Andrew Kerth 
Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé have met four times as opponents, and those four matches include a World Cup knockout classic, a Champions League hat-trick at the Camp Nou, and the greatest final ever played. In between, they spent two seasons as teammates in Paris, winning titles together while the soccer world wondered how the … Read more
When the White Sox make the first pick of the MLB Draft in Philadelphia tomorrow night, they’ll be cashing a ticket they won seven months ago, on a stage in the Winter Meetings ballroom, via ping-pong balls. The MLB Draft Lottery is baseball’s newest anti-tanking weapon, just four drafts old, and it works nothing like … Read more
Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner walk onto Centre Court today for a Wimbledon semifinal that doubles as the defining rivalry of tennis’s transition era: the 39-year-old chasing a record 25th Grand Slam title against the 24-year-old defending champion who owns something almost no one in history has owned, a winning head-to-head record against Novak Djokovic. … Read more
Jannik Sinner beat Novak Djokovic 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 in the 2026 Wimbledon semifinals on July 10, the latest and most emphatic chapter in the defining rivalry of tennis’s transition era: the 24-year-old defending champion dismantling the 39-year-old chasing a record 25th Grand Slam, while extending something almost no one in history has owned, a winning … Read more
Colorado has 58 named peaks that rise above 14,000 feet, more than any other state, and climbing them, one summit at a time, is the defining bucket list of Rocky Mountain hiking. They range from Mount Elbert, the 14,440-foot roof of the entire Rockies that a fit beginner can walk up in a day, to … Read more
The Golden Boot goes to the World Cup’s top scorer, but the Golden Ball goes to its best player, the tournament MVP, voted by media, and its history is a strange, wonderful list where legends sit next to heartbreak. Messi has won it twice, both times defined by finals against France; Zidane and Forlán won … Read more
The Home Run Derby has killed the clock. After a decade of sprint-format chaos, hitters racing a timer, gasping between hacks, Monday night’s Derby at Citizens Bank Park debuts a completely new set of rules: every slugger gets a fixed number of swings, every swing counts whether it leaves the yard or not, and the … Read more
The 2026 T-Mobile Home Run Derby goes Monday, July 13 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, live on Netflix for the first time, with a brand-new swing-based format replacing the timer, and the eight-man field is filling up fast. Four sluggers are officially in: Junior Caminero, last year’s runner-up and the hottest hitter alive; Ben … Read more
Kylian Mbappé is playing this World Cup on the most cleverly structured contract in European football: a five-year Real Madrid deal (through June 2029) whose reported €31.25 million base salary is only the visible layer, sitting atop a signing bonus reported between €100-150 million amortized across the contract, performance incentives, and the negotiation’s real masterstroke, … Read more
Kylian Mbappé has scored 20 goals in 20 World Cup matches, a goal-per-game pace no player in the tournament’s 96-year history has sustained, and he is 27 years old and exactly one goal behind the all-time record after breaking the deadlock against Morocco in Thursday’s quarterfinal, minutes after Yassine Bounou had saved his penalty. The … Read more