v Page 2576 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Hey New Yorkers! Looking for something to do tonight? You should head on over to this week's Varsity Letters reading, presented by Gelf Magazine. Esteemed sportswriters Marc Tracy, Howard Megdal, and Robert Podhurst will read from their work about Jewish athletes. It's the perfect way to kick off Yo...
Is Everything You Know About Soccer Wrong? Ask David Sally
We're joined now by David Sally, co-author with Chris Anderson of The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong. It's an argument for the power of analytics in soccer that's full of surprising conclusions about issues like the value of a goal scored relative to that of one saved, w...
College Team Limits Media Access. Paper Says <em>OK, We Won't Cover You.</em>
This is the exact reverse of the Steve Spurrier/The State kerfluffle that saw the newspaper bowing to the coach's wishes and taking a critical reporter off the beat. But where in the world does a local newspaper have more power than the football team? The SWAC, obviously....
Body And Soul: The Blueprint For Raging Bull
The great John Garfield in Body and Soul (directed by Robert Rossen). ...
Typewriter Love
I know writers who still use a typewriter. One close pal whose neighborhood experiences power outages several times a year recently wrote a story on a portable. He wanted to get comfortable with it case he loses power and can't use his electric machine. ...
Steve Mason's Goalie Mask Features Zombified American Patriots
So this is a thing. It's...patriotic?...
ESPN: Whitlock's Thayer Evans Comments "Not Acceptable."
Jason Whitlock torpedoed SI's Thayer Evans on Tuesday—"It wouldn’t shock me if Thayer Evans couldn't spell 'cat'"—and now he's running into trouble with his persnickety soon-to-be employers at ESPN. ...
Sean Penn Would Have Been A Great Ty Cobb
It's fun to recast movies. After watching Mystic River I wished it could start again with the leads exchanging roles. Harry Dean Stanton would have made a great Billy Martin if The Bronx is Burning was made 15 years earlier. If I could have one wish it would be to see Art Carney reprise his stage pe...
Fame And Obscurity
I found this over at Longform (and if you haven't bookmarked this site by now, whadda ya waiting for?)—Robert Draper's 1992 Texas Monthly story on Cormac McCarthy. I'm not drawn to McCarthy's writing but I'm a sucker for profiles of writers and this is a good one:...
More Illustrated NFL Playbook Fun
When we did the Bills edition of Why Your Team Sucks, reader Matt E. sent in a phony drawing of the team's playbook that was so awesome, we asked him to do a few more of them. Here now are the playbooks of five more NFL teams, as designed by Matt:...
Evan Gattis Can Add "Hit Fan In The Dick With A Home Run" To Legend
So what if Jose Fernandez showboated a little? Maybe he was sticking up for the home crowd, one of whom got smacked in the dick with an Evan Gattis home run....
Nick Saban Walks Out Of Press Conference Over D.J. Fluker Questions
This Saban presser, on the heels of the Yahoo report that former offensive standout D.J. Fluker was funneling cash into the Alabama program, is a thing of beauty. It's very Belichickian in it's format: boring we-had-a-good-week-of-practice-blah-blah beginning followed by a preemptive statement of no...
Reporter Who Was Critical Of Steve Spurrier Replaced By Spurrier's Pal
So here's some bullshit: According to a report by Jim Romenesko, South Carolina Gamecocks head football coach Steve Spurrier has the power to bully a newspaper into silencing any reporter that he doesn't like. ...
Report: NFL Agents Funneled Money To College Players
A big Yahoo report dropped today, presumably to ride/torpedo the momentum of SI's flawed Oklahoma State exposé. It claims that NFL agents and financial advisers funneled tens of thousands of dollars to five college players, including Alabama tackle D.J. Fluker....
Russian Water Sports Are Dangerous And Awesome
Tube kites, inflatable rafts that are designed to take off when towed at speed, are banned in most parts of this country thanks to their disastrous safety record. Thankfully, Russia exists....
Bobby Valentine Says The Yankees Didn't Help Out After 9/11. Really?
Here's Bobby V. doing what Bobby V. does when you put him near a microphone: Making bizarre, unnecessary, and not particularly accurate comments about the 2001 Yankees' response to the September 11th attacks....
Sadsack Former NFL Player Punked—Twice—By Drunken Comedians
As with all great ideas, the initial plan was hatched by a couple of drunk guys at a bar who had nothing better to do....
Guns Don't Kill Doves. Texans Kill Doves
In states from Maine to Texas, Oregon to Florida, the end of summer and the beginning of autumn heralds that time of year when family and friends get together for some quality shooting. This is how it's been for generations, and the likelihood of it changing anytime soon is effectively nil....
