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?
LIVE VIDEO: NBCSports.com shows Washington-New York, with alternate camera angles, HD views and more.
PBT: Jeremy Lin wasn't his hot self on Saturday, but he still led the Knicks to victory.
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.
CFT: Jordan Jefferson makes it clear he wasn't happy with LSU's game plan in the Tigers' BCS Championship Game loss to Alabama.
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.
BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) -England defender Joleon Lescott preserved Manchester City's two-point lead in the Premier League by scoring a second-half winner in a 1-0 victory at Aston Villa on Sunday.
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.
APIf passed in its present form, the “Unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 2005” would bar credit card companies and banks from transmitting money between account holders and bet takers. Of greater significance is that the proposed bill fails to do something the Interstate Horseracing Act did; provide an exception for racing.
Should the new bill pass in its present form, simulcasting via account wagering, the only area of growth the industry has seen in a decade, would cease to exist. When that happens, smaller-track and OTB failure becomes inevitable. Then, it would be a matter of time before mega-tracks followed suit.
What happened at the quarter pole at Pimlico last Saturday was one of the greatest racing moments I’ve experienced in four decades. Without seeing a videotape of the 1987 Kentucky Derby, the remarkable recovery and Preakness victory by Afleet Alex and Jeremy Rose was greater than that of Alysheba and Chris McCarron.
Now that would be a horseplayer’s debate worth having.
Thoroughbred racing has faced many serious challenges in modern times, from the race-fix scandals of three decades ago, to the Breeders’ Cup Fix Six of 2002, to the designer drug issues that dominate the tenor of all modern sports.
But today’s racing issues are different. The sport is being assailed on all sides, from the politically expedient to an indifferent mainstream press, from an issues-challenged industry media to the backstretch cheats. Racing is a state’s-rights-oriented industry that avoids when possible the mechanisms for policing itself on a national level.
Back in the day, a young writer was full of vigor and an uncontrolled passion for righting what was wrong. Old-schoolers told him not to fret, that the game was bigger than any one issue and that it would survive as it always had. On balance, they were right.
Unfortunately, yesterday’s vigor and uncontrolled passion has given way to anger and dread. The fan inside wants to enjoy the Triple Crown and Saratoga, Belmont in the fall and the Breeders’ Cup, events worth celebrating, indeed. But not even Sunday morning headlines trumpeting the achievements of a horse called Afleet Alex can erase the day-to-day, state-to-state, storylines of 2005.
A good friend and modestly successful harness-horse owner with whom I disrespectfully agree to disagree on virtually all matters racing, said this: “I sat back and watched the harness industry be reduced to what it has become today and believed it could never happen to the thoroughbreds. Now, I’m not so sure.”
The first of three pools of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager begins its three-day run on Friday and the bet's opening scenario is very similar to each of its opening pools since the wager was created in 1999.
It's first time that Classic will be broadcast in primetime on Nov. 3.
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Images of the Triple Crown See images from the 2005 Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. |
THEY ARE AT THE POST |
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 | Derby celebs Plenty of stars from the entertainment and sports world attend the 136th Kentucky Derby. more photos |
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 | Triple Crown winners The horses that have won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont in the same year. |
Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
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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