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?
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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.
CFT: Jordan Jefferson makes it clear he wasn't happy with LSU's game plan in the Tigers' BCS Championship Game loss to Alabama.
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.
BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) -England defender Joleon Lescott preserved Manchester City's two-point lead in the Premier League by scoring a second-half winner in a 1-0 victory at Aston Villa on Sunday.
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.
EPARafael Betancourt needed just six pitches to get through Youkilis, Ortiz and Ramirez in the eighth, then the righty finished off the Red Sox in the ninth.
Boston has been haunted by past Oct. 16 failures, and Blake’s leadoff homer in the fifth must have stirred painful memories across Red Sox Nation. It was on that date that New York’s Aaron Boone opened the 11th inning of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS with a series-clinching homer — off Wakefield.
Blake, Cleveland’s clutch third baseman who has hit several big homers this season, drilled an 0-1 pitch over the wall in left. Franklin Gutierrez followed with a single and Wakefield plunked Kelly Shoppach. A groundout moved up Gutierrez, and Asdrubal Cabrera followed with a foul pop toward the photographer’s pit next to Boston’s dugout.
Youkilis, the first baseman, seemed to have it under control, but the ball squirted from his glove. Cabrera then hit a liner — a possible double-play ball — that Wakefield deflected and trickled behind the mound.
“It was hit right at me, but Wake stuck out his glove,” Pedroia said. “Things like that kind of happened all night. But we’re still alive and still playing. The opportunity is there.”
Wakefield was pulled after 4 2-3 innings — the third straight Red Sox starter to last exactly that long in this series. Manny Delcarmen couldn’t stop the Indians’ onslaught, either.
Peralta, Cleveland’s Mr. October 2007 with a .406 average and nine RBIs in the postseason, homered over the wall in right to make it 6-0. Kenny Lofton singled and stole second, his record-setting 34th career swipe in the postseason, and Blake, who started the outburst, dumped an RBI single.
At that point, Indians fans started thinking about what’s on deck for Cleveland — a chance to clinch a pennant at home after winning AL titles on the road in 1995 and 1997.
“It means a lot for us,” Victor Martinez said. “We’ve come a long way. To be in this spot right now, it’s amazing.”
Notes: By scoring seven runs in an inning twice in one series, the Indians matched the 1970 Baltimore Orioles, who did it against Minnesota. ... Of Cleveland’s 51 runs in the postseason, 27 have come with two outs. ... Youkilis was charged with an error on a pickoff attempt in the sixth, his first miscue in 1,644 chances dating to July 4, 2006.
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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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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