SAN DIEGO — Last week, I tossed out my plans to be in Washington D.C. for a different NWSL match and booked a last-minute flight to San Diego. I then stood on the field at Snapdragon Stadium, staring through my camera lens at Alex Morgan, the athlete, one more time. …
Read More »Robert Kraft a no-doubter for Hall, but discussion is a win for NFL’s owner glorification
Robert Kraft’s candidacy for the Pro Football Hall of Fame has become a sort of annual tradition throughout New England, not unlike Opening Day at Fenway Park and Marathon Monday. And now, thanks to Don Van Natta Jr.’s exhaustively reported piece at ESPN, the entire world of football has been …
Read More »Jordan Chiles says Olympic gymnastics controversy took away ‘the recognition of who I was’
For 14 seconds, Jordan Chiles paused and looked down to collect her thoughts and emotions. The question — about what Chiles felt she lost when the International Olympic Committee stripped her of her bronze medal in the Olympic women’s gymnastics floor exercise — forced her to stop mid-answer. The audience …
Read More »NHL monitoring teams’ income-tax advantages, but ‘there are no easy fixes’
LAS VEGAS — Four of the past five Stanley Cup championship teams have come from states that don’t collect state income taxes — and seven of the past 10 finalists. Those runs, by the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars, have understandably sparked a debate …
Read More »Loyalty, history and $5 beers: Why fans still come out to see the Chicago White Sox
CHICAGO — Seventy times a year, Barry Antoniazzi tosses on his black No. 27 jersey with “Bagodonuts” stitched onto the back, dons a firefighter helmet covered in Chicago White Sox pins and walks a block and a half to his baseball sanctuary. Antoniazzi grew tired of paying for parking at …
Read More »The Texans have Super Bowl aspirations. C.J. Stroud is the reason: ‘He’s got some dog in him’
At first, his screams were met with silence. Stunned silence, really. This rookie was standing there, two weeks into his NFL career, moments after a humiliating loss at home, and he was calling out … the entire team? “Where my leaders at?!?” C.J. Stroud shouted, grabbing the attention of everyone …
Read More »From Italy to Boise State, how RB Ashton Jeanty became a scoring sensation
On a practice field on the outskirts of a thousand-year-old city, Jim Davis handed the high school freshman a football and told him his objective. It was to impress upon the senior linebacker waiting on the other side of the offensive line that this new member of the Naples Wildcats …
Read More »From shaky start to playoff bound, how Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever revived their season
Caitlin Clark: Raising the Game A commemoration of Caitlin Clark’s meteoric career at Iowa and evaluation of the start of her WNBA rookie season. A commemoration of Caitlin Clark’s meteoric career at Iowa and evaluation of the start of her WNBA rookie season. Buy During a hellacious stretch to begin …
Read More »Aryna Sabalenka’s team: Serve mechanics, TikTok dances, and a phonecall
This is an updated version of an article originally published in May 2024. The biggest before-and-after moment in Aryna Sabalenka’s life came five years ago, when her father, Sergey, a former ice hockey player, died suddenly of meningitis at 43. She was 21 at the time. There’s another moment, far …
Read More »NFL Quarterback Tiers: Tua, Trevor Lawrence and the biggest contracts ever for Tier 3 QBs
The 50 NFL coaches and executives who voted in 2024 Quarterback Tiers did not for one second confuse the Miami Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa or the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence for the best QBs in the game. They ranked Tagovailoa 15th and Lawrence 16th among 30 veterans at the position, placing …
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