The SportsThink Review #100
January 1, 2023: Happy New Year!
Welcome new readers! The SportsThink Weekly Review highlights my favorite sport-related reading of the week. Most articles are recently published, but some are not; the only rule is that I’ve read them within the past week. Some are relevant to my day job as a professor teaching courses on the business, history, and philosophy of sports. Others are just plain interesting, relevant to my lifelong obsession with the games we play. I also occasionally share articles and assorted musings on Twitter. The newsletter is free, but comes with two requests. 1. I’m always open to suggestions, so send me the good stuff that you read! 2. If you enjoy the newsletter, please share it with other folks who might enjoy it as well. Finally, I try to focus on non-paywalled writing, but if you find yourself unable to access anything, just hit reply to the email and I’ll do my best to get you a copy. Thanks for reading!
Happy New Year!!! I sincerely hope that 2023 was a good one for all of you and that 2024 will be even better.
It feels kinda cool to kick off 2024 with #100. (Technically, this is the 128th missive of the various newsletter titles I’ve tried on since starting, but who’s keeping score?)
Speaking of…New year, new me: I’m streamlining the title of your favorite newsletter. I’ll still be aiming to publish weekly, but I’ll admit that I’ve felt guilty not living up to the title as of late. Since “The SportsThink Relatively Frequent and Sometimes Consistent Review of Sport Stuff” is a bit of mouthful, I’m just going with the lean and mean, “Review.”
To kick off 2024, here are a few of my favorite shares from 2023, focusing on things from earlier in the year that newer readers may have missed. No particular order and any commentary is what I wrote at the time of sharing. Recent reads will resume next time. Let’s get to it!
From #89, July 21:
The 103 Official, Unwritten Rules of Sports and Games (several writers, SB Nation)
Now this is fun! Thanks to Matt Bowers for this one. From football on the beach to the gym and your friend’s couch, a handy set of rules to live by. Most are pretty good. I like these:
Don’t offer your recipe for a food a host has made. It only sounds like you think their food is ass.
If the host’s team is not playing during a given window, then the most important matchup has priority, followed by the most exciting game.
It’s absolutely fine to call for a high-five from strangers after a big play, especially if they’re matching your energy.
This last one reminds me of the time a very large man bear hugged and hoisted me 3 feet off the ground at the Staples Center after this legendary alley-oop. I hope he is well, wherever he may be. (Also this video quality makes me feel like a senior citizen.)
From #79, January 13:
What Happens When an Athlete Takes ‘The Pill’? (Patrick Hruby, Global Sport Matters)
The history of women in sport is a history of bad assumptions about the female body and its supposed limits. Well into the twentieth century, the consensus was that women who pushed themselves too hard would be rendered infertile, or simply keel over and die. There was not a women’s Olympic marathon until 1984. (My friend Jaime Schultz has a wonderful article about this.) We went to the moon before we sanctioned women running 26 miles.
From #82, February 24:
Jimmy Carter Runs the Race (Michael Weinreb, Throwbacks Newsletter)
One of the few non-work things I was able to read this week, my favorite of the bunch. A short, sports-tinged tribute to the 39th president, who has entered end-of-life care in hospice. Carter was before my time, but has always struck me as a principled man with definite Good Dude Energy. I’m with Weinreb in thinking that his legacy will evolve over time, rightfully so. A short read and worth a few minutes of your time.
January 1, 2024 update: President Carter is still hanging in there! We did lose the First Lady, Rosalynn, in November. RIP.
From #83, March 3:
The Education of Julius Barnes (John Wiseman, Slayed By Voices)
The magic of the internet. I wasn’t previously familiar with the author or the subject, but I enjoyed this. Barnes was a college basketball standout who was just not good enough for the NBA, but went on to have a solid European career and continues to good things in sport. Worth a read for a glimpse at a life of an athlete who’s stratospherically better than any of us, but still doesn’t crack that tiniest of upper echelons. As a bonus for a couple of my readership micro-demographics, there’s commentary on smoking in Turkey and a passing reference to Mira Costa High School.
From #94, August 28:
That 1980s Bowling Alley Smell (Jason Diamond, The Melt with Jason Diamond)
Sports-adjacent, but really good. On the idea of scent-memory: why don’t hockey rinks and bowling alleys smell the way they used to? I’ll admit, I’m kind of a sucker for this topic and I’ve been in a nostalgia-spiral as of late, so the timing was perfect here.
Some years ago, I read that scent is our strongest sense when it comes to generating/triggering memories (this was allegedly backed by functional-MRI research). This knowledge has had a firm grip on me ever since. There are certain exhaust-asphalt combos that transport me to Istanbul when I’m in Austin; moth balls are always grandma’s house. I think it also works the other way, where other senses trigger scent-memories (scentsations???) that aren’t really there: I can’t walk by soccer shin guards at Dick’s without getting a whiff of the pleasant-offensive popcorn funk of a game-worn pair. Ok, maybe yours didn’t smell like that. Anyway, read this, it’s cool!
And one more for the road: My favorite edition of the newsletter to date is #4, from July 4, 2020, the “Great Americans Edition.” Yes, I may have peaked early. But it’s a beast and enough to keep even the most intrepid sports reader busy for a couple weeks. I sent it back out this summer, with a new introduction, which may have been my favorite thing I wrote this year. Here it is.
As always, thanks for reading and sticking with the newsletter. Please keep sharing cool content with me and keep sharing the newsletter with others. Have a great year!
See you soon,
Tolga
P.S. HOOK ‘EM.