Floyd Mayweather, who faces the heavy-handed Marcos Maidana on pay-per view Saturday night from Las Vegas, tweeted out that his recent breakup stemmed from his fiancee’s abortion. The Tweet quickly coaxed a delete. “The real reason me and Shantel Christine
Loquacious Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, perhaps having visions of Robespierre on the guillotine, started the week warning of a “very slippery slope” should the NBA take Donald Sterling’s Los Angeles Clippers away from him. By midweek, following the NBA
It took 124 years, name changes from such monikers as the Atlantics, Bridegrooms, and Superbas, and a move from the East Coast to the West. But on Wednesday night, the Dodgers won their 10,000th game. And they did so on
It took 124 years, name changes from such monikers as the Atlantics, Bridegrooms, and Superbas, and a move from the East Coast to the West. But on Wednesday night, the Dodgers won their 10,000th game. And they did so on
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an organization founded in 1909 to fight racists, now provides indulgences to them. Disgraced Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s lifetime achievement award, revoked by the Los Angeles branch of the NAACP
Russell Kirk famously responded to conspiracy theorists questioning President Dwight Eisenhower’s patriotism by pointing out that “Ike’s not a Communist. He’s a golfer.” The gaudy bills for Eisenhower’s successor’s frequent trips to the fairways may leave critics wondering if Obama’s
Rob Gronkowski, who suffered a season-ending knee injury on a low hit by Browns defensive back TJ Ward in December, believes that deciding between a concussion and an ACL tear is a no brainer. Many questioned whether knee injuries have
Are rights a reward that the state bestows upon citizens for good behavior? The extended two-minute hate now focused on Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling compels such heretical questions. Jerks, one surmises from the public reaction to the controversy,
In the first major challenge in Adam Silver’s young tenure the NBA commission announced a lifetime ban of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling in a nationally-televised press conference today. Silver announced that the NBA has completed its investigation of
The Sports Hangover tries to recover from a wild weekend. Thank goodness the hangover proves not as painful as Donald Sterling’s. What Do You Do For an Encore after Three Decades of NBA Futility? Is it safe to say
Wladimir Klitschko knocked down Alex Leapai three times en route to a fifth-round stoppage victory over the Samoan-Australian Alex Leapai on Saturday. Wladimir Klitschko defended his heavyweight belts with another sparring-session of a match before a cheering German audience, wife
Is the National Labor Relations Board giving labor-movement organizers a face-saving out by agreeing to hear a Northwestern University appeal to the decision that empowered student-athletes to form unions? The NLRB’s eleventh-hour timing certainly sparks suspicion. Northwestern University football players
Dr. Frank Jobe, the medical innovator behind Tommy John surgery, died during spring training. The young 2014 baseball season shows that his gift to sports medicine will long outlive him. Yankees pitcher Ivan Nova, who will undergo the procedure on
Are you ready for some football? There are 256 games on the schedule released yesterday by the NFL. They all count equally in the standings. But some games are more equal than others in the minds of fans. Here are
The storied rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees gained a new chapter Wednesday night. The home-plate umpire tossed Yankees starting pitcher Michael Pineda out of the game for employing a banned substance. Pineda, after experiencing control
Whoever said, “Any publicity is good publicity,” surely said it to Adrien Broner. I could have asked Adrien Broner about why he flushed $20 bills down the toilet on YouTube. I could have inquired just what possessed him to dip
US Marshals and police in Tempe arrested a cage fighter who once competed in the UFC on a cold-case murder earlier this week. The authorities arrested Homer “The Rock” Moore, who boasts a 26-9-2 mixed-martial-arts record over more than a
He won a super-featherweight title at 21 before capturing multiple belts in bigger-boy divisions. He’s quick with his fists and his words. He brings the bling. He speaks in the third person. One could be talking about Floyd Mayweather or
They call him “King James,” not “President James.” But a new map of the nation shows LeBron James winning the popularity contest in states representing a bare majority of the United States. LBJ–see, he already has the familiar presidential initialism
The Sports Hangover recovers from a weekend of boxing in the blood seats at the DC Armory, an exhausting Patriots’ Day of watching other people run marathons, and incoming playoff action from all directions. Loving the Alien Boxing, currently a
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Marathon Monday, atop October’s Head of the Charles Regatta and November’s even-year Harvard-Yale game, ranks as the most festive sports holiday in Massachusetts. When a couple of poor sports crashed the party last year by killing three and maiming dozens,
WASHINGTON, DC–Bernard Hopkins beat Beibut Shumenov on Saturday–and Father Time. The 49-year-old even threw in a knockdown as if to say he can still do it all. In the process, Hopkins unified the IBF and WBC light heavyweight belts on
WASHINGTON, DC–Peter Quillin-Lucas Kocekny, the first fight of a three-fighttelevised card, worked as somnambulant. Paulie Malignaggi-Shawn Porter playedas speed. The high-energy slugfest may win consideration for fight of the year andcertainly wins hands-down as Paulie Malignaggi’s least Paulie Maignaggi-likefight. That
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WASHINGTON, DC–Bernard Hopkins works as a walking metaphor for his sport. Hopefully, the old man never becomes one of pugilism’s barely-walking, slurred-talking clichés. Boxing is about getting up when you get knocked down. So is Bernard Hopkins. Sentenced at seventeen
The Philadelphia 76ers lost 26 games in a row this season. The team’s owner nevertheless labels the 2013-2014 season “a huge success.” Sure, a “success” like the Hindenburg or the time Geraldo opened Al Capone’s vault. It reminds one of
Oscar Robertson famously averaged a triple-double during the 1961-62 season. Jason Collins finishes his much-celebrated 2014 campaign not even averaging a triple-single. The openly-gay center ranks 454 of 482 NBA players in scoring for the 2013-2014 season. He averaged just
A hefty bag of a stadium sounds nice this time of year to Minnesota Twins fans. Snow and freezing temperatures hit Target Field on Wednesday. The hockey weather caused the postponement of today’s baseball game. Even the heated turf couldn’t
Cuba paid Yasiel Puig $17 a month to play baseball. The Los Angeles Dodgers pay him $6 million a year. Is it any wonder why he risked life, and literally limb, to escape the Communist prison state for the greener
Is it a crime to be fabulous? “I am f—ing famous on the internet and they don’t understand,” Kayvon Edson announces in a bizarrely entertaining YouTube mini-movie. The man accused of placing a hoax device at the site of last
Final Four most outstanding player Shabazz Napier complained on the eve of UConn’s tournament win over Kentucky that he sometimes goes to bed “starving” as a student-athlete. The NCAA has heard the growls of Shabazz’s stomach. The NCAA announced that
Tax Day hits professional athletes harder than a Larry Robinson body check into the boards. Max Baer and Primo Carnera couldn’t knock Joe Louis down. But the IRS did–repeatedly. Joe Louis, a competitor not quite habituated to getting up off
That memory maytheir deed redeem/When, like our sires, our sons are gone/Spirit, that madethose heroes dare/To die, and leave their children free/Bid Time and Naturegently spare/The shaft we raise to them and thee –Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Concord Hymn” Not
The Sports Hangover recovers from a Masters without Tiger, wonders if team mixed-martial arts represents a sign of the apocalypse, and thinks “what might have been” re: Manny v. Floyd. Bubba, Tiger, and the Ratings Collapse After ESPN’s coverage of
The new lawsuit filed against the National Hockey League alleges that scientists have proven that chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease found in several dozen deceased contact-sports athletes, afflicts a great number of NHL retirees. But the leading CTE
Maybe it was the way yesterday’s class-action lawsuit against the National Hockey League misspells the name of Sidney Crosby, arguably the league’s best player. Or perhaps it was how it reported the death of a very-much alive Gordie Howe from
At UCLA, Jackie Robinson became an NCAA-champion long jumper, twice led the Pacific Coast Conference in scoring on the basketball court, and earned an All-American nod as a Bruins running back. He hit .097 playing baseball. Sixty-seven years after Jackie
Like a lot of people, the Ultimate Warrior’s greatest strength was his greatest weakness. The man simply had no governor between his thoughts and his words. In front of a conservative audience, he would drop f-bombs. In front of a
Michael Sam prefers football; his defenders, mental gymnastics. In February, the gay player’s proponents cried “bigot” when observers merely wondered aloud how he might impact the chemistry of an NFL locker room. Two months later, now that the cleat is
How many millions did Kunta Kinte sign for? The New England Patriots awarded Brandon Spikes a $960,000 signing bonus upon reaching a deal with the linebacker four years ago. Now the new Buffalo Bills linebacker calls his time under coach
Whenever I indulge the delusion that I’m not living in the movie Idiocracy, I quickly turn on MTV to snap myself out of it. What’s Ridiculousness but an Ow My Balls! knockoff? A new sport (team mixed-martial arts) broadcast from
