Search Results for: New York Times

Before Manny Became Manny

Longreads Pick

Hero. Cheat. Prodigy. Ingrate. Free spirit. Knucklehead. Hall of Famer. Pariah. Enigma. Manny Ramirez, one of the great right-handed hitters of his generation, who retired from baseball this month after once again testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs, was many things to many people — fans and family and teammates from Santo Domingo to Washington Heights to Cleveland to Boston. Sara Rimer, then a reporter for The New York Times, met Ramirez in 1991 at George Washington High School in Manhattan. Over two decades, she enjoyed a memorable and mystifying acquaintanceship with Ramirez.

Author: Sara Rimer
Published: Apr 26, 2011
Length: 12 minutes (3,181 words)

The High Art of the Tamale

Longreads Pick

Diana Kennedy was born in England some several decades ago (she does not like to be precise about such things) and grew up high-spirited, feisty, and no-nonsense. In 1957 she came to Mexico with her soon-to-be husband, Paul Kennedy, who was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, and then she really fell in love—with her new life and with a universe of flavors, colors, textures, shapes, and aromas several light-years removed from her own. How could she have resisted? She was coming from the drab kitchens of postwar England, and in Mexico City just a short walk through any neighborhood market was enough to make her swoon.

Published: Apr 10, 2011
Length: 12 minutes (3,093 words)

Gerald Marzorati: Five Longreads for Opening Day

Gerald Marzorati, a former editor of the New York Times Magazine, is an Assistant Managing Editor of the Times


“Early Innings,” by Roger Angell. (The New Yorker, Feb. 24, 1992) (sub. required)

America’s baseball belletrist here writes of how he came to love the game.

“The Silent Season of a Hero,” by Gay Talese. (Esquire, July 1966)

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? The author finds him in retirement, uneasily.

“The Streak of Streaks,” by Stephen Jay Gould. (The New York Review of Books, Aug. 18, 1988)

More DiMaggio, this from the renowned paleontologist and ponderer of evolution—contemplating, here, what it means to have a hot streak (i.e., to cheat death).

“Final Twist of the Drama,” by George Plimpton. (Sports Illustrated, April 22, 1974)

The boyishly witty inventor of field-level participatory journalism here is a careful observer—of everything surrounding Henry Aaron’s home-run that broke Babe Ruth’s lifetime record.

“Coach Fitz’s Management Theory,” by Michael Lewis. (The New York Times Magazine, March 28, 2004)

A piece I coaxed Michael to write—about his high-school baseball coach, and much, much more.

Wall of Sound: How the iPod Changed Music

Longreads Pick

Two years ago, at the nadir of the financial crisis, the urban sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh wondered aloud in the New York Times why no mass protests had arisen against what was clearly a criminal coup by the banks. Where were the pitchforks, the tar, the feathers? Where, more importantly, were the crowds? Venkatesh’s answer was the iPod: “In public spaces, serendipitous interaction is needed to create the ‘mob mentality.’ Most iPod-like devices separate citizens from one another; you can’t join someone in a movement if you can’t hear the participants. Congrats Mr. Jobs for impeding social change.” Venkatesh’s suggestion was glib, tossed off—yet it was also a rare reminder, from the quasi-left, of how urban life has been changed by recording technologies.

Source: n+1
Published: Mar 28, 2011
Length: 14 minutes (3,586 words)

The Suburbanization of Mike Tyson

The Suburbanization of Mike Tyson

Hate Man

Hate Man

Hate Man

Longreads Pick

From the time he was young boy, Mark Hawthorne understood the power of words. His father was a reporter for the Associated Press and his mother was a school teacher. So when Hawthorne landed his dream job and became a reporter for The New York Times, everything seemed to fall into place. Except that it all fell apart. These days, Hawthorne uses the power of words in a different way. Mostly, it’s to say, “fuck you” or “I hate you.” For the past 25 years, Hawthorne has lived on the streets of Berkeley, where he’s developed a following and is known by the moniker “Hate Man.”

Published: Mar 3, 2011
Length: 21 minutes (5,499 words)

The One-Man Political Machine

The One-Man Political Machine

How Egypt's Leaders Found 'Off' Switch for the Internet

How Egypt’s Leaders Found ‘Off’ Switch for the Internet

One Very, Very Indie Band

One Very, Very Indie Band