fl Page 19 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
I Doped Like Maria Sharapova And It Was Actually Pretty Great
I have some personal news I’d like to share: I’m doping. With performance-enhancing drugs, even. The same kind that got tennis star Maria Sharapova banned from the professional tour for 15 months, and the reason she needs tournaments like the U.S. Open—which starts today in New York—to offer her wil...
Two Of The Most Famous Olympic Photos Were All About Location And Dumb Luck
This weekend, Heinz Kluetmeier will become the first photographer to be inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The longtime staff photographer at Sports Illustrated is undeniably hall-worthy. He’s shot iconic images of every major swimmer since 1970, from Mark...
The Fallout From Sportswriting's Filthiest Fuck-Up
The article hangs on a wall in my office. I am actually staring at it as I write this—it is taped, slightly crooked, to the white paint above my desk, positioned between a Chicago Blitz bumper sticker, a picture of my mother’s late Uncle John, and a photograph from the 1987 Mahopac High School fresh...
Welcome To Meat Sack, A Guide To Sports-Related Body Horror
The ecosystem of the human body does not want for complexity, nor do the myriad of idiot things we inflict upon it. This is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the world of sports, where athletes willingly submit their bodies, like monks to their vows, in pursuit of Larry having a nice, drunken ni...
The Braves' New Ballpark Is An Urban Planner's Nightmare
In 1965, voters from the five counties that still make up metro Atlanta—Cobb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Clayton and DeKalb—went to the ballot box to decide the future of the region’s public transportation system. The counties that voted “yes” would begin planning a regional rail system that would eventually...
<i>Ready Player One </i>Finds The Bleak Limits Of Nostalgia
It’s not hard to fracture the internet with a movie adaptation of a popular bad book. They’re made into movies all the time. They read like screenplays because they skip complex language that defies being replaced with pictures, and producers can’t resist a baked-in audience, which creates a baked-i...
Is MLS A Ponzi Scheme?
If like any red-blooded American capitalist you measure success by growth, these are boom times for Major League Soccer. North America’s top soccer league has gone from just 10 teams in 2004 to a whopping 22, with two more clubs in Los Angeles and Miami set to come online in the couple of seasons. A...
I’m A Woman, Shake My Hand, Damn It<em></em>
A boozy office party was starting to dwindle, and as the drunker among us were sneaking off to find dark corners and hidden alcohol reserves, the reasonable ones had switched to water. The evening had kicked off early so it felt much later than it actually was. By any standard, it was a Thursday, an...
The Story Behind The Iconic Photos Of The Olympics' Dirtiest Record
When Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson faced off in the 100-meter finals at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the race to determine the world’s fastest human was the marquee event of the Games. It was America vs. Canada; the lithe Lewis against the hulking Johnson; the reigning Olympic champ against the reigning wo...
Which Baseball Legends Had Two Separate Hall-Of-Fame Careers?
When discussing Rickey Henderson’s Hall-of-Fame prospects, Bill James once wrote that “if you could split him in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers.” It’s a seemingly hyperbolic quip from one of sports’ most precise thinkers. So it’s probably worth a closer look....
Cincinnati, Home Of Terrible Stadium Deals, Is Being Extorted For A New MLS Stadium
Just over 30,000 people filled Nippert Stadium last week to watch FC Cincinnati upset the Columbus Crew 1-0. It was a huge victory for the nascent USL squad as they eye an expansion bid to join Columbus in MLS. But a move to America’s top tier comes at a cost: A new stadium....
Carl Yastrzemski's Silent Summer
This piece was originally published in the October 30, 1978 of the New Times. It is reprinted here with the author’s permission....
A Normal Person's Guide To Golf<em></em>
After a decade off, I decided that I needed to start golfing again. My girlfriend thought I was having a midlife crisis....
The Raiders Robbed Las Vegas In America's Worst Stadium Deal
When the Las Vegas Raiders kick off in 2020, they’ll be playing in the most expensive stadium in the world. The total projected cost of the site checks in at around $1.9 billion, a number topped only by the Rams’ and Chargers’ new complex in Inglewood that will cost approximately $2.1B, though that ...
The Day The War Came For Muhammad Ali
The following is excerpted from Leigh Montville’s new book, Sting Like a Bee: Muhammad Ali vs. The United States of America, 1966-71....
Why Aren't Women's Basketball Fans Following Their Players To The Pros?
We got next. That was the WNBA’s promotional slogan during its first official season of play, two decades ago in 1997. In essence, players were asking the NBA to step aside and let them have a turn on the hardwood to showcase their basketball acumen. No one knew how long the league would last....
This Is The Story About Robert Kraft's Casino Holdings That Rupert Murdoch's Paper Never Ran<em></em>
It goes without saying (hey there, Las Vegas Raiders!) that the NFL’s gambling policy is a hypocritical mess. But now that I no longer work for Rupert Murdoch, I can plainly state that every word out of Roger Goodell’s mouth about legalized sports betting for the past 20 months has been nothing but ...
The Bandit Who Ran The Boston Marathon While Pushing A Canoe, Twice
In the spring of 1991, Bob Elliott had a problem. He and his friend George were trying to sell a canoe cart George had developed, designed for portaging between bodies of water. They had no marketing budget, and sales, it’s fair to say, were slow. Elliott, an effortless athlete, mechanical genius, a...
The Stars Of Women's Basketball's First Dynasty Just Want To Be Remembered
On April 2, the 2017 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class was announced. Among the inductees were basketball luminaries like Tracy McGrady and Rebecca Lobo, and lesser-known figures like Robert Hughes, the all-time winningest high school boys basketball coach. Failing to make the cut were...
Trump Conspiracy Tweetstorms Are The Infowars Of The Left
The fastest-growing career in America is not, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics would have you believe, in installing and repairing wind turbines. The fastest-growing career is doing 63 tweets in a row about why Donald Trump is a Manchurian president....