Wade Davis

Early in Wade Davis' first NFL training camp, in 2000, a teammate with the Tennessee Titans approached the rookie defensive back with some helpful advice. If you want to make the team, he whispered, stay away from people who are "different" - a code word Davis instantly knew referred to players suspected of being gay. So that night Davis, who realized he was "different" during his sophomore year in high school, followed a group of teammates to a nearby strip club where he spent $1,500 to prove he was one of the guys.

Jason Collins had long been keeping a secret. As a standout high school player at Harvard-Westlake School, as a star at Stanford and through a 12-year NBA career, he had hidden something fundamental about himself from his family, friends and teammates. On Monday Collins came out, becoming the first active male athlete in a major U.S. professional team sport to acknowledge he was gay. The reaction was swift. President Obama, who just last year gave his support for gay marriage, called Collins to say "he was impressed by his courage," according to a White House Twitter post.

  Former NFL player Wade Davis, who came out publicly to Outsports.com this week , said in an interview with CNN that he didn't tell anyone he was gay when he played in the league because he wanted to be known as a football player, not as a gay person. "Me being a gay person wasn't what I wanted to be known for," he said. Davis was a defensive back for the Tennessee Titans , Seattle Seahawks and Washington Redskins and retired from the NFL seven years ago. "I don't believe most NFL players have a problem with having a gay teammate.

Powering down The San Diego Padres moved in the outfield fences this season, a nod to hitters frustrated when a home run anywhere else would be an out at Petco Park. In the Padres' first 10 home games, three balls that would have been outs last season went for home runs. "All for the other guys," Padres Manager Bud Black said. It's been that kind of start for the Padres, whose record through Friday was worse than any team other than the losing-by-design Houston Astros and Miami Marlins.

James Shields has notched wins in the double digits in his last six seasons with Tampa Bay, including 15 last year and 16 the season before that. Wade Davis flourished for the Rays last season, once he was moved from the starting rotation to the bullpen. The Kansas City Royals have needed that kind of pitching for years, and that's what they appear to have gotten by trading for Shields and Davis on Sunday night. "When you can acquire a pitcher like James Shields and Wade Davis, we have to do it, because that's what we've committed to our team -- we've committed to our organization," said Royals General Manager Dayton Moore, whose team hasn't had a winning season since 2003.

News flash: The psychedelic revolution of the '60s--which fueled perhaps the largest generational conflict in history while transforming American politics, revolutionizing music and unzipping sexuality--had its roots in one very conservative, bespectacled ethnobotanist who was more interested in higher education than higher consciousness. This was a Bostonian who regularly voted for the Queen of England during presidential elections because he didn't support the American Revolution of 1776.

Jason Collins had long been keeping a secret. As a standout high school player at Harvard-Westlake School, as a star at Stanford and through a 12-year NBA career, he had hidden something fundamental about himself from his family, friends and teammates. On Monday Collins came out, becoming the first active male athlete in a major U.S. professional team sport to acknowledge he was gay. The reaction was swift. President Obama, who just last year gave his support for gay marriage, called Collins to say "he was impressed by his courage," according to a White House Twitter post.

It was the worst free throw ever. Apologies to Appalachian State center Brian Okam. We know that sounds rather harsh. You could very well be a nice person. You might be a decent basketball player. You are definitely very tall. Hopefully you have a good sense of humor. Otherwise, you are probably pretty embarrassed by the video of your mind-boggling free throw attempt against Western Carolina University on Sunday that has been viewed nearly 3 million times on YouTube.

The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis (Simon & Schuster: $17.95) A fundamental problem plagues this book. At the "public," or external level, it manifests as a quirk of merchandising: the author, Wade Davis, is touted on the jacket copy as "a real life Indiana Jones" and as "a Harvard ethnobotanist who penetrated the dark world of Haitian Vodoun as no other outsider before." Davis' "mission" is funded by David Merrick, the Broadway producer (?!).

Powering down The San Diego Padres moved in the outfield fences this season, a nod to hitters frustrated when a home run anywhere else would be an out at Petco Park. In the Padres' first 10 home games, three balls that would have been outs last season went for home runs. "All for the other guys," Padres Manager Bud Black said. It's been that kind of start for the Padres, whose record through Friday was worse than any team other than the losing-by-design Houston Astros and Miami Marlins.

Early in Wade Davis' first NFL training camp, in 2000, a teammate with the Tennessee Titans approached the rookie defensive back with some helpful advice. If you want to make the team, he whispered, stay away from people who are "different" - a code word Davis instantly knew referred to players suspected of being gay. So that night Davis, who realized he was "different" during his sophomore year in high school, followed a group of teammates to a nearby strip club where he spent $1,500 to prove he was one of the guys.

James Shields has notched wins in the double digits in his last six seasons with Tampa Bay, including 15 last year and 16 the season before that. Wade Davis flourished for the Rays last season, once he was moved from the starting rotation to the bullpen. The Kansas City Royals have needed that kind of pitching for years, and that's what they appear to have gotten by trading for Shields and Davis on Sunday night. "When you can acquire a pitcher like James Shields and Wade Davis, we have to do it, because that's what we've committed to our team -- we've committed to our organization," said Royals General Manager Dayton Moore, whose team hasn't had a winning season since 2003.

It was the worst free throw ever. Apologies to Appalachian State center Brian Okam. We know that sounds rather harsh. You could very well be a nice person. You might be a decent basketball player. You are definitely very tall. Hopefully you have a good sense of humor. Otherwise, you are probably pretty embarrassed by the video of your mind-boggling free throw attempt against Western Carolina University on Sunday that has been viewed nearly 3 million times on YouTube.

  Former NFL player Wade Davis, who came out publicly to Outsports.com this week , said in an interview with CNN that he didn't tell anyone he was gay when he played in the league because he wanted to be known as a football player, not as a gay person. "Me being a gay person wasn't what I wanted to be known for," he said. Davis was a defensive back for the Tennessee Titans , Seattle Seahawks and Washington Redskins and retired from the NFL seven years ago. "I don't believe most NFL players have a problem with having a gay teammate.

On June 6, 1924, two men set out from a camp set at 23,000 feet on Mt. Everest. They were George Mallory, who, at 37, was already one of the world's most accomplished climbers, and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine, a 22-year-old Oxford graduate with little climbing experience. They walked out of the camp, vanished into the mists that surrounded the peak, and were never seen again until Mallory's frozen body was found in 1999. In his magnificent, if perhaps overlong, new book, "Into the Silence," Wade Davis tells the full story behind this almost mythic story, imbuing it with historic scope and epic sweep, perceiving the quest to conquer Everest as an emblem of Britain's damaged nobility and infatuation with heroic failure.

News flash: The psychedelic revolution of the '60s--which fueled perhaps the largest generational conflict in history while transforming American politics, revolutionizing music and unzipping sexuality--had its roots in one very conservative, bespectacled ethnobotanist who was more interested in higher education than higher consciousness. This was a Bostonian who regularly voted for the Queen of England during presidential elections because he didn't support the American Revolution of 1776.

On June 6, 1924, two men set out from a camp set at 23,000 feet on Mt. Everest. They were George Mallory, who, at 37, was already one of the world's most accomplished climbers, and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine, a 22-year-old Oxford graduate with little climbing experience. They walked out of the camp, vanished into the mists that surrounded the peak, and were never seen again until Mallory's frozen body was found in 1999. In his magnificent, if perhaps overlong, new book, "Into the Silence," Wade Davis tells the full story behind this almost mythic story, imbuing it with historic scope and epic sweep, perceiving the quest to conquer Everest as an emblem of Britain's damaged nobility and infatuation with heroic failure.

The truth behind Haitian Vodoun (Voodoo) is every bit as bizarre as the Hollywood fiction. Zombies are sometimes buried alive, ethnobiologist Wade Davis reports, then taken from the grave and restored to a twilight life. "Zombie powder," a neurotoxin that helps lower the metabolism to simulate death, is a wizardly blend of toads, lizards, tarantulas and human bone.

The rapid destruction of great parts of the Amazon rain forest has become a matter of great concern to the world. This book explains why. Not explicitly. It mostly tells the story of botanist Richard Evans Schultes. He is, Wade Davis writes, "the greatest ethnobotanist of all, a man whose own expeditions . . . earned him a place in the pantheon along with Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, Henry Bates, and his own hero, the indefatigable English botanist and explorer Richard Spruce."

The truth behind Haitian Vodoun (Voodoo) is every bit as bizarre as the Hollywood fiction. Zombies are sometimes buried alive, ethnobiologist Wade Davis reports, then taken from the grave and restored to a twilight life. "Zombie powder," a neurotoxin that helps lower the metabolism to simulate death, is a wizardly blend of toads, lizards, tarantulas and human bone.