Sports and the entire sports industry are acting like it’s 1971. This is a period of time that is going to determine the future of virtually every sport. | | | | Ray Fosse was never the same again after Pete Rose trucked him in the 1970 All-Star Game.
(Bettmann/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Sports and the entire sports industry are acting like it’s 1971. This is a period of time that is going to determine the future of virtually every sport.”
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| | rantnrave:// A manic Monday at WIMBLEDON. Down goes RAFA. Goodbye, ANGELIQUE KERBER. In a day, the draw gets all shaken up. GILLES MULLER's upset win over RAFAEL NADAL was a classic -- a five-set thriller that ended under the threat of darkness. Nadal's loss is surprising because he was coming off a major championship in PARIS and has two titles on this grass court, too. It deprives us of the dream semifinal foursome of DJOKOVIC, FEDERER, MURRAY and Nadal. Kerber's loss makes the women's draw even more fun. A field without the No. 1 seed feels like a free-for-all. Could this be an opportunity for VENUS WILLIAMS to win her first major since 2008? Can JELENA OSTAPENKO go back-to-back? Will Djokovic break his 2017 slump? All would make for great endings, but one more title by ROGER FEDERER would be thrilling... I wish GREG ODEN turned out better. A one-year star at OHIO STATE, he'll forever be remembered as the guy taken over KEVIN DURANT. So talented and so unfortunate throughout his short career. He was dogged by injuries, one significant problem after another robbing him of a lengthy or productive tenure. SETH WICKERSHAM paints a portrait of Oden in 2017. He's far removed from the NBA. His body is broken. His life nearly spun out of control. But he finally seems comfortable in his skin. Sports makes us think in terms of potential. The players who have it and the ones who don't live up to it. Sometimes, the busts are as memorable as the ones who made it... All rise for AARON JUDGE, baseball's new king of swing. The MVP candidate added a HR DERBY crown Monday night with a walkoff win. MARLINS PARK was rocking. Judge can crush it and the Derby is cool again. Watching 490-foot home run after 490-foot home run doesn't get old. The tournament format breathed life into something that was getting stale. Wish they'd bring back those old offseason HR contests, too. In black and white, of course.... It will be sad to see an MLB ALL-STAR GAME in MIAMI without JOSE FERNANDEZ. His death last September is still fresh. It felt like we all lost someone. Like we were deprived of watching a star grow into an all-timer. Miami misses him. | | | - Mike Vorkunov, curator |
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 | FiveThirtyEight |
| Over the past few decades, when the two sides faced one another -- bots vs. humans -- the bouts were treated like heavyweight man-vs.-machine prizefights. But just this spring, one side claimed the title and hung up its gloves. The computers have finally won. There’s no going back. And few are sure where we’re headed. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| John Danaher is inventing a new paradigm for bringing opponents to submission. | | |
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 | espnW |
| In May, Kerri Walsh Jennings left the AVP tour and split with her 2016 Olympic partner, April Ross, because she believes the current power structure is preventing athletes from making a living wage in beach volleyball. Now, she's trying to change that. | | |
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 | Bloomberg |
| In defense of a lost art in today’s game. | | |
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 | WTF with Marc Maron |
| Give a listen to how the sausage of television gets made as Marc talks with the creative team behind the show "GLOW." First, hear about the process of scripting a season of television as a group from the show's writers, Rachel Shukert, Nick Jones and Sascha Rothchild. | | |
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 | Sports Illustrated |
| Gabriele Grunewald's capacity as a middle-distance runner is rare. That is good. Her particular type of cancer, known for its tenacity, is also rare. | | |
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 | ESPN |
| The self-described "biggest bust in NBA history" is seeing how far his mind can take him. | | |
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 | BostonGlobe.com |
| The Red Sox lefty can be a batter’s worst nightmare. Here’s why. | | |
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 | Digital Sport |
| Back in May, the Sport Industry Group launched a survey to find out young people’s attitudes towards illegal streaming of pirated live sporting events. The results were depressingly predictable -- 54% admit to have watched illegal streams, with a third admitting to being regular users. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| The outgoing New Jersey governor is filling in for the retiring sports-talk radio host this week. Could that be his next gig? | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| They’re closer to the Wimbledon action than anyone but the players, but they’re doing their job when they’re all but unnoticed. | | |
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 | Sports Business Daily |
| David Hill's message to sports TV networks: Adapt or die. Hill, of course, is the executive who founded Fox Sports more than two decades ago and retired from 21st Century Fox in 2015. | | |
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 | Yahoo Sports |
| Parents of players in the South Carolina Youth Soccer Association won’t be allowed to talk during their kids’ games. The South Carolina Youth Soccer Association has called for a “Silent September,” where parents at games cannot cheer, yell or berate referees. | | |
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 | Fortune Magazine |
| FloSports says the future of live sports is digital. | | |
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 | The Daily Beast |
| In 1976, the game drew 36.5 million viewers. Last year (with America’s population 100 million greater than in 1976) the game drew 8.7 million. There’s one big reason why. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Frank Vercauteren and his Belgium team-mates take on Diego Maradona in the 1982 World Cup. | | |
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 | Vice Sports |
| An independent report says USA Gymnastics needs "a complete cultural change" to better protect athletes from sexual abuse, but doesn't look at who was responsible. | | |
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 | Teen Vogue |
| Jessica Mendoza wants to inspire other girls in sports. What a day in the life of Jessica Mendoza, ESPN's first female Major League Baseball analyst, is like. | | |
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 | The Miami Herald |
| Jose Fernandez’s tragic death rolled through South Florida like a Category-5 hurricane nine months ago. And with the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Miami on Tuesday (Jul 11), reminders are everywhere. | | |
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 | Howler Magazine |
| Don't believe the hypothetical: "What if America's best athletes played soccer?" is a dumb question for a variety of reasons. | | |
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