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?
LIVE VIDEO: NBCSports.com shows Washington-New York, with alternate camera angles, HD views and more.
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.
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.
APWhen Hurricane Andrew flattened the Indians' new facility in August 1992, the team sought refuge in Winter Haven at Chain O’Lakes Park, which was built in 1966. Yet over the past 15-plus years, neither the State of Florida nor the City of Winter Haven proved successful in working with the Tribe to renovate or build a mutually-agreeable new spring training facility.
The same scenario unfolded with the Rangers, Royals and Reds. Homestead was rebuilt but has remained vacant, and so, too, do Vero Beach and Winter Haven, and soon, Sarasota (the Orioles, playing at aging Fort Lauderdale Stadium, may move to one of these cities in 2009).
Since the late 1990s, when the Braves' new facility opened in Lake Buena Vista and the dual-use facility in Jupiter, only two new spring training ballparks have been built or significantly renovated in Florida — the Phillies debuted at Bright House Networks Field in Clearwater in 2004 while the Rays start anew at Charlotte Sports Park this season.
Smaller renovations have taken place at the Mets' complex in Port St. Lucie and elsewhere, but only this offseason was a brand new Florida spring training project announced, as the Red Sox will play at a new facility in greater Fort Myers starting in 2012.
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It’s hard to imagine MLB owners, front office personnel and the host cities pleased with at least one team off each day throughout March. That’s a loss of a lot of potential revenue. And unless next year’s slate of games goes absolutely mad for split-squad games on a daily basis, MLB itself will have to get innovative and might consider inviting the 2009 champions of Japan’s pro league and Korea’s pro league to balance out the calendar.
One team could play in Vero Beach and the other in Tucson, sharing the two-team facility the White Sox vacated. Fans would get to see a different style of baseball, two cities could get an infusion of tourism, and spring training will indeed be a long, long way from the lazy days of late March 1992 when the Angels were still training in Palm Springs, Calif.
Joe Connor is a freelance writer. He’s the author of "A Fan's Guide To The Ultimate Spring Training Experience” which is available for purchase exclusively at his Web sites: www.modernerabaseball.com and www.mrsportstravel.com.
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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Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
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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