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Defector
09 Sep 16:03 • Lauren Theisen

Let’s See If The Colorado Rockies Have Learned How To Play Baseball Yet

This is a September blog about the Colorado Rockies. Do you think it will be a positive one? Let's find out. Coming off a series loss at home to the Cardinals, the Rockies traveled to the Bronx this week for a three-game tilt with the New York Yankees. In the first of these...

Defector
09 Sep 16:03 • Becca Young

‘Furious’ Makes You Face It

In her 1980 essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Existence,” Adrienne Rich lists over 60 examples of systematized female oppression. To name a few: the power of men to deny women their own sexuality or to force male sexuality upon them via rape, domestic violenc...

Defector
09 Sep 14:03 • Drew Magary

And Now For The Premiere Of ‘All Ball,’ In Which I Am Far Too Nice To The Vile Packers

What’s this we have here? Why, it’s the first-ever episode of Defector’s brand new NFL podcast, All Ball! Every week, the team of myself and elite indie blogger Arif Hasan break down every NFL matchup without ANY gambling or fantasy talk. We don’t even cite the Vegas point s...

Defector
09 Sep 14:03 • David Roth

Callaway Golf Got Wrecked By YouTube Doofuses Because Everyone’s Out Of Ideas

Try this, maybe: Think of the internet as an ocean vast enough to contain a near-infinite constellation of distinct watery biomes, each populated by creatures that have evolved to suit the one in which they live—a bunch of weird creatures traveling in schools, chasing each o...

Defector
08 Sep 20:15 • Justin Ellis

Hrishikesh Hirway Learned To Live With Being Uncomfortable

What do you do when the gig you do on the side, that off-hours hustle to help pay the bills and keep busy in service of your real work, becomes the thing that attracts acclaim and recognition? Do you lean into the success? Does the side project become your life? Hrishikesh ...

Defector
08 Sep 19:15 • Drew Magary

Should College Football Have An Age Limit?

Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking about sentence diagrams, proper oven temperature, forbidden urinals, and more.

Before we get to the business at hand, a quick reminder that All Ball, the Defector NFL podcast, debuts tomorrow morning. Co-host Arif Hasan and I are bringing you 100 percent football takes, with no added gambling or fantasy talk. Look for it in the organic podcast aisle!

Your letters:

Defector
08 Sep 18:27 • Owen Lewis

There’s Still Tennis At The U.S. Open

The U.S. Open is a city in miniature. The food is expensive; wealthy people flock to the tallest vantage points while richer experiences on the outskirts are ignored; influencers bother the masses. Read enough about the tournament, or just walk around the grounds for a few d...

Defector
08 Sep 18:27 • Steven Goldman

The Angels Are Just Passing Through

Defector has partnered with Baseball Prospectus to bring you a taste of their work. They write good shit that we think you’ll like. If you do like it, we encourage you to check out their site and subscribe. This story was originally published at Baseball...

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08 Sep 16:57 • Israel Daramola

The Light’s Gone Out At Florida State

Pretty much from the moment the Florida State Seminoles decided to retain Mike Norvell as their coach for the 2026 season, the word out of the football program has been pain and misery. They lost three dozen players to either graduation or the transfer portal, they couldn't ...

Defector
08 Sep 16:21 • Luis Paez-Pumar

Barcelona Is The Greatest Show On European Soil

Four matches into the La Liga season, Barcelona has looked like one of the greatest attacking teams of all time. What other conclusion can I draw from the club's start? With Sunday's 5-0 whomping of Valencia away at the Mestalla, Barcelona has now played four matches, notche...

Defector
08 Sep 16:21 • Barry Petchesky

Aaron Judge Back

Did you forget about the Yankees? I know you did not because you are not allowed to. But New York has had a relatively quiet season by their flamboyant and national-TV-darling standards. A big part of this is that the AL East has looked pretty much the same for a while now: ...

Defector
08 Sep 14:18 • Tom Ley

The Rams Play In Australia In Two Days And They Haven’t Left Yet

Before the NFL season kicks off this weekend, it will kick off Wednesday night with a primetime game between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks. And then on Thursday night it will kick off again, with a game between the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams, ex...

Defector
07 Sep 16:39 • Abigail Segel

Summer May Be Ending, But We’ll Always Have ‘Sterling Point’

“I’m coming to the cottage,” Ilya Rozanov growled, and Canada has never been the same—at least the American film and TV industry’s depiction of it. The final episode of the first season of Heated Rivalry introduced the world to Canada’s cottage country, presenting the region...

Defector
07 Sep 16:39 • Maitreyi Anantharaman

The Crossword, Sept. 7: Big Resemblance

You'll have a grand time solving our Monday crossword. This week's puzzle was constructed by Katie Hoody, and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Katie lives in North Newton, Kansas, where she is enjoying the puzzle constructing era of her life. She grew up in northern Minneso...

Defector
06 Sep 20:33 • David Roth

Heartwarming: Preposterous Doug Eddings Umpshow Unites Cardinals And Rockies In Dislike Of Doug Eddings

The concept of A Cop On The Edge was once a disreputable film genre unto itself. This was not really a good thing in terms of what it indicated about where the culture was on the issue of vigilante violence, among other things. But its passing is also unworthy of much mourni...

Defector
06 Sep 19:45 • Kathryn Xu

Kimi Antonelli Pulled Off A Miracle At Monza

Do you believe that Formula 1 can be romantic? Before immediately answering to the negative, at least consider Kimi Antonelli. He is freshly 20 years old, and just became the first Italian driver to win the Italian Grand Prix since Ludovico Scarfiotti did so in 1966. If your...

Defector
06 Sep 17:42 • Kathryn Xu

Zheng Qinwen Survived A Near Death Experience At The U.S. Open

Given that tennis is effectively professionalized, legalized psychological torture, a choke and an epic comeback often go hand-in-hand. Take, say, when Zheng Qinwen faced Madison Keys at the U.S. Open on Saturday. Zheng won a match in which she was down 6-1, 6(3)-7, 5-1 and ...

Defector
06 Sep 17:42 • David Roth

A Loss Would Have Been Less Embarrassing Than Michigan’s Win Over Western Michigan

Even before it slipped into janky comedy in its dying moments, you wouldn't necessarily say that Michigan's season opener against Western Michigan on Saturday was "a good football game." But also just making such an assessment would be missing the point to an extent. It was ...

Defector
04 Sep 19:18 • Patrick Redford

Perfect Spiritual Fit Between NBA Player And NBA City Achieved

Sometimes the chaotic, unforgiving universe briefly and ecstatically snaps itself into harmony, like when the Fibonacci sequence shows up in a head of Romanesco broccoli, or a small rock balances atop a bigger rock, or when a certain permanently adrift Australian basketball ...

Defector
04 Sep 18:30 • Samer Kalaf

When All You Have Is A Hammer, Every Headline Looks Like A Nail

As the media has covered the NBA's severe punishment of Steve Ballmer and the Los Angeles Clippers as a result of the Kawhi Leonard investigation, a common idiom has emerged: League commissioner Adam Silver dropped the hammer on them. He did not throw the book at the Clipper...

Defector
04 Sep 17:30 • Drew Magary

Why Your Team Sucks 2026: Seattle Seahawks

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

Your team: Seattle Seahawks.

Your 2025 record: 14-3. Super Bowl champions. One of the best teams in modern history if you go by DVOA, which I don’t because Aaron Schatz has never revealed the formula behind his hallowed metric. He could calculate it by mashing on an old Casio, for all I know. But here’s what I do know: These Seahawks won a title last year thanks to a playoff schedule that may as well have been drawn up by a kindergarten teacher:

Defector
04 Sep 15:24 • Rena Behar

Art Can Be What You Smell

The first time I consciously contemplated a museum’s installation-specific smell was in Fernando Romero’s “El Sol” at Kristallwelten in Innsbruck, Austria. Viewers stand in a cave-like, red-lit room under a Swarovski crystal sphere exactly one-billionth the size of the sun. ...

Defector
04 Sep 15:24 • Drew Magary

Defector Has A New NFL Podcast, And It Won’t Have Any Gambling Shit In It

If you’re as horny for football as I am, you’ve probably noticed that a vast, vast majority of NFL podcasts have some unwelcome amount of gambling/fantasy chatter in them. Corporate pods are often directly in bed with the sportsbooks, and a great number of indie pods have to take the books’ sponsorship money if they…

Defector
04 Sep 15:24 • Sabrina Imbler

How The U.S.’s Oldest Natural History Museum Might Meet Its End

In 1858, William Parker Foulke, a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences—a group of naturalists committed to public education and outreach—was on vacation in the quiet Quaker community of Haddonfield, New Jersey. There, he befriended a local landowner, John Estaugh Hopkin...

Defector
04 Sep 15:24 • Tom Ley

Mike Lombardi’s Gone And UNC Smells Rotten

It's been more than a month since UNC general manager Mike Lombardi was placed on administrative leave, and now he's gone for good. Lombardi and the school announced on Thursday that he is stepping down from his role. According to reporting from WRAL and ESPN, Lombardi's res...

Defector
04 Sep 13:24 • Dave McKenna

Katie Taylor Goes Out As The Belle Of The Brawl

Boxers almost never leave on their own terms, let alone get to say goodbye with the fight of their dreams. Then there’s Katie Taylor’s going away.

The Irish superhero will take on Flora Pili of France for the undisputed super-lightweight championship on Saturday night in front of more than 80,000 fans at Croke Park in Dublin. Taylor, who turned 40 years old in July, has promised to hang up her gloves, win or lose.

Either way, she’ll go down as the most beloved and internationally accomplished athlete in Ireland’s history, as well as the most important female boxer from anywhere since Christy Martin.

Defector
03 Sep 19:42 • Patrick Redford

How Do We Make Sense Of ESPN Duffing Its Big Clippers Scoop?

As the dust settles following the NBA's obliteration of the Clippers over the Kawhi Leonard–Aspiration scandal, one of the more interesting vectors of fallout is on the media side. After all, the scandal kicked off following a series of reports from podcaster Pablo Torre, wh...

Defector
03 Sep 18:54 • Drew Magary

Why Your Team Sucks 2026: New England Patriots

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

Your team: The New England Patriots, who are just outside of the frame here. I swear it.

SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 08: Kenneth Walker III #9 of the Seattle Seahawks runs for a touchdown that was called back during the fourth quarter against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX at Levi's Stadium on February 08, 2026 in Santa Clara, California. — Ishika Samant/Getty Images

Defector
03 Sep 17:12 • Ray Ratto

Steve Ballmer Betrayed His Fellow Billionaires, And They Are Not Pleased

For all the fulminations about the million-ton craphammer dropped on the Los Angeles Clippers and owner Steve Ballmer for trying to evade the NBA salary cap, almost nobody has yet identified the situation as the entertainment bonanza it is about to become. Yes, it...

Defector
03 Sep 16:39 • Israel Daramola

There’s Too Much Football Happening

Welcome to the Defector College Football Watch Guide, where Israel Daramola and Ray Ratto will tell you which of the weekend’s college football games are worth giving a crap about. Ray: Week 0 is behind us, as well you might want it to be if you watched South Carolina ...