A bargain at any price but especially at this price!

This is a review essay featuring three books on trans-inclusion in sport: @katiebarnes.bsky.social's Fair Play, Harrison Browne and @rachelbrowne.ca's Let Us Play, and Ellie Roscher and Anna Baethe's Fair Game. I recommend them all! I recommend reading them all together.

My dad's first book, Making the Second Ghetto, has informed the study of urban America since 1983. Ta-Nehisi Coates formulated his case for reparations after reading it. The new book is called Segregating Cities, and includes two previously unpublished essays. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

My dad wrote a classic. I discovered its unfinished sequel when he was terminally ill. Last week, pieces of it were published in a new book. This essay is about how that happened, and why I spent 15 years working on it. short 🧵 slate.com/life/2026/05...

When the Savannah Bananas revived a Negro Leagues team I was v. intrigued. The Indianapolis Clowns are a historic/fraught franchise. I spoke w/players+a Bananas exec+historians to see how they're thinking about Clowns 2.0. Read my feature in @theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

On this the 40th anniversary of The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults, enjoy our deep dive on the One Year podcast into the amazing/bizarre story of what happened when Geraldo looked for buried treasure on live TV slate.com/podcasts/one...

31 years ago today on 4/19/1995 white supremacist terrorists bombed Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. In the days after the attack, a Muslim-American man named Ibrahim Ahmad was blamed for the attack. This is the story of the man who didn't bomb Oklahoma City slate.com/news-and-pol...

In 1956, Jackie Robinson wrote to a white New Orleans sports writer: "I am happy for you, that you were born white. It would have been extremely difficult for you had it been otherwise.” There's an incredible backstory here, which I was able to dig up with the help of the sports writer's daughter.

This posthumous collection of my dad’s writing includes a previously unpublished piece on how Chicago was segregated. It extends the analysis from his seminal book Making the Second Ghetto. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

For about a year I've been working with some of the best reporters and editors in L.A. to build a brand new city news outlet. It launches tomorrow. Is it possible to operate a sustainable local journalism business in 2026? Let me know! lamaterial.com

Good morning! I have a new piece about the 1986 Texas women’s basketball team, which 40 years ago became the first women’s bball team to go undefeated and win the championship. How hard it was to do and how great this team was that did it. www.texasmonthly.com/arts-enterta...

Bill Guerin is a complete caveman and this was a reckless, good ol' boys roster-building strategy and also he was right and those of us who doubted him are unfortunately losers slate.com/culture/2026...

Scott Hanson just said on Gold Zone that Hunter Hess (the free skier Trump called a loser) is 6-foot-9, "one of the tallest Olympians." U.S. Ski & Snowboard told [email protected] that Hess is actually 6-foot flat. 6-foot-9 is a typo in his Team USA bio!!! slate.com/culture/2026...

As Rodger notes in his great newsletter, Shiffrin won the slalom by 0.53 seconds in 2014. Her two wins by a combined 2.03 seconds are bigger than the combined margins of the women's slalom winners in 2022, 2018, 2010, 2006, 2002, 1998, 1994, and 1992 sports.beehiiv.com/p/olympics-d...

Jesse Jackson died Tuesday at the age of 84. The civil rights icon always held America to account—and never stopped fighting to preserve what he knew could be taken away. I wrote about how he saw our future so well.

RIP to Jesse Jackson, who in this debate w/David Duke in 1977 delivered (until the host cut him off) a message of unity and against "national isolationism" that's important to hear today. He also ended the show w/one of the sickest burns ever directed at Duke: "You're not even a legitimate Klansman"

It’s 10pm. Do you know where Brian Ferentz is coaching now?

They're calling it the Reverse Miracle on Ice, where the American Olympic hockey team become ambassadors for a politics that the country isn't even a little bit interested in slate.com/culture/2026...

I am loving Ilia Malinin's tribute to Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters 2

"On the day the WaPo sports section died—was killed, in fact—we ought to resist nostalgia ... First, nostalgia does little to polish the circulating résumés of the Post sportswriters who lost their jobs. Second, nostalgia is liable to make you wistful. What happened today should make you angry."

Our Kickstarter is live‼️ A new season of Burn It All Down is coming and we need your help to make it happen. Your support keeps independent, feminist sports media alive! Learn more and support the campaign here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/bur...

It's been really lovely reading all the tributes to Dan. Many people have asked if they can contribute to support his wife and son. You can do so here: everloved.com/life-of/dan-...

If I'm running an NFL team, my first question during the interview process is whether this was AI generated. If you're not writing your own LinkedIn Taco Bell sponcon, then can we really trust you with the keys?

@redargyle.bsky.social hey Anthony, can you email me at [email protected]? have a question for you about curling. thanks!

I think the key that unlocks Dan was his desire to share the things he loved with other people. Wouldn’t be the worst way to honor him if we make the effort to do that for the things we love, too. defector.com/dan-mcquade-...

for our latest HIMMW interview: @joshuablevin.bsky.social left a 20-year "forever job" at Slate to go independent. We break down the finances of the jump: 🎙️ The cost of self-funding narrative podcasts 📖 Negotiating unpaid sabbaticals to write books 💸 Adjusting to a "TBD" income

I talked to @joshuablevin.bsky.social about the evolution of "welfare queen" politics during Trump 2. www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-...

For @earbudspodcol.bsky.social, I collected my fave podcast cultural history/mysteries, including work by @99pi.org's Christopher Johnson, @leonneyfakh.bsky.social, @geedee215.bsky.social + @willa.bsky.social (& the pilot episode of Replay Booth naturally) newsletter.earbuds.audio/p/cultural-h...

You can get carried away with these historical analogies and I tried hard not to do that here Reagan, obviously, was not Trump But some similarities hard to miss — and they can help us understand what’s happening www.thebulwark.com/p/how-somali...

Been kind of a rough game for Chris Fowler but all is redeemed if he says "this is for all the VRBOs"

One of the three extant buildings from Storyville, the famous red-light district in New Orleans, is facing demolition. I found that it'd been a Black bar, making it the only link to the community of color that lived and worked on the backstreets of the district. acloserwalknola.com/places/joe-v...

LFG @joelanderson.bsky.social @davidshoemaker.bsky.social x.com/awfulannounc...

Just in time for the holidays, a feature story on the 1977 Xmas party that changed the marijuana legalization movement forever. There was a rock band, strobe lights, a juggler, silver trays full of joints, and an allegation that Jimmy Carter's drug czar did cocaine ... slate.com/news-and-pol...

Holy %$##*%^&. A @newyorker.com essay by Louis Menand about my book

Now that this story has been published, I grant permission to all NFL teams to pursue a 36-23 scoreline today.

Dave's Scorigami spreadsheet is incredible stuff docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

I wrote for @theatlantic.com about the NFL's baffling scoreboard mystery: Why has a game never ended 36-23? Join me (via gift link!) on this @nflscorigami.bsky.social quest w/help from @jonbois.bsky.social, Dave Mattingly, some Scorigami-loving academics, and more www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...

Today's article pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @joshuablevin.bsky.social & @defector.com! (H/t @barryyeoman.com) Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe defector.com/wilbur-huckl...

Big breaking news at Bounces: Serena Williams has applied for reinstatement to tennis, adding herself back into the tennis anti-doping program to set herself up for a comeback to competition in 2026. Read all the details here: www.benrothenberg.com/p/serena-wil...

Here’s my oral history of CREED, the movie not the band. With help from Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson, and many more. www.theringer.com/2025/11/25/m...

"The Moscow crew shipped off all those pizzas and 20 cases of Pepsi to the parliament building, to fortify Yeltsin and his supporters against the coup. Antoniadi had inserted Pizza Hut into a political crisis." —Kelly Jones & @joshuablevin.bsky.social for @slate.com

New: On 1xBet, the strange and shady company which has become rapidly more visible across tennis in 2025 despite *many* reasons for tours, tournaments, and federations to steer clear of its mess. Lots of odd details here, free for all to read at Bounces: www.benrothenberg.com/p/1xbet-tenn...

Slow Burn/Fiasco/Backfired's @leonneyfakh.bsky.social: "I loved the episode and getting the newsletter a week later felt amazing as it tuned me into various little details that had stuck with me subconsciously. Alas I have basically no social media presence left so I don’t know how to tell anyone."

In the Replay Booth newsletter, I've got a cornucopia of goodies for all the Huckle-heads out there: some great photos, a questionnaire he filled out in 1966, multiple unauthorized Wilbur Huckle baseball cards, and more! www.replaybooth.show/p/every-week...

The first eppy of Replay Booth, @joshuablevin.bsky.social’s new sports history podcast, is sensational. Highly recommended! I can’t wait to hear more.

Thank you to Gwilym Mumford of @theguardian.com for this shout-out for Replay Booth. Listen now! pod.link/1462685560/e...

An incredible story about the stuff guys used to do to entertain themselves before there was posting on the internet: defector.com/wilbur-huckl...

I mean, you really should. Even if you don't like sports, but especially if you do.

Replay Booth is a perfect podcast for Josh and warms my gerontology heart.

Grateful to @defector.com for publishing a print version of my Replay Booth episode on a 61-year-old Mets mystery and for commissioning an illustration of Mr. Met with a pipe and magnifying glass defector.com/wilbur-huckl...