**The Maple Leaf’s Feathered Underdog: How the Toronto Blue Jays Became a Global Metaphor for Polite Rebellion** From the outside, Canada looks like the planet’s designated driver: sober, courteous, and perennially apologizing for other nations’ drunken geopolitical antics. Yet every autumn, in a concrete saucer wedged beside a Toronto highway, the Blue Jays stage a…
THE BALLAD OF MAX KEPLER, OR HOW A BERLIN-BORN OUTFIELDER BECAME A ONE-MAN GLOBALIZATION SATIRE Somewhere between the Brandenburg Gate and the Metrodome’s ghost, Max Kepler-Różycki was born with a passport thick enough to stop small-arms fire. His mother, a professional ballet dancer from Poland; his father, a touring stage actor from Germany—parents whose combined…
From the banks of the Ohio, a polite Midwestern roar rises, and the rest of the planet—busy stockpiling canned beans for the next geopolitical hiccup—barely notices. Yet Louisville volleyball, that tidy constellation of 18-to-22-year-olds who still believe in hydration and pre-game playlists, is quietly staging a small coup on the order of things. While the…
Tina Charles, the 6’4″ walking referendum on American exceptionalism, has just reminded the planet that gravity remains a negotiable concept—provided you possess a 34-inch vertical and a passport thick enough to double as body armor. While the rest of us were busy doom-scrolling through supply-chain memes and energy-crisis cosplay, Charles quietly collected her fourth EuroLeague…
Corinthians vs. Athletico-PR: A Microcosm of the Planet’s Slow-Motion Meltdown By the time the ball is kicked on Sunday in São Paulo, the United Nations will still be debating whether “climate catastrophe” is too alarmist a term, another crypto-exchange will have “misplaced” a few hundred million dollars, and somewhere in the Pacific a container ship…
Corinthians vs. Athletico-PR: A Tale of Two Cities and the Planet’s Slow Collapse By Our Man in São Paulo, nursing his third caipirinha since dawn Somewhere between the 37th parallel south and the International Space Station’s nightly pass, Corinthians and Athletico-PR will meet tonight in the sort of football match that makes the rest of…
A 6’6″ Floridian with a fastball that could puncture the ozone layer lands in Pittsburgh and the planet tilts—imperceptibly, of course, yet just enough for the international baseball-industrial complex to recalibrate. Paul Skenes, the freshly drafted LSU ace whose surname sounds like a Scandinavian crime series, is the latest proof that the United States still…
Thursday Night Football: The Gladiator Hour When America Clocks Out and the Planet Clocks In From the glass towers of Singapore’s trading desks to the damp bunkers of London’s insomniac financiers, a curious ritual unfolds every autumn Thursday at 1:20 a.m. local time. The Dow has long since snored its closing bell, the Nikkei is…
Yankees Games: A Global Ritual in the Cathedral of Late Capitalism By Our Man in the Bleachers (and Occasionally in the Bar) Somewhere between the first ceremonial pitch and the seventh-inning stretch, the Bronx becomes the temporary capital of the world. Diplomats in bespoke bomber jackets forget trade-war talking points; hedge-fund emirs in Italian loafers…
Canelo vs Crawford Time: When the World Sets Its Alarms for Two Men Punching Each Other in Vegas By Santiago “Sam” Delacroix, International Correspondent, Dave’s Locker If you’ve ever wondered what global unity looks like, forget the UN General Assembly—set your phone to 4 a.m. in Lagos, 11 a.m. in Moscow, and 5 p.m. in…
The Red Sox–Athletics tilt has always been a quaint sideshow of American provincialism—two teams named after socks and accountants, respectively, playing a children’s pastime while the planet burns. Yet on Wednesday night in Oakland, as the smoke from Canada’s record-breaking wildfires drifted south like an apologetic surrender note, the game acquired the faint whiff of…
Fluminense vs Bahia: A Tiny Patch of Grass Becomes the World’s Most Honest Mirror RIO DE JANEIRO—On Saturday night the Maracanã will once again host Fluminense vs Bahia, two football clubs whose combined wage bill is less than a single week of Lionel Messi’s Parisian dry-cleaning allowance. Yet for 90 minutes plus whatever farcical stoppage…
