ESPN

Colby Cosh on the Sports Guy and the Witch

‘Rutgers has terminated the contract of Mike Rice’

I don’t know much about the Globe & Mail’s strategy for dominating the National Newspaper Awards, but it’s working. They received an outlandish 24 nominations for the highest honours in Canadian fishwrap this year. And 23 of them are probably rock solid! But I believe there’s a problem with the one they’re proudest of—at least, it’s the first piece they mention in their own story on the nominations, and the first item on the list of links they have attached.

Book by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales

Nine prominent bands (including REO Speedwagon!) competed in ESPN’s contest to find the best version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” on the occasion of that venerable tune’s 100th anniversary. Three survive. Winner to be revealed next week. Have a listen.

Some of you may have read in this week’s magazine, a story under my byline in which I refer to the fact that ESPN columnist Bill Simmons reported in his column he received a personal email from Ed Clark requesting that he stop referring to Boston’s TD Banknorth Garden as “Whatever the hell the Garden is called.” I repeated this anecdote as part of a short story in our magazine about the enormous inflation in prices for arena naming rights.