The artist as a young man
Sport Review #228
Sport Review presents archive material straight from Hamilton’s Forest Lake Primary school, deep in the murk of the early 80s.
First up - an indignant instructional factoid on how to bowl a ball. Borrowing heavily from Geoff Boycott on Batting and its revolutionary flipbook technology, the implicit sarcasm that this should even be necessary comes through loud and clear through the massive tick and cross, all caps instructions and SEO-friendly headline.
Next is The Final Over, a rollercoaster short story that exposes some basic errors eagle-eyed cricket folk will pick up, like ‘one-day Test’, having no idea how to spell ‘Aussie’ and somehow bowling then batting then fielding in what’s presumably a limited overs fixture.
This is hopefully balanced out by the genuine emotion expressed (Yowee!), bubble font, fine detailing on the beige uniforms and a hat tip to every schoolboy’s favourite sponsor Rothmans.
Thanks for reading - Richard
This week's best NZ sport content
Imagine if you were paid life-changing amounts of dosh midway through your career to do what you’re doing every day. But all you had to do was give up what you’d dreamed of doing since you started playing. James Borrowdale looks at the choices top cricketers are making about playing in overseas big money cricket leagues and what that means for our international teams [North and South]
After a little run of Test cricket drama, your Sportsfreak supremo looks at the close Test finishes in NZ history [Sportsfreak]
Liv MacKay is a sailor from the Esk Valley who’ll compete in the SailGP despite being on massive clean up duty through Gabrielle - and congrats to Suzanne McFadden and the LockerRoom team on their five year anniversary, a leading part of sport media you can’t imagine being without [LockerRoom]
You never forget your first, and my love of the game was built on obsessing over Astle, trying to emulate him in the nets. The sentiment tied to him, and the gratitude I have for unlocking the joy the cricket has given me, will be eternal.
But Williamson is quite simply the best New Zealand batter I’ve had the pleasure of watching live (a lady never reveals her age, but I don’t remember Crowe).
Heather Dawson works through her conflicted and complicated loves [Sportsfreak]
Video nasty
Awkward.
Long read
How would you go about repairing and restoring a 310 year old violin? [Chicago Mag]
Recommendation
Bill Simmons is the Sports Guy who turned his columns and podcasts into a media empire - he’s a bit of an aquired taste, but if you prefer his big name interviews to jabbering about basketball and baseball etc, you can filter them out here [The Ringer]
Bring back the gif
When you’re asked if you want to do a survey about your purchase.
