Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Eleven shots separated Phil and Tiger Sunday at Pebble Beach as Lefty secured his 40th Tour win. Jason Sobel had hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
Reuters
NEW YORK - Immediately following surgery Friday to repair a broken wrist that will sideline him for at least three months, Hideki Matsui apologized for getting hurt.
Matsui was injured trying to make a diving catch in left field during the New York Yankees’ 5-3 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Thursday night. The broken radius bone ended his consecutive games played streak that dated to August 1993 and included 1,250 games with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan and 518 with the Yankees.
“Due to this injury, I feel very sorry and, at the same time, very disappointed to have let my teammates down,” Matsui said in a statement. “I will do my best to fully recover and return to the field to help my team once again.”
Yankees manager Joe Torre spoke with Matsui, who was operated on at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Torre expects Matsui will return to the ballpark in the next few days and remain in the New York area while his wrist heals.
Torre wasn’t surprised by the apology.
“It’s all about responsibility — what he thinks his responsibility is to this team, this organization, because the Yankees committed to him and he feels it’s a two-way street in that regard,” Torre said. “He’s done that before here, where he’s made an error, he’s come up and apologized to me.”
Matsui’s statement also praised his manager.
“I would like to thank Joe Torre from the bottom of my heart for having been considerate of my consecutive games played streak these past several years and for placing me in the lineup every day,” he said.
With right fielder Gary Sheffield also on the disabled list with a left wrist injury that will keep him out of the lineup until at least late May, New York will go with a makeshift outfield that includes Bubba Crosby and Melky Cabrera in the corners on most days, with Bernie Williams sharing time.
Torre estimated that Matsui will miss most of the remainder of the season.
“We don’t know what the timetable is. It’s probably a minimum of three months,” Torre said. “I think my feeling is, with everything involved and trying to get back into game shape, it’s probably closer to the end of the year, the end of the season.”
Yankees owner George Steinbrenner tried to call Matsui.
“Matsui is a much-valued player and friend,” Steinbrenner said in a statement issued by spokesman Howard Rubenstein. “I’m sorry for him and for our many friends in Japan. I know how resilient he is, and I know he will come back strong.”
Matsui was put on the 15-day disabled list, and outfielder Kevin Reese was recalled from Triple-A Columbus.
“I was back at my place in Columbus, and getting ready packing for Norfolk,” said Reese, who got the call about 12:30 a.m. “I was supposed to fly out this morning. A little nicer here.”
Reese had gone out with Clippers teammates to watch Thursday night’s game. He didn’t see the play when Matsui got hurt, but then saw a replay.
“I started getting all these text messages from my family and stuff, ‘What’s going on?”’ Reese said.
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“He called me. He said, ‘You hear anything?”’ Reese recalled. “I said, ‘No, have you?’ And he said, ‘No.’ He told me to call him if I heard anything, but I didn’t get the call till late and didn’t exactly know how to make that phone call, anyway.”
Torre addressed the Yankees before Friday night’s game against Oakland to tell them how the surgery went. After getting about an hour of treatment on his shoulder and foot, center fielder Johnny Damon said the absences of Matsui and Sheffield left a big void.
“That’s two to three runs a game. And that’s quality at-bats that give us more and more chances to succeed,” Damon said. “But we know what we have to do. We know during this time when Gary’s out, we’ve got to bear down.”
Damon said that when he ran into the center-field wall to catch a drive by Doug Mirabelli on Thursday, “It rattled me a little bit.”
“I got to try to be a little more graceful,” he said.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
DeMarco: Plug in a well-heeled ownership group and negotiate one of those mega-bucks TV deals that are going around, and the Dodgers could become the west coast version of the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox.
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Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
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