Alex Rodriguez was suspended through 2014 and All-Stars Nelson Cruz, Jhonny Peralta and Everth Cabrera were banned 50 games apiece Monday when Major League Baseball disciplined 13 players in a drug case – the most sweeping punishment since the Black Sox scandal nearly a century ago.

Ryan Braun’s 65-game suspension last month and previous penalties bring to 18 the total number of players sanctioned for their relationship to Biogenesis of America, a closed anti-aging clinic in Florida accused of distributing banned performing-enhancing drugs.

The harshest penalty was reserved for Rodriguez, the New York Yankees slugger, a three-time Most Valuable Player and baseball’s highest-paid star. He said he would appeal his suspension, which covers 211 games, by Thursday’s deadline. And since arbitrator Fredric Horowitz isn’t expected to rule until November or December, Rodriguez is free to play the rest of this season.

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Rwanda comes across as an incredible country. The genocide produced 5.5 deaths every minute for 100 days. Adrien lost five brothers and a sister; when the 2011 Tour of Rwanda goes past his grandmother’s house he pedals faster to keep the memories at bay. Documentation disappeared in the atrocity, so the riders have to be given new birthdays ”” one nicknamed ”˜Rocky’ gets 6 July because it’s Sylvester Stallone’s.

The genocide’s longer-term consequences can be surprising: because so many men were killed, Rwanda ended up as the first country in the world whose parliament contained a majority of women. The book is good on culture shock; accustomed to packed local buses (known as twegerane, ”˜let’s stick together’), when the Rwandans visit America they all squeeze onto one row of a spacious people-carrier. In South Africa Adrien is confronted by his first ever bedsheets; he sleeps on top of them, afraid to cause a mess. Culture shock isn’t a one-way street, though: the Rwandans are amazed that the Americans keep animals in their homes.

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Breakfast with the Mickelsons isn’t like ours.

What we say during Sunday breakfast: “Pass the flapjacks, will ya?”

What Phil Mickelson says during Sunday breakfast: “I’m gonna go out and get a Claret Jug today.”

What his wife Amy is thinking as her husband says he’s going to win the Open Championship: He’s five back and it’s soooooo hard…..

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Strawberry, in his first media interview since becoming a preacher and opening his own ministry three years ago, will talk for two hours about his drug and alcohol addiction. He’ll tell chilling details about prison life and crack houses. He’ll tear up telling the pain and shame he caused his family, six children and two ex-wives before marrying Tracy, also an ordained minister, six years ago.

He plans to spend the rest of his life talking about his passion that he says is more rewarding than anything he felt on the baseball field.

“I never wanted to exist as Darryl Strawberry, the baseball player,” he says. “I wanted to let go that identity. It’s not who I am.”

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[Jeff] Bauman grabbed what was left of his legs, lay back down and was writhing there when Allan Panter found him. Panter, an emergency room physician from Gainesville, Ga., had been in the crowd, too, but was unharmed. He pulled Bauman from the pile of bodies and placed the loose tissue back into his leg. Bauman screamed.

Panter tied a makeshift tourniquet around his right leg, placed a jacket on him and left Bauman so he could tend to the woman sprawled nearby whose eyes were open and empty.

I’m going to die, Bauman thought, lying there alone.

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Stop the clocks, lob the history books onto the fire. Pinch yourself, and then again.

To be British and in love with sport in this age is to be blessed beyond the dreams of our long-suffering ancestors.

In the space of 12 months we have witnessed the nation’s greatest Olympics, its first ever winner of the Tour de France and now, in Andy Murray’s crowning as Wimbledon men’s singles champion, the greatest hoodoo of all blown apart in glorious, giddy style.

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She played super, congratulations to her. You can read more there.

Slugging back and forth over a semifinal-record 4 hours, 43 minutes of backbreaking tennis Friday, top-seeded Djokovic emerged with a 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (6), 6-3 victory to move one win away from his seventh major title.

”One of the most epic matches I’ve played in my life,” Djokovic said.

On Sunday, Djokovic will play second-seeded Andy Murray, who defeated No. 24 Jerzy Janowicz 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 to make his second straight Wimbledon final and move one win away from becoming the first British man in 77 years to capture his country’s home tournament.

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Read it all about the video in the preceding post.

Watch it all, and be forewarned, you are not going to make it through without Kleenex–KSH.

Congratulations to him.

“The game was there for us to win,” said USC coach Chad Holbrook. “Sometimes you won’t have opportunities against (North Carolina). Today we had them. When you don’t execute and you don’t capitalize on the opportunities you have in this setting against a team like that, you’re not going to win. It came back to get us.”

The errors will sting the most, because USC’s bats were far from inefficient Saturday. The Tar Heels tied the game at two in the first inning when left fielder Graham Saiko dropped a routine fly ball that would have ended the inning, but instead allowed a run to score. In the third, North Carolina cut USC’s lead to 4-3 when Cody Stubbs doubled with two outs, and Moran scored from first because right fielder Connor Bright missed the cut-off man.

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So far it has been four hours and twelve minutes, and they are at 5-5 in the fifth set.

Update: Tommy Haas prevails 10-8 in the final set.

Cyclists gearing up for summer bike rides can take a detour to the Blessing of the Bicycles on June 2, when four local churches will offer a few spiritual and inspirational words for bike enthusiasts.

The Blessing of the Bicycles kicks off Walk and Bike Month and also serves as a bicycle parts drive for Community Cycles, a bike advocacy nonprofit group.

“My road and mountain bikes are my beloved friends, and as an older cyclist riding on busy roads, I can use all the prayers and blessing I can get. I thought there must be other people out there who would feel likewise,” said the Rev. Susan Springer, rector at St. John’s Episcopal Church, who established the bicycle blessing.

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It was a terrific final at Wembley which Elizabeth and I enjoyed watching.

I stand before you not in any way a self-made man. I have been a product of a lot of people who have loved me and poured into me in a way that is transformed my life, not only as a small child, but as I’ve grown as an adult, and I would be remiss if I didn’t share . . . with you about that, in the hopes of leaving you with what I feel could be something that you could take and remember in an effort to make a difference in the lives of other people, which you inevitably will be called to do in some capacity.

So to that end, I got to a place where I was in my life about six years ago where I was at the end of myself. I have spent some time ”” I became a Christian when I was 13, but I didn’t have the follow-through that I needed ”” but nonetheless I found myself in the fall of 2006 at the steering wheel of a car with all the windows rolled up and a garden hose attached from the muffler to the passenger-side window in the hopes of ending it all. Why? Because I had done some things in my life and come to a place in my life where I had realized that I had made a lot of mistakes, and not only had I made a lot of mistakes, but I had been the victim of some things that are tough to wrap your arms around, a Christian or not. So I was in that place and I was about to turn the key and I really felt the Holy Spirit saying, “R.A., I’m not done with you yet. Don’t do that.” Like literally those words: “Do not do that.” And so as lonely as I felt in that moment at the steering wheel of a Chevrolet Cavalier, I never felt truly alone. I think there’s something to be said in that.

I share that with you and I’m vulnerable with you in this moment because I really believe that God has called me to be here for a reason. I do believe in divine appointments, I believe this is one of them.

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One September day in eighth grade, when he was walking home from school, Mike saw his maternal grandfather, Charlie Wesson, pull up beside him in a car. Wesson had always been there for Mike, attending his games, winking when he faked a fever in grade school so they could spend the day together. This time, the news was bad. He needed to go home, immediately.

Young Mike saw a crowded house and knew something was wrong. His father had died of a heart attack after hip surgery. A short and difficult life was over, at 43, but the son thought largely about his mother. His parents were not married anymore, but he knew her life would change, too.

“I just felt like I had to pick myself up and my mom up,” he said. “It was a very tough time for her. I felt like I was trying to take control of my life and not rely on other people to do things for me.”

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I love the picture here.

Midway through the second half of a close and pivotal game against Texas Southern during the 1967 football season, Coach Eddie Robinson’s Grambling team mounted a drive. It ended abruptly when Grambling’s center threw a forearm at the nose tackle who had been dominating him. A referee penalized Grambling and ejected the center from the game.

When the center, Thomas Ross, reached the sideline, Robinson was waiting. Yet he did not strike Ross. He did not curse him. He did not even shout at him. Instead, in controlled, staccato bursts, he delivered a lesson about character and teamwork.

“You have satisfied yourself,” Robinson said. “You got him back. But we told you about stability and self-control. Now you think about us. We don’t have a center, and we got to play the rest of the game.” Robinson motioned to the other players, standing on the sideline or sitting on the bench. “Look at what you did. Look at the people you let down.”

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ir Alex Ferguson will step down as Manchester United manager at the end of the season after 26 years in charge.

The Scot, 71, has won 38 trophies for the club and will now become a director and ambassador.

His haul includes 13 league titles, two Champions League crowns, five FA Cups and four League Cups.

“The decision to retire is one that I have thought a great deal about. It is the right time,” Ferguson said.

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[BOB] FAW: Now the former law school dean and distinguished legal scholar has written a most unusual book: “Baseball as a Road to God.” That’s right, baseball.

[John] SEXTON: The similarities between baseball and religion abound. The ballpark as cathedral; saints and sinners; the curses and blessings. But then what I’m arguing is beyond that surface level, there’s a fundamental similarity between baseball and religion which goes to the capacity of baseball to cause human beings, in a context they don’t think of as religious, to break the plane of ordinary existence into the plane of extraordinary existence.

FAW: John Sexton says that what happens here is more than just a game””that it reveals a dimension beyond the eyes and mind letting us, in his words, “see through to another, sacred space”””what John Sexton calls “the ineffable.”

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[Neil] Diamond flew his private jet to Boston. He showed up unannounced to Fenway about 30 minutes before start time, called the control room and asked if he could sing.

When the eighth inning came, Neil walked out in a Red Sox cap and the 35,000-strong crowd cheered. ”What an honour it is for me to be here today!” Diamond told them. ”I bring love from the whole country.”

Then they sang along, out of sync to the backing track but that hardly mattered. Neither did the fact the Red Sox beat the Royals something to something else.

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Congratulations to Borussia Dortmund for making the Champions League Final.

magine two teams with more than a thousand competitors on each side. Imagine a playing field that stretches three miles from goal to goal. And imagine a single ball that both sides are fighting over.

That is Shrovetide Football, which is played each year over two days in Ashbourne, England between members of the town. In his documentary Wild In The Streets, Peter Baxter tells the story of the game that has been played for centuries.

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The Rev. John Wykes, director of the St. Francis Chapel at Boston’s soaring Prudential Center, and the Rev. Tom Carzon, rector of Our Lady of Grace Seminary, were among the priests who were turned away right after the bombings. It was jarring for Father Wykes, who, as a hospital chaplain in Illinois a decade ago, was never denied access to crime or accident scenes.

“I was allowed to go anywhere. In Boston, I don’t have that access,” he says.

But Father Wykes says he has noticed a shift in the societal role of clergy over the past few decades: “In the Bing Crosby era””in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s””a priest with a collar could get in anywhere. That’s changed. Priests are no longer considered to be emergency responders.”

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In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings that left three dead and more than 260 injured, perhaps none face more significant adjustments or a longer road ahead than the 14 amputees who lost a limb.

For these victims, the path forward involves relearning almost everything, from getting out of bed to getting in a car. Whether they go on to lead satisfying lives depends largely on how they handle the spiritual challenges at hand, according to amputees and researchers.

Losing a limb is like losing a family member: It involves grief and mourning, according to Jack Richmond, a Chattanooga, Tenn., amputee who leads education efforts for the Manassas, Va.-based Amputee Coalition. When one’s body and abilities are radically changed, questions of meaning are suddenly urgent: Why did this happen? Why am I here?

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The security planning for last week’s Boston Marathon, where two bombs went off killing three people and wounding 264, included preparation for such an emergency, a top Massachusetts public safety official said on Wednesday.

“We spend months planning for the marathon. We did a tabletop exercise the week before that included a bombing scenario in it,” Kurt Schwartz, the state’s undersecretary for homeland security, told a panel at Harvard University.

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U.S. Pastor Saeed Abedini, who is currently suffering from internal bleeding in Iranian prison, said that he is praying for America in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and left over 200 injured last week.

“Pastor Saeed told family members he had heard about the terrorist bombings in Boston on the prison radio, expressed his concern, and told them he is praying for the victims and their families during this very challenging time for our nation,” the American Center for Law and Justice revealed on Monday.

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The biographical film “42” depicts Jackie Robinson’s courageous battle to break the color barrier in major league baseball. At the same time, the film provides a glimpse of his religious faith, which afforded the strength he needed to overcome fierce opposition.

“It took two Christians to pull this off,” says Chris Lamb, the author of “Blackout: The Untold Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Spring Training” (University of Nebraska, 2004). “Robinson was a Christian and Branch Rickey was a Christian,” he notes. “Sometimes we miss this.”

Lamb was blind to it himself until he researched Robinson’s life for his book. “I kept wondering all these years what kept Robinson together,” he says. “Finally I realized what I missed before ”“ the core came from above.”

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It was a goal of such ruthless brilliance that with one swish of his left foot at 8.13pm on Monday night, Robin van Persie settled the argument once and for all for Manchester United, champions for the 20th time.

The best team in the league? Undoubtedly. The outstanding player of the season? It has to be Van Persie, having scored what will surely be the goal of the season on the way to his hat-trick last night, a strike of such breathtaking geometry that any team in the world would have been hard pushed to defend against it.

The league season is an examination of a club’s credentials over the course of 38 games but sometimes that season is distilled in the space of a few seconds. Those few seconds were those that it took for Wayne Rooney’s beautifully flighted ball from inside his own half to drop out of the air and over the shoulder of Van Persie – and then for him to drive it past Brad Guzan first time with that sublime left foot.

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