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.
Eleven shots separated Phil and Tiger Sunday at Pebble Beach as Lefty secured his 40th Tour win. Jason Sobel had 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.
Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
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.
ASSOCIATED PRESSHis inability to master “the pure aspect” of hitting has prevented him from emerging into the star the White Sox thought he would be.
“Pitchers can throw it with so much movement on it nowadays,” Fields said. “They’re throwing it really, really hard, and it seems like every year, you know, someone’s coming up with a new pitch or tweaking a pitch somehow and making it move more, making it a little more deceptive.”
So each time a ballplayer like Fields walked to the plate, he faced the unknown and carried with him uncertainty — or, as Winfield put it, a respect for it.
“Hitting a baseball when you’re hot is easy,” said Ricky Williams, a Heisman Trophy winner and an NFL running back who played Minor League baseball in the late 1990s. “But when you’re in a slump? The hardest thing about baseball is being in a slump when you have to play every day. Because you have to mentally find a way to get yourself out of it.”
For a slumping batter, hitting turns into a chess game: How will the defense play him? What will be the pitcher’s mix of pitches he’ll face? Will the location be hard stuff inside on the hands or a breaking ball on the outside edge?
The batter also must carry a dose of fear with him, a fear of failure and a fear of getting hit by a pitch.
The Justin Verlander fastball that awaits him can read 100 mph on the radar gun, and he can’t be sure whether the ball is coming at the inside corner or barreling in on his neck.
He knows if the pitch hits him, it’ll hurt him, Winfield said.
“You try to break that fear that you’re gonna win just three out of 10 times,” he said. “But you also have to have a certain fear of the ball. If the fear overrides your confidence, you can never get the job done.”
That’s the challenge Shelton faced. He had to address the mental side of teaching the art of hitting as much as the technical side of it. Neither is easy.
Inside the Indians clubhouse, he shook his head as he thought about his job of teaching Major Leaguers how to hit.
His was a daunting task.
“You’ve got a guy standing 60 feet, 6 inches away from you,” Shelton said. “The other thing is the pitcher’s making it sink and cut; he’s making it drop. He’s adding and subtracting speed to it.
“I mean, those variables alone make hitting extremely difficult.”
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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Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
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.
After leading by 18 points in the first half, the Los Angeles Lakers were staring at a four-point deficit with less than two minutes to play.