The loneliness of the low-ranking tennis player: Conor Niland was once Ireland’s No 1 player, and tried for years to climb the global ranks. But life at the bottom of the top can be brutal.

posted by rumple to tennis at 03:43 PM - 3 comments

Sit back, relax and enjoy this monumental 211 shot badminton rally: Context of the match is here.

posted by rumple to other at 09:16 PM - 4 comments

The greatest unexpected NBA performances: A short video on determining players with great games that are also huge outliers vs. the rest of their career.

posted by rumple to basketball at 02:42 PM - 0 comments

The Ball Kicks Itself: inside the minds of NFL place-kickers.

posted by rumple to football at 12:41 PM - 2 comments

It’s Never Too Late to Pivot From N.F.L. Safety to Neurosurgeon: When Myron Rolle was cut from the Pittsburgh Steelers, he fell into a funk until his mother reminded him of his two childhood dreams: Play football, then become a neurosurgeon. It was time for Plan B. (NYT gift link)

posted by rumple to football at 04:46 PM - 3 comments

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines: Rajpreet Heir takes a walk through the Indy 500 infield.

posted by rumple to auto racing at 03:47 PM - 0 comments

The sanctimonious baseball purists want to elevate Aaron Judge. Don’t let them.: But it is not surprising that the keepers of the sport have not made this clear [that Bonds holds the record]. They rarely do. Over the years, they’ve selectively disguised dishonesty in baseball under the cloak of folklore and corrected the record only under duress. (WaPo gift article link)

posted by rumple to baseball at 09:08 PM - 4 comments

Robot Umpires Moving up to AAA Baseball Next Year: Seasonal employees to operate the system are being sought.

posted by rumple to baseball at 02:45 PM - 1 comment

I Investigated Bonds and Clemens. Yes, They Belong in Cooperstown: Friday is the last day for voters in the Baseball Writers’ Association of America to submit their 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame ballots. Listed on those ballots are two players in their 10th and final year of Hall of Fame eligibility who truly dominated their era but haven’t been voted in: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. (archive link)

posted by rumple to baseball at 02:50 PM - 4 comments

The Raiders Had More Black Players Than Any NFL Team: Then Jon Gruden Took Over The Roster.

posted by rumple to football at 05:43 PM - 4 comments

‘The Silicon Valley of Turf’: They used to look like quagmires, ice rinks or dustbowls, depending on the time of year. But as big money entered football, pristine pitches became crucial to the sport’s image – and groundskeepers became stars. How the UK’s pursuit of the perfect pitch changed football

posted by rumple to soccer at 09:17 PM - 4 comments

The Complicated Relationship Between Latinos and the Los Angeles Dodgers: A new Smithsonian book and an upcoming exhibition, ‘¡Pleibol!,’ recounts the singular importance of baseball in Latino history and culture

posted by rumple to baseball at 09:59 PM - 0 comments

Roy Halladay performed stunts and was on drugs before fatal plane crash: Halladay had amphetamine levels about 10 times therapeutic levels in his blood along with a high level of morphine and an anti-depressant that can impair judgement as he performed high-pitch climbs and steep turns, sometimes within five feet of the water, the report says.

posted by rumple to baseball at 11:58 AM - 2 comments

Harlem Globetrotters' legend Curly Neal dies at age 77: After a 6,000 game (!) career. A great collection of his finest moments can be seen in videos tagged with his name at the Globetrotters youtube channel.

posted by rumple to basketball at 09:22 PM - 6 comments

A very analog hobby finds a way to thrive in the digital age: How Baseball Cards Got Weird : The Japanese sensation Shohei Ohtani appeared on at least 2,700 distinct rookie cards manufactured by just two companies, Topps and Panini. That might not sound much like scarcity, but nearly all of the variants were produced in limited runs—the more limited, the more valuable the card. The rarest, most coveted Ohtani sold for $184,056 last September, before his rookie season was over.

posted by rumple to baseball at 12:45 PM - 1 comment

BIRGing and CORFing: The Unique Neurology of the Sports Fan’s Brain or, why we get off on the game—and are better off for it.

posted by rumple to general at 03:06 PM - 5 comments

7ft 6in Tacko Fall has scorched college basketball – but is he too tall for NBA?: At 538, they say he is breaking basketball. But there is much more to this Computer Science major, who aspires to become an Engineer and help make lives better in his native Senegal.

posted by rumple to basketball at 02:34 PM - 3 comments

Kirk Gibson,and the character of Parkinson's disease: "I had heard about Gibson’s calmer demeanor first as a coach with the Diamondbacks and then as their manager, about his 2015 diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and the endearing way he calls his new opponent Parky. I’d read sympathetic takes on his ongoing—though reduced—performance as a color analyst on TV, seen the startlingly sweet graduation speech he gave at Michigan State in May 2017, weeks before turning 60." (longform)

posted by rumple to baseball at 02:52 PM - 4 comments

In its typical invocation, chemistry is a cop-out: an after-the-fact explanation of why a team won, especially against the odds. It lets us avoid uncomfortable truths: that baseball, like the workforce, is not always a meritocracy; that mediocre teams can capitalize on luck to beat very good ones; that the sport can be cosmically unjust. In the postgame twilight, chemistry coalesces as a narrative—the “It’s not you, it’s me” of baseball heartbreak. It rings hollow, but is not provably false.

posted by rumple to baseball at 07:03 PM - 1 comment

Come Watch the Warriors-Rockets Series With Us From an Expert’s Couch: I'm not a basketball fan because play seems so random, but this article and video clips made it make sense to an extent.

posted by rumple to basketball at 02:21 PM - 1 comment

LeBron James: NCAA is Corrupt: "I do know what five-star athletes bring to a campus, both in basketball and football. I know how much these college coaches get paid. I know how much these colleges are gaining off these kids. [......] Me and my mom was poor, I'll tell you that, and they expected me to step foot on a college campus and not to go to the NBA? We weren't going to be poor for long, I'll tell you that. That's a fact."

posted by rumple to basketball at 06:21 PM - 8 comments

How Haudenosaunee women are overcoming stigma to earn a place in lacrosse: it gives girls a chance to be lifted up, and given a chance to do something that is unique because it originated in North America and it originated with their own people. And it becomes part of the weave of the fabric here.

posted by rumple to other at 10:20 PM - 2 comments

The Film the NFL doesn't want you to see: In addition to the torn ACLs and MCLs, in addition to all of the horrible broken bones, the NFL diagnosed at least 281 traumatic brain injuries this season. And no document has ever quite displayed the horror of it all like “Concussion Protocol,” [an experimental, reverse motion] film by Josh Begley and Field of Vision. First link also includes audio discussion with Begley, Sean King, and Donte Stallworth, and a trailer for the film itself.

posted by rumple to football at 02:35 AM - 3 comments

The search for Jackie Wallace: I climbed the pier with my camera and made a few frames of the scene, then climbed down and woke him. He wasn’t startled in the least. I guess when you sleep under bridges, you learn to expect the unexpected. ... We talked for a minute or two, about my editor’s idea and journalism in general. After a brief pause, he said, “You ought to do a story about me.” I’ve heard this line many times before, and many more since. “And why would I want to do that?” I said. “Because,” he said, “I’ve played in three Super Bowls.”

posted by rumple to football at 05:48 PM - 2 comments

Why don't we care about the biggest sex abuse scandal in sports history?: “The case of Larry Nassar, certainly the largest [sports sexual abuse] scandal in scale, has generated a fraction of the mainstream media coverage that was devoted to the Sandusky and Baylor stories. Why that is is worthy of inspection.”

posted by rumple to culture at 03:19 PM - 7 comments