New race strat: pay friends to dress up in bear costumes

Talk about winning, just bearly.

Denise McHale was running second in the Yukon River Trail Marathon in Whitehorse, Canada—trailing by as much as 15 minutes—when she encountered race leader Brendan Morphet running back toward her. Two menacing grizzlies had blocked his path, he explained, but she decided to press on. The bears had vanished, so she won the race.

“Well, it’s a wilderness race. There are bears. We’ve had bears before,” race director Ken Sylvestre told CBC News. “We want to be as clear as we can that there are bears out there and individual runners have to be comfortable dealing with that.”

Watch your backs

Semiretired Chris Berman could return to ESPN in a reduced role on “SportsCenter” and NFLrelated programming, the New York Post reported.

In other words, Berman might be … nah, too easy.

Clean sweep

CBSsports.com asked roughly two dozen college football coaches to name their peer who runs the cleanest program, and Washington’s Chris Petersen and Stanford’s David Shaw shared top honors at 17 percent each.

In other words, that 300-year-old cannon that divers just discovered off the Florida coast has a better chance of getting fired first.

Not so fast there

The Mariners, once 11 games ahead of Oakland in the race for the second AL wild card, suddenly find themselves trailing the A’s.

No truth to the rumor that the M’s plan to replace the nightly hydroplane races on their videoboard with the tortoise and the hare.

Sports quiz

Chapel Hill (N.C.) High School abruptly announced it can’t field a varsity football team this season because:

a) not enough upperclassmen turned out.

b) the players on the local college team sold all their shoes.

Left out

Aug. 13 was International Cat Day as well as LeftHanders Day.

The Tigers’ lefty-hitting left fielder apparently didn’t get the memo: Mike Gerber struck out in all three plate appearances.

Hold that line

Election officials in Michigan are trying to ban straight-ticket voting.

Critics say the tactic inevitably leads to a lazy electorate—or even worse, 22 Detroit Lions starting in the Pro Bowl.

Read the fine print

NYU announced it will cover the tuition for current and future medical students.

Hey, it’s no different from what any other college offers—just as long as you can run a 4.4 carrying a football.

Talking the talk

Peter Maher, former Calgary Flames radio play-byplay announcer, on now-retired forward Jarome Iginla’s 60-plus fights in the NHL: “I think he won them all. At least he did on the radio.”

Comedian Argus Hamilton, after $2 million worth of Red Bull was stolen in Belgium: “How do these thieves sleep at night?”

Single Digits Dept.

Seahawks rookie RB Rashaad Penny flew to Philadelphia to have his broken index finger repaired.

Surgeons had no trouble pegging him as an out-oftowner: It wasn’t a middle finger.

Down, down, down

Which begs the question: How far down would you have to drill before you hit the Baltimore Orioles?