US Striker Charlie Davies Injured, Woman Killed in Car Accident: Charlie Davies, a striker for the U.S. Men's soccer team, was injured at 3:15 a.m. Tuesday in a DC-area car accident in which one woman was killed and another person was injured. Davies has undergone surgery for "non-life threatening" injuries, according to the Washington Post. Ashley J. Roberta, 22, died at the scene.

posted by holden to soccer at 05:43 PM - 5 comments

Steven Wells: a few memories of a unique and acerbic voice: Steven Wells, the Guardian columnist whose biting British-observer-of-U.S.-sports-culture pieces provided fodder for some lively SportsFilter threads (see, for example, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) and has to be the most-linked author in SportsFilter history, passed away on Tuesday after a battle with cancer (the treatment of which is chronicled here).

posted by holden to other at 03:21 PM - 9 comments

Baseball Tickets Too Much? Check Back Tomorrow: The San Francisco Giants experiment with dynamic, demand-based pricing.

posted by holden to baseball at 01:25 PM - 4 comments

The end of the line for America's most hated soccer commentator?: No more Champions League color commentary or "analysis" from the man referred to affectionately by some as "the biggest tit on the air."

posted by holden to soccer at 02:02 PM - 8 comments

Working for Lenny Dykstra: An inside look at working for Nails -- Wild and wacky antics! Racism and homophobia! Shady business practices! Borderline lunacy!

Most meetings are simply extended hang-out sessions, with Lenny cracking up at his own jokes or asking us to watch the Real Sports segment over and over, especially the moment where Lenny points to his seat on his private plane and says, “This is where the Big Man sits.” He also seems to relish letting go a long, leisurely fart for the amusement of his employees or showing off his silk tie and saying, “You see this tie? I paid $500 for it” as he rubs it on his crotch and laughs at our embarrassed expressions.

posted by holden to baseball at 05:53 PM - 7 comments

Topps Baseball Cards Go 3-D: Apparently the bubblegum tastes even more chalky and cardboardy in 3-D.

posted by holden to baseball at 02:33 PM - 3 comments

Walking His Way to Cooperstown.: Joe Posnanski takes a look the impressive numbers of a man who, among his many on-field exploits, arguably did more than anyone else to legitimize references to oneself in the third person.

posted by holden to baseball at 03:54 PM - 7 comments

MLB MVPs Announced: Albert Pujols wins the NL MVP; Dustin Pedroia takes the AL honors. Rob Neyer makes a pretty compelling case that it could have been Lance Berkman in the NL and Joe Mauer in the AL, King Kaufman weighs in on the voting, and Baseball Prospectus takes a look at the AL candidates.

posted by holden to baseball at 03:45 PM - 9 comments

Some Athletes’ Genes Help Outwit Doping Test.: Studies suggest that about 2/3 of Asian men and nearly 10 percent of Caucasians lack both copies of a gene used to convert the testosterone into a form that dissolves in urine, calling into question the efficacy of certain drug tests.

posted by holden to general at 02:30 PM - 5 comments

Lenny Dykstra, Financial Planner to the Stars?: The fascinating post-baseball career of a man called Nails.

posted by holden to business and law at 11:41 AM - 7 comments

BBWAA Admits Online Writers.: The Baseball Writers' Association of America (already in the news this week) votes to accept into its ranks 16 online writers (most of whom previously wrote for "traditional media"); Neyer, Law snubbed; Peter Abraham, Rob Neyer and various other luminaries drop by the comments section here for some good back-and-forth.

posted by holden to baseball at 04:30 PM - 10 comments

Baseball GMs Vote in Favor of Instant Replay.: In a move sure to make at least one former SportsFilter member roll over in his grave/production booth, baseball GMs have voted to propose that MLB adopt instant replay for disputed home run calls.

posted by holden to baseball at 01:23 PM - 42 comments

The Kick Is Up and It’s ... A Career Killer.: Michael Lewis explores the job of the NFL kicker (registration or Bugmenot req'd.):

A kicker in the N.F.L. can be one of two things: the bland technocrat who does what he's assigned to do but who, even when he's exceptionally good, must accept that the coach and the team will be credited for the victory. Or he can be the little choke artist who is very nearly entirely responsible for the loss. For a kicker in the N.F.L., . . . there is no upside.

posted by holden to football at 10:52 PM - 11 comments

Rockies Vote Playoff Share for Coolbaugh: Adding to the good karma surrounding the team, the Colorado Rockies' players have voted for a share of their playoff earnings to be contributed to the widow of deceased minor league coach Mike Coolbaugh, killed earlier this year by a batted ball.

posted by holden to baseball at 05:31 PM - 7 comments

Irrational Panic.: It's like 1978 all over again . . . only not really at all (except to perhaps the special species of irrational, self-loathing, prepare-for-the-worst Red Sox fan typified by those upbeat kids at Boston Dirt Dogs).

posted by holden to baseball at 12:12 PM - 55 comments

Rawlings Announces All-Time Gold Glove Team: Previously discussed (in the voting stage) here.

posted by holden to baseball at 12:05 PM - 21 comments

Grassroots campaigns, ballot stuffing, and 100,000 lost votes:: The curious case of this year's NHL's All-Star voting. (Follow-up to this thread.)

posted by holden to hockey at 08:10 AM - 9 comments

The L.A. Times runs a two-part investigative report and critique of the anti-doping regime:: The worldwide sports anti-doping program, created to fight performance-enhancing drug use in international athletics, imposes severe punishments for accidental or technical infractions, relies at times on disputed scientific evidence and resists outside scrutiny.

posted by holden to other at 08:34 AM - 4 comments

Phillies' Howard wins NL MVP,: receives 20 first-place votes to runner-up Pujols' 12. BBWAA digs the long ball.

posted by holden to baseball at 01:21 PM - 30 comments

Red Sox implosion: : Not as much fun as a Yankees breakdown would be. But it's a lot of fun. (From King Kaufman at Salon -- Just click through the damn ad!)

posted by holden to baseball at 05:03 PM - 79 comments

Pluto Sent Down to Minors:: MLB.com gets its Onion on.

posted by holden to baseball at 08:27 PM - 25 comments

Interesting article from Michael "Moneyball" Lewis : about Texas Tech's football coach Mike Leach. "Leach remains on the outside; like all innovators in sports, he finds himself in an uncertain social position. He has committed a faux pas: he has suggested by his methods that there is more going on out there on the (unlevel) field of play than his competitors realize, which reflects badly on them." (NYT Reg. Req'd.)

posted by holden to football at 10:22 AM - 9 comments

Leo Mazzone is heading to the Baltimore Orioles.: Looks like starting in 2006 we may finally get to see whether Mazzone's greatness as a coach transcends a particular team and system and whether the Braves can keep their ridiculous streak of division titles alive with the Cox-Mazzone-Schuerholz triumvirate being reduced to a duo.

posted by holden to baseball at 01:36 PM - 20 comments

Baseball Prospectus: is making all is content freely available until next Wednesday. There's some great stuff in there for the baseball stat-head types, as well as some good trade rumors columns and other more general interest stuff. Most of the content is typically subscription only.

posted by holden to baseball at 10:46 AM - 6 comments

Whizz Kid: Vikings RB (and league substance abuse policy violator) Onterrio Smith caught in airport with the Whizzinator, a device used to foil drug tests that "includes a prosthetic penis attached to a jockstrap and plastic bag." But he was transporting it for his cousin, so we're all cool.

posted by holden to football at 06:04 PM - 12 comments