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.
AP fileDarryl Strawberry, who preceded Gooden by a year and who would always be linked with him, also fell just as hard as Gooden. Back then, people thought Strawberry was the guy who dragged Doc down with him, but in truth they were never great and tight friends. Whatever Gooden did, he did to himself.
The fans forgave him, as they always forgive good-looking guys with easy smiles, a 24-4 record with a 1.53 ERA. Dick Young, the hairy thunderer of New York’s tabloid columnists, told fans to “Stand up and boo” when Gooden returned from his first suspension in 1987. They cheered instead.
Nine years later, no longer a phenom and coming off a year’s suspension, Gooden was forced into a start for the Yankees when David Cone went down. Gooden, whose father was in a hospital in Florida waiting to undergo a bypass, took the ball and threw a no-hitter.
The feat still makes most list of the top 10 moments in New York sports.
Even now, you can’t be a baseball fan in New York and help but smiling at the memory of what he was. Other pitchers have had better years, but not by much. But no season I’ve ever seen has had the electricity and sheer joy of Gooden’s rookie season of 1984 and his Cy Young season of 1985.
He was all but unhittable, his fastball crackling and alive, the curve a knee-buckling yakker that froze hitters in their tracks. The motion was long and loose, almost languid; it never looked as if what he was doing involved great effort.
His father, Dan, partly crippled by diabetes, used to come up to Shea Stadium to sit in a box seat on the railing to watch his kid pitch. Dan Gooden had been a good sandlot player in his day, and he taught the game to his kid. When Gooden was about 13 years old, Dan knew young Dwight was going places when he stood in the batter’s box and told the kid to throw his best stuff.
“He blowed me away,” Dan Gooden told me 21 years ago, reliving the moment.
In those days, nothing was impossible to imagine. Three hundred wins were out there along with 5,000 strikeouts and who knows how many no-hitters. He was headed for the Hall of Fame. Of that, there was no question.
Instead, he blowed his life away. Gooden fell into the whirlpool of money and celebrity and couldn’t pull out.
He’s falling still.
Here’s hoping he finally hits bottom.
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.
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.
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.