Content tagged with “sports”

“ There’s a difference between ‘show skating’ and ‘figure skating.’ What’s legal in the former might not be legal in the latter, and here’s why. ”

“ Some athletes who accomplished virtually nothing, from a guy who played in the NBA for 3.9 seconds, to an NFL running back who ended his career with minus-eight yards on one carry. (And there’s one surprise pick.) ”

“ A professional basketball dunker breaks down his discipline and explains the science and physics behind dunking a basketball. ”

“ Only 12 people have ever finished this 100-mile race through the backwoods of Tennessee, and even registering for it requires you to navigate a web of lies. ”

“ A pretty hilarious recounting of a bizarre Olympics and an even more bizarre event for which no one was prepared and which was ‘run’ in only the loosest sense of the word. ”

“Airsoft is like paintball, but without paint. Airsoft guns shoot rubber pellets that don’t burst and aren’t filled with anything. Obviously, in paintball, it’s obvious if you get hit. In airsoft, it’s not obvious, and you have to ‘call your hit.’ This makes it easier to cheat in airsoft, and lots…”

“ When a coach is convicted of doping, what does that do to the legacy of the athletes that trained under them? How strong is that stigma? ”

“ Turns out the advice for lasting a long time in the NBA is pretty good advice for lasting a long time in anything . ”

“Yes. When you are an official ‘athletic booster,’ the NCAA prohibits you from doing certain things involving athlete recruitment. To be considered a booster according to the NCAA , you have to have done any of the following activities: Provided a donation in order to obtain season tickets for any…”

“ You become better at decisions when you’re not trying to win, but rather just trying not to lose. It has an extended bit about tennis and the differing strategies of professionals and amateurs. ”

“ Before Major League Baseball uses a new ball, it is rubbed down with special mud to make it less slippery. The mud is harvested from one location, by one man. ”

“ A tribute to the greatest years of ESPN’s SportsCenter, with Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann. ”

“ An examination of bizarre psychic martial arts, ending with a discussion of the practicality of MMA versus more traditional martial arts, and the implications on human psychology and national identity. ”

“In the context I decided to investigate, it refers to the starting defense of the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers. To differentiate players during practices in the 1960s, the Nebraska coach put his defenders in black jerseys, and the name stuck. When Nebraska keeps opponents to a low score, it…”

“This book is … a lot. I just started watching basketball as a hobby. I was perhaps not the right audience for this book. Bill Simmons is a sports columnist. He’s the ultimate sports bro. He knows everything. He has an opinion about every subject. He rattles off statistics in a stream of…”

“This is just another name for ‘bear.’ It was a name of a bear in a Dutch children’s fable from the 12th century. Most people know this as the name of two major sports teams: the UCLA Bruins in college sports, and the Boston Bruins in NHL hockey. The UCLA team is very prominent with the bear…”

“ In Spain, teams compete to build the tallest structure made out of humans. ”

“ It’s very common for famous people to lie about their athletic accomplishments in an attempt to sound inspiring. ”

“ The story behind a viral photo of climbers waiting to summit Everest earlier this year. Multiple people died, and questions are being asked about the future of climbing the mountain. ”

“ There is a sport where competitors alternate three-minute rounds of boxing with chess. They can win by checkmate or knockout. ”

“ A massive home Mike Tyson lived in during the 90s was turned into a church after being abandoned for almost 20 years. ”

“ In 2012, a baseball announcer correctly predicted a player’s first home run, down to the exact ball/strike count, the type of pitch, and where the home run would leave the park. ”

“This is hard to describe in words. You sort of have to watch it visually. Here are two great videos (literally the first two results when searching YouTube for how to play cricket ): How to Play Cricket (2:00) How to play cricket: The Basics (7:06) It’s tempting to compare this to baseball, because…”

“ The relics of the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo still stand. Some of them were used during combat and saw the horrors of war crimes. ”

“ The story of a heartbreaking loss on the football field, and how it reverberated through two lives over the next three decades. ”

“ A video which tries to figure out why NASCAR isn’t nearly as popular as it once was. Theories range from young people caring less about cars to safety regulations that have made races boring to our general declining attention span. ”

“This refers to the outside-most defensive players that rush the quarterback in American football. In a 4-3 set-up, it’s the defensive ends In a 3-4 set-up, it’s the outside linebackers Those players are on the ‘edges’ of the defensive line scheme – the edges of whatever format is expected to rush…”

“I had trouble connecting with this book. It describes Grand Prix and rally racing of the 1930s – the ‘Golden Age of Auto Racing,’ this era is called. Racing, especially then, is, by nature, visceral and sensory, and I felt disconnected from it. The central theme is that Hitler and the Nazis used…”

“No one agrees where this came from. One story: there was a person that waited down the driving range to see where the ball landed. This caddy was known as a ‘fore-caddy.’ Yelling ‘Fore!’ was a way of warning the fore-caddy that a ball was on the way. However, there are other origin stories. Here’s…”

“ The player who was the first openly-gay athlete in the Major Leagues coincidentally also invented the ‘high five.’ ”

“ A side-by-side analysis of two Formula One drivers on the same track showing the tiny choices that separated their lap times by 0.35 seconds. ”

“ Although anyone can work to become a professional tennis player, the road is long and even a Top 200 player can expect to make about the same as an accountant. ”

“ In 1985, the DC police sent an offer for free tickets to the Superbowl to the last known address of 3,000 criminals. When they showed up to claim them, they were arrested. ”

“ A sales guy for the Sacramento Kings came ridiculously close to getting away with an audacious theft from the team. ”

“ Ex-NFL players – especially offensive linemen – struggle to maintain weight during their careers and sometimes struggle to take it off when they’re done playing. ”

“ In the wake of Andrew Luck abruptly retiring from the NFL due to accumulated injuries, a former NFL lineman explains exactly what this is like – how NFL players work through injuries and engage in constant rehab during both the season and off-season. ”

“This is a relatively new track-and-field event. It’s a multi-event – like the decathlon and heptathlon – where athletes compete in multiple disciplines over two days for a combined score. There are 20 events (it’s sometimes called the ‘double decathlon’). They appear to be held in quick succession,…”

“ Freddy Adu became a professional soccer player at 14 and was supposed to be the next Pele. It did not work out that way. At 30 years old, he ponders what to do next. ”

“ An older male runner has been accused for many years of cheating his marathon times. (Two weeks after this article was published, he was found dead in an LA river in a suspected suicide.) ”

“ Keni Harisson set the U.S. record in the 110m hurdles, then shockingly failed to qualify for the Olympics. Yet, in between that heartbreak and the actual Olympic games, while competing against all those who did qualify, she breaks the world record. ”

“ One of the players in the Super Bowl got his medical degree last year. He was drafted to the NFL during his third year of medical school. ”

“ A haunting cartoon short about the crash at Le Mans in 1955 that left at least 80 people dead, and Mercedes’s ensuing decision to withdraw from the race. ”

“So, it’s tough not to like this book, because Sam Acho is an engaging writer and seems like a lovely person. But the book is unfocused, and doesn’t seem to go anywhere. The title (and subtitle) hint that’s it about letting the world see ‘the real you.’ But the result is really just a bunch of…”

“ Completing a contemporary baseball game in less than two hours is a very rare thing. One particular pitcher seemed to always be trying. ”

“ A short video about the World’s Strongest Man, who happens to be very tall, and this causes challenges in day-to-day life. The clip of him walking through a small commuter plane is absurd. ”

“ A long-retired baseball player gets a nice paycheck every year because the owner of his former club thought Bernie Madoff’s financial gains were real. ”

“ A much-hyped martial arts bout in the 80s was won almost entirely on the strength of an unexpected and underestimated movement. ”

“ A couple of Dutch brothers started filming marble races and now it’s how they make a living. ”

“ A professional athlete walked away to indulge his love of Pokemon and create a business around it. ”

“ Fascinating look at the logistics of flying NFL teams everywhere, and how this might play out if the league completes a rumored expansion to London. ”

“ ‘Piste’ is French for trail or track. So, ‘off piste’ is a skiing term for backcountry skiing, meaning to ski in areas that are not groomed slopes at ski resorts. As an idiom, ‘off piste’ could mean to do something unexpected or outside the ordinary. ”

“ An NFL player has three Super Bowl rings in three seasons, despite only playing in three games. ”

“This is a compelling auto-biography. It reads fast and stays interesting. Agassi claims to hate tennis. His father groomed him to be a tennis player, and the stories he tells of his childhood border on abuse. He grew up hating the game. But he dropped out of school in the 9th grade, so that’s all…”

“Until 1968, professionals were not allowed to compete in the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments: the Australian Open, the French Open, the U.S. Open, and the British Open (Wimbledon). These four tournaments were reserved for amateur players, to make them ‘fair’ to players who could not devote their…”

“I had a conversation with my friend Ben about this. Ben (and his son) was a competitive runner in college: Me: In a running race, what’s the purpose of a pacesetter? Ben: The pace setter helps make sure the pack of runners doesn’t get out too fast or slow. This is often used when some runners are…”

“For most everyone, there probably is no difference – the terms are likely interchangeable. But, in a strict sense: Parkour is about efficiency – moving from point A to point B in the least amount of time Freerunning is more artistic and incorporates acrobatic movements for style alone The word…”

“ An enormously entertaining documentary about the steroid era in baseball, and the lengths A-Rod went to avoid punishment. It takes the odd step of recreating scenes using child actors, but, amazingly, it works. ”

“Entertaining history of Nike from its beginning in 1962 through to when it went public in 1980. Those 18 years were run on a shoestring budget, and the company was constantly, hilariously broke. In the last chapter, Knight catches up to everything that’s happened since 1980. That sounds rushed, but…”

“ A discussion of the Nike Vaporfly, why it dominates elite running, and how technological advancement disrupts athletic record-keeping. ”

“ One of the greatest competitive shooters in history is an ordained Italian bishop. ”

“ There is a race where you run around a single block in Queens…5,649 times. The record is 40 days. ”

“ When you win a hole-in-one contest (or any other longshot contest), the organizer isn’t sad, because they paid a fee to ensure they didn’t have to pay out the prize. ”

“There are five alpine (meaning ‘gravity-based’) skiing events in the Olympics: All of them involve navigating a course down the side of a mountain while turning to go through ‘gates’ demarked by flags. They’re differentiated by how close the gates are, which dictates how often the skier has to turn…”

“This book explains (it doesn’t ‘claim,’ it just explains) that Black humans are generally better athletes than White humans. It goes deep into the different regions of Africa, and shows how significant portions of athletics are simply dominated by athletes from those regions. In particular, the…”

“This is a sport – it’s kind of like ping pong, but it’s played on a curved table, with a larger ball, and you can only use your feet. (So, perhaps it’s nothing like ping pong?) It was invented in Hungary in 2012, so it’s quite new. It’s gradually being adopted around the world, and there’s a small…”

“ Cheating in high-stakes chess is rampant, occasionally blatant, and sometimes conspiratorial. ”

“ As the proof for the effectiveness of Nike Vaporfly shoes starts to mount, it’s becoming clear that the record books will never be the same. ”

“ The story of Tom Seaver’s complicated relationship with the New York Mets. ”

“ A composite video showing how a baseball pitcher can make pitches look similar until very late in their delivery. ”

“Truly, one of the most perfect books I have ever read. I wanted a comprehensive history of the NBA, and that’s what got, with style and beauty to go along with it. The history is organized well, the writing is superb and goes beneath superficial observations, and the artwork is just amazing – like,…”

“ Two professional CrossFit athletes take on a U.S. Army obstacle course. ”

“ There’s a ridiculous ultra-marathon that goes through the Sahara. In 1994, an Italian competitor got lost in the desert for 11 days. ”

“ Where the ‘summit’ lies on a tall mountain is a matter of debate. Consequently, many people think they’ve climbed to the top, but haven’t really. ”

“ Amateur video of the moment when Formula One cars come in from their warm-up lap, line up, and start a race. The sound is what I imagine a demonic chorus would sound like. ”

“ A man’s father wanted three golf balls cryptically displayed at his funeral. This Reddit thread investigates the possible reasons why. ”

“ An introduction to the sport of ‘tricking’ and the physics of how its participants do some pretty amazing things. ”

“ The titular question doesn’t get answered, but this is an interesting breakdown of a tennis serve. The record serve is 163mph, and there’s a seven-footer on the tour who can serve downhill in a straight line and still get the ball over the net. ”

“ The men’s javelin throw record is fully 25-years-old, and might be the hardest record to beat. ”

“ The inside story of a race where almost the entire field refused to compete. ”

“ In 2018, a woman figured out how to game the Olympic qualification system and competed in Pyeongchang despite limited skills. People weren’t pleased. ”

“ The story of how compulsive eating and the resulting obesity haunted former NFL quarterback Jared Lorenzen. (Five years after this article was written, Lorenzen died of obesity-related complications after shedding 100 pounds from his peak of 500.) ”