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.
PBT: Jeremy Lin wasn't his hot self on Saturday, but he still led the Knicks to victory.
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.
Getty ImagesHis game is so well-rounded that he was voted an All-Century outfielder with Seattle before his 30th birthday. By then, his backward cap and light-up smile were the face of baseball.
His statistics were setting the pace, too. When Griffey was traded to his hometown team before the 2000 season, he was significantly ahead of Aaron’s record home run pace.
It seemed like a sure bet that when his nine-year, $116.5 million contract was wrapping up this year, he’d be the next home run king, or close to it. Then, the city would have two of its own atop baseball’s revered lists — Pete Rose as the hits king, Junior as the home run king.
It hasn’t turned out that way.
Griffey hit 40 homers in his first season with the Reds, when he became the youngest to reach 400 career. Then came a succession of major injuries — torn hamstrings, torn patella tendon, separated shoulder, torn ankle — that knocked him way off Aaron’s pace.
Nearly knocked him off the map, too.
The one-time superstar got booed in his hometown and overlooked in conversation about the game’s best players. It took him more than four years to get to homer No. 500 in 2004.
It seemed he might never make it to 600.
A year later, he was back in the swing.
Griffey hit 35 homers in 2005, winning the comeback player award. He followed it with 27 homers in 2006.
Last season, he played in 144 games — his most since 2000 — and hit 30 homers, leaving him seven shy of No. 600. The Reds erected a countdown board at Great American Ball Park, and featured him on the cover of the 2008 media guide.
Griffey was the youngest player in the majors — still only 19 — on April 10, 1989, when he homered off the Chicago White Sox’s Eric King on the first pitch he saw at Seattle’s Kingdome.
Homer No. 36 was one of his most satisfying. It came one batter after his father, Ken Sr., homered off California’s Kirk McCaskill on Sept. 14, 1990, an unprecedented father-and-son moment in the majors.
Even now, Griffey says those two seasons he spent playing with his father in Seattle were the best times of his career. And he has suggested that he would like to finish his career back there.
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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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.