The USO, a non-profit organization designed to boost the morale of U.S. servicemen and women, delivered a special treat for American troops serving in Iraq over the holidays: a flag-football game with legendary college football stars.
“It was just awesome, an unforgettable experience for the troops that participated,” USO President Sloan Gibson told Talk Radio News Monday.
The Baghdad based competition drew football greats like players Brian Bosworth,Ty Detmer and coach Barry Switzer. The game also included undeniably important parts of the football experience: cheerleaders and tailgate parties.
Highlights of the New Years Day game, titled the Salute the Troops Bowl, will air Monday evening during the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl’s half time.

The self-described, “Doctor of Democracy” will not be putting his stamp on the NFL anytime soon. A group bidding to buy the NFL’s St. Louis Rams has decided to drop conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh from its list of partners. The group, led by St. Louis Blues (NHL) Chairman Dave Checketts, determined that Limbaugh’s participation had complicated its bid. On Wednesday, Checketts said that the group’s bid will move forward despite the absence of Limbaugh…
Los Angeles Dodgers Manager Joe Torre has decided to start left-hander Clayton Kershaw in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series against the Philadelphia Phillies. Kershaw was 0-2 against Philadelphia in the regular season. Tonight’s first pitch is scheduled for 8:07 pm ET…
The Washington Capitals have recalled center Keith Aucoin from its minor league affiliate Hershey Bears. Aucoin will presumably fill the roster spot of defenseman John Erskine, who has been placed on the IR with an injured hand. The Capitals host the San Jose Sharks tonight. The puck drops at 7:00 pm ET…
Amid daily speculation regarding the job security of Head Coach Jim Zorn, two Washington Redskins players said Wednesday that they’d like the team’s management to put out a statement officially endorsing him. The players, who both spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the lack of a vote of confidence will create division and uneasiness within the team…

By Ravi Bhatia, Talk Radio News Service
Senior Fellow for Media Matters Eric Boehlert said that Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk show radio host, has virtually no chance of the National Football League accepting his bid to purchase the St. Louis Rams, citing the league’s efforts to avoid controversy and Limbaugh’s “incredibly long track record” of “hateful, inflammatory rhetoric about African-Americans.”
“The comments this week from the commissioner, some of the owners, the players, the union reps… make it pretty clear that Limbaugh’s chances are basically zero at this point,” Boehlert said.
In 2003, Limbaugh tendered his resignation from ESPN’S Sunday NFL Countdown pregame show for saying NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb was not as the good as the media made him seem. “The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well,” he said in the pre-game show.
“Every couple of years [Limbaugh] sort of ventures out of his protective right-wing radio bubble into the mainstream culture, and the reaction is immediate and unambiguous,” Boehlert said. “Mainstream pop culture, in this case sports, does not want anything to do with Rush Limbaugh.”
Boehlert added that he was unsure if politics and sports can co-exist.
“Having an owner who spends his day talking about the president as a communist or a racist or hates white people … doesn’t go over well in a professional sports community,” he said. “Larger sports culture … has no patience whatsoever with mixing politics and sports. Sports fans don’t want anything to do with politics, they want to leave that stuff outside.”

Wednesday Sports Roundup
The National League Championship series kicks off tomorrow night when the NL East Champion Philadelphia Phillies travel to Los Angeles to take on the NL West Champion Dodgers in a rematch of last season’s NLCS. The Phillies, who took that series 4 games to 1, will send lefty Cole Hamels to the mound. Hamels, last season’s NLCS and World Series MVP, has struggled this season, going just 10-11 with an ERA of 4.32. He’ll look to rebound from a shaky start in Game 2 of the NLDS against Colorado in which he gave up four runs on seven hits in just five innings of work. The Dodgers have yet to announce a starter for Game 1…
Meanwhile, the American League Championship Series gets underway Friday night in New York where the Yankees, owners of the best record in all of baseball this season, will look to make it back to the World Series for the first time since 2003. They’ll face the AL West Champion Los Angeles Angels, fresh off a thrilling come-from-behind 7-6 win over the Boston Red Sox that completed a sweep of that series in Boston. Yankees Manager Joe Girardi says he is considering using a three-man pitching rotation against the Angels featuring C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and playoff veteran Andy Pettitte…
Locally, All-Star guard Gilbert Arenas and his team, the Washington Wizards, have each been fined $25,000 by the NBA as a result of Arenas not making himself available to the media before and after games this preseason. Arenas, who has refused to do interviews since his team’s media day on Sept. 28, scored 24 points Tuesday night in the Wizards’ 101-98 exhibition victory over the Detroit Pistons…
In hockey news, the Washington Capitals will welcome the San Jose Sharks to D.C. on Thursday night. The contest features two of the most exciting teams in the National Hockey League as Capitals forward and reigning NHL MVP Alex Ovechkin will attempt to end his team’s current four game winless streak. The Capitals’ latest setback came Monday night when they squandered a two-goal lead and lost 3-2 in a shootout at home against the New Jersey Devils. The Sharks, currently in 2nd place in the NHL’s Pacific Division, are coming off a 1-0 shootout loss against the Phoenix Coyotes. San Jose boasts two of the league’s top scorers in center Joe Thornton and forward Dany Heatley, both of whom have racked up ten points apiece already this season.

The Major League Baseball postseason kicks off this afternoon when the National League East Champion Philadelphia Phillies host the NL Wild Card Champion Colorado Rockies. The series marks a rematch of the 2007 Divisional Series which the Rockies swept 3-0 en route to a World Series appearence. The Phillies will send mid-season acquisition Cliff Lee to the hill in Game 1, while the Rockies will counter with 15-game winner Ubaldo Jimenez.
Two other playoff series’ begin today as well when the NL West Champion Los Angeles Dodgers play host to the NL Central Champion St. Louis Cardinals, and the team with the best record in all of baseball, the American League East Champion New York Yankees, welcome the miraculous Minnesota Twins to Yankee Stadium. The AL Central Division-winning Twins, who trailed the Detroit Tigers by as many as 5 games just a few weeks ago, won 16 of their final 19 regular season games to force a one-game playoff with Detroit for the division crown. The Twins took that tiebraker in stunning fashion last night, winning 6-5 in 12 innings. Their amazing journey continues as they now travel to the Bronx for Game 1, where they will send rookie Brandon Duensing to the mound against Yankees ace C.C. Sabathia…
Elsewhere, a pair of NFL wide receivers will soon be making debuts in new cities. The Cleveland Browns have agreed to trade troubled wideout Braylon Edwards to the New York Jets for a pair of players, while in San Francisco rookie Michael Crabtree, a first-round pick who has held out since being drafted 10th overall this past April, has reportedly agreed to a six-year deal with the 49ers. Crabtree is expected to report to his team’s training facility today…
And in hockey, the Philadelphia Flyers took advantage of nine Washington Capitals penalties to beat the Caps 6-5 in overtime Tuesday night. In a matchup that featured stars on both teams, the home-team Flyers overcame a 5-4 deficit in the game’s late stages as Scott Hartnell scored with less than 5 minutes to play in the 3rd period to even the score. In the extra frame, Flyers’ winger Daniel Briere scored on a rebound in front of Capitals goaltender Jose Theodore with just over a minute to play for the sudden death win. Captain Mike Richards scored three goals and Matt Carle added four assists for the Flyers who improved to 3-0 on the young season. Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin had three points apiece for Washington, which fell to 2-0-1.

By Sam Wechsler – Talk Radio News Service
The 2009 Street Soccer USA (SSUSA) Cup kicked off Friday in Washington, DC at the Washington Kastles’ stadium.
The tournament consists of 16 teams, all comprised of homeless individuals, ranging from New York City to Los Angeles.
Some of the teams have been practicing several days a week in order to prepare for the tournament, while others have never played as a unit before.
The Finals are played Sunday afternoon at the Kastles’ stadium, and the winning team receives the Leonsis Trophy which is named after Ted Leonsis, a sponsor of the SSUSA Cup.
The top eight players in the tournament showing tremendous leadership, sportsmanship, and skill, will be chosen to represent the USA in the Homeless World Cup. Forty-eight countries will send national teams to the Homeless World Cup this September in Milan, Italy.

On Wednesday night Republican and Democratic congressmen faced off against one another at Nationals Park in the 48th annual Congressional Baseball Game. The Democrats won the game 15-10 in seven innings.
Rep. Joe Baca (D-Calif.), who said he started warming up his arm months ago for this game, pitched all seven innings for the Democrats. The Democrats won the game for the first time since 2000. Baca stated after the game that the team was inspired by the election of President Obama this year, and that it was time for change both on and off the field.
The home-team Democrats started off the scoring with a six-run second inning against GOP starter Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), but the Republicans quickly answered in the top of the third inning with six runs themselves.
The Democrats, aided by several fielding errors and walks, then scored nine runs in the bottom of the third off of reliever Rep. Adam Putnam (R-Fla.). The Republicans mounted a small comeback in the top of the seventh and final inning, but their three runs were not enough to win the game.

By Sam Wechsler-Talk Radio News Service
Two bills pertaining to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which required schools and universities to provide equal opportunities for men and women both academically and athletically, are being reintroduced into the House and Senate. The bills, which were introduced by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Olympia Snow (R-Maine), would require high schools to release data to the public on the number of student-athletes by gender, expenditures on athletic programs, and coaches’ salaries.
Former Senator Birch Bayh, known as the father of Title IX, spoke of the greater importance of the law. “[Participation in athletics generates] better grades, lower dropouts, less truancy, less unwanted pregnancy, less smoking, and less drug use,” he said.
American gold medalist gymnast Dominique Dawes commented on the importance of women’s participation in sports as well. She stated that women who participate in sports will learn about their physical and mental health and will be less likely to suffer from negative self-esteem.
Slaughter stated that there are 1.3 million fewer athletic opportunities for women. “We’re still a ways away from our goal of providing equal educational opportunity both academically and athletically,” said Bayh.

By Sam Wechsler – Talk Radio News Service
Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Orlando Magic in Orlando Sunday night to win the 2008-09 NBA finals. The Lakers won the seven-game series 4-1 to give the franchise its 15th NBA title.
Head Coach Phil Jackson now has won a record 10 NBA titles, winning six with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls and four with Bryant and the Lakers. With this most recent title, Jackson is now arguably the greatest NBA Head Coach of all time. The win gives Bryant his first title without Shaquille O’Neal.
The Lakers won two games during the series in overtime and two others handily in regulation. They broke away from the Magic and never looked back in Sunday night’s game thanks to a 16-0 run during the second quarter, and they ended up winning 99-86.
The Magic, a team that relies predominantly on three-point shots, struggled in game 5 due to their ineffective 29.6% from behind the arc, compared to the Lakers’ stellar 50%. The Magic were also hampered by Dwight Howard’s foul trouble; he had 5 before the fourth quarter began.
Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, and Derek Fisher all helped Bryant immensely in earning the NBA finals victory. Fisher hit a key three-pointer in game 4 to send it to overtime, and Gasol contributed to Dwight Howard’s foul trouble. Odom was effective coming off the bench scoring 17 points, second on the team to Bryant’s 30.