Breaking!

That deafening silence fans have been hearing from Cubs camp this off-season has been that of GM Jim Hendry, whose wild spending habits on mediocre-at-best free agents has been curtailed by new ownership. Hendry, however, awoke from his hibernation Wednesday morning with his checkbook blazing.

Racing season is over for NASCAR’s elite series but the offseason is just getting started for reigning five-time and current champion Jimmie Johnson whose named was misspelled during a recent ESPN SportsCenter broadcast after the season’s last race. Completely crushed and embarrassed by the incident, Johnson filed suit this morning stating ESPN “completely tarnished” his image as the toughest driver in NASCAR.

Just hours after the Big Ten announced both Northwestern and Illinois would use only the west end zone during Saturday's game at Wrigley Field, the Canadian Football League canceled its tentative plans to host a 2011 exhibition game at the Friendly Confines.

Along with the novelty of this fall’s Illinois-Northwestern football game at Wrigley Field comes the drawbacks of playing football in a stadium tiny even by baseball standards. The conditions will be so tight that some parts of the end zones will be cut off, but that doesn’t bother either team, especially Northwestern.

Encouraged by his NYC Marathon performance, rescued Chilean miner Edison Fernando announced he’ll begin training to become a UFC fighter.

The $199 deal on The Heckler's Awesome MNF Trip to Minnesota for Bears-Vikings Dec. 20 will end when it sells out (which it will soon) or with the next Bears win, which ever comes first. Click here to sign up ASAP.

Recent celebrated heroes include trapped-and-released miners, frills-deprived luxury cruise patrons and wedding-dress-destroyed-in-a-bridal-shop-fire-suffering brides-to-be.