The SportsThink Weekly Read #14
March 18, 2022
Welcome new readers! The SportsThink Weekly Read highlights my favorite sport-related article of the week. On the last Friday of each month, I send out the Monthly Review, a longer digest of readings and other content of interest. Most articles are recently published, but some are not; the only rule is that I’ve read them within the past week (or the past month, in the case of the Monthly Review). 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 life-long 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!
Good morning from Hot Springs, Arkansas! Having been here for about 15 hours (including sleeping time) and having read the town’s history on Wikipedia, I’m somewhat of an expert on this fascinating place.
Of course, of interest to us, is that baseball’s Spring Training was born here and this is an incredibly important place in US sport history. So, given this year’s delayed start to baseball, here’s a fascinating and well researched short summary of early baseball in Hot Springs. (After pancakes, I’m dragging the family to look for this particular home plate.)
And one more since I missed last week: If there was any silver lining to this year’s ridiculous baseball lockout, it’s that we were gifted with Baseball.RIP, by Eric Nusbaum and Adam Villacin, of Sports Stories Fame. I’m not sure if this is best considered an art project or coping mechanism (or both), but I enjoyed it while it lasted.
As always, thanks for reading.
See you next week,
Tolga