Rotoworld: Oregon RB LaMichael James and Oklahoma State WR Justin Blackmon among top 10 players who are being overhyped for the 2012 draft.
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.
Lefty wins his 40th PGA Tour event with his never-ending supply of tricks up his sleeve. What We Learned this week at Pebble Beach.
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.
APIt’s an all but foregone conclusion in New York that sometime within the next six weeks Roger Clemens will be back in pinstripes, the returning hero arriving in the nick of time to save the Yankees’ bacon.
John Heyman, a columnist for Newsday, is saying the move is as certain as the sun rising in the east. It all sounds so logical: The Yankees need pitching, Clemens doesn’t want to finish his career pitching seven scoreless innings a game and getting nothing but no decisions for his troubles, price is no object, and isn’t this what the Yankees do all the time?
But then you pick up The Boston Globe, and there’s Dan Shaughnessy, as good a columnist as there is, all but marching on Fenway Park with a pitchfork in one hand and a lantern in the other to demand that Theo Epstein bring the Rocket back to his original launch pad, where he can go out not so much with a bang as with a ring.
So you go to the chat rooms, and you find out that fans in San Diego think the Padres have a shot at him. Then it’s over to The Houston Chronicle, where the hometown line is that Astros owner Drayton McLane would no sooner part with the city’s favorite son than he would ban cowboy boots in his ballpark.
As my crystal ball, which recently has assured me that the New Jersey Nets would cause almighty problems for the Miami Heat and Oklahoma would kick the greaves off the Trojans, is in the shop for repairs, I won’t pretend to know where Clemens is headed.
I don’t know where that will be, but I do know that if the Yankees get him, it will be both a tremendous boost to their pennant chances and hideous blow to their future. With a farm system nearly bereft of prospects and a big-league roster top-heavy with overpaid and aging stars, the Yankees are not dealing from a position of strength.
George Steinbrenner has the money to pay whatever’s left this year on Clemens’ $18 million contract, plus the $3-million bonus Clemens would get if he is traded. But the Astros aren’t going to take Kevin Brown, Bernie Williams and Jason Giambi in return. They’ll want a solid prospect, and the best ones the Yankees have are two rookie call-ups, pitcher Chien-Ming Wang and second baseman Robinson Cano. Both players have performed capably in their brief time with the big club, well enough to suggest they could be foundation stones in the rebuilding and rejuvenation of the team.
But if the Yankees are desperate enough to move heaven, earth and McLane to get Clemens, they’ll part with one or both of those two kids. It’s what the Yankees do — give up prospects who become stars somewhere else to get guys who are established stars with little time left to give to the cause.
Wang has been one of the Yankees’ steadiest pitchers. Move him for Clemens and you get an ace, but you still have Brown and Carl Pavano along with a Randy Johnson who is pitching well but is not overpowering, and Mike Mussina, who is either very, very good or very, very average. That could get you to the postseason, and Johnson — if he recovers his electricity — and Clemens are a pretty good start to a playoff rotation.
But regardless of what happens in the playoffs, next year, the Yankees will either be saying farewell yet again to Clemens or coaxing him back for yet another year at a cost of $20 million-plus. Even to the Yankees, that’s real money. And it makes it difficult to spend gobs more to replace Bernie Williams in center and Brown on the mound, both of whose contracts expire at the end of the year.
Plus, to get Clemens, they will have given away one or both of the only good prospects they have.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
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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.
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