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NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — PGA Tour player Robert Garrigus, best known for his long drives and knee-high putter, said he — along with other unnamed players on the Nationwide Tour — smoked marijuana during tournament rounds in 2002, according to an interview published on Golf Digest’s web site.

“Oh yeah, there were plenty of guys on the Nationwide Tour who smoked in the middle…Read More

By Rob Iracane

The 1989 baseball comedy “Major League” is consistently near the top of moviegoers’ favorite sports films despite the ridiculous concept of the Cleveland Indians beating the New York Yankees for a pennant. Crazy, right? Sports Illustrated writer Chris Nashawaty recently interviewed the director, David Ward, and most of the cast for his latest feature, an oral history of the movie that digs deep and reveals some things we didn’t know.

Here are the top 10 revelations from Nashawaty’s exhaustive interview feature in the July 4 “Where Are They Now?” issue of…Read More

By Marc Stein
ESPN.com

The Cleveland Cavaliers have traded power forward J.J. Hickson to the Sacramento Kings for swingman Omri Casspi and Sacramento’s protected first-round pick in the 2012 NBA draft.

The teams apparently sought to complete the deal Thursday before midnight to ensure its completion, with a lockout expected…Read More

By Terry Pluto, The Plain Dealer

Talking to myself about the Cavs trading J.J. Hickson to Sacramento for Omri Casspi…

Question: How do you feel about the J .J. Hickson-Omri Casspi deal?

Answer: I want to like it more than I do, because the Cavs need a small forward. They have too many power forwards. The moment Tristan Thompson became the No. 4 draft pick, Hickson was gone…Read more

The 1989 baseball comedy “Major League” is consistently near the top of moviegoers’ favorite sports films despite the ridiculous concept of the Cleveland Indians beating the New York Yankees for a pennant. Crazy, right? Sports Illustrated writer Chris Nashawaty recently interviewed the director, David Ward, and most of the cast for his latest feature, an oral history of the movie that digs deep and reveals some things we didn’t know.

Here are the top 10 revelations from Nashawaty’s exhaustive interview feature in the July 4 “Where Are They Now?” issue of Sports Illustrated. Hopefully, he’ll avoid doing a followup for the cast and crew of that dud “Major League III: Back to the Minors.”

1. Charlie Sheen was doing steroids during filming!: Or so he claims. Sheen, who played fireballing reliever Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn, played some baseball in high school but got kicked off the team because of poor grades. To prepare for his role in the film, Sheen says he improved his fastball from the high 70s to the mid 80s with the help of steroids. That’s dedication to the craft. Or something.

2. Jeremy Piven was left on the cutting room floor: Director David Ward admits that Piven, then a prematurely balding 23-year-old actor with just “Lucas” and “One Crazy Summer” under his belt, played a supporting role as a bench player who pelted opposing teams with insults. All of Piven’s scenes were (mercifully) cut.

3. Dennis Haysbert can hit a baseball pretty far: All of the actors in the film had enough athletic ability to fill the roles of ballplayers, but Haysbert, who played voodoo-worshipping slugger Pedro Cerrano, actually hit a ball out of the park during filming. Sure, it was only 315 feet but there are enough Yuniesky Betancourts in the majors now who could use that kind of power.Read More

By Tim MacMahon
ESPNDallas.com

MIAMI — DeShawn Stevenson admitted that beating self-proclaimed king LeBron James made the Dallas Mavericks’ championship even sweeter.

“It makes me feel good, man, to beat him, to beat that Miami team,” Stevenson told ESPNDallas.com in an AmericanAirlines Arena hallway after the Mavs clinched the title with Sunday’s Game 6 win. “The way they act, the way they treated Dirk [Nowitzki], all the things that they said were very classless. To win on the court the way we did it, it was wonderful.”

The Mavericks thought James and Dwyane Wade disrespected Nowitzki, who was named Finals MVP, by mocking his cough in front of television cameras after the Game 5 shootaround. Nowitzki, who played Game 4…Read More

By Brian Windhorst ESPN.com

MIAMI — The screams and laughs wafted into the interview room from the nearby Dallas Mavericks locker room, and LeBron James and Dwyane Wade couldn’t avoid having it wash over them. All around them were the sounds of celebration in their own building, salt in their wounds as similar cheers were raging across the country.

Space, time, irony and remorse; these realities and emotions were crashing down on the Miami Heat. Everyone had a part in it. This defeat had many fathers. But no one felt the weight more than James.

In this same space — a couple feet away in fact — where they were feeling their lowest, Wade, James and Chris Bosh had once boarded a hydraulic lift to announce their arrival in Miami to the world. A world that was so turned off by it that they stayed…Read More