Sports Illustrated November 2022

SEPT. 17, 2022 ÁLVAREZ BY UNANIMOUS DECISION Their final brawl wasn’t a classic, but in the end Álvarez convincingly defended his undisputed super middleweight title. The 40-year-old Golovkin, meanwhile, suffered only his second career loss—both to Álvarez. “Thank you so much, my friend,” Álvarez said after the pair’s post-fight embrace. “Thank you, Golovkin.” SEPT. 15, 2018 ÁLVAREZ BY MAJORITY DECISION After a year of public sniping at each other, the fighters gave fans a classic slugfest with another razor-thin margin. Álvarez took two judges’ cards and left with the unified middlweight championship—and bragging rights in the trash-talk wars. SEPT. 16, 2017 SPLIT DRAW The rivalry’s first chapter was a boxing classic, both for the fighters’ performance and its controversial ending. Most observers thought Golovkin jabbed his way to a narrow win, but the three judges couldn’t agree: One…

IN THE summer of 2019, I Sean Marks told a joke that seems funny only three years later—and even then, it is not funny to him. Speaking to New York radio station WFAN after acquiring Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, the Nets’ general manager said that Durant had been drawn to the team’s culture when he was with the Warriors. Durant, Marks said, told him: “I love the system. I love how you guys play. I see how hard you guys play. . .. You were never out of games. We could never take you guys lightly.” Meanwhile, Irving proceeded to spend the next three years relieving himself on the team’s culture, at which point Marks decided he’d had enough. The Nets would reclaim their identity, he said. Durant responded by…

EVERY NASCAR Cup Series champion since 2004, with the exception of one, has come from one of four teams: Joe Gibbs Racing, Team Penske, Hendrick Motorsports or Stewart-Haas Racing. “In racing, money wins, and money has always won,” says longtime driver Justin Marks. “And I think if you’re trying to tell a story that resonates with millions and millions of people around the world, the story can’t be, ‘This rich guy’s beating that rich guy.’ ” Marks, 41, noticed that those four core teams had another thing in common: the way they were named. “They were all sort of the namesakes of very successful owners,” he says. “As a result of that, there just weren’t really any fans of teams. Fans follow drivers, they follow the sponsors, or the car maker…

READ THE GRANDEST STAGE By Tyler Kepner On Oct. 13, 1960, Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit a walk-off homer to win Game 7 of the World Series. The play has been written about ad nauseam but never quite like it is in The Grandest Stage, the new book from Tyler Kepner. The New York Times baseball writer dedicates a lengthy section of the book to explaining how the bigger story in Game 7 was actually the three-run shot hit an inning earlier by teammate Hal Smith, which—in terms of increasing a team’s chances to win—is, Kepner shows, the biggest play in World Series history. For good measure, Kepner later delves into another story related to Maz: the strange phenomenon in the 1960s of umpires’ taking players’ hats. Mazeroski memorably windmilled his…

AS GAME 3 of the 2018 World Series wore on—and on, and on—fans at Dodger Stadium began hitting the exits. That was good news for Erick W. Rasco. The photographer was shooting from the stands, roaming from vantage point to vantage point, and the increasing number of empty seats allowed him to gradually work himself down closer to the field. By the time the 18th inning rolled around, Rasco was behind the plate, within arm’s length of Red Sox fan Conan O’Brien. With the game already in the record books as the longest in Series history, Rasco knew the shot he wanted to capture: a tableau of the final play. “It was important to get the full scoreboard with the clock, players and the fans in the foreground,” he says. So…

JALONI CAMBRIDGE Birthplace: Nashville Date of Birth: Nov. 19, 2005 Sport: Basketball School: Ensworth School Position: Guard THE NO. 2 GIRLS recruit in the 2024 class, Jaloni Cambridge has never known a life without basketball. The junior guard was on the court as soon as she could walk. Four of her five older siblings have competed at the collegiate level—brothers Desmond and Devan will both play for Arizona State this season—and her childhood coach was her father, Desmond Cambridge Sr., who played at Alabama A&M. Last season the 5' 0" Jaloni averaged 17.3points, 6.4 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 3.8 steals a game and led the Ensworth School to the Division II-AA state championship, taking tournament MVP honors. She missed the Tigers’ postseason run as a freshman with an elbow injury, which made winning this title with…