White Sox vs. Yankees: The World’s Most Over-Subscribed Proxy War By Dave’s Locker International Correspondent Somewhere between the Caspian Sea and the South China Sea, a bleary-eyed grain trader in Singapore yawns at his Bloomberg terminal and sees the White Sox are up 4-2 in the Bronx. He doesn’t cheer—he hedges. In the same instant,…
Padres Schedule: The Global Domino Theory of 162 Baseball Games By the time the first pitch of the San Diego Padres’ season is hurled at Petco Park, the rest of the planet will already have endured three currency crises, two coups, and one viral dance that has mercifully failed to cross the Pacific. Yet somewhere…
Twins vs Rangers: The Global Battle for the Soul of Baseball and, Incidentally, the Free World By Our Man in the Press Box, Nursing a Warm Beer and Existential Fatigue MINNEAPOLIS—Somewhere above the Mississippi flyway, migratory birds heading north for spring looked down and mistook Target Field for a misplaced casino parking lot. The Twins…
Marlins vs Phillies: A Global Tragedy in Nine Innings Dave’s Locker, International Desk – 23 June 2024 The Miami Marlins and the Philadelphia Phillies are playing a baseball game tonight, and, naturally, the entire planet is pretending to care. From the fluorescent living rooms of Manila to the back-alley bars of Montevideo, humans who have…
Flushing, Queens—Tuesday night—where the Mets are busy losing in extra innings while the rest of the planet pretends to be asleep. Somewhere above Citi Field, a Lufthansa A-350 banks toward Frankfurt, its passengers blissfully unaware that their 401(k)s are now being piloted by a rookie relief pitcher who just walked the bases loaded. In the…
Roy Campanella, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ three-time MVP catcher, has long been filed under “American baseball legend” and left to gather dust alongside other sepia-toned curios. Yet if you squint past the nostalgia, Campy’s story turns out to be a surprisingly useful lens on the planet’s chronic inability to play fair—on the diamond, in passport queues,…
Jazz Chisholm Jr. and the End of the Empire: How a Bahamian Infielder Explains the 21st-Century World Order By Our Correspondent, Still Recovering from the 2016 Election and Other Existential Jokes NASSAU, THE BAHAMAS — While the United States busies itself weaponizing nostalgia for a 1950s that never quite existed, its erstwhile colony 185 miles…
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…
Marlins vs Rangers: A Global Trade War in Cleats By Our Correspondent Who Once Covered a UN Summit and Found More Diplomacy in the Dugout MIAMI—While the rest of the planet negotiates over microchips, grain corridors, and which septuagenarian autocrat will next threaten nuclear Armageddon, two American ball clubs convened at LoanDepot Park last night…
Padres vs. White Sox: A Tragicomedy Staged on a Diamond, Broadcast to a Planet That Barely Noticed By R. S. Calder, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker Somewhere between the Tijuana maquiladoras and the shuttered Ford plant on Chicago’s South Side, two baseball teams met last night to determine absolutely nothing of consequence—except, perhaps, the exact temperature…
Nationals vs Mets: A Global Power Struggle Played Out on a Diamond in Queens By Orlaith Keogh, Senior Paranoid Correspondent If you squint past the overpriced beer and the drone of the 7-train, last night’s Nationals-Mets tilt looked less like nine innings of baseball and more like the newest proxy war in our endless season…
Billy Hamilton and the Great Global Chase By our man in the cheap seats, somewhere above the Arctic Circle In the grand, gouty banquet of international baseball, Billy Hamilton is the plate of celery sticks that nobody ordered but everyone photographs. He is the human embodiment of a diplomatic cable that reads, “Warning: contents faster…
