Sports

Inspired by a fellow referee who was sick with cancer, high school football ref Mike Wilmoth dropped 25 pounds, ignored the naysayers, and was picked to officiate a total of six NFL games. Wilmoth talks about making it to the big leagues and the challenges of working as a replacement ref.

The Detroit Tigers play the San Francisco Giants in the World Series, which begins Wednesday.

It's largely forgotten now — but there was a time when the mere mention of Brooklyn would produce a cascade of laughs. It was like saying "woman driver" — surefire guffaws. Everybody from Brooklyn was supposed to be a character.

Every platoon in every war movie had one wise guy from Brooklyn in it. Brooklyn natives spoke funny. They said, most famously, "youse guys." At a time when African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Hispanics barely existed — visibly — in movies or on radio or television, Brooklyn was the all-purpose stand-in for our great American ethnic diversity.

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The score at the Pop Warner Pee Wee football game was a stunner, 52 to nothing. The number of concussions was shocking as well - five, all on the losing team, boys between 10 and 12 years old. A team official says in the case of one boy, his eyes were rolling back in his head. But during the September game in central Massachusetts, the mercy rule was not invoked and the game went on, with the last concussion coming on the final play of the game.

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Baseball fans are celebrating in San Francisco today. Their beloved Giants won the pennant.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It's my honor to present the Warren C. Giles Trophy to the National League champion, San Francisco Giants.

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The Giants destroyed the St. Louis Cardinals last night, 9-0. They now move on to the World Series to face the Detroit Tigers.

Baseball manager Ozzie Guillen's difficult year, which began with him getting suspended for telling Time magazine "I love Fidel Castro," has not surprisingly ended with him being fired by the Mia

One day after having his seven Tour de France titles officially taken away and getting banned for life from competitive cycling, Lance Armstrong's getting some media attention for removing a reference to those victories from his Twitter bio.

It's Tigers vs. Giants at the World Series.

The San Francisco Giants came back to beat the St. Louis Cardinals 9-0 in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series Monday.

Here's more from The Associated Press:

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The National Hockey League was supposed to launch its new season a week and a half ago, but a labor dispute has put that on hold. Still, that didn't stop fans of the Blue Jackets, based in Columbus, Ohio, from piling into a local bar last Friday to watch their team's home opener. Without a real game to watch, Michael Darr(ph), co-owner of Our Bar in Columbus, decided to show a video game simulation instead.

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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

And this is now history with an asterisk.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED SPORTS BROADCAST)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Is there any stopping Lance Armstrong in this Tour de France? And the answer is, no, there is not.

BLOCK: Lance Armstrong racing there in 2004, sprinting to one of many victorious stage finishes in the Tour de France. Well, today came this announcement from bicycle racing's international governing body.