Basketball is back! Basketball is back! Zip-a-dee-doo-dah! Basketball is back!Whoa ... hang on a minute ... just slow down there. Somebody’s gonna get hurt like that. All that pushing and shoving on the way to the ticket window ... there’s plenty of seats for everybody.Yes, arena security guards and local police in NBA cities across the country are going to be working overtime to accommodate an adoring public racing for tickets like an Occupy Wall Streeter racing for a handout. It’s going to be chaotic, isn’t it?
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In what has been an absolutely wild, unpredictable and ridiculous past month of college football, we have seen the fortunes of nearly every top-ranked team in the country rise, fall and sometimes rise again.
We’ve seen upsets and beatdowns; shootouts and dominating defensive struggles. This past weekend alone, three of the give teams in the nation went down to defeat in instant-classic type battles.
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For the first time in 61 years, Joe Paterno was not part of a Penn State football game on Saturday.
That was, obviously, a good start.
Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, vice president Gary Schultz and president Graham Spanier were also gone.
This, too, was a necessary and appropriate step.
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He’s one of the most polarizing figures in the NFL in just his second year of professional football. He has started a mere five games in his young career, yet it’s nearly impossible to find a fan who is neutral in their feelings toward him.
Yes, for reasons that are largely unknown, it has become clear: You either love Tim Tebow or you hate him.
And it’s a genuine shame that the guy can’t play quarterback worth a lick, because that only complicates matters.
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A little of this and a lot of that, following Week 7 in the NFL ...
- Nothing can demoralize an NFL quarterback and his offense quite like giving up a pick six.
Unless, of course, your quarterback gives up six picks instead.
OK, neither of the Raiders’ quarterbacks threw all six of Sunday’s interceptions during an embarrassing 28-0 home loss to Kansas City, but when starter Kyle Boller combined forces with new guy Carson Palmer to toss a pair of 3s at the Chiefs, the end result was the same.
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Good thing it was a handshake and not a forearm bash, circa 1988.
Jim Schwartz might’ve ended up in intensive care.
To hear him tell it, anyway.
“There’s a protocol in this league,” the Detroit Lions’ coach whined after his club came up on the short end of the scoreboard for the first time this season, a 25-19 decision at the hands of the Niners. “I went to congratulate coach Harbaugh and got shoved out of the way.”
Wait a second. A “slap on the back” is now a “shove out of the way”? Really?
My, my — some folks just don’t wear losing very well.
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Perhaps Dwyane Wade should learn to hit. You know, scrap the basketball career that has held him down for so long, and learn to play a sport where he can make some real money.
Maybe he and LeBron James should ask Ozzie Guillen, the new manager of the soon-to-be Miami Marlins, for an invitation to spring training. I mean, come on. These guys have families to feed.
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So, is it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all? Probably depends on where you live.If you live in the Bay Area and you’re a die-hard Giants fans, it’s an empty feeling to know that your postseason chances have officially ended, but at least the pain was somewhat numbed by the fact that you knew weeks ago — if not months — that it just wasn’t going to happen this year. You never had a chance to have your heart broken with a stretch drive collapse.
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A little of this, and a lot of that ...
- Five second-half possessions. Five touchdowns. The defensive performance the Raiders turned in against the Bills on Sunday, allowing a 21-3 halftime lead to evaporate faster than an American job, was downright offensive.
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The Jim Harbaugh Era has officially begun as the NFL kicked off its 2011 season with solemn and sincere tributes to the victims of 9/11 and their families. So what have we learned after watching the premiere of this long-awaited show?
Well, one thing Harbaugh learned is that Alex Smith is no Andrew Luck. Smith’s 124 yards in the air was an average quarter’s work for Harbaugh’s QB at Stanford last season, and the Niners’ 219 yards of total offense was evidence of work in the early stages of progress.
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For more than a decade now, as an avid sports fan and member of the sports media, I’ve chronicled in print many of the changes at ESPN that have made the network older and more tired than a Chris Berman player nickname.
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A little of this, and a lot of that: NFL Edition ...
I am not a Terrelle Pryor fan. As a college quarterback, he never really displayed the type of poise, pocket presence, passing accuracy or decision-making that I believe are necessary for him to become a starter at the NFL level.
Off the field, he has been worse.
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The kids aren’t all right, says Stephen Strasburg. And the top pick of the 2009 MLB draft isn’t happy about it.
Taking in the televised Little League World Series between rehab starts for the Washington Nationals’ Class-A affiliate following Tommy John surgery, Strasburg watched a 12-year-old from New Mexico flip his bat and pose following a three-run homer.
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Just two weeks after telling the story of New Mexico basketball coach Steve Alford banning his players from using Twitter, in what will likely be a futile attempt to prevent them from embarrassing themselves and their program, here we go again with another case of the little blue bird that destroys careers.
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If any more proof was needed that the NFL is now and forever will be a quarterback’s league, one need look no further than the flurry of post-lockout activity that involved a strange circle of QB-challenged teams looking for new field generals on the NFL’s scrap heap.
No one took a bigger gamble than the Arizona Cardinals, who — just two years removed from a Super Bowl appearance with Kurt Warner under center — threw nearly $64 million, a former Pro Bowl cornerback and a second-round draft pick at their quarterback problems.
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