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1 week ago | 
defector.com | Maitreyi Anantharaman
The best pitchers in baseball were going to pitch on the same day! In the same place! Walking distance from my home! On a day I didn’t have to work! This dream confluence would give me a chance to watch reigning Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, always a delight, and my first in-person look at Pirates ace Paul Skenes.
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1 week ago | 
defector.com | Maitreyi Anantharaman
“Wow,” Kahleah Copper tweeted yesterday evening. She was the rare WNBA player with the time to post and spectate on Wednesday. The final day of the group play stage of the league’s in-season Commissioner’s Cup tournament involved six games in one night, the first five overlapping. On account of the odd number of WNBA teams right now, Copper’s Phoenix Mercury were the lucky 13th team out. They could simply kick up their feet and take in one of the more colorful nights the league has seen.
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1 week ago | 
defector.com | Maitreyi Anantharaman
Look on the bright side: There's a new crossword for you to solve! This week's puzzle was constructed by Hanh Huynh and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Hanh is a bankruptcy attorney who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. with his wife and two kids. Defector crosswords, launched in partnership with our friends at AVCX, run every Monday. If you’re interested in submitting a puzzle to us, you can read our guidelines HERE. Note that our submissions are closed through July 31.
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2 weeks ago | 
defector.com | Maitreyi Anantharaman
Watch basketball games for a living and you develop a certain tolerance for garbage—a fondness, even. Bad teams make visible all the neat and complicated parts of the sport. In an “I can fix them” sort of way, these teams are sometimes the most endearing. It's hard to look at even the WNBA’s worst without finding something to grasp, some little thread of hope. Alas, I’m drawing a blank with the Chicago Sky, who are 2-6, both of those wins over the league-worst 1-10 Dallas Wings.
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2 weeks ago | 
defector.com | Maitreyi Anantharaman
If you can't handle the heat, don't try our Monday crossword. This week’s puzzle was constructed by Rebecca Goldstein and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Rebecca is a research scientist and crossword constructor in the Bay Area. She is also a co-director of Westwords, a crossword tournament taking place in Berkeley, Calif., and online on June 22. Defector crosswords, launched in partnership with our friends at AVCX, run every Monday.
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3 weeks ago | 
defector.com | Maitreyi Anantharaman
Without Paige Bueckers, the Dallas Wings look like what they were last year, when they were also without Paige Bueckers, which was a very bad basketball team. So bad, in fact, that they landed in the lottery and got to draft Paige Bueckers. The first-overall pick has missed her team’s last two games under concussion protocol; she banged heads with Courtney Vandersloot in a Wings-Sky game last week and complained of a headache the next day. The team says she will be re-evaluated this week.
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3 weeks ago | 
defector.com | Maitreyi Anantharaman
Block off some time for our Monday crossword. This week's puzzle was constructed by Mat Holmes and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Mat lives in Maine with his amazing wife, Hazel. He is a part-time volleyball coach, thrilled to be making his Defector debut with this puzzle. He is a lucky guy with two strong daughters, fun friends, several motivated students, and a kick-ass trivia squad (shoutout to Gloria!)Defector crosswords, launched in partnership with our friends at AVCX, run every Monday.
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1 month ago | 
defector.com | Maitreyi Anantharaman
The other day, bemoaning the state of his WNBA fantasy team bench, my colleague Jasper mentioned that he’d just picked up a player he’d never heard of: someone named "K. Westbeld," with no photo. This was more or less how the real Phoenix Mercury conducted their offseason business. The team has not owned its first-round pick in five straight drafts.
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1 month ago | 
defector.com | Maitreyi Anantharaman
It's time to wrap up the month with a challenging themeless. Keep an eye out for tricky clues and fun wordplay. This week's puzzle was constructed by Geoffrey Schorkopf and Brian Callahan, and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Geoffrey is an Atlanta Hawks fan. Brian is a Chicago Bulls fan. In addition to making crosswords together, they’ve bonded over mediocre basketball. Defector crosswords, launched in partnership with our friends at AVCX, run every Monday.
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1 month ago | 
defector.com | Maitreyi Anantharaman
If Natasha Cloud has stopped smiling at all since mid-March, she has done so only in the privacy of her own home. She beamed when she met Ellie the Elephant at Liberty training camp last month. She and Breanna Stewart laughed it up on Cloud’s Instagram stories during a recent team excursion to Yankee Stadium. After New York’s home opener against the Aces, the crowd cheered at the sight of Cloud’s happy face on the jumbotron; she finished with 22 points, six rebounds and nine assists.
