BALTIMORE – He is just 20 years old having stormed inside a Washington-area beltway from a glamorous hometown where fantasy is the great commodity. Last fall, a baseball team rode his first taste at the major leagues to an improbable postseason.

People marvel at the way he changed from his natural position to a new one in the big leagues. They say the switch was seamless. They gasp at his power. They adore his swing. They watch him now and they project a great future. They believe they were watching one of baseball's next great things.

Except this is not Bryce Harper. The beltway is Baltimore's, not Washington's. The hometown is Miami, not Las Vegas. And the next great player, Manny Machado, plays third base having moved from shortstop. Manny Machado is hitting over .300 and is tied for the AL lead in doubles. (USA Today Sports)

And maybe if Machado was on the cover of Sports Illustrated at 16 or smeared eyeblack on his face like John Randle or ran face-first into outfield fences he would be a bigger deal. He would make headlines. He would lead highlight shows. He would be the

Read More »from Orioles' Manny Machado doesn't need smeared eyeblack, violent crashes to prove he's a phenom

Few men get to say they were the face of a franchise. But from the moment Brian Urlacher pulled on a blue jersey, curled his lips into a scowl and stared with dead eyes into the camera, he became Chicago Bears football.

This is not a simple thing because the Bears have a vast Rushmore of men who were in their time the busts of Chicago football: George Halas, Red Grange, Dick Butkus, Mike Ditka, Gale Sayers and Walter Payton to name a few. Men who defined a style, a culture, a way of life – something as sturdy and cold as the team's stadium on the banks of Lake Michigan.

The Bear of this young century?

Urlacher. There's nobody else.

On Wednesday, Urlacher walked away from football. It was time, of course. He probably should have left at season's end when the Bears showed little interest in bringing him back. Knee and leg injuries had stolen his speed and his power, rendering him less than average. He chased another year and another free-agent contract but thankfully interest was

Read More »from Newly retired LB Brian Urlacher face of the Bears in the 21st century

BALTIMORE – By 6:57 p.m. ET, a little more than half an hour after he was supposed to be on the way to history, Orb was led back to stall No. 40 in the Preakness barn. He wore a white blanket and stalked proudly into the green wooden structure as if he had won the Preakness by three lengths instead of his fourth-place stumble against winner Oxbow.

 Orb shook his head. He sniffed the air. He pawed at the grass as he has every day of his life. He had no idea that the hopes and dreams of horse racing were riding on him. Nobody told him his loss meant there wouldn't be a Triple Crown winner for the 35th consecutive year. All that mattered was that a drizzly evening had a chill and someone had placed a blanket on his back.

"When you go back, Orb will be waiting for his rein and he won't think he did anything wrong," famed trainer Bob Baffert had said minutes before, back in the chaos of the Preakness result nobody expected.

A fading sport keeps lunging for its lifeline. The talk starts

Read More »from No Triple Crown for Orb, the latest horse to fall short of reaching racing's most coveted club

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. – On the first day, the mob came early for Geno Smith. It gathered around the temporary locker assigned to the New York Jets' new quarterback and surged forward in a bloodlust. Television cameramen jostled with reporters who elbowed with the radio men who clutched their hand-held recorders, all angling for the best spot to grill the kid in the red jersey.

The world has had Geno Smith on the ropes since the days before the NFL draft when the reputation of the former West Virginia quarterback went from golden citizen to tactless punk. The criticism has been coming in a fusillade of blows: petulant, immature, unable to lead. Now on Day 1 of rookie minicamp, his first on the field in a white Jets helmet, the mob had come to see if he would crumble.

He stepped to his spot. The television lights clicked on. Camera shutters snapped. Breaths were held….

And Geno Smith did what Geno Smith should have done:

He smiled. He laughed. He looked his inquisitors in the eye. He said

Read More »from QB Geno Smith says all the right things after first day of Jets' rookie minicamp

BRADENTON, Fla. – Inside a gym, at a sports school first built for the minting of young tennis prodigies, a group of basketball coaches conduct an experiment of sorts. This is not an experiment like most experiments, with charts or doctors or a system of controls. Instead it is the testing of a vision, the affirmation of the coaches' belief that there is a right way to build a certain basketball player today.

The two subjects of this experiment stand over 7 feet tall. In basketball language they are "super bigs" – men who loom like sequoias above the rest of their teammates. Only these super bigs aren't men but rather 17-year-old boys. The tallest of them, Meng Xiang Yu, is 7-foot-2 and from China. The other, Satnam Singh, is 7 feet. He is from India. And since they are young and raw and from places where basketball is new, they are blank canvases for the coaches at the IMG Academy, where Meng and Satnam have come to learn basketball.

Because inside this gym the coaches are determined to

Read More »from Search for basketball's next great 7-foot center leads to India and China

The great threat to the fabric of football did not brandish an arsenal of guns when I met Chris Kluwe in his living room in the fall of 2011. He didn't swill whiskey as we drove to his band's practice. Nor did he store PEDs in his refrigerator, instead opting for piles of fruit and a carton of milk. His television was off as it often is because – gasp – Kluwe likes to read.

All of which makes the Minnesota Vikings' release of Kluwe on Monday more perplexing. For eight years, Kluwe was the team's punter. In fact he had been a very effective punter, deadening his kicks as if his leg was a 9-iron. He was a sure-handed holder on field goals and extra points, invisible in the way you want your holder to be. And given the trouble teams have in finding gifted punters and dependable holders, it seemed he would remain the Vikings' punter for a long, long time.

[More: White House removes petition to get Tim Tebow signed to Jaguars]

But the NFL doesn't always respect reliable players who are role

Read More »from Chris Kluwe's release by Vikings sends message that gay-marriage talk is not tolerable in NFL

Apparently the New York Jets couldn't have hated Tim Tebow more. They dumped him on the first Monday after the NFL draft, knowing that other teams' rosters will be filled and the chance Tebow finds another job in the league is bleak.

It wasn't enough for the perpetually dysfunctional half of East Rutherford's two football franchises to drop Tebow from its roster. It had to humiliate their backup quarterback on the way out the door, timing his release to come at the worst possible moment.

The coach who never seemed to like Tebow issued a statement on Monday that thanked him for being in shape, which coming from a man whose most salient comment in the last three years had to do with eating a "goddamn snack" seemed as backhanded a swipe as any. Rex Ryan couldn't run Tebow to the curb fast enough. Then he had to jump on his head.

Tim Tebow saw just 77 offensive snaps this past season with the Jets. (USAT Sports)

All of which would make sense if Tebow came pulling an arrest record or showed up late for meetings or cost the Jets the playoffs with a bad interception. Instead,

Read More »from Why did the Jets want Tim Tebow in the first place?

Fresno State DB Phillip Thomas catches a pass during the NFL scouting combine. (USA TODAY Sports)The Washington Redskins picked a safety named Phillip Thomas from Fresno State in the fourth round of the NFL draft Saturday. What made this ironic is that last year, on the day after the draft ended, they signed an unselected safety named Phillip Thomas.

Except that they didn't.

Because last year's Phillip Thomas wasn't real.

Actually he was real. He was a cornerback from Syracuse who grew up in Miami, who ran the 40-yard dash in 4.56 seconds and could bench press 225 pounds 14 times. And when he wasn't selected in the 2012 draft, he signed a contract with the Philadelphia Eagles. But he also had a very persuasive imposter who created a convincing Facebook page and contacted me several times last spring saying he had signed a rookie free-agent deal with the Redskins.

He posted pictures taken inside Redskins Park with images of a team playbook on a nightstand and inside the club's new practice bubble. At the time it seemed odd but mildly plausible. Teams are slow to release the names

Read More »from What's in a name? 'Skins draft real Phillip Thomas