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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Black game board with circular gold pattern.

Blossom and Fade

By John Crowley

Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game is an experience with the pathos and wonder of all games—the game that is the universe.

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Map

Playing Grounds

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

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c. 590 BC | Athens

Lucian Asks, Why Sports?

Discussing the purpose of athletics.More

1959 | Washington, DC

Rigged Game

Investigating America’s quiz show scandals.More

1954 | Oxford

Picking Up the Pace

Roger Bannister runs the first sub-four-minute mile.More

Charts & Graphs

Athletic Rulers

The sports of kings and presidents.

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Engraving of Greek satirist Lucian.

Saint Augustine (detail), by Philippe de Champaigne, c. 1645.

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

Color photograph of American writer Annie Dillard.

If I played in New York, they’d name a candy bar after me.

—Reggie Jackson, 1976

Missing contributor image silhouette

Dutch historian Johan Huizinga.

Bacchylides & Johan Huizinga

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