From time-to-time, ESPN has been chided here for folding under NFL pressure and canceling its most popular series, Playmakers. Here are two more episodes that aren’t fiction, but real-life NFL.

Penn State coach Joe Paterno looked out the field this season and made a shocking discovery, apparently - it’s a lot of black dudes out there! After competing in the Big Ten for more than a decade he came up with these thoughts in the wake of Air Force coach Fisher DeBerry’s comments about b…

What a pity that Terrell Owens’ mental instability overshadowed what should have been the biggest story to hit Philadelphia since the Eagles Super Bowl loss to New England.

The NBA’s players have caught a lot of grief over the past few years for attitudes and violent incidents. The latest flap over a reasonable dress code showed that many players have no clue what “real life” actually means in America. However, other than the Detroit brawl in November 2004, wha…

The Houston Astros were the first World Series team in more than a half-century with a roster that did not include a single black player.

If you’re fast, you’re black. If you’re black, you’re fast. Does that make sense?

With the team struggling mightily, the St. Louis Blues were still leading the National Hockey League in attendance. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the team has experienced the largest drop in attendance from last year.

The New Orleans Hornets opened the NBA season in its “temporary” home of Oklahoma City on Tuesday night.

With all the intrigue at Rams Park as John Shaw, team president, and Jay Zygmunt, president of football operations, force head coach Mark Martz out the door, there is some justice. Director of Football Media Duane Lewis is now “in,” and hopefully John Hadley will soon be out.

Stephen “I beat up some fans” Jackson of the Indiana Pacers doesn’t like the NBA’s new dress code. “It’s racist,” he said.

In late 2003, the NFL muscled ESPN into dropping the popular cable television series “Playmakers.”

The NBA is trying to lose its rogue hip-hop image in a way that has proven successful in the NFL and other business environments.

Browns tight end Kellen Winslow can thank his lucky stars that Romeo Crennel is his head coach and that the first-year headman has the team playing very competitively at 2-2. If this were not the case there is no way the Browns would have agreed to a new contract with Winslow that runs throu…

NACAR CEO Brian France has seen the sport he runs explode in popularity throughout the United States. While he sees dollar signs flying, he also watches the Confederate flag flapping in the wind at many races. He knows it’s not only offensive, it is costing his sport money.

While congratulations might be premature, Mr. Dave Checketts, once a deal is reached in your purchase of the St. Louis Blues and Savvis Center there are several things you should do upon completion of negotiations with the Laurie family.

How on earth could the fans of St. Louis not vote for Willie McGee as the center fielder of the St. Louis Cardinals all-time Busch Stadium team? With all due respect to current Cardinal Jim Edmonds (who got the nod), McGee should have been the choice.

Amid all the boo-hooing about Busch Stadium being torn down, Cardinal management managed at least one misstep. When picking stadium employees to man the 11 posts around the infield that marked each year the Cardinals made the play-offs at Busch, magically all black beer vendors, ticket taker…

Now that Mike Claiborne has moved on from the local bigot, longtime broadcaster Bob Ramsey has taken the challenge of trying to make sense out of the senseless. Ramsey has done everything under the sun here in St. Louis, from making the Billikens sound like they had a chance when they didn't…

10 departures and one unexplained death for Tigers

Oklahoma City is not a major league city, but it is going to be home to a NBA franchise.

Slaten vs: Savard: the grudge match

Yep, he's reviled. Yep, he admits that, according to him, he unknowingly cheated.

More than one racist sports fan is more than happy to label black athletes with the thug, hoodlum or hooligan label. It's unfortunate, but it's a reality.

The Milwaukee Brewers are on pace to have their best season at the gate and in revenue since Miller Park's inaugural season in 2001, and minority fans are a major reason. While the team has improved and was near a .500 record at the beginning of the week, this alone would not draw this many …

A Florida judge took one look at Dwight Gooden last week and sent him to jail for two months to await his first hearing on charges of DWI and fleeing police at a traffic stop. Gooden had disappeared for a few days before turning himself in to authorities, but the courtroom had to be shocked …

As more facts about the death of Missouri football player Aaron O'Neal come to light, it is evident that he was treated shabbily and someone at the University of Missouri must be held accountable.

Journalists covering the paymaster

While Terrell Owens was contemplating holding, Adam "Pacman" Jones and Sean Taylor were being arrested and charged with serious crimes, and Randy Moss was reliving his pot smoking-days in college and early NFL career with HBO, the Atlanta Falcons' Warrick Dunn was also up to something. He wa…

Tiger Woods was in Florida when Phil Mickleson was winning the PGA Championship last Monday. Had disaster fell on three golfers during the rain-delayed final round, Woods could have faced a catastrophic embarrassment. However, it didn't happen, and Woods was saved from himself. Woods should …

Former Jayhawk stricken

Mike Claiborne, a veteran of 25 years of sports talk radio, had one of his finest moments last week when he refused to let 86-year-old Bob Feller slip several racist comments into an interview on KFNS.

If there was a group of athletes that has a right to hold a grudge against America, it is living former Negro League players.

Sports talk radio hit a recent low last week when Larry Krueger of San Francisco's KNBR gave this informed critique of the San Francisco Giants' offensive struggles.

For the importance of the role he played in college and professional football, few black gridiron fans have any idea who Fritz Pollard was or how he made sports history. Pollard was an All-American halfback who transferred from Bates College in Maine to Brown University in Rhode Island, wher…

Kevin Grawer is a Spanish teacher and assistant basketball coach at Kirkwood High School. He wants to move on to an elementary school assistant principal position in the Hancock school district.

Bob Weiss?

No, Kenny Rogers' childish assault on two videographers in Arlington, Texas last week was not as disturbing as Ron Artest's NBA antics of last November, but the SportsEye thinks the Texas Rangers lefthander is getting off easy.