HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. -- Two Russian fighters, heavyweight champions both, rose Saturday morning on different contents intent on defending titles in their respective sports. For boxing's lumbering giant Nikolay Valuev the call was not answered, as he surrendered the WBA belt on points to Brit David Haye. The fate of his mixed martial arts counterpart, the revered Fedor Emelianenko, will be known shortly as he steps into a cage for the first time in his career.
I wish I could have written Saturday about how Alabama receiver Julio Jones, who has struggled to break free all season, caught a 2-yard pass in the fourth quarter and turned it into a 73-yard touchdown. I wish I could have written about the grin on Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy's face when he said "I've never seen anybody run that fast."
Iowa had overcome seemingly every manner of adversity en route to its 9-0 start -- last-second deficits, four-interception quarters, season-ending injuries to two running backs -- but Saturday against Northwestern, the Hawkeyes finally suffered a setback they couldn't overcome: Losing their starting quarterback.
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- Carl Edwards has found a way to try to mask the frustration of his winless NASCAR Sprint Cup season.
NEW YORK -- Like a home seller trying desperately to peddle a fixer-upper, the Knicks emptied all the paint cans and window cleaner they could find on the property that is New York Friday night to sell the idea of playing in Gotham to the most wanted homebuyer in the NBA, LeBron James.
The 10 storylines to watch this Saturday:
Of all teams, the Carolina Hurricanes should know: When it rains, it pours.
Having ties to a rich and powerful foreign club seemed like a built-in advantage for Chivas USA. The ability to acquire and develop young Mexican talent and having strong financial backing seemed like a great opportunity for the Southern California-based team to build a powerhouse in a relatively short amount of time.
SI.com's Mark Beech takes a spin around the racing world for the most intriguing stories in and out of the garage.
It's all about him now. Whether Dan Snyder secretly wanted this when he bought the Washington Redskins a decade ago is less intriguing a question than why it took so long to become clear, but then, there were so many distractions along the way. There was so much free-agent cash thrown about, year after year, and the rise and fall of Steve Spurrier, and the return of Joe Gibbs, and the slew of forgettable quarterbacks, and the strange hiring of Jim Zorn -- so many high-drama ideas gone wrong -- that it was hard to cut through and see that maybe this was the real plan all along.
HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. -- Two Russian fighters, heavyweight champions both, rose Saturday morning on different contents intent on defending titles in their respective sports. For boxing's lumbering giant Nikolay Valuev the call was not answered, as he surrendered the WBA belt on points to Brit David Haye. The fate of his mixed martial arts counterpart, the revered Fedor Emelianenko, will be known shortly as he steps into a cage for the first time in his career.
I wish I could have written Saturday about how Alabama receiver Julio Jones, who has struggled to break free all season, caught a 2-yard pass in the fourth quarter and turned it into a 73-yard touchdown. I wish I could have written about the grin on Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy's face when he said "I've never seen anybody run that fast."
Iowa had overcome seemingly every manner of adversity en route to its 9-0 start -- last-second deficits, four-interception quarters, season-ending injuries to two running backs -- but Saturday against Northwestern, the Hawkeyes finally suffered a setback they couldn't overcome: Losing their starting quarterback.
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- Carl Edwards has found a way to try to mask the frustration of his winless NASCAR Sprint Cup season.
NEW YORK -- Like a home seller trying desperately to peddle a fixer-upper, the Knicks emptied all the paint cans and window cleaner they could find on the property that is New York Friday night to sell the idea of playing in Gotham to the most wanted homebuyer in the NBA, LeBron James.
The 10 storylines to watch this Saturday:
Of all teams, the Carolina Hurricanes should know: When it rains, it pours.
Having ties to a rich and powerful foreign club seemed like a built-in advantage for Chivas USA. The ability to acquire and develop young Mexican talent and having strong financial backing seemed like a great opportunity for the Southern California-based team to build a powerhouse in a relatively short amount of time.
SI.com's Mark Beech takes a spin around the racing world for the most intriguing stories in and out of the garage.
It's all about him now. Whether Dan Snyder secretly wanted this when he bought the Washington Redskins a decade ago is less intriguing a question than why it took so long to become clear, but then, there were so many distractions along the way. There was so much free-agent cash thrown about, year after year, and the rise and fall of Steve Spurrier, and the return of Joe Gibbs, and the slew of forgettable quarterbacks, and the strange hiring of Jim Zorn -- so many high-drama ideas gone wrong -- that it was hard to cut through and see that maybe this was the real plan all along.
The black ink on Jermaine O'Neal's right arm, just below the shoulder, displays a menacing superhero type of character, crouched and springing forward. It is surrounded by the words "The Year of the Resurrection," a proud proclamation of impending renewal.
After the ghoulish Halloween madness at the biggest baddest track of them all, a return to a cookie cutter venue at Texas Motor Speedway will bring some much needed normalcy to the Sprint Cup this weekend. Just three races remain on the 2009 slate and for some, the end of the season can't come soon enough.
Jonny Flynn knows what a triangle is. Ask him to draw it, no problem. Ask him to make one with his hands like Jay-Z. Easy. But ask the rookie point guard to run the triangle on the basketball court and well, let's just say that it's still a work in progress.
Three things on my mind entering the line-of-demarcation week of the 2009 NFL season:
The remarkable thing about baseball in the 21st century is that there really is no break in the action any longer. On the first day after the World Series ended, we had one trade, one near-trade, and the news that one of the top potential free agents, Bobby Abreu, would not be reaching the market. So even as the Yankees celebrate with a parade and the Phillies pack up a season two wins short of their goal, both front offices are looking ahead to 2010 and the decisions that will have to be made to get the teams back to the World Series.
Before the 2007 season, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman had T-shirts made up that read "Mission 27." It was just one more piece of motivation for a franchise that defines itself by a singular annual goal -- winning the World Series -- and a reminder that anything less than achieving that goal is a failure.
The NFL is cautiously optimistic a deal is within reach in the coming days between it and the eight major college football conferences that have so far refused to release digitized versions of their 2009 game tapes for scouting and evaluation purposes, league sources told SI.com Friday.
As LeBron makes his lone appearance of the season Friday night at Madison Square Garden, I am convinced he has basically decided to remain with Cleveland as a free agent in 2010. Here's why I believe he has made that decision (and why he won't admit it) ...
My weekly look at key matchups and storylines to watch in one game at each time slot. (All times Eastern).
Breaking down Sunday's Dallas Cowboys at Philadelphia Eagles game (8:20 p.m., NBC)...
You're either with them -- or you hate them. That sums up the way baseball fans feel about the New York Yankees. And that's also why the team, which clinched its 27th World Series on Wednesday night, is the Goldman Sachs of American sports.
The following is a screed about the Yankees' payroll. If you are a Yankees fan uninterested in a screed about the payroll, don't read it. You won't enjoy it. Go out, buy a championship T-shirt, reminisce about this great team, enjoy the victory. I'm telling you: Don't read it.
Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner, under fire after parting ways with general manager George Kokinis midway through his first season as GM, denied today that Kokinis had been fired and said he hoped to find a veteran NFL general manager-type like Ernie Accorsi or Mike Holmgren to help shape the organization and help embattled coach Eric Mangini.
By now, I imagine your typical Cleveland Browns fan has started to look back on 1996-98, the three seasons they had no NFL team to follow, with a mixture of nostalgia and fondness. Given the almost constant state of despair Browns fans have resided in since the franchise was re-born as an expansion entry in 1999, who could blame them for remembering those days as relatively pain-free compared to the misery to come?
What's the best way to push criticism out of today's sports news cycle?
NEW YORK -- The aroma that one perceived, as one walked off the field and inside toward the home clubhouse in the moments after the Yankees had won their 27th World Series on Wednesday night, was strong. It was one part expensive perfume, and one part expensive champagne, and it was unmistakable. It was Eau de WAG.
NEW YORK -- It has been 19 months since Knicks president Donnie Walsh stood in front of a podium inside the theater at Madison Square Garden and promised fans a future. Nineteen months since Walsh, one of the most respected executives in the NBA who had built multiple contenders in Indiana, vowed to restore credibility to a franchise that in 5½ years under Isiah Thomas' stewardship had lost all of it. Nineteen months since embattled Knicks owner James Dolan issued Walsh a mandate to do "whatever is necessary to turn this team around."
The New York Yankees, who became World Series champs for the 27th time Wednesday night, logged the highest payroll in baseball for the 2009 season. This time, they definitely got what they paid for.
If you're a Liverpool fan, you're probably pretty angry right now. You've won one game since September (albeit a pretty important one, against Manchester United), qualification to the knockout stage of the Champions League seems extremely improbable right now and you're sixth in the English Premier League, after finishing second last year.
NEW YORK -- The last image we saw of Alex Rodriguez in the 2009 season was very different from the first one. In the beginning, A-Rod was, as he has so often been throughout a career marked by excesses of tumult and talent, the center of attention for all the wrong reasons. In February, he sat in a tent in Tampa, Fla., at the Yankees spring training complex and tried in vain to fight back tears and explain how and why he had taken steroids when he was with the Texas Rangers.
NEW YORK -- The unique Yankees foursome of Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada probably didn't need to win one more World Series together to prove anything. But they did, anyway. And they did it 13 years after their first one together. No other foursome can say that.
If you watched the Vikings' two wins over the Packers this season, specifically Minnesota defensive end Jared Allen introducing himself to Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers 7.5 times, you might think the sack is alive and well in the NFL.
1. Sometimes Goliath wins, or, if you prefer the most appropriate analogy after World Series Game 6, Godzilla kicks butt.
NEW YORK -- The Yankees clubhouse reeked of champagne, it smelled the way you might imagine Don Ho's living room used to smell. Well, this is what you get when you win a World Series. Here Mariano Rivera stood in the doorway waiting for family. There Mark Teixeira wore goggles and talked about how God led him to the right team. Over there two Yankees players prepared to double-team Johnny Damon with a champagne attack. The sound was laughter and happy souts and the popping of champagne corks.
About 20 players gathered behind Mickey Andrews as he faced the media on Tuesday night. A few hours earlier, a simple press release had gone out informing the college football world of what everyone had long suspected: This will be the final season for Florida State's longtime defensive coordinator.
When a popular and successful head coach moves on, the simple choice can be complicated for the replacement.
NEW YORK -- The Yankees christened the first season in their new ballpark the same way they opened their old stadium in 1923: with a World Series championship.
Most of his teammates were not even in the showers and Pedro Martinez was already out the clubhouse door, hustled by a handler through the basement of Yankee Stadium, stopped only when he had to wait for an elevator up to the parking lot. As Martinez spoke -- "I'm extremely proud," he said. "I had fun and enjoyed it. I don't regret anything" -- a Yankee fan chanted softly in the background, "Who's your daddy? Who's your daddy?" No matter what he did, or where he went, Martinez could not escape it.
Sports Illustrated will announce its choice for Sportsman of the Year on Dec. 1. Here's one of the nominations for that honor by an SI writer.
Sports Illustrated will announce its choice for Sportsman of the Year on Dec. 1. Here's one of the nominations for that honor by an SI writer. You love mixed martial arts. No, you hate mixed martial arts. It's the hottest, rawest, awesomest sport going, a video game come to life, the main cause of boxing's death spiral. No, it's legalized assault and battery, an affront to civilization, the Church of the Lowest Common Denominator. As mixed martial arts -- and the UFC in particular -- continue to grow, it also continues to polarize. And both sides are, of course, entitled to their opinion.
Somewhere in a grungy little warehouse, those counterfeit T-shirts are being disgorged from a press. The slogan will be tacky and obviously unauthorized, but the shirt will sell well enough when they show up in the camper lot at Ft. Worth, Texas, or Avondale, Ariz. Might as well get a head start, because Jimmie Johnson has apparently put this NASCAR Sprint Cup title chase away.
If his incredible two-goal display against Chelsea in the UEFA Champions League on Tuesday was any indication, Atlético Madrid superstar Sergio Agüero could be on the path to recovery after a frustrating beginning to the 2009-10 season.
Hines Ward is the dirtiest player in the NFL, according to a Sports Illustrated poll of 296 players released this week.
This article appears in the November 9, 2009 issue of Sports Illustrated.
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