Lance Stephenson, the latest in a long line of Coney Island basketball prodigies, carries a burden none of his predecessors did: restoring New York City’s reputation as the hoops capital of the world.

Over a scotch a few months after his underdog Jets won Super Bowl III, a 26-year-old Joe Namath told Jimmy Breslin what he’d done the night before the game: “I went out and got a bottle and grabbed this girl.”

On the day of the earthquake, two men went into Haiti’s Soccer Federation headquarters. Only one came out.

In the wake of a brazen but mysterious Philadelphia gunfight, Marvin Harrison, the man who holds the NFL record for receptions in a season, may find himself with a permanent record of a different sort.

Sixty years ago, the U.S. upset England in the World Cup on a goal from Joe Gaetjens. In most countries he would have been idolized. Instead, he was ignored in America and marked for death in his native Haiti.

The latest frontier of statistical research in baseball—and the newest front in the Yanks/Red Sox arms race—is defense. And it’s yielding some surprising insights about who is actually worth his salary.