Sports
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The Boston Sports Century March 13, 2025
It’s June 2001, and Boston sports fans are throwing a party. Ray Bourque has finally won a Stanley Cup. Not with the Boston Bruins, but with the Colorado Avalanche. Yes, the city of Russell and Orr—a city that runs on Dunkin’ and a they-hate-us-’caus...
The Age of Consuming Sports in Bite-Sized Moments March 12, 2025
It was one of those dunks that briefly knocks the world off its hinges. Shaedon Sharpe stole the outlet pass just outside the 3-point line. He took one casual dribble toward the paint. ...
The Last Sportswriters of New York March 11, 2025
On a warm, misty January morning, Phil Mushnick is sitting in his Boca Raton townhouse where he now winters. He points out the herons in the lagoon near his back porch as well as an adjacent golf course, a thousand miles from his central Jersey home ...
How the War on Woke Was Won—for Now March 10, 2025
California Governor Gavin Newsom doesn’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. The presumptive 2028 presidential candidate knows that it’s blowing against wokeness. As recently as November, Newsom called a special session of the state l...
On Sports Gambling Regulation & Sports Gambling March 10, 2025
“Gambling is inevitable. No matter what is said or done by advocates or opponents of gambling in all its various forms, it is an activity that is practiced, or tacitly endorsed, by a substantial majority of Americans.” So begins a 1976 report from th...
Power Lifting Made Me a Better Writer March 05, 2025
One of the only ways I can find calm is by risking injury. I began learning this when, years ago, I tried rock-climbing. Bouldering, that is, which doesn’t involve rope and harnesses. Scaling 17-foot walls with no backup rope, balancing all my weight...
55 Favorite Sports Moments of 2024 December 30, 2024
2024 was a year of excellence. Of great teams—like the Celtics, Liberty, Chiefs, and Dodgers—reaching the summit. And great athletes—like Caitlin Clark, Novak Djokovic, and Mondo Duplantis—taking their sports to new levels. Of course, that doesn’t me...
A Misdiagnosis of Substance Abuse December 27, 2024
Six pages into his latest contribution to the literature of recovery, William Cope Moyers tells us that the "tried and true routes to recovery" failed him in his battle against a slip into opioid addiction. The venerable combination of meetings, the ...
Why Watch the Los Angeles Lakers? December 27, 2024
On Thursday, J. J. Redick, the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, was asked about the N.B.A.’s decline in ratings, a topic that has led to hand-wringing in basketball circles. Ratings of N.B.A. games on ESPN were down twenty-eight per cent compared wit...
The 7 Most Important Athletes of 2024 December 25, 2024
Measured by sheer number of viewers, this might have been the most popular sports year in American history. More people watched the Super Bowl than ever before; the World Series had its highest ratings in a decade; the Olympics drew nearly double the...
Why Sports Media Shunned Kamala Harris December 23, 2024
A few of you sent me this Max Tani interview with a Kamala Harris campaign manager in Semafor. It’s about as open as you’ll see from the losing side. The campaign’s inability to court sports podcasters is highlighted. Deputy campaign manager Rob Flah...
The Resurrection of Bill Belichick December 16, 2024
Some people take up bridge when they retire. Then again, Bill Belichick was never the retiring type. After he left his job as head coach of the New England Patriots, in January, a position that he had held for twenty-four seasons, he only briefly rec...
Did the Crimson Tide Get Rolled? December 16, 2024
For once, the Alabama Crimson Tide didn’t get the benefit of the doubt. Many college football fans in the other 49 states—and in Lee County, Alabama (home of Auburn)—are delighted that the final at-large bid to the inaugural 12-team College Football ...
The Life-Affirming Vitality of Raw Milk December 12, 2024
I've been drinking raw milk for almost 15 years, ever since I made a sudden switch from veganism while visiting my sister in Europe. At the time, she was living in Germany and getting raw milk from a local farmer. I remember mocking her, interrogatin...
Brotherhood – Our Rugby Book of the Year December 06, 2024
Brotherhood is a term deeply rooted in rugby, resonating across teams worldwide. It stems in part from the sport's origins—as a game that remained nominally amateur long after soccer and other sports.This term finds poignant application in the story ...
Trump Can Fight Wokeness in Sports December 06, 2024
For years, the Left has recognized the cultural significance of sports and has used sports to promote cultural transformations that would serve their objectives, such as advancing the sexual revolution and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The ...
Yes, the World Ended on November 5 December 06, 2024
“Empire is the US from roughly WWII to a little after 9/11. It was at the height of its power, its prestige, and its economic worth. Then it lost a lot of those things. In the face of technology and social media, the mask of pride has been slowly era...
I Say Forbidden Things About Sports December 02, 2024
I was shocked when I learned that private equity firms plan to take over college football.How is that even possible?...
The Science of Scheduling a College-Football Season December 02, 2024
On November 23rd, the University of Massachusetts football team played the University of Georgia. It was expected to be less of a game than a slaughter: Georgia was favored by bookmakers to win the game by more than seven touchdowns. The team, which ...
Fear And Loathing On The Football Field October 23, 2024
We’re currently in the heart of football season. Teams at every level, from the NFL down to high school, are playing meaningful games that will define their seasons and shape the memories they carry forward. It’s an incredibly vibrant time of year ...
Sweltering Sweater Weather October 22, 2024
Sometime in the middle of August, just as the weather has become sweltering, the sound of crickets has become deafening, and the aroma of cut grass has become incessant, my mind starts drifting to sweater weather.I have written before in this space o...
The Middle-Class Women Who Are Tripping Balls October 22, 2024
Picture the platonic ideal of the millennial woman, and you’re probably thinking of someone like Rachel.At 42, she has enviably unblemished skin and a nose piercing—nostril, not septum—in which she sports a delicate gold hoop. She’s been married for ...
How Pete Rose Fell October 22, 2024
Sports serves many purposes in modern life, practical and moral instruction chief among them. Football “teaches you discipline and helps you develop a sense of leadership and courage and camaraderie with your friends and teammates,” the NFL cornerbac...
The Loneliness of the Bullfighter October 18, 2024
The most frequently used word in the new film by director Albert Serra is “balls,” but almost as frequently used is “truth.” Following the killing of a bull in which the subject of the film, the young Peruvian bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey, took near-i...
