Sports Roundup from Creators Syndicate

Football Wants Favre, But Do the Packers? for 07/11/2008

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Walk into the Green Bay Packers' Lambeau Field dressing quarters in recent seasons and you would not have seen Brett Favre. His was a place apart, in a little room set aside for him exclusively.

I wondered about that, about why a team would separate one player from others. Doing so seemed to cut into the team concept that every NFL club strives to foster. Mostly, I wondered why any playe ...

Updated: Fri Jul 11, 2008

While Maddon is Witty, Rays No Longer a Joke for 07/18/2008

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Funny season. Funny thing. The Tampa Bay Rays used to play baseball like a vaudeville act, and their skipper failed to see the humor in it.

And then along came manager Joe Maddon, a comedian with funny glasses and a Shakespearean vocabulary, a very dangerous combination. A classic Maddon line from earlier in this wondrous season in Tampa Bay:

"The strike zone," Maddon sa ...

Updated: Fri Jul 18, 2008

Humble Padraig Harrington Tips Cap to Greg Norman for 07/25/2008

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

It is a measure of a person how they treat others while standing on top of the world, and all you need to know about Sunday's British Open champion, Padraig Harrington, was that he was apologizing to Greg Norman as they walked up the 18th hole at Royal Birkdale.

The Irishman had every reason to be focused on himself and his enormous achievement of winning back-to-back Open Championships. ...

Updated: Fri Jul 25, 2008

In Favre's Case, Packers Forget Lombardi's Credo for 08/01/2008

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

When your life depends on it, you want a seasoned surgeon holding the scalpel. If you have to choose, you take experience over energy; proof over potential.

So tell me again, please, why the Green Bay Packers are clinging to Aaron Rodgers at the expense of Brett Favre.

Remind me why a football team would anoint an unproven quarterback as its starter and not waver so much as a whit ...

Updated: Fri Aug 01, 2008

Judo Competitor an Olympian Again -- 16 Years Later for 08/08/2008

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

BEIJING - Valerie Gotay arrived for the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona two weeks before the judo competition began. She was 18 and weighed 118 pounds. She needed to weigh 106.

So she ran and worked out daily, and she watched what she ate. Her weight gradually came down, to 115, then 110, then 108, then 107.3 the night before the weigh-in for the 48-kilo, or 106-pound, division.

Updated: Fri Aug 08, 2008

Headed in Right Direction? for 08/15/2008

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Padraig Harrington, the winner of three major championships in the past 13 months, was talking Sunday night about the cranial scar tissue some golfers build up over the course of a career.

If Sergio Garcia truly wants to win one of these things someday, he should be listening.

Fresh off capturing his first PGA Championship, Harrington had everyone laughing while he talked about hi ...

Updated: Fri Aug 15, 2008

In Winning Silver U.S. Could Lose Face for 08/22/2008

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The Netherlands Antilles is a collection of Caribbean islands just off the coast of Venezuela, with a population of 225,369 and a lone Olympic medal in its history.

That came at the 1988 Summer Games, a silver medal in windsurfing for a man who had moved there from the Netherlands. But that changed Wednesday in Beijing, or at least it appeared to, when sprinter Churandy Martina crossed t ...

Updated: Fri Aug 22, 2008

The Challenge Will Now Be to Keep Up With the Chinese for 08/29/2008

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

BEIJING - Peter Ueberroth has done the math and it is daunting.

It tells him his China problem is only going to get bigger; that the Summer Games of Beijing were more of a clue than a culmination; that the host nation's ravenous appetite for raw materials applies to gold, silver and bronze as it does to oil and natural gas.

The chairman of the United States Olympic Committee predi ...

Updated: Fri Aug 29, 2008

NFL Defenses Catching Up in Electronics for 09/05/2008

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

High tech is making a further incursion into blocking and tackling. Nothing, it seems, is safe from it.

In this latest expression of a commitment to technology, the NFL is permitting a defender to be wired by a radio in his headgear to a coach on the sideline, just as quarterbacks have been since 1994.

Before the 2007 season, the league's executive committee defeated a proposal th ...

Updated: Fri Sep 05, 2008

Busch Is No. 1, But Not in Momentum for 09/12/2008

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Kyle Busch has dominated NASCAR this season.

The 23-year-old driver won eight Sprint Cup races and led the points standings during the regular season, giving him a 30-point edge over his nearest competitor entering NASCAR's 10-race Chase for the Championship "playoffs."

But that doesn't necessarily make Busch the title favorite going into Sunday's Chase opener at Loudon, ...

Updated: Fri Sep 12, 2008

Rules Leave NFL Referee Helpless to Fix Mistake for 09/19/2008

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Ed Hochuli screwed up and he's sorry about it. He has been accountable and he has been apologetic. He has answered the e-mails of aggrieved San Diego Chargers fans, and has succeeded in turning some of their scorn into sympathy.

Rather than make an excuse, Hochuli has set an example. He has said his call is responsible for the Chargers' 39-38 loss Sunday to the Denver Broncos at Invesco ...

Updated: Fri Sep 19, 2008

The Great Mess of the Raiders for 09/26/2008

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

It always seemed as though the inmates in the Oakland Raiders' asylum were running amok. But it was a controlled amok. Now, these guys are bouncing around in silver and black straitjackets. The Greatness of the Raiders has become theater of the absurd.

The usual circus has spun into Cirque Du So Long for youthful head coach Lane Kiffin, except Kiffin remains in charge. He thinks. We thin ...

Updated: Fri Sep 26, 2008

Newsman Recalls Rainy Day Spent With Paul Newman for 10/03/2008

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

I don't remember the year, but I remember the rain — driving.

The normally dusty infield at Riverside International Raceway had been transformed into a mud bog in a matter of moments and the legendary Shav Glick of the Los Angeles Times and I were caught in the downpour.

As we were slogging through the slick terrain, the door on a motor home swung open and a tall ma ...

Updated: Fri Oct 03, 2008

Jimmie Johnson Positioned Well Coming Out of Talladega for 10/10/2008

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Now that Talladega is safely in his rearview mirror, Jimmie Johnson enters the final six races of NASCAR's Chase for the Championship ahead of schedule.

Although Johnson has won the past two Sprint Cup championships, this is the first time the Californian has led the standings coming out of Talladega - and entering a stretch of races he has dominated.

"This track was the trac ...

Updated: Fri Oct 10, 2008

Ace Buries Team He Followed as a Boy for 10/17/2008

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

By his own count, Cole Hamels pitched for the Dodgers three or four times in Little League. It was his custom to wear the blue cap with the interlocking L and A to school.

Philadelphia's front-running lefty was, by his own admission, a bit of a bandwagon fan growing up in San Diego rooting for Mike Piazza and the Dodgers.

He saved his catcalls for the Oakland Raiders.

" ...

Updated: Fri Oct 17, 2008

Hamels Seemingly Immune to Pressure for 10/24/2008

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Some day, Cole Hamels is going to look back on all of this with wonder.

He's going to learn, eventually, that baseball is a hard game and that its Octobers are piled high with pressure. He will come to appreciate the difficulty of what he's been doing and, just maybe, give himself an ex post facto pinch.

Some day. Not yet.

For the moment, Cole Hamels ...

Updated: Fri Oct 24, 2008

Hamels Needs Trophy Case for His Series' MVP Award for 10/31/2008

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The bottle in his hand was already half-empty, but Cole Hamels seemed a bottomless source of bubbly.

In the soggy celebration of Philadelphia's World Series championship, Hamels stood Thursday night before the plastic shield protecting his locker, giddily drenched in sparkling wine. The bottle bore the label of Domaine Ste. Michelle, a French-sounding brand imported all the way from Wash ...

Updated: Fri Oct 31, 2008

Yarborough Sees Self in 33-Year-Old for 11/07/2008

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Cale Yarborough is a tough man.

As a youth, he boxed in Golden Glove events. Out of high school, the legendary Frank Howard gave him a football scholarship to Clemson University. Over the years, he was struck both by lightning and a rattlesnake.

But in his chosen profession, Yarborough was known for quite another distinction.

In the six-decade history of NASCAR, Yarborough ...

Updated: Fri Nov 07, 2008

Secret of Johnson's Success is No Desert Mirage for 11/14/2008

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Shortly after winning the first of his record-equaling four Indy 500s in 1979, Rick Mears entertained a small group of writers in his garage.

Outside, a larger group of stunned media wondered how a desert racer could have won the world's grandest motorsports event. Inside, Mears talked about his credentials.

"Many people in racing have no idea how much you can learn in the de ...

Updated: Fri Nov 14, 2008

New Laws, If I Had Power of the Prez for 11/21/2008

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

President-elect Barack Obama has elected to come out in favor of a college football playoff. Surely, in a madding world, this is a minnow in his frying pan. He has sharks such as the economy, two wars, the environment, health care, crime, drugs, immigration, Rush Limbaugh — well, you know, etc. — sitting on the sink beside his hot stove, waiting to be cleaned.

Let's hope he c ...

Updated: Fri Nov 21, 2008