Sports

Sports

'Fun' Teams Out Of Baseball Playoffs

8:05am October 12, 2013

The Red Sox have their beards and the Tigers their bankrupt city, but the Moneyball boys from Oakland and the Pirates, who had their first winning season in 21 years, are eliminated. Host Scott Simon talks to NPR's Tom Goldman about the week's sports news, checking in on the Major League Championship Series and the early weeks of the NFL season.

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In 1965, Muhammad Ali and Lincoln Perry (Stepin Fetchit) teamed up in pursuit of a legendary boxing technique: the anchor punch.

Sports
Arts

'Fetch Clay, Make Man': Ali, Fetchit And The 'Anchor Punch'

6:38pm October 11, 2013

by Mike Pesca

The play Fetch Clay, Make Man explores the sense of identity through the eyes of two significant figures in black history — Stepin Fetchit (Lincoln Perry) and Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali).

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Football practice at Castro Valley High School in California. Proper hitting technique requires players to keep their heads up to prevent neck injuries and concussions.

High Schools Struggle To Tackle Safety On The Football Field

7:41pm October 09, 2013

by Kendrick Calkins

More than 1 million high school boys play football in the U.S. With a growing body of evidence linking the sport with chronic brain injury, some schools are trying to change how teams play and practice — but they have a long way to go.

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Sports

WNBA's All-Time Top Scorer Tina Thompson Retires

8:58am October 08, 2013

The WNBA's biggest star, Tina Thompson of the Seattle Storm, has just retired. She played in each of the league's 17 seasons. She won four championships and two Olympic gold medals. Steve Inskeep talks to Thompson, who never dreamed of becoming a professional basketball player.

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Sports

His Dodgers In The Playoffs, A Legendary Announcer Keeps On

6:50pm October 07, 2013

by Ben Bergman

Legendary Los Angeles Dodgers announcer Vin Scully is widely considered the greatest sportscaster of all time. He's certainly the longest-tenured — he turns 86 in November — and yet, by all accounts he still has his fastball. He recently announced that he would return for a 65th season next year, in part because he's energized by the success of the team. With the Dodgers in the playoffs for the first time in four years, many fans will be muting the TV so they can hear Scully, who will only be calling games in his one-man booth on the radio.

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Jeremy Lin fans cheer during a game between the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers in March 2012.

Sports

'Linsanity': For Asian Fans, It Felt Just Like 'Young Love'

12:44pm October 05, 2013

by Hansi Lo Wang

The new documentary Linsanity retells the unlikely rise of Jeremy Lin as an Asian-American NBA star. Now playing for the Houston Rockets, Lin generated global buzz and a large Asian-American fanbase last year as a high-scoring point guard for the New York Knicks.

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Sports

Baseball Swings Into Playoffs

11:11am October 05, 2013

Host Scott Simon and Howard Bryant of ESPN talk about baseball playoff winners and losers. Plus Alex Rodriguez files suit against the MLB and commissioner Bud Selig, and the Cincinnati Reds let manager Dusty Baker go.

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Sports

NFL Commissioner Pens Open Letter Amid Brain Damage Scandal

5:24pm October 04, 2013

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote a letter Thursday to ten million of his closest friends. He wanted to let everyone know the league is doing everything it can to prevent concussions and that player safety is top priority. His letter came the day after excerpts of the book League of Denial, which details how the NFL ignored the evidence linking football to concussions and long-term brain damage, came out. Sportswriter Stefan Fatsis talks to Audie Cornish about this and other NFL news.

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Jamie Moyer, shown above pitching for the Colorado Rockies in May 2012, made his major league debut back in 1986. He says that after decades in the major leagues, he'd occasionally have to remind himself that "in baseball terms, I really was old, but in e

At 49, Jamie Moyer's Pitching Career Goes Into Extra Innings

12:57pm October 02, 2013

In a new memoir called Just Tell Me I Can't Moyer explains how he became a better pitcher in his 40s than his 20s. Moyer's story isn't just the tale of a talented guy who hung on a little longer than others; with the help of a sports psychologist, he managed to gain control of the mental side of his game.

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The Straight Dope: The use of steroids and blood doping traces back at least into the 1970s.

Sports

Love Of Victory In The Time Of Steroids

12:18pm October 02, 2013

by Frank Deford

On Sept. 27, 1988, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his 100-meter gold medal when tests showed a performance-enhancing drug in his system. As Alex Rodriguez appeals his illegal doping ban from Major League Baseball, Frank Deford reflects on a historical moment of drug use among athletes.

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