11/05/24
Recent Posts by yerfatma
April 02, 2021
A Requiem for the Supertuck: Not the gender-bending move, but a way to go real fast on a bike.
posted by yerfatma to other at 11:23 AM - 0 comments
February 12, 2021
The story behind Barcelona's disastrous rejection of Luis Suárez: Hands up everyone who saw this going well.
posted by yerfatma to soccer at 11:17 AM - 3 comments
February 05, 2021
The N.F.L. Had Over 700 Coronavirus Positives. The Seahawks Had None.: How did they do it? Corona virus can't melt steel beams.
January 15, 2021
In golf’s history, there were just four previous condors reported through 2018 — all of them holes-in-one on par 5s, starting in 1962 when a golfer in Hope, Ark. cut the corner on a dogleg for an ace on a 480-yard hole. Before Pon’s rare feat, the last condor was in 2007, when a 16-year-old aced a 511-yard hole in New South Wales, Australia.
January 08, 2021
The Annual : and it's wonderful.
If this last terrible year could do one good thing it would be to move the definition of the word community away from its more recent meaning – online interest group – back towards its older, more challenging meaning – the people who live near you with whom you have to learn to get along with.
posted by yerfatma to soccer at 07:59 AM - 5 comments
November 25, 2020
Diego Maradona has died: The Guardian's Jonathan Wilson on the man and the legends.
posted by yerfatma to soccer at 01:29 PM - 7 comments
September 04, 2018
Loser's Lunch: a story of the lengths tennis tournaments will go to keep out sports bettors for reasons that aren't particularly obvious.
posted by yerfatma to tennis at 04:57 PM - 2 comments
August 09, 2018
How the Delmon Young Draft Pick Worked out for Tampa Bay: One of those cool "Follow the history" stories that shows how the Rays turned a dud draft pick into a ton of production.
posted by yerfatma to baseball at 10:49 AM - 2 comments
May 30, 2018
Collarred! The Curious Case of Colangelo's Accounts: The Ringer provides some fairly damning circumstantial evidence that the NBA's hand-picked Sam Hinkie replacement, Bryan Colangelo, has been using a series of anonymous Twitter accounts to bad-mouth, Hinkie, former coworkers and current Sixers players (including discussing unreleased medical information). Oh and he may have tipped his hand to the brilliant Fultz trade a few months early. And gotten into it with Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union for reasons that make very little sense (and probably aren't accurate).
posted by yerfatma to basketball at 10:09 AM - 3 comments
February 09, 2018
Geoff Cameron: What Must Change in U.S. Soccer: "But this is the mentality that is so toxic across the board in youth soccer in America. It’s not about proving yourself every day. It’s about what you did last year. It’s about who you know. It’s about your size. It’s about your reputation. It’s about what fancy youth club you play for."
November 29, 2016
Rudy, Interrupted: South Carolina State's 55 Year-Old Back: "He's the only player without even a single accessory: no leggings, no wristbands, no gloves, just team-issued blue-and-white striped shorts, his No. 47 jersey and an unadorned helmet. With the pads bulking his chest and the helmet guarding the wisp of grey at the peak of his hairline, he hardly seems 55 years old."
posted by yerfatma to football at 10:05 AM - 3 comments
July 28, 2016
Remembering Amare as He Might Have Been:
Like everything during that era of Phoenix prosperity, the team's plans for the future moved in warp speed. Internally, the Suns imagined a new positional prototype for their high-octane system, to be unleashed in the following season. Point center, they called it. Amar’e Stoudemire, the 22-year-old future of the franchise, was to be its apostle.
posted by yerfatma to basketball at 03:23 PM - 2 comments
June 02, 2016
The Ringer: Bill Simmons' spiritual successor to Grantland, is open for business.
posted by yerfatma to culture at 10:20 AM - 6 comments
April 25, 2016
Tom Brady's 4-Game Suspension Reinstated for DeflateGate: A federal appeals court has ruled that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady must serve a four-game DeflateGate suspension imposed by the NFL, overturning a lower judge and siding with the league in a battle with the players union. "We hold that the Commissioner properly exercised his broad discretion under the collective bargaining agreement and that his procedural rulings were properly grounded in that agreement and did not deprive Brady of fundamental fairness," the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday in New York.
posted by yerfatma to football at 11:48 AM - 21 comments
January 29, 2016
"A Guy Like Me": John Scott on his All Star Experience. He definitely has my vote after reading this piece.
"Because, while I may not deserve to be an NHL All-Star, I know I deserve to be the judge of what my kids will — and won’t — be proud of me for."
January 28, 2016
Ranking the Super Bowl MVPs: Kind of a strange list to me as it favors players who won in blowouts.
posted by yerfatma to football at 08:31 AM - 7 comments
November 05, 2015
"Shuttering of Grantland Hints at Corroding ESPN Culture, Competency, and Gumption": Awful Announcing's finance director on why he thinks ESPN's cancelling of Grantland is, "the network’s dumbest decision in the five years I have professionally been involved in tracking the company". Linked from there, ESPN.com's former ombudsman on the situation.
posted by yerfatma to culture at 03:34 PM - 6 comments
September 23, 2015
Craig Finn's guide to the best ever sports music: Hate to have to break it to him about Ragnar.
posted by yerfatma to culture at 02:02 PM - 9 comments
July 15, 2015
Harold Reynolds Feels Jackie Robinson Could Have Done Better.: Reynolds commented on Jackie Robinson’s age when he made his MLB debut, comparing him to Giants catcher Buster Posey. Robinson was 28 years old when he debuted for the Dodgers in 1947, an age that would be considered ancient in today’s game. Reynolds said Robinson did not make play in a big league until that age because they held rookies back longer during that time and he hadn’t completely figured out the game.
May 26, 2015
Is Manuel Neuer the template for future goalkeepers: or a Black Swan who cannot be imitated?
posted by yerfatma to soccer at 11:23 AM - 2 comments
April 15, 2015
Former Bradford chairman linked to at least eight fires before Valley Parade disaster: '[T]here had been at least eight other fires at business premises either owned by, or connected to, Stafford Heginbotham, Bradford’s then-chairman, in the previous 18 years, resulting in huge insurance claims . . . "Could any man really be as unlucky as Heginbotham had been?"
posted by yerfatma to soccer at 09:56 AM - 2 comments
April 06, 2015
The best 3-point shooter you never saw: "Durante’s name is still whispered on the Catawba campus four decades after his heyday. He was a lefty scoring machine with lightning in his legs. He shot often, connected often."
posted by yerfatma to basketball at 09:48 AM - 1 comment
March 24, 2015
The Hidden Value of a Knuckleballer:
"Relievers behind Wright have surrendered an insane two home runs in 107 2/3 innings. That's one-fifth what we'd expect based on their typical performance. If Wright were to make 30 starts in a season, that would translate to roughly an extra win for his team. Starters were about a half-run better in ERA and a run better in FIP when the other team had been thrown off by Wright's knuckleball. Add it up, and Wright could be worth in the range of two wins simply by taking the ball, let alone what he could provide by pitching well."
posted by yerfatma to baseball at 10:03 AM - 3 comments
March 19, 2015
Can popularity ruin a sport?: Rafa Honigstein on how success has changed the Budesliga.
"That rise to all-conquering prominence has attracted the country’s brightest minds and developed into a highly professional, productive industry. But football’s heightened social relevance is also reflected in the sort of insufferably grim, po-faced seriousness that used to be confined to political struggles or actual tribal conflicts.
posted by yerfatma to culture at 09:06 AM - 12 comments
March 13, 2015
"Why not go for 70?": An Oral History of Larry Bird's 60-Point Game.
posted by yerfatma to basketball at 08:29 AM - 5 comments