Yesterday, there was excitement over the U.S. Olympic Men's Marathon Trial being held in the heart of Manhattan and top three finishers Ryan Hall, Dathan Ritzenhein, and Brian Sell qualifying for the 2003 Olympic team. But the event was also tragic: 2003 U.S. Marathon champion Ryan Shay suffered an apparent heart attack 5.5 miles into the race and died. Witnesses described that shortly after 8AM, Shay seemed to fall during the course near the......

Yankees 9, Devil Rays 6: Mike Mussina might want to worry now. Ian Kennedy threw seven innings of three-run ball -- though only one run was earned -- as the Yankees evened their series against the Devil Rays. Mussina might start if Roger Clemens is unable to go Monday, but the rookie Kennedy probably earned himself a few more starts with this one. Alex Rodriguez found himself at the center of everything today. He hit......

This just in: Imus just got canned by CBS. He's live on the air now doing a fundraiser-- so you wonder how he's taking the news. Word is that Mike and the Mad Dog will be filling the spot starting tomorrow. "From the outset, I believe all of us have been deeply upset and revulsed by the statements that were made on our air about the young women who represented Rutgers University in the......

Radio shock jock Don Imus was suspended for two weeks by CBS, which owns WFAN and Westwood One (the radio outlets his show is broadcast and syndicated on) and MSNBC, which broadcasts a televised simulcast of the radio show, over remarks he made towards the Rutgers women's basketball team. MSNBC announced that Imus would be suspended first, then CBS announced a similar suspension. The suspension will begin on Monday, as Imus has a series......

With March Madness behind us and baseball upon us (Mets' home opener in progress!), a smoothing transition between basketball and baseball is necessary: like beer bracketology. The Washington Post conducted a tournament of head-to-head, single elimination, blind taste tastings over four weeks, in order to distinguish one beer above all other contestants as an MVB. We are pleased to report via the New York Sun that the Brooklyn Brewery's Brooklyn Lager was crowned the champion......

Local teams may have been shut out of the NCAA tournament's Final Four, but New York is not without representation in Atlanta. Florida phenom Joakim Noah calls NYC home, as does Georgetown's Jesse Sapp. Neither played high school basketball in New York: Noah played for The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey and Sapp attended National Christian Academy in Maryland. Ohio State and UCLA are sadly New York City-free teams. Is your team still in the......

It's officially spring, and that means lots of NY Times wedding announcements. Twenty-six, to be exact. Total Number of Weddings: 26 (including Vows column) Total Number of Same-Sex Weddings: 1 Youngest Bride: 23 Oldest Bride: 65 Youngest Groom: 25 Oldest Groom: 73 Biggest Age Difference: 21 years Number of Couples Where Bride and Groom Are the Same Age: 4 (30 31, and two couples at 27) Number of Harvard Graduates Married: 3 Number of Yale......

There may be March Madness in the air, but East Village Idiot has the cure for New Yorkers who can't get behind the NCAA: March Radness, which take 64 disparate NYC moments/ people/ objects/ stores/ trends/ nonsense and sees who will reign supreme. Some key matchups are:Bloomberg Region - The U.E.S Crowd (seeded 7) vs. The B&T Crowd (10) - Trans Fat (1) vs. Rats at Taco Bell (16) Isiah Region - The Knicks......

For the first time ever, Rutgers has won a bowl game. Considering they played in the first collegiate football game 137 years ago, that says a lot. But, the centuries of losing in New Jersey appear to be over. Greg Schiano has turned down an invitation to coach at the University of Miami and Ray Rice is only a sophomore. No, it won’t be easy to duplicate this remarkable season, but it really seems like......

Name, age, occupation, where are you from? Kevin Dailey, 36, salesman and promoter from Hudson County. You're a co-founder of Brooklyn Kickball - when you tell people about kickball, what are their responses? For the most part when you first go around telling people about kickball, some people think it's the greatest idea ever, some people were just too cool to consider it, yet would sometimes show up, and other people were like, "what do......

How fitting is it that the St. John's Red Storm is facing two years of probation because of a basketball player from the Mike Jarvis era? The player in question is Abe Keita, who was but a minor blip on the college basketball scene. In three seasons that Gothamist found, Keita never managed to average more than 2.4 points. Despite Keita's miniscule contribution to the team and that all the infractions came under Jarvis, St.......

- Judges shouldn't compare assault victims to SNL characters - Man accused of stealing millions from his NYC co-op - and who was the brother of the "Milkshake Murder" victim - was found dead in his Connecticut home - A warship being built in Louisiana is partly made from World Trade Center steel - When it's spring, it means there's more daylight and more cars to clog up city streets - Move over craiglist,......

Seattlest saw a house party get senselessly attacked with a shotgun and end in seven dead. A local senator is debated and their version of the big dig is investigated. To truly get to the bottom of it they interview the writer Jonathan Raban. Bostonist has its first birthday party and investigates how to attach more gambling dollars to the Red Sox. Benjamin Franklin is celebrated and Johnny Damon is not. Image by Ethan Bagley......

Defending the National Invitational Tournament title is not something a basketball program sets as its goal the year after winning it. The coach and players no doubt would prefer a berth in the NCAA tournament than a trip to New York for the NIT championship. Still, South Carolina coach Dave Odom and his players got that return trip and the bonus of a 76-64 win over Michigan Thursday. Better to win the NIT than......

As much as teams crave perennial postseason success, they don't want to be repeat performers in the NIT. But South Carolina and Michigan have become familiar faces at Madison Square Garden in late March. The Gamecocks defeated Louisville and the Wolverines dispatched Old Dominion in Tuesday's semifinals. South Carolina can win its second straight title, and Michigan will play in its second final in three years. Both would have gladly traded a shot at the......

As most of the country fawns over George Mason's surprise advancement to the Final Four, four teams will fight it out for the National Invitational Tournament championship at Madison Square Garden this week. Pundits joke the winner represents the 66th best team in the country, but Gothamist has found it usually represents the best power conference team to not make that other tournament, the NCAA Championship version. This year, three power conference teams (Michigan, Louisville......

Everybody is getting screwed this year during March Madness! If you thought your brackets getting screwed left and right was bad, how bad would it suck to be one of the people busted Saturday by the NYPD at the height of gambling season. The NYPD raided a $45 million gambling ring with several locations in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens according to Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes. The raids led to the arrests of 10 people......

Let's step away from some of the more popular sports for a second. Move aside basketball and your NCAA Tournament. Take a chill pill baseball with your World Baseball Classic and Spring Training. Yesterday the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum hosted the Big Apple Grapple, which featuring the some of the world's best male and female arm wrestlers. All battling for NYC's King and Queen of Arms. Unfortunately, there are no results online for this scintillating display......

OK, so Gothamist was talking about the NIT, but a #1 is still a #1, no? Yesterday the Manhattan Jaspers won their first round NIT game against the Maryland Terrapins. Sure, Maryland players and fans have no interest in the tournament (only 4,761 were at the game), but that's no really not much of an excuse. Win the win, Manhattan and Hofstra are now the only local men's basketball teams that are still playing in......

- Though City Council Speaker Christine Quinn won't be marching in the St. Patrick's Day parade tomorrow, there is a rally for Irish immigration at O'Neil's tomorrow morning - Proof there are only so many sorta clever ideas out there and after that, it's all about recycling - The ugliest NCAA bracket ever? - Subway robber shown on TV last night/this morning is arrested this afternoon - The city looks into opening jails in......

The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament has lost its first team. Last night, Monmouth defeated Hampton 71-49 in the play-in game. It's Monmouth's fourth trip to the big dance and its first victory. Their reward? A trip to Philadelphia to play Villanova. While Phily might ordinarily be a great place to play an opening round game if you're from the West Long Branch, New Jersey school, Villanova is less than 20 miles away. That should be......

It is an annual right of spring; “Selection Sunday” gives way to “Moaning Monday”, a chance for the teams who didn’t make the NCAA Tournament to complain. Florida State, Michigan, Cincinnati and Maryland are all grumbling today after not being invited to the big dance. Locally, Hofstra certainly has a lot to complain about. They had the 30th RPI in the country and beat George Mason, a team that made the tournament, twice. Hofstra’a exclusion......

Syracuse could have taken it easy after knocking off Connecticut, confident a win over the nation's top-ranked team secured them an NCAA tournament berth. Pittsburgh could have rested after taking care of archrival West Virginia in their quarterfinal game. Even with nothing meaningful to play for except a bump in seeding, both underdogs lived to fight another day in the Big East semifinals Friday. Syracuse rallied to top Georgetown 58-57, and Pittsburgh crushed second-ranked Villanova.......

Gerry McNamara won a national title in his freshman year at Syracuse and he wasn’t going to miss the tournament in his senior year. McNamara hit a game tying three-pointer with 10 seconds left to force overtime in Syracuse’s 86-84 upset over UConn in the Big East Tournament. Syracuse will now face Georgetown in the semifinals tonight. The Hoyas outlasted Marquette 62-59 to advance. Pittsburgh and Villanova will meet in the other semifinal tonight after......

If it wasn't a big enough spectacle before, the Big East tournament now has even more power to its punch. Starting today at Madison Square Garden, the league's top 12 (out of 16) battle it out for the conference's tournament title and the berth in the NCAA tournament that comes with it. Of course, most of the teams are playing for seeding, but a few are on the bubble. Connecticut and VIllanova should receive two......

Is it sad that an overly ambitious NCAA mascot's http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/4402e8a61dbe0">crash into the Columbia Television table, causing $6,500 in damages, outshines the team's efforts (a loss, though)? Or is it a no-brainer, because it involves backflip smack takling, a red-haired frog costume, Roar-ee, the Columbia Lions' mascot AND a university investigation? Gothamist picks the latter, and we thank the Columbia Spectator's blog for posting video of the blackflip gone bad as their print arm explains......

The Knicks keep finding new and more humiliating ways to lose. Tuesday night, it was an inbounds play that sunk them. Down by one with 2.2 seconds left in the game, Jalen Rose could not get the ball in play within five seconds and were whistled for a turnover that sealed their 85-82 loss. Rose actually could have been called for a technical foul, because he appeared to try and call a timeout, which the......

This afternoon, the Knicks will announce the hiring of NBA vagabond Larry Brown as the new coach of the Knicks. The contract pays Brown around $10 million per season. Brown is 64 and is already a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. He has coached teams to both an NCAA title and an NBA championship, and is widely regarded (along with Phil Jackson) as the NBA's top coach. While the move was sudden, nothing......

While examining your weekend options, it's worth a mention that Game 2 of the NBA Finals is Sunday night at 9pm. If you haven't been to your local sports bar lately, it's a great excuse to pound some beer and wings with your buddies on a school night. The Spurs and Pistons kicked off The Finals last night, but the ratings for these supposedly "boring" teams were so low that a rerun of CSI actually......

After two disappointing losses on Saturday, hopes of a NY-area team making the NBA playoffs are looking fairly grim. The Knicks stand 5 1/2 games out of a playoff spot with just 12 left to play, while the Nets are a (somewhat) more manageable 3 1/2 games back. Current #7 and #8 East seeds Indiana and Philadelphia have played with serious heart in the last week, notching wins against the likes of the Spurs,......