Defector
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This World Cup Is Beating A Dead Dark Horse
Every international tournament, the widely used and abused "dark horse" designation is bandied about as pundits, fans, and cretins (gamblers) try to be the first to predict a deep run for an unexpected team. The term itself is vague enough to apply to about half the field, depending on one's own criteria. It fits a team that could be a sneaky knockout-stage qualifier from a tough group, it fits a small nation that could even win a knockout match, and it fits a surprise quarterfinalist. Howe...
You Can Now Be Arrested For Sticking Your Hand In Donald Trump’s Disgusting Reflecting Pool
Things big and small are going bad for Donald Trump. He's losing bad enough on land and at sea in Iran, but worse at a pool back in D.C. One might say the growing algae debacle on the National Mall left him up shit's creek without a paddle, and so he had an Olympic canoer arrested. Trump painted himself into an American Flag Blue corner with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, so somebody has to pay. Now arrests are being made. It's another sign of how far the republic has fallen that the...
Justin Verlander Is Looking For His Wheels
The Father's Day crowd in downtown Detroit was likely unanimous in its disappointment that Keider Montero was on the hill for the Tigers. It's nothing personal against Keider, but until a few days prior, this game against the White Sox was looking far more momentous. Justin Verlander, finally healthy again, would be appearing for the first time at home in a Tigers uniform since he was traded to Houston in 2017. Except Verlander wasn't quite healthy again. Despite a couple of rehab outings w...
The Crossword, June 22: Position Changes
Special solvers solve special crosswords. This week's puzzle was constructed by Erik Agard and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Erik is a crossword editor and would like to dedicate this puzzle to his dad John and brother Vince, the football fans of the family (left hand up!). Defector crosswords, launched in partnership with our friends at AVCX , run every Monday. If you’re interested in submitting a puzzle to us, you can read our guidelines HERE . The AVCX, an independent puzzles and games o...
The U.S. Is Still Killing People In Illegal Boat Strikes
Last week, the U.S. military killed eight people and stranded six others in three illegal boat strikes, bringing the total number of people killed by “Operation Southern Spear” to at least 215 . The ongoing campaign—allegedly targeting drug smuggling—has long ceased to be major news, fading, like so much else, into the constant background hum of inconceivable violence wrought by the current administration. Tracking the carnage is made easy by the military division that conducts the strikes, wh...
Everyone’s Mad About Brady Tkachuk Going To Florida
Brady Tkachuk will join his co-podcaster Matthew on the Mar-a-Lago Panthers. Let's address the hockey stuff first. A scary forward group gets even scarier, and more irritating to play against; there are no real soft spots or ceded shifts in the three top lines. After a lost season following two straight Cups, Florida figures to come back as strong as ever. This is a mixed bag depending on your tolerance for the Panthers. The Panthers, who appear to have fully subscribed to the "fuck them pi...
Cape Verde Deserved Better Than Whatever The Hell JP Dellacamera Was Doing
On Sunday, Cape Verde scored one of the best and most meaningful goals of the 2026 World Cup. In the 21st minute of their group-stage game against historic powerhouse Uruguay, just the second World Cup game in the tiny archipelagic nation's history, midfielder Kevin Pina stood over a free kick from about 35 yards out. Having drawn 0-0 with Spain in their first World Cup game, the Blue Sharks were looking for their first-ever World Cup goal. Pina lined up his shot, blasted it through Uruguay's ...
The Real Spain Has Now Arrived
There's really no such thing as a "team." If you've ever come across a guy in an Argentina jersey playing with a soccer ball at the park, and watched as he managed about three clumsy kick-ups before accidentally toe-poking it down a hill (by the way, next time you see me out like that, feel free to say hi!), then you too know that what matters in this game isn't the shirt itself, but the body inside it. As such, it's no surprise that the "Spain" that played Goliath in the monumental upset agai...
Tunisia Blows Up Its Manager, Still Gets Blown Out
If there has been a worse performance in World Cup history than Tunisia's, be content. They still have one more chance to cement their place. The Eagles of Carthage are already eliminated from the competition after failing to keep an audience against Japan last night somewhere along the Saturday/Sunday border, depending where you call home. But lots of teams get eliminated after two games; it is in the nature of the competition that this happens to the minnows of world football, like Haiti,...
Baseball’s Bad-Team Shitshow Could Use More Shit
Among the things COVID does not get credited for—and think of the last time you read that sentence—is the way it has helped bad baseball teams perfect the art of bottoming out. Since the pandemic made us more comfortable with the idea of catastrophes, we have seen the worst teams in the majors choose to be, or accidentally become, spectacularly awful. Sadly, though, that may be coming to a temporary end. After all, on the theory that if you're going to stink, be a sewage plant explosion, 20...
Eloy Room Saved A Place For Himself And Curacao In World Cup History
We can cancel the last 66 games of the World Cup right now and fast forward to the final, because we've seen all we have a right to see. Put Curacao and Cape Verde in the final, make it The Revenge Of The Postage Stamp Nations and call it a win. The final may take three days before we get a goal, but that's still a far more economical system than the one we have. Not that the other games haven't had their moments , mind you. It's actually been quite the dandy pigpile so far, with the big na...
I Have Died And Gone To USMNT Heaven
As the pure elation began to ebb, the feeling that overcame me toward the end of the USMNT's demolition of Paraguay in its World Cup opener last week was disbelief. I found it genuinely confusing. The United States men's soccer team simply does not play with as much overpowering quality, as much one-way domination, as much undeniable impressiveness as we saw that day. For the better part of a decade now, as the largest and most promising cohort of American players made their way to Europe t...
I Can No Longer Accept Being Condescended To By The Little Game On My Phone
I got got by Connections this week. This is a rare occurrence, because I have a big strong brain that can make distinctions that other brains often cannot. So when I lose Connections, I feel great shame. I have disgraced not only my own legacy, but that of my family's as well. I did not live up to my standard playing Connections, and that will haunt me for a good long time, maybe even into lunch today. So what the fuck are you, The New York Times games app, to tell me this shit? PICTURED...
Looking For A Job Has Become An Alienating Humiliation Ritual
The most haunting entry in Search Work: A Collective Inquiry into the Job Hunt , a recently published anthology edited by Rachel Meade Smith, is also the most vulnerable: a collection of emails between games journalist and author David Wolinsky and anyone who can possibly help him find work. The tone and tenor of the missives will feel instantly familiar to readers who have ever found themselves in a similar position. In the messages, Wolinsky is eager, kind, honest about his situation and wha...
Here’s A World Cup Weekend Open Thread
Hopefully you, like us, have the day off today. And hopefully you, like us, have plans to watch lots of World Cup soccer this weekend. While you do that, feel free to chat away in this open thread.
John Early’s Secret Is Total Commitment
John Early has one of the most expressive faces of any actor working today. You've almost certainly seen it. The 38-year-old comedian, born and raised in Nashville, has had many small breaks into the zeitgeist over the past decade or so. His voice might also be familiar to you: He's worked on a gamut of animated shows including Bob's Burgers , Tuca & Bertie , The Great North , and Summer Camp Island (a personal favorite). He appeared most recently and prominently in the A24 comedy Eternity , b...
Turd Makes Brief Appearance In Punch Bowl
Money can't buy happiness, and it seems money plus an NBA title doesn't necessarily buy charisma. The New York Knicks held their championship parade and rally in Manhattan on Thursday, and although not everyone could get in to see the actual procession, there were plenty of fans celebrating in the area. Last week's good vibes kept rolling; Jerome "Junkyard Dog" Williams was in attendance. But for a moment, the ceremony at City Hall functioned as an inescapable reminder that James Dolan owns th...
Feeling Those Good Sports Feelings, With Ray Ratto
There's no sense in dancing around it: The sports vibes are pretty damn good at the moment. New Yorkers celebrated a long-awaited championship in the streets with a minimum of property damage and a surfeit of giddiness . The World Cup is already attempting to redeem its shameful and odious origins by delivering some of the most potent sports spectacle on Earth, and communities of all kinds are rallying around the spirited overage of it all. The positive vibrations that emanate from groups of g...
It Is Getting Into The Car, Leaving The Office, Avoiding Traffic, And Picking Up Fish And Chips On The Way Home
The concept of "1966" is purely theoretical for almost anyone who wasn't alive then, 60 years of human history separating us from that singular point in time. Sure, the point of history as a field is to educate us about what was happening in, say, 1966, but I barely remember what it felt like to live through most of the years I've been around for, let alone those that came so long before. However, there is one subset of people who might soon get a taste of what 1966 was like, and that is fans ...
Bryson DeChambeau Will Have To Decide If He’s A Golfer Or A YouTuber
When Bryson DeChambeau tees off at the U.S. Open this afternoon, he will be doing so with the future bearing down on him. The LIV Golf Tour is about to lose its funding from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which means that DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, and the rest of the former PGA greats who defected to LIV will soon have a decision to make: Do they come crawling back to the PGA, or find new day jobs? DeChambeau’s options may be more limited than Rahm’s or Brooks Koepka’s, who has already begun...
‘New Skin’ Offers A Fresh Take On Body Horror
In the era of looksmaxxing, plastic surgery, Botox, and Ozempic, it's impossible to escape the tyranny of good looks. Are beauty standards fascist? Is losing weight about giving in or being healthy? The endless overdetermined debates about the ethics of aesthetics continues to haunt us. Even as we chase Kant's sublime through facial symmetry, we struggle to justify and categorize the various forms of body modification and whether or not they are feminist. In her debut novel New Skin , Sarah Wa...
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