Toronto

Councillor Doug Ford jumped to his brother’s defence Saturday after allegations surfaced that Mayor Rob Ford was filmed by drug dealers smoking crack cocaine.

Over the past few days there's been tons of traffic from Gawker, Reddit, Twitter and elsewhere to this comment left by Rinse on March 26. Here's everything I know about it... First, here's what Rinse wrote at 9:09pm that March 26 night in response to allegations Rob Ford has battled alcohol abuse: Here's the thing: Rob Ford DOES use crack cocaine. A friend of mine, her mother is a serious drug addict. Rob Ford regularly goes over to her house to smoke crack. The problem is this: The daughter wants to expose Rob Ford's drug abuse, but her oldschool Italian grandmother won't allow her to "bring shame" upon the family, long story short. So basically the daughter has become complicit with the entire thing instead of doing the right thing. Shame on you Jasmin. Rinse commented from an IP address that has never commented on TorontoMike.com before or since. The IP address belongs to a Toronto Rogers customer. Rinse left his/her email address as rinse@rinseout.com. I've written this address and it bounced back as invalid. I have no idea who Rinse is and cannot comment on his/her integrity. When the comment showed up on March 26, I completely dismissed it and gave it little thought. Once Gawker broke the story about Rob Ford being caught on tape smoking crack, it suddenly seemed far more plausible. With so many new eyeballs suddenly reading Rinse's comment, I felt I should share everything I know about it so there's no confusion. Rinse, if you're out there and want to elaborate, please contact me.

THE BRONX, NY – The Blue Jays’ failures against the New York Yankees continued Saturday afternoon, and for the third time this season they’ll have to attempt to beat back the brooms of the Bronx Bombers. Blue Jays Talk Here are three things that stood out to me about the latest loss to the Yanks: PAY ATTENTION The Blue Jays are looking for any kind of spark to get them going against the Yankees, a team they’ve had a terrible time with this season having lost eight times in nine tries. With two out in the very first inning, they might have had one against a struggling David Phelps, who had walked a pair, thrown 24 pitches and was behind in the count 3-1 to Adam Lind. Phelps didn’t have to throw that critical pitch to Lind, though, because he spun around and picked Jose Bautista off at second to end the inning. At best, that’s a deflating mental mistake by the Blue Jays’ on-field leader. At worst, it’s an unforgivable lack of focus that came at a huge time, though very early in the game. Any way you slice it, though, the Jays had a chance to take the early lead against a team that is 9-16 this season when it doesn’t score first, and having a runner picked off at second base seems to be about the most avoidable way to end an inning. A MOMENT’S HESITATION Brandon Morrow, making his first start in almost two weeks because of back spasms, retired the first six Yankees he faced on just 22 pitches then gave up a leadoff single to Jayson Nix in the bottom of the third. The next batter was rookie David Adams, and he hit a comebacker to the mound that Morrow bobbled. The righty still had time to make a throw to second to start a double play, with shortstop Maicer Izturis waiting at the bag, but he eschewed the opportunity (perhaps needing to make sure he had a good grip and wasn’t going to throw the ball away) and took the sure out at first instead. Austin Romine then flied out, which would have ended the inning had the double play been turned, but the inning continued for Brett Gardner to open the scoring with an RBI single to centre. Robinson Cano followed with a Yankee Stadium Special two-run homer, the first of his two two-run bombs on the day. UGLINESS AT THE END Edwin Encarnacion had a Yankee Stadium Special of his own in the eighth inning to draw the Blue Jays back to within three, but the Bronx Bombers put the game away in the bottom of that frame with a lot of help from the visitors. Darren Oliver came out of the bullpen for his first appearance in exactly a week, and got started by striking out Cano and getting Vernon Wells to hit a grounder to shortstop. Izturis didn’t field the grounder cleanly, though, and then airmailed his throw over Lind’s head at first base for an error. The next hitter, Travis Hafner took Oliver deep. Following the Hafner homer, Lyle Overbay hit a weak dribbler up the first-base line and Lind went over to field it but went to tag Overbay before he had the ball in his glove and wound up leaving the ball on the ground. The next hitter was Curtis Granderson, who hit a grounder to Lind that was fielded cleanly and Lind made a good, strong throw to second in an attempt to start an inning-ending double play. Izturis made a return throw to first, but there was really no point because Oliver was late getting over to cover. Granderson would have been safe even had Oliver been standing there waiting for the throw, but that’s not the point. The point is that it had been a couple of weeks since "Yakety Sax" was the background music for the Blue Jays, but there was it was once again on Saturday afternoon. Just remember: baby steps. Long, slow climb. The post Wilner on MLB: Lack of focus hurts Blue Jays appeared first on Sportsnet.ca.

Switzerland’s fairytale run at the world ice hockey championship continued on Saturday when they reached the final thanks to a 3-0 victory over the United States.

Former Baylor women’s basketball star Brittney Griner told ESPN the Magazine on Friday that coach Kim Mulkey told players not to openly discuss their sexuality because it would hurt the school’s image.

Don’t forget about Woodbine.

The Chicago Blackhawks were expecting a better effort from the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday and got it.

The other day in the Boston Bruins dressing room, a big scrum formed around the stall of fourth-line tough guy Shawn Thornton.

Saturday’s downward spiral started with Brandon Morrow’s poor decision after a bobble.

Blue Jays 2 Yankees 7 Sometimes, with baseball, one game or one inning encapsulates the entire season. Tonight it was the Jays half of the first inning. It started with Melky Cabrera striking out on a pitch that hit him in the foot. If the ball didn't hit him, he could have made it to first on the strikeout, as the ball bounced away or, if he didn't swing, he would have been on first on a hit by pitch. But, instead, he was out. Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion walked. It looked like David Phelps couldn't find the strike zone with both hands and a compass. Up came our 'cleanup hitter'. J.P. Arencibia. He resembles a cleanup hitter like I resemble a model. Yeah, JP has a bunch of home runs and I've got the basic two arms, two legs and head. For both of us, that's where the resemblance ends. With JP, it doesn't matter that the pitcher can't find the strike zone, he's not going to take a walk unless the ball rolls up to the plate, and sometimes he'll still swing at it. He's a nice enough player to have near the back of the order, then you can be happy with the occasional home run, but cleanup? No, please no. Anyway, he struck out. But we still have two on and Adam Lind up, against a RHP having problems with his control. Lind is as locked in as anyone on the team at the moment. So what happens? Jose Bautista gets picked off of second base. I don't want to rag on Jose too much, he has been our best player for a long time now, but you can't get picked off there. It can't happen. Pay attention to the game going on around you! And that's been our season. Brandon Morrow wasn't as terrible as his line looks, he was cruising until the 3rd inning. Jayson Nix singled to start the inning. David Adam hit a ground ball to Morrow. Morrow dropped it but still looked to have time to get Nix at second, instead he went to first. Brett Gardner singled, driving home Nix. Robinson Cano followed with a Yankee Stadium home run. Man I hate that place. And we were down 3-0. Cano hit a 2 run shot in the 5th, this one not a Yankee Stadium special. Brett Cecil pitched a quick 6th, Steve Delabar a quick 7th. Darren Oliver had his infield commit 2 errors behind him and gave up a home run to Travis Hafner. Maicer Izturis airmailed a throw over Lind on a routine ground ball and Lind couldn't pick up a ball slowly rolling up the first base line. On offense, we had 8 hits, including a home run and 3 doubles, 3 walks and only scored 2 runs. Lind hit 2 doubles, everyone else had 1 hit except for Brett Lawrie (0 for 4, 1 k) and Jose Bautista, but he took 2 walks. Edwin hit his 12th home run, tying him with Cano for the league lead. We didn't get hits when we needed them. No Jays of the Day today. Colby Rasmus led with a .039 WPA and he also made a nice catch in the 8th, off a long fly to center from Gardner. Suckage goes to Morrow (-.230),. Lawrie (-.093, 0 for 4, k) and Melky (.092, 1 for 4 with a k). I thought Melky was running a little better today. R.A. Dickey goes against CC Sabathis tomorrow. Please be great, RA. 30 of us totaled 480 comments this afternoon: # Commenter # Comments 1 Tom Dakers 67 2 rob.magnificent 57 3 MjwW 52 4 shortofbrillant 48 5 Damaso's Burnt Shirt 44 6 ABsteve 42 7 domefan 23 8 Super Bass Hallways 21 9 fatpuppy 20 10 MapleMan 17 11 fishedin 15 12 REMO 11 13 Redonred 10 14 leafs71 10 15 expos&nordiques4ever 10 16 Qd6 8 17 gabrielsyme 4 18 Trensetta 4 19 JaysfanAtlanta 4 20 Diamond_D86 2 21 DavidLondon 2 22 jays182 1 23 jazzinTO 1 24 Belisarius 1 25 Maninwhite 1 26 KevinInCT 1 27 bankertuck 1 28 bluejays13 1 29 TwitchyJB 1 30 bryfryy 1 Toronto Blue Jay tickets.