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.
API hope the powers that be — whoever they are — realize that this approach will no longer stand, that the problem won’t be buried in the short memories of the American people, that they can’t afford to wait this thing out.
I’m not sure when it became fashionable in this country to say “I’m sorry, but now it’s time to move on.” It probably was around the same time that people stopped being accountable for their actions. What will the industry say when the next accident occurs?
Animals deserve and require respectful care. As stated, the overwhelming majority of people tethered to the thoroughbred are excellent caretakers. But racing needs to ensure that behavior by imposing meaningful standards and sanctions on a national scale. The best interests of the industry will be served by taking care of the best interests of the horse.
Lamentably, I feel the same way about the industry that flat-bed driver Bill Burbas feels about the country he grew up in. When he said he lost faith because things have gone too far, I told him I couldn’t go there. I told him that as a writer and a horseplayer, a hopeless romantic, I couldn’t let my small piece of the American dream die.
So, why not do this, industry? Instead of waiting for Congress to meddle into your affairs, let every organization and racing-states representative convene in Saratoga. Come for the Travers then lock yourselves up in the Gideon Putnam conference center and stay there until you accomplish the following:
Therapeutic medication will be permitted but controlled; nothing can be administered within 96 hours of a race. Ban all forms of steroids, from birth. What buyers see is what they get. Eliminate all race-day medication. Establish one centralized national betting platform with a takeout so low as to drive rebate shops out of business.
Earmark a minute percentage of the resultantly increased simulcast handle for equine health and designer-drug research. Technology helped create the problem, now let technology fix it.
Make every state racing commission answerable to a central authority and call it the National Thoroughbred League. Appoint a commissioner, one from the private sector, not from inside the industry. Bill Clinton needs a job. Start there and work backwards, but not too far. Get someone who is Einstein smart and loves the sport, figureheads need not apply.
Do this before the House subcommittee calls a second hearing and have the NTL Commissioner tell Congress what the industry is prepared to do, starting with some of the recommendations above, and a reasonable time frame in which to get it all done. Show Congress and the rest of America that the industry is worthy of what once was and can again be a great sport.
Or not. Throw up your hands and do nothing because it’s all too complicated and there are too many reasons why it can’t be done, explaining that you live in the real world and there is no such thing as enlightened self interest only cover-your-ass reality.
Then watch all your chickens come home to roost and begin to reap what you have sown since the sport‘s golden age, the 1970s. Take no action and suffer the consequences or, worse, become totally irrelevant. Then look in the mirror we’ve created and ask: How did we allow things to go this far?
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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 | Derby celebs Plenty of stars from the entertainment and sports world attend the 136th Kentucky Derby. more photos |
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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 |
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.