Lowlight Reel
WHICH ONE'S MINE?
On the 14th hole in the second round of the Tour Championship, Rory McIlroy's tee shot ricocheted off a tree and landed in the pocket of a spectator's shorts.
GIVING BASKETBALL TWO BLACK EYES
Metta World Peace, who began life as Ron Artest, announced he was changing his name once again, this time to The Pandas Friend.
IT'S NEVER THE CRIME, IT'S THE COVER-UP
Broncos practice-squad player John Boyett allegedly head-butted a cab driver, stole a shovel from a construction site and then attempted to hide from police by burying himself in mulch.
WALK ME UP BEFORE YOU GO-GO
For his walk-up song, A's outfielder Josh Reddick chose "Careless Whisper," by Wham!
NUMBER TWO HANDICAP
Police were called to High Bridge Hills golf course in New Jersey after someone defecated on the 17th fairway.
GRAND THEFT BLOTTO
Following a Manchester United loss, a drunken supporter in England called the police emergency number 999 to report a crime. "The crime," he said, "is that Manchester United were absolutely knackered."
THE CROWD WAS ELECTRIC
Adam Jones of the Orioles said police should "tase the living s--- out of" any fan who runs onto the field.
PERHAPS THEY TASED THE LIVING S--- OUT OF HIM
A fan who ran onto the pitch at a West Ham soccer match in London managed to take—without breaking stride, while being chased by a security guard and having consumed five pints of lager—a beautiful free kick that curled over the defensive wall before being saved by the West Ham keeper.
RUN-ON SENTENCING
In fining the 22-year-old who ran onto the pitch, Judge Gareth Branston said with apparent admiration, "You did bend it like Beckham.... The professional footballer who followed you did not do any better."
PUBLIX ENEMY NUMBER ONE
Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston was cited for shoplifting crab legs from a Tallahassee grocery store.
IT WASN'T JAMEIS WINSTON
A Philadelphia Eagles fan stole the prosthetic leg of a Vietnam veteran who was sitting outside Lincoln Financial Field.
A ONE-LEGGED MAN IN AN ASS-KICKING CONTEST
Madison Square Garden security officials ejected a fan for allegedly striking another spectator with his prosthetic leg.
YOUR FREUDIAN SLIP IS SHOWING
A Fox News anchor introduced highlights of the NCAA basketball title game with, "The UConn Huskies are the 2014 NAACP national champs."
PINSTRIPE SUIT
A fan caught on camera as he slept through a Yankees--Red Sox game in the Bronx sued ESPN, Major League Baseball, the Yankees and the game announcers for $10 million over the "severe emotional distress" he suffered as a result.
ARE THOSE UNDERPANTS IN YOUR UNDERPANTS?
Cowboys running back Joseph Randle was arrested in Frisco, Texas, for allegedly shoplifting cologne and underwear.
OF COURSE HE DID
Randle signed an endorsement deal with a company called MeUndies.
NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE
A month before the Wildcats lost the national championship game to Connecticut, a 22-year-old Kentucky basketball fan got 2014 NATI9NAL CHAMPIONS UK tattooed on his right calf.
HOPE HE GOT TO KEEP THE TROPHY
Table tennis star Zhang Jike celebrated his World Cup win in Düsseldorf by kicking down advertiser boards, for which they withheld his $45,000 prize money.
WHY THE LONG FACES?
Wes Welker won $57,000 at the Kentucky Derby, but a malfunctioning tote machine caused Churchill Downs to overpay the Broncos' receiver by $14,000.
DEFYING THE NEIGH-SAYERS
Jose Canseco tweeted, "At my fastest I could easily beat any horse around the bases."
BUT HE SURVIVED
One of the authors of Fiesta: How to Survive the Bulls of Pamplona was subsequently gored by a bull at Pamplona.
ALSO KNOWN AS A SASKATOON SCAVENGER HUNT
Visitors to Team Canada's Olympic headquarters in Sochi could scan their Canadian passports to unlock a refrigerator that held Molson beer.
GOLDMEMBER
Dutch soccer star Arjen Robben praised manager Louis Van Gaal at the World Cup, saying, "Maybe Louis does have a golden willy."
HE DOESN'T KNOW WHEN GRADUATION IS, EITHER
Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari tweeted birthday greetings to his daughter Megan who tweeted back that it wasn't her birthday.
UNTIED STATES
The NBA fined J.R. Smith of the Knicks $50,000 for his serial efforts to untie opponents' shoelaces.
PUTIN ON THE RITZ
Russia spent $50 billion on the Sochi Olympics.
CITIUS ALTIUS SCANDALOUS
Russian hockey star Alex Ovechkin was asked what a gold medal in that sport would have meant to his country and he replied, "It means gold only costs $50 billion."
FOLLOWED BY A 77-DAY HANGOVER
The Chicago Sun-Times examined Harry Caray's tax-deduction diary from 1972 and discovered the legendary broadcaster spent 288 consecutive days that year drinking in bars.
LA FIFA LOCA
FIFA, soccer's international governing body, commissioned an investigation into its own corruption, kept the ensuing report secret, then publicly cleared itself of wrongdoing despite the protests of the very investigator it had hired in the first place, whose appeal against the findings was rejected.
ERRIN' ROGER
A TMZ reporter asked NFL commissioner Roger Goodell how the league was unable to obtain security video of Ray Rice punching his wife in an elevator when TMZ got it with just "one phone call."
TMZ 1, NFL 0
HBO's John Oliver said of Goodell, "You know that things are not going well when you lose the moral high ground to a TMZ reporter."
SMOKEY THE UNBEARABLE
The Adirondack Flames of the American Hockey League introduced its new mascot, Scorch, in a video depicting the cuddly fireball apparently overwhelming a firefighter.
NEWS LEAK
The wife of Alex Rodriguez's "estranged cousin and alleged steroid mule" told the New York Daily News that A-Rod once urinated on a wall of her house in what the News called an effort "to mark his territory."
TALLADEGA NUTS
A drunk NASCAR fan climbed atop the arched catch fence above Turn 4 at Richmond International Raceway during the Federated Auto Parts 400 and sat there, shirtless, before being arrested.
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW SLOW YOU WERE GOING?
A North Carolina state trooper who reportedly had his foot run over by a golf cart driven by a man escorting NBC analyst Roger Maltbie around Pinehurst during the U.S. Open chased down the cart and handcuffed the driver, who was charged with driving while impaired.
MICROSCREW
Two fans at an Idaho Steelheads minor league hockey game noticed that the $7 large beer cups and the $4 regular beer cups at CenturyLink Arena held the same amount.
WITH OR WITHOUT A CANADIAN PASSPORT
A draft beer at the Super Bowl cost $16.
GOOD CALL
Former Sunderland manager Roy Keane recalled in his memoir trying to sign Robbie Savage away from Blackburn Rovers: "I got Robbie's mobile number and rang him. It went to his voice mail, 'Hi, it's Robbie—whazzup!' like the Budweiser ad. I never called him back. I thought, I can't be f------ signing that."
T MINUS
The Colorado Rockies gave away 15,000 Troy Tulowitzki shirseys at Coors Field with the name of their star shortstop misspelled Tulowizki.
NUMBER 1 FAN
Cubs president Theo Epstein told CSN Chicago he was so eager to sign avid hunter Jon Lester, "I was ready to soak myself in deer urine, if necessary."
IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME
Marlins general manager Dan Jennings traded Marlins reliever Dan Jennings to the White Sox for a player not named Dan Jennings.
TWO RELIEVERS, RELIEVING THEMSELVES
Hours after the Angels traded Ernesto Frieri to the Pirates for Jason Grilli, the two relief pitchers, en route to their new teams, met by chance at adjacent sinks in an O'Hare airport men's room.
SETH ROGEN SENT HIS REGRETS
Dennis Rodman sang "Happy Birthday" to Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.
23
Extra Mustard
24
Faces in the Crowd
25
Dan Patrick
Terrell Suggs
GO FIGURE
2
PLAYERS IN OREGON STATE HISTORY TO RECORD TRIPLE DOUBLES—BOTH NAMED GARY PAYTON. THE ELDER PAYTON, A HALL OF FAMER, HAD 20 POINTS, 14 REBOUNDS AND 11 ASSISTS IN A 1988 GAME; HIS SON, GARY PAYTON II, HAD 10 POINTS, 12 REBOUNDS AND 10 ASSISTS IN A DEC. 15 WIN OVER GRAMBLING STATE.
$664,667
Amount that German soccer star Marco Reus was fined for driving without a license for the past three years. It is believed to be one of the biggest fines of its kind in that nation's history.
31
Length, in minutes, of the rain delay at Brooklyn's Barclays Center on Dec. 16 during a game between the Heat and the Nets; a new roof being installed at the two-year-old arena started leaking late in the first quarter. After it was repaired, Miami went on to win 95--91.
THEY SAID IT
"It's because people are idiots, that's why."
Steve Kerr
Warriors coach on why there is so much demand for star players to take the last shot.
THREE ILLUSTRATIONS
ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRETT AFFRUNTI
PHOTO
PETER READ MILLER FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (PAYTON)
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MOSTAFA FAWZY/FOTOLIA.COM (MONEY)
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SKIP O'DONNELL/GETTY IMAGES (UMBRELLA)
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ANDREW D. BERNSTEIN/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES (KERR)