Articles by David Roth
-
The Mercy Rule
Champions and Winners
The two teams playing in the World Series are not, objectively and subjectively and quite predictably, the two best teams in baseball. They are the most momentum-fortified, or the luckiest, teams in baseball at the moment, and one of them—at the moment, it looks like the San Francisco Giants will be the World Series champs. Full story
-
The Mercy Rule
Alex Rodriguez, All-American
In all circumstances and in every way he comes off alien and affluence-perverted and so perversely and simultaneously self-regarding and oblivious that only the word "Miami" seems capable of summing it all up. His soul is upholstered in teal leather; his whole life is an overly a… Full story
-
The Mercy Rule
Adopting October
Who do you root for if you don't have a team in the postseason? While there are no wrong answers to this question (except for "the Yankees"), if you're not cheering for the Oakland Athletics, you're probably a jerk. Full story
-
The Mercy Rule
The Jets Are America's Team
The Cowboys aren't America's Team, though they're called that. The Jets, mediocre and unprepared like us, get that honor. That the team's owner wants a Mitt Romney win more than a Super Bowl is sad icing on the despair cake. Full story
-
The Mercy Rule
Picking at Scabs
The scab refs look, in short, like scabs—unqualified people hired to do a job they don't really know how to do at the behest of a management group which doesn't especially value that job, or at least less so than they value the chump change saved by not paying those who actually… Full story
-
The Mercy Rule
Welcome to College Football
College football is, in many ways, less a sport than a bumpy mass of public discourse and stomach-aches and public spending and almost religion. The talent and competition is not as consistent as the NFL, but there are moments of awesome, or at least of very good. Full story
-
The Mercy Rule
Unlimited Juice
The last week or so has been a bad one for athletes who take drugs. These are not the rare and random wild-card athletes who get nailed for "drugs of abuse," these are athletes who, for reasons that usually come down to making more money playing sports, get in trouble for taking Full story
-
The Mercy Rule
Fs All Around
If the internet were a person, that person would be unbearable. He—and it would be a he—would, for one thing, be masturbating furiously, constantly. He would give you fake car-insurance rates, and, if you happened to meet him in the last two weeks, he would be complaining about h… Full story
-
The Mercy Rule
The Olympics Are Weird
The Olympics are an expensive, relentlessly over-branded jarring event choreographed by idiots. They're also weird and awesome. Full story
-
The Mercy Rule
The Worst Idea in Sports
Most television networks would not take time out of their own broadcasting schedules to air formal-dress jerk-off awards, for obvious reasons. But if the network in question was an all-sports network trying to figure out what to do with a weekday night during the Major League Bas… Full story
Thought and Memory
New Fiction by Ed Park 
Malaysian Neo-Nazis
Fighting for a Pure Malay Race 
The Strongest Dwarf in New Jersey
Remembering My Tormentor 
Gay Men and Their Misogyny Problem
It's Not Cute Anymore 
Triple Hate - Part 1
The KKK vs. the Crips vs. Memphis City Council 
Saudi Arabia's Feminist Revolution
It's Not Happening 
