Mr. Reynolds

Smithsonian magazine article on chessboxing

It's behind a paywall but there's an R.A. Dickey story in this week's New Yorker. Hit the link for a snippet.

This according to The Dirty - "Last week, on Wednesday, April 17th, Frank Trigg plead GUILTY to charges of domestic battery. In a story first leaked by "The Dirty", Frank was charged with strangling his then wife, Nici. With HIS daughter (her STEP daughter) and ex-wife poised to testify, Frank decided to take the deal that was on the table. He plead guilty to Battery, Domestic Violence. He has to go to anger management classes for the next 6 months and if he stays in line, they will reduce the charges to a lesser charge of battery after that time period. Frank told the D.A. that he was going to put out a Press Release, but nothing has surfaced (which is what I was waiting on before I sent out info)."

Sam Harris talks about his love for BJJ - "Harris began practicing BJJ in earnest in November 2011 and now trains three times a week, often in private sessions with Ryron Gracie, a head instructor at the Gracie Academy, which has locations in Beverly Hills and Torrance, California. Last year, he posted an essay on his Web site about his experience with BJJ, in which he rhapsodized about the pleasures of being nearly "choked out"—squeezed by the neck to the point of almost losing consciousness—or forced to cry uncle when a superior fighter cranks his head or limb in an unnatural direction. (BJJ teaches mercy: before you are maimed or killed, you "tap out," typically by gently touching your opponent’s body to ask him to stop.) Harris likened training with an expert fighter to "falling into deep water without knowing how to swim." He sees BJJ as a cycle of mock death and resurrection, wherein an expert may kill you many times per session. "To train in BJJ is to continually drown—or, rather, to be drowned, in sudden and ingenious ways—and to be taught, again and again, how to swim."

Slate article highlighting the photo gallery of Paolo Patrizi: "Patrizi, who has lived in Japan for the past eight years, was granted access to three different stables for about a month when he became interested in the sport five years ago. His series, "Gentle Giants," shows the sumos at work and during their downtime."

Via Deadline: "Robert De Niro and Edgar Ramirez have signed on to star in Hands Of Stone, a drama written and to be directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz. Boxing fans will know where we are going from the title. Ramirez will play champ Roberto Duran. De Niro will play his trainer Ray Arcel in a drama that focuses on how each man changed the life of the other.......The focus will be on the Panamanian boxer’s incredible brawls with Leonard, culminating in an inexplicable ending of the famous fight where Duran quit in the ring and cried "No mas," on a night when Leonard was having his way."

'Since the late nineties, baseball has devised highly specific formulas for crafting lineups and judging players, but keeping the arm of a pitcher from a career-ending injury remains a mysterious, semi-mystical, and very fraught process.'

An article in the March/April Mother Jones magazine investigating MLB's practices in the Dominican Republic. Particularly the death of Yewri Guillén, a prospect in the Washington Nationals organization.

Via Deadline - "HBO has set Ides Of March screenwriter and playwright Beau Willimon to write Jack Johnson, a miniseries about the life of the first African-American world heavyweight champion. The mini teams Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman and historian and documentary director Ken Burns. To be told in four to six parts, the mini is based on the Geoffrey C. Ward book Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise And Fall Of Jack Johnson, which Burns previously adapted into the Emmy-winning PBS documentary of the same name."

Via Deadline - "HBO has set Ides Of March screenwriter and playwright Beau Willimon to write Jack Johnson, a miniseries about the life of the first African-American world heavyweight champion. The mini teams Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman and historian and documentary director Ken Burns. To be told in four to six parts, the mini is based on the Geoffrey C. Ward book Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise And Fall Of Jack Johnson, which Burns previously adapted into the Emmy-winning PBS documentary of the same name."

"In his TV acting debut, former boxer Mike Tyson is going for some dark, dramatic stuff with a guest starring role on NBC’s Law & Order: SVU. He will play Reggie Rhodes, a murderer on death row whose violent actions may in part be the byproduct of a horrible childhood. His case attracts the attention of Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and defense attorney Bayard Ellis (recurring guest star Andre Braugher) during an SVU investigation."

"Garrett has found salvation in MMA...The sport has allowed Garrett to reinvent himself — mind and body. At the gym, he's not Garrett Holeve, the guy with Down syndrome. He's G-Money, an up-and-coming fighter with big ambitions."