There is something on February twenty seventh.

Steph Curry, great on a certain day, summarized a trio of iconic appearances on the penultimate day of February.

Lately, Curry has put the soldiers on the back with a 56-point jewel by which he poured a dozen 3 pointers. He had the Kia Center in Orlando MVP channels, although her home town of Paolo Banchero 41 fell.

Eight years ago, on February 27, 2016, Curry designed the legendary 37-foot game winner in Oklahoma City to finish one among the best regular season games of all time. Instead of selecting time beyond regulation, Curry took one over the Half Court and held by Andre Roberson. He got the legendary Mike Breen Double bang treatment On the decision with what on the time matched 12 3s with the only game record.

And on February 27, 2013, the curry Babyp-Madison Square Garden with 54 points. He played every 48 minutes and shot a sizzling 11-by-13 behind the bow. His performance was so spectacular that the incontrovertible fact that the soldiers lost the sport was lost without end.

Cosmic coincidence had the official social media accounts of the Warriors explain February twenty seventh as Stephen Curry Day.

A coming-out party, a crowning game of the regular season, which can be on his profession mixtape without end, and a memory of its size.

Against the magic, Curry became his team for a comeback victory after they fulfilled in the primary half at 5 p.m. At the top of the primary half, Curry swung from beyond the Halfcourt in a magical shell and inflamed a 40-14 run that swung the sport. It fell within the second quarter 16, 22 within the third and connected to 3 3 points throughout the crunch time.

The season height gave Curry nine 50-point games after being 30 years old. He played 26 games of at the very least 10 years in his profession; Nobody else has greater than nine.

February was the perfect month of the season Currys. He scored a mean of 30.7 points in 11 games and scored 45.9% of three and 37.9% of Deep. He began shooting the month because he knew that his team needed him to wear them when Jonathan Kuminga failed and the soldiers fell out of the sport. He used the break to win the all-star game MVP while organizing the signature events. Then he ended it again, with a brand new life after trading with Jimmy Butler.

He covered the month with one other show case on February twenty seventh. His day. The variety of admission display that never gets old.

One is an accident, two is a coincidence, three is a trend. Even whether it is more correlation than causality.

“I think I like this calendar day,” said Curry to reporters in Orlando. “I had my first 50-point game in the garden. So I have to channel the energy all the time on February 27th. I don't know what it is, but tonight was different just because we all needed to stay over water and give ourselves a chance, and then many people contributed to helping us. “

Originally published: February 28, 2025 at 12:16 p.m. PST

Hank Greenberg could be the best baseball player you've never heard of.

Greenberg was the one Detroit Tigers first baseman within the Nineteen Thirties and Forties. His profession was relatively short – 13 years – and was interrupted by two tours in World War II.

But outside of the war years there have been glorious seasons.

Greenberg led the American League in home runs 4 times, appeared in five All-Star Games, won the American League's Most Valuable Player Award twice, and nearly broke the sport's then-highest scoring record in 1938: Babe Ruth's 60 home runs in a season. In 1956, Greenberg was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Greenberg was also Jewish and is usually called that America's first Jewish sports superstar. As Greenberg wrote in his autobiographythat was no easy honor. Greenberg played during a time of rising anti-Semitism, and the cruel taunts he faced from players and fans continued throughout his profession. Disgusting remarks and bigoted insults – “Kike,” “Sheenie” and “Jew bastard” were typical – left a mark on him and the game he loved.

Along the best way, Greenberg also faced a crisis of conscience: He struggled with whether to play on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the high Jewish holidays. He resolved the conflict with a Solomonic decision greater than 30 years before baseball legend Sandy Koufax thought of it the identical dilemma in the course of the 1965 World Series.

Today, nearly 80 years after Greenberg retired from baseball, Anti-Semitism is increasing again each within the US and worldwide. As a historian of American sportsI suggest that there are lessons to be learned from how Greenberg handled the hate.

Horns just like the devil

Greenberg signed with the Tigers in 1930 and played within the minor leagues for the following three years. For lots of his teammates, he was the primary Jewish person they’d ever met. One person seriously told Greenberg that he believed Jewish people had horns, just like the devil.

After breaking into the main leagues, Greenberg was widely accepted by his teammates. The same can’t be said for opposing players and fans who followed him throughout his profession. The fans who insulted Greenberg were clearly within the minority, but they were loud, incessant, and met with virtually no resistance from other fans or the media.

Greenberg's response to the abuse: Ignore it. But he responded at the very least once, during a game against the Chicago White Sox. One Chicago player tried to harm Greenberg – his autobiography doesn’t record how – and one other called him a “yellow Jew son of a bitch.” After the sport, Greenberg visited the opposing team's locker room and desired to know who the namesake was. At 6 feet tall and weighing over 200 kilos, Greenberg looked intimidating. The room became quiet. The White Sox players never angered him again.

Other pressures were on Greenberg. Detroit was a hotbed of anti-Semitism within the Nineteen Thirties. The Dearborn Independent, a newspaper owned by the Industrialist Henry Forddescribed Jews as “the most important problem on this planet“, an echo of Ford's anti-Semitic beliefs. The city was also home Father Charles Coughlina Catholic priest who denigrated Jews and spread anti-Semitic rhetoric during his radio show – which reached its peak heard by perhaps 40 million people. Abroad, Adolf Hitler was the leader of Germany, and his persecution of the Jews became much more evident thereafter Kristallnacht, November 1938when the Nazi regime raged anti-Semitic.

“I felt,” Greenberg later wrote, “that if I hit a home run as a Jew, I beat one against Hitler.”

Playing on Jewish holidays

In 1934, when he was 23, Greenberg decided to not play on the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, a vacation on which observant Jews were purported to pray and never work. But the Tigers were in a decent race for the American League pennant. The team needed Greenberg, its star player.

An area newspaper reporter interviewed a Detroit rabbi and asked whether it was acceptable for Greenberg to play along. The Rabbi said it was high quality. Greenberg made a last-minute decision to play and hit two home runs. Detroit won the sport 2-1. The Detroit Free Press ran a headline in Yiddish with an English translation: “Happy New Year, Hank.”

Ten days later got here Yom Kippur, the holiest of all Jewish holidays. Also referred to as the Day of Atonement, observant Jews spend the day in prayer and self-reflection. Baseball wasn't on the agenda. This time Greenberg didn't play and as a substitute attended the service. When he entered the synagogue, the congregation applauded.

The Tigers lost 5-2 to the New York Yankees that day. But Detroit still won the pennant.

“I used to resent being singled out as a Jewish football player,” Greenberg said in his autobiography. “I'm not sure why or when that changed because I'm still not a particularly religious person. Lately, however, I want to be remembered as more than just a great ballplayer; but even more as a great Jewish ballplayer.”

Meeting with Robinson

1947 was Jackie Robinson's debut yr and Greenberg's last. Robinson, the primary baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, had broken the colour line and was a baseball player first black player of recent times; He endured tremendous abuse, which Greenberg, now with the Pittsburgh Pirates, clearly understood. They played one another for the primary time at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh in May.

In the fourth inning, Greenberg went to first with a walk, and in response to newspaper reports he had just a few words for Robinson: “I know it’s pretty hard,” he said. “You’re a good ballplayer, and you’ll do well.”

Greenberg also publicly supported Robinson, one in all the few opposing players to accomplish that.

Nearly half a century later, Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer considered whether the Supreme Court should convene on Yom Kippur. you too was inspired by Greenberg; Ginsburg noted that Greenberg “did not betray his conscience.” The Supreme Court didn’t meet on Yom Kippur this yr and has not met since.

Although tremendous progress has been made, racial and ethnic slurs live on in American sports. In 2024, some fans directed racially offensive comments two black players on the United States men's national soccer team. English football – referred to as soccer within the US – has Muslim players reported widespread discrimination and abuse. Things have modified, but not enough.

Although he was not an observant Jew, Greenberg understood that he needed to embrace his identity so as to endure the abuse. Today's athletes, who’ve recently suffered the hatred of bigots and trolls, should want to heed the teachings learned from this understated hero of the last century, a person whose quiet dignity spoke volumes.

It is unquestionably a powerful look.

Looking like a cross between a talented diamond dealer and a top sniper from a renegade sci-fi army, South Korean pistol shooter Kim Yeji, the web's latest favorite Olympian, is probably the most notable stars of the Paris Games to date.

That's the beauty of the Olympics. Before the games, you stay up for all of the belongings you already knew about: perhaps Sha'Carri Richardson in athletics, Andy Murray's farewell in tennis or Simone Biles in gymnastics.

But then there are belongings you didn't even know you cared about until you see them. And an incredibly cool looking pistol gun actually falls into that category.

Kim caused a stir online after competing in the primary of her two events in Paris, the 10m air pistol, on Sunday.

The X-account “Women Posting Ws,” which appears to be answerable for her viral popularity, wrote next to a photograph of Kim shooting at a goal along with her back barely arched, her chin resting on her shoulders, and her non-shooting hand in her pocket, that this was “the strongest aura I've ever seen in a photo.”

The consensus on social media was that Kim looks like some sort of robo-assassin from an motion movie, a near-future killer who doesn't need your clothes, your boots, or your motorcycle because she looks cool enough on her own, thanks very much. GQ magazine wrote that she looked like she was “straight out of cyberpunk fanfiction.” Glamour magazine asked if Kim was “the biggest badass of the Paris Olympics.” Elon Musk also weighed in, but let's not let him spoil it for us.

The device she wore wasn't actually glasses, but reasonably a sort of miniature framework attached to her brow that helped her visualize. Above her left eye was a small black rectangle, an iris that covers one eye and allows the opposite to focus higher. Above her right eye was a small black circle, actually a comparatively bizarre device with a mechanical iris that stops blurring and allows for higher concentrate on the goal.

Another clip of Kim in motion subsequently made the rounds, wearing the identical “glasses” and the identical incredibly regular hand and android-like composure, but this time with the cap on backwards. The clip shows her firing her final shot, putting down her pistol, raising the visor over her left eye, and giving a glance from the background that was presumably just to ascertain the rating, but to the viewer looked like she was gazing an unnamed doubter with arctic-cold pity.

This clip isn't actually from the Olympics, but from the World Cup in Baku earlier this yr. She set the world record at that event and won the 25m pistol title along the best way. That's her goal for her other competition, which takes place on Friday.

Kim is 31 years old and originally from Maepo, about 160 kilometers southeast of Seoul. She now lives in nearby Danyang. She has been competing since 2006 and won bronze within the 10-meter air pistol on the 2010 Junior World Championships. In her profile on the International Sports Shooting Federation website, she only lists “sleeping” under “hobbies.”

There was something else that reinforced the impression that she was actually a personality from a Luc Besson film. Usually in these highly stylized stories, the assassin has some kind of bizarre demeanor. Maybe it's a fascination with a certain sort of music, or an adherence to an ancient code of conduct, or they’ve a pet budgie that they're strangely dedicated to, or something like that.

Kim competed with a stuffed elephant attached to her belt. One might dismiss this as a person eccentricity, but in point of fact it was a sort of good luck charm belonging to her five-year-old daughter, who’s back home in Korea.

After the 10m medal ceremony, Kim told reporters that she couldn't wait to inform her daughter all about her success. When asked what she would say concerning the medal and her newfound viral status, Kim said, “I think I've become a little bit famous now.”

The only problem with all this, in the event you can call it that, is that Kim didn't actually win. This time, anyway. The gold medal went to fellow countrywoman Oh Ye-jin, 12 years younger than Kim, who beat her by just a number of points, setting an Olympic record of 243.2 points. Kim scored 241.3 points, which saw them each beat the previous record of 240.3 points set by Russia's Vitalina Batsarashkina in Tokyo. India's Manu Bhaker finished a distant third.

Oh burst into tears after winning the gold medal. “I still can't believe that I'm wearing a gold medal around my neck now,” Oh said. “Maybe I'll believe it with time. This medal is very heavy, by the way.”

Kim was not the just one with a small calling card: While for her it was the elephant, Oh had a small purple heart on the tip of her gun – unfortunately not through the actual competition, but just for the photos afterwards.

But to make the entire story much more enjoyable, Kim couldn't have been happier for Oh, who can be her roommate within the athletes' village in Paris.

“She's like my little sister,” Kim told the Associated Press. “I always want to take care of her and always be there for her. So when she won the gold medal, I was especially happy.”

“I don't see her as my rival. The Olympics are a big stage and we won gold and silver. When we won those medals, we were so proud to be Korean.”

When a sporting event or an athlete essentially becomes a meme, it's normally something that folks begin to notice afterward after which fade away – perhaps until the following similar global event, when people say, “Oh yeah, I remember them.”

This time, nevertheless, the web may have a second likelihood to see Kim in all her marksmanship when she competes within the 25-meter pistol competition on Friday, and she or he seems pretty sure she'll go one higher.

“I am always confident… I, Kim Yeji, will win gold no matter what happens.”