NEW YORK (AP) — A new generation of starting pitchers and a self-proclaimed Mr. Clean of the Steroids Era will be ushered into baseball’s Hall of Fame this summer. Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas were elected on their first ballot appearances Wednesday, when Craig Biggio fell just two votes short. Maddux and Glavine will join their former Atlanta Braves manager, Bobby Cox, at the July 27 induction along with Joe Torre and Tony La Russa, also elected last month by the expansion-era committee.
But Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and other stars whose accomplishments were muddied by accusations of steroids use lost even more ground, dropping below 40 percent in an election where 75 percent is needed. And on his first day as a member of baseball’s elite, Thomas said the living members among the 306 Hall of Famers don’t want those with sullied reputations.
“Over the last year, doing a couple of charity events with Hall of Famers that are in, they’ve got a strong stance against anyone who’s taken steroids. They do not want them in. They don’t care when they started or when they did it, they do not want them in,” he said. “I’ve got to take the right stance, too. No, they shouldn’t get in. There shouldn’t be cheating allowed to get into the Hall of Fame.”
Making their second appearances on the ballot, Clemens dropped from 37.6 percent to 35.4 in voting by senior members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, Bonds from 36.2 to 34.7 and Sosa from 12.5 to 7.2. Bonds, baseball’s career home run leader, is the only seven-time MVP in major league history. Clemens is the lone seven-time Cy Young Award winner. “As for what they did, I don’t think any of us will ever really know,” Thomas said. “But I can just tell you, what I did was real and that’s why I’ve got this smile on my face right now because the writers, they definitely got it right.”
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If there’s ever been a greater advertisement for ditching meat and animal products in favor of a vegan lifestyle, we think we’ve found it.
Meet 78-year-old vegan male bodybuilder Jim Morris, who is PETA‘s most senior pin-up. And boy is he a picture of health. Jim posed as iconic statue ‘The Thinker’ for PETA while aged 77, which forms part of his brand-new campaign that ‘Think Before You Eat’.
The ad, which can be seen below, goes on to encourage viewers to “muscle your way to better health” – and a reduced risk of obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes and strokes – by going vegan. Jim says that his health greatly improved after he retired from competitive bodybuilding in 1985 – which is all down to his decision to become vegetarian and, later, vegan.
“The protein in animal products is so laden with fats and chemicals and all sorts of stuff that’s harmful to you,” he told PETA in an interview.
“When I was competing and stuffing down all of that sort of stuff, I had lots of digestive problems. I was constipated and bloated and just miserable all the time. . . . I know as a fact I would not be here and I would not be in this condition now had I continued eating the way I was.”
After changing his dietary habits, he feels better than ever.
He encourages others to adopt the vegan lifestyle, so they can feel as good as he does.
“Milk is for babies”, he says. “Humans, as far as I know, are the only creatures that continue to drink milk once they’ve been weaned. … I think a lot of people don’t realise if they would stop drinking milk and [consuming] all of the milk products, they would say, ‘Wow, I didn’t realise I could feel this good’.”
PETA says: “People who go vegan don’t just help their own health – they also drastically reduce their carbon footprint and save animals from immense suffering on factory farms, in abattoirs and on the decks of fishing boats.”
article via huffingtonpost.co.uk
DETROIT, Mich. — On a cold December day in East Detroit, a dozen kids form a human assembly line stretching across the parking lot of the Downtown Boxing Gym. With strong arms, the kids grab and push boxes of food from the delivery truck. “The kids don’t go without a meal,” Coach Khali Sweeney told NBC News. “Forgotten Harvest, the local food bank, they’ll bring food here for ’em, so we have food for the kids to eat healthy.”
According to a 2010 report, more than half of the city’s households with children under 18 receive food assistance from the state. But that food is just one of the reasons the kids depend on this gym, which is the only building left standing on its city block.
To learn more about the Downtown Boxing Gym, please click here to visit their website.
It is surrounded by a handful of vacant lots and remnants of abandoned buildings, where the kids sometimes run laps at night. “It’s not, like, really safe for us to go out there and train,” 19-year-old boxer Anthony Flagg Jr. said. “But we do it anyway. They say boxing, you’re risking your life.”
For these kids, there are risks both in and out of the ring. Across train tracks, less than a mile away from the gym, there’s a scene of a different kind: a new Whole Foods grocery– a sign of new life for the struggling city. “I appreciate and applaud all the efforts goin’ into […] buildin’ the city,” Sweeney said. “But the residents themselves, they’re not gonna see that for a long time, and they’re still suffering. So places like this is a good place for kids to go. ”
Charvis Brewer, an 8-year-old super-fan of the Memphis Grizzlies, has bragging rights that most children can only dream about. On Sunday, the basketball team drafted Charvis as its newest and youngest member. The ceremony, complete with a mock press conference, team photograph and visit to the locker room, was orchestrated by Make-A-Wish, a non-profit wish-granting organization for children with life-threatening medical conditions.
Charvis has cerebral palsy, a neurological condition that confines him to a wheelchair. His mother, Colissa Brewer, and a home health aide tend to his every need. “It brought tears to my eyes,” Brewer said of the Grizzlies’ welcoming gesture. “I never imagined he would get a chance to do something like that.”
Despite his illness, Charvis attends school and is the kind of basketball fan who can rattle off facts about his favorite team and their opponents. About a year ago, he was referred to Make-A-Wish Mid-South, the Memphis-based chapter of the national organization.
When volunteers asked what Charvis would like to wish for more than anything in the world, he shared his fantasy of being drafted by the Grizzlies. Since then, his mother told TODAY.com, Charvis kept wondering: Would his dream come true?
He got his answer on Sunday when the Brewer family, including Charvis’ sister, brother and stepfather, went to brunch in Memphis, about an hour’s drive from their home in Somerville, Tenn.
At the end of the meal, Memphis Grizzlies announcer Pete Pranica charged into the dining room and called out Charvis’ name. Pranica had great news — the Grizzlies had a supplemental draft and they chose Charvis. Mike Conley, a guard for the Grizzlies and a favorite player of Charvis’, joined the festivities with a jersey made for the team’s newest member. A limousine then ferried the Brewers to the basketball arena where the players awaited Charvis’ arrival.
The whirlwind included eating lunch with the team, watching practice, visiting the weight room and quizzing the players about basketball. Miranda Harbor, director of community outreach for Make-A-Wish Mid-South, said Charvis was thrilled and quickly took his place on the team, even offering suggestions on player positions and strategies.
The team just as quickly embraced Charvis. “He’s a great kid that comes from a great family and is so full of life,” Grizzlies CEO Jason Levien said in a statement to TODAY.com. “We are a bigger fan of his than he is of ours.” Each year Make-A-Wish grants 14,000 requests, more than 1,000 of which are celebrity-and sports-related. While the organization has previously “drafted” children to their favorite sports teams, Harbor said Charvis is the first in the area to join the Grizzlies.
The fun will continue for Charvis on Monday night as he and his family watch the Grizzlies battle the Chicago Bulls from box seats. It will be only the second Grizzlies game that Charvis has attended. This time, though, he will give the players high-fives as they run onto court. His mother said Charvis has been preparing all day for his new role on the team: “He said he’s ready to tell them to beat those Bulls.”
Though Charvis will watch from the sidelines, he is exploring the possibility of one day competing in Special Olympics basketball. For now, Charvis and his family are enjoying the special attention. “It made me feel like somebody else cared,” Colissa Brewer said. “Somebody took out time to do something my baby really wanted to do.”
article by Rebecca Ruiz via today.com
MIAMI (AP) — The only thing that keeps LeBron James up worrying at night is basketball, which simultaneously makes perfect sense and no sense. On one hand, he’s the game’s best player. On the other, he’s rarely impressed with himself. Even after a year like 2013 — when a spectacular wedding, a second NBA championship and a fourth MVP award were among the many highlights enjoyed by the Miami Heat star — he still is, as he puts it, striving for greatness. Or, technically, more greatness, since his enormous list of accomplishments just keeps growing.
James was announced Thursday as The Associated Press’ 2013 male athlete of the year, becoming the third basketball player to capture the award that has been annually awarded since 1931. James received 31 of 96 votes cast in a poll of news organizations, beating Peyton Manning (20) and Jimmie Johnson (7).
“I’m chasing something and it’s bigger than me as a basketball player,” James told the AP. “I believe my calling is much higher than being a basketball player. I can inspire people. Youth is huge to me. If I can get kids to look at me as a role model, as a leader, a superhero … those things mean so much, and that’s what I think I was built for. I was put here for this lovely game of basketball, but I don’t think this is the biggest role that I’m going to have.”
LEBRON DUNK 1: An amazing pass from Wade
LEBRON DUNK 2: Even better catch on this one
Past winners include Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Muhammad Ali, Carl Lewis, Joe Montana, Tiger Woods and Michael Phelps. Serena Williams was the AP Female Athlete of the Year, announced Wednesday.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — Davion Only, the 15-year-old Florida foster boy who made headlines with his heartfelt adoption plea in October, was a guest of Jets wide receiver David Nelson at New York’s game against the Cleveland Browns. Only, wearing a green Jets jersey with Nelson’s No. 86, was on the sideline before the game Sunday at MetLife Stadium with a friend and guardian during the players’ warmups. Nelson also posed for pictures with Only, who was hosted this weekend by Nelson and his charity organization i’mME.
Nelson, who formed i’mMe with his two brothers to aid orphaned children last January, invited Only to New York for “a crash course in Christmastime in the city” after hearing about how the boy stood in front of a church congregation and begged for a family to love him.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press via thegrio.com
Disney is developing a biographical feature film about American track and field hero Jesse Owens, setting up the project with production companies BermanBraun and Netter Films and attaching Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Olympus Has Fallen) to direct. The untitled film is based on the book Triumph, written ESPN host Jeremy Schaap. David Seidler, who won a screenwriting Oscar for The King’s Speech, is on board to write the screenplay.
Set against the backdrop of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Triumph tells the story of how the son of an Alabama sharecropper shattered Adolf Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy by winning a record four gold medals in the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash, the long jump and the 400-meter relay. Hitler had insisted Jews and Blacks not be allowed to participate in the games, but relented when threatened with a boycott. He shook hands only with the German victors on the first day of competition and then skipped all further medal presentations.
article by Dave McNary via Variety.com
Set against the backdrop of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Triumph tells the story of how the son of an Alabama sharecropper shattered Adolf Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy by winning a record four gold medals in the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash, the long jump and the 400-meter relay. Hitler had insisted Jews and Blacks not be allowed to participate in the games, but relented when threatened with a boycott. He shook hands only with the German victors on the first day of competition and then skipped all further medal presentations.
article by Dave McNary via Variety.com
It has been an underwhelming season for the Houston Texans, but eleven straight losses have not gotten in the way of wide receiver Andre Johnson’s yearly effort to bring some smiles to the faces of kids who could use them. Johnson has made an annual tradition out of giving twelve kids chosen by Child Protective Services in Houston on a shopping spree at Toys R Us. The kids have 80 seconds, in honor Johnson’s No. 80, to fill up carts with everything they can grab off the shelves. Every kid teamed up with a Texans cheerleader to race through the store and was guaranteed an entertainment system of their choice and two games in addition to anything else they grabbed.
“I remember times where I wasn’t able to get things that I wanted,” Johnson said, via the Texans website. “It just gives them a chance to go through the store and get whatever they want. They don’t have to ask anybody for it. Whatever they have on their Christmas list they can pick up.”
The Texans website has some great video from the event (seen below), which Johnson has hosted for seven years. The final tab for this year’s event was $17,352, which is a pretty impressive total given the short period of time the kids had to work even if it is a bit less than last year’s total.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A68znmdOaeI&w=560&h=315]
article by Josh Alper via profootballtalk.nbcsports.com
Jameis Winston set Football Bowl Subdivision freshman records for touchdown passes, with 38, and passing yards, with 3,820. (Julio Cortez/Associated Press)
Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston spent the past week on college football’s postseason awards circuit, cycling through banquets and red carpets and trophy presentations. That culminated Saturday in Manhattan, where Winston won the Heisman Trophy, his sport’s pre-eminent honor.
Winston wrapped his arms around the Heisman Trophy late Saturday, after an hourlong television special in which the only suspense centered on how much he would win by. The assembled cheered loudly, and Winston hugged his parents and thanked God. At his news conference, Winston said that he had expected to win but that doubt had remained until he heard his name called.
Last December, a college student accused Winston of rape after a party. The accuser’s lawyer came forward a year later to say that the Tallahassee Police Department had pushed her not to press charges, and the lawyer held a news conference Friday to skewer the investigation. Winston’s lawyer has said that Winston and the accuser engaged in consensual sex.
Winston was not charged after a rape accusation that had clouded his season. Wherever Winston traveled, an accusation of rape clouded the celebration. Florida officials said this month that Winston would not be charged in the year-old case. But as the Seminoles wrapped up an undefeated season and their spot in the Bowl Championship Series title game, scrutiny of the investigation only intensified.
(CNN) — It’s one win for Darrell Wallace Jr., but what will it mean for other African-American race car drivers — present and future? The answer to that question might not come for years. Nonetheless, NASCAR wasted no time Saturday in hailing Wallace’s on-track success at Martinsville Speedway in southern Virginia.
“We congratulate Darrell Wallace Jr. on his first national series victory, one that will be remembered as a remarkable moment in our sport’s history,” said NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France. Wallace took the Kroger 200 on the racing circuit’s Camping World Truck Series, which is on NASCAR’s third tier.
Still, it is notable given that no African-American has won any NASCAR national series race since December 1, 1963, when Wendell Scott became the first ever to win a race at NASCAR’s top level, in a victory at Speedway Park in Jacksonville, Florida. Scott, a Virginia native who served in the Army during World War II, raced in more than 500 races during his career — finishing in the top five 20 times, though that would be his only victory.
Plus, the 20-year-old Wallace isn’t just any driver. He’s a highly touted graduate of the NASCAR Drive for Diversity, having been featured in numerous local and national publications. The Mobile, Alabama, native — who lives in Concord, North Carolina — won in his 19th start on Camping World Truck circuit. In 10 of his first 18 starts, he finished in the top 10. Shortly after the Martinsville race ended, Wallace — using his twitter handle @BubbaWallace — reveled in the victory.
He wrote: “We Came. We Saw. We Conquered.”
article by Greg Botelho via cnn.com