Say it Ain't SoE: Lupica Heds Reach End of the Line

Today, writing in the final published piece on the site, Will Leitch announced that Sports on Earth would stop publishing, effective immediately. The site, first helmed by Joe Posnaski, featured several prominent writers over the years including Leitch and Pos, Emma Span, Shaun Powell, and Gwen Knapp, among many, many others.

Rather than dwell on the forces that continue to cause excellent outlets like SoE to close up shop, we want to celebrate the good. Specifically, the truly insane headlines that usually appeared over columnist Mike Lupica's headlines. The general formula is a pun, sometimes two, jammed together with, uh, some other stuff in a way that doesn't really make sense? Maybe a pinch of alliteration, to taste. Take, for instance, this, on a story about Theo Epstein on the eve of the Chicago Cubs winning their first World Series since 1908:

OK. So, first we've got the "theology" word play, due to Epstein's mythic reputation. And then we've got an allusion to not only the Cubs curse, but Theo being partially responsible for breaking the Boston Red Sox's own decades-long curse, jammed into a play on the phrase "chapter and verse," itself a reference to quoting very specific portions of religious scripture. In other words, it is all over the goddamned map.

There are an endless supply of these things, such as:

A rumination on Bill Belichick's famed letter to Donald Trump and his classic brushing off of the media.

Tiger Woods's cry for help:

Peyton Manning's forgotten history of alleged sexual assault.

Carmelo Anthony's gold medal performance at Rio, with a goaltending pun for some reason.

An essay on the historical significance of the World Series between the Cubs and Cleveland Indians.

I honestly don't even know.

A defense of Ryan Lochte, Olympic urinator.

I am actually OK with this one.

Here is a headline concerning Aroldis Chapman's 30-game suspension under MLB's domestic violence policy.

I mean, come on, you're not even trying.

That's more like it.

Making the case for the wholly unlikeable Roger Federer.

I could keep going, but I am going to end with this Super Bowl preview.