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Playoffs - Conference Championships SUN, JAN 18 Green Bay at Seattle 3:00 PM FOX CenturyLink Field Indianapolis at New England 6:30 PM CBS Gillette Stadium

On second-and-2 on the Green Bay Packers' opening drive on Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys, quarterback Aaron Rodgers called out an audible that — best guess — had a funny little double meaning. "New York Bozo! New York Bozo!" Rodgers shouted as he scanned over the defense. Hmm, let's see ... who is the most talked-about guest of a certain Cowboys owner? Yes, we imagine this was the Packers' response to New Jersey governor Chris Christie and his infamous red sweater being pals with Jerry Jones and a guest at the divisional playoff game at Lambeau Field, as well as...

Here's how the New York Times' Joseph Durso played the lede on this very day in 1973 ... CHICAGO, Ill. - The owners of the 24 major-league baseball teams took a radical step today to put more punch into the game. They voted to allow the American League to use a "designated pinch-hitter," who may bat for the pitcher without forcing him from the game. The plan will be tried experimentally for the next three seasons by the American League, which has been hurt financially in recent years and has been searching for ways to energize baseball. But it will...

Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning will turn 39 in March, creating speculation that the veteran will decide to retire after the 2014 NFL season. In a recent interview, Manning, who is in contract until after the 2016 season, denied reports suggesting that he is planning to call it quits after this season, saying that all talks about his future at this point should be ignored.

That means that this particular variant of poker, called heads-up limit hold’em (HULHE), can be considered solved. ... A few other popular games have been solved before. In particular, in 2007 a team from the same computer-science department at Alberta — including Neil Burch, a co-author of the latest study — cracked draughts, also known as checkers. But poker is harder to solve than draughts. Chess and draughts are examples of perfect-information games, in which players have complete knowledge of all past events and of the present situation in a game. In poker, in contrast, there are some things a...

The most common debunking of the game with slam-dunking is that everything happens in the final two minutes. And while I agree with the sentiment of this statement, I do not accept that this is the fundamental ailment from which basketball suffers. The main problem with basketball (thank you for asking) is that it’s too easy for the players to score. And this is not what Benjamin Basketball intended when he invented the sport back in the 1890s. Okay, his name wasn’t really Benjamin Basketball (sadly)—it was Dr. James Naismith. B

1988 is when she crashed: “It was nonstop work. The money was rolling in. You have a lot of people relying on you. But I get it, I signed up for the job so follow through – I just couldn’t, I couldn’t follow through. And, I tried to take my life.” Babilonia hit rock bottom. “Once I was getting my stomach pumped, a little light went on saying, ‘You have a voice and you’re allowed to use it. So, girl, use it,’ ” she said. It’s an emotional subject for Babilonia, and some things are still too difficult to discuss....

One of the most gifted and ultimately tragic talents in NBA history has died. Former Dallas Mavericks big man Roy Tarpley, a terrific scorer and rebounder whose career was derailed by drug and alcohol abuse, died in a Dallas hospital Friday at 50 years old.

The date Jan. 9 is significant insofar as baseball is concerned because the objectively wonderful TV show "Home Run Derby" first took to (s)wing. In commemoration of this important day, let us take a look back at the first episode, which featured Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, who, as it turns out, were both good at baseball-related tasks and duties. Come with us, won't you?

Army Sgt. Ryan Patterson grew up a diehard Colts fan. Even living in Cincinnati, surrounded by Bengals lovers, he was loyal to his Colts and Peyton Manning. During his tours of duty to Afghanistan, he would stay up late to stream Colts games online. When Manning moved to the Broncos, he even tried to change his duty station to Colorado in order to be able to watch him play. Luckily for Patterson, his wife Kristen wrote his idol a letter—and Manning decided to respond, in spectacular fashion. Kristen had forgotten to include her contact information, so Manning set about tracking...

All the gory mathematical details are here ==> http://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/418720 (whether the details are correct or not, I cannot say, since I didn't check them myself, lol)

DENVER -- The U.S. Olympic Committee chose Boston to bid for the 2024 Games in an attempt to bring the Summer Olympics to America after a 28-year gap. During a daylong meeting at the Denver airport, USOC board members chose Boston over Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, all of which have been lobbying to become the American choice for more than a year.

Frozen memories, for sure. Frostbite memories, even. In the history of NFL games, none stands out for the brutal conditions in which it was played like the NFC championship on the last day of 1967. Simply dubbed the Ice Bowl, those who participated in Cowboys-Packers that day at Lambeau Field still shiver when talking about it. With Dallas paying its first postseason visit to Green Bay since losing 21-17 on Bart Starr's quarterback sneak with 13 seconds remaining on that frigid day, recalling that game 47 years ago is timely.

J.P. Parise, a former Minnesota North Star and a central figure in Minnesota hockey, died Wednesday night surrounded by loved ones. He was 73. Parise was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer in February. He is survived by his wife Donna and two children, Jordan and Zach. The family released a statement through the Wild: "After a brave battle with lung cancer, J.P. Parise passed away peacefully at home Wednesday night with his family by his side. We appreciate the outpouring of support we have received from family, friends and the entire hockey community during this difficult time. J.P. was...

Jameis Winston, winner of the 2013 Heisman Trophy, has opted to enter the NFL Draft. The Florida State quarterback’s father, Antonor, said his son will forgo his junior season and enter the NFL draft, according to ESPN. Antonor Winston said that his son had initially wanted to announce his plans until after the College Football Playoff National Championship game but, after praying Tuesday night, decided he would acknowledge his plans on Wednesday.

Edgar Martinez, a seven-time all-star, should be in the baseball Hall of Fame, but support for his candidacy has been waning over the past three seasons. “I’m not surprised that my percentage went down,” Martinez said a year ago. “We just have to wait and see for the future.” The biggest knock on his enshrinement is that he played as the team’s designated hitter and thus had little to no impact on the defensive part of the game. However, he still deserves to be in. For starters, the American League has required a designated hitter ever since the 1973 season,...

St. Louis city officials said Wednesday that the owner of the Rams isn’t returning their calls, so they plan to work directly with the NFL on efforts to keep a team—any team—in St. Louis amid speculation the Rams are headed back to Los Angeles. Billionaire owner Stan Kroenke is part of a joint venture that announced plans Monday for an 80,000-seat stadium in the Los Angeles suburbs, a move that could soon return the NFL to the nation’s second-largest market and the home of the Rams from 1946 until they moved to St. Louis in 1995. The move would have...

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers didn't practice Wednesday and might not Thursday as he continues to receive treatment for a calf injury that has bothered him the past couple weeks.

Our elected representatives are confused about crime and gun control, plain and simple. There will never, ever be an anti-gun control law which will have any effect on criminals and the insane. Criminals and the insane will never be controlled by any new anti-gun laws. A sure sign of insanity is when individuals, like our nation's lawmakers, continue to pass the same failed anti-gun laws over and over, expecting things to change, when they never do and never will. Remember that anti-gun laws only impact the law-abiding, and never affect criminals. Remember that it isn't the law-abiding 80 million gun...

It started with a facebook post on December 31, 2014 from Seattle Seahawks superfan Tim "Seahulk" Froemke apologizing for his absence at the St. Louis Rams game. For those who do not know, Froemke is a long-time Seahawks fan who is regularly shown on Seahawks broadcasts and appeared in the Richard Sherman Campbell's Soup commercial. It seems as if the cost of being a Seahawks fan has finally added up to be too much for Froemke though. From his facebook page: "Hello to all My seahulk fans.sorry I wasn't at last game. I'm honestly to broke to go to games...