Matthew Spolar

It’s not often that a Sunday spent vegging on football devolves (evolves?) into a Google search to parse the meaning of “déjà vu.” For the N.F.L., that’s not a good thing. Amid the Buffalo Bills’ drubbing of the New York Jets this weekend came an all too familiar sight. Just before halftime, Jets running back […]

Golf, a sport long associated with lazy summer Sundays, has become the source of headline-grabbing controversy in the last year. In June of 2022, LIV Golf – a breakaway league that lured many of golf’s biggest stars from the established PGA Tour using massive cash payouts from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – livestreamed its […]

As the process of electing a new speaker in the U.S. House of Representatives descended into chaos this month, one man was more attuned to the unwieldiness of America’s largest legislative body than most: Newt Gingrich. Gingrich, who rose to power in 1994 on a wave of conservative enthusiasm, had a tumultuous run as the […]

Our piece looked back at the decline of boxing in the 1980s, from a titanic battle of wills celebrated in the American imagination to a sport relegated to the fringes of society. But in comparing boxing to football, we cited a key difference: As former CBS boxing producer Rick Gentile succinctly put it, “There is […]

Are you a teacher? Click the button below for our related education resources. Within Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory in 1964, there was a compelling regional story: many voters in the Deep South, long loyal to a conservative wing of the Democratic Party, voted for the Republican candidate. Two years later, the 1966 midterm […]

John Adams and John Quincy Adams Elder John, above right, was one of America’s founders, but his temper led to a chaotic White House, and VP Thomas Jefferson beat him in 1800. In 1824, Congress elected his son in a crowded race over outsider Andrew Jackson, who was re-elected in 1828. Martin Van Buren Known […]

Rizzo’s image as a brawler against the forces of social change retains support from some Philadelphians, and moving his statue was a political football until the city acted this week. A mural looming over the city’s Italian Market was painted over days later. Learn something new from history: Subscribe to our newsletter, and follow us […]

1. The Rise of Baseball Prior to the Civil War, baseball was not widely known outside the North. When Confederate troops saw their Union prisoners playing it, they became intrigued. Soon, “New York baseball” was being played by regiments across the South as a form of exercise and diversion, and America’s pastime was born. 2. […]