PITTSBURGH — They had waited long enough and skated hard enough, endured sudden turns and crushing twists, until finally, finally, the Red Wings went ahead and took what they had to have, what they’ve been chasing all year, what they always believed was theirs.They took it in gasping, grasping fashion — fitting fashion, really — […]
As fatigue took over and a sixth period of hockey loomed, players on both sides of the Game 5 Stanley Cup battle between the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday night sought sustenance in all forms. Some hooked up to intravenous devices, while others opted for a late-night snack: pizza. “Who delivered?” someone […]
Kevin Lowe’s comments about the Vancouver Canucks hiring of former agent Mike Gillis last week made for good copy, but they also provided critics an opportunity to call him a hypocrite.Gillis, of course, was the agent for Michael Nylander, who backed out of a contract with the Oilers last summer after his wife made it […]
Get the players’ stats at the halfway point and put together a couple of spreadsheet formulas to compare success on the mound, at the plate and in the field, and voila: The List!If only things were so simple.Baseball, like most other sports in the Blue Water Area, features a wide discrepancy in strength from […]
ALLEN PARK — Here’s a shopping list for Matt Millen.It has been prepared with malice and forethought, so that even the Detroit Lions president and general manager couldn’t botch the 2008 NFL draft.Trust me, the poor schlep needs a list.Millen, an impulse shopper with an affinity for stockpiling wide receivers, has spent much of his […]
Don’t look now, but as of tonight, Mike Pelfrey is leading all Mets’ pitchers in wins.The spring-training-bust-turned April, uh, stalwart was tremendous tonight, pounding the strike zone with his sinking fastball, enducing ground out after ground out en route to seven shut out innings. It was the first time the 24-year-old threw up a goose […]
ANN ARBOR — The recent coaching transition isn’t the first in the Michigan football program’s history, and it won’t be the last.That does not mean Rich Rodriguez’s first few months on the job have not been without inherent challenges.A week ago, two days after Rodriguez announced the Wolverines’ most experienced offensive lineman, Justin Boren, had […]
GREENVILLE, S. C. — It was an innocent mistake, but it was blasphemy just the same. In the South, you do not dis barbecue.The protege and I stopped in for lunch at Sticky Fingers Rib House, and he asked about the rack of various sauces. There was Carolina sweet sauce, Tennessee whiskey sauce and habanero […]