FeedCity: Defector

Defector
30 Mar 18:39 • Ben Wurgaft

RFK Jr.’s Offal Advice

In the supermarket or at the taco truck, whether it's government subsidies for agriculture or the working conditions of food workers, food and politics are never far apart. Under the second Trump administration, the government has used food stamps as a political football, sh...

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30 Mar 17:45 • Lauren Theisen

The UConn Buzzer-Beater Was A Flawless Short Film

Here's one mark of a legendary highlight: You can show it to someone who hasn't seen a minute of the sport in years, with no explanatory context, and get a reaction that's something like, "Wow!" Such is the case with UConn's Braylon Mullins and his shot to beat Duke in the E...

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30 Mar 16:15 • Ray Ratto

Las Vegas Is Ready For The John Tortorella Experience

Desperate times call for desperate measures, which of course means that Tottenham Hotspur and John Tortorella are in the news simultaneously. Sadly, their paths do not converge, or anyway do not yet converge, beyond the fact that Spurs have fired another coach in ...

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30 Mar 16:15 • Maitreyi Anantharaman

The Crossword, March 30: Feeling Good (Themeless)

It's time to wrap up the month with a challenging themeless. Keep an eye out for tricky clues and fun wordplay. This week's puzzle was constructed by Rafael Musa and Owen Bergstein, and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu.

Defector crosswords, launched in partnership with our friends at AVCX, run every Monday. If you’re interested in submitting a puzzle to us, you can read our guidelines HERE. Please note that submissions will be closed from April 1 to May 1.

Defector
30 Mar 16:15 • Luis Paez-Pumar

Defector’s Resident Nu Metalheads Discuss Mason Miller’s Nu Entrance Music

Barry: The first dedicated reliever entrance song was, of all things, "(Won't You Come Home) Bill Bailey," played on the ballpark organ. This is absolutely true. Betty Boop probably loved it, and there was a pun involved, which I must respect—the pitcher’s name was Bill Dailey—but it did not rock. Sparky Lyle, one of the first and best proto-closers, used “Pomp and Circumstance”—the graduation song. If it’s good enough for Randy Savage it’s good enough for me. But again, it did not rock. Baseball rocking was only invented in 1998, when Padres closer Trevor Hoffman began coming out to AC/DC’s “Hells Bells.”

All of which is to say that the entirety of baseball history and music history have been leading to this moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HuM8_CJ2RU

Defector
30 Mar 15:39 • Maitreyi Anantharaman

For Now, ABS Makes Good Theater

Even with all the testing data from the minor leagues and spring training, it was hard not to wonder how MLB’s new automated ball-strike challenge system would feel in big league games that count. When would teams use their challenges? Who would use them? How often? Might we...

Defector
30 Mar 13:36 • Chris Thompson

Two Dazed Freshmen Authored The Tournament’s Immortal Moment

UConn freshman Braylon Mullins watched his last shot Sunday night arc toward the basket from 35 feet away. If his eyes had been shut, he still would've known, not only from the pandemonium of the crowd and the euphoria of his teammates, but from the wonderful knife-plunge no...

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29 Mar 20:03 • Diana Moskovitz

Ilia Malinin Is Back

Chances are you—and certainly not I—did not need redemption at 21. At that age, I was in college, and my world mostly revolved around working at the student-run newspaper, getting "clips," doing my best to line up another summer internship, hanging out with my friends, and a...

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29 Mar 19:36 • Maitreyi Anantharaman

Olivia Miles Was Made For March Highlight Reels

Campy, goofy, stylish, a little chaotic—there is something so college basketball about Olivia Miles. Her decision to forgo last spring’s WNBA draft, where she was poised to be a top-three pick, and use her final year of NCAA eligibility might have surprised WNBA fa...

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29 Mar 17:36 • Diana Moskovitz

Tiger Woods Charged With Suspicion Of DUI In Florida

Tiger Woods is out on bail after he was charged Friday with suspicion of driving under the influence and refusing to submit to a drug test on Florida's Treasure Coast. It was the second time the legendary golfer has been charged with suspicion of DUI; police in Jupiter filed...

Defector
27 Mar 18:03 • Veronica de Souza

Make It Nice: Mirror Mirror On The Wall

Welcome back to Make It Nice, Defector's best interior design advice column. Today, we have a mirror dilemma, a kid- and guest-friendly bathroom, and dinner plates that feel more dignified. Margot asks: My partner and I fell in love with Rejuvenation's Bentwood Roun...

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27 Mar 17:27 • Drew Magary

A Bit Of Church

It’s two days before Christmas, and my family and I are in Munich. We got here on a red-eye the morning prior, and remain barely functional thanks to jet lag. But we didn’t fly all this way just to sleep, no matter how badly all of us want to do so. And if there’s any city that demands you keep your eyes wide open, it’s Munich in all of its Christmastime splendor.

We arrive at the Marienplatz, where the outdoor Christmas markets are already bustling. I don’t know where to look; everything is so beautiful. The famed Glockenspiel dominates the square, but today it has aesthetic competition from the light-strewn evergreens, the handmade sausages sizzling out on open griddles, the pop-up ornament shops with their eaves lined by boughs and flocking, and a life-sized Erzgebirge Pyramid.

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27 Mar 16:27 • Brent Rose

Keeping Big Mountain Freestyle Riders Alive Is A Lot Of Work

BRITISH COLUMBIA — Staring up from the base at the high walls of the Montana Bowl, a backcountry ski zone in Revelstoke, British Columbia, feels like gazing upon a deadly cathedral. My eyes naturally gravitate to the dangerous bits, but I realize they're pinballing around wi...

Defector
27 Mar 16:27 • Annie Berke

‘Imperfect Women’ Is The Latest Entry In A Fittingly Flawed Genre

In the sixth episode of Apple TV’s Imperfect Women, the soft-spoken housewife Mary (Elisabeth Moss) nervously awaits the judgment of her writing group. She is sharing a work of autofiction titled “Mary,” which revels in the narrator’s secret affair with her dissertation advisor’s husband.

“Takes real bravery to depict yourself as such an amoral person,” one participant comments. “Amoral, yes, and just unlikable!” another adds. The group pushes her to emphasize a different character, to “lean into the mystery, and the thriller!”

Mary is quietly crushed: If you can’t be the main character in your own work, where can you be?

Defector
27 Mar 14:27 • Dave McKenna

Fred Hoiberg Really Fucked Up

Opening night of the men's NCAA tournament’s round of 16 will be remembered for the guys who weren’t on the floor when the games were decided. An intense and otherwise beautifully played Iowa-Nebraska game was decided by one of the most bizarre coaching boners in recent Mar...

Defector
26 Mar 20:33 • Billy Haisley

We’ve Got To Get Linda Caicedo Out Of Bum-Ass Real Madrid

Exactly one year ago today, Real Madrid Femenino appeared to be on the precipice of a new era. After five years of institutional disinterest and mediocre results, Las Blancas had at last achieved a feat worthy of the club it had until then borne in name only. Back then, in t...

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26 Mar 19:57 • David Roth

Please, Mr. Pibb Is My Father, With Emma Baccellieri

There is no dignified way to promote a book. Emma Baccellieri of Sports Illustrated is a longtime friend of the pod and always a welcome guest, but she is also a busy woman—busy on the bargaining committee for the Sports Illustrated union, busy covering the Women's NCAA Tour...

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26 Mar 19:12 • Diana Moskovitz

IOC Reinstates Chromosome Testing, Banning Trans Women From Competition

The International Olympic Committee announced today that any athletes who do not pass a specific chromosome test will be banned from competition. This means that trans women will no longer be able to compete in the single largest showcase for women's sports in the world, and...

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26 Mar 18:45 • Patrick Redford

The Wolves And Rockets Held An Incredible Meltdown-Off

Oftentimes toward the end of a basketball game that is sort of but not especially close, one team will take a multiple-possession lead with only a little bit of time left and I, despite having watched the Indiana Pacers stage what felt like dozens of miracles last year, will...

Defector
26 Mar 17:18 • Alex Sujong Laughlin

They Don’t Have Lip Filler, They Just Have Lip Filler Accent

Recently on the subway I observed a phenomenon in person that I had previously only seen on the internet. Two teenage girls sitting across from me were talking to each other. They were both dressed in the teenage girl uniform—loose-fitting jeans, cropped black jacket, white ...

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26 Mar 16:12 • Israel Daramola

Who Killed Rock And Roll?

Welcome to Listening Habits, a column where I share the music I’ve been fixated on recently. The year 1996 marked a major shift in music. An era-defining rap beef seemed to pit the entire city of Los Angeles against the entire city of New York. Rap as a whole saw ...

Defector
26 Mar 16:12 • Barry Petchesky

We Asked The Mayor Of Ottawa Why He Keeps Posting Such Grim Photos

Lumpy, dirty piles of snow, shading to slush and then water, surround an unused rink. In the background, a featureless wall of grey, and a swollen cloud that threatens if not rain then no immediate prospect of sunshine. Deciduous trees bare their branches. In the distance, a...

Defector
26 Mar 14:09 • Chris Thompson

Béisbol!

Buh buh, buh buh, buh buh
Buh buh, buh buh, buh buh

Neh
Neh-neh
Neh-neh-neh
Neh-neh-neh-neh-neh-neh
Neh, neh, neh-neh neh, neh-neh

Oye como va, mi béisbol
Bueno pa’ gozar: béisbol.
Oye como va, mi béisbol
Bueno pa’ gozar: béisbol.

Defector
26 Mar 14:09 • Kathryn Xu

Netflix Baseball Looks Like Shit

On Wednesday, the New York Yankees played the hosting San Francisco Giants in MLB's Opening Night, which was the first of, really, three Opening Day–esque events to open the season. Today will be the more traditional event of nonstop baseball brain: day baseball into evening...

Defector
25 Mar 18:15 • Patrick Redford

Now That OpenAI Has Terminated Sora, How Will I Have This Blog Read To Me By An Uncanny Buxom Mike Wazowski?

I have bad news for anyone who was really into consuming or making videos of Charlie Kirk arresting Jeffrey Epstein, or SpongeBob SquarePants fighting Barack Obama in the format of a side-scrolling fighting game: OpenAI has suddenly and unceremoniously pulled the plug on Sor...

Defector
25 Mar 17:03 • Billy Haisley

All Hail Danny Welbeck, The Lord Of The Premier League

Spend enough time on the soccer side of social media and you're bound to come across one of those video-comp odes to the Barclaysman. As proud guy-rememberers ourselves, we of course do not begrudge the pleasant strolls down memory lane these highlight reels take you for, ba...

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25 Mar 15:03 • Barry Petchesky

Netflix Is Loading Up The Clown Car For Opening Night

It's opening day, sort of. The Yankees and Giants will start the season in San Francisco, today's only game. It's a Netflix exclusive, which is an annoying development if you, like, me, want to watch this game, but don't have Netflix and will not buy Netflix. But Netflix mad...

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25 Mar 15:03 • Kathryn Xu

Spring Is Truly Here: Formula 1 Teams Are Slapfighting Over Regulations Compliance

Some will say that the best part of a Formula 1 regulations overhaul is that the start of the next season, not unlike the spring that soon follows, will herald new hope for a better year. The truth is that the best part of a Formula 1 regulations overhaul is the inevitable r...

Defector
25 Mar 15:03 • Anonymous

Why I Got Out Of The Gambling Business

There are broadly speaking two types of gamblers: valuable and not valuable. All are referred to as customers. The latter group are dilettantes. These people deposit maybe once or twice, usually to take advantage of a first-time deposit promotion, but rarely or never ag...

Defector
24 Mar 21:12 • David Roth

Suburban Homeowner Starts, Loses Fight With Enormous Jack Reacher Star Alan Ritchson

For my money, the funniest recurring bit in Amazon's highly variable action-comedy series Reacher is the use it makes of its main character's blank, brutal sociopathy. Reacher, in Reacher, is generally righteous, but the code that he follows serves mostly to offer him one sh...