tldr Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Olympics Are Coming To Tokyo, And So Is The Movement To Kill The Games Forever
TOKYO, JAPAN — In the lobby of the Marunouchi Nijubashi Building, which is undergoing final preparations to host the 2020 Olympics, a robot is on patrol. A combination of information kiosk and surveillance camera, the robot stops directly in front of me. It has the word ALSOK plastered across its ne...
As The Border Bled, Juárez Watched The Game It Waited Nine Years For
JUAREZ, MEXICO — On a scorching hot Sunday afternoon, as you walk through the parking lot of Estadio Olimpico Benito Juárez, you can feel the excitement. Nine long years have passed since the last time Juárez had a team in Mexico’s top soccer league. And now, Los Bravos of FC Juárez, are about to pl...
To Win An Ultramarathon Through Hell, You Need A Devil To Chase
JAMMU AND KASHMIR, India — If you go about as far north as a vehicle can reasonably take you in India, and about as high as your lungs can handle, you may well end up in a city called Leh. One of the few ways to get to this city, which sits 11,500 feet above sea level, is to travel along the Leh-Man...
The Biggest Thing Holding Back Women's Soccer Is The Same Old Thing
PORTLAND, Ore. — The crowd decked out in red and black sways between elation and disappointment as the seconds tick away. Voices rise when the hometown Portland Thorns take possession of the ball, and heavy sighs spread through the crowd of close to 19,000 when they turn it over. The Thorns have mos...
The Forgotten All-Star Game That Helped Integrate Baseball
When Cleveland celebrated its sixth time hosting MLB’s All-Star Game last week, it might have seemed an odd event to commemorate baseball’s integration. But when Jackie Robinson stepped onto the field in a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform in April of 1947, becoming the first African-American to play in whit...
Waiting For The Revolution At Soccer Analytics Bootcamp
When the 2019 Champions League final between Liverpool and Tottenham kicked off, I wasn’t jammed into a sports bar downing beers with hundreds of other soccer-mad Americans, as I had originally planned to be. Instead, I was dead sober, watching the game in a lecture hall situated on the Columbia Uni...
When The Allies Wanted A German Nuclear Scientist Dead, They Sent A Ballplayer To Kill Him
The following is an excerpt from The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb, by Sam Kean. The book is out today and can be purchased here....
How Concrete And Steel Built Baseball
The opening of Yankee Stadium on April 14, 1923, was a triumph for baseball....
Today's NFL Would Have Been Perfect For Doug Flutie
It’s been 14 years since he last played professional football, but Doug Flutie is suddenly relevant again. In the run-up to the draft, there was a big feature in the Washington Post, along with a 15-minute chat on The Rich Eisen Show. When I first reached out to ask about an interview, Flutie’s agen...
The Last Holdouts Where The War Between Skiers And Snowboarders Is Still Being Fought
On the surface, the rivalry between skiers and snowboarders once had all the classic Snobs vs. Slobs tropes. The stuffy, elitists skiers, with their skin-tight ski-suits, champagne, and love for rules and propriety. The punk-kid snowboarders, loud and brash, with cheap beers stuffed into the pockets...
Another Dead Cyclist In The City
Around 9:30 a.m. on June 24 in Manhattan, cyclist Robyn Hightman rounded the corner from 23rd Street onto Sixth Avenue, where they were struck by a large white delivery truck and thrown off their bike into the middle of the street. A photo from shortly after the crash shows a mangled, black, single...
The Man Who Walked His Life Away
George Wilson stepped out into the medieval-walled prison yard and began to walk. He was 47 years old, beaten-down, and half-starved. His squat frame and stubby legs hardly suggested athletic excellence. But Wilson was well-known as a perambulator, a peregrinator, and a master of “leg-ology.” He was...
A Scout's Honor
You don’t get to choose which parts of your past are remembered. ...
What A Foul Ball Can Do
Laura Cusick and her husband Richard loved baseball. They loved it so much for so long that it became a part of their marriage. When they had kids, they taught them to love the game, too: to root for the home team (the Braves), and learn the players names, and to stretch in the seventh inning. They ...
Does Pro Wrestling's Merchant Of Secrets Have Any Left To Sell?
Wayne Farris, better known as The Honky Tonk Man, demanded Seagram’s Extra Smooth Vodka. It was 2007, and the man who made his name touring the wrestling territories and eventually the WWE with an indestructibly greasy pompadour, a Memphis jumpsuit, and a frequently weaponized acoustic guitar was ge...
When The Robert Kraft Case Fell Apart, The Women Were Left To Pay The Price
In the photos, Robert Kraft looks every part the billionaire—well-tailored suit, shock of white hair, deep tan, big grin. One of the most powerful men in American football has been seen in recent photos living the glamorous life at the West Hollywood launch party for rocker Jon Bon Jovi and son Je...
Getting A Medal From Donald Trump Fits Jerry West All Too Well
Have you ever seen Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, The Lonely Island’s 2016 mockumentary about a very specific kind of post-Obama cultural success? It’s a good movie. Funny gags, and some insight into the sort of of-this-moment famous person who is transparently drowning in narcissism but also d...
They Want Her To Be The Next Yao Ming, But What Does She Want?
Han Xu, the tallest player in the WNBA, hunched over the menu at a trendy Brooklyn pizza spot, trying to figure out what to order in a place that lists “bèchamel” as an ingredient. This would possibly be difficult even if she could read English, but the Chinese center does not. Decked head to toe in...
Can American Soccer's Salvation Be Found In The Streets?
Every Wednesday after the snow disappears, the message goes out: Who can play soccer this week? “Want” appears nowhere in the question; it’s assumed that everyone is desperate to get out and play. A poll in a private Facebook group gauges how many people can show up. Only 16 can play at a time, as 8...
Success Spoiled Golden State Warriors Fans
A year ago, Steph Curry told SLAM how grateful he was that Oakland had embraced him “as one of their own.” He’s done his part, there: tons of local charity work, putting Oakland on a shoe and then giving 30 of them away. All of which is to say that he could likely tell you more about the town other ...