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Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking about overly chatty coworkers, Hunter S. Thompson, buying a new car, and more. Your letters: Todd:

For nearly six years, I have been fascinated by the case of the Spine Collector. The publishing world came to the collective realization a few years before the pandemic that a thief was aggressively trying to steal unpublished books from everyone who had access to them for their jobs. What made the case so fascinating was the apparent lack of motive; their methods were explicable and not all that sophisticated, but their reasons for risking jail time were totally opaque, as the books never leaked or appeared on the black market. On this week's episode of Only If You Get Caught, we tackle the tricky question: Why were they doing this? To help get an answer and tell the full story, I drafted in Reeves Wiedeman, who co-wrote the definitive series of Spine Collector stories for New York alongside Lila Shapiro. In the time since we recorded our interview, Wiedeman has moved on to The New Yorker, surely a recipient of the Only If You Get Caught bump. The book thief's motivations are confusing and inexplicable unless you approach them from the right angle. Knowing what we know now about their identity and motivations, it's clear that the cloistered prestige of the publishing world explains the thefts. Publishing is a strange business riddled with contradictions. Jobs are highly coveted, yet often underpaid. The industry doesn't always know which books are going to sell or how to market them. The system forces authors to take on all manner of odd auxiliary roles, sometimes making it impossible for them to succeed. And yet, there's nothing cooler, to many people, than publishing a book or working on one's release. To understand why the book thief did it, you must understand publishing.

I can’t think of a time in my life when the idea of a Muslim terrorist was not the most acceptable societal enemy. As someone who came of age in the wake of 9/11 and the invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan, I have come to accept hating Muslims as the status quo. On a personal level, it functions sort of like advertising: so ubiquitous that I rarely pay much attention. There just aren’t many situations in my daily life where I’m thinking about how a stranger might perceive my boring existence as threatening. I’m normal. But sometimes I am snapped out of the monotony of Islamophobia and remember the limitless imagination of those who can watch one of the many recent videos of someone in Gaza, carrying around the body parts of a loved one in a plastic bag, and think They deserve this. One of those moments was earlier this summer, when I encountered the trailer for the Daily Wire’s latest foray into filmmaking, Run Hide Fight: Infidels. In this campus action movie, ISIS (‘memba them?) invades a liberal arts campus because administrators are far too distracted by leftist they/thems and gay kids forming anti-Israel encampments to realize that in mere hours, a caliphate will be established on campus by a Syrian janitor. The film stars Jonathan Majors, who just a few years ago was destined to be the next big thing before he was found guilty of assaulting his ex-girlfriend.  Majors plays a former Delta Force operative on a book tour who says things like, “There are three ways Islam will conquer the West: through immigration, through the wombs of our women, and by using our nation’s freedoms against us.” The messaging was so vintage and early 2000s—was it meant to be a throwback, or was there new stuff being introduced to the oeuvre? I thought the feeling across the board was that ISIS lowkey fell off. I had no idea anyone was still thinking about them as a real threat, especially when everyone—from Twitch streamers to beloved children’s entertainers—is Hamas these days. I was excited to learn what was going on with the state of modern Islamophobia. 

For a guy who has spent most of his career as a backup, Case Keenum suddenly has a decent collection of signature wins. OK, maybe "collection" isn't quite right, but as we sit here this morning, we can say for sure that the man has at least two. There is of course the Minneapolis Miracle, and now there is the, uh, Midway Masterclass? You don't want to overstate an unexpected victory that comes at the expense of an Eagles team that gives away such games as a matter of course, but damn if it didn't feel like a big deal to watch Keenum, pressed into action by Caleb Williams's hamstring injury and Tyson Bagent's concussion, sling the ball Monday night. Perhaps some credit is owed to ESPN's production team, which often goes to embarrassing lengths to hype up every Monday Night Football game, even when circumstance stick them with an obvious dud. This time, the broadcast went all-in on Keenum, giving him the stage to set up his own sports-movie narrative before kickoff. https://twitter.com/NFL/status/2104725122536104020

In each week of the NFL season so far, Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair has worn eye black that bears the name of a Palestinian child slain during Israel's genocide in Gaza. When he did it in Week 1, the NFL fined him. During Week 2, a league official threatened to remove him from the game. For the Texans' season opener against the Buffalo Bills, Al-Shaair's eye black bore the name of Hind Rajab, a 5-year-old girl who in 2024 was killed by Israeli forces in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza. After surviving an attack on a car she was riding in, Rajab phoned emergency workers to rescue her; the IDF bombed the ambulance, killing the paramedics en route. Weeks later, Rajab was found in the wrecked car, dead alongside six relatives. Israel initially denied that its troops were in the area of the incident, but admitted in August 2026 that its military had opened fire on the car. "It's bigger to me. Is a life worth $11,000? I think it's priceless. An innocent man, an innocent woman, an innocent child losing their life is not right," Al-Shaair said, days after that game. "I don't think everybody knows what it's about. I think that was the point because before that, probably most of you guys might not even know who she was. That's kind of the point." Al-Shaair was referencing the $11,941 fine levied by the NFL, which in its rulebook prohibits players from "wearing, displaying, or otherwise conveying personal messages either in writing or illustration, unless such message has been approved in advance by the League office." Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving volunteered to pay Al-Shaair's fine, and the linebacker later confirmed that the two had been in touch recently.

Does it still feel a little too early for hockey? Well, too bad! The NHL has expanded to an 84-game schedule, so we're getting September hockey that counts in the standings, and you're about to get briefed on all the teams. Whether you like it or not! I've ordered these puppies by how many points they improved or declined by last season, because I did that last year and I liked how it went. I've included that point differential, and their playoff finish if they had one. Then I will catch you up to speed on how things are going with each team, and because I feel like a little bit more of a hater than usual, I've included something they should be afraid of going into this season. Let's preview some hockey! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpNUR87ZhQQ

It was many WNBA news cycles ago—but not that many human years ago!—that the league’s central power struggle was shaping up to be one between A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart. Since Wilson was drafted in 2018, the two stars have lived atop MVP ballots and together won six of eight WNBA championships. On this very website, in 2022, I anointed them as much: Stewart and Wilson, anchors of the Olympic team and the new faces of their sport, should run this league for a while. "Should" is an important qualifier. It wasn't too long ago that WNBA fans imagined epic future playoff battles between Stewart and Elena Delle Donne, battles that have had to stay in the imagination thanks to an Achilles injury, a back injury, and a pandemic. But everyone's health permitting, this is The Rivalry We Care About Now, and it's so extremely awesome to watch. On Sunday, the two would-be rivals were miles away from each other and their games tipped off a few hours apart. Stewart’s 34 points and 12 rebounds carried the Liberty to a 91-75 upset win over the top-seeded Lynx in Minnesota. Just as in the regular season and in playoffs past, the Lynx had troublingly few answers for opposing size; the Liberty might be the most aggravating team to watch in the WNBA, but maybe more importantly, they’re also the tallest. Stewart, so hard-nosed and rangy and lanky, almost personally magnifies Minnesota’s flaws. She attacks mismatches and swats shots—on Saturday, she even supplied some throwback threes for extra style points. Solid games from Leonie Fiebich and Han Xu were sufficient help; Stewart doesn’t need much of it. (No matter at all that her team’s lead guard continues to shoot springtime tour dates.)

Inside the hundred-meter mark, after 273.3 kilometers of racing, Brandon McNulty looked back one last time to see the pack behind him sprinting it out for silver. He banged on his handlebars, put his hands to his head, and pumped his fist, seeming not quite sure how he should celebrate his country's first World Championship road race victory in 33 years and the biggest win of his career. McNulty's scattered exuberance tells part of the story, as does his teammate Quinn Simmons coasting in for fourth and Matteo Jorgenson celebrating as he crossed the line in eighth. The Americans raced a perfect race, delivering a shocker in the world's biggest one-day race thanks to one of the best tactical performances you'll ever see. An unfortunate byproduct of Tadej Pogacar's typically thrilling dominance is that he obviates or at least neutralizes team tactics. It really doesn't matter how carefully you distribute satellite riders, gouge away at his teammates, or force him to do extra work, because he's so much better than everyone in the world that he can almost always go win the races he wants on pure strength. What are you supposed to do when Pogacar is simply riding alone off the front for 70 kilometers, faster than any one team's worth of riders could sanely chase? But Pogacar's recent crash at the Vuelta opened the door not only for Enric Mas to win a bike race instead of nobly and anonymously finish fifth, but for a new world champion for the first time since the Second Pogacar Inquisition began three years ago. There probably won't be many more good chances like this, so who would step into the vacuum? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obK7tbfw-dI

Call ‘em the Badwill Games. Ireland scored three early goals and cruised to a 3-0 win Sunday over Israel, in the first of two matches between the teams that have already made everybody go ewwwwww.  The game, played in Debrecen, Hungary, was the first of two very controversial matches between the national teams as part of the UEFA Nations League competition. Ireland had requested that UEFA ban Israel from the tournament, but that was denied, as was a subsequent appeal to be moved out of the same bracket.  A national campaign then formed in Ireland to prevent the matches from happening. A group of 160 Irish athletes signed a petition released late last week calling for the matches to be cancelled. RTE, the Irish national broadcasting network, announced that it would only have limited coverage of the matches. Heimir Hallgrímsson, the Iceland-born manager of the Irish team, defended fielding a squad by saying, "We're not playing with genocide. We're playing against genocide."

You ever need something so badly it scares you to say it aloud, just because the universe might smell that stench of desperation about you and smite your ass back into the existential garbage time you deserve? The way I’ve been feeling about living in New York City qualifies. When I said goodbye to Lauren Theisen last summer, it was crushing. I had seen that sublime summit and would now regress back to the place I regrettably called home. There is, as it turns out, a reason why writers love New York, and my apartment in Tacoma would have given Julian of Norwich seasonal depression. I knew I had to get back no matter what, but as I’ve documented, my constitution is ill-suited for the "or bust" suffixes of life. Luckily, life decided to rub my nose in just how shitty stagnancy smelled. My apartment’s toilet exploded sewage everywhere, wafting the Tacoma aroma upon all of my belongings. In case I hadn’t yet gotten the message, my lazy scummy dirtbag fuckface of a property manager decided this was the right time to raise the rent, supplying me the ample spite that would spur the big move. No time like the present. I needed to get rid of everything I could stomach one day buying again, find every latent dime I was owed or could borrow, and claw my way back to the only city really worth getting bled dry to live in. Most importantly, I needed to sell the Lexus. In 2004, my uncle made one of the smartest calls that anyone ever got to make on the car market: He bought a brand-new Lexus GX 470. It was eye-wateringly expensive, about 80 grand in today’s money, but his construction business was going well, and anyway in his judgment it was sturdier and more comfortable than anything else he test-drove. He fucking nailed that one. This was Toyota engineering at the absolute peak of their powers. That GX was no steal, but at few points in history has a family of cars been so utterly far ahead of the competing options in terms of quality as the Toyota SUVs of this era.