Category: General Sports (Page 80 of 112)

LeBron as a running back? George Forman as a defensive tackle? Albert Pujols rushing the passer! Believe it. In my latest column for Bullz-Eye.com, I put together a football team constructed purely of athletes from the NBA, MLB and even NASCAR. See if your favorite players made his All- Athlete Gridiron Team.

On Thursday, SI.com will introduce the “Vault” to readers, which is a free online archive containing all of their old covers, photos and stories. The “Vault” will also contain video material as well.

SI.com already draws more than six million unique visitors each month, according to Nielsen Online (publications insist that the true numbers are much higher than Nielsen’s ratings), and executives of the magazine predict the Vault could add five million monthly readers.

“The real hidden value of this is what it does for search,” said John Squires, executive vice president of Time Inc., the Time Warner subsidiary that publishes Sports Illustrated. The move quadruples the site’s volume, he said. “We’ll have to work our way up the search algorithms over time, but eventually, someone searches Johnny Unitas, and SI.com is going to pop up.”

Many publications, including most major magazines, still offer little or no archive access online. And of those that do allow readers to look deep into their histories, many charge for it, like The Washington Post or The Atlantic Monthly, whose online archives both go back to the 19th century.

I think this is a fantastic idea and kudos to SI for not charging people to view the material. I’m sure we’ve all wanted to go back in time and re-read an interesting article done on one of our favorite athletes or teams. Now readers have the opportunity to enjoy a little blast from the past and this will be a great resource for bloggers, too.

It’s a relatively dead time in sports, so I decided to have a little fun in my latest column for Bullz-Eye.com. With the Bud Light “Real Men of Genius” commercials as my inspiration, I pay tribute to five annoying sports guys, including Mr. Wear Jeans to a Pickup Football Game Guy.

Floyd Mayweather just got fat cash (as in $2 mil fat) to wrestle for WWE’s Wrestlemania.

A $20 million payday awaits the undefeated WBC welterweight champion when he takes on Big Show as part of WWE’s “WrestleMania XXIV” at Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Fla., on March 30.
“It’s entertainment. You have a chance to just be you and do what you want to do,” Mayweather said Monday after a chaotic Staples Center event that masqueraded as a news conference.

The boxer nicknamed “Money” clearly likes the way WWE does business.

“Wrestling takes care of business right on the spot,” Mayweather said. “Whatever they say they’re going to do, they do it right on the spot. There’s no waiting three, four, five months. Quick results, quick money. Quick big money, too.”

I can almost respect a man who says, “Yeah, I’m doing this for the money” instead of one who denies it and tries to make it about doing a good deed. Have fun Floyd and remember, you now have a small connection to Pacman Jones.

Sam Donnellon of the Philadelphia Daily News wrote a great article about how fans want to believe in their sports’ heroes, but certain athletes are making it impossible to do so.

As congress underlined during its steroid inquiries, we can convince ourselves of any improbability when it comes to sports. For example: Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch have, under oath, confirmed trainer Brian McNamee’s testimony that he administered HGH and/or steroids to them, and Pettitte gave an affidavit stating that Roger Clemens said nearly 10 years ago that he used HGH. Debbie Clemens, Roger’s wife, said in a statement that she allowed McNamee to shoot her with HGH when Roger wasn’t home. And yet, when it was Indiana Rep. Dan Burton’s turn to ask questions, he called Clemens a “titan” and tore into McNamee with this bit of baseballese:

“What if all your lies turn out to not be true?” he asked.

We dearly wanted to believe that a cowboy like Clemens or a pretty little thing like Jones simply worked harder than everyone else to attain their titan status. And so we’re clear, the media is as guilty as anyone of looking the other way, of being dragged to the investigation rather than spearheading it.
When andro was found piled in McGwire’s locker, discussions of his cheating were washed over by a debate over the ethics of the reporter who found it there.

Fans should demand more from athletes. While they don’t necessarily have to be role models, it would be nice to watch a player jack a home run without wondering what he’s on. Just based on the Clemens-McNamee battle, those days seem to be a long ways off, however.