Andrew Kerth 
Wimbledon employs a hawk. His name is Rufus, he’s a Harris’s hawk, he reports for work before dawn during the Championships, he carries his own security accreditation, and his job title, printed on the pass, is “Bird Scarer.” Every morning before the gates open, Rufus flies patrol over Centre Court and the grounds to convince … Read more
The trophy handed to the winner of The Open Championship isn’t a cup, a bowl, or a shield, it’s a wine pitcher. The Claret Jug, officially “The Golf Champion Trophy,” is the oldest prize in major championship golf and one of the oldest in all of sports, first awarded in 1873 and still presented on … Read more
The most Wimbledon singles titles ever won belongs, on the women’s side, to Martina Navratilova, whose nine championships include a run of six straight (1982-87) that remains the most sustained ownership of one major in the Open Era. The men’s record is Roger Federer’s eight, a summit that suddenly matters again this fortnight, because Novak … Read more
For 141 years, a Wimbledon match could theoretically last forever, and in 2010, one nearly did. Final sets at the Championships were played to a two-game advantage with no tiebreak of any kind, which is how John Isner and Nicolas Mahut produced the most famous scoreline in tennis: 70-68 in the fifth, eleven hours and … Read more
Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam still played on grass, and the reason is both simpler and stranger than most fans assume. Grass isn’t a quirky choice Wimbledon made; grass is what tennis is. The sport’s full, formal name is lawn tennis, it was invented on Victorian croquet lawns, and the All England Club that … Read more
Shohei Ohtani is the most collected baseball player on the planet, and his rookie cards sit at the center of the hobby, never more so than this month, with Ohtani fresh off joining the 300 home run club on July 7 as the first Japanese-born player ever to reach the milestone. But “Ohtani rookie card” … Read more
Eight teams remain at the 2026 World Cup, and the quarterfinals that begin Thursday carry more raw history than any round of the tournament. The quarterfinal is where the World Cup’s most infamous moments live, the Hand of God was a quarterfinal, so was the ensuing Goal of the Century, four minutes apart, where England’s … Read more
Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam on earth where you can wake up with no ticket, stand in a line, and watch Centre Court that afternoon. The mechanism is The Queue, capital T, capital Q, an institution so formal it has its own printed Code of Conduct, numbered queue cards, dedicated stewards, and a tent … Read more
The 2026 MLB All-Star Game is at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia on Tuesday, July 14, the city’s first Midsummer Classic in thirty years, and the anchor of a stacked All-Star week that includes the Home Run Derby, the Futures Game, and, for the first time in the same city and same week, the MLB … Read more
Three of the greatest goalscorers alive, separated by a single goal, with three matches left to settle it. The 2026 World Cup Golden Boot race has become the tournament’s tournament: a 39-year-old legend chasing a final crown, against the two heirs apparent, each with the schedule and the form to catch him. The quarterfinals begin … Read more