David Brooks, New York Times op-ed columnist and America's Most Reasonable Unreasonable Person™, is much better at making up names for different types of people than he is at anything else, which probably explains how he came up with "ESPN Man" as a way to describe President Obama. But the problem of bad sports metaphors in political writing is bigger than just one doofus.
Kevin Steen—nicknamed Mr. Wrestling—is a pudgy Québécois dude with a patchy beard and the sort of spiky hair that only spikes because it doesn't know what else to do. He wrestles in basketball shorts and a ratty T-shirt with the sleeves torn off. He has a couple of prominent tattoos, and they are not great. He is nothing like the mulleted flex-monsters that have come to define professional wrestling. At this precise moment in American indie wrestling, he is the motherfucking man.
The modern-day closer is a mutant. There wasn’t always such a thing as a ninth-inning relief specialist. And I don’t mean that the popularity of the “save” statistic created a job for game-finishing closers, or even their forebears, firemen like Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage. Even though there have always been three final outs, there haven't always been specific heroes assigned to record those outs and no others.
Mario Balotelli provided the title-winning assist this weekend for Manchester City. In a typical redemption story, we would claim that Balotelli had learned his lesson and proved his mettle as a real professional. The truth is a little messier, because the other incidents of the day suggest Balotelli is the same person he was in April when Roberto Mancini said he’d never play for the club again.
In New Jersey, and elsewhere, Arturo Gatti became a boxing legend for his capacity, willingness, and seeming eagerness to absorb punishment in the ring. Outside the ring, things weren't much easier.
The Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey is maybe 60 percent full for UFC on Fox 3, but that’s about how full the Izod Center should be for any event. The crowd that did show up is not satisfied with the offerings. A fighter gets poked in the eye and the fans boo, for reasons known only to them.
The Madrid Open’s blue clay is perceived to be more of a stunt than a genuine attempt to better the sport. One need look no further than the mounting headlines or the spike in search volume for the words “blue clay” to understand: Madrid is enjoying massive amounts of publicity as a result of the controversy, fueling the implicit belief that the peculiar surface exists for the sake of the tournament, not the players.
Caribbean immigrants not only helped lead the emergence of basketball among blacks in the earliest days of the sport but also dominated African-American hoops in the early 1900s. This wasn’t just on the court. West Indians were at the top of the power structure that ruled New York City’s black basketball scene
An event brought together the game of tennis with the cultural study of cool earlier this month. It happened on a court situated at the foot of the Santa Rosa Mountains during an Indian Wells match contested by two obscure players that was watched live by perhaps fifty people.
The Spurs' boring tag is supposedly a by-product of the team being ‘a bunch of good guys.’ But are they really good guys? The team that once brought Rodman aboard to be the resident Bad Guy in a chorus of angels eventually devolved into welcoming creeps like Bruce Bowen and Robert Horry into the fold. It’s a construct so sneaky and two-faced you’d almost think the team was being coached by a guy who seriously considered a career in the CIA.
