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The Siege And Fall Of A Hoops Haven That Made All The Wrong Enemies
In Philadelphia, a ghost was born....
What Art Briles Brought To The Town That Never Asked For Him
MOUNT VERNON, Texas – There had never been a line like this before. Not here, at least. It was ridiculous, obscene. The first people in line queued up just before 4:30 p.m. They stood there, up against the closed ticket window, huddling underneath the small awning as it poured rain, and then, when t...
Who Does Los Angeles's Olympic Legacy Really Serve?
LOS ANGELES — The LA84 Foundation is turning 35 years old. If you don’t live in Southern California or don’t work in the sports nonprofit industrial complex, you probably haven’t heard of it. But the foundation commands a reverence from a certain set of LA normie (read: suburban homeowners), and has...
Inside TheMaven's Plan To Turn <i>Sports Illustrated</i> Into A Rickety Content Mill
Now that Sports Illustrated’s three owners, Meredith Corp., Authentic Brands Group, and TheMaven, have completed the callous layoff of half of Sports Illustrated’s newsroom and finalized a deal that gives control of the publication to TheMaven, a wannabe tech company helmed by notorious scumbags Ros...
He Never Intended To Become A Political Dissident, But Then He Started Beating Up Tai Chi Masters
On a recent Thursday evening in August, a 40-year-old MMA gym owner in Beijing named Xu Xiaodong activated his VPN, hopped over the Chinese government’s internet firewall, and began his first-ever live YouTube broadcast. He wanted to talk about the ongoing protests in Hong Kong, in which hundreds of...
A Philosopher's Definitive (And Slightly Maddening) Case Against Replay Review
The motivation for using video review in sports is obvious: to get more calls right. This seems like an easy enough mission to fulfill, but anyone who has spent even a little time watching sports on TV can attest to the fact that the application of video review is not so simple. In most sports where...
The Greatest Minor League Basketball Player Of All Time Spent A Career Forgetting His Dream
Sitting in front of his locker at the Staples Center that night in January 2007, Renaldo Major hesitated. Earlier that day, the 24-year-old guard had signed a 10-day contract with the Golden State Warriors before promptly making his NBA debut in a road game against the Clippers, scoring five points ...
The Man Who Would Kill Horse Racing
In a garden-variety suburb outside Albany—a recent July morning, but it could have been any morning—Patrick Battuello woke up at five, brewed a cup of coffee, and then sat at his computer to review the previous day’s horse races. He’s done this every day for the last six years. This was a Monday, an...
How Two Kentucky Farmers Became Kings Of Croquet, The Sport That Never Wanted Them
On a sunny September Sunday in 1982, Mark Burchfield, a 20-year-old tobacco farmer from rural Kentucky, stood in Manhattan’s Central Park, getting ready to take the most important croquet shot of his life....
The Sport That Can't Stick To Sports
Dublin beat Kerry 1-18 to 0-15 on Saturday to take their fifth straight All-Ireland football championship, and become the first team to five-peat in the history of the Gaelic Athletic Association’s annual national inter-county tournament. And we’re talking a long history: Dublin and Kerry first face...
The Story Behind The Biggest Brawl In WNBA History
Last month, Brittney Griner of the Phoenix Mercury and Kristine Anigwe of the Dallas Wings got into a fight, which resulted in six ejections and five suspensions. It was the largest WNBA fight since 2008, when the Detroit Shock (now the Dallas Wings) and the Los Angeles Sparks were part of brawl tha...
Competitive Oyster Shucking Is Real, Decadent, And China's Best Party
Many people who visit Beijing take special pleasure in doing a thing they often do, but on the Great Wall. Shotgunning a beer on the Great Wall. Lighting a cigar on the Great Wall. Making a sandwich and then eating it on the Great Wall. I have personally seen a used condom on the Great Wall....