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Tim Wendel: Downward Facing Dog (Fiction)
Her touch can be downright cold and I fear I’ve come to enjoy it so. While I keep my eye out for her as best I can, she will find me at the most unexpected moments. That’s perhaps what I love the best....
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Catherine Moore: Home Sport (Poetry)
Oh my love, remember the games we played. First, it was the wittierphrase. Who had a greater schedule, the best ski jump. There was brawn,and brain, in all that. The macro then became the micro: who...
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Rupprecht Mayer: Diving into Lake Lakeville (Fiction)
Unlike the others in their bathing suits, I'm going in the water fully clothed because it’s too cold here for someone of my age. Just below the surface I hold my breath and look up at the distorted,...
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Joe Mills: Factory Kids (Poetry)
Coach grabbed my face guard,yanked me towards himlike I was a dog or a horse,yelled, Goddamnit, I want youto fucking make him hurt.Do you understand me?I did. We all did. We knew even then, as...
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Ellen Wade Beals: Antic (Poetry)
Camp counselor's trick:pop an ant,wriggling between finger forcepsinto mouth.Make sure to smack lipsas the formic acidtingles on your tongue.The kids are chargedwith gross spectacle,into more...
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Dave Morehouse: The Game (fiction)
Sweat beads over James’ brow, his shirt wet in the usual spots under the arms and down the back. The maul swings, landing heavier with each thud but the stake has to hold, or else.Satisfied the iron...
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Robyn Ryle: The Hit (fiction)
We’d get his crew about twice a season and it was two times too many. I don’t know if he worked it that way. A special sicko request or something. Maybe he had a thing for me and maybe he didn’t. They...
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Jared Yates Sexton: Live off the Land (Fiction)
It was two-thirty and all the food and booze was gone and drunk and the two couples settled into the living room. As they did Harris turned on the TV with the remote. A basketball game filled the...
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Neil Serven: Hurry Someday (Fiction)
Benjamin Young, 17, SS/3B, R/R, Harper Woods H.S.: Reads the ball off the bat better than anyone coming out of high school. Fluid range left and right. Soft hands, accurate arm with confidence to make...
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Ray Charbonneau: Grit is in the Soul (of my shoes) (Nonfiction)
“You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about youDon't you? Don't You?” -Carly SimonEarlier today, I happened to stumble across another congratulatory article about the benefits of running,...
View ArticleWe're Not Saying Goodbye
Goodbye... a word that can convey so much in two syllables. Stymie has been publishing the words and thoughts and opinions of amazing writers since 2008 - we've been fortunate to include literary rock...
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Janet Buttenwieser: Personal Record (Nonfiction)
A triathlon starts with a swim, they say, to lessen the likelihood of fatigue-induced drowning. Photographs of the Northern California race location did not imply risk: tropical fish gliding through...
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J.P. Pelosi: How Australia Works the Give-and-Go With American Hoops...
Fleer's Luc Longley NBA card from 1995 was the sort of stock I'd typically ride into the summer, even if the Chicago Bulls didn't win the title the ensuing campaign.Consider his numbers, after all: 9.1...
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Chad Greene: In Transition (Nonfiction)
Later than most, I entered the area reserved for transitions. In a fog, I lined up to undergo an ominous-sounding procedure referred to as “body-marking.” Already anxious at the thought of swimming a...
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Alle Hall: The Buddhism of Baseball (Nonfiction)
I have since learned that being a Mariners fan is not in conflict with being a Mets fan. (With the exception of the ’95 season, the Ms so rarely threaten other teams that you can follow them, too....
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Yazan Barakat: Fish (fiction)
About twelve years ago I watched Rudy Esterhaus take a jump on his bike and whack his head on a tree branch. Me, Rudy and Tommy Cross had gone out to the woods to jump our bikes through the ditches....
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Joshua Bartee: Beckham County Has No Team (Poetry)
Beckham County has no team, but weall love the Braves: Justice, Smoltz. Scattered homestead tractors, redbud,form archipelagos in the wheat,and town, a tired heart, desolate clap-board stations,...
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Malon Edwards: The Remy Cut (fiction)
The corner from Walcott bends toward me. It has a bit more pace than usual. Don’t matter. The world moves in slow-motion.Just like the Indigo said it would.***Pre-match interview:Jimmy Falafel: What...
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Denise Heinze: Easter, 1966 (Poetry)
After churchOur father scattered us to the borders of the three-sided fieldA sister or two per teamTo unnest the motley eggs. I, the lone hunter, uncoupledScrambled to my linear woodPeered into last...
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Marcus Meade: A Seat at the Table (Fiction)
Patrick jerked his head when the bell rang. He always hoped to see Uncle Paul or Aunt Marie or any of his dad’s friends who frequented Vito’s. His dad showed only the slightest interest, lifting his...
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Richard Peabody: Hedgehogs 31, Renegades 10 (fiction)
Hedgehogs 31, Renegades 10Renegades ………….0 10 0 0 – 10Hedgehogs ………….7 10 7 7 – 31FIRST QUARTERHedgehogs: S. Fitzgerald 20 pass from T. Pynchon (S. Beckett kick), 9:08SECOND QUARTERRenegades:...
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Justin Brouckaert: Barry Sanders Speaks (Fiction)
There is no lateral movement in the Sanders household anymore. Just Barry, alone, in a plain brown bungalow with straight walkways and 90-degree turns, fifteen miles from Boone Pickens Stadium in...
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That Time We Re-opened
It is with a mix of excitement and trepidation that we announce the re-opening of Stymie, nearly 12 months to the day since we published our last piece. In the time since our closure, the space that is...
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Seeking Reviewers of Books
On occasion we get asked to take a look at books centered around sport and games, sometimes other things (let's not go there) and as much as we'd love to not only read, but review and discuss those...
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Book Review: Press Start to Play
Press Start to PlayEdited by Daniel H. Wilson and John Joseph Adams528 Pages, $15.95Vintage (Penguin Random House)Videogames are incredible analogies for sports. They have, and by all accounts, will...
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