Cooper DeJean, the 21-year-old Iowan who can apparently outrun both his own shadow and the existential dread of living in a state whose main export is corn and repressed memories, has become the latest American football prodigy to be hoisted onto the international stage. For those who’ve wisely invested their sanity in soccer, cricket, or…
Necaxa vs Puebla: When a Forgotten Liga MX Fixture Becomes the World’s Most Honest Mirror In the grand, greasy carousel of global football, where the Premier League sells itself as a Gulf-financed soap opera and the Champions League is essentially a Mastercard commercial with grass stains, the Liga MX Saturday-night tilt between Club Necaxa and…
The Ballad of Two Cities, or How a Saturday Night in Mexico City Became a Global Mood Ring By Our Man in the Stands, nursing a michelada and a mild existential crisis If you squint past the omnipresent smog and the LED billboards promising salvation in 0% APR, Estadio Azteca on a Cruz Azul–Juárez match-day…
The Astros Schedule as Geopolitical Tarot A cynical guide to why 162 games in fly-over states still make the planet wobble By the time the Houston Astros’ 2024 schedule was released at dawn Houston-time—an hour that exists only so oil traders can pretend the sun rises on their spreadsheets—five different time zones had already priced…
Judge Timothy Kelly and the Quiet Art of Global Containment By Our Man in the Cheap Seats, Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk Washington, D.C.—If geopolitics were a dinner party, Judge Timothy Kelly would be the soft-spoken guest who quietly confiscates the carving knife while everyone else debates whether the roast is overcooked. Appointed to the U.S….
Yannick Noah: The Last Frenchman Who Could Still Make a Stadium Sing Without Setting It on Fire By Dave’s International Cynic-in-Residence Paris, France – In an age when most former athletes monetise nostalgia by hawking NFTs or launching their own line of artisanal beard oil, Yannick Noah remains a stubborn anomaly: a one-time tennis champion…
The Mikie Sherrill Phenomenon, or How One New Jersey Suburb Became a Global Mood Ring By Our Correspondent in Exile, Somewhere Over the Atlantic PARIS—If you want to understand why a former Navy helicopter pilot from Montclair is suddenly the toast of Davos, the headache of Beijing, and the answer to a thousand dinner-party questions…
CLEVELAND—Somewhere between the rust-spotted skyline and the eternal optimism that Lake Erie refuses to drown, the Cleveland Guardians have quietly become the most geopolitically interesting nine innings on earth. To the average European, the name conjures images of stone-faced gargoyles and Brexit negotiations; to a Tokyo commuter it sounds like a new cyber-security protocol; to…
Mike Gundy, the Oklahoma State University head football coach whose mullet once qualified as a diplomatic incident in several NATO countries, has improbably become a case study in how American provincialism still manages to ricochet across the planet like a rogue drone over the Black Sea. In a week when French farmers dumped manure on…
Guardians vs Twins: A Global Proxy War in Cleats By Santiago de la Mancha, Contributing World-Weary Correspondent CLEVELAND—From the banks of the Cuyahoga to the back alleys of Caracas, the world paused Tuesday to witness the latest skirmish in an ancient struggle: the Cleveland Guardians versus the Minnesota Twins. On the surface it is merely…
Mariners vs Astros: A Proxy War Fought with Pine Tar and Regrets By Our Man in the Upper Deck, Nursing a $14 IPA and an Existential Crisis SEATTLE—As the final Boeing 787 of the evening rumbles overhead like a polite reminder of supply-chain collapse, two ball clubs from America’s soggy northwest and swampy southeast are…
Brewers vs Cardinals: A Transatlantic Blood Feud in Which Beats the Heart of Empire, or at Least a Decent Lager By the time first pitch is thrown at American Family Field—an arena whose corporate moniker sounds like an insurance claim waiting to happen—no fewer than seventeen foreign intelligence agencies are already monitoring the outcome. Not…
