"Adrenaline swallows the pain but not the scrape of bone-on-bone, the pop, some deep and definitive readjustment in the mechanism that is his hand. He’s worried that bone has already broken through skin, but when he looks the wound is still invisible."

DEADSPIN / The One-Legged Wrestler Who Conquered His Sport, Then Left It Behind by David Merrill

"An absence isn't a weakness if you make it someone else's problem."

GRANTLAND / The Nastiest Injury in Sports by Neal Gabler

"...the three most important letters in sports are not NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL but ACL, as in the dreaded anterior cruciate ligament, that little bundle of collagen right at the center of your knee. It is that bundle that tears apart, leaving athletes to scream, cry, and pound the turf or court in frustration and torment. There are nearly 400,000 ACL repair procedures each year in the United States."

RIVERFRONT TIMES / Pros and Cons: Ex-inmates Redefine Handball at Forest Park by Jessica Lussenhop

"Three decades ago the handball community in Forest Park was forever changed when one of its own was gunned down as he left the courts. Today the man's killer is a frequent visitor to the Forest Park courts, though he hides his identity from the handball players who continue to tell the story of the 1979 murder in almost mythic terms. But more on that later."

ESPN THE MAGAZINE / by Wright Thompson When the Beautiful Game Turns Ugly by Wright Thompson "I've given up hope of ever fully understanding the fractured things I saw while chasing the Serie A soccer circus around Italy. Let me be honest. I got sent to write about racism, which I found in staggering amounts. But Italy isn't like America, and racism there is tied into a thousand years of feuds, and hatred of anyone different, even if they're from only a few miles away, and fascism, and the recent wave of immigration. That's all in here, but it's unfair to hide my predicament, which became clear after only a day or two. I'd fallen into a parallel universe of contradictions."

THE PARIS REVIEW / by Robert Moor On the Road Again by Robert Moor

"If you have ever wondered why the act of hitchhiking has dramatically waned in recent decades, this is the first reason: it became less sexy. The second reason is that personal automobiles and mass transportation became cheaper. The third—and biggest—one is fear."

N+1 / Mavericks by Alice Gregory

"There is no place more beautiful than where I am right now, and nobody cooler than the people who surf here."

GRANTLAND / The End and Don King by Jay Caspian Kang by Jay Caspian Kang "King says he divides his life into two categories — Before the Penitentiary and After the Penitentiary. There is no doubt that his time in prison expanded King’s ambitions. He read voraciously, and by the time he got out he had built up the lexicon of quotations and malapropisms that would turn him into one of the great talkers of his time. Within a year of his release, Don King was putting together his first fight."

THE WASHINGTON POST / by Rick Maese Cycling's Road Forward by Rick Maese

"Mostly via text message, he has to keep the sport’s bloodhounds aware of his whereabouts at all times. He could be tested at random at any given moment. Three missed tests would equate to testing positive and he’d be subject to punishment. In addition, his blood values — his 'biological passport' — are checked quarterly for abnormalities. He’s not worried about any of it."

War & Peace

Reuters

THE GAZETTE / Other Than Honorable by Dave Philipps