Friend had same problem with ESPN and a few others as well on his 2006 2ghz white MB. A few fixes from that Apple thread:
1. Restart your computer. If that alone doesn't fix it...
2. Much easier to do, and it works. ESPN.com and all other sites now work perfectly for me.
1) Reboot
2) Open Safari
3) Click Safari, Empty Cache
4) Open ESPN.com
3. And those don't work:
Go to Safari (or Camino) preferences, and un-check the box that says "enable plugins". You can go to all of those sites without the spinning beachball.