Welcome to the 500 Home Run Club®, LLC, the exclusively authorized, internationally recognized organization founded to celebrate the awe inspiring achievements of the greatest home run hitters in baseball history. The club operates with the endorsement and support of both Major League Baseball and the Baseball Hall of Fame.
A NASCAR tripleheader at Texas Motor Speedway and the season finale for the World of Outlaws headline the racing weekend's calendar.
The 1.5-mile TMS track hosts all three of NASCAR's top series this weekend highlighted by Sunday's Sprint Cup Series Dickies 500.
Jimmie Johnson carries a 184-point lead over Mark Martin in the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings heading into the Lone Star State weekend and needs to average a finish of 10th or better over the final three races of the season to lock up an unprecedented fourth straight series title.
Jeff Gordon won last April's visit to Texas with Johnson coming home second.
RacingOne will have comprehensive coverage from Texas all weekend long beginning with Friday's Live Qualifying session for the Dickies 500 beginning at 4:40 p.m. (ET).
Later that night the Camping World Truck Series tackles Texas for the WinStar World Casino 350. SPEED and MRN will provide live television and radio coverage beginning at 9 p.m. (ET).
Saturday afternoon the Nationwide Series will be in action at Texas for the O'Reilly Challenge, slated for a 12:45 p.m. (ET) green flag. ESPN2 and PRN have the TV and radio coverage.
Sunday's Dickies 500 will take the green flag at 3:15 p.m. (ET) with live coverage set for ABC and PRN.
Stay with RacingOne for the latest from the Lone Star State including late breaking news, results, statistics, photos, audio, video and post-race analysis.
The Dirt Track at Lowe's Motor Speedway hosts the season finale for the World of Outlaws Sprints Car Series as well as the late models. Donny Schatz leads Jason Meyers by 19 points heading into the final weekend of racing which includes shows Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. SPEED will air Saturday night's finale at 9 p.m. (ET). RacingOne will be trackside in Charlotte for the latest.
Jacksonville Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver's prediction about the team's inability to sell out any home games is coming true.
For the fourth time this season, the Jaguars failed to sell out their home game and will have the game blacked out on local television.
So, the Jaguars' game against the Chiefs won't be shown in Jacksonville as well as Gainesville, Daytona Beach, Orlando ad Savannah, Ga.
The Jaguars are coming off a franchise-low for attendance of 42,088 in a game against the St. Louis Rams.
Due to the economy, roughly 17,000 fans decided not to renew their season tickets.
Despite Weaver's denials, the Jaguars are frequently linked to rumors surrounding their potential relocation to Los Angeles.
IndyCar Racing League driver Danica Patrick is finally going to get a dose of NASCAR. She's apparently very close to signing a two-year deal with the team run by Dale Earnhardt, Jr.: JR Motorsports, according to ESPN.
The negotiations are supposedly "in the final phase" and it will mean that Patrick takes a NASCAR wheel for the first time when next February's Daytona 500 rolls around.
So she'll race full-time for Andretti Green Racing in IndyCar and part-time for JR in NASCAR. Both Earnhardt and Patrick have some sponsorship dollars from GoDaddy.com.
Sports Illustrated was reporting that Patrick was looking to snag $300,000 per race in NASCAR, no mater if it's Nationwide or Camping World Truck Series races. But it's not likely that she's getting that kind of dough.
Most people think it improper to spank children, so I have tried other
methods to control my kids when they have one of 'those moments.'
Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the National Football League, took the unusual step Tuesday of asking Congress to change federal labor laws to prevent states from interfering with the league's efforts to enforce its banned substances policy.
Skip to next paragraph
Discuss the Giants, Jets, fantasy and everything else N.F.L on the Times's pro football blog.
Go to The Fifth Down Blog »
N.F.L.
* Live Scoreboard
* Standings
* Stats | Injuries
Giants
* Schedule/Results
* Stats | Roster
* Depth Chart
Jets
* Schedule/Results
* Stats | Roster
* Depth Chart
Goodell's appeal was prompted by a federal court decision in September that has prevented the N.F.L. from suspending two Minnesota Vikings players for taking a diuretic, called StarCaps, that contained a substance banned by the league. The court ruled that the league's policy was superseded by Minnesota state labor law protecting workers.
The league is appealing the decision, but the two Vikings have been allowed to play. To be fair, the league has allowed some New Orleans Saints players to play even though they were suspended for taking the same banned substance.
But the decision in Minnesota -- and the possibility that other athletes will seek relief under state statutes -- has raised questions about the ability of the N.F.L. and other professional sports leagues to enforce their anti-doping policies. That prompted Representative Henry A. Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, to hold hearings Tuesday titled, "The N.F.L. StarCaps Case: Are Sports' Anti-Doping Programs at a Legal Crossroads?"
"While we are reluctant to seek action from Congress, we believe that this presents a rare case in which narrow and tailored federal legislative action is warranted to confirm the primacy of federal labor law and respect agreements on this important subject," Goodell told the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection.
But members of the subcommittee were reluctant to grant Goodell's request. The N.F.L. is appealing the judgment in Minnesota and could also ask the Minnesota legislature to revise its statutes to exempt professional athletes and performance-enhancing drugs. The league and the players union could also come to an agreement.
Representative Bobby L. Rush, Democrat of Illinois and chairman of the subcommittee, said Congress was reluctant to resolve this issue through legislative action.
"You don't want to have 435 members of Congress writing a law" to fix this problem because "you never know what happens when you open this Pandora's box," Representative Rush said, hinting that any law would come with strings attached.
Representative Lee Terry, Republican of Nebraska and a member of the subcommittee, was more direct: "We will be much harsher on cleaning up the sport than the directors" of the leagues.
Congress has chastised the N.F.L. and other sports leagues for not doing enough to enforce their drug policies, and it recently criticized the N.F.L. for the way it has dealt with players who have sustained concussions.
The N.F.L. Players Association is opposed to any Congressional action. DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the association, told the subcommittee that he supported the players' legal action only after he learned that league officials did not tell the players that the diuretic they took contained a banned substance.
The league has criticized the players union for backing the players in court. Under questioning from lawmakers Tuesday, Goodell and Smith traded barbs several times in their responses. Several subcommittee members also challenged Smith on the same point.
The N.F.L.'s appeal of the decision by a three-judge panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in Minneapolis, will not be heard until March. One of the questions the appeal will most likely try to answer is whether state laws designed to penalize workers for taking drugs like marijuana or cocaine are applicable to athletes taking diuretics and other supplements.
Major League Baseball and other professional sports leagues, as well as the United States Anti-Doping Agency, have stood behind the N.F.L.'s request that Congress amend federal labor laws to prevent challenges in state courts.
Robert D. Manfred Jr., Major League Baseball's executive vice president for labor relations, told the subcommittee that his league and the baseball players union likely did not "have the legal power to waive in advance state law claims of individual union members."
As a result, Manfred said, "a narrowly drafted statute could solve the problem faced by professional sports while avoiding undue interference with the prerogatives of the states."
But Gabriel Feldman, director of the Tulane Sports Law Program, warned that Congress should get involved only after the league and the players union had exhausted all other measures. That included appeals in court, asking the Minnesota legislature to create an exemption in its workplace rules to exempt professional athletes and reaching an agreement with the players union.
"We have a long way to go before Congress should be concerned about this problem," he said.
The World Golf Championships HSBC Champions event tees off November 5 at Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, and Tiger Woods is a 7/4 favorite to win the golf tournament, followed by Phil Mickelson at 12/1, in the golf betting odds released by Las Vegas' GolfOdds.com. The two go against each other for the first time since the PGA Tour's TOUR Championship, where Mickelson earned an impressive victory, but Woods collected the season-long FedEx Cup trophy. Mickelson works on his swing with Las Vegas resident Butch Harmon, who operates the Butch Harmon School of Golf at Las Vegas resort golf course Rio Secco Golf Club.
"My putting has really improved," said Mickelson to reporters in Singapore, where he finished 14th at the Singapore Open. "Since I began working with Butch Harmon I have been striking the ball better than ever, hitting it more confidently and driving the ball straighter and longer than I ever. However, I have not had the scores or the results because my performance on the greens has been bad over the past two years... I have not been consistently at a high level. Working with (putting coach) Dave Stockton has got me back the way I have always putted. I had slowly gravitated away from some of the techniques and feel I have grown up playing. He has reaffirmed all I believe in my short game. Hearing it from a guy who has won two PGAs had validated what I knew."
The Butch Harmon School of Golf is an incubator for the world's best talent, and is the site where many of the world's best golfers come to hone their swings. Some of the golfers currently with Harmon and/or his talented staff include Mickelson, Nick Watney, Ernie Els, British Open champ Stewart Cink, Natalie Gulbis, Charley Hoffman, Scott Piercy, and several others (Harmon also worked with Woods for about a decade). And the school if also open to the public and you can book your golf schools with Butch Harmon himself, learning the same things about the golf swing that the best learn on a daily basis. Click now for the official website of the Butch Harmon School of Golf.
Or you can click now to the official website of Las Vegas' Rio Secco Golf Club, site of the 2009 Wendy's 3-Tour Challenge that tees of next week (November 10). Rio Secco is a resort course that is open to all Las Vegas golfers and you can reserve your online Las Vegas golf tee times with the official management of the course. Rio Secco Golf Club is operated by Harrah's Entertainment, as is Cascata, a Las Vegas golf course that has been recognized for supreme excellence by ZAGAT. Both Rio Secco and Cascata are designed by Rees Jones.
Other golf betting odds for the HSBC Champions show Padraig Harrington at 15/1, Lee Westwood at 20/1, Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia at 25/1, and Singapore Open Champion Ian Poulter at 30/1 along with Els at 30/1. Former Las Vegas resident and Las Vegas golfer Ryan Moore is listed at 60/1 while Watney, a Las Vegas resident as well as working with Harmon, is at 80/1. Watney tuned up for the event by playing in the Greg Maddux/Butch Harmon Celebrity Invitational at Las Vegas' Spanish Trail Country Club last week. The field--all other golfers--is listed at 12/1.
Some of the individual betting matchups include Padraig Harrington (even) vs. Phil Mickelson (-120), Sergio Garcia (even) vs. Lee Westwood (-120), Ross Fisher (-110) vs. Ian Poulter (-110), Ernie Els (-115) vs. Retief Goosen (-105), Matt Kuchar (-110) vs. Ryan Moore (-110), and Steve Marino (-110) vs. Pat Perez (-110). All of the updated Las Vegas golf betting odds can be found at GolfOdds.com, a website created by leading Las Vegas betting expert Jeff Sherman. Sherman is also the Assistant Director of the Las Vegas Hilton Superbook.
For the first time since July 7, 2007, Jamie McMurray found himself in the right place at the right time.
Jimmie Johnson, on the other hand, can't seem to put himself in a wrong position -- even when he thinks he has.
McMurray was at the front of the field in Sunday's Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway when the inevitable "big one," a 13-car wreck off Turn 4, caused the sixth caution of the race and froze the running order with just more than one lap left. All McMurray had to do was complete the white flag lap to claim his first NASCAR Sprint Cup victory since he edged Kyle Busch by .005 seconds at Daytona in 2007.
Johnson, the series points leader, wallowed around in the back of the field for most of the afternoon, but a fortuitous stop for fuel under caution for Ryan Newman's unnerving crash on Lap 185 helped him get to the finish line past a score of cars that either wrecked or ran out of gas.
Johnson leaves Talladega with a 184-point advantage over second-place Mark Martin, whose car hurtled through the air, flipped and slammed into the frontstretch wall during the final melee on an otherwise ho-hum day -- thanks to a stern prerace warning against bump-drafting and push-drafting from NASCAR -- that turned ugly in the closing laps at the 2.66-mile superspeedway.
Kasey Kahne overcame a start from the rear of the field because of an engine change to finish second. Rookie Joey Logano came home third. Because of the late caution for the wreck during which Newman's Chevrolet flip once end-over-end and land on its roof, the race went three laps beyond its scheduled distance of 188 laps, and McMurray was one of many drivers worried about running out of fuel.
"I saw the guys wreck behind me, and I didn't know if you had to take the white (flag) in order (to win the race) -- I wasn't real sure what the rules were -- and the 9 (Kahne) went to the outside because he saw the same issue, but I just moved up and kind of tried to block him," said McMurray, who won the third Cup race of his career. "As soon as I crossed the start-finish line, I shut the engine off and pushed the clutch in and coasted around as far as I could.
"What an exciting day. It's been a long time since I've won, and I want to assure every fan out there that I appreciate this as much as anybody. So thanks to all my fans who have stuck with me. I just can't believe it's here again."
As late as the final restart, which took place on Lap 190 after a 12-minute, 34-second red-flag period for Newman's wreck, Johnson was resigned to a finish in the 20s, where he was running after pitting for fuel right before NASCAR threw the red flag.
"From where we were with the red flag to where we finished -- I'm still in shock," said Johnson, who can clinch his record fourth straight title by finishing 10th or better in the final three races in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. "I can't believe that it worked out. I can't believe that that many guys ran out of fuel and put themselves in that position. We almost stayed out.
"It was such a relief to finish and make up points. ... I do feel bad that the guys crashed coming to the finish, and we got wrecked cars. I was really concerned for Mark, because when I looked in the mirror I saw the 5 roof number tumbling and flipping and then it hit the outside fence. I hate to see things take place that way.
"So the crash part, yeah. But making up points on them, that's what we're here to do. I wish it would have been under fuel circumstances not under a crash, for sure. But we'll take them."
Note: McMurray's victory was the first for a Ford and the first for Roush Fenway Racing since Matt Kenseth won the first two races of the season. McMurray is looking for a ride for next season because of a NASCAR mandate that requires Roush Fenway to pare its roster from five teams to four.
Whatever slim chance the rest of the Chase for the Sprint Cup field had of making major inroads into Jimmie Johnson's points lead pretty much ran out of gas in the closing laps of Sunday's Amp Energy 500.
Mired at the back of the pack with only a handful of laps remaining, Johnson was almost certain his conservative strategy was about to backfire in a big way. Instead, just before NASCAR officials threw the red flag to extricate Ryan Newman from his destroyed car on Lap 184, Johnson was able to duck onto pit road for a splash of fuel.
Autostock
Sound Off
Jimmie Johnson talks about his strategy at Talladega and his surprising finish.
* Watch
Once again, it was crew chief Chad Knaus who came to the rescue.
"To be honest with you, the strategies completely backfired," Johnson said. "The only thing that saved our butts was Chad's decision for fuel. We were in big trouble -- 25th or something on that red flag -- so all the credit goes to Chad and making us come down pit road and put some fuel in that thing. That was really the strategy that did it."
Fellow contenders Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon and Juan Montoya thought they had enough fuel for the remaining distance, but when the engines were refired, they found that wasn't the case. Up and down pit road, many crew chiefs realized the same thing, and several cars rolled or were pushed to their stalls for refueling. So when the race restarted, Johnson suddenly found himself in the top 10.
And when Kurt Busch was tapped by Brad Keselowski, setting off a 13-car melee on the frontstretch just as the white flag was unfurled -- collecting Martin, Gordon and Montoya in the process -- Johnson not only escaped Talladega's clutches, but piled up a bigger lead on his closest competition.
"I'm still in shock," Johnson said. "I can't believe that it worked out. I can't believe that many guys ran out of fuel and put themselves in that position. We almost stayed out."
Not bad for a guy who realized his wait-and-see strategy wasn't working to his satisfaction as the laps wound down.
"With about six [laps] to go, that's the last time I remember [Knaus] giving me a number of laps to go," Johnson said. "It dawned on me that we were in a bad position."
At that point, Johnson knew his options on the track were becoming extremely limited.
"They were three-wide in front of me, nowhere to go and you're just stuck," he said. "You hope that your lane moves forward a little bit. If it does, you pass four cars, five cars, that's about it.
"Then the inside lane or middle lane comes surging forward. And I knew I was in big trouble then. You could see guys pushing and shoving, and wondering if the big wreck was going to take place. But then I'm like, 'I can't be conservative now and try to miss it because if this thing goes green like it looks, we're in even more trouble.' "
At the finish, Johnson's focus was split between the points battle and making sure his Hendrick teammates were OK, especially Martin, whose car flipped before landing on its wheels.
"I do feel bad that the guys crashed coming to the finish and we've got wrecked cars," Johnson said. "I was really concerned for Mark, because when I looked in the mirror, I saw the No. 5 roof number tumbling and flipping and then it hit the outside fence. I hate to see things take place that way."
This was the race that Johnson and Knaus had targeted on their racing calendars well before the start of this year's Chase as a bellweather. On Friday, Johnson admitted he'd be happy to come away from Talladega Superspeedway with the same lead over Martin that he had coming in. Things couldn't have turned out much better, as he's now 184 points ahead of Martin, 192 in front of Gordon and 239 clear of Montoya with three races remaining. Still, Johnson isn't taking anything for granted.
"I'm not going to let up and lose focus to the job I need to do and allow the championship to be in the forefront of my mind until it's mathematically locked up," he said. "I can still lose 165 points next week if I miss a shift and blow the engine at the start of the Texas race and Mark has a perfect day.
"So with all that in mind, yes, I am feeling much better about things. I was so concerned about this race. I thought I was going to lose points with about three or four [laps] to go. So to have it turn around and leave with points, I didn't expect it.
"It's a very, very good situation we're in."
It does not take a race on Halloween weekend for the ghosts of Talladega Superspeedway to rise. Whether it's karma or juju or the product of some supernatural power, there's always been something a little different about that 2.66-mile race track dug out of the north Alabama hills. NASCAR's very own twilight zone has been a place where strange, sometimes unexplainable things have happened, cast against a thousand campfires that give it an almost otherworldly glow.
There is no other venue like it, from the size to the spectacle to its turbulent and sometimes tragic history. It was at Talladega where Bobby Isaac abruptly parked his car and got out, claiming voices had told him to do so. It was at Talladega where the garage was once vandalized, where the pace car was once stolen, where parts of the infield still have a reputation for being as lawless as the tribal areas of Pakistan. Then there are the other events, these much more mortal, the water-tank explosions and helicopter crashes and racing accidents that have left sadness and devastation in their wake.
Why all this, in one place? The search for explanation began to take on a life of its own. People said the track was built on the site of an American Indian burial ground, and the spirits were exacting their revenge. People said the name of a nearby town was really a Native American word for "bad water." People said the place was cursed because the indigenous peoples had been forced to leave their homes and move west as part of the Trail of Tears. None of it was ever verified, of course. But it didn't matter. It persisted anyway.
Rick Humphrey, the track's president, has heard it all. He's heard every shred of rumor and myth and superstition about why his track, which hosts the Cup Series on Sunday, has such a checkered and tumultuous history. So through an acquaintance, he got in contact with a Creek Indian community based in a small town in far south Alabama, near the Florida line. And last Thursday, a man in a ponytail and wearing a rainbow-colored sash arrived to try and restore some balance to a facility that's been plagued by instability since its first race, which was boycotted by a number of top drivers due to safety concerns.
His name was Robert Thrower, and he was a medicine man from the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, the same Creeks that once inhabited so much of the land around Talladega. Speaking in the Muscogee language and working from a folding table set up as an altar at the start-finish line, Thrower offered what he called a prayer of protection, restoration, and balance to try and ease whatever cosmic instability surrounds the track. Using bits of cedar, rabbit tobacco, and wild sage, he performed a short ceremony similar to one his great-grandmother -- the last tribal medicine woman -- would have done.
Talladega has always been a little crazy. But here's the thing: people like it a little crazy.
"Most everything in Native American belief is about keeping balance," said Thrower, who is also a Baptist minister. "Sometimes people and places can get out of balance, and that unbalance may be perceived as something bad. What we did today was bless the track, and ask for reconciliation so that balance can be restored."
This kind of thing isn't unusual for Thrower, who often blesses houses or farms. But a race track? In a public ceremony? Then again, if anything can be described as slightly off-kilter, it's Talladega. How else to explain all those beer cans raining down on the frontstretch after Jeff Gordon's victory in 2007, or the preponderance of too-anatomically-correct Mardi Gras beads in the campgrounds, or that general, on-the-edge sense that permeates the place on the race track and off?
So yes, maybe Talladega could use a little balance. Hopefully, Thrower brought the heavy-duty rabbit tobacco.
"I wanted to share with somebody the myth or the legend that a curse had been placed on the area by the Indians," Humphrey said. "[Thrower] made sure that I knew that he was not coming to do some kind of exorcism, and that was not we wanted. He didn't mention a curse. He may have mentioned it one time during a prayer. He said, 'What I can do, and what I will do, is I will come and bless the land. And I will come and restore balance.' So really, I didn't know what I was calling and asking for, other than sharing, in some shape or form, our desires to put the urban legends and myths behind us."
So, what to make of this? Obviously, there's a publicity element to it, with the race weekend approaching and Talladega off 15 to 20 percent from last year on ticket sales just like so many other tracks are. But as anyone who has ever been there can fully attest, Talladega is a strange and different place. Those high speeds, those impossibly tall bankings, those sprawling campgrounds and all that heavy wood smoke -- in concert, it all has a cumulative effect on the mind. Talladega has always been a little crazy. But here's the thing: people like it a little crazy. They pack Airstreams and pup tents and sleep out in the cold in the hopes of being a little crazy, too.
To that extent, you have to wonder what kind of effect Thrower's blessing will have. Thursday will arrive, campers will show up, beads will be passed out, beer cans will be opened, and Talladega will become Talladega again, whether it's in balance or not. Now, in terms of protection -- especially given Carl Edwards' accident there in the spring, where his car went airborne into the restraining fence and a woman's jaw was broken by debris -- you hope Thrower really does have the ear of the Great Spirit. Because more than freakish occurrences, those are the kinds of incidents that give Talladega a bad name.
But we can hope, at least, for a safe and incident-free weekend, that balance has truly been restored and whatever spirits hovering about Talladega Superspeedway are of the benevolent variety. Then again, Saturday night is Halloween. Hopefully, the medicine man will be on call. source>>>
Kyle Busch, who hasn't won a Sprint Cup Series race since Aug. 22 at Bristol, will get a new crew chief after Sunday's race at Talladega Superspeedway, Joe Gibbs Racing announced Tuesday.
JGR has tapped Dave Rogers, crew chief for the organization's No. 20 Nationwide Series car, to replace Steve Addington, who guided Busch to 12 victories in the Cup Series in the No. 18 Toyota. Since winning eight of the first 22 races in 2008, however, Busch has four wins in 46 races and he failed to qualify for the Chase this year.
Addington will be reassigned to another position within the organization.
Rogers led the No. 20 team to the Nationwide Series owners' championship last year with a roster of four drivers -- Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Busch -- who collectively posted nine victories. The No. 20 team has won five times this season under Rogers' leadership.
The crew chief change comes two days after Busch recorded his best Cup finish since Bristol, a fourth-place run at Martinsville. Addington won the Wypall Wipers Crew Chief of the Race award after his strategic pit calls helped Busch charge to the front from the 41st starting position.
"We evaluate all of our teams on an ongoing basis and believe this is a change that will make the 18 team stronger as we prepare for next season," JGR president J.D. Gibbs said in a team release. "We think highly of Steve and the job he has done, and we look forward to him remaining a part of the JGR family.
"Dave has proven himself a talented crew chief, and we think he will work well with Kyle. We hope that by making the move following this weekend's race at Talladega they can use the final three weeks of this season to begin working on communication and setups for the 2010 season." source>>>
Perspectives and timing can be everything in racing, as well as they can emphasize various points in everyday life -- and so it was on Sunday at Martinsville.
Early in the Tums Fast Relief 500, Juan Montoya went scraping past Jeff Gordon to take the fourth spot. The move, and the action leading up to it, apparently prompted some heated comments on the in-car radios.
The most printable was Gordon's, after losing the spot to Montoya, informing his crew, "I don't know what's wrong with him, but I'm pissed."
But what would you expect? Racing is an aggressive sport, in which emotions throughout a race constantly need to be bottled up and unleashed, virtually at will.
But perspectives mean everything. When different individuals obviously in most cases see things differently -- particularly when they're wearing different color uniforms -- disagreements are inevitable.
Gordon couldn't see it then -- might not be able to see it yet -- but to Montoya it was as plain as the colors of the Colombian flag.
"It's just every time we've been around racing against him, he runs the hell out of me," Montoya said after the race. "He moved me out of the way before, and he was starting to do the same here [Sunday]. I was running the outside of him, and every time he was just getting wider and wider.
"And it got to a point, it's like, 'Hey, I'm here, and you're not going to push me around,' you know what I mean? If you give me room, I'll give you room. He wasn't giving me any, so I played the same game.
"It's not as hard [to be patient] as you think. You race. And if somebody races hard, you're going to race hard."
Immediately after Montoya banged his way past Gordon, he pulled away by a few car lengths. But then, running virtually the same lap times, no immediate confrontations ensued.
But the beauty of it is when communication overcomes bad feelings, and such was the case Sunday when Gordon more than Montoya -- but really both men -- had a lot riding on a good finish. Chase leader Jimmie Johnson's excellence at Martinsville was proven by his ultimate second-place finish to winner Denny Hamlin.
"Here is a place you don't want to wreck anybody because payback is really bad here, but people have got to respect you [so] we did what we had to," Montoya said, before explaining he'd gone much further than that. "I got on the radio and said to the spotter, 'Look, tell him if he comes I'm going to give him space, but I hope he does the same.'" After the race, Gordon was disappointed in his finish. Maybe he was a little frustrated to be fifth; but in his typical balanced way he presented a well-measured demeanor, especially when speaking of Montoya, who charged to third. Continue>>>
University of Connecticut Police announced on Wednesday several arrests in the stabbing death of student Jasper "Jazz" Howard, a senior cornerback on the school's football team.
The police said they arrested John W. Lomax III, 21, of Bloomfield, Conn. on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree assault. Lomax was being held on the $2 million bail.
Two other individuals were also arrested. Hakim Muhammad, 20, also of Bloomfield, was arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree assault. Jamal Todd, 21, of Hartford, Conn., was arrested on charges of pulling a fire alarm during a campus party in the student union.
Jasper was involved in an altercation after the fire-alarm was pulled and that's when the fatal stabbing occurred.
Jasper died soon after the stabbing. His death attracted national attention, coming as it did after a Connecticut victory over Louisville in which a big defensive play by Howard contributed to the outcome.
His funeral was held yesterday in Miami with more than 1,700 people attending, including his University of Connecticut teammate
A proposal to build a new $7 million Wildcat Coal Lodge was approved Tuesday by the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees in a 16-3 vote.
The vote set off shouts from about 30 protesters, mostly students, who attended the meeting.
"Big Coal is about to go down, and the university's going down with them," said Cor de Jong, who described himself as "a Lexingtonian and a basketball fan."
Others yelled "You're leaving Kentucky behind, one more time," and "I'm transferring."
A statement from students -- which stated that the proposal "unnecessarily politicizes the UK men's basketball program" -- was passed out to board members moments before the vote, but apparently was ignored.
"They did not read our statement," said Katie Goldey, a senior majoring in international studies. "They weren't even given a chance to read it."
After UK legal counsel Barbara Jones suggested the board take a recess while students expressed their concerns and criticisms, most of the board and UK President Lee T. Todd Jr. retreated to a back room.
Seven trustees stayed to listen, including the three who voted against the resolution and four who voted for it: Jo Hern Curris, Everett McCorvey, Dermontti Dawson and Billy Joe Miles.
Todd said after the meeting that he went along with Jones' suggestion that "the best way to calm down" tensions was to recess and leave for a bit. But he said the students made their points.
"They said a lot," Todd said. "They were heard."
The new Wildcat Coal Lodge, to be paid for by donors who have pledged $7 million, will replace the Joe B. Hall Wildcat Lodge, which houses the men's basketball team and a few other students.
Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart said earlier that the university wants to find some way to honor former Coach Hall at the new lodge, but details of how to do that have not been worked out.
The new building has spawned controversy centered on putting the word "coal" in the building's name. It even got national attention, and ridicule, Monday night on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show.
In a development that Todd described as "somewhat ironic," the new lodge will be one of the most environmentally friendly buildings on campus.
Because it will cost more than $5 million, university policy requires that it meet the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards. Bob Wiseman, the university's vice president of facilities, said that probably means it will take more advantage of natural light, and will use recycled materials as much as possible.
Wiseman said he did not know whether it would have a fireplace made of coal, as the current lodge does.
"This has not been discussed at that level yet," he said.
The lodge will be UK's second LEED-certified building. The first is the Davis Marksbury Building, under construction next door to the parking lot where the new Wildcat Lodge will be built.
At a trustees' finance committee meeting before the full board met, Barnhart said that the university decided late last year not to spend $1.5 million refurbishing the current lodge. The building is more than 30 years old and "it became fairly apparent that was going to be a Band-Aid," to spend the $1.5 million, he said.
When board member C.M. "Bill" Gatton asked what would become of the current lodge, Todd said it would "go into the housing inventory."
Gatton, for whom UK's College of Business is named, noted that the university's long-term plans call for a new business college building next door to the current lodge.
Todd said the lodge would not interfere with those plans.
Asked by a reporter whether the building that was deemed inadequate for basketball players would be used to house other students, Todd said the current lodge would have to be evaluated before any decision was made.
The proposal for the new lodge came from Joe Craft, the head of Alliance Coal, who has his name on a basketball practice facility. He put together 20 other people called the Difference Makers to come up with the money.
The three board members who voted against the proposal were Ernest Yanarella, the faculty representative; Robynn Pease, the staff representative; and Ryan M. Smith, the student representative.
Yanarella failed in an attempt to refer the matter to attorneys to determine if putting "coal" in the building's name violated the university's regulations. He said he was fond of Maker's Mark bourbon, but wouldn't want "bourbon" or "whiskey" on a UK building.
"It strikes me that this would set a precedent of identifying an industry with a piece of university property," he said.
Pease, who called the name "a step backward," also mentioned that the phrase "wildcat coal" referred to outlaw mining operations.
Several board members spoke in favor of the name. Gatton talked about Kentucky's low electric rates from coal-fired generating plants.
"I think if everyone had a higher electric bill, they would vote for this move," he said. source>>>
Rich Brooks has talked about it all year.
Kentucky wants to climb that proverbial ladder to the top of the Southeastern Conference. With presumably just a few years left in his coaching career, Brooks wants to put Kentucky on top when he finally decides to walk away.
But Brooks reminded everyone Monday that it takes more than just a leap to the get to the top. It takes several steps and several climbs to get reach that ultimate destination.
It's kind of like that ancient and all too often overused cliché of taking it one step at a time. UK has to take that next step on the ladder before it can think about the second and third step.
Mississippi State, historically the UK of the SEC Western Division, is the next barrier to climb. If the Cats are going to check off the next batch of goals, they have to take care of the teams like Mississippi State.
"When you are in the lower half of the league historically, to get to the upper half, you not only have to knock off some of those big guys, but you have to beat the guys that are like you," said Brooks, who is 7-4 against SEC West teams since 2006. "Mississippi State and Kentucky have been like each other for quite a while, and the team that wins has an edge up of being able to climb that ladder a little bit."
MSU stole a similar edge in 2007 in an eerily identical game. The Cats were riding a 6-2 record into Homecoming weekend, just two weeks removed from the historic upset over No. 1 LSU. Nationally ranked with four games to go, the UK players and coaches had their sights set on - gasp! - a New Year's Day bowl.
And then the MSU ground attack ran the UK train right off the tracks. The upset at Commonwealth certainly didn't derail a superb season in the Bluegrass - the Cats went on to finish 8-5 and win the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl - but there's no telling where UK might have been spending the holidays had it not floundered on Homecoming.
"It's always something that happens before this game," offensive lineman Christian Johnson said. "Some games we lose and then there's always some games that other SEC teams lose, which makes it all the more important to push yourself in front of them if you do win the game."
A must-win, though, if UK is going to make this season's bid for a fourth straight bowl appearance even more special?
"We definitely have to win this game," Johnson said. "This is one of the biggest games of the season, if not the biggest. If we win this it will put us ahead where we need to be and help us accomplish our goal of going to the best bowl game that we can."
But that's where the paradox exists. As much as Kentucky needs this game, Mississippi State might need it even more. At 3-5 with four games remaining, the Bulldogs would need to win three of their next four to be bowl eligible.
It's yet another strikingly similar scenario to the 2007 Homecoming humbling. The Bulldogs entered that game 4-4 and in dire need of two more wins to become bowl eligible. With the win, MSU went on to a Liberty Bowl victory.
"You look at your schedule and whether you are favored, or not going to be favored, or going to be favored, and you look and say you can beat this team and that team, but you have to beat this team and this team. Guess what? They are looking at you the same way. We have to beat that team," Brooks said.
Needless to say, the Mississippi State game has had huge ramifications in each of UK's bowl-winning seasons.
In 2006, the MSU win arguably turned the season around - and quite possibly the fate of UK's modern history - the week after a trouncing in Baton Rouge, La. Last season, UK squeaked out its bowl eligibility victory following a demoralizing defeat to Florida.
Both teams need this game, maybe a bit desperately. As history would indicate, it could define the rest of the season.
"It's one of those games you have to win," Johnson said. "We're going to have to come together, we're going to have to play hard and we're going to have to fight our best." source>>>
The PGA Tour has a lot of characters. Obviously, the world's #1 player gets the majority of attention and for good reason. There has been plenty of words devoted to who might emerge as his foil, much like Ali had Fraser and others. To date its really been a bit of a merry-go-round. Nothing against those who have helped to supply the drama but the point is that it hasn't been consistently anyone in particular.
While the Fall Series is the focus of the tour, a new star is being born. Ricky Fowler has only two professional events under his belt, but he is already showing he can be a force. Fowler enjoyed a successful amateur career and was perfect in the Walker Cup in September. Pay for play seems to suit him just fine as well. First event (Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open) saw the kid finish in a tie for 7th. His first pay check was for $113,700. Imagine framing that one... But he was in for a pay raise the following week at the Frys.com Open. The Sonoran desert proved to agree with him as he tied for first, even though it eventually lead to a loss to Troy Matteson in a playoff. But he second check as pro pocketed him a $440,000. Two weeks of work and he has already amassed nearly enough to potentially earn his playing privileges for next year. Currently David Duval is sitting in 125th spot in earnings with $624,000 but Fowler it would appear has him in his sights "I knew I was capable of coming out and competing. But to finish tied for seventh and then tied for first and then losing a playoff, pretty quick start," Fowler recognized after his playoff loss yesterday. "This is my second playoff I've been in in a professional event. I lost in a playoff in a Nationwide event end of July down in Columbus, and then in this one as well. The more playoffs you're in I think the more comfortable you feel. I'm always gonna feel nerves, but maybe next time I'll feel just a little bit more comfortable than I did today," he said putting his loss in some perspective. "I'm gonna go to Viking. Gonna fly out in the morning. And then I'm not sure if I'm gonna get to second, possibly third stage (of qualifying school). The plans are still to go to Q-School. I'm gonna go into this week with the same game plan I did those last two. Seemed to work out pretty well these last two weeks, so we'll see what happens," he said.
Don't be surprised if you see his name near the top of the leader board again this week. While he has a ways to go before he can expect a tee time with Tiger in 2010, it would seem his future looks very promising. source>>>
A day after firing a course-record 65 to grab a two-shot lead, U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover cruised to a five-shot victory Wednesday to win the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in Bermuda.
Glover closed with a 5-under-par 66 on the Port Royal Golf Course to finish at 131 in the 36-hole made-for-television event -- five shots ahead of Masters winner Angel Cabrera (who also shot 66 in the final round).
British Open champion Stewart Cink finished six shots back in third after a 70 while PGA Championship winner Y.E. Yang never got untracked and finished 10 strokes back.
Glover, caught at the turn by Cink, finished with four birdies on the back nine to pull away. He won $600,000 of the $1.35 million purse. source>>>
What I admire about the National Football League is the constant pace of innovation. Instant replay. The zone blitz. The Wildcat offense. And now, at long last, standards for NFL owners.
This last one was invented just last week, when the league pressured a group trying to buy the St. Louis Rams to drop conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh from its ranks for what NFL commissioner Roger Goodell called ``divisive'' and ``negative'' commentary. ``We are all held to a higher standard here,'' Goodell added.
Presumably Goodell was using the phrase higher standard with a certain flexibility, since the NFL counts any number of rapists, cokeheads and serial dog-torturers among its players. But let's be fair: Those are players. There are a very limited number of guys who can thread a ball 50 yards downfield through two defensive backs to a wide receiver, so you don't want to set the behavioral bar too high.
But Goodell has apparently realized that the world is full of half-wit millionaires willing to spend a fortune in order to hang around locker rooms sniffing jocks, so the league can afford to be somewhat choosy. Here's a list of directives from the NFL office governing the future behavior of owners:
- There can't be any episodes of The Sopranos based on your life. Investigative reporter Dan Moldea's 1988 book Interference: How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football said at least 26 NFL owners had documented ties to the Mafia or big-time gambling. Carroll Rosenbloom, who first owned the Colts and later the Rams, gambled so promiscuously with such a rough crowd that when he drowned while swimming in the ocean in 1979, it was widely believed he'd been murdered by disgruntled Mafia chums.
- Don't leave Super Bowl tickets lying around in your purse. Rosenbloom's ex-showgirl wife Georgia inherited the Rams when he died. The next season, when her team played in the Super Bowl, Georgia's new husband (No. 7, in case you were counting) Dominic Frontiere illegally scalped as many as 16,000 tickets. He wound up in jail; Georgia, who explained she just thought those tickets got lost in the sofa cushions or something, went on her merry way.
- Do not ask female reporters if they think that's a pistol in your pocket, or . . . When his players were accused of flashing Boston Herald reporter Lisa Olson in their locker room in 1990, classy Patriots owner Victor Kiam gave a wee hint of where they might have gotten the idea. ``What do the Iraqis have in common with Lisa Olson?'' Kiam cracked. ``They've both seen Patriot missiles up close.''
- Fergie, no pets for you. Hip-hop singer Fergie, part of our proud new class of celebrity part-owners of the Dolphins, admits to past fascination with the drugs Ecstasy and crystal meth, though she grew annoyed with a London Sunday Times reporter who asked if it was true she once got so wasted on meth that she spent eight hours talking to a hamster. ``It wasn't a hamster, it was a hamper,'' she insisted.
- And Fergie, lay in a supply of Depends. She says the Ecstasy and meth are behind her, but the singer -- perhaps because it was unfortunately recorded for posterity on YouTube -- admits to getting so drunk before going on stage at a show a couple of years ago that she wet herself while dancing.
- And Fergie -- you again! -- try some lyrics that rhyme June-moon-spoon. Among Fergie's more infamous songs recorded with the Black Eyed Peas is one called My Humps, which goes: I'ma get get get get you drunk/Get you love drunk off my hump -- well, you get the drift.
- JLo, stay off the phone with Rush. What got Limbaugh in trouble were purportedly racist comments that mostly turned out to be Internet fabrications. In the most inflammatory of those proven to be accurate, Limbaugh is complaining about flamboyant on-field celebrations during football games. ``The NFL,'' he says, ``all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.''
Compare that to I'm Real, a song recorded in 2001 by another new Dolphins part-owner, Jennifer Lopez. It used the N-word so wantonly (not to mention a word for lady parts that will get you slapped if you speak it outside a locker room) that it led to a boycott of her album, serious enough that JLo went on the Today show to defend herself. Calling use of the N-word racist was ``really absurd,'' Lopez said. I guess the NFL agrees.
source>>>
