Articles in "All"

Magicians, Surgeons and the NBA

Patrick Redford

All basketball players work in the same medium, with something like the same tools. This doesn't mean they're all the same type of artist, though. We know the greatest players not just by the new things they create, but by how they create them.

Fo' Fo' Fo' At Thirty

Patrick Sauer

The Philadelphia 76ers only won one title with Julius Erving and Moses Malone on the team. In retrospect, it was enough. An excerpt from The Classical Magazine Vol. 2: Get Buckets. 

Why We Watch: Fernando Rodney, or The Archer and the Magic Plantain

Drew Avery

His hat is bumped. His starchy banana-like fruit of choice may or may not be supernatural. Fernando Rodney is a closer, and an imperfect one, but thankfully he's also a lot more interesting than that.

Bless This Mess

Eric Freeman

How did one of baseball's most free-spending and extravagant franchises become one of the game's messiest and most endearing teams? The awesomeness of Yasiel Puig helps, but it's not the whole answer.

Why We Watch: Domonic Brown, The Phantastic Voyager

Mark Macyk

Domonic Brown was a prodigy, then a bust, now he's spent two weeks becoming  a superstar. For a guy who swings at everything, he's been mighty patient getting there.

A World of Flying Discs

Eli Neugeboren

Most of us have a pretty good idea of what we think Ultimate Frisbee is. Even if it may not be entirely accurate or unbiased, it's stayed the same since the sport started in 1967. But, as money enters the picture, and Olympic dreams begin to grow, the sport has begun to change in a way that not even those involved totally understand. 

Why We Watch: John Isner, Sagging Giant

W.M. Akers

As a tennis player, John Isner has his strengths and weaknesses. But the experience of watching him play one of his signature, self-annihilating marathon matches is like nothing else, even for non-fans.

The Perfect, the Good, and the Rules

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Major League Baseball's rules regarding PEDs aren't perfect, and neither is the league's enforcement of those rules. Neither of those is a reason to surrender, or a reason not to applaud MLB's recent attempt to enforce those rules.

Paths to the Throne

Jonathan Beckner

Neil Gaiman once wrote that writers are liars. I respectfully disagree. Writers, like most people, are salesmen. Michael Jordan certainly is. He sold the idea that winning could bring happiness, that work was art and mattered more than life itself. The problem is he bought his own sales pitch. We all did.

Yakkin' About Baseball: Think of the Children (of Craig Biggio)

David Roth

 et al.

Jay Buhner's kid is named Gunnar, and he is about to be a professional baseball player. Bud Selig is a renegade lawman. Chuck Knoblauch's nephew wants to play flip-cup. Terry Collins is possessed by a demon that loves bunts. Nothing will ever be the same.