Atlanta vs. Washington: A Small Civil War on Grass, Observed from Afar From the vantage point of a rooftop bar in Lisbon—where the only curveball is the bartender’s wrist as he muddles mint for yet another overpriced mojito—the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals are engaged in what Americans call a “divisional rivalry.” To the rest…
Roberto Clemente: The Caribbean Saint the World Keeps Mispronouncing By Dave’s Locker Global Affairs Desk On the night of December 31, 1972, a DC-7 cargo plane sputtered over the Atlantic like a drunk tourist who’s just discovered rum is cheaper than water in Puerto Rico. Somewhere between San Juan and Managua, the aircraft—loaded with earthquake…
Chiba Lotte Marines: The Little Ballclub That Could—and Still Might Start a Trade War ZOZO Marine Stadium, Chiba—The sun is setting over Tokyo Bay and, like clockwork, the Chiba Lotte Marines are reminding the planet that baseball isn’t just America’s pastime; it’s Japan’s coping mechanism. While the Yankees hemorrhage cash on players who treat hamstrings…
Nathaniel Lowe and the Curious American Pastime of Exporting First-Base Anxiety to a Bewildered Planet By Santiago “Sully” Malcontent, International Desk The name Nathaniel Lowe will not, at first glance, trigger emergency sessions at the U.N. Security Council. Yet in the grand bazaar of global soft power—where K-Pop idols, French wine, and German cars jostle…
The Global Importance of a Man Named Cal Raleigh—Yes, Really By our correspondent in the cheap seats, watching civilizations rise and fall between innings In the grand taxonomy of world-historical figures, Cal Raleigh currently sits somewhere between “that guy who invented the paperclip” and “the second-best barista in Ljubljana.” Yet on a humid Tuesday in…
Mets Score: The Trivial Number That Launched a Thousand Hot Takes and Proved the World Still Cares (Barely) By the time the final digit flickered across scoreboards from Flushing to Frankfurt, the Mets had done something remarkable: they lost 7-3, and yet the planet’s collective cortisol spiked as if the Dow had just belly-flopped. In…
If you squint hard enough at the Mets schedule, you can almost see the contours of the modern world: a 162-game atlas where jet-lagged millionaires chase a white leather sphere across time zones like confused diplomats, while the rest of us wonder how we’re going to pay the rent. The 2024 slate drops the Amazin’s…
The Ballad of Ken Rosenthal: How a Bow-Tied Oracle in Short Pants Explains a Fractured Planet Somewhere between the seventh-inning stretch and the next geopolitical implosion, Ken Rosenthal keeps polishing his spectacles. To the uninitiated, the 61-year-old MLB Network insider is merely the man in the two-tone bow tie who knows which free-agent outfielder the…
Nick Kurtz, the American catcher who this week signed a reported $4 million deal with the Oakland Athletics, is not yet famous enough to be recognized in the world’s better hotel lobbies. Give it a nanosecond. In an age when a bored Finnish teenager can tank a multinational bank with a meme, the ripple effects…
From the banks of the Schuylkill to the neon canyons of Seoul, the name Kyle Schwarber is now muttered with the same bewildered reverence usually reserved for rogue central bankers or whoever keeps green-lighting Fast & Furious sequels. A 31-year-old left-handed slugger from Middletown, Ohio—population 48,000, or roughly one-third of the crowd that shows up…
A Left-Hander’s Fastball as Global Rorschach Test: Max Fried and the Geopolitics of a Curve PARIS — Somewhere in the Marais, an art dealer is trying to flip a signed Max Fried jersey for the price of a studio flat in Lisbon, arguing that the Atlanta Braves left-hander is the closest thing 2024 has to…
In the grand, gaudy casino of global baseball, where every slider is a geopolitical statement and every fastball a referendum on national virility, the name Luis Castillo keeps popping up like a bad penny—or, depending on your passport, a really good one. From the aluminum-roofed ballparks of the Dominican winter league to the corporate cathedrals…
