Stephen Rodrick Quotes

Legends like Jim Murray at the 'Los Angeles Times' and Shirley Povich at the 'Washington Post' were the most beloved guys at their papers. They'd write a cherished column for 30 years, and that was it. There was nothing else to do, no higher job to attain.

Some eco groups suggest that as many as 73 million sharks are killed globally every year. Hammerheads, blue sharks, mako sharks - they're disappearing, and they ain't coming back.

I arrive a month premature, with my dad's brains but not much else.

Robert Downey Jr. doesn't work out like us regular folks. Adulation bathes him from the moment he arrives at his Los Angeles martial arts studio.

There are times when a sports figure doesn't deserve sympathy.

Maybe it's impossible to spend time with Patrick Stewart and not have the conversation move to the extraterrestrial.

Before Angelina Jolie became a humanitarian, she was best known for wearing a vial of blood around her neck and kissing her brother.

If nothing else, the act of reaching a milestone often serves to reveal a superstar's true nature.

From the outside, Rick Rubin's house above Zuma Beach is a generic millionaire beach home. There's a rarely used tennis court and a circular drive.

NFL fans have less sympathy for fallen players than the Romans had for blind Christians.

I was a classic attention deficit disorder kid, always bored and mouthing off at school.

To build an empire - or win seven Tour de Frances in a row - you must have a Lone Star-size ego and a dash of megalomania.

Lance Armstrong has a 17th-century, 15-foot Spanish fresco of the crucifixion hanging on the wall of his Austin mansion. This doesn't mean - and some of you Armstrong acolytes might want to sit down for this - that Lance is Jesus.

Celebs that hit the West Hollywood/Beverly Hills quadrant and places like the Urth Caffe are not exactly trying to keep a low profile; it's sort of like if LeBron James went to an ESPN Zone and then whined about being hounded for autographs.

One of the hallmarks that a British actor brings to his public persona is an adept sense of self-deprecation - see Daniel Craig and Damian Lewis.

There are many reasons why I hate college football. The 4-hour games drone on longer than Steve Lyons during the American League playoffs. The ever-expanding season threatens to creep into early July. Boise, Idaho, hosts a bowl game. And it's played on blue artificial turf.

As a kid, Terry Bradshaw didn't amaze me. My hero was Steelers backup Terry Hanratty, who nabbed two Super Bowl rings while completing three passes.

All backups take their cue from Elrod Hendricks, the patron saint of erstwhile catchers.

Brett Favre likes to tell stories.

Baseball loyalists cite the game's legendary numbers - 300 wins, 500 homers, 3,000 hits - as evidence of the sport's elegance, beauty, and gravitas. What no one mentions is how wretched and painful it is to actually watch a former star gasp and sputter his way toward a legendary number.

I've seen few things more depressing than the end-of-season Giants-Padres series in 2001 in which Barry Bonds hit his 68th homer of the year while a .227-hitting, rapidly fossilizing Rickey Henderson staggered like a delirious marathoner toward 3,000 hits.

There's no doubt Matt Leinart loves his son very much.

Ever since Mike Tyson was champ, twenty-something dudes have microwaved nachos, popped opened Natty Lights, watched sharks do unspeakable things on TV, and whispered a billion 'Whoa, dudes.'

A colleague once nicknamed me - half mocking - the 'magical stranger' because I get people to tell me things.

Matt Leinart's L.A. duplex looks more like a Chuck E. Cheese safe house than a millionaire jock's crash pad. There's the requisite leather couch and flat-screen television, but the rest of the ground floor is bare except for a pile of Nick Jr. DVDs, a high chair, and a SpongeBob SquarePants director's chair.

There are 316 million people in the United States of America. About six million of them watch 'Homeland,' Showtime's thriller about world terror, paranoia, and bipolar disorder. That's about 2 percent of the population; roughly what the guy with the beard running on the Libertarian Party ticket gets when he runs for Congress.

Rick Rubin's undulating face hair is just as famous as his body of work. In homage to the yogis he read about as a boy on Long Island, Rubin hasn't shaved since he was 23. It's long been his registered trademark.

Unlike the LeBrons and A-Rods of the world, anointed as special from pre-K, Matt Leinart exudes an approachability rarely seen in superstars. It's why kids on the autograph line chat him up like a buddy with whom they could stay up late playing Xbox.

'TMZ' took the illusion of privacy away. Now the paranoid star just assumes someone is always there. Decoy cars and false itineraries are floated to throw 'TMZ' off the scent.

The everybody-loves-Jeff Bridges home base is, of course, 'The Big Lebowski.'

More than any other major sport, professional or amateur, college football games are decided by the physical incompetence and downright chokery of their players.

The Smithsonian should box and preserve Tim McGraw's Nashville den for a future exhibit entitled 'Early 21st Century American Man Cave.'