Talladega Wreck

Talladega wreck uncharacteristically early. Lap 7 early. "I saw an opening, went for it and it closed up in a hurry," Gordon said. "I think somebody got into Matt Kenseth. He came up and I had nowhere to go." Kenseth made it through and has been running in the top 10 ever since, but Mark Martin, David Gilliland, Scott Riggs and Jamie McMurray ended their days on that wreck.

"I'm fine," Martin said, smiling. "I told you I wasn't racing for points. I got a win last weekend. I'm fine. Maybe we'll go do that again at Richmond." Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer, A.J. Allmendinger, Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne's cars got banged up but were not ruled out of ther race right away. Bowyer's was eventually. "Hopefully it's wrecked bad enough to where we can't drive it anymore," an angry Harvick said afterward.

The garage immediately following the wreck looked like the end of a race with crew members from all the teams running furiously in case they had to get to work. I heard an angry curse shouted from inside the 33's garage. A dumbfounded Todd Berrier walked in a daze back toward pit road as he waited for the 29 car to be towed into the garage. Some drivers criticized making a move so early in the race. Kasey Kahne took a different attitude.

Michael Keaton

Michael Keaton broken foot – One of the latest buzz news on the Web is that Michael Keaton has a broken foot. I’ve tried to find some more info about this story online, but so far there isn’t too much information. On Twitter you can find come comments about this. Like for example this one.

Michael Keaton talked to David Letterman on the Late Show with David Letterman, on CBS this evening about his broken foot and saving orphans.You can watch the video after the jump. For grins, next time you're in the mood for a movie, go rent "The Paper" with Michael Keaton and Glenn Close. Released in 1994, it involves a day in the life of a New York City tabloid newspaper.

It's a bit like a denizen of the year 1909 trying to fathom the relevance of what went on behind the scenes of 1894's cutthroat horse and buggy industry while Henry Ford's factories roll out Model T after Model T, dramatically changing the world's landscape -- for better and worse -- in ways we're still dealing with here in the 21st century. Recently, someone asked me about the last time I'd picked up a newspaper, and I couldn't honestly remember when that was.

Matthew Stafford

Matthew Stafford, the Georgia quarterback whose agent was negotiating with the Detroit Lions to make him the first pick on Saturday. As Stafford waited for a phone call from his agent, Tom Condon, he tried his best to avoid the rumor-go-round that marks the final hours before the draft. Late Friday night, Stafford indeed was entrusted to turn the Lions’ franchise around. The Associated Press reported that Stafford agreed to a six-year contract worth $41.7 million in guarantees and as much as $78 million.

He turned away from television and radio. He tried not to read newspapers. The Web was off limits. He had already consulted with the former Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman about what it was like to turn a franchise around. That was an indicator that he expected to be the Lions’ latest choice in their quest to finally find a successor to Bobby Layne — who attended the same Texas high school as Stafford.

The day before the draft is the N.F.L. green room writ large, 24 hours of wondering and waiting for the future to arrive. This draft is particularly unsettled because there is no consensus on who the St. Louis Rams will take second — or on who else will go in the top 10. Stafford is now the name at the top of the draft order, but his University of Southern California counterpart Mark Sanchez, who elected to spend draft day at home in California instead of in New York, could be the player on whom the top half of the draft hinges.