Isaac Eger
June 19, 2012
Passion in sports teeters on a precipice straddling joy
and sorrow. The depth of pleasure is mirrored and depends wholly on the potential
for pain. The past three games of 2012 NBA Finals have been a lonely affair for me
as I have no team in which to invest my mental well-being. I cannot find pleasure
or pain in the victories and losses of either the Miami Heat or the Oklahoma City
Thunder. Instead, I coast in a competitive limbo, unable to behave according to
sporting superstition or gamble my pride. In other words, both teams suck and I
feel nothing.
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Isaac Eger
March 27, 2012
Do not be fooled by Messi's mastery, the anti-Franco history,
or the UNICEF sponsorship — FC Barcelona does not deserve your support against AC Milan
in this Wednesday's quarter-final Champions League match. "Blasphemy!," you'll claim,
"Barça plays such beautiful football! They truly are one of the greatest teams ever.
How could you say such a thing?" My child, I aim to bring you from out of the darkness
and the shadow of death and brake your Barça bands asunder. I will show you the light
and you will be on the path of football righteousness, rooting for David in place of
the Catalan Goliath.
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Isaac Eger
March 22, 2012
The NFL's descent into the corrupt and violent world of US
figure skating was only a matter of time. The revelation that Gregg Williams of the
New Orleans Saints enacted a bounty system that awarded cash bonuses for injuring
opposing players curiously parallels the Tonya Harding scandal from the mid-nineties.
Harding is forever distinguished as the American figure skater whose ex-husband and
bodyguard hired an assailant to break the right leg of Nancy Kerrigan, Harding's
superior figure skating rival, in order to secure Harding's place on the 1994 US Olympic team.
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Derek Bradley
March 9, 2012
Today a dark cloud hangs over my home state of Indiana.
Peyton Manning, the man that revolutionized sports in Indiana and who made people
across the country think of something other than corn when my state was mentioned,
has been cut from the Indianapolis Colts. You may have heard about the Peyton
situation on the news, but in case you haven't let me fill you in.
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Isaac Eger
March 2, 2012
Two Sundays ago, the greatest television show in history
hit the half-millennium mark. After 23 seasons, a decade now separates the The Simpsons
from their golden years, and FOX's insistence that they continue to milk a dead horse
and produce a 25th season makes it more difficult for Simpsons zealots to continue to
claim its superiority to South Park. The precise moment The Simpsons jumped the shark
was when Homer was raped by a panda. All hope was lost for any kind of reparation
after last season's decision to cameo Ke$ha's 'TiK ToK' as a couch gag.
But we continue to remember the golden years of the animated series and forgive
what came later, much like we ignore the past 25+ years of Bob Dylan. As an homage
to the brilliance and regrettable longevity of The Simpsons, and the The PickUp's
pursuit of sportswriting domination, we present the 10 best sports moments in Simpsons
history.
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Isaac Eger
February 22, 2012
I do not understand why I am rooting against Jeremy Lin.
I was pleasantly surprised by his first three wins and I reveled in his victory
over the Lakers. Right after that, I had my fill of Linsanity and I expected its
flow to ebb and for basketball to return to its status quo. Instead, he has been
the impetus of the New York Knicks' past eight victories and the focus of an
unprecedented international media barrage. Lin has resurrected a floundering Knicks
team, sank a buzzer-beating winner against Toronto, outclassed Kobe on national
television and is setting NBA records for points scored as a starter — all accomplished
without NY's two marquee players, Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire. It's the
first truly exciting narrative to dilute the bitter vestiges of this summer's lockout.
He's also a really humble kid who seems very gracious and amiable. Plus he embodies
the out-of-nowhere underdog story that swoons crowds of all kinds.
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Ahmed Kabil
February 6, 2012
But why was I so angry? Here I was, beer in tow, having
sat down in the sports bar on Shattuck in Berkeley, not up to too much this evening,
just watching some basketball games on their fancy television sets. Feel like sports
is something I have to seek out these days, haven't had a TV in a while so I 'preciate
these moments where I get to sit by myself and drink a beer and eat a burger and
get lost in a good game on a high-definition TV.
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Sam Geller
February 4, 2012
Four years ago this Sunday I disappeared for a few days.
I was a freshman in college and the Patriots were having a perfect season.
The previous fall I had left Zion for a small liberal arts college in a Pacific
Northwest city that didn't even have a professional football team. People watched
college football there. Whatever. My absence occurred soon after my return from my
first winter break back home, I was still running off leftover fumes from the
excitement about a dynasty continuing which started when I was in middle school.
What glorious stability we enjoyed as our sovereign team continued to reign supreme!
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Isaac Eger
January 25, 2012
This installment of HIGHLIGHTS presents passages from, and commentary on, David
Foster Wallace's "Tennis player Michael Joyce's professional artistry as a paradigm
of certain stuff about choice, freedom, limitation, joy, grotesquerie, and human
completeness" from A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. The essay is
frequently called one the best sports articles ever written and the best article
written about tennis, ever.
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Isaac Eger
January 16, 2012
Last night, a part of me died watching what used to be
the greatest rivalry between teams in American sports in the past decade. It was
like losing a part of my boyhood innocence, like realizing that theme parks and
roller-coaster rides are not actually fun. The Phoenix Suns, once the greatest
offensive spectacle in professional basketball, lost to the San Antonio Spurs in
dismal fashion.
As any good captain would do, Steve Nash, the Suns tenured point-guard and
franchise player, has decided to go down with the ship. Thirty-seven years young,
he has been the conductor of Phoenix’s ‘seven seconds or less’
offensive scheme for over seven seasons. For six of those seven years, Nash
quarterbacked the most efficient offense in the NBA.
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Sam Geller
January 13, 2012
My older brother copes by hollering against the world,
“TIM TEBOW HATES WOMEN IN A PROFOUND WAY!” I don’t know about that, I’m sure he
could convince me, but he’s also the guy who convinced me that a cereal bowl full
of dog food was in fact coco-puffs and that I should keep eating even though I
thought it tasted funny.
I’ve heard others speak about his particular dogmatic brand and how completely
insane it is, I’ve also heard others talk about all his wonderful charity and
generosity, but frankly, I could care less about all of that. Only one thing
matters to me: that Tim Tebow may or may not have Jesus Christ on his side in
the fourth quarter of football games.
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Isaac Eger
January 13, 2012
When Tim Tebow fails, and he ultimately will, be wary of
celebrating with atheist garrulousness.
The public is divided into two camps regarding the Denver Broncos quarterback.
The first group are those who have found themselves swooned by ‘Tebowmania’ and
root for his unlikely, but constant, successes. The second group
consists — logically — of people who dislike Tebow with varying fervor.
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