| Manager: Iverson considering playing overseas By DAN GELSTON 2010-09-13T17:21:49ZPHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Unwanted by the NBA, Allen Iverson is considering playing in China.... hosted.ap.org |
Padres rally in 9th inning to regain NL West lead Ryan Ludwick snapped a ninth-inning tie with a three-run homer, helping the San Diego Padres beat his old team and end an 11-game losing streak ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Ryder Cup 2010: Play restarts as torrential rain stops • More than seven hours lost after downpour at Celtic Manor• 'I don't think we have any rain left,' says tournament refereeThe Ryder Cup will restart at 5pm after seven and a quarter hours were lost due to the torrential rain that hit the Twenty Ten course at Celtic Manor this morning.However, it remains highly likely that the competition will stretch into Monday to make up the lost time.John Paramor, the tournament referee, said: "We restart at five. I don't think we have any rain at all left. We've had the greenkeeping staff out there – there will be a little bit of water in some bunkers."But the forecast is for it to turn quite bright. Sunset is at around quarter to seven, so we may get play to seven."Only four hours of play can be made up on Sunday before the 12 singles matches start just after 11.30am. Unless some of the games are won by large margins, which might allow the competition to catch up, the winners will be decided on Monday.At the moment, Europe are 3-1 up. If the Cup cannot be finished in regulation time by the close of Sunday afternoon then play can go until sunset at 6.43pm on Monday. If it is still not completed by then, Colin Montgomerie and Corey Pavin, the Europe and USA team captains, have agreed that the result will be decided by the teams' standing at that point.Ryder CupGolfJamie Jacksonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
State of the Series: Phillies lead Reds 1-0, look to Roy Oswalt for an encore PHILADELPHIA -- No one was expecting this. rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Harry Pearson: The oddest place in football Wayne Rooney will identify with FC Mustikka's errant superstar, who has rocked Potyan football to its foundationsAs followers of the international football scene will know, this week is an important one in the history of the former Yugoslav Republic (twice removed) of Potya. Indeed, some experts have gone so far as to say it is the most important seven days in the history of this tiny nation – tucked away out of sight beneath the southern tip of Montenegro – since the Potyan Football Association president, Petri Schapp, tearfully confessed on breakfast TV to sexually harassing himself.In the eye of the tornado stands FC Mustikka 57's South American superstar, Simeon Troll. Since arriving in Potya from Go Ahead Troglodytes of Friesland, the ball juggling man-thing from the land of the light fandango has set the republic alight with his mix of flair, pace and badly wired electrical appliances. However, in recent months the scampering galáctico has suffered a dip in form that has seen his performances likened to "a toddler forced to go on a walk with the promise of a big bowl of broccoli at the end of it if he behaves himself".The striker has also been beset with problems behind, to the side and out front of the scene. First came tabloid revelations that he was addicted to sniffing helium, or "Clowns' Crack" as it is known on the street. Suspicions had already been aroused when in post‑match interviews the normally rumble-toned Troll spoke in a voice so high-pitched it made Jamie Carragher sound like an Abrams battle tank.Soon a Troll insider (believed to be a tapeworm) was blabbing to one of Potya's notorious "purple-topped" tabloids that the forward from the land where mutton is king had been sucking up so much helium, "sometimes we have to fetch him down from the ceiling using a boat hook". Another friend close to the source revealed: "Most of the time he wasn't playing or training, Simeon was high – often up to 12 metres."Helium's dangers are well-known in Potya, where it is very much the drug of choice among the nation's young generation of gilded celebrities. Only last year teenage star Bizni Slott, who won "Balkan Fame Pimp 2008" by eating her own face, floated out of a skylight after a hard night's partying and was shot down by a Bulgarian MiG-29 fighter, a few miles north of Plovdiv.Police who raided Troll's mink-lined mansion a week after the story of his addiction broke found the striker desperately attempting to flush seven novelty balloons down the toilet. Officers confirmed they had found helium-filled fairground toys in his house with a street value of €47.Potyan magistrates – who traditionally take a lenient approach to anyone they would like to be photographed alongside so they can pretend to other members of the Rotary Club that they are big mates – have ordered the South American to live with "a nice old lady" for seven weeks as punishment, with the proviso that failure to put a coaster under his coffee mug may result in them calling him back to tut at him more in disappointment than anger.Troll's boss, the 108-year-old Turki Neka, is reported to be fuming about his striker's antics. Fuming, of course, is Neka's natural state, for the Mustikka coach is a fire-breather of the old school, thanks to a tough upbringing, a unique gastric system and a strict diet of garlic and industrial alcohol. His "blow torch" treatment of errant stars is legendary, "He'd start bellowing at you from a few feet away," recalls one ex-player. "Next thing you know – the click of a lighter – and your ears would be bubbling like the topping on a moussaka. I've seen Neka reduce 6ft 6in centre-backs to piles of jelly. Literally."Neka's mood has hardly been improved by the arrival on the Potyan scene of Pina Colada, the Israeli super agent, as Troll's coconut-scented representative-on-earth. Colada has slapped in contract demands for his client that include "a million times infinity recurring US dollars a week, plus a Zeppelin (helium filled), Burkina Faso, a personal visit from the pope and/or Bono and no crusts on any of my sandwiches ever again".The main sticking point, however, is likely to be image rights. Here perhaps Troll has reason to be wary. Three seasons ago another great star of Potyan football, Svenbo Larsson – "the pizza-cheeked assassin" – engineered a move to Barcelona, only to find his contract with Mustikka compelled him to leave his face in Potya until he was 40.That surprised few observers at the time since the man who had negotiated Larsson's contract was Mustikka's owner, Tribor Mint, the most powerful and unscrupulous beast in Potyan football. Recently Mint has had to step back from direct control of the club having been implicated in the Fifa "meat for votes" scandal.As hardly needs repeating here, Mint's part in the corruption farrago rested entirely on a homonym-inspired error that led him to offer the German FA a side of pork and two kilograms of liver sausage for Berti Vogts. Franz Beckenbauer turned down the offer flat, though whether on moral grounds or – as Mint himself claims – because he was "holding out for some gammon steaks and a tub of head cheese" will be the subject of a vigorous investigation by the Fifa ethics committee just as soon as they finish grilling all the chops.Harry Pearsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |