FeedCity: Defector

Defector
28 Jul 13:45 • Kathryn Xu

LeBron James Should Just Take The Train To His New Job

LeBron James is coming to Philadelphia, a fact anyone who lives in Philly would have learned from interacting with strangers on the street, no matter their interest in basketball. This is salient because, according to ESPN's Brian Windhorst, James will not be among the ranks...

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27 Jul 19:42 • Diana Moskovitz

Eric Bieniemy’s Son Arrested, Charged With Mother’s Shooting

Mia Bieniemy, the wife of Kansas City offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, was hospitalized after being shot Sunday night. The couple's son, Elijah Zion Bieniemy, 27, was arrested after the shooting and charged with malicious wounding, using a firearm in a felony, and discha...

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27 Jul 18:57 • Sarah Borus

I Need Jacob Misorowski To Please Be Careful!

I have become an anxious mother, and I have adopted Jacob Misorowski as my son. I don’t know how this happened, and I would like it to stop, because it’s taking a toll on me. Life used to be so simple. I used to watch his outings with a detached amazement. Back when I had a ...

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27 Jul 18:09 • Alex Sujong Laughlin

From Baby Trans To Headlining Act

One of the great joys of friendship is getting to see your friends evolve into the person they were meant to be all along. In our 10 years of friendship, I've gotten to watch Jazmine Green reinvent herself a few times, including the development and eventual birth of her alter ego, CMD+Jazmine.

In the latest Try Hard episode, I'm talking to Jazmine about how going to all-day raves in Brooklyn helped unlock parts of her physicality as she was transitioning, and how all of that culminated in the creation of CMD+Jazmine as her musical identity and alter ego.

As a certified indoor cat, this conversation is probably the closest I'll get to going to a rave, but I particularly loved Jazmine's story because it reminded me that it's never too late to turn your life upside down (or at least nocturnal) to become the person you were meant to be.

Defector
27 Jul 17:33 • Drew Magary

Why Your Team Sucks 2026: Arizona Cardinals

Some people are fans of the Arizona Cardinals. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Arizona Cardinals. This 2026 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Your team: “Oh my goodness.”

https://twitter.com/NFLFrance/status/1974969244019491007

Defector
27 Jul 16:30 • Dave McKenna

After 75 Years Of Losing, Mayo Shocked The World And Shook A Stadium

DUBLIN — Misery loves company, but ecstasy attracts it. And so it was that Irish football fans by the tens of thousands shed happy tears together inside Croke Park on Sunday during the All-Ireland Final, as historically downtrodden Mayo vanquished both mighty Kerry, 1-20 to ...

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27 Jul 16:30 • Lauren Theisen

Munetaka Murakami Hit Two Homers For His Parents And They Still Prefer Their Dogs

It is an unfamiliar pleasure of this Chicago White Sox season that, in the two months when big slugger Munetaka Murakami did not hit a home run for them, the team improved from 3.5 games back in the AL Central, to first in their division with a 1.5-game lead. But you know wh...

Defector
27 Jul 16:30 • Maitreyi Anantharaman

The Crossword, July 27: Way Downtown (Themeless)

It's time to wrap up the month with a challenging themeless. Keep an eye out for tricky clues and fun wordplay. This puzzle was constructed by Jack Hatchett, and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Jack is a Washington Wizards fan who, for the first time in 10 years, is excite...

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27 Jul 16:30 • Tom Ley

UNC Places Mike Lombardi On Administrative Leave

UNC football general manager Mike Lombardi has been placed on paid administrative leave, according to a statement released by the school Monday morning. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has placed Michael Lombardi, general manager for the Carolina football p...

Defector
27 Jul 14:27 • Patrick Redford

Some More Stuff I Saw At The Tour de France

VARIOUS CITIES AND TOWNS, France — The Tour de France is over. I hope you enjoyed my 16 dispatches from France, on topics such as the race's impossible future, how cycling solved sleep, the unforgiving life of a photographer, France's vibrant unc ecosystem, and the chao...

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27 Jul 14:27 • Kathryn Xu

All The Trains I Rode In Los Angeles

This is not really a blog about trains. A blog about trains in Los Angeles, and my experience with them across 10 days, would ultimately be very short: Despite its notorious gaps in coverage, LA Metro was perfectly functional. If there were any calendar window during which i...

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26 Jul 18:30 • Giri Nathan

All Hail Lilli Tagger And The One-Hander

In antiquity, tennis players could win with a diverse mix of skillsets, with some even relying on speed, anticipation, net touch. This variety is often mourned by the old heads. Because in the sport's present—and, given the arc of string and racket tech, its foreseeable futu...

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26 Jul 16:27 • Patrick Redford

How Tadej Pogacar Got The Joy Back

PARIS — Every story has a beginning and an end, but the best stories have worthwhile middles. Narrative stakes are established are established and then resolved. It's what happens in between that makes a story. This is where the greatest cyclist of all time currently finds h...

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26 Jul 16:27 • Tom Ley

Pete Crow-Armstrong Is Good Enough To Raise The Forbidden Question

Let's acknowledge that there is no conversation to be had about who the best player in baseball is, so long as Shohei Ohtani is drawing breath and applying his skills as a two-way player. The gavel has long been banged on that issue. But there's a lot of baseball being played, and a lot of cool guys doing the playing, and one of those guys is Pete Crow-Armstrong, who in an Ohtani-less universe is the best player in baseball.

Crow-Armstrong and the Cubs beat the crap out of the Pirates last night, tagging Paul Skenes for five runs in an 11-0 victory. Crow-Armstrong was responsible for most of that damage, going 4-for-5 with a homer, three RBI, and three runs scored. He also hit two doubles and stole a base.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nClz8QqS92g

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25 Jul 16:18 • Patrick Redford

A Day In The Chaos Of Cycling’s Most Legendary Arena

ALPE D'HUEZ, France — Roughly halfway up the final climb of Stage 19, and roughly five hours before the riders hit the base, our car indulged the thick snarl of besotted fans who wanted to do the wave with us. This slowed us across a critical speed threshold, beyond which ou...

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24 Jul 20:06 • David Roth

The Dodgers Went To Grandpa’s House!

There are aspects of being president of the United States that Donald Trump is really bad at, and others at which he is significantly worse. It goes without saying that none of that is improving, but what is most notable about his performance in the position is the extent to...

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24 Jul 18:06 • Dave McKenna

From Cursed To First? Mayo And Teen Sensation Kobe McDonald Want To Win Just Once

DUBLIN — The All-Ireland Senior Football final, the Irish Super Bowl, takes place Sunday, July 26, at Dublin's historic Croke Park. This year’s game mismatches Kerry and Mayo, Gaelic football’s biggest winners against the most notorious losers in the ancient sport’s history.

Kerry fans expected their team to be here. They always do. They’re the defending champs, and will be playing for their 40th title. No other county comes close. Legendary manager Paidi Ó Sé once called his team’s supporters "the roughest type of fucking animals you could ever deal with,” because of their Sam-Maguire-Cup-or-bust standard. The star-laden squad relies most on David Clifford, a three-time player of the year and the only player of his generation that comes up in GOAT conversations.

All of Ireland expects Mayo to lose.

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24 Jul 17:18 • Giri Nathan

LeBron James Is A Philadelphia 76er

Perhaps there was no weirder possible conclusion to this saga: LeBron James is moving to Philadelphia. Shams Charania reported Friday that James will sign with the 76ers on a two-year, $8 million deal with a player option. The 41-year-old won't be ring-chasing with Steph Cur...

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24 Jul 16:09 • Patrick Redford

A Good Tour de France Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

ORCIÈRES-MERLETTE, France — When Richard Carapaz spread his arms in celebration after pounding up the final climb of Stage 18, I felt a sense of relief. The champagne flowed, the tears streamed. The hundreds of days that dozens of support staff worked in the cloistered, unfo...

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24 Jul 16:09 • Drew Magary

Why Your Team Sucks 2026: New York Jets

Some people are fans of the New York Jets. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the New York Jets. This 2026 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Your team: New York Jets.

https://twitter.com/iJordanMoore/status/2075649848762569003

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24 Jul 16:09 • Sarah Borus

You’ve Got To Hand It To Rodin

My eyes kept going back to the hand, so tender and gently placed that you could forget these were bodies forged from marble. For all of the grabbing passion and sexual infatuation of Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss, the hands always seemed to suggest something much softer and lovin...

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24 Jul 14:09 • Sabrina Imbler

Is Jimothy OK? A Creature Investigation

Jimothy crept into our lives like any good cryptid—as a blurry, scuttling thing. Kiana Hall, the Seattle local whose firsthand footage resulted in Jimothy's newfound fame, first thought she had spotted a cat running under a car. But upon closer inspection, the creature was n...

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24 Jul 14:09 • Nick Martin

Danny McBride Leaves You Wandering

I imagine the pitch for Danny McBride’s new short story collection, Thrilling Tales of Modern Men, went a little something like this: Hey, this is Danny McBride’s agent. Yeah, that guy. He wants to write a short story collection called something like Thrilling Tales of Moder...

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23 Jul 20:15 • David Roth

Arachnid Surgical Robots And Neckless Third Basemen, With Paul Tremblay

Sooner or later, you just run out of sports. There are currently a couple of regular seasons going on at the moment, but after a thrilling NBA playoffs led directly into a blast of a World Cup, a three-game series against the Cincinnati Reds happening 71 percent of the way t...

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23 Jul 19:15 • Samer Kalaf

The Red Sox’s Streak Is Over, But The Children Have Feasted

There's a Massachusetts–based restaurant chain that offers a free kids meal—kid must be present, limit two per party—the day after a Boston Red Sox win. When the team was scuffling at the bottom of the AL East and manager Alex Cora was fired for a dismal start, the promotion...

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23 Jul 19:15 • Chris Thompson

LIV Golf Circling The Toilet From Whence It Sprung

LIV Golf's honchos, the poor suckers, are still out there scrambling around, looking for investors to keep their dipshit tour afloat after the Saudi Public Investment Fund suddenly booted them into the wilderness back in April. Now that LIV Golf has lost its utility as a spo...

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23 Jul 17:48 • Ray Ratto

Here Is An Extremely And Needlessly Complicated Way To Rescue Portland From Tom Dundon

In the absence of any actual NBA basketball to watch, the blogscape is currently lousy with basketball-knowers furiously knowing basketball. It couldn't be any other way, although it is all happening at such a frantic rate that one is left absolutely convinced that LeBron Ja...

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23 Jul 17:03 • Abigail Segel

Leicy Santos Is In The Right Spot

The Boston Legacy is not known for being gentle. The expansion team has earned more yellow cards and committed more fouls than any other club in the NWSL this year. On Sunday, that didn’t matter for Leicy Santos. At least twice, the Washington Spirit midfielder found herself...

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23 Jul 17:03 • Maitreyi Anantharaman

Sophie Cunningham Is About As Edgy As A Beach Ball

There’s a type of public relations exercise that unfolds like a joke. In it, a notable figure who has chosen to sit for a longform profile, declined to answer a sensitive question through her representative, posed for a corresponding photoshoot, and recently "hopscotched acr...

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23 Jul 15:00 • Tom Ley

Phee’s Back

The Minnesota Lynx are comfy. They woke up Wednesday morning at the top of the WNBA standings with a 21-6 record, the league's best net rating, and a bespectacled point guard who has become the coolest player in the league halfway through her first season. These are the sort...