In the history of professional sports, few athletes have had the kind of up-and-down season that Washington Nationals pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg is having right now.

When Strasburg, the No. 1 pick in the ’09 MLB Draft, made his big-league debut in June, he exceeded the hype surrounding his arrival by striking out 14 batters in seven innings while picking up a win. Strasburg was the talk of baseball throughout summer, but earlier today, the Nationals announced he needs Tommy John surgery on his right elbow and will likely miss the next year. Read More »

The thing about Robert Horry that a lot of people didn’t appreciate: He wasn’t just knocking down one huge shot here or there at random intervals, he could take over an entire fourth quarter of a game by hitting multiple huge shots. As the 2010 version of Big Shot Rob, Derek Fisher reached that next level during the Lakers win over the Celtics in last night’s Game 3 of the NBA Finals … Kobe dominated the majority of a disjointed, ugly game that would have driven some basketball purists to hit the Crown Royal pretty hard, but for the first 10 minutes of the fourth quarter, Kobe couldn’t make a shot. That’s when Fisher (15 pts) took over, scoring 11 in the quarter on a series of fullback-style drives and last-ditch jumpers to beat the shot clock. Read More »

Trust, you won’t find anybody on the Celtics complaining about the NBA Finals 2-3-2 format. With a squad of veterans who probably need to play up-tempo every game to win this series, a long stretch at home is just what they need. It’s especially huge for Kevin Garnett, who struggled in L.A. (11.0 ppg, 4.0 rpg), but with a week’s worth of sleeping in his own bed and eating some home cooking, should see an improvement. And apparently the Celtics left Mike Finley behind in Boston for those first two games, so they can dust him off now … As for the defending champs, everybody is making this trip about Kobe and his legacy, but what they really need is for Lamar Odom and the bench mob to step up. Read More »