John Madden Hockey
Interesting story: Ken Baumgartner was angry. And much like the Incredible Hulk, Ken Baumgartner – 6’1”, 205 pounds, with a penchant for doling out punishment – was not the kind of guy you wanted to...
View ArticleThe Pleasure of Opening Day
MBD: Baseball’s Opening Day often occasions syrupy prose about optimism and opportunity and clean slates. Every team starts with the same record. Have hope. Anything could happen. Even the most...
View ArticleStill in the Game
From the WaPo: BALTIMORE — Ben Barlow likens the baseball season to a metronome. It keeps perfect time — tick, tick, tick — and never stops. It’s ever-present and gives you something to plan not just...
View ArticleUnclimbable
Eva Holland: A few days before our trip into the Cirque of the Unclimbables was scheduled to begin, I saw a physiotherapist for the first time in my life. I’d been on standby for a week, hoping that...
View ArticleDefying Space and Time
Via the NYT: He looks out of place, at least at first. Wearing a Mets uniform that grants no slimming effect to his block of a body, he could easily be mistaken for an overinvested fan who has wandered...
View ArticleLong Time Listener, First Time Caller
From SportsNet: Last fall, after the Oilers were downed 7–1 by Chicago—their sixth consecutive loss—Mike called in to 630 CHED’s Overtime Openline show. “I am an Oilers season ticket holder. I’ve spent...
View ArticleWhat Will Happen to Grantland?
Answer: No one knows. Two months ago, ESPN unexpectedly, unceremoniously dumped Bill Simmons, one of the network’s biggest and best-known personalities. When they did, Simmons was forced to abandon...
View ArticleAmerica’s Stadium Epidemic
From Pacific Standard: What’s America to do about its stadium problem? Over the past 15 years, more than $12 billion in public money has been spent on privately owned stadiums. Between 1991 and 2010,...
View ArticleYou Aren’t Good Enough to Win Daily Fantasy Football
From Business Insider: Every first-time player of daily fantasy football begins the new season undefeated, just like even the most hopeless NFL teams. But after 16 weeks of real football, most rookie...
View ArticleKareem Abdul Jabbar Does Detective Fiction
From Grantland: As someone who often writes about sports, I feel caught, a lot of the time, between imaginative optimism and materialist nihilism, and I am not saying this to sound fancy but because it...
View Article
