Could there ever be a better story than Josh Hamilton taking care of this boy?
The truth is Hamilton needs the boy more than the boy needs Hamilton.
As a father figure, Hamilton has something bigger than himself to look after and more meaning in his life.

Mention the word contraction in American sports circles and many fans will shudder. It was this word that was mentioned in the mid-90s by Major League Baseball in hopes of dissolving teams in markets that made little money. However, MLB ...
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Yes, you read that right. Southern California's own Landon Donovan, a Redlands native, is ranked three places higher than global superstar and part-time underwear model David Beckham on the just released Bloomberg Businessweek Power 100 list of the most powerful professional athletes in American sports.

The Name on the Front of the Jersey

"In most American sports, fans have learned to block out the countless corporate partnerships inked by their favorite teams. Only the most deranged of fans knows the identity of the Official Ambulance Provider of the New Orleans Saints, or choose a cell phone carrier based on who bought naming rights to their team's arena.

Photo by ISIphotos.com

With every passing year, the format for the MLS All-Star Game seems to continue to be a point of contention among fans and media, but even with that, the 2012 version won't be providing any drastic changes.

While officially awarding this year's game to Philadelphia, the league announced that it will maintain its unique MLS vs.

Former Boston Breakers (WPS) General Manager, Andy Crossley, runs a great site called Fun While It Lasted where I love to go to see the great history and information he digs up about minor league franchises that have come and gone in the American sports landscape. I especially enjoy anytime he posts something regarding soccer teams that once played in the D.

It should come as no surprise but it's being reported that Liverpool will tour the USA this summer and play a match at Fenway Park which is the home of the Boston Red Socks.

New owners are looking to tap into the huge base of American sports fans which would be great for club support and reaching potential sponsors.

Serena Williams goes for another Grand Slam starting this week.
She looks primed and ready.
Check out her practice video.
One of the greatest modern American athletes is gunning for a 14th Major tennis tournament.
She has been everything possible in American sports.

Arlo White now has his boots in the booth for NBC Sports Networks, and his successor behind the microphone for Seattle Sounders FC has been revealed.

I'm sure Ross Fletcher will do a bang-up job, and I'm truly intrigued to observe how Kasey Keller makes the transition from player to TV analyst, especially considering he's in the starting blocks at one of Major League Soccer's more important and higher profile regional broadcast positions.

Spend too much time examining the MLS scheduling format and the philosophies therein, and one will inevitably fall down a logical rabbit hole - though, to be fair, this doesn't differ significantly from other "major-league" North American sports.

MLS version 3.0, or 2.1, or whatever we are up to, has become all about "local rivalries", or so it seems.

It is virtually impossible to forecast the next misdemeanour, potential or otherwise, to emerge from Port Vale's boardroom, without descending into the realms of bad-taste fantasy (one of the major protagonists revealing themselves to be a woman trapped in a man's body, for example).

Presumably believing Christmas to be "a week to bury bad news," Vale chairman Peter Miller informed everyone, including all fellow board members apparently, that he'd re-mortgaged the club's Vale Park ground to facilitate a £277,000 loan covering "short-term" cashflow problems, caused by the collapse of the much-vaunted "investment deal" with American sports turf firm Blue Sky International (BS).

Angelina-Jen: A Derby for the Ages I'm staunchly opposed to the Americanization of football. I don't want overtime, shootouts, substitutions on the fly, bigger goals or shorter fields. I don't want instant replay, playoffs or field turf.
There's a lot of don'ts and won'ts in there. There are also exceptions to every rule.

Kermit the Frog didn't give us the entire truth. While it might not be easy being green it seems even a touch more difficult being Forever Orange. Houston might be one of the more unlovable clubs in the league stretching back to 2006 with their origins birthed to the detriment of the city of San Jose and its an original MLS franchise.

HRH Kofi Sarkodie is at it again, wrapping up the European adventures of both himself and teammate Will Bruin with the Generation adidas team in the Netherlands.

And here you thought with that title that I was going to write about Landon Donovan heading back to Everton. Well, for Ginge's sake, I hope Donovan kicks ass across the Mersey.

For fans of American Sports, even at the college level, there is usually only one prize.

The players and teams in the major leagues may win their division and their conference but it means nothing if they don't win the ultimate prize and lift the Championship trophy. In England the phrase 'We can concentrate on the league' is a very familiar one and can be used in one of two ways.

Once again FOX is promoting its English Premier League coverage as part of its Sunday sports package. The network is offering a high profile match-up (Arsenal/Manchester United) on the FOX mother ship as part of the lead-up to the network's live broadcast of the NFC Championship. As we have reported, the network has seen great ratings from its re-broadcasts of the EPL and the live telecasts promises to generate an even larger audience.

As the (Acting) President of the Alliance Council, I've heard plenty of skepticism about the Alliance, whether it truly represents "Democracy in Sports" or not, and whether or not it is - or can be - a true voice for fans and a way for them to take some control in the operation of the Sounders.
I share some skepticism.

BARCELONA -- If you love sports, you appreciate the night game.

None of us know why, exactly, but there's just an allure and mystery attached to matches under the bright lights.

Well, in Barcelona, when they say "night game," they are definitely not messing around.

BARCELONA -- If you love sports, you appreciate the night game.

None of us know why, exactly, but there's just an allure and mystery attached to matches under the bright lights.

Well, in Barcelona, when they say "night game," they are definitely not messing around.

It seems like only yesterday to me when former Real Madrid, Man Utd, and England midfielder David Beckham was introduced to the soccer community in the USA with great pomp and circumstance befitting an idolized movie star but here we are, five years later, following the Galaxy's 1-0 win over the Houston Dynamo in the MLS Cup Final yesterday, on the brink of bidding farewell to the biggest star name to play in Major League Soccer to date.

Here I sit watching television and waiting for coverage of the 2011 MLS Cup to start. I am hoping that Americans have a pregame show to watch. TSN2 is showing a heart wrenching documentary about a former basketball player who battles serious addiction problems. A worthy show I am sure, but hardly designed to get your mind into a "big game" mode.

Photo by Howard C. Smith/ISIphotos.com

By AVI CREDITOR

CARSON, Calif. -- Standing atop the winner's podium following MLS Cup is nothing new for Los Angeles Galaxy coach Bruce Arena and Houston Dynamo coach Dom Kinnear. Whichever one gets the opportunity to do that again following Sunday's final, though, will make history in the process while further etching his name in U.

That the 2012 Major League Soccer season will be unbalanced comes as little surprise. The surprise is that MLS' Board of Governors decided to go with the least balance they could thereby creating enormous strength of schedule differences both for the overall standings and within the Conference. When MLS Executive Vice-President Nelson Rodriguez says "We have established a fair and compelling format for the 2012 season," one must wonder what the definition of fair is that he's using.

MLS is good enough, talent-wise, to be more popular with sports fans in the U.S. than the English Premier League and other world leagues.
Even though these other leagues may have superstar players and better overall play from top tier teams, sports fans should be able to have a deeper appreciation for MLS due to the history of outstanding relationships built by American sports teams.

Lower division football in the United States of America has been going through some difficulties of late, with some difficulties that will sound familiar to some of our British readers. Elliott Turner reports on the peculiar case of the RGV Grandes.

What if we could create a Frankenstein football league that patched together the worst parts of English and American sports?

Reports that Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has opened talks with the club over a new contract will come as no surprise to the Reds' loyal fans.
Few players command such respect, or hold a position of similar responsibility, at any club around the World, let alone in England, and it's something that the club's American owners have been quick to realize.

So the playoffs are impending, and it hasn't escaped notice that the way it worked out this year is just plain wrong. Playoffs, however, are here to stay and especially because schedules are likely to become unbalanced. So how do we set up playoffs so that playing better is always rewarded?

In my opinion, the biggest problem with the playoff system as it stands is what this year's playoffs highlight: the possibility that superior teams will face off prematurely, thereby eliminating better teams while inferior teams skate by against equally inferior opposition.

Late Thursday, the Philadelphia Union announced that SportsRadio 610 WIP would broadcast 17 of the team's 2012 matches live on the radio. Those of you who read the match previews will note that this is something PSP has been pushing for as strongly as passive aggression allows.

The details are not all in, but here is what we know:

• 17 games will be broadcast on WIP
• They may be home games, they may be away games.

The difference between MLS and most other major American sports leagues is that two teams with losing records can play a low scoring game in the rain and have it be one of the most exciting games of the year. ...
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Despite a season that will most likely go down as one of the biggest disappointments in American sports history, the New York Red Bulls (NYRB) will have head coach Hans Backe stay for the 2012 MLS season, according to General Manager (GM) Eric Soler.

New York Daily News sports writer Stefan Bondy tweeted that Soler told him that Backe "will return next season regardless of if the team qualifies for the playoffs.

I started thinking about this question again in the wake of some recent comments by Dennis Bergkamp about what's going on at Arsenal. He stated his views about tactics, a need for a true goal scorer, and Patrick Vieira. Naturally, this led a few writers to wonder if Bergkamp would be a good future manager at Arsenal.

Football is as financially unfair a sport as any in the world. Ian Ayre, Liverpool's Managing Director, hates this. Ian Ayre believes it could be more unfair. American sports lead the way in the distribution of profit, keeping their leagues exciting and stable. They not only share television rights but merchandising and tickert sales.

Happy Friday to you! This past week saw some interesting happenings in Major League Soccer, not the least of which was New York actually winning a game... against the LA Galaxy no less. We also saw Real Salt Lake fall to the Vancouver Whitecaps and Seattle became three time champions of the US Open Cup.

B.C. These letters can mean a number of different things. In mainstream American sports, Boston College immediately comes to mind, primarily as a college football mainstay. For the non-sport initiated, B.C. used to be a time annotation. It was meant ...
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Uh oh, the hand is going to the back pocket, is he really...

No way!

While ejections exist in the traditional American sports, their versions have nothing quite like the impact of soccer's red card, because they all allow you to replace the ejected player. That means that despite the loss of the player, the team can still carry on with standard play.

Canadian author James Grossi writes for The Blizzard and at his blog, Partially Obstructed View.

As MLS grows towards its twentieth club in the coming years there is a risk of losing the balanced schedule. Comments by Commissioner Don Garber intimated that perhaps such a pure form would have to be set aside in order to accommodate the expanded league.

Welcome to TGIF, Thank Gooner it's Friday, which was derailed by a major computer crash courtesy of Microsoft windows 7 Ultimate, which even they were unable to fix. But seeing as it Saturday, perhaps I should use Berg10's suggestion of TGIS! TGIt's Saturday? There is so with so much going on in the world at the moment, but I am going to concentrate yet again upon the plight of Arsenal Football Club and it's beleaguered Board, as they retreat into the Laager.

This weekend, Port Vale's board are due to publish answers to 141(141!) questions from fans about a proposed multi-million pound investment by American ‘sports construction' firm ‘Blue Sky International.' A full Vale article on this site will follow that publication. But there was a Vale vignette this week, demonstrating the mistrust which pervades the club and looks likely to do so for a while yet, whatever the investment.

- Jason Davis
As one of those interminable people constantly worried about the popularity of soccer in the United States, I should be thrilled that Fox is giving the sport a run on their flagship over-the-air behemoth of a network starting this Sunday. Manchester United and Chelsea will be shown, on tape delay, right smack in the middle of the usual National Football League window.

The Need For Advanced Football Stats - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

As a sports fan living in America, you're bombarded with statistics of increasing complexity across every sport except football (or soccer, as the US calls it). Media analysis of football still relies on the same statistics we've seen for years, which are generally cumulative totals.