The NFL's New Duds; Nissan's New Batmobile
Today in sports: New NFL uniforms, game-fixing scandals overseas, an ode to Augusta's black caddies, one Kentucky fan's wild night, and Nissan designs a real-life Batmobile to win Le Mans.
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It's an exciting day for those who watch football for the pretty colors: The NFL has unveiled a line of new uniforms, designed by Nike, meant to bring a sleeker look to the gridiron (see above). After months of anticipation, it turns out they don't look much different from the last batch of pad-covering team colors. "Will the designs be as audacious and rod-and-cone punishing as the ones Nike did for Oregon or as wild and historical as those produced by Under Armour for Maryland?" asked the Washington Post's Cindy Boren and Matt Brooks. As it turns out, no they won't. [Washington Post]
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The New York Times carries an ode to the historically black caddies of the Augusta National Golf Club, where they were required on the course for decades and served both as expert advisors and a "striking symbol of the sport’s segregated state." It's a racial dynamic Tiger Woods turned on its head by winning with his white caddy. But while segregation no longer rules the golf course, the end of Augusta's required club caddies also means fewer openings for what's become quite a good job. "Not only is the best golfer of this era not white, Woods’s success has helped push the black caddie to the brink of extinction." [New York Times]
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The NCAA championship victory led to a wild, wild night in Lexington, Kentucky, as we noted earlier. On Tuesday, as much of the city nurses a collective hangover, one man has got much worse than a headache and dry mouth: Harold Calloway, a 31-year-old shot in the foot during the celebration, had his foot amputated Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. What's more, "police don't typically identify wounded victims, but Calloway has outstanding criminal warrants in Indiana." We're betting this is high in the running for worst day of Calloway's life. But hey, at least his team won. [AP / ESPN]
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If you're going to fix a soccer match, the way to do it would probably be to move a little too slow to block a shot, or something subtle like that, not blatantly kick the ball into your own team's goal. That would definitely be a red flag for regulators, a lesson Italian player Andrea Masiello probably wishes he'd learned earlier, now that he's been arrested for match fixing. What's worse is that it's not like Masiello was getting desperate in a low-scoring game. His team, Bari, was already down 1-0 against Lecce when he scored an own goal. That's just blatant. [BBC]
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In other match-fixing news, cricket bowler Mervyn Westfield was sentenced to four months in prison for so-called spot-fixing offenses, basically tiny fixes to parts of a cricket game but not the overall match. Westfield "received a £6,000 payment for conceding 12 runs in his first over in a televised match against Durham," the BBC reported. The judge blamed teammate Danish Kaneria for arranging the fix. Kaneria was arrested and released without charge in 2010, and has always denied any wrongdoing. [BBC]
Nissan has been designing a futuristic, experimental delta-wing car for Le Mans, and on Tuesday it announced it would ship the car to Europe for testing. That's just by way of an excuse to post the video Nissan has been circulating, showing the car's first public trial. It looks and preforms just like the Batmobile:
[Motorsport.com]
