Village. Here's a Q&A to get you ready. [Gelf]...

Russell Westbrook's Dunk Attempt Did Not Go As Smoothly As Blake Griffin's
This might be a bit tough to watch after seeing Blake Griffin consume and excrete Kendrick Perkins, but every yang needs a yin and if there's anything other than that dunk to serve as synecdoche for last night's 112-100 Clippers win over Oklahoma City, it's Russell Westbrook being stuffed by the ...

Grading The NFL Pundits: Yahoo's Mike Silver Is The Best, And ESPN's Adam Schefter Is The Worst
Republished with permission from PunditTracker.com....

Blake Griffin Just Dunked On The Entire Perkins Family Tree
It's only halfway through the abbreviated NBA season, so I'm hesitant to dub anything dunk of the year. But here it is, dunk of the year—and of course it's from Blake Griffin. Kendrick Perkins's family requests no flowers be sent. [NBA TV]...

This Weekend's Ironman Series Event In Australia Featured Nudity
In Australia, there's a flavor of the Ironman Triathlon that's essentially a lifeguarding skills competition. Given that nation's love of the beach, it's fairly popular featuring ski-paddling, boarding, swimming, and beach-running....

Tim Thomas Has Not Voted Since 2004
After last week's Tim Thomas brouhaha, in which the Bruins' goalie skipped his team's White House visit and explained the thing via nuttily capitalized Facebook message, which made the Bruins mad at him, we figured we would examine just how much Tim Thomas exercised his own rights as a free citizen....

The Gayest (And Straightest) Super Bowl Halftime Shows
How shocking would it be if Madonna brought gay themes to the Super Bowl halftime show? Not very. Throughout its history, the halftime entertainment has meandered from straight to gay and back again. (Click here for my homemade infographic rating the halftime shows from straightest to gayest.)...

Homemade Infographic: What Were The Gayest (And Straightest) Super Bowl Halftime Shows?
We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries....

Let's All Get Wasted At Patrick Kane's Coming-Out Party
Sidney Crosby suffered a neck injury, we were told. It was supposedly separate from his concussion issues, and announced by someone with the ominous title of neurological spine specialist, but we were reassured that it was fully healed. Nothing about that terse Penguins release was reassuring. Crosb...

Patrick Kane Proves That Superman Truly Is From Chicago
Your morning roundup for Jan. 29, the day we got a little bit extra out of the ATM. Got any stories or photos for us? Tip your editors. Image via....

Baseball Executives Continue To Show They Have No Idea How Baseball Works
Hidden in this interesting piece about identity fraud from Tyler Kepner in the The New York Times is the perhaps not so stunning realization that many of the people charged with evaluating, acquiring and displaying baseball talent don't know a thing about baseball. Sandy Alderson, the current gener...

Todd Haley Might Not Get Paid
Earlier in the week, Arizona Radio guy, Mike Jurecki, reported that he was "hearing" that Kansas City would not be paying Todd Haley's final contract year for "cause" (read: supreme asshole-ery). Haley, if you'll recall, was dumped by the Chiefs earlier this year. Despite winning the AFC West in hi...

Metta World Peace Is Bored
The former Ron Artest's game is slipping. His numbers are down, and even his trademark defense isn't what it once was. Is it because he's 32 now? It is because he arrived for training camp out of shape after spending the offseason changing his name, doing stand-up, and texting his dong? Nope. World...

The Winter X Games Are Underway, Which Means Gnarly Snowmobile Crashes
Snowmobile Freestyle is perhaps the the most batshit insane of all professional sports in North America (snocross comes close) due simply to the ridiculous things competitors are able to tweak out of their 450-pound death machines. So here's 22-year-old Texan Colton Colten Moore failing spectacula...

Lefty Driesell Is Mad Because Maryland Named Its Court After Gary Williams
Gary Williams retired after last season as the winningest coach in the history of Maryland basketball, a 22-year run that included a national title in 2002. The school has named its court at the Comcast Center after Williams, but not without an objection from Lefty Driesell, who coached the Terps f...

The US Women Won Two Games 27-0, And It Did Not Impress Brandi Chastain, So Hope Solo Fought Back
The US shredded its opponents in CONCACAF women's soccer Olympic qualifiers this week—14-0 over the Dominicans, 13-0 over Guatemala, and 4-0 over Mexico—but Brandi Chastain, the lady who's famous for this, was not impressed. She called the games for Universal Sports Network (it's not the one formerl...

Your "Oh No, It's 3:30 A.M. " Liveblog Of Federer-Nadal At The Australian Open
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are set to meet in the Australian Open semifinals on Thursday, in a match scheduled to begin at 3:30 a.m. ET. It's the 27th time the pair have met on a tennis court, with the Majorcan matador holding a 17-9 edge all-time, 7-2 in Grand Slams. The meeting is notable, con...
