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29 Apr 16:03 • Barry Petchesky

They Don’t Call Him Jesper Sievestedt

Jesper Wallstedt is earning the first half of his surname. The 23-year-old Swede stopped another 20 shots, more than half of those in the third period against an increasingly frantic and frustrated Dallas offense in Tuesday's 4-2 win over the Stars that put the Wild up 3-2 i...

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29 Apr 14:00 • E.Y. Zhao

The Biggest Tournament In Collegiate Table Tennis Is Underdog Utopia

ROCKFORD, Ill. — Every April, more than 250 athletes representing over 50 schools descend on a third-tier city to play the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) National Championships. This year, Nationals took place in Rockford's UW Health Sports Factory...

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28 Apr 18:21 • Drew Magary

I Have No Pages

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 chopsticks, dated nicknames, robots, and more.

Your letters:

Joe:

Defector
28 Apr 16:42 • Barry Petchesky

That’s A Fair Ball, Believe It Or Not

With the institution of replay review and ABS, it can sometimes feel like baseball is a little too normal these days, that it lacks whimsy or esoterica, or that games can no longer be decided by vestigial rules that were codified during the Hayes administration. This impress...

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28 Apr 16:27 • Patrick Redford

The Magic Are Winning The Beef War

On their very first offensive possession of Game 4 on Monday night, the Detroit Pistons did what every big man–turned-commentator suggests every team do on its first possession: They ran a play to get their center a post-up. In this case, Duncan Robinson backscreened Wendell...

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28 Apr 15:21 • Israel Daramola

‘Michael’ Is The Most Cynical Attempt At Biopic Myth-Making Yet

Michael is a bad movie. Let’s just get that out of the way now. It is a movie designed less to tell a story than to recreate moments, ones you are probably already familiar with. It is a movie designed to give you a karaoke experience in a theater setting with other like-min...

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28 Apr 15:21 • Dave McKenna

Texas Tech Transfer QB Brendan Sorsby Leaves School, Enters Gambling Rehab

Smart money says that sports gambling scandals will be more dog-licks-man than man-bites-dog real soon. But for now, this rates as big college football news: Texas Tech announced on Monday that quarterback Brendan Sorsby has left the program to get treated for a gambling addiction.

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported that Sorsby, who transferred to the Red Raiders in January after two years at Cincinnati, will enter a residential rehab facility. According to the school, the length of his stay at the treatment center is “indefinite.”

“We love Brendan and support his decision to seek professional help,” Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire said, in a statement released by the school. “Taking this step requires courage, and our primary focus is on him as a person.”

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28 Apr 13:18 • Ben Dowsett

One Of The NBA’s Most Important Jobs May Be Headed Toward A Crisis

Steve Javie can’t recall much from the actual game itself, but he’ll always remember what happened later that night.

It was Javie’s first NBA Finals game in 1995, always a huge deal for an up-and-coming referee. Several of his family members were in the crowd. Finals games back then started at 9:00 p.m. Eastern; Javie and his fellow refs didn’t leave the arena until the wee hours of the morning. When they returned to their hotel, crew chief Joey Crawford had a room set up with food and drinks for the crew and their families to enjoy.

After a couple hours of celebrating his achievement, Javie couldn’t sleep. He was wired from the rush of his first time on the NBA’s biggest stage. A 7:00 a.m. flight the next morning loomed large. He mentioned it to Crawford, his longtime mentor.

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27 Apr 19:15 • Ray Ratto

It’s Almost Time For MLB’s Underachievers To Rearrange Some Deck Chairs

The Boston Red Sox are owned by the same people who own Liverpool FC and are therefore acutely aware of the crucial soccer rubric that managers should be fired every few months in order to keep the job tender and supple on the grill. And yet, despite that, they hadn't fired ...

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27 Apr 17:48 • Kathryn Xu

The Red Sox Can’t Even Clean House With Dignity

Baseball managers have very little say in whether or not their teams score 17 runs in a game, and only marginally more in whether or not their teams only allow one. Nevertheless, the optics of firing a coach—amendment: six coaches—right after a 17-1 victory are at the very l...

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27 Apr 17:27 • Patrick Redford

De’Aaron Fox Makes The Game Fun For The Spurs

Down 58-41 at halftime on Sunday, the San Antonio Spurs were facing the most pressure they had in the brief but spectacular Victor Wembanyama playoff era. That said more about the team's inexperience with this kind of pressure than it did about needing to avoid a 2-2 first-r...

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27 Apr 17:27 • Ray Ratto

The Oilers, As Usual, Have Bigger Problems

Connor McDavid is a hair away from being branded the worst greatest player in hockey history because, fans being raging nitwits on things like this, that's how it works in the legacy game. "You're only as good as the last thing I remember,” is the creed, “and I drink during games."

Nevertheless, them's the rules, Pookie, and right now McDavid, the best player of his generation, is a game away from being ushered out of the postseason by the weird but plucky Anaheim Ducks, because of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGtTMKPMPC0

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27 Apr 15:27 • Giri Nathan

Rockets Put Selves In Fine Position For Gentleman’s Sweep

By pulling off a 115-96 rout in Game 4 on Sunday, the Houston Rockets avoided what would have been a comical sweep at the hands of a Los Angeles Lakers squad that has played the entire series without its two best players under the age of 41. Luka Doncic (hamstring) and Aus...

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27 Apr 15:27 • Maitreyi Anantharaman

The Crossword, April 27: You Lose (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 Rachel Fabi, and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Rachel (she/her) is the creator and co-editor of the crossword puzzle fundraiser "These Puzzles Fund Abortion," which raises money for five abortion funds across the country. If you like crossword puzzles with a progressive bent and helping people afford necessary healthcare, you can donate here through the end of May to receive the puzzle pack!

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 are closed from April 1 to May 1.

Defector
27 Apr 15:27 • Robert Rubsam

Gwendoline Riley’s Phantom Lives

What will it take to be fulfilled by life? Love, perhaps, or community, power, or professional success. At different points in my life I believed that having my work published would make me happy, or leaving the country, going back to school, getting a literary agent. I thou...

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27 Apr 15:27 • Giri Nathan

How Much Good Can A Green Clay Tennis Court Do?

Can you save the world by playing on green clay, staving off climate catastrophe? Probably not, but if all tennis courts in the world were made of green clay, we’d at least be better off, according to a new study in Applied Geochemistry. The paper, co-authored by Frankie Pav...

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27 Apr 15:27 • Barry Petchesky

Jazz Chisholm Is So Bad At ABS Challenges

It is of course nice to get the calls correct, but baseball is an entertainment product foremost, and a most delightful side effect of the new automated ball-strike challenge system is the few seconds of drama between a challenge and its resolution. Who will be vindicated? W...

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26 Apr 19:30 • Albert Burneko

Report: Victor Wembanyama Cleared To Play Game 4

Victor Wembanyama, who sustained a concussion in Tuesday night's Game 3 between his San Antonio Spurs and the Portland Trailblazers, has been cleared by medical personnel to return to action in Sunday's Game 4, according to a report by ESPN's Shams Charania and Malika Andrew...

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26 Apr 19:30 • Albert Burneko

Everyone Survives White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner

No one was shot and killed at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday night at Washington D.C.'s Hilton Hotel. President Donald Trump—who is presently waging an illegal war of aggression against the nation of Iran and aiding and abetting a genoc...

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26 Apr 19:30 • Israel Daramola

Is Magic-Pistons The Most Interesting Series So Far?

The top-seeded Detroit Pistons are quietly in a lot of trouble. Not just because they are down 2-1 in their series against the eighth-seeded Orlando Magic, but because in those two losses Orlando has looked like the superior team. The Magic have looked faster, tougher, and l...

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26 Apr 19:30 • Israel Daramola

Ayo Dosunmu Had Himself A Game

Picture it: You're the Minnesota Timberwolves and two of your starters have just gone down with severe injuries in the first half of Game 4, including your best player Anthony Edwards. You're up 2-1 in the series but the Denver Nuggets have momentum going into the half. Well...

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24 Apr 19:18 • Giri Nathan

Don’t Make The Tiny Man Dribble While Everyone Else Stands Still

Basketball is a sport where five teammates work together to dribble and pass the ball up the court and ultimately toss it into the hoop. Certain exceptions exist. For instance, the final possessions of a close New York Knicks playoff game. Here basketball is a sport where a ...

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24 Apr 18:33 • Samer Kalaf

Tony Dokoupil Is Still Eating Shit, Even If No One’s Watching

Chances are you haven't seen or thought of Tony Dokoupil in a while, and you wouldn't be alone. Dokoupil's CBS Evening News is lagging well behind ABC and NBC's nightly news programs, recently dropping under 4 million viewers per night. But TV ratings aren't necessary for wh...

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24 Apr 17:21 • Kelsey McKinney

How Close To The Stanford Prison Experiment Can A Reality Show Get?

"Ahoy there, perverts!" are the first words out of Gabby Windey's mouth. The host of the new Hulu show Love Overboard stands on the deck of a 280-foot superyacht named The Chakra, wearing a gorgeous, slinky dress with cut-out sections. "Welcome to Love Overboard!" she says, ...

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24 Apr 17:09 • Patrick Redford

Jaden McDaniels Will Fight You Every Step Of The Way

Much has been made of the arid state of NBA rivalries, a parched climate that owes itself to, depending on who you ask, player empowerment, AAU culture, the parity era, or the internet's anti-geographic effects. There's something to this, though all but the most committed Ce...

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24 Apr 15:06 • Alex Sujong Laughlin

Lena Dunham Can’t Help Herself

There’s an apocryphal story concerning the original pitch for Girls: Supposedly, Lena Dunham wrote it on the back of a cocktail napkin. It was all vibes but no plot or fleshed-out characters, and situated the show concept somewhere between Gossip Girl and Sex and the City. I...

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24 Apr 15:06 • Abigail Segel

What’s Parenting Lily Yohannes Like? An Interview With Her Dad

Lily Yohannes plays soccer with an efficiency that would come off as mechanical if she didn't have the vision of an artist, resulting in some of the most beautiful dribbling sequences and long through balls that have ever graced a pitch. Indeed, the 18-year-old OL Lyonnes st...

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24 Apr 15:06 • Tara Ariano

‘The Rockford Files’ Remains One Of Television’s Greatest Hangs

It’s Los Angeles in the 1970s. Cars are as long as boats. Beachside tacos are practically free. The sun glares through chunky brown fog, but does nothing to prevent assorted bad acts from happening. A man with a casual, even careless manner may not seem to have what it takes...

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23 Apr 19:06 • David Roth

Making Noises At Jim Nantz, With Aaron Schatz

It's a tough situation for Drew. While he has dialed up his football fandom to super-sicko levels (complimentary) in recent years, my interest in the sport has remained stubbornly around average. When we discussed having an NFL Draft-focused episode of The Distraction, we we...

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23 Apr 18:06 • Drew Magary

The NFL May Be Biting Off More Than It Can Chew

Drew Magary’s Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday at Defector during the NFL season. Got something you wanna contribute? Email the Roo. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. The NFL Draft starts tonigh...