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NFL Columns
November 20
New York Post
columnist Mike Vaccaro
"
There is, in an odd way, something comforting about the answers Tom Coughlin still gives, something reassuring about the plain, innocuous words that land in your notebook no matter how much care and how much thought you put into the question. It has become obvious that the Giants, as a team, as an assemblage of players, relish the challenge of facing weekly assaults by opposing teams that invariably bring their highest "A" games against the defending champions. The bright targets planted on their backs have brought out the best in these athletes, week after week, game after game, and they have taken delight in rising to these challenges. So here is what I wanted to know: Is it just as ..."
November 20
New York Post
columnist Jay Greenberg
"
Brett Favre never has been 10-0, actually no better than 4-0 and just twice, the last time on the way to 10-1 in 2007. But he has been a defending Super Bowl champion and it took until the following Jan. 25, 1999, for the Packers to get run down by the Broncos. But all those bucks the sportsman-quarterback has stalked over the years that have gone to deer heaven would know that at least once Favre knew the feeling of being The Hunted. "Absolutely," the Ol' Gunslinger and Ol' Philosopher said yesterday. "The Giants probably are feeling that as well, but they're playing outstanding. "Whoever you play, you're gonna get their best, no doubt about it," Favre added. "With each win Tennessee ..."
November 20
Chicago Tribune
columnist David Haugh
"
With due respect to the need to dissect the Bears' defense like a frog in high school biology class, maybe we all are missing the point regarding a root cause of this two-game losing streak. That is, the Bears are missing the points. Regardless of how bad the defense has been against Tennessee and Green Bay, the Bears would have struggled beating anybody scoring 17 points on 24 drives over two games. That's a far cry from the halcyon days of the Bears' offense earlier this season when it scored points on 10 of 22 possessions in a two-game span against Atlanta and Minnesota. That's the standard for the offense, rather than the manage-the-game and please-don't-turn-the-ball-over approach ..."
November 20
Chicago Tribune
columnist Fred Mitchell
"
Bears great Gale Sayers believes Devin Hester may be running scared. "It looks like he's afraid to run back kickoffs," Sayers said. Sayers, a Hall of Fame running back, returned six kickoffs and two punts for touchdowns in his first three years. Hester's approach confuses him. "He's running everything up the middle. [The Bears return team] might have a middle return on, but if every [defender] is going to the middle, he has enough speed to go outside. He's not doing it. "He's running straight up the field and everybody is tackling him. He looks like he's afraid to go out on his own. "A couple of times the other team would kick to the right and [Hester] would run to the right and run out ..."
NBA Columns
November 20
New York Post
columnist Marc Berman
"
Now that Quentin Richardson and Zach Randolph are yapping again about the world-champion Celtics, it is time the Knicks' two tough talkers put up or shut up for the rematch Dec. 21 at the new Boston Garden. Richardson and Randolph have again rattled the Celtics' cages. They have placed a bee in Boston's bonnet. The two Knickerbockers New York Knicks would be wise to do better at the next tango than the 8-for-25 they combined to brick in Tuesday night's 110-101 defeat in Boston. When they battle again, Kevin Garnett will not be suspended. And I'm sure KG didn't appreciate the fighting words emanating from the Knicks' locker room late Tuesday night with him locked out of the building. As ..."
November 20
Chicago Sun-Times
columnist Greg Couch
"
Did you see the Bulls game last night? I hadn't heard that question in years. Now it keeps coming up. Yet the Bulls aren't any good. Derrick Rose makes up for that. He's it. The Bulls haven't had an it since the big IT, Michael Jordan. Rose is the one we've been waiting for, and I guess that has been clear for a little while already, but this week he's going to be featured in a spread in Sports Illustrated, the magazine whose cover Jordan owned for years. (Rose is not on the cover.) And ESPN.com quoted an NBA scout saying that Rose is unguardable. Twelve games into his career, and Rose already is becoming a phenomenon. What's the point? That Derrick Rose is really, really good? Immediate ..."
November 19
New York Post
columnist Jay Greenberg
"
Well, LeBron James didn't exactly mean at that political rally that he would stay in Cleveland, only that he always would consider it fondly. "That's the way I was feeling at that time," he said last night. "Home is always going to be home, and that was what I was basically letting them know." That will shake 'em in Shaker Heights, get blood pumping again in New York. It even briefly put the shovel that has yet to hit the ground at Atlantic Yards to work exhuming the Nets' hopes at signing James until he said this: "We all seen the cutting of the ribbon, but that's the last thing we saw with the Nets moving to Brooklyn," he said. "I'm not sure if that's still in the works, but I'm not ..."
November 19
Bergen Record
columnist Ian O'Connor
"
LeBron James does not need his money guy, Warren Buffett, to tell him a good businessman never shuts a door 20 months before it needs to be closed. So while he was busy dropping 31 points on the Nets on Tuesday night, James did not clap and make their wildest ambitions vanish like a cloud of white powder from his otherworldly hands. In fact, James never said never about leaving Cleveland in the summer of 2010, a time when the Nets could join the Knicks and 15 other teams in the greatest free agent chase the NBA has ever seen. Asked if he would make his choice - stay or go - based not on salary or endorsements, but on where he might win the most titles, James said, "Yeah, absolutely. "When ..."
MLB Columns
November 20
Boston Globe
columnist Tony Massarotti
"
Here's a prediction: By the time this is over, win or lose, the Red Sox effectively will have made Mark Teixeira the largest contract offer in the history of your storied franchise. Preposterous, you say? Clearly, you have not been paying attention. Since the Red Sox changed ownership, management, and philosophies early in 2002, the new owners and operators of the Red Sox have stopped at virtually nothing to acquire those things they have coveted most. When the best of the rest were bidding $35 million-$40 million to acquire the rights to Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Red Sox bid $51.11 million. When the rest of the world wondered why J.D. Drew opted out of his contract in Los Angeles, the Red ..."
November 20
New York Post
columnist Joel Sherman
"
This was back in spring training, back when Mike Mussina was still lugging around the 5.15 ERA from the season before and all the doubt that comes with that number and another number, 39, his age. Those numbers suggested all the good stuff that had brought Mussina fame and fortune was already in the rear-view mirror. And one of the authorities who believed that was named Mike Mussina. How do I know? Because when the Hall of Fame was being discussed and someone indicated he could not decide on Mussina's Cooperstown fate since his career was not yet complete, Mussina scoffed, "You have seen my credentials. I have pitched my best. It is not like I am going to add to my best. Either I am a ..."
November 20
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
columnist Art Thiel
"
LET'S FACE IT. As long as he didn't also sign Jeff Weaver, or trade Rafael Soriano for Horacio Ramirez, Jack Zduriencik could have hired most any pleasant person to manage the Mariners and it would have gone over all right. Sports fans here are so desperate for relief that Martha Stewart could have been introduced as manager Wednesday, and as long as she was packing warm cookies, no one would have asked if she had a plan to get Yuniesky Betancourt to take ball one for the first time in his career. Don Wakamatsu is considerably more than Martha in spikes, but the occupant of the manager position has been among the lesser causes for the Mariners' long, languid swoon from the heavens to ..."
November 20
Seattle Times
columnist Steve Kelley
"
By any definition, by any complicated Sabermetric formula, by any standard ever set in the sport, the Mariners were a disaster last season. This was the most disappointing team in baseball. A bust. A mess. And everybody in the game knew it. Don Wakamatsu knew it. He knew about the troubles in the clubhouse. He heard about the ruckus in the room when one of the Mariners players wanted to go after Ichiro. He heard about the bad vibes and the bad chemistry, because gossip swirls around baseball like a 5-4-3 double play. So, even though the new Mariners manager Wakamatsu was diplomatic at Wednesday afternoon's introductory news conference, he knows the problems existed. And he knows they have ..."
NHL Columns
November 19
Vancouver Sun
columnist Iain MacIntyre
"
If you arrive by train in Manhattan and exit Penn Station at Eighth Avenue, you will be awed by the massive, century-old United States General Post Office across the street. Above the mighty columns of the Beaux-Arts palace, deeply carved in stone is the motto: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from their appointed rounds." In this epic scale, these words strike not so much as a promise but a commandment. And as God is my witness, when I looked bleary-eyed up at this script early Tuesday morning, a few puffy flakes of snow fluttered briefly down from the heavens as I began my appointed round. I watched a lot of James Bond movies when I was a kid and ..."
November 19
Raleigh News & Observer
columnist Luke DeCock
"
The morning of the 19th game of the season, with Sergei Samsonov still looking for his first goal, he was asked if Tuesday night's opponent might not shake something loose. After all, the slumping Carolina Hurricanes forward was run out of Montreal in the summer of 2007 after a dismal season for the Canadiens, only to resurrect his career last spring with the Canes. "It's just another game," Samsonov said, shaking his head. Maybe. Maybe not. Early in the third period, with the Canes down a goal, Samsonov took a pass from Patrick Eaves on the rush, cut to the middle and slipped a shot past Carey Price to send the Canes on their way to a 2-1 win. It was a big goal, but sometimes, the gap ..."
November 19
Columbus Dispatch
columnist Michael Arace
"
When word surfaced that the Blue Jackets were going to try Jason Chimera as a point man on their power play, eyebrows were raised in Columbus, and in 29 other NHL cities. But there was some sense to the experiment. Seriously. The Jackets' power play has turned so bad, and Chimera has become so . . . what is the word? Reliable? Potent? Calm? Onside? In any case, trying him on a point, a shocking development at any other point in his career, became a worthy attempt. OK, it didn't go well. Twenty-nine seconds into the Jackets' first man advantage last night against the Edmonton Oilers, Chimera got nailed with a high-sticking penalty. Five seconds before Chimera was to be released from the ..."
November 19
Orange County Register
columnist Mark Whicker
"
The top professional athlete who will visit Orange County in 2008 was practicing at Honda Center on Tuesday with his Washington Capitals. Afterward, he was hiding around the corner in the locker room, a bag in his hand with a cake inside it, as he waited to ambush birthday boy and team masseur Shawn Reid. The icing flew all over the training room and Alexander Ovechkin emerged with the smile that is re-launching a sport. "Pressure? I don't think that word means anything to him," said Sergei Federov, his Capitals teammate and the only other Russian to win the Most Valuable Player award. "Hockey is supposed to be fun. I watch him and it's made me change a little bit." Hockey is indeed fun ..."