The SportsThink Weekly Review #44

April 23, 2021

Hello and welcome to the forty-fourth edition of the Weekly Review! #44 is a jersey number steeped in greatness: Hank Aaron, Jerry West, Pete Maravich, Reggie Jackson, George Gervin…incredible company. (Note to self: put Gus in #44 and hope for some transcendental magic.)

Here’s 4 minutes the Logo doing his thing, backed with some solid tunes:

And here’s Hammerin’ Hank’s record #715 (the real record, of course.) No tunes on this one, but you do get Vin Scully waxing on baseball, race, and Babe Ruth’s girth.

On the to the reads!

Inside the Lines: My Favorite Sports Reads of The Week

1. Man Fills Bowling Ball with Father’s Ashes—Then Rolls Perfect Game, by Hannah Sparks, via the NY Post. Weird and heartwarming.
   

2. Two on the Kentucky Derby, which is next week. A great take from 2019 on the modern Derby by Scott Hines (aka Action Cookbook). And of course, time for the annual re-read of Hunter Thompson’s legendary, The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.
   

3. Home Field Advantage: Does it Exist Without Fans?, by John Bica, via Towards Data Science. A decidedly tamer read to follow Thompson; this is a really good analytical piece on home field advantage in soccer. A bit heavy on the technical side of the data, but worth perusing if you’re into this sort of thing. Spoiler alert: “Overall, this experiment shows that commonly observed home advantage in football is minimized in some ways when fans are absent.”
   

4. The NCAA Erased My Career, by Brittany Collens, via the Player’s Tribune. An upsetting reminder of the absurdity of NCAA rule enforcement. On the ramifications of a clerical error that overpaid student athletes a couple hundred bucks for a phone jack.
   

5. Why the Worst NBA Player Is (Probably) Still Better Than You, by Sopan Deb, via the NYT. Not sure we needed an article to know this, but amusing nonetheless. I normally don’t endorse online comment sections, but the comments here have some pretty good stories.

Keeping Up With The Sports Page

Love to see attempts to disrupt the ‘amateur’ sports landscape

I guess I have to include something on the Super League

RIP Terrence Clarke

Olympics, protest, politics, etc.

Tweet of the Week

Pretty cool story.

Hazel Mae @thehazelmae

Bo Bichette’s homer Tuesday left Fenway Park, and landed in front of the now-closed-down gym on Lansdowne St. - the place #Brewers visiting player, Dante first met Bo’s mother, Mariana in the summer of 1991. Thx to @RGriffinTBJ who retrieved the ball for the Bichettes. #BlueJays

Non-Sports Reads

Really enjoyed this piece on hacking McDonald’s ice cream machines. Also this incredibly long story on the history, art, and science of knife making.

Newsletter Soundtrack

Here’s what I listened to while writing. Give it a spin this weekend.

As always, thank you for reading. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re having trouble accessing any articles, happy to send them directly your way. And, if you’re enjoying the newsletter, please consider sharing it with someone else who might like it.

See you next week,

Tolga