Boston Is Full of Joy and Low on Beer. Blame the Scots. by Mark Arsenault

There’s so many good reasons to be miserable right now that any respite is welcome. For the past week or so, I have been consistently delighted by the procession of social media posts capturing the effervescent sense of fun that Scottish fans have brought to their sports tourism stop in Boston. Because the toxicity of FIFA has finally reached intolerable levels, our household has withdrawn from our usual celebratory attention to World Cup proceedings. Even so, I’m grateful for the vicarious exultation of these revelers. Mark Arsenault reports on the scene for The New York Times.

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MLB Pride Nights Co-Opted And Consumed By Owners And Culture-War Freaks by Chris Thompson

Sticking with sports, let’s turn back to the far more typical sensation of aggravation. Writing for Defector, Chris Thompson digs into the needless controversy that burbled up this week when several San Francisco Giants pitchers decided to make a big show of their bigoted views on Pride Night. Petulantly scrawling a Bible verse on their caps to protest a temporary redesign of the team logo (and employing shaky theological analysis in the process) is about as childish as it gets. To his credit, Thompson doesn’t simply rant against those hard-hearted players. He acknowledges that Major League Baseball and individual teams probably shouldn’t be mandating players wear modified uniforms in the first place.