Can DeGeezer still throw DeBomb? That’s the question coaches, players and fans are asking this simmering August in Atlanta, Georgia. At the age of 44, veteran NFL quarterback Steve DeBerg has returned from five long years of retirement (and two years of coaching) to become backup to the Falcons’ oft-injured…
For a fellow who’s regarded as one of baseball’s old goats, commissioner Bud Selig has been remarkably flexible when it comes to certain innovations. While he was still “acting” commissioner–an impermanence that lasted six years–Selig pushed each league to split into three regional divisions and add a wild card team,…
They’re old. Starting with the left guard, who’s undergone twenty surgeries since high school, they’ve got more dents than a demolition derby. The owner has painted lurid orange flames on their new unis, so they look less like Super Bowl champs than an arena-ball club on the make. After crying…
The New York Yankees lost three times last week. You could look it up. But the rest of the picture remained pretty grim. Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter was still hitting .320 and keeping company with singer Mariah Carey. David Wells, the huge, unkempt moose of a Yankees pitcher who paid…
Another day at the office: Shelly Anderson slams her foot down and the ground shakes. The stench of tire smoke and the sting of burning nitromethane shoot into the crowd. Almost 6,000 horsepower–enough to drive an ocean liner–leaps into the rear wheels, and five G’s of force smash Shelly deep…
Grab a bag of peanuts, crack a cold beer and make yourself at home while we administer today’s number-association test. Here goes: Fifty-six. Sixty-one. Five hundred and eleven. Seven hundred and fifty-five. Four thousand one hundred and ninety-one. Point three-six-seven. Three. Two. One. Simple, wasn’t it? Piece of cake. Any…
Last Saturday, three days before the All-Star Game, Petey Maestas waited two hours for the chance to hit a home run off Randy Johnson. Johnson, the hawk-nosed, fright-wigged, six-foot-ten-inch flamethrower of the Seattle Mariners, has not been enjoying the best of seasons–seven wins, seven losses, seventeen home runs yielded in…
If you had a nickel for every man, woman and child watching the World Cup on television, you could buy Denmark–or maybe a decent lunch for two in Paris. Astonishing but true: Around the globe, 37 billion people are currently glued to their sets as assorted South Africans, Paraguayans, Dutchmen…
In his storied playing career with the Denver Nuggets, Dan Issel amassed 16,589 points and pulled down 6,630 rebounds–both club records. Now his daunting task is to score a few points with the fans. And any kind of Nuggets rebound will be welcome. As the new vice president, general manager…
When it was all over, rider Kent Desormeaux said he felt sick to his stomach. Then proved it. He had asked his mount for winning speed too soon, he said gloomily, then let the horse’s attention wander with a furlong to go. Down in the jockeys’ room, Chris McCarron draped…
Last Wednesday night, Michael Jordan threw a little outside fake, stopped short and rose from the floor of the United Center like an ascending saint. The soft jumper hit dead center, of course, and just like that, His Airness had the 34,999th and 35,000th points of his storied career. Even…
How about those catcalls raining down from the cheap seats–okay, the $15 seats–every time Pedro Astacio blows another lead or Mike Lansing takes a called third strike with the bases loaded? Strange sounds, no? The public mood, once mild and appreciative, is getting understandably nasty up there. And neither Mike…
Is the Bolder Boulder a Racist Race? Everyone but Patsy Ramsey and a couple of blissed-out hippie leftovers up Sunshine Canyon seems to have an opinion on that. As the famous distance race draws near (May 25), organizers feeling pressure from the glare of a New York Times article and…
On the eve of this year’s Kentucky Derby, everybody in horse racing–from the poorest groom out in the stable to the sleekest zillionaire up in the turf club–is worried sick about the future. Racing fans are getting longer in the tooth as track attendance and revenues continue to decline. Competition…
Listen, Bubba. Come dawn this Sunday morning, U.S. time, the world’s most exotic race cars will be screaming around the circuit at Imola, in the tiny European principality of San Marino, at 185 miles an hour. Blood-red Ferraris and sleek silver McLaren-Mercedeses, pinnacles of the automotive engineering art, will excite…
The 27 million Americans who play golf–and 100 million who don’t–understand that Jack Nicklaus is the best ever to put on yellow plaid trousers. In his day, he was the longest, straightest driver and the finest clutch putter of all time. Among the four-score trophies in his breakfront are a…
As Pokey Reese can tell you, this is the year in which some of baseball’s most cherished records are likely to be demolished. Pokey himself got the ball rolling on opening day by committing four errors at shortstop in support of his Cincinnati Reds’ 10-2 loss to San Diego. There’s…
When Mike Tyson announced last week that he was willing to part with the unabridged, uncensored story of his life for, say, three or four million bucks, you can bet the Pulitzer Prize committee and the people who hand out the Nobels sat up and took notice. Listen. Solzhenitsyn may…
The most dangerous slugger in the major leagues is not Ken Griffey Jr., Larry Walker or Mark McGwire. He is a wrinkled, 67-year-old non-fan named Rupert Murdoch. And it’s painfully clear that the ruthless Australian media magnate means to swing the huge bat just put into his hands more like…
While the furniture-smashers of the U.S. Men’s Olympic Hockey Team were returning to vain millionairehood in the NHL, and Latrell Sprewell was explaining to his adoring public that the really important lesson in the strangling of P.J. Carlesimo is the one that coaches should learn from it, and Chicago Bear…
Maybe Lawrence Eugene Doby was destined to be overshadowed. In the course of his thirteen-year major-league career, he batted .283, hit 253 home runs and led the American League in homers in 1952 and 1954. But because he played in the golden era of Mantle, Mays and Snider, Larry Doby’s…
That confidence wafting up from Tucson, Arizona, that unmistakable whiff of spring hope, might be real this year. A lot of baseball folk believe the Colorado Rockies improved their roster in the off-season more than any other team in the National League, and it’s hard to argue with them. I…
