van Page 108 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Cranky Columnist Writes Anti-Stats Column That Reads Like Parody Of Anti-Stats Columns
Chaz Scoggins has been around. The longtime Lowell Sun writer has served as the Red Sox's official scorer for 34 years. He's been a SABR member for nearly as long. He even served as president of the BBWAA. But his hidden talent appears to be master satirist. How else to explain his weekend column, w...

David Booth Hath Slain The Goatbeast
Some NHL players are spending their lockout in European leagues. Canucks winger David Booth? Well, he killed that....

Justin Bieber Fan Defaces Rick Rypien Memorial In Vancouver, Faces Wrath Of Hockey Fans
The American Civil War was fought over slavery and states' rights. The Canadian Civil War will naturally be fought between supporters' of the country's two pastimes: hockey and Justin Bieber....

How's That "Going For It On Fourth Down" Thing Going For San Diego State?
This August brought momentous news: San Diego State Aztecs head coach Rocky Long had done lost his mind, and would be implementing essentially the strategy all advanced football stats people have been stridently advocating since the dawn of advanced football stats. Long was going for it on fourth (i...

Will The Honey Badger Be Playing For LSU Next Season?
Tyrann Mathieu's suspension from LSU wasn't your average suspension. LSU announced their ruling in a mysterious, intentionally opaque press conference, and their reasons for waving goodbye to their best player were never fully divulged. Whatever the reason, the farewell seemed permanent: four days ...

The NBA Is Finally Doing Something About Flopping
It's been a big story over the past few seasons: NBA players—in increasingly large numbers, rather than in isolated instances of Divacs and Lambieers and Reggie Millers—had outsmarted the league and taken advantage of the difficulty on officiating NBA games by just falling on the floor all the tim...

The Zinedine Zidane Headbutt Statue Is A Powerful Homage To French Defeat
You've probably heard by now that France - a country that Lady Liberty would tell you knows from great statues - has unveiled one of the world's finest tributes to tantrums. The pair of 16-foot resin figures outside the Pompidou Center depict everyone's favorite soccer violence blooper: Zinedine Zid...

Ivan Nova Threw A Pitch Right Through His Catcher's Glove
Ivan Nova's season has been a colossal disappointment. Last year he was a breakout star, 16-4 and the Yankees' No. 2 starter, and things were only looking up. Now he's 12-8 with an ERA over 5.00, won't even be in New York's playoff rotation, and looking like yet another of the Yankees' vaunted crop ...

How Gary Bettman Spent The Vancouver Riots
Excerpted from The Instigator: How Gary Bettman Remade the League and Changed the Game Forever, out in Canada now and in the U.S. Oct. 1....

Florida State Didn't Cover Against Savannah State Because They Played With A Running Clock And Ended The Game Halfway Through
Yesterday, we talked about Savannah State football throwing itself on the altar of an increased budget for the school's athletic department; today, we see the absurd fallout that can result from a cupcake game no one is particularly invested in. The Tigers had been slaughtered 84-0 by Oklahoma State...

Deadspin's Sign of the Apocalypse
It was with no small degree of concern that Deadspin noted the lack of a Sign of the Apocalypse in this week's Sports Illustrated. Until August, the magazine had been chronicling the demise of Western civilization via sports news of the weird at least as far back as 1993, when it noted that "David C...

The Savannah State Athletic Director Sure Does Hate His Football Team
Or least that's the way it looks in the short-term. Partly as an investment in the future, Savannah State has offered itself up as a cupcake to far better teams this season, and has proven itself thus far a rich, artisanal cupcake, with delicate pink frosting and cinnamon accents. The program's fir...

Mike Gundy Says He Wasn't Running Up The Score When Oklahoma State Won 84-0
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: The Cowboys were going easy on Savannah State, they swear....

Mike Tyson: Evander Holyfield's Barbecue Sauce Is Ear-Licking Good
A while back, Holyfield and Tyson began using twitter to spread the word about Holyfield's "Real Deal" BBQ sauce. It was all good-natured, Holyfield even said "Love ya, bro!" after mentioning how his BBQ sauce would make you want to chew on an ear. Oh yeah, Tyson, to refresh your memory, once bit E...

CEO Of MLB Advanced Media Is Worried About The Napster Effect
Bob Bowman sat down with Mike Ozanian from Forbes and YES Network's Forbes SportsMoney to discuss major league baseball's streaming product and the depths of its awesomeness. If you feel like ending it all, feel free to watch that video up there....

Pennsylvania School District Decides It's A Good Idea To Have Separate Showers For Kids And Grown-Ups
This is called being proactive. The Bentworth School District, in southwestern Pennsylvania, is going to construct new shower facilities to be used by coaches, referees, and any other adults who might want to clean up after games. Yes, the decision is specifically because of Jerry Sandusky, and no, ...

Remembering Steve Van Buren, Who Almost Slept Through The NFL Championship Game
On Dec. 19, 1948, the Philadelphia Eagles played the Chicago Cardinals for the NFL championship in a heavy blizzard. Running back Steve Van Buren almost didn't make it there that day. Let's let Ray Didinger of CSN Philly explain why:...

What's ESPN Hiding Under Its Desk?
Yes, that's just a screen grab of Scott Van Pelt, Todd Blackledge, and Kirk Herbstreit on the air last night breaking down something or other about the upcoming college football season. But shift your gaze downward, toward the display ads on the front of the table at which they're sitting. The World...

Your <em>Expendables 2</em> Power Rankings
The Expendables 2 has 11 names on its poster only because there is not room, either in poster space or running time, for 47. It is New Years Eve with testicles. It is the turducken of action movies. Rather than review the film, I thought I'd just rank those 11 names, in ascending order of Expendable...

Can We Talk About The <em>Real</em> Vanessa Bryant Quote That Makes Her Sound Like An Awful Person?
There's a New York Magazine article out on the perks and challenges of being a basketball wife, and it's required reading as long as you can get through sentences like these without killing yourself:...