→ June 1, 2011
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A birthday and an anniversary.

I suppose it’s no secret that today is my 38th birthday – at a certain point you can’t hide your birthday any more, not in an era of Facebook and Wikipedia and lives lived largely online – but it’s also the fifth anniversary of my first day as a full-time employee of ESPN, a milestone of special significance for me, as I’ve never worked for any company for that long before.

Prior to joining the Jays in 2002, I was chronically bored at work. In fact, I was bored at several workplaces, one more boring than the next. My first job out of college was in consulting and was interesting for about ten months, until the powers that be figured out that I was handy with a spreadsheet and decided I should be used exclusively on cases that required a lot of spreadsheet work. Being handy with a spreadsheet – which at the time meant I could use Excel without adult supervision and maybe write a macro or two – is not equivalent to enjoying working with spreadsheets, and as I’m sure many of you know, that kind of work gets old fast, especially when you’re doing nothing with the results of your analyses. Every job after that was, in one way or another, more boring, and when I’m bored, I’m not exactly a model employee, either.

Baseball offered one clear escape from boredom beyond the obvious love-of-the-game factor: The challenge of the sport is never-ending because the product is people. We can analyze and estimate, project and value, but we will always be wrong at least some of the time, and being wrong drives us all to learn from our mistakes and develop new methods or metrics or heuristics to be less wrong in the next cycle. I was hooked on the draft after just one year in the room because it might be the area in which teams get it wrong most often, even smart teams run by smart guys who’ve thrown a lot of resources at the question of how to get it less wrong. When you’re dealing with teenagers and guessing how they’ll mature physically and emotionally over the next six years after you’ve handed them a big pile of cash, you’re going to be wrong with a capital R a lot of the time. That promise of an unending challenge is thrilling, and it exists even on the other side of the wall, where I never put money on the line on players but have all of my opinions out there for the public to tear apart (and use to construct lengthy complaints of bias). But after five draft cycles with ESPN on top of five with Toronto, some small amount of sameness has set in. The challenges remain, but the calendar doesn’t change, and the task list is the same every year.

What has kept the job interesting and rewarding over the last five years, more than anything else, has been my interactions with you.

I have written before what a great privilege it is to write for you, and to know that so many of you choose to pay to read my work every year. But my compensation for this effort goes well beyond money. You challenge me to be better – to evaluate better, write more clearly, to take strong stands, to keep up with the latest analyses and statistics, but also to be funnier, quicker, sharper, because I know it’s what you want, and if I’m not any of that, I’ll hear about it in short order. And along the way you will make me laugh, or teach me something, or tell me about a great book to read or a place where I must eat or a game I have to play. That interaction, more than anything else, is what makes this job so interesting and so much fun, even for a peripatetic mind like mine that ten years ago seemed destined to be bored no matter what I did for a living.

Thank you all for letting me entertain you these last five years, and for giving me so much in return. I’ve gotten more from you than I ever could have hoped to receive.

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→ April 6, 2011
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New ESPNU show + Through the Desert app.

As you might have heard on Wednesday’s podcast, I’ll be appearing on a new studio show on ESPNU called College Baseball Live, every Thursday night at 7 pm EDT/4 pm PDT from now until May 12th. (There’s one more show on May 19th but I had a scheduling conflict.) The show will cover college baseball in general, with an emphasis on the SEC, as well as a modicum of draft chatter, and will be followed by an SEC game of the week, beginning this week with South Carolina vs. Tennessee. I’ll appear again on a brief postgame show.

This is probably as good a time as any to mention that I’ve also signed a new contract with ESPN, which has made much of this year’s extra content across all media possible. I have always appreciated the comments from readers who ask me if I’ll join their favorite team’s front office, but this is where I want to be right now, not least because life on the media side has always worked better for my family.

My weekly Tuesday column yesterday was on some rookies who were surprising Opening Day roster additions.

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Reiner Knizia has been as aggressive as any game designer in licensing his games for iOS app development, producing a few of my favorites so far (notably Samurai and Battle Line). His two- to four-person boardgame Through the Desert is now available in a beautifully rendered app, but on the iPod Touch there are some implementation issues that have made the game trickier to play.

Knizia’s Through the Desert ($1.99 for the regular game, $2.99 for the iPad/HD version) is played a board of hexes with several oases and watering holes scattered more or less evenly throughout it. During the setup phase, each player places one camel in turn, with players rotating until each player has placed all five of his starting camels. (Players begin with five camels, each a different color.) After the setup, players place additional camels (drawn from a communal pool) adjacent to those they have already placed, building “caravans” that can accumulate points in three ways:

* By abutting an oasis, which is worth five points.
* By crossing a watering hole, which is worth three points for a large hole and one for a small hole.
* By fully enclosing an area within the caravan; between the caravan and the edge of the board; or between the caravan and the small, impassable mountain range within the board. The player receives one point for each enclosed hex, plus any bonuses for surrounded watering holes.

The only restriction on placement is that a player cannot place a camel next to a camel of the same color placed by another player.

There are also game-end bonuses of ten points apiece for the longest caravan (most camels) of each color. The game ends when there are no more camels available in any of the five colors.

The game offers a lot of decision-making with zero randomness involved. I’ve found the bulk of my thinking during the game is spent trying to anticipate each opponent’s next move or two, both to see if I can block anyone and to make sure I’m not going to end up blocked. The problem is ultimately one of resource constraints – you can only place two camels per turn, your number of turns is finite (but not known exactly), and your number of possible moves is restricted by the board and opponent placement – with the board big enough that the game is different every time, especially with three or four players.

The app itself is perfectly stable, but the way the developers implemented the game has proven frustrating. For one thing, there’s no way to tell whose turn it is, and there’s no way to see the current score of any player other than the one whose turn it is. In the four-player game, the bottom row of hexes on the board is obscured by the silly waving carpet at the bottom of the screen, and I couldn’t figure out how to place a camel there. I’ve also found the hard AIs to be a little light – in at least a dozen games, I’ve only once had an AI player make a move to block me, and that came in a four-player game where one of the other AIs was about as challenging an opponent as a sack of hair.

The AI problem isn’t a huge deal since the game allows for network play, and the hard AIs are good enough to make the game a nice diversion. It’s just not as challenging as it could be, and the lack of any kind of scoreboard or indication of who’s up is annoying and completely avoidable. I’m hoping at some point there will be an update to at least fix the bottom-row glitch and provide a score option, although the AIs probably are what they are for the long term. I’d recommend the game if you’ve already grabbed the two I mentioned above as well as Carcassonne and Ingenious and are looking for a change of pace; if I see any improvements come down the line I’ll repost with a stronger recommendation. And if any of you should try the iPad version, let me know if any of these issues are resolved.

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→ August 26, 2010
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Charity & relocation.

I wrote last month about running a single sponsored tweet on my Twitter feed, asking for your feedback, which came back overwhelmingly in favor. The $244.53 payment arrived earlier this week, and I rounded up to $250 and donated it to Childrens Hospital Boston with my gratitude for the great care they’ve given my daughter over the last three years.

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Speaking of charitable donations, Amiel Sawdaye, the scouting director for the Red Sox, is participating in the New England Parkinson’s Ride this year, with proceeds going to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s research. I know many of you are Red Sox fans and I offered to pass along the link where you can make a donation to help Amiel reach his goal of $10,000. He’s already halfway there and I gave $100 myself just before writing this.

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So I mentioned in passing today that my family and I are leaving Massachusetts next month after eleven years year, nine in the same house, to relocate to Arizona. I’ll probably have more to say about it later on, but for now, I wanted to answer the two main questions that came up in the chat.

The only change you’ll see in my work at ESPN is more coverage. I’ll get more games while cutting my travel, which has been a major goal of mine for the last year and a half or so. I’ll get to more Fall League games and more spring training games, as well as seeing instructional league action for the first time and having better access to the Pac 10 and to all the great high school prospects in southern California.

The second question I was asked today was why the move, and the simple answer is that everything pointed the same way. We’ve spent the month of March in Arizona the last three years and have grown to like the area. Neither my wife nor I is actually from Boston – although the frequency with which I’m “accused” of being a Bostonian/Masshole/Red Sox fan is absolutely hilarious – and we are here largely because of a career I abandoned nine years ago. I have never liked winter or the cold one bit, even as a kid in New York, and the climate here hasn’t been great for my daughter, who has inherited my seasonal allergies and is prone to croup and even a little asthma. We’ll get more house for our money in Arizona, of course, and it’s one of the few places in the country where there’s a major league club, minor league activity, and access to good college and high school baseball. Most importantly, though, you never have to shovel sunshine.

Of course, it’s an enormous change for us, and we’re leaving our comfort zone here in Boston, as none of our friends or shops or routines will fit in the moving van. If you live in the East Valley and have a shop, a restaurant, a farmstand, a local product or service, anything you want to recommend, please send it my way.

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→ June 26, 2010
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What happened to Bermuda?

My last Tournament of Stars update is on ESPN.com. I still have some video to file as well.

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I mentioned in my St. Kitts post that my wife and I decided against a return trip to Bermuda for our 15th anniversary after we went there on our honeymoon, our fifth anniversary, and our tenth anniversary. A few of you asked me to elaborate, so I’ll do so, but I have to emphasize up front that our last trip there was (if you’re too lazy to do the math) five years ago, and it may be out of date.

Let me start with what we liked about Bermuda. It’s a beautiful island, naturally pretty, but was also fairly prosperous and well-maintained. The capital city, Hamilton, is like something out of a dream, clean, bright, open, busy in a quiet way, walkable with shops and restaurants up and down its few main streets. There’s a second town, more of a village, called St. George, on the east end of the island, also worth at least one visit. The island is small and easily navigable by moped – tourists are not permitted to rent cars – and I have to say that sitting in a closed car would rob you of some of the experience. Locals would chat with us while we were stopped at red lights, and we got a restaurant recommendation or two that way. The beaches have sand flecked with pink, and the water is as blue and clear as anything we found in St. Kitts. One of my favorite rums in the world, Gosling’s Black Seal, is blended and bottled in Bermuda. Most of the people we met on our visits there were friendly. And it’s just a two-hour flight from the east coast of the U.S.

We had a few favorites for food across our trips. The best place that’s still operating is Bistro J, in downtown Hamilton, where the menu changes daily, with five entree options and I believe two or three desserts written each afternoon on a blackboard in the dining room. Everything we ate there was spectacular and I will always remember that as the place I first tried sticky toffee pudding. Monty’s was at one point a simple, slightly cheap spot for locals that served amazing breakfasts, although it had gone upscale by the time we visited in 2005. The Hog Penny is a British pub in Hamilton that we discovered on our first trip, and the Swizzle Inn does make a killer rum swizzle, a cocktail that masks its potency with fruit juice. Paraquet is a little place catering mostly to locals that makes an incredible fried fish sandwich; it’s located in an apartment complex in Paget Parish right on South Road.

We stayed somewhere different on each trip; our favorite was the Salt Kettle Inn, a very small but perfectly located B&B just across the bay from Hamilton and thus a short ferry ride or moped trip into town. (The benefit of taking the moped in the mornings is that you get to see Johnny Barnes, the friendliest man in the world, waving to you and all the other commuters into Hamilton each morning.) We also stayed at the Elbow Beach resort for our honeymoon in 1995; the beach is outstanding for swimming, but the hotel itself is just an average American hotel with shops and restaurants added, with the room no better than what you’d find at a standard Hilton or Marriott, but at twice the price.

Hotel beaches in Bermuda are largely private, but they do have some excellent public ones. Our favorite public beach was Church Bay, on the western side of the south shore. The snorkeling there was amazing with plenty to see even when the water is just a few feet deep, and the water is fairly calm because of outlying rocks. There’s another beach on the eastern half called Shelly Bay Beach that’s very long and shallow and would be great for kids or unconfident swimmers. We usually took an afternoon to visit the small zoo and aquarium, and just generally tooled around the island. Getting around the island was simple between the moped and taxis, and we could go from St. George to the Dockyard (one end of Bermuda to the other) in about an hour.

That’s the good, but when we went back in 2005 we found it didn’t measure up to our memories from the first two trips. The biggest issue was that the place was starting to look a little run down. They’d had a hurricane a year prior but by August of ’05 still hadn’t finished basic maintenance tasks, like fixing a broken walkway from the parking area to the sand at Church Bay. We saw drunk locals in the streets of Hamilton for the first time – completely harmless, but still a sign that the economy there wasn’t in such great shape. And Front Street in Hamilton had gone from three department stores in 1995 to none in 2005, and as far as I can tell none has been replaced. (I understand that those stores were critical to locals, but they offered plenty for tourists who were looking for non-touristy shopping.)

We also found that the quality of the food at several of our favorite places had fallen off. We ate at the Hog Penny at least twice on that last trip, and everything we had underwhelmed us, even though in probably a half-dozen or more meals there on the previous two trips we had always loved the food. The Swizzle Inn changed its menu completely between 2000 and 2005, and the food quality went south as well. The food at Monty’s didn’t change, but the price went up with the décor, although it’s still the best breakfast bet we found on the island.

I also noticed in 2005 that while locals were still on the whole very friendly, we encountered more rudeness than we had before, and my guess is that it was a little anti-Americanism at work. (For whatever it’s worth, and that may be nothing, the poor treatment we received never came from black Bermudians, only whites. I don’t know why that would be true, but it is.)

And the final straw for us was the price. It’s very expensive to stay and eat in Bermuda, and the lack of any major U.S. Chain on the island means that frequent-guest points are useless there. (There are two Fairmont hotels, if that’s how you roll.) Renting a moped for the week, while fun, isn’t cheap, and heading there now with a four-year-old would mean a lot of cab fares, and getting a cab from a public beach was not easy.
But Bermuda has a more fundamental price problem – they slap a tax of 25% or more on all imported goods, so the prices of even basic goods are jacked up, and it flows through to restaurant meals, hotel prices, and of course affects people who live on the island greatly. Add to that their unwillingness to wean themselves from the teat of cruise ship docking fees, even though cruise ship customers do nothing to help island businesses directly but are happy to come and consume public resources like beaches, making it less appealing for people who want to come and actually contribute directly to island hotels, restaurants, and shops.

Bermuda was a little less appealing for us than it might be to a first-time visitor because we will compare everything to our previous visits to the island; I imagine if we went there for the first time now, we’d find it charming, because we lacked any knowledge of what it was like ten or fifteen years ago. And, again, we haven’t been in five years, so it may have made a major turnaround in that time. I haven’t heard anything to that effect, and as far as I know the massive import tax is still in place and the cruise ships are still coming and throwing their weight around. I would love to have my old Bermuda back, but I’m afraid now it may be gone for good.

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→ February 24, 2010
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Why I cook.

Returning to the subject of Michael Ruhlman, the passionate and blunt food writer behind Ratio, he posted a mini-essay on his blog last week titled “Why I Cook,” giving his reasons and urging his readers to do the same. (This comment from one of his readers is alone worth the click, although it’s quite sad.) Here, therefore, is my answer to the question of why I cook.

I cook, first and foremost, to eat. When I was in graduate school, my wife was working 40 hours a week as a preschool teacher, which, some of you probably know, is exhausting work. I, meanwhile, was done every day by 3 pm, sometimes sooner, and generally didn’t have much homework to do, so I thought it was the least I could do to take over the cooking duties. And, in hindsight, I was pretty bad at it. But we ate, and we ate cheaply. That still holds today, even though I can splurge on more expensive ingredients – although I now understand the value of those ingredients, and when and where it’s worth the splurge and which corners one can safely cut for home cooking.

My life has changed dramatically in the eleven years since I’ve graduated, as I now have a demanding job but a commensurate income and at least have the excuse to slack on cooking. I continue to do so because…

* I want the control over what goes into our bodies, especially since the first-person plural now includes my three-year-old daughter. I know what we’re eating, and I know that we’re limiting her intake of pesticides, high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, or needless quantities of salt. I know the bread we eat is 100% whole wheat, because I made it. I know the beef we eat was grass- or grain-fed, and that the sea bass I purchase (rarely) came from a sustainable fishery, because I bought it and cooked it myself.

* All three of us have to monitor our diets to limit our intake of one or more ingredients or nutrients. For me, it’s lactose, and a handful of other foods that my stomach doesn’t like. For my wife, it’s sugar and a few minor food allergies. For my daughter, it’s protein, so we’re raising her as a vegetarian, and are glad that she hasn’t quite made the bacon/pig connection yet. (I did suggest we name the stuffed-animal pig we bought her “Smokey,” but my wife called that “twisted.”)

* It lets me spend my calories where I want to. I’m not on a diet, nor am I a rabid calorie-counter, but I will put on weight if I completely ignore what I’m eating, something that happens to many people in my line of work because we’re on the road so much. When I cook, I can stick with lean meals and use those extra calories on dessert, or on a big mess of waffles and sausage on a Sunday morning.

* I can vote with my mouth. Organic food isn’t for everyone because it’s expensive, and while I wish organic farms could feed everyone today, we’re not there yet. I also know that the more that people like me who are not rabid environmentalists but care enough about food safety, the environment, and the rights of farmers and laborers in the food supply chain choose to buy organic or sustainable or fair-trade products, the more that that section of the industry can grow.

* You can’t beat the flavors of fresh food. I can buy and cook the same day, and if I time it right, I might get a locally-grown vegetable or fruit from ground to table in a day or two. We pick strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries every summer and I put them up in jams so that I can still get that unbeatable taste of summer in the middle of January. I grow herbs in my backyard because pesto Genovese is sweeter and more potent when you picked the basil 20 minutes before putting it in the food processor.

* And, most of all, I cook because I love it. There is something magical about taking ingredients, applying heat and a little know-how, and producing a dinner to feed your family. There’s a tremendous reward in bringing a dessert or a basket of bread to a party and seeing people enjoy the food you crafted with your hands – regardless of whether you ever receive a “thanks” or a “wow.” And, to me, food just tastes better when I earned it in the kitchen.

Any one or two of these reasons would be sufficient for me to continue cooking, but all of them together have made it a part of my routine that borders on obsession, to the point where I miss it after too many days on the road – the sight of bright-green basil or deep red roasted peppers, smell of onions caramelizing in the pan, the feel of bread dough that just needs a few seconds of kneading, the sound of meat hitting the surface of a hot pan, and the taste of all of the above.

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→ February 1, 2010
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Alone.

I was reading Joe Posnanski’s post on the Harlem Globetrotters and the brilliant, witty quote from the man who runs the Globetrotters’ patsy opponents, who are apparently going around again under the Washington Generals banner. That reminded me, as every mention or sighting of the Globetrotters does, of the one time I saw them perform live, a day that – for no reason related to the Globetrotters or anything that happened on the court – brings back to me a tremendous feeling of sadness.

It was a small thing, really, over in a few seconds. I was with my parents and younger sister – this was between 20 and 25 years ago – and we happened to have seats on the floor, in the front row, on folding chairs. When we got there, one of the four seats was already occupied by a solitary man, probably in his 20s, a little shabbily dressed – I remember his clothes were largely gray, but not much more about them. My mother got the attention of an usher, who checked the man’s ticket and informed him that he was in the wrong section. He stood up and sort of shuffled off, with a slightly defeated look on his face – not a crushed or devastated expression, but one that seemed to say, “oh, again.” It occurred to me even at the time that he might have some sort of developmental disorder, but the expression and the way he wandered off – shoulders sagging, head down, with no hurry to get to his proper seat before the game started, perhaps with no idea where he was headed – made it seem to me that he was, more than anything else, alone. And I found that state – not just loneliness, but a pervasive, chronic loneliness, a state of being permanently, irreversibly alone – so saddening that it stayed with me through the game, the day, the ensuing days, and twenty-plus years after. I still return to that feeling of sadness for that man every time I see or hear about the Globetrotters, even though I enjoyed the show, and can still remember some of the gags. (Stopping the game when someone left her seat to head for the concourse so one of the players could walk over, wag his finger, and say “I know where you’re going” stands out the most. I’m sure they still use the same joke.) I remember the ride home, wondering about the man in grey, who took care of him – did he need taking care of – where were his parents, or whoever raised him – did he go home to an empty house – was he as sad as he looked. I know I didn’t want this sad, gray man who should have passed in and out of my life in a matter of seconds to be as sad as he looked, because it made me sad, and I couldn’t bear the thought of someone feeling like that all day, every day, for the rest of his life.

There’s one other alone person who has haunted me for nearly that long. My wife and I were shopping at the Worcester outlet mall, which means it was either 1995 or 1996. That place was always depressing, even though the building itself seemed relatively new and in good repair; the lighting was dim, and it was never busy when we were there, even on weekends. It wasn’t easy to get to or find, and once you reached it there was less there than you expected, which sort of describes the city of Worcester as well. And the food court area was particularly poorly lit; I remember being there just after lunch on this one day and finding the whole place in shadow, with just hints of sunlight taunting shoppers – “I’m out today, people, but there is no way on earth I’m coming into that place.”

As we were leaving the food court, my wife spotted an older woman, 80 if she was a day, sitting by herself at a table, sipping one of those tiny cartons of milk from a straw. And my wife asked me if I thought the woman was drinking milk because it was all she could afford. I said no, although I wondered then and still wonder now if that was my instinctive ability to come up with a positive explanation for a probably unpleasant situation, and perhaps we should have done as my wife suggested and offered to buy the woman a meal. At the time, what overwhelmed me, even as I was trying to believe that I wasn’t witnessing the sad poverty of old age, was that the woman looked inescapably alone, and that she herself was drowning in the sadness of solitude. I can still picture her face – not ragged or dirty, but worn, used, with an expression that said she was finished, that she’d had more sadness, more loneliness than one person could possibly absorb.

In the intervening years I’ve certainly seen more alone people, but none have affected me quite like these two did. Maybe I don’t notice them because on some subconscious level I’m trying not to notice them, because I know it can upset me for days. I do tend to walk around with some sort of distraction handy, usually a book but often my Blackberry, so maybe I’m spending less time surveying the surroundings. And maybe it’s because I talk to people when I’m out and about by myself, because while I don’t mind a quiet afternoon with a book or some music, I don’t really like to be alone too much either.

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→ July 13, 2009
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A housekeeping story.

If you see skid marks on the way out of St. Louis, that would be me, trying to leave before the creeping FOR LEASE fungus that appears to have infected most of downtown attacks my hotel too. I haven’t had a decent meal here – the breakfast place several readers recommended, Roosters, is opening an hour later than normal this week due to the All-Star Game, with no signage up anywhere at the store to explain this. That’s right: In a week when there are more potential customers than usual in town, Roosters is open for fewer hours. They did not teach us this strategy in business school.

My first Futures Game recap is here on ESPN.com, and I just filed a second one today with notes on more players. I also appeared on Mike and Mike this morning for a segment and a half. Those are so much better when I’m live with the host. We didn’t do Futures Game talk but I thought their question about balancing the future versus the chance to win now was a good one with no clear right answer.

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Anyway, here’s the ridiculous story of the post’s title. I’m allergic to feathers. It’s not a huge deal, just annoying when I go to hotel rooms, since most hotels assume people would rather sleep on feathers (which I don’t like anyway because I’m used to sleeping on foam), and some hotels decide to get all fancy-like and use down comforters too. Like, for example, the Union Station Marriott in St. Louis.

Occasionally, a hotel will see that my reservation has a “no feathers” request and they’ll just prep a room without feather pillows or bedding. It’s great when they do it, but I don’t expect it, and the first thing I do when I get into a hotel room is punch one of the pillows. (If the hole fills back in, it’s foam. Otherwise, it’s down. Either way, it’s fun.) If the room has foam pillows, I’ll just swap them out. I used to call housekeeping when I encountered down bedding beyond just pillows, but what usually happens is a giant production where two or three people come up and detox the room, including an almost choreographed effort to remake the bed with regular bedding, begging the question of how many hotel employees it takes to make a double or queen bed. There’s no reason for me to cause this kind of disruption, since I am perfectly capable of making a bed myself, so when I discovered down pillows and comforters in the St. Louis Marriott, with a cotton blanket in the closet, I fixed everything myself. Each bed had one foam pillow and one regular one, so I took the two foam pillows and put the two feather pillows on the other bed. I threw the down comforter on the unused bed and made my bed with the regular blanket. It wasn’t very complicated.

I come back from the Futures Game the next night to find the room made up … incorrectly. The maid did leave the fabric blanket on my bed, but topped it with the down comforter. Even worse, she took one foam pillow off my bed, moved it to the unused bed, and took one feather pillow from that bad and put it back on my bed. I’m imagining a maid with OCD who was highly disturbed to find anything in a place other than the one in which she had left it 24 hours earlier.

I’m checking out in a few minutes, but I was contemplating the hypothetical situation if I was staying another night or two. Do I call down and have the feather stuff removed, risking an army of hotel employees coming through the room for no good reason? Do I simply play cat and mouse with the maid every day? Do I hide the feather bedding in the closet or under a bed, and see if that’s sufficient to stop her? I have no answers.

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→ May 16, 2009
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Keith Law, for rent.

I’ve mentioned many times that my daughter is a big fan of PBS Kids programming, both on WGBH, our local PBS affiliate, and on the cable channel Sprout, which airs kids’ shows 24 hours a day. (That doesn’t make me a fan – I can’t stand Caillou, and I think Angelina is a mean little drama queen.) A reader who works at WGBH noticed this and asked if I’d be willing to donate some time to help the station raise money, and the result is this entry in their current auction: Scout with ESPN’s Keith Law. The winner gets to tag along with me to a minor-league game (or a Cape game, if that’s more convenient) at some point this summer. Proceeds, of course, go to WGBH.

Back on the baseball front, I’ve got a draft gossip piece up on the site, and I’m assuming most of you saw my first top 100 ranking for this year’s draft, which was posted just in time for #3 James Paxton to show up for his last start missing 2-4 mph on his fastball. Good times.

This high school coach should be fired. (Hat tip: BBTF.)

Apparently, dish hero Alton Brown will be appearing this weekend at the Monterey Bay Aquarium to talk sustainable seafood. If you go, I want a report.

Jack Kerouac was kind of into sim baseball. Go figure. (HT: BBTF and Shysterball.)

No radio/TV for me this weekend due to a very important birthday party today.

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→ April 27, 2009
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TV today.

I’ll be on ESPNEWS via phone at 2:20 pm EDT sometime in the next hour. Stay tuned.

Also, thanks to those of you who chimed in on the water heater. We went with a tank over tankless; the configuration of our basement was going to make the installation of the tankless very expensive, so even after the rebate and tax credit it was an additional ~$1500 to go tankless. We don’t really want to stay in this house for that long anyway, so making that kind of investment just for the psychic value (having the “cool” toy, helping the environment) didn’t make sense.

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→ March 30, 2009
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Facebook page.

A few of you have already noticed that I set up a fan page for myself on Facebook, which I have to admit feels a bit presumptuous. I just learned that Facebook has an upper limit on the number of friends a person can have of 5000, which I’ll hit in about a year and a half at the rate at which friend requests have been coming in of late. I figured I should get ahead of the curve and am no longer accepting friend requests from people I don’t actually know.

I don’t intend to unfriend any of you who are already friends with me – well, unless you piss me off – but would encourage you to follow me through the fan page, which I’ll update regularly with links to ESPN content and media appearances.

Speaking of which, I’m doing a phoner on First Take on Monday at 11:25 am EDT on ESPN2, and am tentatively scheduled for a hit on Phoenix’s KTAR 620 AM on Thursday at 7:20 am Arizona time.

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