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.
And now batting for the New York Yankees in the World Series ... Jason Giambi, subpoenaed in a federal grand jury probe of a nutritional supplement firm suspected of concocting a “designer steroid” that defied testing.
For years, baseball brushed off doping as a problem for the rest of the sports world. Now there is no escaping the fact that baseball is in the middle of a potentially colossal steroid scandal involving chemists, athletes and coaches.
Giambi is not the only big-name player called to testify before a San Francisco federal grand jury looking into the finances and practices of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, a BALCO client since the year before his 73-homer season, also has been subpoenaed.
That doesn’t mean there is any evidence that the massively muscled Giambi and Bonds or any of some 40 athletes subpoenaed have used the new steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone, which the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency believed came from BALCO.
Bonds’ attorney, Mike Rains, said Tuesday he was told by the prosecutor leading the investigation that “Barry is a witness and not a target of the grand jury.”
In the June issue of Muscle & Fitness magazine, Bonds credited BALCO founder Victor Conte for creating a personalized program that includes nutritional supplements. The home of Bonds’ personal trainer, Greg Anderson, was raided last month in conjunction with a raid on Conte’s lab.
“When Barry gets a grand jury subpoena and his trainer’s door gets kicked in by drug enforcement agents, that’s when I get involved,” Rains told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “All of that has certain ominous appearances to anybody.”
Giambi, in Miami for Game 3 of the World Series against the Florida Marlins, shrugged off the matter, saying, “It’s no big deal. I’m here to play baseball and I don’t want it to distract me.”
Yet this is more than a little distraction. It could be a disaster for baseball and one of the biggest sports busts in history.
No matter how this probe turns out, it means baseball can no longer keep its head in the sand over performance-enhancing drugs. Baseball and its recalcitrant union ought to get serious about testing or risk losing all credibility with fans who are fed up with cheaters in sports. Home run records mean nothing if the players are chemically powered.
As it stands now, baseball’s drug-testing program is a toothless exercise in public relations. There are no penalties for positive tests and no random, out-of-competition tests. And, by baseball’s reckoning, it’s OK to have some players pumped up on steroids as long as it’s not too many.
Results of this year’s survey tests have not yet been announced and baseball said it will be unable to retest samples for the new steroid, known as THG. Baseball plans to discuss with players whether to add THG to the list of banned substances.
The problem goes far beyond baseball and the always-suspicious realm of track and field, from which sprinter Kelli White and shot putter Kevin Toth also have been subpoenaed.
“This is a national problem,” USA Track and Field chief Craig Masback says. “This is kids in high school and junior high school, in college, who are using these performance-enhancing substances, who are under the influence of these lab gurus. It’s not (only) a track problem or a baseball problem. The federal government has got to get involved, not just in raiding labs but in changing laws.”
The 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act pushed through Congress by Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a state where supplement-makers flourish, is particularly in need of a fix.
DSHEA enabled androstenedione, used by Mark McGwire during his 70-homer season in 1998, to be available for over-the-counter sale even though it was banned as a steroid by the Olympics, the NFL, the NCAA and other sports — with the notable exception of baseball.
Ephedra, another supplement banned by most sports, also was left uncontrolled by DSHEA. Used to lose weight and boost athletic performance, ephedra has been linked to scores of deaths, including 23-year-old Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler.
THG was unknown by sports authorities until USADA received a syringe with the substance provided by an anonymous track coach who claimed it came from BALCO. The UCLA Olympic testing lab retested 350 urine samples from June’s U.S. track and field championships and 100 samples from random, out-of-competititon testing.
Now track and field’s international governing body will retest about 400 samples from the World Championships to check whether any athletes there used THG. Positive findings would lead to retroactive disqualifications, including stripping of any medals, and two-year bans.
That’s the kind of action baseball ought to be taking instead of merely discussing the problem.
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.
HardballTalk headlines |
 | Interactive |
 |
 | Slideshow |
 | Unbreakable records in baseball A look at the most unbreakable records in baseball including Nolan Ryan's seven no-hitters. |
| Slideshow |
 | The top tools of baseball You hear a lot about the tools of baseball, but who are the best hitters, fielders and pitchers? We break it down. 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.
NBC Sports TV and livestream listings
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.