Deborah L. Brake (Pittsburgh): Sport and Masculinity: The Promise and Limits of Title IX. An interview with Jonah Keri, author of The Extra 2%: How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team From Worst to First. The superstar at play: Ronaldo wasn't the greatest of all time, but he made soccer look like unbelievable fun. How The Fridge lost his way: William "The Refrigerator" Perry does what he wants — and that includes still drinking. The sports beat: Dave Kindred on a digital reporting mix — with exhaustion built in. From GQ, a look at the worst sports fans in America. Sit through an entire basketball game? That’s for losers — technology is changing the way we experience sporting events. Geeks helping jocks: Today, getting a high-powered job in sports is increasingly about working with the data, and a growing group of Hub-based number crunchers is making inroads — and waves — in the business. Six and a half billion people are absolutely right: The N.F.L. is corrupt, baseball’s a distant dream, and March Madness is only one month long — any true sports fan watches soccer. According to a new ranking system, Jimmy Connors is best player in the history of tennis. Where have African-American baseball players gone? A review of Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game by Rob Ruck. The Sins of the Coach: Bob Oliva was a beloved mentor and local Catholic-high-school basketball legend — now two former players say he was also a child molester. Rallying Cry: When four young athletes died, their coach had to heal an entire town. Fascination with the fastball (a.k.a. smoke, cheese, cheddar, heat, gas) is as old as baseball itself, but now everyone — scouts, fans, Little League dads — is obsessed with differentiating between fast and faster. Brooms up: Welcome to the hard-core, rough-and-tumble world of Quidditch — think Rugby meets Dodgeball meets Laser Tag, with a splash of irony and a healthy helping of humor (and more).
