Sports Explains the World

When Lithuania broke off from the Soviet Union, they wanted revenge. Their players had led the USSR to gold medal glory. And now, ahead of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, the Lithuanian men's basketball team had the chance to win for their own country. One problem? The country was broke and couldn’t afford to send them to the Olympic Games. The team started looking for benefactors. And so begins The Skullman Cometh, a tale involving a tie-dye T-shirt, large sums of cash, and the Grateful Dead. It goes from Vilnius, Lithuania to the Bay Area, and all the way to the set of Friends. It’s a long, strange trip. But it provides a window into understanding the current relationships that former Soviet-block countries have with Russia, and why skeletons are in the closet of streetwear enthusiasts. 

In part two of The Real Jay Mullen, CIA operative Jay Mullen finds himself in trouble when the ruler of Uganda launches a campaign to force Asians out of the country, resulting in a genocide that would kill an estimated 500,000 people. As Mullen tries to save family friends, he also has to coach the Ugandan National team against a team of Soviet professionals, recruit double agents who are up for turning against the USSR, and stay alive.

In 1972, in the middle of the Cold War, the Soviet military sent a team of all-stars to Kampala to compete in three goodwill basketball games against Uganda’s top players. But the Soviets, who were hoping to curry favor with the leader of the new regime, Idi Amin, didn’t know that the Ugandan national team was being coached by an undercover American CIA operative named Jay Mullen. Sent to Uganda earlier that year to spy on the Soviets, the well-meaning history teacher from Oregon ends up courtside with one of the most notorious dictators in history. Reporter Shaun Raviv brings us close to the story in The Real Jay Mullen. 

Long summer nights and baseball on the radio. Like many other Baltimore Orioles fans of his generation, host Sam Dingman grew up listening with his dad to Jon Miller, Chuck Thompson, and the voice of his childhood, Fred Manfra, calling play-by-play on the radio. The story of every Orioles game became the story of Sam learning how to communicate with the man who was otherwise a mystery—his dad. Sam embarks on a journey to revisit those sounds of summer magic, and understand more about his father in the process.

In part two of Spider's Web, reporter Gloria Liu travels down the winding slopes of recollection and rumor to discover a decades-held secret about Spider Sabich that completely alters the skier's legacy.

American Alpine skier Vladimir Peter Sabich became a sensation at the 1968 Winter Olympics. He had movie-star good looks, a famous girlfriend, and even a cool nickname—Spider. His ascent to the top of the skiing world matched the sport's own growth into the global spotlight. But at just age 31, Spider Sabich's life was cut short by a loaded .22, held in the hands of his girlfriend, the French actress Claudine Longet, who claimed it was an accident. Reporter Gloria Liu explores what was lost when skiing's bright young star was killed in his prime.

As a kid, Kieran Morris, a cheeky lad from Liverpool, loved pulling pranks to fool the press. When England played Honduras in a friendly soccer match, he found a young player on the Honduran side, inflated his stats on Wikipedia to equal those of a young Messi and Ronaldo, and then dubbed the player the “Honduran Maradona.” Sky News, a top outlet, fell for the prank. But so did an MLS soccer team. They signed the “Honduran Maradona” and the story became the jokester’s go-to tale at the pub. But Kieran always held on to some low-grade guilt for tossing a player into a situation where he would no doubt fail. The Engineer is a comical and cautionary tale about fake news that takes us across continents, as Kieran Morris, now grown, sets about retracing his prank, culminating in a face-to-face meeting with the player whose life he altered: the "Honduran Maradona."

Sports Explains the World unveils some of the wildest and most surprising sports stories you’ve never heard. And they’re all true. From the unemployed history teacher turned CIA agent and Uganda national basketball coach, to the teenager who invented a mythical athlete…then watched him sign a million-dollar deal, these stories will amaze and move you at every turn. From award-winning journalists across the globe, Sports Explains the World reveals the human side of athletics in provocative and unexpected ways. You’ll never view sports the same way again.

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