Muhammad Ali

Sidney Crosby 's planned 15 minutes on the ice against the New York Rangers Thursday night mark his first hockey game more than three months after being once again sidelined by concussion-like symptoms. The Pittsburgh Penguins star has experienced dizziness and headaches since the beginning of 2011, when he suffered a concussion in January after playing the Washington Capitals and the Tampa Bay Lightning . He returned briefly in November, to much fanfare, but was quickly taken out of the rink after his symptoms returned.

Sidney Crosby 's planned 15 minutes on the ice against the New York Rangers Thursday night mark his first hockey game more than three months after being once again sidelined by concussion-like symptoms. The Pittsburgh Penguins star has experienced dizziness and headaches since the beginning of 2011, when he suffered a concussion in January after playing the Washington Capitals and the Tampa Bay Lightning . He returned briefly in November, to much fanfare, but was quickly taken out of the rink after his symptoms returned.

What Muhammad Ali did during the Vietnam War to avoid the draft was offensive to myself and many other Vietnam veterans. To see him in the Rose Parade on a float displaying the American flag was a personal slap in the face. DENNIS MAHONEY MINA Chino Hills

Muhammad Ali turned 70 on Tuesday, and the three-time heavyweight champion who doubled as the most famous draft resistor in U.S. history remains larger than life in the American mind, despite being ravaged by Parkinson's disease. Two years ago, on a visit to Louisville, Ky., I was reminded why. In a cab on the way to the Muhammad Ali Center downtown, I saw that my driver had a Vietnam Veterans of America patch on display by his license. I asked him about his experience in Southeast Asia, and he started talking a mile a minute about his time "in country," how his "happiest days" were being a sniper in Vietnam.

Muhammad Ali turns 70 on Tuesday, and for many of those 70 years, he has had us all on the ropes. To say he is merely a famous boxer is to say the sky is always blue. There are so many sides to him his nickname should be Octagon. Now, he is revered. Passage of time softens and endears. He is ill, and has been since 1984, when he first received a diagnosis of Parkinson's. That was just three years after his final fight, when he made one last, mostly pathetic, effort to convince the world he was still "the Greatest.

Reporting from Tempe, Ariz. ? When Torii Hunter heard a few days ago that Muhammad Ali would be visiting camp Wednesday, the Angels outfielder got that same feeling of anticipation he had as a kid in late December. "You know how you have to wait to open Christmas presents? That's how I felt," Hunter said. "I couldn't wait. " The clubhouse fell silent when Ali, a Phoenix-area resident, was escorted in by his wife and sister-in-law before the Angels' 8-0 exhibition win over the San Francisco Giants.

Ten years ago, television producer George Schlatter put together a television special honoring legendary boxer Muhammad Ali on his 50th birthday. Schlatter is now climbing back into the TV ring with Ali for a new CBS special, "Muhammad Ali's 60th Birthday Celebration." The program, whose guests will include Will Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Foxx, Anthony Hopkins and Sidney Poitier, is the latest in a frenzied series of recent activities surrounding the boxer.

Every bookstore owner I've met got into the business after trying something else. That tends to make them an eclectic lot, with interesting past lives. Surrounded by books, they've all got stories to tell. With his wife, Nancy, Brad Wilson owns The Book Store in Costa Mesa. In his previous life, Wilson, now 56, was a teaching golf pro, a job he parlayed into magazine assignments in which he'd write about playing golf with celebrities.

ABC and Fox are trying to beat each other to the punch with made-for-TV movies about the life of boxing legend Muhammad Ali. Both biographical projects are targeted to air during the February ratings sweeps, creating an inexplicable race between the two networks that represents merely the latest in a series of similarly themed concepts put into development by more than one network.

Suddenly, wonderfully, Muhammad Ali rose into sight above the rim of the stadium, an appearance so surprising it took your breath away. After a month of secrecy, clandestine travel and midnight rehearsal, the great man would light the flame opening the Olympic Games in Atlanta. Swimmer Janet Evans carried the flame up a long ramp to the stadium rim, there touching her torch to Ali's, and then the 1960 Olympic gold medalist raised high the flame in his right hand. Beautiful.

Muhammad Ali turns 70 on Tuesday, and for many of those 70 years, he has had us all on the ropes. To say he is merely a famous boxer is to say the sky is always blue. There are so many sides to him his nickname should be Octagon. Now, he is revered. Passage of time softens and endears. He is ill, and has been since 1984, when he first received a diagnosis of Parkinson's. That was just three years after his final fight, when he made one last, mostly pathetic, effort to convince the world he was still "the Greatest.

ART Michael Brennan Captured on a Pennsylvania afternoon in 1977, the iconic close-up portrait of Muhammad Ali made photographer Brennan's dreams come true. With his face festooned with sweat beads, bumps and scars, the fighter paused in the corner of the ring in front of the photographer, and the rest is history. An exhibition of Brennan's photographs of Ali, appropriately titled "Muhammad Ali: 1977," will be on display, first at Design Within Reach, then at Artworks Gallery in Pasadena.

Captured in one-hundred-twenty-fifth of a second on a Pennsylvania afternoon in 1977, the iconic close-up portrait of the great Muhammad Ali made photographer Michael Brennan's dreams come true. With his face festooned with sweat beads, bumps and scars, the fighter paused in the corner of the ring in front of the photographer, and the rest is history. An exhibition of Brennan's photographs of Ali, appropriately titled "Muhammad Ali: 1977," will be on display, first at Design Within Reach, then at Artworks Gallery in Pasadena.

In a sad touch of irony, Joe Frazier left the world the same week the final chapter will play out in what could be boxing's next great trilogy. Manny Pacquiao and his rival, Mexico's Juan Manuel Marquez, clash for a third time Saturday in Las Vegas with both intent to settle thequestion of who is the better man. "There are personal feelings here," Pacquiao said recently after 15 rounds of sparring at a Hollywood gym. "I'm not saying I'm...

You wonder if, in those last moments before he died, Joe Frazier felt one last sting of defeat, knowing Muhammad Ali would outlive him. Their trilogy of heavyweight boxing matches ended 36 years ago, but they never left Frazier's frontal lobe. As writer Erik Brady of USA Today put it so nicely in a 2009 story, Frazier and Ali are forever "joined at the arthritic hip. " In death, Smokin' Joe may finally receive a measure of the positive attention he always felt was stolen from him by Ali, a man he lost to twice in three matches and always claimed, "I whupped him three times.

Three great fights between the same boxers is a rarity in the modern era. Here's a look at some of best trilogies in recent decades. Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier Frazier won the heavyweight title that was stripped from Ali because of his refusal to serve in the Vietnam War. Frazier's title was looked upon with a degree of suspicion because Ali was still undefeated. Ali returned from a three-year exile in 1970, setting up a long-awaited bout with Frazier a year later at Madison Square Garden.

Sonji Clay-Glover, 59, the first wife of boxing great Muhammad Ali, died Tuesday at her home in Chicago of natural causes. The couple married Aug. 14, 1964, when Ali was still known as Cassius Clay. The couple had divorced by 1966 amid conflict over Ali's devotion to the Nation of Islam.

Muhammad Ali alarmed a hotel clerk, who worriedly called police when the former boxing champion left his suite without explanation and disappeared into the night at 4:30 a.m. But a hotel employee found Ali safe--taking his routine morning stroll. "I wasn't worried about him," said Avudi Mahdi, Ali's road manager, who was awakened by a call from the desk clerk. "I didn't even get out of bed when the hotel staff called me. I told them Ali can take care of himself."

Magic Johnson has finished giving a speech in a high school gymnasium when he asks the students if they have any questions. A girl shyly raises her hand and moves to the microphone. "I don't really have a question," she says. "I just want to know if I can come up there and give you a hug. " Within moments, the entire student body descends upon Johnson, grabbing his massive hands, clinging to his broad shoulders, embracing him from to shoes to smile, covering his massive body with admiration and love.

As children of the Austrian-Irish artist Gottfried Helnwein, siblings Mercedes and Ali experienced an unconventional and charmed upbringing. They lived in castles in Germany and Ireland, attended a private arts school in England and accompanied their father on trips to America, where they sold their drawings to hotel guests to buy stuffed animals at the gift shop. When he was little, Ali engaged in a faux boxing match with his namesake, Muhammad Ali, and had Keith Haring draw on his hand.