Thomas Lake

“Richard Phillips survived the longest wrongful prison sentence in American history by writing poetry and painting with watercolors. But on a cold day in the prison yard, he carried a knife and thought about revenge.”

Thirteen years after NFL player Rae Carruth conspired to kill his pregnant girlfriend, the child that survived has been raised by his grandmother:

“To Chancellor, Saundra is G-Mom. Cherica is Mommy Angel. G-Mom talks all the time about Mommy Angel. She keeps pictures of Mommy Angel everywhere. She has even told Chancellor—or Lee, as she now calls him, so he can say and spell his name—a streamlined version of Mommy Angel’s story, which is, of course, his own story.

“‘Well,’ G-Mom says at the table, “he knows that Mommy was killed, and that Daddy did, you know, Daddy did a baaad thing. And he’s in jail right now paying for the bad thing that he did. And we just say that he, you know, he made a mistake. Right?'”

A Michigan high school basketball player hits the game-winning shot. Moments later he collapses from cardiac arrest and dies:

“After the autopsy, when the doctor found white blossoms of scar tissue on Wes Leonard’s heart, he guessed they had been secretly building there for several months. That would mean Wes’s heart was slowly breaking throughout the Fennville Blackhawks’ 2010–11 regular season, when he led them in scoring and the team won 20 games without a loss.

“It would mean his heart was already moving toward electrical meltdown in December, when he scored 26 on Decatur with that big left shoulder clearing a path to the hoop. It would mean his heart swelled and weakened all through January (25 against Hopkins, 33 against Martin) even as it pumped enough blood to fill at least 10 swimming pools.”

The search for Clifton (Pop) Herring, Jordan’s high school coach, and the truth about the NBA legend’s early days:

“And so, over the next four years, as Michael Jordan became an Olympic gold medalist, a rookie NBA All-Star and the scorer of 37 points per game, Pop Herring went from suspended to unemployed to unemployable. As Jordan’s fame spread around the world, his old coach became a stranger in their hometown. Pop took to running, as if trying to shake out the sickness. His slender frame was seen on highways and bridges, north toward the tobacco fields and east to the ocean. Sometimes he’d come upon old friends and hug them, and other times they would call his name and he would keep running, looking straight ahead, as if they didn’t exist.”

Early on Jan. 1, 2007, Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams was shot to death after a New Year’s Eve party at a Denver nightclub. The police launched a massive investigation that included multiple interviews with two other Broncos who were at the same club that night. But years would pass before the full story came to light.

Three days after he collapsed from heatstroke at practice in 2008, 15-year-old Max Gilpin became one of at least 665 boys since 1931 to die as a result of high school football. Here’s what made his case different: The Commonwealth of Kentucky tried to prove Max’s coach had a hand in killing him.

The video of his batting-cage exploits has turned him into an internet curiosity and a media star. How can a kid so small and so young handle 85-mph heat?

Retirement is calling, and Bobby Cox has the Braves in first place (again). How has he managed to win so many games? Maybe by getting ejected so often

When the H1N1 swine flu virus boiled up out of Mexico last year, the CDC became the epicenter of a worldwide struggle to stop its deadly march. Twenty miles north, at a brick house in Johns Creek, the virus found a perfect host.

The repo man does his best work alone in the dark. No good can come of a confrontation.