I AM A TERRIBLE sport. By age eight, I had been banned from playing board games by my mother because of how competitive and intense I got. Relaxed after-dinner games of Monopoly deteriorated into tear-soaked affairs with accusations of cheating, favoritism, and veiled death threats. Extended family had to be apologized to; desserts were revoked. I’ve chilled out a little as I’ve gotten older, but my “bad sport” streak still rears its head sometimes. Once, while living in New York City in the early 2000s, I was asked to leave a sports bar because the Yankees were playing my hometown Red Sox on
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