The New Republic

WILLIAM “PUDGE” HEFFELFINGER was America’s first professional football player, paid $500 to man the line for the Allegheny Athletic Club in Pittsburgh’s Recreation Park. That game, played on November 12, 1892, was just a scrum in the mud, less sport than brawl. You took an elbow, spit some teeth, drove on. But who will be the last pro, the last man to stand in the locker-room line awaiting his greenies, Toradol, and shots of Novocain? READ MORE >>

WASHINGTON--The Civil War is about to loom very large in the popular memory. We would do well to be candid about its causes and not allow the distortions of contemporary politics or longstanding myths to cloud our understanding of why the nation fell apart. READ MORE >>