Articles

The Best of All Games: John Rawls, Baseball Fan

Aaron Gordon

John Rawls, one of the greatest American philosophers, was also a pretty serious baseball fan. Still, there are some serious holes in his recently unearthed argument for baseball as "the best of all games." Also, though, there's some basic emotional truth about being a fan.

The Hall of Fame on Long Island

Jordan Teicher

The National Jewish Hall of Fame is located in a JCC, on Long Island. It's not anything like Cooperstown, but there's some ragged human magic there all the same. That, and Bill Goldberg wearing tefillin.

Looking for a Gorgon

Patrick Redford

The soul of professional cycling has been so warped and decayed by the doping culture of the past decade that there are serious questions about the sport’s future. After the bottom of the Austin Witch Trials, cycling needs a hero badly. Luckily for US cycling fans, 22-year-old prodigy Taylor Phinney might be ready to fill the role.

Sensory Overload

C.J. Tuttle

Since the Calgary Flames' C of Red in the 1986 Stanley Cup Playoffs, professional sports teams have tried to recreate the monochromatic frenzy that came with it. After last week's Nike-branded White-out party-where-a-basketball-game-broke-out in Miami, we may have finally Witnessed the sentiment behind it swallowed whole. 

Home Court: Filipino Hoops in Canada's Frozen North

Sam Riches

Canada's Yukon Territory is 30,000 miles larger than California, and populated by all of 35,000 souls. Whitehorse, the province's remote capital, has become home to thousands of Filipinos in recent years, and one very popular and important basketball league. It's a tough place to call home, but the hoops help.

Sportsflicks: Mysteries of The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh

Tom Keiser

The NBA was a strange place in the late 1970s, if probably not quite as strange as the version depicted in 1979's gloriously batshit Jonathan Winters/Julius Erving vehicle The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh. Few things, really, could be much stranger.

Lifting Weights

David Roth

Veteran big man Jason Collins has come out as the NBA's first openly gay player, which is good for him and the game and those of us who care about it. He did it with all the invisible but palpable grace and modesty that has helped keep him in the league all these years.

A Sacrifice in Milwaukee

Tyler Maas

Things went exactly as predicted for the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. That wasn't especially good, but neither was it quite as bad as it sounds.

Losing Again: A Puck Opera

Chris Collision

Late-season games between teams at the bottom of the standings are never easy to get through. When the second-to-last Flames visited the last-place Avalanche, things got dull on the ice. Off the ice, they got really real. A play in verse seemed like the right way to figure out how things went down. 

You Gotta Like Their Chances

Elliot Hughes

From conversations with obese nudists on an imaginary subway to needlessly worrying about what's going to happen when the best player in the league attaches himself permanently to your team , a lot goes through the head of a fan on draft day. Eventually you realize it's best to just enjoy the ride.