On the Minnesota rinks where I spent many days of my childhood, the skates made the man–or the boy, to be more accurate. Hockey skates had a boot of tough leather and a reinforced toe to protect against sticks and pucks,

Howard Cosell was fond of saying that American television in the 1970s was dominated by three C’s, representing each of the broadcast networks: revered CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite, NBC’s late-night talk show host Johnny Carson, and Cosell himself,

It’s the English Premier League’s birthday! On this day twenty years ago, all twenty-two clubs of the First Division resigned from the 104-year-old Football League and declared their plans to create a new, breakaway league.

Here is a quiz. What is your idea of the perfect sports-watching experience: a) watching your team crush its rival in a one-sided, humiliating contest, or b) watching two top-quality opponents, neither of which you support, in an epic,

For years, the morning skate was a Christmas Day ritual for my father and me.After the presents had been unwrapped and before the morning service, my dad and I walked to the nearby city park and took to the ice.

As several guests on this podcast have told us, sports have been fundamentally connected with the major developments of modern history: urbanization, class conflict, imperialism, political repression, globalization.

The integration of baseball is most often cast in terms of black and white, but biographer Adrian Burgos, Jr.— a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign– is out to change that. In his new biography,

In the celebrity firmament that circles around us, sports stars are among the brightest lights. Kobe, Tiger, Messi, Márta, Sachin, and Serena can be recognized from most points on the globe.But other stars are visible only in certain lands: Yuna Kim,

“I’m sure if it wasn’t for Joe Louis,” acknowledged Jackie Robinson, “the color line in baseball would not have been broken for another ten years.” To Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis was an inspiration and an idol.

I am a fan of the end-of-the-year, double-size issues of magazines–full of photographs, lists of the best and worst of the year, notable quotes, and vignettes about the year’s events. This week’s podcast follows in the spirit of those year-end special ...

“We live in the age of globalization, with the interconnection of markets, technology, and cultures making the world a smaller place.” Sure.Tell that to the guys on my local sports radio show. For them, the world is bounded by the Big Ten and the North...

On November 10, 2009, Robert Enke stepped in front of an express train at a crossing in the German village of Eilvese. At age 32, Robert left behind a young family: he and his wife, Teresa, had just adopted a baby girl only six months earlier.

The Victor’s Crown brings to vivid life the signal role of sport in the classical world. Ranging over a dozen centuries–from Archaic Greece through to the late Roman and early Byzantine empires–David Potter’s lively narrative shows how sport,

The 107th World Series is underway, with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers vying for the championship of Major League Baseball. The Cardinals’ star, Albert Pujols, has already entered the record books,

Here’s a sport quiz for you. Name a world-class athlete who hailed from the state of Nebraska: an Olympic champion, a hall of famer, someone who was among the very best at his or her game. (And no sneaking over to Google!) If you’re stumped, as I was,

It’s October. In the American sports calendar, that means it’s time for the baseball playoffs. My team, the Minnesota Twins, wasn’t even close this year, going from first place last year to the cellar this year.

There are beautiful sports photos, and dramatic sports photos. There are sports photos that are funny, and others that are poignant. There are photos that capture athletic brilliance, and tenacity, and passion.

This past summer Germany hosted the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The 32 matches drew more than 800,000 fans, while the total number of foreign tourists visiting Germany increased by nine per cent over the previous summer.

With the NBA in the midst of a labor disagreement, players from the world’s premier basketball league are scattering in different directions to maintain their skills (and get paid). This past summer, a number of NBA players returned to their roots,

When I was a kid, I used to pore over an illustrated history of American sports that I had received as a birthday gift. The oversized, hardcover book featured some of the iconic images of 20th-century sports: Lou Gehrig standing humbly at home plate on...

My Little League baseball career spanned the late Seventies and early Eighties. During those summers, I always set aside the afternoon in August when the championship game of the Little League World Series was broadcast on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.

A couple of days ago I had an unusual experience. I was staying in a hotel in Kampala, with a stunning view of the southern reaches of the Ugandan capital and the northern edge of Lake Victoria. It was the weekend,

The instructor of my freshman physics course fit the stereotype of a physics professor: unkempt white hair, black glasses case in the breast pocket of his short-sleeved shirt, thick German accent, and a tendency to mumble to himself while mulling over ...

Last spring’s Cricket World Cup was a major global event. Estimates of the television audience for the final matches ranged from 400 million to one billion, while the website ESPNcricinfo.com had an average audience,

Most modern sports have some creation myth that usually links them to an almost-sacred place of origin. Baseball has its Cooperstown. Golf its St. Andrews. Basketball its Springfield College. If you are a football fan,