Chill Sports

“I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.” So goes a quote from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations , a story about a young man who suddenly comes into a large fortune and despite initial success in acclimating to high society struggles for years to attain what he truly desires, a love from when he was young. Great Expectations in merely name alone begins to tell the story of Bryce Harper; once called “Baseball’s LeBron” in a Sports Illustrated cover story when he was just 16, Harper’s true five-tool potential made him one of the hottest prospects in the history of the sport. The actual story of that Dickens novel, however, could very well serve as an allegory to Harper’s entire career thus far. Harper was blessed with raw baseball talent the likes of which only a handful of humans ever have had, and with that found himself in the top level of American professional baseball at just 19. While he blossomed earl...

The history of the Seattle Mariners is an unkind one. Long known as a team of mediocrity, misfortune, and misery, their Wikipedia synopsis reads more like a Shakespearean tragedy than the rich history of a storied ballclub. Jon Bois and Alex Rubenstein of Dorktown even created a fantastic documentary which details just how much pain and suffering this organization and its fans have endured in its forty-plus years of operation. Now, though, it may finally be time to write a new chapter in the story of Seattle baseball. At long last, the Mariners have officially qualified for the MLB postseason, ending what was the longest active playoff drought in all of American professional sports (that distinction now belongs to the Sacramento Kings of the NBA). And even more improbable still, this Mariners team has the makings of a ballclub that could be contenders for years to come, and the joyous, infectious culture to go along with it. The Mariners qualified for the playoffs for the first time ...

Baseball is a funny sport. “America’s Pastime” -- though perhaps merely in name nowadays -- is often bizarrely slow, filled with many archaic rules and countless more asinine “ unwritten rules ”, and is marketed poorly to the casual viewer year after year. Still, like America, many of those who grew up with and understand the MLB for the deeply flawed system that it is can’t ever seem to quit it. Baseball is a comfort food of sorts for sports fans like me who grew up with the game and find joy in its idiosyncrasies, despite being constantly reminded by friends how boring it is. Photo by: Gregory Fisher/USA Today Sports Of its many faults, though, perhaps the sport’s most baffling is that it is positively riddled with cheaters. And no one ever has any clue what to do about it. Why exactly Major League Baseball has had so many massive cheating scandals in its history is unclear. Maybe the game’s rules are so poorly written that bad actors can expose their loopholes too easily. Maybe the ...

Sports writers everywhere love hyperbole. A bold claim inherently puts many more eyes onto your work than some lukewarm statement, even when the boring take is correct (and it often is). I mean, be honest -- between two articles entitled “ The Dodgers May Have Just Built the Greatest Lineup in History ” and “ Gosh, The Dodgers Just Improved Their Roster by Quite a Fair Bit With Their Most Recent Trade, Wouldn’t You Think? ”, which would you read first? In truth, hyperbole is a useful tool for all journalists, though it’s a little easier to use in the realm of sports rather than, say, politics, since the stakes are much lower. For instance, if I call the White Sox the worst-coached team in the league , it’s not going to do much more than ruffle the feathers of some Tony La Russa supporters, if any should exist. But if I call any country the worst-run country in the world , the consequences are… a little more dire. All that being said, I would argue that no compliment could possibly be t...