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.
APBut it was not only Rivera's rude treatment in Yankee Stadium that signaled there's a difference now. So, too, did the "accidental'' beaning of Jeter twice in as many days. All sides agreed it wasn't intentional when first Matt Clement and then Mike Timlin drilled Jeter but how many more Yankee batters are going to get drilled by Sox pitchers before Manny Ramirez or David Ortiz or Jason Varitek eats a high hard one from Randy Johnson?
How long? Not long.
That's the kind of pressure that now exists in every single meeting between these two. The Sox's two straight losses to open the season in New York probably didn't have anything to do with Francona's chest pains, which sent him from Yankee Stadium to the hospital Wednesday morning, but more than a few folks will believe they did because that's what this rivalry has developed into.
It's a pain ... but a glorious one.
Every game is invested with meaning well beyond what's rational. When the Yankees journey to Fenway Park on Monday for the season's first game in Boston they will have to either wait in their clubhouse or stew in the dugout as the Sox players receive their World Series rings before the first pitch.
A ring ceremony before a game?
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Not much of anything is an accident any more between the Sox and the Yankees and even if it is the fans don't believe it was and so the intensity grows to the point that earlier this week ESPN baseball commentator Peter Gammons, who used to work in Boston, was asked by a local radio station a question that could only be asked in one of these two cities.
It wouldn't have been asked in San Francisco about the Dodgers or in L.A. about the Giants. It wouldn't be asked in St. Louis about the Cubs or in Chicago about the Cardinals. It wouldn't be asked anywhere but in Boston and New York.
"So, Peter,'' the Boston talk show host asked. "When do you think the fight will be?''
The fight?
"I'd say, well, July 26,'' Gammons deadpanned. But then he gave credence even to that end of the rivalry, which has spawned some of baseball's greatest spats, like the one last season when Varitek popped Rodriguez in the face with his catcher's mitt after A-rod lipped off to him after being hit by a pitch.
"When will the fight be?''
That's what it's become between the Yankees and the Red Sox.
A fight.
And baseball is better off for it.
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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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.
