Pocket’s Best of 2021: Sports

The inside story of how rampant pitch-doctoring in MLB is pumping pitchers up and deflating offenses.

Owners like Steve Ballmer can take the kinds of deductions on team assets—everything from media deals to player contracts—that industrialists take on factory equipment. That helps them pay lower tax rates than players and even stadium workers.

“I should have quit way before Tokyo.”

From the outside, things seemed perfect for the former world extreme skiing champion: he had a family, a successful guiding business, and unending adventure out his front door in Valdez, Alaska. But something dark festered beneath the surface.

With only a single breath, Alexey Molchanov, history’s most daring freediver, is reaching improbable depths—and discovering a new kind of enlightenment as he conquers one of the world’s wildest sports.

The year’s most intriguing ideas and indispensable advice, plus the top stories in science, technology, business, culture, long reads, and more.