Dear Mr. Jorge Soler, Congratulations! You made it to the big leagues. Sure, that’s no surprise. The Cubs loved you enough to pay you $30 million over nine years before you even hit a single ball for them, and you batted .338 in the minors this year, which is better than most of your Chicago
Williamsport Confidential: My Potential Path to Athletic Glory
I’ve done some good things and some bad things in my life, but suspiciously few of the good things have involved my participation in a sport. Sure, sometimes I’ll make a couple of threes in a pickup basketball game or accidentally throw one of those Wiffle ball pitches that rises on its way to the
False Idols: The Uncomfortable Truth about Religious Athletes
It was sometime between 2003 and 2006, and I was a freshly minted member of one of the three NBA teams for which I played sparingly almost a decade ago. Practice was over, which meant that I was relieved, for I had survived another day of pretending I belonged in a place (the NBA) that
Study-Abroad Participant Is Huge Fan of Spanish Futbol
WASHINGTON, DC – Emily Bunning, a junior at George Washington University who spent a semester in Spain this past spring, is now one of Barcelona FC’s premier supporters. Bunning, who earned a C- in Spanish 102 last year, fell in love with the team after watching them in a Madrid sports bar. “I mean, the
Fishing for Compliments
There was once a World Series in which all of the following things happened: All seven games were needed to decide the winner Game 7 went to extra innings The winning team tied the game in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7, and won in the bottom of the eleventh, in thrilling
Just a Shirt with Holes: Growing into (and out of) Jerseys
The first jersey I ever owned bore the name of a man whose level of success I will never match, not as a writer, and certainly not as a football player. I tuned in at the very end of Barry Sanders’ ten-year NFL career, but I got there in time to see him trample the
Hope I Retire Before I Get Old: The Problem with Longevity
Sports fans are suckers for the old guy. Whether it’s Jamie Moyer nearly continuing his career into his fifties, Jimmy Connors reaching the semifinals of the 1991 US Open at age 39, Dara Torres medaling as an Olympic swimmer at 41, or Barry Bonds breaking rec- wait, nope, not that one. But you get the
A Different Kind of Pitcher
Deadline deals dominated baseball news this past week, as the likes of David Price, Jon Lester, John Lackey, and Jarred Cosart were shipped off to competitive teams that hoped to boost their playoff chances by improving their starting rotations. Elsewhere in baseball, two decidedly noncompetitive teams saw their pitchers make news for different reasons. The