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Photo by Eclipse Sportswire

Photo by Eclipse Sportswire

Not since 1978 has the sport of kings seen a Triple Crown winner, when Affirmed defeated his rival Alydar by the slimmest of margins in the Belmont Stakes after winning both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes. The Triple Crown is a grueling five-week schedule comprised of three races for three year old horses, something that is rarely tried nowadays at any other point in the racing calendar, aside from the cheap claiming horses who run more often than their stakes counterparts. This makes the Triple Crown trail one of the most unique facets of horse racing.

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“And when good soccer happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.” – Eduardo Galeano, Soccer in Sun and Shadow

With less than two weeks to go before the start of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, club competitions are wrapping up, and international managers are hoping no injuries hit their key men. As it was in 2010 with Spain’s pronouncement of dominance, this year’s edition promises to be captivating, with many story lines in play. Will Brazil be fit and ready to host in time? (Spoiler alert: Probably not). Is this the major tournament when Spain, the world #1, finally relinquishes its throne? Is Germany set to finally claim it for the perceived golden generation? Can either Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, the twin peaks of this footballing epoch, lead their respective countries to the promised land? Can the United States do anything worthwhile?

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The Soundtrack to Your World Cup Summer

Songs crafted solely for the World Cup are nothing new. This has been happening since 1962 when Chile hosted the tournament. Official songs gave way to unofficial songs and then to a whole anthemic soundtrack that serves as half souvenir and half advertising campaign. This year is no different with FIFA officially sponsoring another soundtrack entitled The 2014 FIFA World Cup Official Album: One Love, One Rhythm. The cover art alone is a vibrant collage of people dancing, a soccer ball, and a toucan that converge to illustrate someone’s face. The album includes “banging pop tracks by artists from around the globe”, according to iTunes. That is why Pitbull is the first artist featured on this album.

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time-travel-harold-lloyd

Five wins on the trot, three of them from pole. Slashed and burned history books. A locked contract until the end of 2016. Cheerful oppression and the dawn of a new age. The buzz of the world’s media and fans frothing at the mouth for more. It’s all happening right now, right as you read this. And you already know what it means.

But the world keeps turning even while you move out of your dorm room. Things happen even while man sets foot on the moon. Life goes on elsewhere even when Columbus lands in America. There are plenty of people aiming for a big splash into adult life. There are countless thousands dreaming of the stars. There are plenty of explorers who aren’t there yet and never will be. But that won’t stop them from trying to move up.

It’s like having three feet: One foot firmly planted in the future, one stubbornly rooted in the present, and one ghost foot from your past as bonus ballast. It’s easy to stand by idle. But the world keeps turning, even when you’re stuck. Victories still happen elsewhere. Contracts still get locked. It still moves. But that won’t stop Jonathan Rea from trying to move to MotoGP.

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Courtesy of Yahoo! Sports

Courtesy of Yahoo! Sports

Like music, film and other leisurely activities, people often view sports as an escape from the mundane, a way of retaining what little creativity and spontaneity we have left from childhood. The most ardent sports fans truly treat the games they watch as heroic battles of life and death, although the overwhelming majority recognize the necessity to create a distinction between sport and life. We, the onlookers, use sports as the way out of reality, a way of succeeding and failing vicariously through people we’ve never met and whose personal lives we’ll never infiltrate, giggling stupidly when recounting an athlete’s greatest moments to his or her face, as if he wasn’t there, as if he wasn’t the one who did it. We only see those images; that’s what stays with us, courtesy of SportsCenter and size-90 font newspaper headlines. But what happens when the lives they lead bleed across the pages and into our collective subconscious, giving feeling to the emotionless robots who score, save, rebound and run for us?

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Young and Beautiful Tom Brady

Looking for a way to definitely guarantee that you’ll enjoy the NFL Draft tonight? You’re going to need some alcohol. Please be over 21, though.

The NFL really has us wrapped around its finger. They make puny settlements with former players (while never admitting that football is, you know, dangerous). They take away any and all instances of players having fun. They treat the cheerleaders like second class citizens. They push the date of the draft back, and are even thinking about making the draft last longer. But hey, it’s not like anyone is going to stop being an NFL fan because of THAT STUFF, right?

Truth be told, the draft itself is awful. None. Of. This. Means. Anything. Yet. Don’t kid yourself—-you have no idea how any of these players are going to pan out. So why not have some real fun tonight?

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goodell424hug

I’ve grown tired of Mock Drafts, so instead I’ve made myself the hypothetical GM of every NFL team and simulated the first round of this year’s draft (If Kevin Costner can be a fictional GM, why can’t I?). Anyway, I wrote about the first 10 picks in Part 1 and covered 11 more in Part 2. Here’s the final part of the trilogy.

We’ve nearly survived the first round of the NFL Draft! Now it starts to get interesting, as we reach the part of the draft in which the best teams of last year try to improve upon their already stellar rosters. It’s the final eleven picks of the first round. Let’s get drafting!

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Eric Fisher, Roger Goodell

I’ve grown tired of Mock Drafts, so instead I’ve made myself the hypothetical GM of every NFL team and simulated the first round of this year’s draft (If Kevin Costner can be a fictional GM, why can’t I?). Anyway, I wrote about the first 10 picks in Part 1. Check back tomorrow for Part 3.

We’re now entering the middle of the first round. You still with me? Good. Most of the big players may be off the board, but the following names are worth learning, as you’ll be hearing them on Sundays for a long time to come. Without further ado, here are the next eleven picks (Sorry, 32 is a weird number and isn’t divided by three evenly).

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NFL Draft Football

The NFL Draft is the biggest football event of the year, behind only the Super Bowl. Since its inception, the Draft has grown from a collection of anonymous dudes in a room picking college players to a television ratings bonanza that is broadcast in primetime and spans three days. The NFL Network now provides coverage from the early NFL Combine, and you can now catch footage live from the Pro Days of the Draft’s biggest stars.

But undeniably, the worst bi-product of the NFL Draft’s ascension from non-event to the blockbuster of the NFL’s offseason is the endless cycle of mock drafts and marginally updated mock drafts. The NFL Draft keeps Draft experts in business the same way Game of Thrones has single-handedly kept the fake blood industry alive. Every few weeks, Draft experts produce articles that drum up the hype train of certain players while decrying the follies of others, who ran 40-times slightly slower than expected or failed to prance around their Pro Day with just the proper flair.

I’m not interested in mock drafts. I don’t want to read Mel Kiper’s predictions on how the NFL Draft will play out, like he’s Professor Trelawney trying to read tea leaves. I don’t want to know who these teams will draft, but who they should be drafting.

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Schoolboy Q sans bucket hat

The line stretched for almost a full city block. Among the throngs of fans waiting to get in to see Schoolboy Q were bucket hats – a lot of bucket hats. It was almost like a show of solidarity. You couldn’t mistake the fact of who these people came to see. Yet after the headliner took the stage, you wouldn’t be faulted if you felt like he wasn’t the main attraction.

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