The SportsThink Weekly Read #21
The SportsThink Weekly Read #21
July 8, 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!
Back In The Saddle
Well, dear readers: I lied. Before taking off for vacation, I said I’d keep up with the Weekly Reads. But I didn’t. I hope you’ll forgive me and trust that my time was well spent absorbing sun, surf, and calories. Mostly calories. But we’re back now and it is HOT in Texas. Time to stay inside and get back to reading and sharing. Let’s go!
The Weekly Read
A Mechanic On The Hidden Army That Propels Every Tour de France Rider (Patrick Redford, Defector)
Going international this week, since I’m trying to pretend that I’m still on vacation.
Like most American sports fans, I’ve kinda checked out on the Tour De France in the post-Lance era. I can’t say that I’m much of a cycling aficionado, but it is an objectively badass sport. I was always a team-sports guy, both as an athlete and a fan, but in recent years I’ve begun to believe that individual sports are maybe the most “real.” I don’t have a better word than “real,” but there’s something about the solo athlete, whether in a race, a fight, a tennis match, etc. that just strikes me as more romantic. They either win or they don’t and they can’t blame their fate on Cedric Ceballos going AWOL. Of course, this view obscures all of the labor and support that undergirds the elite solo athlete: Lewis Hamilton is a living-legend, but then so are his pit crew, his race engineers, and the Mercedes weather dude (which might be the best job in the world). Thus, this piece from Redford is pretty cool. An inside look at all of the folks working to keep cyclists in the game on the sport’s biggest stage. Pretty interesting stuff.
Also, a related must watch:
A New Look for SportsThink
You may have noticed an updated icon and a shift in the color palette this week. The Substack platform is pretty visually minimal (which I like), but head over to the blog and you can see the new logo, which I absolutely love. A big thank you to Kyle Martin for his work on this project and his ongoing support as I continue to work on improving and expanding the SportsThink vision. If you have any graphic design needs, give Kyle a shout; he does absolutely great work, turns things around quickly, and is an all-around good dude: krm.fiction@gmail.com.
As always, thanks for reading. Please share the newsletter with others who may like it!
See you next week,
Tolga