The abusive relationship that is sports
That teacher should be fired.
“A team can provide an anchoring point for your brain to link the two of you in a fixed spot in the universe. It’s not a trick or an illusion: There are experiments that suggest this is literally your brain expanding its understanding of “me” to include the team. When it does, sports can make you reflexively more loving, more altruistic and more social.”
“sports fans watching their favorite team—maybe even unrelated to the outcome—would see similar activity in the part of the brain set up to make us feel good for finding rewards in a hostile universe.”
“One of the points of the brain’s “dopamine reward system” is to create happy memories for you to chase. You get a reward, you get dopamine, you remember and you want to find it again…Because it’s so particularly useful to remember the rewards you didn’t expect, that’s when the dopamine surges most freely…the unpredictable nature of those rare playoff appearances means Warriors fans really might have felt more peaks of joy in the last decade than bored-by-success Lakers fans.”
“For billions of people on Earth, win or lose, sports are like art, music and theater: real emotional drama that satisfies our brains’ evolutionary imperatives…Our ability to love our teams and to return to them when they fail us, it seems to me, is a big part of what makes us human.”
Mark Slessinger does his best work away from the court. Gregg Doyel says the New Orleans men’s basketball coach and his wife, Toni, are true heroes as foster parents to children in need of a loving home.
Count the mistakes!
(it’s Bryce Harper (1) who is on the Washington Nationals (2), Matt Harvey (3) who is on the New York Mets (4), Manny Machado on the Baltimore Orioles (5), and Mike Trout on the Los Angeles Angels (6))
Perhaps the best finish at the Indianapolis Speedway, the 2013 Freedom 100 came down to the wire. It was a four-wide finish with Peter Dempsey taking first place by a matter of only a couple inches.
All my chess games seem to end up like this (my King can’t get to his side, and moving either of the two pawns isn’t a good move)
The Bruins’ utter collapse cuts to the heart of franchise, fans and city.
Every time Boston gets a 3-0 series lead…this is gonna get mentioned…
Being a quarterback in the NFL is no easy task, but we decided to take a look at some of the worst statistical seasons in the last 25 seasons.
You’ll never guess who’s number one…
“Hockey fans have an uneasy relationship with the second round of the NHL playoffs. Don’t get us wrong. We like it. It’s fun. No complaints. It’s just that … well, if we have to be honest, it’s probably the postseason’s least interesting round. We can all agree that the first round is pretty much the greatest thing ever. With eight series going on at the same time, there’s always a game on. The action is unbelievably intense, every other game goes into overtime, and the matchups feature a nice mix of powerhouse favorites and plucky underdogs.
By the time the third round rolls around, every game is crucial and every remaining team is a legitimate Cup contender. And most years, the finals are packed with enough tension and drama to make up for the fact that the league schedules each game nine days apart to make sure there’s never any momentum.
But Round 2 is just kind of … there. There are still a lot of games, but after Round 1 it feels like it’s not enough. There are always a few underdog teams who have almost worn out their welcome. And injuries are starting to tilt a few of the series in unfortunate ways (as opposed to the later rounds, when everyone is hurt so it doesn’t matter).
It doesn’t have to be that way. We can learn to love the second round. To help, here’s a look back through 10 great second-round moments”
Anytime you happen to come across number 3 and number 10 makes it a good time to be a Flyers fan…
The longest home runs in MLB history
Koji Uehara came on in the eighth inning and retired the White Sox in order. He was a little fired up when he returned to the dugout, where Shane Victorino got caught looking.
Jamie Moyer was asked to give a commencement speech at Immaculata this weekend, which he did. However, some earlier speech notes…
Once again, our graduation speaker is going to be so much lamer than if this had actually happened…
Also, never expected to end up here today: http://deadspin.com/5068998/jamie-moyer-was-sick-last-night-in-a-very-literal-way…Moyer’s son was quoted saying that if Schilling’s bloody sock is in the HOF, then so should Moyer’s toilet seat.
After taking entirely too much crap from DC for all of this, “Craigslist Phils Date Girl” gets support from Zoo With Roy…
