Selected Articles
Oh my name it is Marc Tracy, my age it means less.
I work at The New Republic.
I used to work at Tablet, a daily magazine of Jewish life and culture, where I won a National Magazine Award.
I also co-edited the 2012 essay collection Jewish Jocks.
You can reach me at marc.a.tracy@gmail.com. And please do!
For The New Republic:
“The Tweeps on the Bus” On BuzzFeed Politics, the defining political outlet of the 2012 election.
“To ‘Predict’ Nate Silver’s Future, Look to the More Enlightened Sports World” On how what Nate Silver went through it was what sports stats geeks had already been through.
“Nate Silver Is Not The Only Solution” Musing on the limits of advanced stats, in both sports and politics.
“The Man With The Kind Face” On Zev Chafets and why Roger Ailes picked him to write his friendly biography.
“Gambling With NFL Fandom” On gambling on NFL postseason football, which is both thrilling and immoral.
“Baby Kristol” A profile of conservative National Affairs editor Yuval Levin.
“Schumer’s Web” A chart of the Chuck Schumer alumni family tree.
“Military ‘Moneyball’” On the lessons the U.S. military has learned from baseball analytics.
“Eulogy for the Blog” It’s going away, and that’s a real shame.
“LeBron James, the Workingman’s Hero” On why we should think of James as an enlightened adult rather than a petulant child.
“Sheldon Adelson and the Jew Card” On whether it is possible to criticize Sheldon Adelson without being an anti-Semite.
“Meet the Corgi Who Helped California Raise Taxes” On Sutter Brown, Gov. Jerry Brown’s most adorable Prop 30 campaigner.
“Kobe Bryant Sheds His Skin” On Kobe Bryant’s midseason, late-career image makeover.
“This Hit Caused a Concussion. It Was Also Legal. Discuss.” On the strange place where football finds itself these days.
“Welcome to the Opening of Art Season, Where Art Is Irrelevant” On the Chelsea galleries on the first evening of autumn.
“A Blog Hopes Its New Online Course Will Be More Than Marginal” On Marginal Revolution’s online development economics class and the future of Internet-based higher education.
“Field of Schemes” On Dave Zirin’s Game Over.
“Why Is Dan Senor Considered a Serious Foreign Policy Thinker?” On the Romney campaign’s top foreign policy spokesperson and “expert.”
For Tablet:
“Jewish Christmas” On the Brooklyn deli Mile End’s “Traditional Jewish Christmas,” which consisted of Chinese food.
“The Tenth Man” On the indelible Jewishness of Christopher Hitchens.
“The Joy of Stats” On how brainy Jewish fans like Mark Cuban have remade sports in their image.
“The Other League” On how the AFL’s Sid Gillman, Sonny Werblin, and Al Davis remade football.
“Higher Truth” On Ruth Franklin’s A Thousand Darknesses.
“Cowboy” On Jon Voight, uber-Zionist.
“Israel’s Tent Protest Politico” On Mickey Gitzin, an activist for separation of synagogue and state.
“Arizona’s Savvy Israel Ally” On Andrei Cherny, the political Tenenbaum child.
“Punchy” On Harold Lederman, boxing’s greatest treasure.
“Chuckles” On Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
“On Cinematography” On Promised Lands, Susan Sontag’s 1974 documentary about Israel.
“Magic Number” On Red Holzman, the legendary New York Knicks coach.
“Why Cordoba?” On what the lower Manhattan Islamic center promises.
“Murder in Dubai” Everything you need to know about the crazy assassination of Hamas’s main weapons man. (Included in The Best Magazine Writing 2011.)
For The New York Times Book Review:
“Extra Innings” On Bottom of the 33rd, by Dan Barry.
“Just Win” On Scoreboard, Baby, about the Washington Huskies football team.
“It’s Only a Game. Isn’t It?” On four books about baseball.
“The N.F.L.’s Highlight Reel” On Joe Garner and Bob Costas’ 100 Yards of Glory.
“Music Chronicle” On a groupie memoir, Phish’s biography, and two other books.
“Nonfiction Chronicle” On Michael Lewis’s Home Game and three other books.
“Baseball Chronicle” On Bill White’s and Shawn Green’s memoirs, other baseball books.
“Nonfiction Chronicle” On Michael Goldfarb’s Emancipation and three other books.
“Nonfiction Chronicle” On Robert Dallek’s The Lost Peace and three other books.
For Grantland:
“Hail Victory!” On the Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins rivalry, the greatest in the NFL.
For Slate:
“Speed Reading” On Once a Runner, the distance-running cult classic.
“Other Magazines” Many, many of these.
For n+1:
“Seasonal Migration of the Intellectuals” On The Flight of the Intellectuals, by Paul Berman.
“The Year of the Pass” On the 2009 NFL season and the then-forthcoming playoffs.
For Capital New York:
“Even in Greenwich Village, D.C. Sportswriters Can’t Get Away from Dan Snyder” On Dave McKenna, Dan Steinberg, and the Washington Post.
For the New York Observer:
“Our Friends, Our Enemies” On David Kilcullen’s The Accidental Guerilla.
For nymag.com:
“‘Against the Day,’ at Night” On the midnight release of a new Pynchon novel.
“Stephen Colbert’s Excruciating Brain Freeze” I talk to Stephen, Ben, and Jerry.
“Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About ‘Sopranos’ Whackings” Terence Winter does not love Pussy.
“These Ten People Want To Make Bloomberg President” This never really got off the ground I guess.
“Partying Liberally With Living Liberally” Party report.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112745/yuval-levin-rights-new-irving-kristolFor New York:
“Unsafe at Home” Natural disasters in New York.
“Unhappy Feet at Central Park Zoo” A zoo tour guide is fired.
