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Media
August 13, 2007
Getting the Call Up
"Hello! And welcome to Boston," Ken Tremendous writes to Beantown's newest stars in the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated. "Allow me to congratulate you on the six straight championships your teams are about to win." With that, Tremendous makes the leap from anonymous writer ranting on the stripped-down media-criticism blog FireJoeMorgan.com to anonymous writer ranting in the pages of a national magazine. So how did a blogger for a niche site dedicated to ridding the world of a Sabermetricsphobic announcer end up getting the same amount of real estate in SI as Rick Reilly?
Sports
August 9, 2007
Witnessing 756
When Barry Bonds hit No. 756 on Tuesday, I was about 10 rows away. I didn't join in the pile for the ball—I didn't want to spill the beer that I had just spent 30 minutes obtaining—but several people much farther away than me did. The homer was a bit of a line drive and seemed to bounce a couple times once it reached the packed stands; long after Mr. Mets jersey was shepherded away by police, people were walking by holding their hands and bitching about their rotten luck.
Science
August 7, 2007
What Games Can Humans Still Win?
Two weeks ago, a Canadian team of computer scientists announced in a paper that they had created a computer program that has solved the game of checkers. It took nearly 20 years and 50 computers to sort through the approximately 500 billion billion different checkers positions necessary to solve the game, making it the most complicated game that computers have completely figured out. (It should be noted that a "solved" game often means that the program can never lose—a perfectly-played opposing match would lead to a draw). Which raises the question: Are there any games left that humans can still win?
Sports
July 31, 2007
Walkoff Articles
For decades sportswriters have conferred mythic status upon star athletes. And there is no greater image of American myth than the lone cowboy, riding off into the sunset. Therefore, it should come as little surprise that in the pages of Sports Illustrated, for want of a better ending, athlete profiles often conclude with their subjects slipping away into the great unknown, ready to face the challenges that await them on the horizon. Gelf chronicles some of the recent modern-day cowboys to slip off into the night, or into the great wide open.
Sports
July 19, 2007
When a Pitcher Works in Consort With a Concept
Earlier this season, Gelf spotlighted the cliché-ridden baseball coverage of Mets.com beat writer Marty Noble. Among a crowded field of excitable sportswriters, Noble stands apart, like a beacon of banality in a bromide ocean. After the jump, Gelf shares a few more of our favorite Noble moments from the 2007 season.
Sports
June 18, 2007
The Bottle-Cap Conspiracy
Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly thinks the admittedly perplexing practice of removing bottle caps at sporting events arises from some unlikely motivations. But he doesn't seem to have his bottle cap screwed on straight.
Sports
June 18, 2007
Less-Than-Fantastic Headlines
The San Antonio Spurs swept the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday to capture their fourth NBA Finals championship (and third in five years). This event prompted the inevitable downpour of punny headlines about San Antonio's quadratic feat. This week's program is sponsored by the number four.
Sports
June 14, 2007
African-American, Unlike Me
What does Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton have in common with former heavyweight champ Lennox Lewis? They're both famous athletes named "Lewis," of course, but they also have the distinction of being two of the most recognizable African-Britons on the planet. What, you've never heard the term African-Briton before? Perhaps you, like certain media outlets we know, need to learn how to use the term "black."
Sports
June 13, 2007
A Journalistic No-No
Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers threw a no-hitter last night, which sent sports scribes scrambling to do his gem journalistic justice. Of course, to properly convey the magnitude of the feat—only the second this year!—headline writers were forced to make puns out of every major word in the story: Detroit-Tigers-Justin-Verlander. And they're off!
Media
May 30, 2007
What Storybooks are They Reading?
After the Duke men's lacrosse team lost by a goal in the finals of the national title game, Jason Whitlock captured the thoughts of sportswriters around the country, writing that team's sloppy play denied them "the storybook finish many of us wanted." Perhaps Gelf missed out on a demented sub-genre of the modern fairytale, but it seems like a story featuring inebriated strippers and bogus rape charges doesn't quite cut it as mythical fare.
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