From Gelf, if you're at all familiar with Dave Zirin's work, you already know what the man is going to say — it will be passionate, it will be thought-provoking, and it will be anything but the conventional sports conversation. A review of Out of Left Field: Jews and Black Baseball by Rebecca T. Alpert. An interview with Mary Louise Adams, author of Artistic Impressions: Figure Skating, Masculinity, and the Limits of Sport. Is cage fighting ethical for Christians? The first chapter from Mathletics: How Gamblers, Managers, and Sports Enthusiasts Use Mathematics in Baseball, Basketball, and Football by Wayne L. Winston. The Dilettantes of the PGA: David Macaray on why golf is a pussy game. Soccer's heavy boredom: It's true — mostly nothing happens, so why do we keep watching? People who identify themselves as sports fans tend to have lower rates of depression and higher self-esteem than those who don’t. Should college football be banned? According to the crowd at the final Slate/Intelligence Squared live debate, the answer is definitively: yes (and more by Buzz Bissinger).
