“The 31-year-old Payne will race at Royal Ascot next month and she is prepared to face controversy if, as is planned, she rides a rank outsider in the Derby two weeks on Saturday. Before then it seems appropriate to remember that Payne has overcome more than just inequity in racing. Her life has been studded with pain and loss. The youngest of 10 children, she was six months old when her mother was killed. A brother and a sister have also died. So there has been tragedy and depression, terrible injuries and enduring prejudice.”
– The Guardian’s Donald McRae with the fascinating story of Australian jockey Michelle Payne.
Twenty years ago, in the second round of the playoffs, a routine Miami trip to the foul line in garbage time of a blowout Game 5 sparked a freakish fight, led to suspensions and a day in court, and resulted in Miami battling back from down 3–1 to win the series. Some games hang on a bounce, some plays hinge on a screen. This series, and the ones that would follow, turned on a free throw.
– For The Ringer, Katie Baker with an oral history of the 1997 Knicks-Heat postseason brawl — and the four-season NBA playoff rivalry that began changing the fates of two franchises.
“Costa gets his anger from his father, Josileide says, nodding and smiling in his direction across the table. He doesn’t deny it. In a case reported by local media in 2012, Zeinha was involved in an altercation with a pregnant bank teller in the city. He allegedly threw a punch and missed, then threw a laptop at her, with medical reports showing the unborn child’s heart stopped beating briefly.”
– Ewan MacKenna pays a visit to the home of Diego Costa for Bleacher Report.
“Brady is Benjamin Button, after all. He looks more nimble in the pocket now than he did 10 years ago, and through fitness programs and plant-based diets that would make men half his age puke, he has inspired some otherwise crazy questions about his durability. Like this one: Who says Tom Brady can’t play in the NFL at age 50?”
- ESPN’s Ian O’Connor on the challenges that remain for Tom Brady to conquer.
One element of his absence is worth dwelling on, though. Here is a man who owns one of the highest winning percentages in league history, who has been named NBA Coach of the Year, and who has become so popular that there is a movement—increasingly less facetious—for him to run for office. In theory, the Warriors should be lost without him. And yet, they literally have not lost without him. Without Kerr, Golden State finished off Portland, swept Utah, and, most recently, pulled out Sunday’s 113-111 comeback win over the Spurs.
- Sports Illustrated’s Chris Ballard on the absence of Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr.
“I remember embracing my friend in his new rainbow jersey. I remember the joy we shared with Kelly and Earley and the laughter we shared with all of the Irish supporters at the team hotel that night. I remember thinking it was the greatest day of my life, that history had been made and I played a small part. I remember I loved Stephen Roche and would have followed him to the ends of the earth. But then the genie came out of the bottle and there was just bitterness and rancour. And now, people forget.”
– For the Sunday Independent, Paul Kimmage on Stephen Roche.
“When the crowd moved, my feet made only passing acquaintance with the ground. In front of me, Uncle Jim had temporarily set aside his priestly demeanour and was exchanging shoulders and elbows with a beery Tipp supporter seeking an extra inch of space. Way down in front of us as the teams warmed up, three Cork supporters waded through the Tipp crowd, all banter and moustaches like Harry Enfield’s Scousers. Once they found a spot they unwrapped a paper package. Three crubeens were shared out and the trotters gnawed down to bone and nail before they fired the remnants behind them up the terrace. Only a life-saving line in wit and the start of the game saved them.”
– Michael Foley shares some Cork-Tipperary hurling memories for The Times.
The truth was that, even if Chelsea had peaked in terms of performance from October to December, they had by then perfected how to just keep the team motoring. They had the rhythm of champions, the baseline mentality. They had what a serial title-winner like Roy Keane recognised as every single player fully knowing the bare minimum required for their job and that, if they all did it solidly, they would have enough to win any match.
– The Independent’s Miguel Delaney with the inside story of Chelsea’s Premier League title win.
