Confessions of a Competitive (Ch)eater

On July 4, tens of thousands of people will cram the corner of Surf and Stillwell avenues in Coney Island to witness grown men and women devour frankfurters in Nathan’s Famous July 4 International Hot Dog Eating Contest. In many ways, it is our country’s most barbaric spectacle. The contest is reminiscent of a deleted […]

A Hawks Fan’s Farewell Letters to Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams

To Joe Dear Joe Johnson, Hey, it’s Rembert Browne, Hawks fan. I’m writing to you today because you just got traded to Brooklyn, and that makes me slightly happy. Actually, let’s be real, I’m grinning from ear to ear. Sports-fan me hasn’t been this thrilled since we got Michael Vick, so that’s saying something, Joe. […]

Grantland Network Podcast: Men in Blazers

It’s been an exhausting year of football, capped by Spain’s second consecutive Euro title Sunday. Michael Davies and Roger Bennett survived, barely, and reconvene on this week’s pod to discuss the Spanish Smurfs’ potent attack, heap praise on Italy’s footballing Fonz, Andrea Pirlo, and dole out grades to ESPN’s crack halftime squad. But the football […]

Off the Blocks: Meet Your U.S. National Swim Team

With the U.S. Olympic team trials finally over after a week of racing in Omaha, the swimmers who will represent Team USA in a few weeks have been finalized. You already know about Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte — if you don’t, you can read more about them over here — but here is some […]

Roster Doctor: Buy Low, Lower, Lowest

The concept of buying low in fantasy can be a tricky one to navigate. Whether or not you’re truly buying low can depend on the size of your league, and how savvy your competitors are. You might have free-agent budgets to consider, or an intransigent owner who won’t trade the guy you want, even with […]

Can Joe Johnson and Deron Williams Coexist in Brooklyn?

The initial collective reaction to the Joe Johnson–to-the-Nets trade was laughter. The Nets are taking on one of the worst contracts in basketball while seemingly limiting their chances of landing Dwight Howard. Let’s look at how Johnson can fit with the Nets on the court. Joe Johnson, or ISO-Joe, as he has been affectionately called […]

Euro 2012: Germany Pick Up the Pieces, Joachim Löw Shoulders the Blame

On Sunday in Germany, Joachim Löw was everywhere all at once. In the Frankfurt airport, his frown was plastered across nearly every paper on the stand. The Frankfurter Allgemeine, a burly broadsheet not unlike the the Wall Street Journal in this country, featured an illustration of his face on its front page, crumpled and then […]

The Secrets of the Passive-Aggressive College Football Playoff

Here’s the funny thing about college football’s new playoff: It was designed by men who, until about five minutes ago, hated playoffs. It’s like Bart Giamatti writing the text for Pete Rose’s Hall of Fame plaque. Or Jonathan Vilma nominating Roger Goodell for the Nobel Peace Prize. But if, like me, you’re suspicious of playoffs, […]

About Last Night: Cleaning Out the Birdcage

In case you were out living a life of leisure, here’s what you missed in sports on Monday. The Atlanta Hawks agreed in principle to trade Marvin Williams to the Utah Jazz for point guard Devin Harris, and sources report that they’ve also reached a handshake deal with the Nets that would send Joe Johnson […]

Grantland Exclusive: The Text Messages of Dwight Howard and Mikhail Prokhorov

64-Day Warning: Football Is Two Months Away. Celebrate With Some Megatron!

For some sports fans (this guy), July is a dark stretch. The NBA season is over, and considering the baseball team of my youth is busy trying to destroy every bit of goodwill its fans have left, times are tough. That got me thinking — maybe it’s time to get excited about football again. Training […]

How the Rockets Used the New CBA to Steal Omer Asik

I got the news of Omer Asik’s offer from the Rockets in an e-mail from a friend. The gist was that Omer, a restricted free agent, was getting paiddddddddddddddddddd — and to be clear, that’s “paid” with 19 d‘s. First reported by Yahoo!’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Houston Rockets and Asik verbally agreed to an offer […]

Grantland Network Podcast: The Jalen Rose Show

If Dwight Howard listens to the Jalen Rose Show, he might want to skip this one. Jalen went in on Dwight for his recent public statements and questioned Howard’s desire to win an NBA championship. Then we turned our attention to the other big names on the market: Deron Williams, Gerald Wallace, Jeremy Lin, Steve […]

Naming R.A. Dickey’s Knucklers

After a brief hiccup against the Yankees last Sunday, R.A. Dickey was back to his usual world-beating self on Friday, striking out 10 Dodgers in a 9-0 Mets win. He’s 12-1 with a 2.15 ERA on the year, and the prohibitive favorite to start for the National League at the All-Star Game next Tuesday. If […]

June in Sports: By the Numbers

Here’s a look at the numbers behind some of the biggest sports stories this past month. Send us suggestions for next month’s edition by tweeting at @michaelkruse with the hashtag #GrantlandStats. Number of Seattle Mariners who combined to pitch a no-hitter June 8 against the Los Angeles Dodgers: 6. Number of no-hitters pitched this year […]

Does Michael Phelps Have His Groove Back?

Last week, we told you that after winning eight gold medals in Beijing, Michael Phelps wasn’t quite the same. Good? Yes. World-class? Yes. But Ryan Lochte, the brightest star in the U.S. swimming scene, was challenging his throne. There was the 200-meter individual medley at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai, where Lochte topped Phelps’s […]

Wimbledon’s Golden Girl: Shvedova’s Perfect Set

Of all the strange events that took place during the first week of Wimbledon — right down to the theft of Rufus the hawk — the most unbelievable was Yaroslava Shvedova’s flawless set against Sara Errani, the French Open finalist, on Saturday. The so-called “golden set” was almost unheard of: Shvedova became the first woman, […]

About Last Weekend: Tiger Roars Past the Bear

In case you were out living a life of leisure, here’s what you missed in sports over the weekend. Tiger Woods moved into second place on the all-time PGA tour wins list behind Sam Snead by out-dueling Bo Van Pelt to win the AT&T National golf tournament at Congressional. “Operation Kill Tiger must now enter […]