The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull), by Thomas Eakins, 1871. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Alfred N. Punnett Endowment Fund and George D. Pratt Gift, 1934.

Sports & Games

Volume III, Number 3 | summer 2010

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Preamble

Field of Dreams

By Lewis H. Lapham

Play is the making of civilization—how one plays the game more to the point than whether the game is won or lost.

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The Comeback Kid

By Terry McDonell

The marvelous and true tale of Alex Rodriguez seemed an unlikely prospect for the role of the Comeback Kid.

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Map

Playing Grounds

On the track, in the ring, around the table, and at the target.

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1883 | New Orleans

Boat Race

Mark Twain watches the steamboats whistle by.More

c. 215 | China

Courtyard Fight

Attending a cockfight in China.More

1849 | Tahiti

Surf’s Up

Herman Melville catches a wave.More

Charts & Graphs

Casualties of the College Culture Wars

Offensive mascots who got sidelined.

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Cuban chess player José Raúl Capablanca.

American writer Philip Roth.

American journalist A. J. Liebling.

Black and white image of American writer Herman Melville.

Gambling is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief.

—George Washington, 1783

American baseball player Yogi Berra.

American basketball player Charles Barkley.

Yogi Berra & Charles Barkley

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Lapham’sDaily

Roundtable

Lapham’s Quarterly Is on Hiatus

By Lapham’s Quarterly

But the American Agora Foundation is already planning for the future. More

The Colosseum, attributed to Robert Eaton, c. 1855.

DÉjÀ Vu

Monumental Mistakes

2023:

Fitness instructor carves his girlfriend’s name into the Colosseum.

c. 1850:

Thompson of Sunderland makes his mark on Pompey’s pillar.

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Terracotta funerary plaque, Greek, Attic, c. 520 BC.

The World in Time

Robert D. Kaplan

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power. More

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