Defector
Total reads
32
This week
1
Rank
#282 of 423
Published
264 posts
Most read posts
Featured on Sportsblogs
Run this blog? Add the badge to your site to show readers you're featured — it links back to this page.
Latest Entries
Will People Ever Stop Attending Sporting Events?
Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag . You can also read Drew over at SFGATE , and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it . Today, we're talking about crabs, eating butter by itself, living near a McStadium, and more. PROGRAMMING NOTE: I'm currently locked into my Why Your Team Sucks duties, so you're getting a somewhat truncated bag today, plus a guest host in this space next week. Be sure to email them here with your deepest, darke...
Italian National Team Plans, Then Cancels Its Andrea Pirlo Party
Andrea Pirlo is one of the greatest Italian soccer players of all time. His résumé as a player is impeccable. He won six Serie A titles, two Champions Leagues, and most crucially, the 2006 World Cup. His evolution from a classic trequartista , attacking-style player into one of the defining deep-lying playmakers of his era spoke to both his talent and his tactical intelligence. In every sense of the word, he is an Italian legend. But not even Pirlo is immune from the humiliation vortex that ha...
Is The Right’s Next Project Make Women’s Sports Girly Again?
Within a few weeks of the country's highest court giving states permission to ban trans girls from nearly all school sports, the influential right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation made clear its newest target: the rest of girls and women's sports. Specifically, as laid out in a lengthy position paper, Heritage believes that women's sports are, in general, not womanly enough. What do they want? The paper, authored by Boise State professor Scott Yenor —who once called career-oriented w...
Why Your Team Sucks 2026: Tennessee Titans
Some people are fans of the Tennessee Titans. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Tennessee Titans. This 2026 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here . Your Team: The Tennessee Titans. Your 2025 record: 3-14, after going 3-14, after going 6-11, after going 7-10. This makes them the worst team in football over the last four years. None of it is a fluke, either, as they also have the second-worst point differential in that...
Squirrel Leads Detroit Grounds Crew On Merry Chase
On Monday the visiting Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers by a score of something to something. This is not important. What is important is that there was a squirrel. With a squirrel's innate mischievousness and ability to completely derail whatever else is going on, the Detroit squirrel spent a couple of innings exploring increasingly precarious locations around the diamond, before a phalanx of grounds crew members and one visiting outfielder were dispatched to remove it from the pr...
Eventually Everyone Will Be Called A Terrorist
Secretary of State Marco Rubio convened representatives from 66 different nations on July 16 for a “ministerial meeting” on the resurgence of “political terrorism.” The White House described the summit as the launch of “an unprecedented global offensive against the transnational threat of Radical Left terrorism.” This historic occasion took the form of Rubio, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent taking turns as they said Nazi shit for an hour. ...
LeBron James Should Just Take The Train To His New Job
LeBron James is coming to Philadelphia , a fact anyone who lives in Philly would have learned from interacting with strangers on the street, no matter their interest in basketball. This is salient because, according to ESPN's Brian Windhorst , James will not be among the ranks of those living in Philly. Instead, he will be living in New York City and commuting to Philly, potentially via helicopter. This is a forgivable error if one has never lived along the Northeast Corridor and experience...
Eric Bieniemy’s Son Arrested, Charged With Mother’s Shooting
Mia Bieniemy, the wife of Kansas City offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, was hospitalized after being shot Sunday night. The couple's son, Elijah Zion Bieniemy, 27, was arrested after the shooting and charged with malicious wounding, using a firearm in a felony, and discharging a firearm inside a home, according to law enforcement. The shooting happened in Ashburn, Va., a few miles away from the Washington Commanders practice facility. Eric Bieniemy served as Washington's offensive coordi...
I Need Jacob Misiorowski To Please Be Careful!
I have become an anxious mother, and I have adopted Jacob Misiorowski as my son. I don’t know how this happened, and I would like it to stop, because it’s taking a toll on me. Life used to be so simple. I used to watch his outings with a detached amazement. Back when I had a normal relationship to his pitching prowess, Misiorowski had already thrown 79 of the 100 highest-velocity pitches since tracking began. As of Sunday night, he holds all 100 spots. Now he is my son, and let me be the first...
From Baby Trans To Headlining Act
One of the great joys of friendship is getting to see your friends evolve into the person they were meant to be all along. In our 10 years of friendship, I've gotten to watch Jazmine Green reinvent herself a few times, including the development and eventual birth of her alter ego, CMD+Jazmine. In the latest Try Hard episode, I'm talking to Jazmine about how going to all-day raves in Brooklyn helped unlock parts of her physicality as she was transitioning, and how all of that culminated in t...
Why Your Team Sucks 2026: Arizona Cardinals
Some people are fans of the Arizona Cardinals. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Arizona Cardinals. This 2026 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here . Your team: “Oh my goodness.” https://twitter.com/NFLFrance/status/1974969244019491007
After 75 Years Of Losing, Mayo Shocked The World And Shook A Stadium
DUBLIN — Misery loves company, but ecstasy attracts it. And so it was that Irish football fans by the tens of thousands shed happy tears together inside Croke Park on Sunday during the All-Ireland Final, as historically downtrodden Mayo vanquished both mighty Kerry, 1-20 to 1-17, and oh-so-many demons. It’s impossible to make up for 75 years of pain and suffering caused by all the brutal championship-game losses in one afternoon, but the outpouring of joy among Mayo players and the green-and-r...
Munetaka Murakami Hit Two Homers For His Parents And They Still Prefer Their Dogs
It is an unfamiliar pleasure of this Chicago White Sox season that, in the two months when big slugger Munetaka Murakami did not hit a home run for them, the team improved from 3.5 games back in the AL Central, to first in their division with a 1.5-game lead. But you know what's even cooler than winning games? Winning games in blowout fashion when big slugger Munetaka Murakami smashes two dingers on his very own bobblehead day. The Sox had lost their first two in a weekend series against th...
The Crossword, July 27: Way Downtown (Themeless)
It's time to wrap up the month with a challenging themeless. Keep an eye out for tricky clues and fun wordplay. This puzzle was constructed by Jack Hatchett , and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Jack is a Washington Wizards fan who, for the first time in 10 years, is excited to watch his favorite team play a game of basketball. In addition to crosswords, he enjoys playing ultimate, golfing, and cycling. Defector crosswords, launched in partnership with our friends at AVCX , run every Monday. If y...
UNC Places Mike Lombardi On Administrative Leave
UNC football general manager Mike Lombardi has been placed on paid administrative leave, according to a statement released by the school Monday morning. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has placed Michael Lombardi, general manager for the Carolina football program, on paid administrative leave, effective immediately. As is standard procedure with personnel matters, leadership, staff, and student-athletes are prohibited from addressing this topic further, and has no ref...
Some More Stuff I Saw At The Tour de France
VARIOUS CITIES AND TOWNS, France — The Tour de France is over. I hope you enjoyed my 16 dispatches from France, on topics such as the race's impossible future , how cycling solved sleep , the unforgiving life of a photographer , France's vibrant unc ecosystem , and the chaotic frenzy of Alpe d'Huez. It was a privilege to be able to cover all three weeks of the race, and we couldn't do it without your support, so thank you. This is the final dispatch before I go sit in the ocean for a week an...
All The Trains I Rode In Los Angeles
This is not really a blog about trains . A blog about trains in Los Angeles, and my experience with them across 10 days, would ultimately be very short: Despite its notorious gaps in coverage, LA Metro was perfectly functional. If there were any calendar window during which it would be easy, relatively speaking, to visit Los Angeles without a car, it would be during the World Cup, with swarms of European tourists purportedly accustomed to better things. Some of the World Cup's influence was...
All Hail Lilli Tagger And The One-Hander
In antiquity, tennis players could win with a diverse mix of skillsets, with some even relying on speed, anticipation, net touch. This variety is often mourned by the old heads. Because in the sport's present—and, given the arc of string and racket tech, its foreseeable future—the skill that looms above all else is mighty ball-striking from the baseline. Though I do mourn the loss of off-speed demons on grass , for example, I have made my peace with this reality, and perhaps because I had my o...
How Tadej Pogacar Got The Joy Back
PARIS — Every story has a beginning and an end, but the best stories have worthwhile middles. Narrative stakes are established and then resolved. It's what happens in between that makes a story. This is where the greatest cyclist of all time currently finds himself. Pogacar rode to his fifth Tour victory with an astonishing sense of joy. The ennui that plagued his fourth Tour win has dissolved. His greatest rival is well behind him. The yellow jersey that weighed him down now buoys him. The...
Pete Crow-Armstrong Is Good Enough To Raise The Forbidden Question
Let's acknowledge that there is no conversation to be had about who the best player in baseball is, so long as Shohei Ohtani is drawing breath and applying his skills as a two-way player. The gavel has long been banged on that issue. But there's a lot of baseball being played, and a lot of cool guys doing the playing, and one of those guys is Pete Crow-Armstrong, who in an Ohtani-less universe is the best player in baseball. Crow-Armstrong and the Cubs beat the crap out of the Pirates last ...
A Day In The Chaos Of Cycling’s Most Legendary Arena
ALPE D'HUEZ, France — Roughly halfway up the final climb of Stage 19, and roughly five hours before the riders hit the base, our car indulged the thick snarl of besotted fans who wanted to do the wave with us. This slowed us across a critical speed threshold, beyond which our car was no longer something worth avoiding but rather something worth rocking. I'd seen videos of cars getting shaken the night before, and hoped to get shaken myself, though I was not prepared for how jarring and violent...
The Dodgers Went To Grandpa’s House!
There are aspects of being president of the United States that Donald Trump is really bad at, and others at which he is significantly worse. It goes without saying that none of that is improving, but what is most notable about his performance in the position is the extent to which he has never really bothered to figure out what the job is. From the earliest days of his presidency , there was a sort of inchoate yearning that emanated from the more respectable reaches of the political culture fo...
From Cursed To First? Mayo And Teen Sensation Kobe McDonald Want To Win Just Once
DUBLIN — The All-Ireland Senior Football final, the Irish Super Bowl, takes place July 26 at Dublin's historic Croke Park. This year’s game mismatches Kerry and Mayo, Gaelic football’s biggest winners against the most notorious losers in the ancient sport’s history. Kerry fans expected their team to be here. They always do. They’re the defending champs and will be playing for their 40th title. No other county comes close. Legendary manager Paidi Ó Sé once called his team’s supporters "the ...
LeBron James Is A Philadelphia 76er
Perhaps there was no weirder possible conclusion to this saga: LeBron James is moving to Philadelphia. Shams Charania reported Friday that James will sign with the 76ers on a two-year, $8 million deal with a player option. The 41-year-old won't be ring-chasing with Steph Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, nor any other top-10 player, nor his hometown Cavaliers. Instead he'll join an undeniably talented but aesthetically hideous assortment of Sixers looking to take advantage of a reshu...
A Good Tour de France Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
ORCIÈRES-MERLETTE, France — When Richard Carapaz spread his arms in celebration after pounding up the final climb of Stage 18, I felt a sense of relief. The champagne flowed , the tears streamed. The hundreds of days that dozens of support staff worked in the cloistered, unforgiving world of professional cycling had paid off. EF Education-EasyPost had finally validated its strong Tour de France with a stage win. The Tour de France awards a wide bounty of prizes beyond the yellow jersey to i...
Displaying items 1-25 of 264 in total