Reclusive Raider

Reds closer Danny Graves was recently released after making an obscene hand gesture to a heckler in Cincinnati. A year after Phillies closer Billy Wagner was sidelined by an inflamed middle...

Their counterparts in other sports fuss and fight, but the NFL commissioner and union chief often act like teammates. Can this be good for the game?

Hockey caught a glimpse of its future-and perhaps the best junior team ever-during the Memorial Cup tournament

1,000 Tournaments played on the PGA and Champions tours by 64-year-old J.C. Snead, who became the seventh player to reach quadruple digits when he teed off at last week's Senior PGA Championship.

It's a new day in a new league for 46-year-old Rickey Henderson

Died

Actor Kevin Pollak has said he's interested in doing a film version of Three Nights in August, Buzz Bissinger's book about a 2003 series between the Cardinals and the Cubs as seen through the eyes...

Good to be here. Have you seen The Longest Yard? I was stunned. I thought Bill Romanowski was supposed to stay away from secondhand scripts.

The 51-year-old director's Cinderella Man, about boxer James Braddock (SI, May 9), stars Russell Crowe.

Is the pen mightier than the racket? Anna Kournikova will soon find out. In the June issue of Elle she becomes the magazine's first fitness columnist, writing about body maintenance in her...

A Little League team in Kentucky is sponsored by Hooters.

PAT WILLIAMS

What to watch and watch for

Matt Danowski

Seattle Storm Guard

WHO'S Hot

Who is the best lefthanded pitcher in baseball?

Tinted contacts are giving players a new lens on life

Detroit Pistons Edition

Your favorite Triple Crown moment?

DESCRIBING THE ninth-inning home run that beat the Yankees in the 1960 World Series in an Oct. 23, 2000, SI article, the former Pirate Bill Mazeroski (above) recalled his own boyhood fantasies:...

Bedeviled by the Big Apple last year in his first try as a Yankee, Alex Rodriguez is stress-free and gaining acceptance from teammates and fans. It helps to be leading the majors in homers, RBIs...

> For daily Web-only Leading Off galleries, go to si.com/scorecard.

As the Women's College World Series opens in Oklahoma City, softball is soaring in popularity thanks to taut games, TV and a U.S. gold medal

SI handicaps the eight teams in the double-elimination WCWS

With Detroit's big men looming large in the Eastern final, Shaquille O'Neal was trying to rise to the challenge for Miami, aided by a new 6'10" friend

Tim Duncan led the Spurs to the brink of the Finals with cool efficiency and amazingly little fanfare

Despite finishing fourth behind Dan Wheldon, 23-year-old DANICA PATRICK was a big winner at the Indy 500

Forget racing. Indy turned Danica into a one-name celebrity, a hot pinup and the object of marketers' affections

Slowed by a record number of yellow flags but capped by a furious finish, the COCA-COLA 600 highlighted NASCAR's big questions heading into the second half of the regular season

For every race, from a quarter mile down a strip to 500 miles around an oval--and every kind of track in between--there's a car built to produce MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE. Here's a comparison of those...

The U.S. hasn't had an F/1 driver since 1993, but the deliberate development of young SCOTT SPEED is about to change that

Many of the best drivers in NASCAR and Indy racing first proved their worth in the grit of ELDORA SPEEDWAY, pushing sprint cars to the limit

The Week In Sports

Week 1 of the French Open belonged to the Spanish men, whose all-surface game was just right for the red clay

"I can kick her ass off," Sesil Karatantcheva boasted before facing Maria Sharapova at the 2004 Pacific Life Open. Karatantcheva (right) lost in three sets, but you had to admire the abundant...

As he makes one more run in '05, the Steelers' Jerome Bettis hopes to see the Pats' Tedy Bruschi across the line

Good for Jerry Rice. The NFL's career reception leader, Rice, 42, agreed last week to a one-year deal with the Broncos. Critics say that Rice, the former 49ers great who played most of last year...

The probable No. 1 pick in the draft, teenage shortstop Justin Upton looks like a natural to make the big leagues

MIKE SWEENEY TRADE?

ROCKIES' JEFF FRANCIS

RUBBED THE WRONG WAY

Dad?

THE START OF SOMETHING BIG

Sixteen years after the meltdown that came to define his career, Mike Reid made amends by finishing like a champion and finally laying claim to a PGA

After last year's embarrassment at Shinnecock Hills, the USGA is taking pains to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen at Pinehurst

As the Euro tour roils, the question is, What will become of Colin Montgomerie?

LIFE AND TIMES ON THE PGA TOUR

Under the Radar

After hanging on to win the FedEx Classic by a shot, Leonard reflected on fear, weightlifting and diapers

What golfers are talking about

WHO: Mike Reid

The NCAA Championships are to be held Wednesday through Saturday at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Md. Here are the 10 teams we think have the best shot at the title.

Two-time Olympian Hunter Kemper credits an improved diet for his sudden rise to the top of the world rankings

The IOC is voting on whether to eliminate some events and add others--a contentious first step toward freshening up the Games

With a month to go before the 2012 host city is selected, Paris looks golden, but London is gaining

A Japanese expansion team turned to an American G.M. to bring new blood to the game. He didn't last long

Back for another stint managing the Chiba Lotte Marines, Bobby Valentine says many elements of the Japanese game have been Americanized since he first piloted the team, in 1995. Players now bunt...

In an accomplished new memoir, the first woman of Indy recounts the twists and turns of her life in racing

FULL THROTTLE: THE LIFE AND FAST TIMES OF NASCAR LEGEND CURTIS TURNER

After being snubbed by two NFL clubs, former Heisman winner Eric Crouch is relearning an old position