CINCINNATI VS KANSAS: A GLOBAL AUDIENCE TRIES TO CARE By Lila Marquez, Senior Foreign Correspondent (and part-time existentialist) The alert pinged from Lagos to Lisbon, from Seoul to São Paulo: “Cincinnati vs Kansas—LIVE.” Somewhere in a Jakarta co-working space, a crypto-trader looked up from his collapsing portfolio, blinked twice, and asked, “Which sport is this,…
Indiana State vs Montana: A Quiet Midwestern Rumble That Somehow Matters to the Rest of the Planet By Our Man in the Cheap Seats, Dave’s Locker Global Desk PARIS—Somewhere between a baguette shortage and the latest French pension strike, the news ticker flashed the words: “Indiana State vs Montana.” Instantly, three-quarters of the world yawned,…
Baseball, that charmingly parochial pastime Americans insist on calling the “World Series” despite inviting only one country, has finally coughed up a genuinely global phenomenon: Bohm Baseball. Named after Philadelphia third-baseman Alec Bohm—who, in a moment of exquisite candor, told a stadium full of paying customers exactly what he thought of their beloved sport—this new…
Nick Castellanos and the Decline of Western Civilization *A Field Report from the Bleachers of Geopolitics* There is, perhaps, no more reliable barometer of planetary anxiety than the Twitter timeline whenever Nick Castellanos lofts a ball into the right-field seats. One moment the feed is convulsing over a Supreme Court leak, a burning rainforest, or…
Ethan Bonner and the Art of Being Famous for Nothing: A Study in Global Narcissism By the time the sun rose in Singapore, Ethan Bonner’s name was already trending in three alphabets, two ideographic scripts, and one Cyrillic hashtag that roughly translates to “why-is-this-happening.” In a world where war crimes compete for bandwidth with celebrity…
The Curious Case of the Pearsall 49ers: How a Forgotten Californian Football Team Became an Accidental Global Metaphor By Our Bureau Chief, Nursing a Hangover in Zurich Somewhere between the almond orchards and the federal prison, the town of Pearsall, California (population 7,229 on a good Friday) produced a semi-pro football outfit called the 49ers….
The Saints Game Today: A Global Pilgrimage to the Church of Disposable Drama by our correspondent in the cheap seats, somewhere between the 50-yard line and existential dread So the New Orleans Saints are playing again—kicking off at 8:20 p.m. local time, which translates to 3:20 a.m. in Berlin, 11:20 a.m. in Tokyo, and “who-cares…
White Sox vs. Tigers: A Late-Night Midwestern Ballet for the Insomniac Planet By Our Man in Exile, Somewhere Over the Arctic Circle If you glanced at your phone at 3:47 a.m. local time in Jakarta, 21:17 in Buenos Aires, or any other godforsaken hour when decent folk are either asleep or pretending to be, you…
