2012 March at BetLM

Griffin Signs Autographs for Redskins Fans in First D.C.-Area Event

Quar­ter­back prospect Robert Grif­fin III isn’t a mem­ber of the Wash­ing­ton Red­skins yet, but the signal-caller is already being embraced by fans of his likely future team. Three QBs in the top four picks? Chad Reuter says it’ll hap­pen, with the Browns pounc­ing on Texas A&M’s Ryan Tan­nehill. More … Grif­fin signed auto­graphs and posed for pic­tures on Sat­ur­day at the Dulles Expo Cen­ter in Chan­tilly, Va., accord­ing to the Fred­er­icks­burg Free Lance-Star. The event marked Griffin’s first pub­lic appear­ance in the Wash­ing­ton, D.C., area since... 

No Contact for Arkansas’ Davis During Scrimmage

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Knile Davis’ return to con­tact will have to wait just a bit longer for Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino. The Razor­backs took part in their first scrim­mage of the spring on Fri­day, but Davis didn’t take part in con­tact drills dur­ing the team’s first scrimmage. The prac­tice was the first open one this spring for the Razor­backs, who were 11–2 last sea­son and won the Cot­ton Bowl over Kansas State. Davis, return­ing to the field after an ankle injury cost him all of last sea­son, has taken part in all of the Razor­backs spring prac­tices. Petrino said... 

Can Magic Johnson Play Third Base?

Because Juan Uribe is look­ing pretty much cooked. Fresh off an inau­gural sea­son with the Dodgers in which he hit .204/.264/.293 with four homers in 270 at-bats, Uribe is bat­ting .231/.286/.282 in 39 at-bats this spring. It’s also a safe guess he wasn’t the sub­ject of any “best shape of his life” arti­cles after report­ing to camp. Uribe is only enter­ing the sec­ond year of that ridicu­lous three-year, $ 21 mil­lion con­tract that Ned Col­letti gave him last sea­son, so the Dodgers are pretty much hand­ing him a start­ing job at third base. They might well be bet­ter... 

Ryan Leaf: I’ve Made Some Mistakes and Have No Excuses

Shortly after word broke that Ryan Leaf is fac­ing bur­glary, theft and drug charges, the for­mer No. 2 over­all pick in the NFL draft released a statement. “I’ve made some mis­takes, and have no excuses,” Leaf said in the state­ment. “I am using the tools I’ve learned to move for­ward rather than back­wards, and will be open to talk­ing about the details in the days to come. I am con­fi­dent that there will be fur­ther under­stand­ing when the facts are revealed, and feel very blessed for all of the sup­port, espe­cially from my friends and family.” Leaf, who is on... 

New Dodgers Owners Reportedly Have Looked Into NFL Stadium

As peo­ple fix­ate on the pro­posed down­town Los Ange­les and City of Indus­try sites as the top two loca­tions for a new NFL sta­dium in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, one spot nes­tled in the L.A. hills could emerge as a game-changer in the NFL’s attempts to return to Los Angeles. Chavez Ravine, cur­rently the home of Dodger Sta­dium and the Los Ange­les Dodgers, as a home for an NFL team already is some­thing on the mind of the Dodgers’ new own­ers, and a league source recently told The Los Ange­les Times that the buy­ers had pre­lim­i­nary dis­cus­sions with the NFL... 

Moyer, 49, Makes Rockies — and History

SCOTTSDALE — Jamie Moyer showed up in spring train­ing con­vinced he could make the Col­orado Rock­ies rotation. He spent the last six weeks prov­ing his point. The Rock­ies announced Fri­day that the 49-year-old Moyer will make the team and will start the sec­ond game of the reg­u­lar sea­son, April 8, at Hous­ton. Moyer becomes the old­est start­ing pitcher to make an Open­ing Day roster. The announce­ment came on the 20th anniver­sary of Moyer being released by the Chicago Cubs. That was the third year in a row he had been released, hav­ing been sent pack­ing the two pre­vi­ous... 

Braves Name Tommy Hanson as Opening Day Starter

Mark Bow­man of MLB.com passes along word that Braves man­ager Fredi Gon­za­lez has offi­cially tabbed Tommy Han­son to start Open­ing Day against the Mets next Thurs­day. It will be the first Open­ing Day assign­ment of his career. Han­son was lim­ited to just 22 starts last year due to right shoul­der prob­lems and missed the first cou­ple weeks of camp after suf­fer­ing a mild con­cus­sion in a one-car acci­dent. Armed with a revamped deliv­ery, the 24-year-old right-hander has a 2.57 ERA and 6/1 K/BB ratio over his first two offi­cial Grape­fruit League starts. He’s... 

‘Fearful’ Leafs Host Sabres

TORONTO — Fear Fac­tor might be a fun TV show to watch, but it’s no fun when fear has an iron-clad grip on your hockey club. Maple Leafs coach Randy Car­lyle said after his team’s morn­ing skate on Sat­ur­day that “the fear fac­tor around our group is very high right now.” The Leafs will have to quickly over­come that fear if they want to put an end to a franchise-record 11-game home los­ing streak when they play host to the Buf­falo Sabres at the Air Canada Cen­tre on Sat­ur­day night. “When you play with fear, it doesn’t allow you to do the things that come nat­u­rally... 

Raiders’ Palmer: ‘I Am Fired Up to Get My Playbook’

Car­son Palmer 2.0 is set for release in Oak­land this autumn. Palmer failed to deliver the Raiders to the play­offs in 2011, gen­er­at­ing sus­pi­cion the team over­spent by ship­ping a first– and second-round draft pick to the Ben­gals for the now 32-year-old quarterback. Palmer is anx­ious to prove he remains a pre­mier passer in the NFL, an argu­ment that’s dimmed of late. Under new coach Den­nis Allen and offen­sive coor­di­na­tor Greg Knapp, Palmer will be asked to reboot the machine with a new play­book. The Raiders’ offense is primed to resem­ble the Tex­ans’... 

Top Draft Prospects, CSS Talk NHL Comparisons

VAUGHAN, Ont. - Prior to every sea­son, NHL Cen­tral Scout­ing has already eval­u­ated hun­dreds of the top prospects avail­able in the upcom­ing NHL Draft. In addi­tion to metic­u­lous reports that detail a player’s good and bad points, and then shar­ing them with their col­leagues, it’s also help­ful to have those prospects file some paper­work. So, long before Nail Yakupov of the Sar­nia Sting, Mikhail Grig­orenko of the Que­bec Rem­parts, Ryan Mur­ray of the Everett Sil­ver­tips, Radek Faksa of the Kitch­ener Rangers and Mor­gan Rielly of the Moose Jaw War­riors...