Sports

SAN FRANCISCO--As someone who grew up a political junkie, I was always hard-pressed to explain why I had never visited Washington, D.C.

I don't have to make excuses anymore, not after Road Trip 2010, my journey up and down the American Northeast that began in D.C. on June 23 and ended Saturday in Orlando, Fla.

Indeed, the trip--which covered 5,266 miles of driving in a Porsche Panamera through Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, and an accompanying jaunt to Florida--was an opportunity … Read more

LATROBE, Pa.--When you're driving randomly across Pennsylvania and fate hands you a chance to visit the training camp of the Pittsburgh Steelers, you don't stop to consider whether you've got the time.

That was my conclusion Sunday as I was driving east on U.S. Route 30 on an all-day trek toward Gettysburg. These are the last days of my six-week Road Trip 2010 project, and I'm making my way back to Washington, D.C., to fly home.

In my book, the last few days of driving had better have the least amount of time … Read more

So much money has already been wagered on the World Cup finals, which started Friday in South Africa.

So few of these bettors, however, will have turned to the Institution of Engineering and Technology's magazine before risking their savings, their house, or the money they were keeping back to pay the divorce lawyer.

The magazine, you see, has helpfully published an analysis of the World Cup, written by a man for whom numbers say so much. You might experience conflict with your potato chips when I tell you that the University of Salford has an Economics of Gambling degree … Read more

Editor's note: This is the first installment of "45 minutes on IM," a new interview series that I will be doing, hopefully weekly. Instant message is hardly the newest or hottest communication medium, but it is a very effective way to have a conversation. Because the medium is kind of contemporaneous, I've decided to maintain a bit of the on-the-fly flavor of the discussion, including the occasional "all-caps" response. But we'll skip the smileys. Please enjoy these interviews, and if you have suggestions or feedback, please let me know.

If you've been … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Apparently, robot field goal kickers are pretty pathetic when it comes to talking trash.

That much was clear Monday morning during a placekicking face-off between San Francisco 49ers kicker Joe Nedney and Ziggy, a 340-pound combat robot. The two bitter rivals took the field at Kezar Stadium here, the original home of the 49ers, for nothing less than the victory stand in the never-ending battle between man and machine.

Ziggy arrived at Kezar first, and had already gotten in some good practice kicks when Nedney, decked out in his No. 6 Niners jersey, strode purposefully onto the perfectly manicured grass. And within minutes, the NFL kicker was already bringing it.

"It's pretty windy out here, Ziggy," Nedney taunted the robot as he booted a few practice balls through the yellow uprights about 35 yards away. "I'm expecting [Ziggy's ball] to fly over the top of the arch [far beyond the uprights] by the way you've been hyping it."

Through it all, Ziggy said nothing, seeming to prefer to let its kicking do the speaking. And that's generally the robot's style.

"You know, the robot is the strong, silent type," said Simone Davalos, one of the organizers of the RoboGames, the world's-largest robot competition, which takes place in San Mateo, Calif., this weekend. Nedney and Ziggy were on-hand here to do a little promotion for RoboGames.

'Oh, it's on' For Monday's competition, Nedney had agreed to the proposal to kick against Ziggy from CM Robotics, an Ottowa, Canada-based team of engineers. About five years ago, the team built Ziggy, not with beating pro-kickers in mind, but actually with the idea of launching 340-pound peers in the air in battle-to-the-death robot wars.

But after years of ruling the RoboGames roost, it was time for Ziggy to take on some new competition. And that's when CM Robotics came up with the idea for today's event. And for Nedney, it was an offer he couldn't refuse.

"I got challenged," Nedney said. "I can't pass up a challenge."

The format for the day's gridiron festivities was simple.… Read more

He tells you he made mistakes. Terrible mistakes. He'll change. He's going to be a different man. He's going to be more respectful of life and of the game. He's rehabilitating himself. He's seen that winning golf tournaments (and, one imagines, making money) is nothing when compared with the important things. You know, like family.

Oh, go on, admit it. You watched the Tiger Woods press conference on Monday (live, naturally) and thought to yourself: "Oh, maybe he's telling the truth. Maybe I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. My kids … Read more

I can't decide if this is brilliant or ridiculous.

A few minutes ago, I saw a tweet go by from @sf_giants, the official fans' Twitter account of the San Francisco Giants baseball team. "The Giants want to have the largest tweet-up in history! Check out this exclusive $20 tweet-up only for Giants followers," it read.

One the one hand, if you say you're doing something like the "largest tweet-up in history," that's sure to get my attention. On the other, if you follow that up by saying that it's going to cost … Read more

If I can tell you one thing about trying to TiVo Sunday night's Oscars, it's that being online during the ceremonies was definitely not a safe place to be.

This is the era of time-shifting, and I like to take full advantage of the fact that I can set my DVR to record something like the Oscars and then sit down later on and watch it at my leisure and yet still be surprised by what happens.

But just as the show was beginning, I switched over to TweetDeck to check something out on Twitter and was horrified … Read more

As any real baseball fan knows, there is a very small group of accomplishments that are held above all others as the rarest in the game, and therefore worthy of being remembered forever.

A no-hitter is rare, indeed, but not in that group. Neither is hitting for the cycle. On the other hand, there's the unassisted triple play. Just 15 players have turned one in in the entire history of the game. And hitting four home runs in a single game. That's been done by just 15 sluggers.

Then there's the perfect game. This extreme rarity, in … Read more