Good sports Web sites

The Associated Press Sports Editors has released its first list of top sports Web sites after years of honoring sports sections and sports writing.

Two of my favorite sites, the Boston Globe's Boston.com and USAToday.com, were in the top 10 (the Globe was first).

See the entire list here.

(And what a great Boston.com headline for Jason Bay's departure to the New York Mets: "Bay State No More.")

Stupid USA Today headlines

Now, I love USA Today just as much as the next small-minded, underinformed reader (that's a joke), but sometimes their headlines are just plain stupid.

I know they don't mean them to be dumb, but sometimes instead of announcing, let's say, the findings of a new study, they'll just run a headline saying, "90% of teens like to talk on cell phones."

Oh, really.

So, I've decided to start compiling dumb USA Today headlines, not to say the stories aren't good, but to highlight the poor construction of the bold, black type running above these stories.

Today's selection:
"Pirates fans fed up with years of losing."

This is news? (This is a serious feature on how Pittsburgh fans today are coping with even more losing, but the headline is written in a format that suggests breaking news of some kind, or at least a change in a commonly accepted trend. But the information is neither of these, and thus the headline is stupid.)

The Rick Pitino Mess

I don't care what kind of coach you are. If you get caught doing what Rick Pitino did, you shouldn't be coaching.

I agree with Christine Brennan's column for USA Today...Pitino needs to step forward and take action on this one, not leave it with Louisville.

Yikes...Michael Jackson, hair on fire

The video of when Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire while he was filming a Pepsi commercial has surfaced on the Web (see it with an article at USAToday.com). This has drawn immediate questions about Jackson's painkiller use, etc., but all I have to say is, how do you not know when your head is on fire? And apparently his dance moves put out the flames. Yikes.

Maybe it was the Holy Spirit coming and anointing him.