w Page 5209 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Birds get their claws back
CAW. CAW. Or, you know, whatever kind of a frightening noise a cardinal might make......

Week In Deadspin: Time For A Weekend Shindig!
• Clinton Portis can change your life, if you'll just let him in. • Michael Irvin, as you've often seen him before! • Luke Walton can't get anything free in this world. • Honestly, we think we could get Anna Benson to promote Deadspin merchandise right now, and for free. As long as the T-shirts w...

To Watch Tonight
"You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs." • College Football: Division I-AA tournament, semifinal, Northern Iowa at Texas State. USC? Notre Dame? Who are they? Panthers vs. Bobcats in San ...

Americans Excited About Handsless Event
OK, the seeds for next year's World Cup are out, and since we're one of the presumed four countries in the draw with Internet access, we're on top of the story....

Athlete Run-In: Blocking Derek Lowe
Today's final athlete run-in story is about one of our favorite people around here: Famed party guy Derek Lowe, who never met a lady (or ladies) he couldn't slur over. This story almost makes you feel a little bad for Lowe, until you visit On The DL and check out some of the great tales over there...

Bro Sweets Will Juice You Up
Clinton Portis was back yesterday with yet another fractured segment of his personality, this one somewhat sweeter than the past ones, literally even. We proudly introduce "Bro Sweets," Clinton's most recent tortured mental sliver....

To Watch Tonight
What to watch as you and the sofa become one ... • College Football: Home Depot Awards Show. The Maxwell and Bednarik Awards will be handed out, and if dropped and broken, will be quickly repaired. [ESPN] • College Basketball: Georgetown at Illinois [ESPN]; Massachusetts at Connecticut. Time for non...

Julio Franco Cryogenically Signed
What Julio Franco has done, playing professional baseball well into his late 40s, is amazing, astounding, incredible, whatever you want to call it. We salute the elderly when they find things to keep active and useful....

Athlete Run-In: David Wells' Special Talent
Today's first athlete run-in story is a brief one, but it's our favorite kind, because it involves David Wells and beer. Three beers, in fact. From a Cleveland reader:...

Can Batman Hit The Curve?
No wonder there's so much violence and mayhem in the world today — all of our best superheroes seem to be goofing off. This classic comic book cover does, however, bring to mind the question we've all been pondering since childhood: can Batman hit the curve? And how long will the Boy Wonder last b...

"Really, Really Need Tickets"
If you've been on eBay at all, you know how expensive Rose Bowl tickets are getting. (They're running about $1,000-$1,200 a piece.)...

To Watch Tonight
Hey, get over to the sofa. That TV isn't going to watch itself ... • College Basketball: Notre Dame at Alabama. Irish's first-ever trip to Coleman Coliseum should at least be good for a few laughs. [ESPN] • College Basketball: Penn at Duke; Saint Louis at North Carolina. What is a Billiken? Tar Heel...

Blogdom's Best: Dallas Cowboys
It's a melancholic yet festive time here at Deadspin Studios as we say goodbye to one of our regular features, the NFL Edition of Blogdom's Best. To celebrate our 32nd and final entry — the Dallas Cowboys — we've decided to throw a wrap party and invite Cowboys past, present and recently deceased ...

Keeping The Streets Safe From Waltons
Of all the celebrities who showed up at the USC-UCLA game last weekend, it must have been easy to miss Luke Walton, Lakers bit player and son of Big Bill Walton. But not for long. As reported by USC's From The Sidelines blog, the younger Walton was booted off the sidelines last weekend for not ha...

Anna Benson Will Fight For Her Right For Fur
While doing some followup "research" after yesterday's Anna Benson dustup, we came across her official Web site, and, more specifically, her angry "Letter To Peta" found at the bottom of the site's front page. (It's one of them fancy Flash sites, so we can't link you here. Just go there and check ...

Give Us Your Best Skip Bayless Stories
We've received a lot of feedback about our selection of The Boston Globe's Bob Ryan as today's bad hometown columnist, which can be broken down into the following percentages:...

To Watch Tonight
What to watch as your inflatable lawn Santa snaps its moorings and terrorizes the neighborhood ... • College Basketball: Jimmy V Classic, at New York: Kansas vs. Saint Joseph's; Michigan State vs. Boston College. In the tradition of the late, great Jim Valvano, let's all take a test for an athlete t...

The Jet Lag Games
We'll admit: All this talk about the World Baseball Classic is starting to get us somewhat all a-twitter. Not only are we being promised meaningful baseball a month early, but everyone appears to be showing up: Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, even Roger Clemens, delaying his I'll-retir...

Why Your Hometown Columnist Sucks: Bob Ryan
By all accounts, Bob Ryan was once a good writer. But then something happened. The molten lava, burning his features. The painful reconstruction. The cryptic words: "Rise, Lord Vader." Yes, Bob Ryan's journey to the dark side is now complete. With his ubiquitous presence on Around the Horn and Par...

The Dulcet Tones Of Dirk Nowitzki
We'll confess: We're that dork that always has a novelty ringtone. We've gone from REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling" to the Illinois fight song to our current one, Europe's "The Final Countdown," inspired by Gob on "Arrested Development." We're lame that way. Forgive us....