2011 December at LinesMaker

Josh Hamilton Will Continue Tossing Balls to Fans

Shan­non Stone trag­i­cally fell to his death on July 7 at Rangers Ball­park while try­ing to catch a base­ball for his 6-year-old son Cooper. The ball was thrown into the stands by Josh Hamil­ton, who later told reporters that he remem­bers the inci­dent as though it was in slow-motion and could hear Cooper scream­ing for his father. Hamil­ton wouldn’t be human if he wasn’t deeply affected by such a hor­ri­ble acci­dent and nobody would blame him if he never threw another base­ball into the stands. How­ever, Shannon’s mother, SuZann Stone, told the New York Times Mag­a­zine... 

Giants DE Umenyiora Questionable, Wants to Play vs. Cowboys

New York Giants defen­sive end Osi Umenyiora offi­cially is listed as ques­tion­able for Sunday’s winner-take-all bat­tle against the Dal­las Cow­boys, but all signs con­tinue to point to him being able to play for the first time since Nov. 28. The New York Daily News reported that Umenyiora again was lim­ited dur­ing Friday’s prac­tice as he bat­tles back from a nag­ging high ankle sprain. But in con­ver­sa­tions with the media this week, Umenyiora has kept a pos­i­tive out­look in regard to his poten­tial avail­abil­ity for the game, and he told NFL.com’s Steve Wyche... 

Departing Owner Looks Back Fondly on Coughlin Era in Jacksonville

Wayne Weaver is in a reflec­tive mood these days, and not just because it’s the New Year. After 18 years as the only owner the Jack­sonville Jaguars have known, Weaver will hand the reins to Illi­nois busi­ness­man Shahid Khan on Jan. 4. The occa­sion prompted him to share his mem­o­ries with the team’s offi­cial web­site on Fri­day, and the front office of the New York Giants might want to take note of what Weaver had to say about their head coach, Tom Coughlin. “Look at the first eight years with (then-head coach) Tom Cough­lin. It was our most suc­cess­ful time, but we didn’t... 

Nelson’s TD Pass With :11 Left Lifts BYU

DALLAS — Riley Nel­son hur­riedly led BYU to the line with a call from the side­line to spike the ball and stop the clock. Instead, Nel­son faked the spike and then threw his third touch­down pass to Cody Hoff­man with 11 sec­onds left to give the Cougars a 24–21 vic­tory over Tulsa on Fri­day in the Armed Forces Bowl and another 10-win season. “There is a play we have, red alert, that he called on his own, which is a fake spike and then throw a touch­down, or you bet­ter throw a touch­down,” BYU coach Bronco Menden­hall said, smil­ing. “To have a quar­ter­back in that... 

NHL Facing Big Year in 2012

So here we are ready to flip the cal­en­dar to 2012 and there is no escap­ing the feel­ing this is going to be one of the most influ­en­tial and impor­tant years for the NHL in recent memory. The biggest issue con­fronting the league is the con­cus­sion sit­u­a­tion, which is noth­ing short of dire with Sid­ney Crosby, the poster boy for both the league and brain trauma, almost exactly where he was a year ago: out indef­i­nitely, his sea­son and, it’s not too much of a stretch to say, his career up in the air. The scary thing is, nobody seems to have any answers, though the... 

Darren Sproles Closes in on Total Yardage Record

Dar­ren Spro­les closes in on total yardage record Posted by Michael David Smith on Decem­ber 30, 2011, 5:02 PM EST A week after Saints quar­ter­back Drew Brees broke the single-season pass­ing yardage record, one of his team­mates may break a single-season yardage record of his own: Dar­ren Spro­les is within reach of the all-time record for all-purpose yards in a season. The cur­rent record is held by Der­rick Mason, who had a total of 2,690 yards in 2000, when he was a start­ing receiver and the pri­mary kick returner for the Titans. With one game left this sea­son, Spro­les... 

McCarthy Won’t Say if Packers Will Start Rodgers or Flynn at QB

Green Bay Pack­ers coach Mike McCarthy wouldn’t say Fri­day if quar­ter­back Aaron Rodgers will sit out Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Detroit Lions to rest up for the playoffs. “The most impor­tant thing with Aaron is he’s ready to play,” McCarthy said. “It’s impor­tant for the quar­ter­backs; we repped all three of them this week. So I’d like to see all three of them play in the game, is the ini­tial plan as we started the week.” Rodgers didn’t shed any light on if he would take any snaps. “I’m going to leave it up to Mike,” he said. The playoff-bound... 

Son Says Paterno’s Condition Improving

DALLAS — Joe Paterno’s son says his father is improv­ing while under­go­ing treat­ment for lung can­cer that was diag­nosed last month, sev­eral days after he was fired as Penn State’s head coach. Nit­tany Lions quar­ter­backs coach Jay Paterno calls JoePa “a fighter” tak­ing on can­cer as another chal­lenge. He says his father wasn’t sit­ting around and com­plain­ing after being dis­missed by uni­ver­sity trustees Nov. 9 in the after­math of child sex abuse charges against retired assis­tant coach Jerry Sandusky. Jay Paterno said he hopes even­tu­ally that crit­ics... 

Yanks’ Steinbrenner Sued Over Taxes

Updated Dec 29, 2011 7:39 PM ET NEW YORK The Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice is suing New York Yan­kees man­ag­ing gen­eral part­ner Hal Stein­bren­ner over what it calls an “erro­neous” tax refund of more than $ 670,000. The suit was filed Tues­day in fed­eral court in Tampa, Fla. The dis­pute dates to the 2001 tax year and involves a refund the IRS paid in 2009. The IRS says the refund claim was filed too late and has sued Stein­bren­ner and his wife, Christina, to recover $ 670,493.78. Yan­kees spokes­woman Alice McGillion says Steinbrenner’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives... 

Todt on Vettel and Schumacher

Jean Todt, the pres­i­dent of the FIA, and for­mer head of the Fer­rari team when Michael Schu­macher won five world titles has told the Cor­riere della Sera news­pa­per in Italy that Sebas­t­ian Vet­tel could end up beat­ing Schumacher’s records. Of course, as Vet­tel has won his sec­ond straight world dri­vers’ title at 24 and Schu­macher did the same in 1995 at 26, any­thing is pos­si­ble. But what is the real com­par­i­son between these two drivers? There are areas where Vet­tel has not yet proven him­self the equal to Schu­macher, in my opin­ion. One of these...