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.
My guess is it’s a combination of the two.
A-Rod’s history is that he withers when he puts too much pressure on himself. Perhaps this is a way to make him do that. But it's also like when hockey teams motivate themselves by having someone start a fight. When a team sees its pitchers bouncing baseballs off the other team’s best hitter, it cranks everybody up.
And Sunday night, the Phillies showed that they’ve still got loads of fight. Down 2-0 after one, they fought back to tie the game. When they fell back, 4-2, they fought back again.
But even before the game, the six dozen analysts Fox has assigned to the series were unanimous in their judgment that the Phillies have more fight in them than 40 rabid wolverines. They have the heart of a champion; they’re not intimidated; they’re not going to quit; they aren’t to be counted out.
This is what analysts say, with rare exceptions, about every team in every game that’s ever been played. A football team that’s down by 42 points but is still throwing up long passes has heart and never gives up. A baseball team down 12 after seven is still trying to get something going.
This is not a revelation, and to say a team in the World Series, especially the team that won it last year, isn’t going to give up just because it’s down, is saying nothing. Saying teams at this level of the game have heart is like saying centipedes have legs.
Even so, the Phillies, coming as they do from the city with the nastiest fans in all of American sports, have more grit than most. If any team — other than Boston, of course — were going to go after A-Rod just to show how nasty they are, the Phillies are it.
Well, they showed that they are as nasty as advertised. But when the day was done, all they had to show for it was a career highlight for A-Rod and a loss for the home team.
The Phillies are now on the brink of elimination. It might be time to think about hitting the baseball instead of the baseball players.
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.