All stories about "Sports"

Tiger Woods may be sitting the rest of the golf season out due to a nasty knee injury. But just because Le Tigre is taking a break doesn't mean you have to cool off your drive -- how else are you going to learn to crack it 350 yards off the tee? Whether or not you adhere to the John Daly training method and drink a beer before each swing is totally up to you. Sometimes you don't have the time or inclination for a quick nine holes, as you just want to whack some balls around. Here we present some of the best driving ranges in LA- - and yes, extra points if you drill the high school kid driving the ball-scooping truck.

When did tischtennis (ping pong) grow cool? Its roots in Berlin go back to 1899, when the first ping pong verein (club) was established. Members were of the "upper crust" and may have been cool. But the current ping-pong furor seems to be riding on the coattails (or legwarmers) of the 1980s fashion craze (or the upcoming Balls of Fury). "But the 1980s never went out of style in Berlin," you say? True. But in the actual 1980s, ping pong was for squares, something of an underground hobby played on ping pong tables in people's basements.

Football fans will have to wait until Wednesday and Thursday to see who will win Euro 2008’s semifinal match-ups. But, today, they can feast their eyes on Architects Herzog & de Meuron’s revised plans for a football stadium on the waterfront at Portsmouth in England. The “scheme includes a new 36,000 seater stadium for Portsmouth FC, an exhibition center, housing and a waterfront park.” Not too shabby. [Dezeen]

Monte Carlo’s Grand Prix is widely regarded as sport’s most prestigious race. The Formula 1 event features high-end sponsors, A-list attendees, and, of course, a breathtaking setting. This past weekend some of the world’s wealthiest fans of speed and socializing gathered on the increasingly small island for the 66th annual race and watched in awe as 23-year-old Lewis Hamilton post-crash took the Grand Prix prize. Prince Albert II, P. Diddy, Quentin Tarantino, Jay-Z and Petra Nemcova were all on hand in the VIP. Not to mention, Pussycat Dolls alum Nicole Sherzinger (who rumor has it is Hamilton’s amour). Hotels for a four-night stay set you back in the ballpark of $25K.

Does your idea of a fun Sunday afternoon involve crying babies? Then Tokyo's the place for you! Yesterday, the good people at Sensoji temple held an annual event at which sumo wrestlers scare the shit out of babies and the tot who cries loudest "wins." The religious types all think this exercise somehow promotes health and growth for the children. Reuters has a photo gallery of the event that's priceless. [Reuters]

The 2008 Beijing Olympics are still four months away, but they've already started with a bang. Activists who oppose China's occupation of Tibet have been holding huge protests as the Olympic torch makes its customary pre-games lap around the globe. In the past week, the torch toured Paris and London with an entourage of local policemen and Chinese security personnel. In spite of all the guards, protesters forced the torch to be extinguished for the first time in modern Olympic history. If you want to get in on all of the "Free Tibet" fun, the Olympic torch will be stopping in fourteen more cities between tomorrow and April 29th. The good people at Google have made a map showing all of the remaining cities along the torch's route. The tour includes such exciting destinations as San Francisco, Buenos Aires, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and the hometown of everyone's favorite despot -- Pyongyang!

There's still plenty of time to plan a trip to go protest the torch in any one of these great urban oases. Protesters get to meet other cute politically involved types and rub elbows with the world-class athletes who carry the torch, all while enjoying the fun of screaming and flinging yourself at angry law enforcement personnel. So why not fly around the world following the Olympic torch and going apeshit? It's all for a good cause. It's kind of like the civil rights movement, with sightseeing instead of big dogs and high-powered hoses.

Chicago's Wrigley Field is ringed with quirky rooftop baseball clubs. These venues give Cubs fans stadium-quality views in a private setting. The rooftop clubs have existed since the day the stadium opened in 1914, but their presence was endangered four years ago when Wrigley bigwigs threatened to put up screens blocking views of the field if the clubs didn't agree to share their profits with Cubs owners. The rooftops survived the dispute by agreeing to give the ballclub 17% of their profits, but one club owner refused to sign on. Now, the team is threatening to block out the three rooftops owned by renegade club honcho Tom Gramatis if he doesn't pay up by April 15th. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the 14 rooftop clubs made "as much as $18 million last year," and both the clubs and the Cubs have "thrived" under the profit-sharing agreement. [Chicago Sun Times]

Spring has arrived in DC, and that means it's time for everyone to pop their collars, and pull out the old yacht for a turn or two on the Potomac. Sadly, I do not jest. There are youngin's in this town who really do own boats and horses and tennis whites. Here's your guide to playing Buffy and Bentley for a day. Any other sporty spots we've missed? Send it to the tipline.

It's important not to deny your sanguineous urges. Sure, you can push the violent, kinky thoughts to the to the back of your head, maybe go for a jog or watch The View, but it's only a matter of time before things start bubbling to the surface. It'll start innocently enough, with a taste for rare steak and repeat viewings of Carrie. But before you can say "hematolagnia," you're secret cutting in the company Lactation Support Room during your lunch break and stalking Anderson Cooper. So please, let it out kids. Draw it, suck it, donate it, or just roll around in it with a half-naked hot chick. Whatever it takes to stay off the evening news.

Reuters has a bizarre interview with Brian Jones, a banker who ran in the Tokyo Marathon this past weekend. Jones discusses some of the weirder aspects of urban marathon running such as soothing bloody nipples with vaseline and the "amazing" feeling of having "random people on the side of the street" with muscle sprays "start graffitiying the back of your leg." Jones also describes seeing a female runner complete the marathon "dressed as a nurse, or a maid." Sounds like I haven't been paying nearly enough attention to track and field. [Reuters]

Each year at the Super Bowl, the NFL comes prepared with championship t-shirts and hats for both teams. After the game, the league has a program to quickly ship the embarrassing loser shirts out of the country by donating them to charities. Thus, the commemorative hats and t-shirts made for celebrations of a hypothetical New England Patriots victory were given by aid workers to a group of impoverished Nicaraguan schoolchildren. The clothing bears the slogan "19-0," representing the shattered dreams of Boston area sports fans. Since the clothes were meant for linebackers and assorted other diesel football types many of them are sadly oversized for the nevertheless grateful Nicaraguan urchins. (via)

Acclaimed director Steven Spielberg -- you know, everything from E.T. to A.I. -- is "ending his involvement as an artistic adviser of the Beijing Olympics." The bearded & bespectacled Hollywood director was reminded of China's cozy relationship with Sudan and the latter's role in the Darfur atrocities, and hence left his Olympic post after being "assailed" by actress Mia Farrow and various humanitarian groups for working with the games' organizers. [AP]

Los Angeles is full of athletes and has plenty of successful sports franchises, but it has a bad reputation as a sports town. LA loves a winner, but it seems like our population is more interested in seeing local residents grace the cover of US Weekly than Sports Illustrated -- not that it isn't possible to do both. This sort of attitude could give one the impression that we care more about celebrity than competition, but that is not entirely true. There are plenty of sports teams around Los Angeles playing not for fame and fortune, but for the love of the game and anybody doing an Annie Savoy impersonation. They may not have anybody named Kobe or Vlad, but you can still afford to watch them play (even if you're a TV writer impoverished by the strike).

If you're coming to Honolulu for the Pro Bowl this weekend, well, you're probably not an NFL all-star; many players who made the squad are skipping the game. But you probably are staying in Waikiki, as the Hawaiians do an excellent job of sequestering the tourists to that small part of Oahu. Waikiki is one long chain restaurant that starts with a Hard Rock Cafe, ends with a Cheesecake Factory, and has a Planet Hollywood nestled in between. But why suffer at those Pacific outposts of American soullessness when there are local gems worth checking out? And by local gems, I mean dive bars that no tourist staying at the Hilton Hawaiian Village would be caught dead in. If you are residing at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, maybe a trip to one of these spots will redeem your poor, depraved psyche. If only redemption were so easy for my New England Patriots.

The Giants' Super Bowl championship was one of the biggest upsets in football history. It was even better because New York destroyed the hopes and dreams of our rival sports fans in Boston. But the best thing about any New York sports victory is the accompanying parade through the "Canyon of Heroes" -- especially if you're a drunk. At 11 a.m. tomorrow morning, thousands of smashed fans will gather along Broadway to cheer and trash the Financial District with tons of ticker tape. If you want to have a halfway decent view as the team rides by on floats, you should get there at least two hours early, or you can get stay inside a bar the whole time and focus more on screaming with your fellow fans than on seeing Plaxico Burress and Eli Manning do their best beauty pageant waves. Either way, the banking crowd's thirst for before, during, and after work drinks ensures that there are plenty of bars along the parade route that'll be open early tomorrow for your Giants-toasting pleasure. Further wise counsel welcome in the comments or tips.

That's "Super Bowl Sunday" for you monolingual types. Some 93 million viewers will be sitting on their asses watching the New England Patriots and the New York Giants face off for Super Bowl 2008 -- even in France. Le Super Bowl Américain is even more marginal here than soccer's World Cup is in America, but it has a growing fanbase nonetheless. This is good news for die-hard tourists and expat football fans, who may find themselves staying up into the wee hours in Paris on a Sunday night when the face-off starts around midnight, local time. For the third year, those in the vicinity of a TV can watch the game on public television, broadcast live on France 2 -- meaning you can have a soirée Super Bowl in the privacy of your own garret or hotel room.

Major League Baseball hopes to build a 21-story headquarters on 125th Street and Park Avenue in Harlem. The design for the baseball building is described by the New York Times as an "interlocking set of luminescent glass cubes"; the project would be the first major office tower to be built in the neighborhood since the 1970s. It will not however, be the first development planned for the site. Three years ago, a major hotel and retail project was announced for the same corner, but plans fell through. [NYT]

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Beijing Workers' Civilisation Cheerleading Squad. These fun-loving folks have been mobilized by the Chinese government to cheer and spread a positive image of China during the Olympics; training includes swearing oaths and practicing cheers. The Chinese government formed the Cheerleading Squad because of worries that the crowds in Beijing might "embarrass" their home country. While lecturing on volleyball cheering protocol, one official told candidates, "You can also applaud and congratulate the players, but we don't want to overdo it." It's like Bring It On: Cultural Revolution Edition. [Reuters]

Urban Tailgate, every sports lover's dream site, makes it their mission to connect fans with bars showing their home team's games. For the Super Bowl, there's only one game in town, so UT made this incredibly exhaustive map featuring almost every sports bar offering Super Bowl specials in Manhattan. Patriots bars are in red, Giants bars in blue, and neutral bars (though I highly doubt they will be all neutral considering it's NYC) are in green. The map points also explain any relevant specials, menus, cover charges, etc., which range from free buffets to wings and pitchers specials to $30 entrance fees.