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It was a heroes’ welcome you may have missed. Cheering crowds lined the streets, children on bikes wore polka dot jerseys and two sporting idols waved from the open roof of a polka dot Toyota headed straight to meet the president. Not footballers, nor runners, but cyclists. Daniel Teklehaimanot and Merhawi Kudus were returning to their home country after making history by becoming the first black Africans to compete in…

Danica Patrick’s already found a new sponsor to replace GoDaddy, which announced it would be dropping the NASCAR driver after this season. Patrick announced Tuesday she and Nature’s Bakery have agreed to a 28-race deal beginning in 2016. She also announced a new deal with Stewart-Haas Racing. “They have ambitious goals and they’re going to rely on me and everyone at Stewart-Haas Racing to deliver,” Patrick said in a release. “I…

BOSTON (CBS) — Baseball fans near and far are throwing their support behind Red Sox manager John Farrell, who on Friday revealed he is stepping away from the game for the rest of the season to battle Stage 1 Lymphoma. On Monday night’s edition of Inside Baseball on the WBZ-TV News at 10 on myTV38, Dan Roche and Steve Buckley (filling in for Tony Massarotti), discussed Farrell’s road ahead, and a special…

Sure, you could donate your finest items to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown. But most of those items would wind up in the basement, there, too. Even more spacious, yes, and perfectly climate-controlled. But still locked away most of the time, enjoyed by only the very lucky few. You could piece out your collection – here a bat to the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas…

The thing you don’t expect about playing baseball in prison is that everyone is extremely friendly. The entire roster of convicted felons who suited up for the San Quentin Giants on Thursday seemed genuinely grateful for the opportunity to play against some weekend warriors from the outside: Welcoming us and thanking us for coming upon our arrival in the prison yard, stopping by the visitors’ dugout for pleasantries during the game,…

0 Shares Print Baseball can be slow and safe and polite and, to many fans, just boring. Not the Toronto Blue Jays. They have speed and swag. If you aim a pitch at a player’s head, expect a lingering scowl. Then a home run. And definitely some fighting words. They are the most interesting, compelling and unique team in baseball. For Latino and African-American sports fans yearning for baseball players…

John Trousdale could have walked away from the game of football. Few would have questioned the decision. After all, his athletic future was secure. The Lauderdale County senior committed to play baseball at Alabama on July 9. It was a dream come true for the life-long Crimson Tide fan. Trousdale had the option of stepping away from football to avoid suffering an injury that could risk his collegiate future, a…

The U.S. Tennis Association, NCAA and NFL along with a number of other sports organizations have teamed together in a new ad aimed to educate parents and coaches. The ad warns that kids who specialize in sports early on may not be on the best path for success, and writer Jennifer Wallace agrees. She said that even with the best intentions, parents of young athletes can be misguided. “The idea…

In the 1980s and ’90s, competitive figure skating enthralled me. The sport’s balletic arm movements and glittery-glam unitards, along with its powerful leaps and dizzying triple axels, guaranteed that I’d be seated in front of a TV during every Winter Olympics of my childhood. But not even in my most far-fetched girlhood fantasies did I ever imagine myself on the ice. Early awareness of my athletic limitations aside, figure skating…

One of the reasons I was keen to move back up to my native north of England a few years ago was the chance to go riding out into the hills right from my door, without having to do battle with 20 miles of London sprawl first. Little did I know when I put my bike on the Pendolino back then that there would come a day when I’d be…

BT has signed up Tottenham Hotspur striker Harry Kane to appear on its football shows and in adverts promoting its sport channels. BT has been signing high-profile sport personalities to front and appear on its shows as it looks to use sports rights, in particular football, to take on TV and telecoms rival Sky. The deal, which sees the 22-year-old become an “ambassador” for the online channels, allows BT to…

0 Shares Print Baseball can be slow and safe and polite and, to many fans, just boring. Not the Toronto Blue Jays. They have speed and swag. If you aim a pitch at a player’s head, expect a lingering scowl. Then a home run. And definitely some fighting words. They are the most interesting, compelling and unique team in baseball. For Latino and African-American sports fans yearning for baseball players…

Buy Photo The skyline of Detroit.(Photo: ROMAIN BLANQUART, Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo It’s probably an Olympic record we don’t want, and it’s not marked with any banner or highway sign. But no other city in the world has made more Summer Olympic bids than Detroit — seven — and never landed the games. The closest Detroit ever came was its 1963 proposal for the 1968 games, when it finished second…

0 Shares Print Baseball can be slow and safe and polite and, to many fans, just boring. Not the Toronto Blue Jays. They have speed and swag. If you aim a pitch at a player’s head, expect a lingering scowl. Then a home run. And definitely some fighting words. They are the most interesting, compelling and unique team in baseball. For Latino and African-American sports fans yearning for baseball players…

0 Shares Print At No. 3 and up two spots last week with a bullet, Matt Kenseth was the highest-ranked driver from Joe Gibbs Racing in the most recent edition of ESPN.com’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Power Rankings. Drivers happy to put high-drag packages behind them Drivers’ terse postrace answers showed how unhappy they were with the high-drag aero package tested at the Michigan 400. Matt Kenseth came away the winner…

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(CNN)Whoa, who knew the debate over participation trophies — those awards children get just for showing up and playing sports — would strike such a chord? After NFL linebacker James Harrison took to Instagram this weekend, announcing he would be sending back the trophies his sons, 6 and 8, received “until they earn a real trophy,” parents on social media responded in droves, with the majority applauding Harrison, who plays…

The day before Milwaukee Brewers minor league player David Denson announced he is gay, the first openly gay professional football player walked away from his sport. Michael Sam said he worried for his mental health. The juxtaposition of these two events shows just how far pro sports has to go to accept a gay athlete. Related: Michael Sam says he’s stepping away from football citing ‘mental health’ Just 20 months…

Matt Kenseth drubbed the competition in Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway, giving Joe Gibbs Racing its fifth victory in the last six races. The race triumph was Kenseth’s third win of the year and second in the last three races, as he started from the pole and dominated all day. In winning the 34th race of his career, Kenseth, the 2003 series…