grantland Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Lede Time
Michael MacCambridge does us all a mitzvah with his "Director's Cut" series over at Grantland. Earlier this year he blessed us with one of Lardner's best profiles, "Down Great Purple Valleys," which is most famous for its first sentence:...
You Can Go Home Again
Last November, Bryan Curtis wrote this piece on Marv Albert for Grantland:...
Trope-Recycling Bill Simmons Has Bill Simmons Syndrome
Bill Simmons this week mused on the fate of Dwight Howard, who appears to be the NBA's equivalent of plutonium: a potential world-beater but perilously radioactive. To characterize the gap between Perceived Dwight Howard and Actual Dwight Howard, the founder of Grantland and ESPN spittling-head did ...
Top Billin
Few people, if any, have written better stories—funny and smart—about college football than Dan Jenkins. Last fall, Michael MacCambridge was good enough to make Jenkins' 1963 Sports Illustrated piece, "The Disciples of St. Darrell on a Wild Weekend" part of his excellent Director's Cut series for Gr...
The Goon Show
It'll come as no surprise that my favorite series at Grantland is the "Director's Cut" feature curated by Michael MacCambridge. He does a beautiful job and I'm always eager to see what gift he gives us next. Here's an especially good one—"The Making of a Goon," by Johnette Howard, which originally ...
Grantland just dropped nearly 20,000 words from the great Brian Phillips on the Iditarod. If we said we had read it and it was great we would be lying, because reading it will take a couple hundred lunch breaks or so, but we can probably bet that it is great. The layout itself is beautiful. [Grantla...
Hey, Grantland Is Streaming Live From Bill Simmons's "Man Cave"
Here's ESPN's counterprogramming from Day 1 of the tournament: A live feed from Bill Simmons's house. Jalen Rose has a bat over his shoulder, there's a tux and Simmons is wearing a T-shirt for a fictional band. There's lots of talk about gambling. Watch it here. ...
LeBron James Is A Better Defender Than The Computerized Version Of An Ideal NBA Defender
There is plenty of great information to be gleaned from Zach Lowe's exclusive look at the Toronto Raptors' camera tracking system, known as SportVU, but buried within the piece is yet another anecdote that demonstrates the fact that LeBron James is not of this planet....
Welcome, "Kinglandia"! <em>Sports Illustrated</em> Is Giving Peter King His Own Website
Peter King and Sports Illustrated are taking a crack at the Grantland model....
The Piggyback Bandit Has Struck Again
Sherwin Shayegan, aka the Piggyback Bandit, hasn't been seen or heard from since his summer star-turn, which culminated with this exhaustive account of his sad adventures by Grantland's Bryan Curtis. But earlier this week, Shayegan was back at it after a basketball game at a midwestern junior colleg...
The PGA Doesn't Want Reporters Tweeting Play-By-Play Of Golf Events. Your Move, Norm Macdonald.
Here's the email that PGA communications exec Ty Votaw sent out to reporters, via Wei Under Par:...
There Are Some Odd Grantland Headlines Floating Around In Internet Purgatory
It turns out that with some spare time and trial and error, you can find some drafts (or posts marked for deletion?) on Grantland. By altering one number at a time in the seven-digit page URL—I stuck to fooling around with the last three—one can discover a bunch of headlines floating around Grantla...
A Very Important Bill Simmons GIF
Words cannot do justice to Flapping Bill Simmons. Words cannot do justice to Flapping Bill Simmons. Words cannot do justice to Flapping Bill Simmons. Words cannot do justice to Flapping Bill Simmons....
Grantland's Jonah Keri Picks The Giants In Seven; ESPN's Jonah Keri Likes The Tigers In Five
Today on Grantland, a pair of World Series preview pieces: Rany Jazayerli on why the Tigers could win, and Jonah Keri on how the Giants could take home the championship. Both men predict the series will go seven games—Jazayerli takes Detroit; Keri, San Francisco. Also on ESPN.com: a list of experts'...
Read The Full Saga Of The Piggyback Bandit
Back in 2009, we wrote about the strange antics of Sherwin Shayegan, otherwise known as the Piggyback Bandit. Intrigued by Sherwin's story, the fine folks at Grantland sent Bryan Curtis on the bandit's trail in the hopes that some sense could be made of the man's obsession with piggyback rides....
Everything You Could Ever Want To Know About The Early Years Of WFAN, And More
Grantland's oral history whizzes have cooked up a doozy today on WFAN, the all-day New York sports talk radio station. Mike Francesa doesn't speak in the piece—a footnote explains that it's a "matter of principle" regarding his beef with ESPN—but everybody else does. Imus, Rose, Russo, Somers, Eagle...
Happy First Birthday, Grantland! It's Been A Delight Watching You Grow.
Sock photo via Grantland director of business development David Cho's Instagram....
ESPN's Going To Produce A Bunch More <em>30 For 30</em> Films
So, fantastic news. ESPN will announce at today's upfront that they will roll out a second series of sports documentaries under the 30 For 30 umbrella, even though it's no longer the network's 30th anniversary and there may not be 30 of them. The first one will premier this fall, and new films will ...
Greg Oden Says He Became An Alcoholic, Got Offers To Work In Porn
Mark Titus has a piece over at Grantland that offers a "rare and candid" look at the reclusive Greg Oden, who was finally released by the Trail Blazers in March after five seasons marked mostly by injuries. Titus, who writes about his basketball experiences on his blog, Club Trillion, acknowledges u...