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.
Golf's dream pairing - Woods and Mickelson - is on the course in the final round at Pebble Beach. Jason Sobel has 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.
Euro Roundup: First-place Manchester City won 1-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday on Joleon Lescott's goal in the 63rd minute, maintaining its two-point lead over Manchester United in the Premier League.
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.
APThe Derby question is how do Derby handicappers reconcile the Blue Grass fractions and race shape on a surface fast enough to produce a world record clocking for juveniles at four and a half furlongs 48 hours earlier and times recorded by juvenile under-tack sales horses in :20 1/5 for a quarter mile and a furlong in :09 3/5 earlier that week? The answer is you can’t, so you don’t try.
There is sufficient empirical evidence to suggest that having a morbidly slow Polytrack run does not adversely effect horses moving back to conventional dirt, no matter how fast that playing field. One only needs consider how well Cushion Track-trained horses performed at Santa Anita and elsewhere, or the success enjoyed by Woodbine invaders this winter at Gulfstream Park. Anecdotally, many won at first asking instead of needing the usual race over the track.
Specifically, the colts that ran 1-3 in last year’s Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland finished 1-3 in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs, albeit in reverse order. Interesting to note, too, that Circular Quay split Great Hunter and Street on both occasions. Apparently, Keeneland goes into Churchill very nicely, indeed.
This is the only instance when the racetrack adage of time only counting when in jail may be accurate. Revisiting the Breeders’ Futurity, Great Hunter’s mile and a sixteenth was clocked in 1:44. Street Sense needed only 1:42 2/5 to win the Juvenile. According to Equiform’s data base, Street Sense earned the best performance figure by a juvenile since Easy Goer dominated the 1988 Champagne Stakes. Parenthetically, performance figures quantify and qualify running time measured against the speed of a track’s surface.
In a circuitous fashion, this brings us to Curlin. Over an Oaklawn Park surface slower than par, Curlin’s 10-½ length Arkansas Derby romp was the fastest figure earned by a three-year-old this year in a two-turn distance by a significant margin. His nine-furlong figure was one point faster than Circular Quay’s mile and a sixteenth Louisiana Derby victory, or roughly less than 2-¼ lengths. Those were the best figures earned over a distance of ground by a three-year-old this year.
Running times are the game’s only absolute truth. Speed figures are an effective measure of those times, even if many believe their certitude exists only in the eyes of their creators. Rather, it is assessing thoroughbred performance through a visual prism that truly is the subjective exercise.
But what we have seen from Curlin has been extraordinary: Athletically he is nearly perfect. He carries his head low, seemingly in perfect relation to his running action. He is so economical and push-button paced that he appears to glide over the ground. In his last race he showed none of the drifting-out greenness demonstrated in his previous two starts. Could he be learning this quickly, be this good?
Historical context is a subject for another day. Meanwhile, Curlin’s Arkansas Derby figure was a point lower than Street Sense’s Juvenile. Curlin is lightly raced and celebrates his true birthday 30 days later than Street Sense. But the Street Sense figure was earned as a late-season two-year-old, thus he has a higher figure to return to on his best effort. The only question now is whether his a Polytrack prep helps get him back there.
The first of three pools of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager begins its three-day run on Friday and the bet's opening scenario is very similar to each of its opening pools since the wager was created in 1999.
It's first time that Classic will be broadcast in primetime on Nov. 3.
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The Week in Sports Pictures The Giants on top of the football world, getting ready for the London Olympics and more. more photos |
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 | Derby celebs Plenty of stars from the entertainment and sports world attend the 136th Kentucky Derby. more photos |
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 | Triple Crown winners The horses that have won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont in the same year. |
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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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.