Baseball
Georgia's New Peach: Swinging and singing, Atlanta's homegrown Jeff Francoeur leads a pack of precocious rookies who have the Braves tasting yet another division title

Inside Baseball: House of Cards: St. Louis is romping -- again -- but an epidemic of injuries threatens to undermine its World Series chances

Tom Verducci's View: The White Sox might have too big a lead in the American League Central to blow, but their uninspired play this month raises doubts about their chances in October

Tennis
Survivor: New York: For a brutal test of endurance with fiendish plot twists and a motley cast of characters, no reality series beats the U.S. Open, which is about to face the cameras in the wilds of Flushing Meadows

Golf
My Shot: Mat Killen: I can't buy a beer, but I can -- and have -- helped Kenny Perry win on Tour

Lucky to Be Alive: Jacques Gatera and his family cheated death in Africa. No wonder Jacques isn't sweating playing with the pros

Questions For Tiger Woods: The world's No. 1 golfer stuck around to win for the fourth time in nine tries at Firestone and clinch Player of the Year

Pro Football
Unfinished Business: Haunted by their Super Bowl loss of two seasons ago and eager to prove that last year's struggles were an injury-driven fluke, Jake Delhomme and the Panthers are intent on winning it all -- now

Let's Play 17: After missing the playoffs in 2004, these three teams also could rebound this year and get back into the postseason

Inside the NFL: Test Flight: Chad Pennington of the Jets impressed in his preseason debut, but it was his one misfire that most fired up his coach

College Football
Inside College Football: Catching On: Cal receiver DeSean Jackson is one of several standout freshmen expected to give their teams immediate help

The Cruelest Season: After getting booted out of the Big East, Temple is adding injury to insult by playing a backbreaking schedule that ensures yet another losing record

Many Roads To Success: In determining which BCS member schools play the toughest schedules in 2005 and which ones play the easiest, SI kept one question in mind: Is a school scheduling competitive games or automatic wins?

Soccer
Stars of David: Even in the shadow of recent violence, two Arabs have become heroes of Israel's surprising soccer team. Next Saturday, in Switzerland, Israel could all but clinch a World Cup berth in the nation's most important sporting event in three decades

Scorecard
Cable Ready: OLN -- once the Outdoor Life Network -- wants to woo viewers from the glitzy "Worldwide Leader" with a macho lineup that looks a lot like ... the original ESPN

Steve Rushin
Go West, Young Fan: In the Pacific time zone, nobody complains that the World Series is on too late, because any kid can stay up till 9:30 p.m.

Rick Reilly
Here's the Real Crime : Facing six counts of aggravated robbery -- that ought to end a kid's high school football career, right? Nope.