By SCOTT ADAMSON, Scripps Howard News Service

John Daly is back in the news, and for a change it doesn't involve drinking, gambling, smoking or passing out at Hooters. Instead, he is coming off a second-place finish at the Italian Open, where he picked up a solid payday and looked a bit more like the guy we once thought would become one of the sport's more lovable characters.

He takes a pronounced bow and thousands of fans -- sometimes hundreds of thousands -- boo.
He jumps on top of his car, and the boos get even louder.
If Kyle Busch had a thin skin, the 24-year-old would probably spend much of his down time hiding in his hauler, sniffling as tears well up in his eyes.

Growing up, preseason college football rankings were always highly anticipated because they came out in the summer just before a new season was about to begin.
There wasn't a lot of chatter in the offseason, so the Top 20 (there was no Top 25 back then) was somewhat a mystery.

Every few years an incident occurs in NASCAR that is frightening enough to make some people wonder if superspeedway racing is simply too dangerous. The latest came last Sunday in the Talladega Sprint Cup race -- one that ended with Carl Edwards' car going airborne and smashing into the catchfence.

In October 2007, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell made an offhand remark to reporters about the possibility of showcasing a future Super Bowl overseas.
"There's a great deal of interest in holding a Super Bowl in London," Goodell said. "So we'll be looking at that."

There will be a lot more wins and winners during the NASCAR Sprint Cup season, but you'll be hard-pressed to find one more popular than Mark Martin's last Saturday in Phoenix.
The grand old man of stock car racing became the third oldest driver in NASCAR history to pick up a checker when the 50-year-old got the job done in the Subway Fresh Fit 500.

Donnie Allison was always one of my favorites on the NASCAR circuit.
He was a good driver, of course -- later this month he'll be inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. But beyond that, he was honest to a fault.

I hadn't even thought of the guy in probably 20 years or more, but news of the passing of Mark Fidrych brought back a flood of memories.
It was 1976 and my dad and I were huddled in front of the TV to watch Monday Night Baseball.

We all know Danica Patrick is an attractive woman.
She looks good in a swimsuit. She knows she looks good in a swimsuit. Sports Illustrated knows she looks good in a swimsuit, (even though the magazine thought she looked better with her tattoo airbrushed away) and both the Indy Racing League and Patrick are more than happy to take advantage of her appearance.

Sterling Marlin was back in victory lane last weekend, and Rusty Wallace was close behind.
Of course Kevin Harvick got most of the pub for his Nationwide Series win on Saturday, and Kyle Busch grabbed the spotlight for his Sprint Cup checker on Sunday.