Tigers turn to Verlander after Game 2 collapse

DETROIT (AP) — The last time Justin Verlander took the mound, his team's season was on the line.

The stakes won't be quite that high for his next start, but the Detroit Tigers could certainly use another brilliant performance from their star right-hander after blowing a chance to take control of the AL championship series.

Detroit wasted a five-run lead Sunday night in Game 2, allowing the Boston Red Sox to even the series with a 6-5 victory. David Ortiz's tying grand slam in the eighth inning snapped the Red Sox out of a hitting funk, and if Boston goes on to win the pennant, there may be little doubt about the turning point in this series.

Verlander's job is to steady the defending AL champion Tigers.

"Obviously that was a tough one," Verlander said. "At the same time you know this series is going to be a dogfight. Nobody is going to walk over anybody."

The Tigers looked like they were ready to roll through the series after they won the opener and took a 5-0 lead in Game 2. Anibal Sanchez held Boston hitless for six innings on Saturday, and Max Scherzer allowed a run and two hits in seven innings Sunday.

Boston trailed 5-1 in the eighth in Game 2 before a remarkable rally against four relievers. Ortiz tied it with a two-out grand slam off closer Joaquin Benoit.

"I made a mistake that I take full responsibility for," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "I should have just reminded him that we didn't want Ortiz to really beat us. He tried to make a great pitch. He tried to get it low and away out of the strike zone, but he didn't get it there."

Boston managed to win one of two at home despite striking out 32 times — eight more than the previous record for the first two games of an LCS, set by the Los Angeles Dodgers a day earlier. The Red Sox are hopeful their bats will come around, starting against Verlander in Game 3 at Comerica Park on Tuesday.

"I think we certainly gained some confidence in the last couple innings," Boston manager John Farrell said. "The work of Sanchez and Scherzer has been nothing short of spectacular. ... We feel like tomorrow's starter in Verlander is going to be a similar, if not a more difficult, challenge than what we faced already."

After a pedestrian regular season by his standards, Verlander pitched15 scoreless innings in the division series against Oakland, including eight in a winner-take-all Game 5. The Tigers have taken no-hitters into at least the sixth inning in three straight games, a remarkable feat even for a staff that set a major league record with 1,428 strikeouts during the regular season.

Detroit's starters have picked up where they left off during last year's American League playoffs, when the Tigers' rotation posted a 1.02 ERA through the division series and ALCS. Detroit won the AL pennant before being swept by San Francisco in the World Series.

"We've got a starting rotation that's relentless, and I said that before the series started. Every guy has their unique ability to shut down a team in their own way," Verlander said. "I'm just one of the four guys right now."

The Red Sox will send John Lackey to the mound to face Verlander. Lackey was able to make 29 starts during the regular season, posting a 3.52 ERA after missing all of 2012 following elbow ligament-replacement surgery.

Lackey will try to hold Detroit's offense in check and hope the Red Sox can become the first team this postseason to break through against Verlander.

"We've got a great lineup. I'm going into the game with a great group of guys behind me," Lackey said. "Those guys are going to fight him. He's kind of our lineup's problem. I've got my own problems with their lineup."

Leyland says he'll probably play Jhonny Peralta at shortstop for a second straight game, with Andy Dirks in left field instead of Don Kelly. Boston's Mike Napoli is expected to be back at first base in a lineup similar to what the Red Sox used in Game 1.

Those are minor adjustments, obviously. Don't expect too many drastic changes as this series progresses. Both teams rely on established stars who have played in their share of big postseason games.

"It's always nice to have Justin Verlander on the mound no matter what the situation is," Leyland said. "There won't be any carry-over for our guys from that game last night. That's over with."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tigers-turn-verlander-game-2-collapse-204325482--spt.html
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Miguel Torres on fickleness, his 'old style,' and why it pays to keep his personal life personal

Miguel Torres never meant to sit out for a year. It wasn't a knee jerk reaction to a tough streak, and he certainly didn't intend to return to 145 pounds, a weight he hadn't competed at since he was plying his trade around the Indiana amateur circuit.

Like all things in life, the end result of his 11-month hiatus just kind of happened. After dropping a split decision to Marlon Moraes at WSOF's debut show, Torres was supposed to fight again in March. But that idea fell through, and then life started getting in the way.

By the time WSOF officials finally called Torres to offer him untested Pablo Alfonso at WSOF 6, it was three weeks out from the event, and a brief stop at featherweight simply sounded better than a short-notice, torturous weight cut down to 135.

"I feel good," Torres joked with MMAFighting.com. "It's not like I'm cutting 25 pounds to make 145. I'm really going to take a s--t and brush my teeth and I'll be on point. I'm not walking around at 200 pounds."

It's a typical Torres response, light of heart and dryly rattled off. But in many ways, it also flies in the face of a strange, misguided sense of expectation one might carry about the former WEC king.

Torres is a fighter who lost three of his past four. After starting his career with a 37-1 run, he's 3-5 since mid-2009. His first fight after being released by the UFC ended in a split decision loss, then he vanished. No media, no declarative statements about switching camps. Not much of anything, actually.

The common stereotype says the situation -- one last loss, to a then-unknown, no less -- finally sent Torres over the edge; a broken man left with nothing but memories of past glories. However, that couldn't be further from the truth.

"That fight didn't devastate me," Torres said. "I wasn't broken down, and I didn't fight (since then) because of that fight. I was just taking care of other business. I make money doing other things. Fighting is a good way to make money and get popularity, but I have that already.

"I do this for fun now. Before it was a fulltime job, and I developed all my skills and habits towards fighting. I was becoming too much like a workman. Now I haven't fought for a while, and I'm fighting because I want to fight again; because I miss it, because I want to have fun."

Torres' honestly is refreshing, if not surprising. It's definitely not something you hear everyday, a professional prizefighter describing how fighting is no longer their fulltime job.

Though in a way, it makes sense. While it explains Torres' self-imposed media blackout, it also explains the reason the once-outspoken fighter has, for all intents and purposes, trimmed away a majority of the social media fat he once reveled in, limiting his interaction to occasional musings instead of daily slapstick.

"I had to draw a line between how I am, how I think and how I feel," Torres said.

"Before WEC and UFC, I was a pretty private person. I wasn't on Facebook or Twitter. None of that stuff. My sponsors wanted me to get on. They said I had a funny personality, that I said a lot of funny things. And then that s--t got me in trouble. People at first liked it, and then they didn't like it; thought I was horrible. So I'd rather just keep my personal life personal."

To hear him explain it, it's actually quite simple. In the year since the Moraes loss, Torres fell off the grid because that's how he prefers to live.

Instead of devoting his time a thousand different directions, Torres decided to focus on himself. He trained, he expanded his academy, Hammond's Torres Martial Arts. He traveled, and he delighted in spending time with his family, especially his daughter, who's now old enough to understand that daddy punches people in the face for a living.

Meanwhile all the noise, the criticism and constant online potshots, it faded into irrelevance. It fell on deaf ears, the way Torres hoped.

"You could say that, yeah," Torres acknowledged. "I'm just fed up with all the crap, man. Fans are fickle. They love you one day, they hate you the next. You can't say how you think because they didn't like the way you think. All of a sudden you're a bad person. It's just a real fickle world that we live in, and the media can portray whatever you say however they want it to come out. So for me, it's nobody's business to begin with. It's my life. It's my business."

Torres says he's all grown up now, offhandedly in a way that you know he's mostly joking but the slightest shred of truth still exists within the cliché.

He prefers not to comment on his recent legal run-in, but is beyond thankful when asked about a late-September incident in which 11 Chicago gangsters robbed his father at gunpoint, but fortunately left him unharmed. The episode "hit home" with Torres, serving as yet another reminder of what is truly important in his life.

Now that he's back in action, Torres wants to fight as often as possible for two, maybe three more years, just to show his daughter what her old man is made of. And while he acknowledges that Alfonso is, at least on paper, an easy fight, he warns that the notion doesn't much.

Nonetheless, Torres sees this as a chance to show off his "old style," to begin writing the final chapter of a career in his own way, without the old outside obligations that once weighed him down.

"People write me off. They say I'm washed up. They say all these things, and I don't mind it," the 32-year-old Torres said.

"I know what's going on now. I can see the big picture. I'm happier because I see the world for how it works. I know what I've got to do to be successful, and that's mind my business, keep my head down, and fight my balls off like I used to."

Source: http://www.mmafighting.com/2013/10/14/4839070/a-reenergized-miguel-torres-vows-to-show-the-old-style-at-wsof-6
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HTC One Max review

Does the world need a 5.9-inch HTC One?

We like the HTC One. Twice this year we’ve said it was the best Android phone you can buy, and there’s a strong argument for saying that’s still the case today. When it arrived back in March, the HTC One bucked some of the major high-end smartphone trends of the time. A metal shell, not plastic. A quirky two-button setup. A 4-megapixel camera that focused on pixel size, not megapixel count. And a screen no larger than its predecessor, at 4.7-inches, in a world of rapidly ballooning display sizes.

Nevertheless, big phones are, and look set to remain, a thing. The success of the Samsung Galaxy Note series has inspired competitors to have a crack at their own unashamedly large smartphones. This year we’ve seen the Optimus G Pro from LG, the Xperia Z Ultra from Sony and even the Ascend Mate from Huawei. It was only a matter of time before HTC arrived — fashionably late, of course — at the oversized smartphone party.

It’s easy to look at the One Max and assume you’re just dealing with a bigger HTC One. That’s not untrue, but there’s more going on than a mere expansion of an existing phone into a new form factor — and that’s both good and bad. The Max delivers some subtle differences in design and build, a fingerprint sensor around the back, expandable storage and an array of new software tricks thanks to HTC’s new Sense 5.5.

But does the world need a 5.9-inch HTC One? And what of the competition from the likes of Samsung, which has just launched its Galaxy Note 3 amid much fanfare. Let’s find out after the break, as we take an in-depth look at the new HTC One Max.

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/rHBawbTppN0/story01.htm
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Charlize Theron's Little Dom's Lunch Date

Chasing away a case of the Mondays with a charming lunch date, Charlize Theron dined at Little Dom's in Los Feliz, California (October 14).

The "Snow White and the Huntsman" star looked casual and cute in a black top, knee-length denim skirt, and flats as she smiled while chowing down on pasta with a handsome young man.

This past weekend, the 38-year-old actress spent some time with her adorable son Jackson.

On Friday afternoon, Charlize took her little guy to the Travel Town Museum at Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/charlize-theron/charlize-therons-little-doms-lunch-date-942511
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David Dinkins: Leading New York Is The 'Greatest Job There Is'

Audio for this story from Tell Me More will be available at approximately 3:00 p.m. ET.

 

David Dinkins served as New York City's first African-American mayor. But his rise through the political ranks came with hard-learned lessons. Host Michel Martin speaks with former Mayor Dinkins about his book, A Mayor's Life: Governing New York's Gorgeous Mosaic. This segment initially aired September 2, 2013 on Tell Me More.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/14/232164807/david-dinkins-leading-new-york-is-the-greatest-job-there-is?ft=1&f=
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Somerset badger cull given extension

11 October 2013
Last updated at 13:30 ET












By Helen Briggs
BBC News

A licence has been granted to extend the badger cull in Somerset until 1 November.

The planned six-week trial came to an end on Monday, but the firm behind it asked for more time after its marksmen fell short of killing the target of 70% of the badger population.

A similar trial in Gloucestershire is due to end next week, with an application made to extend it also.

Ministers and the NFU say badger culling is needed to control cattle TB.

Around 28,000 cattle were slaughtered in 2012 at a cost of £100m to taxpayers.

However, animal welfare groups say scientific evidence does not support the policy of shooting badgers in an attempt to control the disease.

The government agency Natural England said on Friday that "criteria have been met to allow control of badgers to continue under licence in west Somerset for the purpose of preventing the spread of bovine tuberculosis".

"The new licence authorises a three-week control operation to be carried out this autumn and supplements that authorised under the original four-year licence granted in October last year," it said on its website.

It said the new licence allowed culling to continue and specified a minimum number of 165 badgers and a maximum number of 282 badgers "to deliver disease control benefits while reducing the risk of local extinction".

Continue reading the main story

The pilot areas

• Gloucestershire: Predominantly within the council districts of the Forest of Dean and Tewkesbury; parts lie within the districts of Wychavon, Malvern Hills and the south east part of Herefordshire. The area does not include the public forest estate in the Forest of Dean.


• West Somerset: Predominantly within the council district of West Somerset and part lies within the district of Taunton Deane.


• Source: Natural England

An application to extend culling in Gloucestershire had also been received, said Natural England, and would be processed in due course.

The Badger Trust said it had received a message from solicitors at Defra that a licence had been issued allowing the cull to start immediately and continue until midday on 1 November.

The original plan was to kill 70% of badgers in the areas of west Somerset and Gloucestershire by free shooting.

Across both regions this meant around 5,000 badgers were to be killed in total.

But Defra said these targets were based on population estimates from 2012 that had turned out to be highly inaccurate.

In west Somerset, the population, which had been estimated at 2,400, has now been revised downwards to 1,450. In Gloucestershire, the numbers have been lowered from 3,400 to 2,350.

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson told the House of Commons that 850 badgers had been shot in Somerset during the six-week trial, just over 40% of an initial target of 2,081.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24500604#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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NFL cheerleader is war vet

Updated?Jul 31, 2013 4:17 PM ET

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For one Arizona Cardinals cheerleader, hearing the national anthem and seeing the American flag before games have a special meaning.

It wasn?t easy for Megan Welter to go from Iraq veteran to NFL cheerleader, but the journey, she said, was worth it.

?Our country has given us so many freedoms,? Welter told ABC15. ?To be a part of fighting for that and maintaining that means a lot. It gives me goosebumps.?

After graduating in 2007, Welter put her dance career on hold to ?to take a job that was going to be meaningful, so I decided to join the Army."

Welter finished basic training and enrolled in Officer Training school. She ended up doing a 16-month tour in Iraq.

?My job was to make sure that...the soliders that were actually out were able to communicate,? she said.

A a third-generation soldier, Welter knew she had a "100 percent chance" of going to Iraq once she went into officer training.

"I thought it was the right thing to do," Welter told azcardinals.com in 2012. "I was deployed to Joint Base Belad which is about an hour north of Baghdad. At first, it was, it was scary you know, but?it's what I signed up to do."

At 23 years old, she was charged with maintaining the communications network for the biggest base in Iraq.

In 2011, after being inspired by NFL cheerleaders who were entertaining troops during her tour, Welter tried out for the team.

Hear her tell more of her amazing story below:

Source: http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/arizona-cardinals-cheerleader-megan-welter-also-an-iraq-war-vet-073113

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