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Ten years of great sports

Boston's road from Loserville to Title Town
Moments after Adam Vinatieri's field goal split the uprights as the clock expired in the Louisiana Superdome on February 3, 2002, the streets of Boston were in bedlam. Drunk people dangled from trees and hung off lampposts. Motorists leaned on their horns. I saw a guy hug a cop
By MIKE MILIARD | December 22, 2009

Hoop nightmare

Len Bias’s death was more than just a basketball tragedy.
It wasn’t quite the world-shattering, where-were-you-when moment as the space shuttle Challenger exploding into cottony plumes earlier that year. But I still remember my naive and dazed disbelief upon hearing that basketball star Len Bias had died of a cocaine overdose on June 19, 1986
By MIKE MILIARD | October 28, 2009

Review: More Than a Game

More than a LeBron James showcase, too
Most know about the rise of LeBron James from impoverished Ohio roots (fatherless and raised in public housing) to mega-millionaire and NBA phenom, so why make a documentary?
By TOM MEEK | October 14, 2009

Love is nothing

Balls, Pucks, and Monster Trucks
Here’s what I know about tennis: if you’ve got love, you’ve got nothing. From love to 15 to 30 to whatever comes between 30 and the sets and the matches, with those advantage points and tiebreakers thrown in, tennis scoring is less intuitive to me than the Cyrillic alphabet is after eight beers, so who cares? But, things change.
By RICK WORMWOOD | September 09, 2009

Big story

Did the Globe drop the steroid ball?
On July 30, the New York Times revealed that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez — heroes of the Red Sox' 2004 and 2007 World Series wins — are on the (supposedly) secret list of a hundred-plus major leaguers who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in 2003.
By ADAM REILLY | August 07, 2009

Review: Zidane: A Twenty-First-Century Portrait

Almost as boring as Major League Soccer
It's an intriguing concept, but they wind up diminishing the French superstar midfielder.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 01, 2009

Barkley edition

Barkley Rules
Thank you, Charles Barkley. Thank you!
By MATT TAIBBI | January 07, 2009

Wu-Tang Clan's essential flavor

Lupo's, January 2, 2009
Fortune magazine once estimated that Michael Jordan has fueled our economy to the tune of $10 billion. Wu-Tang Clan are responsible for the careers of about that many MCs.
By CHRIS FARAONE | January 12, 2009

Eight is enough

Olympians to watch
Sometimes we’d rather root for the unknowns, the underdogs, and the uniques than the professional jerks who are only competing to sweeten their endorsement deals.
By MIKE MILIARD | August 08, 2008

The Baseball Project

Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails | Yep Roc
The smart, funny, fanclub chants herein, each as catchy as Willie Mays in the ’54 Fall Classic, are gemlike tributes to the characters who’ve made that diamond shine.
By MIKE MILIARD | July 08, 2008

The 100 unsexiest men in the world

Who would Scarlett least like to be with?
Welcome to the first installment of ThePhoenix.com's 100 Unsexiest Men in the World.
By BILL JENSEN & RYAN STEWART | March 27, 2008

Young people doing stupid things

Sports blotter: "Carrying a gun to a track meet" edition
“This isn’t fixin’ to stop me,” crowed a defiant Josh Jarboe.
By MATT TAIBBI | March 19, 2008

Bases very loaded

Spurred by fans’ ’roid rage, new books focus on our national pastime’s dark side. Meet baseball’s seven deadly sins.
Even as the sun rises on the new Major League Baseball season, skies are cloudy for the game we love.
By MIKE MILIARD | March 19, 2008

The enforcer

Sports blotter: "Real-life Rocky" edition
Once upon a time, the washed-up hulking athlete didn’t have very many employment opportunities.
By MATT TAIBBI | February 13, 2008

Bob's your uncle

Sports blotter: "Across the pond" edition
When was the last time England was relevant at all in the sporting world?
By MATT TAIBBI | November 28, 2007

Bonds away

Sports blotter: "Barry's indictment" edition
This Barry Bonds thing is going to be a big story, no doubt, but trust me: even bigger news is probably coming.
By MATT TAIBBI | November 19, 2007

Cheating rules!

Why steroids, spying, and all those other sports scandals are actually good for fans
Maybe we shouldn’t lament the sundry scandals that have made 2007 the Year of the Cheater.
By ADAM REILLY | October 03, 2007

Good Shaq, bad Shaq

Is O’Neal’s fat-camp show kind or cruel?
Say this for Miami Heat center Shaquille O’Neal: in Shaq’s Big Challenge , signs abound that his intentions are good.
By ADAM REILLY | July 10, 2007

America Blows

Since George W. Bush took office, the United States has sunk to unprecedented lows in sports and pop-culture domination
The United States of America is a nation with a proud history.
By MIKE MILIARD | June 29, 2007

Playlist: May 18, 2007

Guster singer rates the top five real-life breakfast cereals based on non-animated movie characters, television characters, or Barry Bonds
Mr. T, Urkel-Os, Bill & Ted's Excellent Cereal, and more.
By RYAN MILLER | May 22, 2007

The diamond patriot

Bill Nowlin's Ted Williams at War
The plane shook. The cockpit coruscated with distress lights. And Ted Williams realized the landing gear was stuck.
By MIKE MILIARD | May 16, 2007

Number of the beast

Baseball stats demystified
It’s become the creationism v. evolution argument of baseball.
By RYAN STEWART | April 26, 2007

The 100 unsexiest men 2007: 10-1

These guys couldn't turn on a radio
These guys couldn't turn on a radio
By | April 14, 2007

Natural born liar

“Shots and Beer” lives in persistent denial
If you ever wanted a definition of “congenital liar,” just look at Dick “Big Time” Cheney.
By PHILLIPE & JORGE | January 31, 2007

Toothless

Tiger Woods PGA Tour fails to burn bright
In the 2007 installment of the Tiger Woods PGA Tour , what I found was a buggy, unfriendly experience that left me feeling as unwelcome as a woman at Augusta.
By MITCH KRPATA | October 18, 2006

Gridiron Gang

Got grit
A former college football star turned prison guard trying to make a difference in a juvenile-detention lock-up turns kids onto the game. Sound like a cog out of the feel-good factory? Watch the trailer for Gridiron Gang (QuickTime)
By TOM MEEK | September 13, 2006

You're with me, mousepad

Games we'd like to see
Games we'd like to see
By MITCH KRPATA | August 30, 2006

The tale of the tape

Sports Blotter: Red Sox-Yankees Edition
Okay, so we know what the rivals’ all-time score is in terms of championship wins. It’s written — in hideously-stretched, mustard-stained bold face — on the reeking, pitted-out T-shirts of every 380-pound creep from the tri-state area. Jose Canseco re-enacts a bar fight in his Miami home (YouTube)
By MATT TAIBBI | August 21, 2006

The return of trash talking

Beavis and Butt-head
When French midfielder Zinedine Zidane pounded his bald, rock-hard noggin into Italian defender Marco Materazzi’s sternum during the World Cup final last Sunday, approximately 1.2 billion people gasped in unison.
By MIKE MILIARD | July 14, 2006