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Off the Bench

  • The best sports commercials

    America loves a comeback story. With Tiger’s return at the Masters Thursday, Nike has capitalized on the comeback story with a new commercial. The ad features the words of his late father, Earl Woods, playing over a black and white video of a solemn Tiger staring at the camera As effective as Nike hoped it would be, the message falls flat and a little cheesy, at that. 1 comment

  • Lefty erased “Classic Phil” moments

    As Phil Mickelson hit his second shot on the par-5 13th hole at the Masters Sunday, the golf world collectively groaned. “Classic Phil,” we thought. “His aggression is going to screw him over again.” In those five or six seconds after he struck the ball with his 6-iron, the life of Phil flashed before our eyes.

  • So, about that hockey, eh?

    Sunday was a big day for me. Not big in the “my girlfriend is pregnant” way, or big in an “I just got the job promotion of a lifetime” way.     Big in the “Oh my God, I just watched an entire game of hockey” way. 3 comments

  • The keys to a winning March Madness bracket

    Over the years, I’ve put together a solid resume in the world of March Madness pools. I owe it all to four key points: 1. Pick Xavier. Or really, pick a team and commit to them for the rest of your natural life. For going on five years now, I’ve picked Xavier to reach at least the Sweet Sixteen. 2 comments

  • Much ado about Jeter: ‘The Captain’ floods the ESPN market

    As I opened ESPN.com Monday morning, I searched for any baseball news, predictions, columns — anything — to quench my thirst during this long final week of spring training. Imagine my surprise when the first photo I see is Derek Jeter, sprawled out in his signature “jump in the air thing after ranging right on a ground ball” pose. 2 comments

  • The doldrums of February

    The Super Bowl is over, college basketball season for UCF has effectively ended, and baseball is still a couple of months away. And so begins the worst month in the history of sports: February. It’s the barren wasteland in the world of sports. In a sense, though, it’s the calm before the storm. 1 comment

  • The great "sport" debate

    I’ve played three games most of my life: baseball, golf and Ultimate Frisbee. At some point, people have accused all three of these as not being sports. According to most people, apparently, it’s only a sport if you’re wearing 20 pounds of pads and hitting someone really hard.

  • Early picks: Yankees, Phillies the class of 2010

    The frost has barely melted and that wonderful time of year known as Spring Training is less than a month away from kicking in. It’s a bit early to make in-depth predictions, but most of the contending teams are entering camp with a good idea of what their starting nine is going to look like. 2 comments

  • Lane Kiffin is the reason I love college football

    It’s been a great season to be a college football fan. College football has turned into one epic episode of As the World Turns, and most of the hilarious drama has come courtesy of one Lane Kiffin. Lane is the son of NFL royalty. Monte Kiffin practically pioneered the Cover-2 defense and led Tampa Bay to a championship in 2002 with his defense’s menacing play. 2 comments