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Thirty-nine drivers and their teams will battle Phoenix International Raceway when the green flag waves at approximately 3:44 p.m. on Sunday. The Good Sam 500(k) can be viewed on FOX, with prerace coverage beginning at 3 p.m. Drivers should be in for much different conditions than when they qualified on Friday. The weather forecast calls for temperatures in the mid-70s at the desert track, or about 20 degrees cooler than…

A strange thing is happening in the fantasy world. A revolution, of sorts. Things started to get weird in fantasy football this past season, when the “zero RB” strategy — drafting wide receivers early and waiting on running backs — gained mainstream acceptance. And now it’s creeping into baseball (without the fun, catchy name), as starting pitchers are being taken in the first five rounds of drafts with more frequency…

A bronze statue at Boston College honors the moment an undersized quarterback named Doug Flutie hurled a Hail Mary touchdown pass in 1984 that helped catapult his struggling regional school to national prominence. A decade earlier, BC verged on bankruptcy. Then Flutie’s last-gasp heave in Miami’s Orange Bowl helped put the university on course to join one of the nation’s richest sports leagues, the Atlantic Coast Conference, and amass an…

Maria Sharapova is only the latest high profile athlete to come up against allegations of doping. Mike Pesca of Slate.com has a few lesser known examples.

RELATED: Full race results   AVONDALE, Ariz. – Kyle Busch calls it a “knack.”   His rivals might refer to the continuing saga of Kyle Busch at Phoenix International Raceway as absolute dominance.   But the record books will show Saturday’s result in the Axalta Faster. Tougher. Brighter. 200 as yet another NASCAR XFINITY Series victory for the Busch juggernaut.   Leading 175 of 200 laps at the 1-mile race track, Busch notched his ninth victory in 20…

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Several dozen people gather under a punishing December sun outside the weathered baseball stadium in this port city 60 miles east of Havana, pushing and shoving in the hope of glimpsing the eight major leaguers who have come for a children’s clinic. Matanzas is the birthplace of Cuban baseball, site of the first game played in the Caribbean and home to many of the country’s greatest players. But proof that…

GRAND FORKS, N.D. — Through the first 9 minutes, 30 seconds, the shot chart got ugly. UND led shots on goal 10-0. UND led shot attempts 20-0. Eventually, the scoreboard turned ugly, too. UND scored four times in the third period to run away with a 7-1 victory over Colorado College in Game 1 of their National Collegiate Hockey Conference series in Ralph Engelstad Arena, bringing the Fighting Hawks one…

Imagine having little or no use of your legs, strapping yourself to a piece of aluminum and racing across the ice on blades toward a competitor who might hit you with a stick. That’s what dozens of men and women who have lost the ability to ice skate on their feet flocked to Wake Forest this weekend to do. It was the first tournament in North Carolina for hockey players…

The phrase “back in my day” evokes a certain fervor among baseball purists. Just ask Goose Gossage. For 91-year-old Donald Trump supporter Phyllis Schlafly, her feelings take that phrase to a whole new level. Schlafly is a well-known conservative activist who endorsed Trump at a St. Louis rally Friday, saying “he has the courage and the energy … in order to bring some changes.” Some of those changes involve Trump…

Before the end of this latest skirmish between baseball’s “old school” and a new generation of players who just want to have fun, let’s get something straight. There really isn’t an “old school” and a “new school,” just old players who view the past with rose-colored glasses and young players who are living in a social media world that magnifies everything they do. Sure, Jose Bautista‘s infamous bat flip in…

FORT MYERS, FLA. – The Tampa Bay Rays will play the Cuban National Team on March 22 in Havana. President Obama will be in attendance, along with Derek Jeter, as well as Luis Tiant and Jose Cardenal to represent Cuba’s legacy to the major leagues. ESPN will televise the game and “Sports Center’’ will be on the scene. The Miami Marlins would have been the logical choice. My guess is…

Eli Calhoun (left) and Cooper Atkins threw no-hitters in the first two games of Simsboro’s baseball season.(Photo: Courtesy photo from Joey Kemp) In his pregame talk on March 2, Joey Kemp was in the business of expectations management. Simsboro’s baseball coach was addressing a team flowing with confidence after seeing its season opener six days earlier result in a no-hitter, and Kemp was desperate to avoid overconfidence against what he…

Some baseball questions answered using analytics. WAR WAR (Wins above Replacement) is a complicated equation that answers the question: “If this player got injured and their team had to replace them with a minor leaguer, how much value would the team be losing?” You can learn more about WAR at fangraphs.com but the equation factors in hitting, fielding and base running. Anything above 4.0 is considered All-Star level. According to WAR, which position…

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The NASCAR Western Swing has reached its midpoint, with the Sprint Cup teams at Phoenix International Raceway for Sunday’s Good Sam 500, the fourth of 36 points races on the NASCAR schedule. Here are five things we learned on a beautiful Friday in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. UNHAPPY HARVICK — Seven-time Phoenix winner Kevin Harvick surprisingly qualified back in 18th place on Friday. “We have just been off in qualifying every…

No. 6 LSU’s six-game win streak came to a close Friday night at Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field after the Tigers dropped the series opener to Ball State, 7-1. With the loss, the Tigers fell to 10-3 on the year, while Ball State improved to 8-7. Due to the rain forecast, the start time of Game 2 of the series has been moved from 2:00 p.m. CT to 6:30…

OAKLAND, Calif. – As the Golden State Warriors headed toward the locker room after the buzzer sounded, head coach Steve Kerr went in the opposite direction to offer respect to Damian Lillard. And while the 128-112 loss stung – especially after his own poor shooting – the Portland Trail Blazers guard appreciated Kerr reaching out to him. “It’s a level of respect considering the fact that he is the championship…