Andrew Kerth 
Does the MLB All-Star Game count for anything? The short answer: not anymore, not in the standings, not for playoff position, and, since 2017, not for World Series home-field advantage either. The Midsummer Classic is once again what it was born as in 1933: an exhibition. But the long answer is more interesting, because for … Read more
The most Grand Slam singles titles in tennis history is 24, a number that, remarkably, sits atop both lists: Novak Djokovic holds the men’s record with 24, and Margaret Court holds the women’s record with 24, with Serena Williams one agonizing title behind at 23, the most by any woman in the Open Era. Those … Read more
The MLB All-Star Game has crowned an MVP every year since 1962, and the list doubles as a tour of baseball history’s showcase moments: Willie Mays owning the Midsummer Classic, Bo Jackson’s leadoff missile, Ichiro’s inside-the-park home run, Mariano Rivera standing alone on the mound in his farewell, and, most recently, Kyle Schwarber winning the … Read more
Everyone knows the yellow jersey. Most people know the polka dots. But the fourth jersey at the Tour de France, the plain white one, confuses more viewers than any of them, because the rider wearing it often isn’t leading anything you can see. The white jersey, the maillot blanc, belongs to the best young rider: … Read more
Every Wimbledon, it happens: a match builds toward its crescendo deep in the London evening, and then, at 11 p.m., it simply stops. Players walk off mid-drama, the crowd groans, and casual viewers around the world ask the same question, why does the most prestigious tournament in tennis have a bedtime? The answer isn’t tradition … Read more
Every summer, the world’s most famous tennis tournament doubles as the world’s largest strawberry stand. Over the Wimbledon fortnight, spectators eat their way through nearly two million strawberries, tens of thousands of punnets a day, drowned in thousands of liters of fresh cream, a tradition that has run continuously since the very first Championships in … Read more
This weekend, one champion will lift a golden cup crowned with a pineapple nobody can explain, and another will hold aloft a silver dish named after the wrong goddess. Wimbledon’s trophies are the strangest in major sports, and the strangeness is entirely genuine: the Gentlemen’s Singles Trophy (1887) is topped by a small pineapple whose … Read more
The 2026 World Cup final kicks off Sunday, July 19 at 3 p.m. ET at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, 82,500 seats, five miles from Manhattan, the climax of the biggest World Cup ever played. And this final will do something no World Cup final has done in 96 years of trying: stop … Read more
Has anyone ever won back-to-back World Cups? Yes, twice, and then never again. Italy repeated in 1934 and 1938, Brazil repeated in 1958 and 1962, and in the 64 years and fifteen tournaments since, no defending champion has managed it. Not Pele’s later Brazils, not Maradona’s Argentina, not the Spain and Germany dynasties. The World … Read more
Which World Cup team has the most expensive roster? By the measure the soccer industry actually uses, it’s France, whose 2026 squad carries a combined market value of about 1.52 billion euros, more than the bottom two dozen squads at this tournament put together. At the other end sits Qatar, whose entire roster is valued … Read more