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Scott Jurek tell us about his rise in the sport of ultrarunning and about his vegan diet. In Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness he gives an account of competing in 100-plus-mile endurance races and surviving on a plant-based diet and he shares running and eating advice.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced last week that he will defy a federal ban on sports gambling and that he hopes to let New Jersey residents legally bet on sporting events by fall of this year. His chances of success seem slim, but his outspokenness has reinvigorated national debate on the topic. Sports gambling: should it be legal?

Each weekend, hundreds of Irish immigrants in the city gather to watch and play Gaelic football in Gaelic Park. The high intensity sport played on a patch of green on W. 240th Street across from Van Cortland Park is parts rugby, soccer and football.

Live sports broadcasts account for a big part of your cable bill. Why? Because cable providers know they can count on sports to draw large audiences even as audiences shrink for other types of programming. Peter Kafka of the website All Things Digital returns to talk with Bob about the remarkable rise of ESPN and the importance of live sports to the cable ecosystem. 

Michael Oher, the football star made famous in the book and movie The Blind Side, talks about rising above the circumstances of his youth. In I Beat the Odds, Oher looks back on how he went from being a homeless child in Memphis to playing in the NFL, and looks at how he broke out of the cycle of poverty, addiction, and hopelessness that trapped his family.

While athletes from around the world gear up for the summer Olympics, competitors of another sort have been polishing their moves for the national Skee-Ball championship. This weekend in Brooklyn, 64 of the country’s best skee-ball rollers face off at the Brewskee-Ball National Championship, a weekend-long festival of beer, bands, foods and skeeball. Eric Pavony, Skee-E-O and founder of Brewskee-Ball, the first ever national Skee-Ball League explains what the competition will entail.

The Spurs and the Clippers have staked out their places in the NBA Western Conference Finals while the Eastern Conference has yet to be decided. Takeaway sports contributor Ibrahim Abdul-Matin lays out what to expect for the rest of the playoffs.

A world-class mountaineer explains why the deadly accident on Mount Everest this past weekend was inevitable, but also preventable, and lays out the combination of factors – both physical and psychological – that all too often lead to tragedy.

Organizers are starting to talk about something that's never happened before - a sellout for the Paralympic Games. With 100 days to go before the start of the Paralympics in London, the public has a chance to see more than 4,000 elite athletes when the last remaining tickets go on sale today. Eleven-time gold medalist Dame Tanni Grey Thompson has broken over 30 wheelchair world records in track and field. Now retired, she's looking forward to the Paralympics which she insists will leap over a high bar.

It's Europe's biggest sporting event and should take in more viewers than the Super Bowl. This Saturday, the 2012 Champions League Final will see Germany's Bayern Munich take on the United Kingdom's Chelsea FC in the soccer match of the year. What's the big deal? Grant Wahl, senior writer at Sports Illustrated, explains.

Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox’s storied ballpark, celebrated it’s 100th birthday late last month. And in honor of the centennial, moments in Red Sox history were remembered and relived like the "Curse of the Bambino." But today, we’re talking about one element of Fenway’s history that is rarely spoken of: it’s troubled racial past.

The prosecution's star witness underwent a withering cross-examination on Thursday at Roger Clemens' perjury trial. Brian McNamee is the only person with firsthand evidence that contradicts the baseball-pitching ace, but is he a believable witness?

Few sports have been more racially divided than golf. Realizing that the NCAA was not inviting athletes from historically black colleges and Hispanic- and Native American-serving institutions to compete in their regional golf tournaments, the PGA Minority Collegiate Golf Championship was created to open the doors. In recent years, however, there appear to be fewer and fewer minorities in the PGA Minority Collegiate Golf Championship.

Since joining the Atlanta Braves in 2009, organ player Matthew Kaminski has earned a reputation for the his highly personalized — and often playful — introductory music he gives players up to bat. Many of his best ideas come from Braves fans, who inundate him with their suggestions on Twitter. 

Seventeen-year old U.S. sensation Claressa Shields lost Monday to UK middleweight Savannah Marshall at the Women’s World Championship in Qinhuangdao, China, but there is confusion at the tournament about whether Claressa might still advance to London.

On Friday, the internet was all abuzz with Serena Williams. Yes, she beat Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-3 in a Madrid Open quarterfinal. But the real news was the leak from an apparently forthcoming rap track. The tennis star is just the latest athlete to get behind the mic – joining the ranks of boxer Manny Pacquiao, basketball great Shaquille O’Neal and even the ‘86 Mets. Today, NPR sports correspondent Mike Pesca joins us for a look back at what happens when athletes get into the music game. 

WNYC and Women Box contributor Sarah Deming is tracking all the action at the Women's World Boxing Championships in Qinhuangdao, China. Today: Deming's final post brings us up-to-date on all the American boxers. 

A chance to box in the 2012 Olympic Games has brought more women than ever before to the seventh Women's World Boxing Championship in Qinhuangdao, China. The tournament's three Olympic weight classes are packed with competitors -- 77 countries have invested time and money in hopes that their female fighters can make it to the Games in London. But some of the most impressive women in Qinhuangdao are not fighting for a spot in London. That includes six members of Team USA, who lost the battle to fight in the Olympics at the US team trials in February. Now, plus or minus a few pounds, they are fighting in the World Championships to show they can't be stopped.

This month in Qinhuangdao, China, 343 female fighters from 77 countries will fight to make it to the Olympics. So, who goes to London? The math is complicated. And it’s different for fighters from different regions of the globe. Expert Christy Halbert explains.