April 02, 2007 | Volume 106, Issue 14

Get ready for a new Tiger Woods

Warm Reception My 11-year-old son is more influenced by your magazine than anything he reads at school. I am so pleased that you did a cover story on climate change (Going, Going Green, March 12)....

AT 26 THE Indians' ace is beginning his seventh big league season (career record: 81--56) and is a major reason SI picked Cleveland to win the AL Central. One of only two prominent...

WHO'S Hot

Who is the best ball handler in the NBA?

Everything bad that can happen in sports is happening to cricket

GENIUS or panic? After months of insisting that Jonathan Papelbon would be a starter—the better to protect his fragile shoulder—the closerless Red Sox returned him to the bullpen. An...

AN OUTDOOR grill said to belong to Boston leftfielder Manny Ramirez went up on eBay, but the claim may have been specious, and the top bid ($99,999,999) certainly was. Tired of looking up the...

The Boys of Buzzer

LOU PINIELLA, Cubs manager, on what he sees in reliever Neal Cotts, who has a 7.20 ERA this spring: "I see he gives up runs every time he pitches."

1 Rank among NBA players of Kobe Bryant's jersey sales in China; native son Yao Ming's is the sixth-best seller.

Belarus's national rowing team was arrested after it accidentally crossed the Ukrainian border while training.

How much does preseason success really mean?

A two-year college in Miami is the most unlikely superpower in college chess

In the NBA it's not just what you score, but also what you wear

TIGERS LEFTFIELDER

Its star shines, but Blades of Glory scores low

The actor plays swimming coach Jim Ellis in Pride

SEVERAL PLAYERS blog at NBA.com, but few do it as well as Gilbert Arenas (www.nba.com/blog/gilbert_arenas). Agent Zero gives an entertaining look at life in the locker room (a recent post explains...

SO MUCH for looks meaning everything in television. Square-jawed, perfectly coiffed Joe Theismann is out of ESPN's Monday Night Football booth. (Speculation is that the reason was his poor...

What to watch and watch for

Nofi Mojidi SILVER SPRING, MD. > Basketball, Track and Field Mojidi, a junior at the University of Chicago, became a first-team All-University Athletic Association athlete in two sports. As a...

Bret Saberhagen coaches with the same intensity that won him two Cy Young Awards

MARK GUBICZA, Chaminade College Prep (West Hills, Calif.). The two-time All-Star righthander and Saberhagen's Royals teammate is an assistant for the Eagles. Their teams play each other on April 16.

Walter Henning excels at an obscure—and ancient—sport

O.K. WITHOUT O.J. North College Hill (Cincinnati) figured to struggle after losing O.J. Mayo, who transferred to Huntington (W.Va.), and Bill Walker, who enrolled at Kansas State. But after...

THE ORIGINS of the hammer throw date to 2000 B.C., when the Celts—just for sport—grabbed chariot wheels by their axles, whirled them over their heads and let them fly. About 500 years ago the...

No lead will be safe as, 20 years after the three-point line was introduced to college hoops, a final quartet of trigger-happy teams takes aim at the title in Atlanta

After his poor showing against Florida in last year's title game, UCLA's unheralded big man has plenty to prove in Atlanta

Only two of the Final Four teams were set when SI went to press, but the tournament so far has provided plenty of drama, including ...

Two springs after his cameo as a Blue Jays outfielder, SI's TOM VERDUCCI was back in the bigs, this time as an umpire for an Orioles--Red Sox game. All he had to be was perfect. (And what manager,...

Giving a lift to a city and a franchise still reeling from Hurricane Katrina, Kobe Bryant improvised a fourth consecutive 50-point night before a record crowd in the last NBA game of the season...

Uprooted from Florida, Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo has found his groove in Vancouver--and he just might shift the balance in the Western Conference playoffs

"I am, by nature, a control freak," Tiger says with a smile.

Olympic Sports The U.S.-Australia rivalry gets a little nasty at the swimming world championships • France's Laure Manaudou is the next Janet Evans

Out for a Spin Carl Edwards jumped for joy last Saturday after winning the Busch Series' Sharpie Mini 300 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. A day later, when the Car of Tomorrow made its debut on...

Water Torture With jabs in the media and close races in the pool, Australia and the U.S. worked each other over at the world championships

1 France's Laure Manaudou is the next Janet Evans. Manaudou (right), 20, broke Evans's world record in the 400-meter freestyle last summer and won the event by nearly two seconds on Sunday.

Future Shock Surprisingly, it was business as usual in the first race using the Car of Tomorrow, but truer tests await at the bigger tracks

An insider on one of the Cup circuit's top teams dishes on NASCAR's hottest topics.

High Stakes The teams with top picks aren't tipping their hands, which makes the run-up to this year's draft all the more intriguing

SI's Peter King reveals what he'd do if he were picking for the teams with the first five choices this year.

GOT TO KNOW you a bit over four days last week in San Antonio as you helped lead Ohio State into the Final Four. Can't remember meeting a nicer, more humble, funnier millionaire-to-be. You are 19,...

AS ONE Iraq war vet starts his career as a pro athlete, a veteran athlete has gone off to join the fighting in Iraq. Former NFL defensive lineman Jeremy Staat (right) will soon start a seven-month...

After serving in Iraq, a Marine is living out his baseball dream

A rowdy traveler roams the world looking for a fight

FOUR DAYS TO GLORY by Mark Kreidler HarperCollins, $24.95, 262 pages

AEROMEXICO At the world aquatics championships in Melbourne members of Mexico's synchronized swim team lacked gravitas, but in a good way. In the diving competition Italy's Marocchi Valentina...

It's up to Landon Donovan (again) to carry the load

READY, FREDDY? Acquired by Real Salt Lake from D.C. United, 17-year-old Freddy Adu (below) will play his preferred position, attacking midfielder. If he doesn't break out this year, it may never...

The costliest racehorse ever has been a huge bust