My second dispatch from the AFL covers Michael Kopech, Francis Martes, Dillon Tate, and more. I also wrote a column on the Dbacks’ hire of Mike Hazen and the lack of diversity in front offices. Both pieces are for Insiders, and neither mentions Tim Tebow. I also held my regular Klawchat on Thursday.
My latest boardgame review for Paste covers the pirate-themed Islebound, a gorgeous game that plays slow and dry.
You can also preorder my upcoming book, Smart Baseball, on amazon. Also, please sign up for my more-or-less weekly email newsletter.
And now, the links…
- The BBC discusses the tyranny and oppression beneath the sunny surface of Gambia, a popular tourist destination for Europeans. A sad note on this story: its author, Chris Simpson, died this week in his hotel room in Senegal shortly after filing. The cause of death has not been determined.
- A 31-year-old researcher from UC Davis was killed by a rock-thrower during protests in Ethiopia last month. Ethiopia had been one of the few stable countries in east Africa, bordering the non-state of Somalia, the brutal dictatorship in Eritrea, and the weak, beleaguered government of South Sudan. Ethiopia is also a major producer of coffee, and the unrest there (including the destruction of washing stations) will likely lead to higher coffee prices.
- Burundi is also sliding into collapse and the international community needs to step up its involvement in trying to reach a political solution. The humanitarian crisis there is growing; there are over 400,000 displaced Burundians and nearly half the population needs food aid.
- Is the so-called Islamic State finished? Its territory may be shrinking, along with its resources, but that may mean the group disperses into a stateless terrorist network like its parent, al Qaeda.
- Amnesty International accuses Australia of intentionally torturing refugees in its Nauru detention center, which the Australians denied, of course. The NY Times editorial board slammed Australia as well as Nauru, which pockets a tidy profit from hosting the center while limiting press access.
- How about some longreads? Outside has the crazy story of the search for the wreckage of Eastern Airlines flight 980, which crashed in the mountains of Bolivia in 1985. Two climbers took the author on their quest to find the black box recorders and any of the bodies, none of which was found in initial recovery efforts.
- The best thing I read all week was the Washington Post‘s story on Derek Black, son of the white supremacist behind Stormfront, chronicling Derek’s realization that he didn’t want to be heir to his father’s throne – or affiliated with white supremacist movements at all.
- This profile of James Beard Award-winning chef and pizzaiolo Chris Bianco is stellar, getting into Bianco’s thoughts on pizza, food, and life in general. Bianco’s business partner, Seth Sulka, co-owns the Hillside Spot in Ahwatukee, where I ate twice last week (get the chilaquiles verdes with hash browns, you won’t regret it), and Tratto, the new place discussed in this article, is outstanding.
- FiveThirtyEight has an excellent longread on the upcoming vote in the Florida Keys over releasing genetically modified mosquitos to try to fight Aedes aegypti, the species most responsible for spreading the Zika virus, dengue fever, and chikungunya. Within that article is the issue of allowing the public to vote on matters of public health that might be best decided by experts but where the decision may directly affect the voters’ physical well-being.
- I’d rather not link to the New York Review of Books, but they did have the best story on the Kansas City librarian facing dubious criminal charges for protecting a patron’s First Amendment rights.
- The Arizona Republic received death threats after the paper endorsed Hillary Clinton for President – the first time the paper had ever endorsed a Democrat for the office. Their response to the threats was to stand firm in their beliefs.
- This was a tough read: the Charlotte Observer has a story on the almost 17-year-old son of convicted murderer* Rae Carruth. The boy has cerebral palsy, the result of his mother bleeding out after the shooting, and he’s been raised by his grandmother. Carruth has had no contact with the boy since he was one and still claims he had nothing to do with his girlfriend’s death. (*Carruth was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, but ‘convicted conspiracist’ doesn’t really sound right.)
- Pro-Trump supporters have gone way beyond even the depraved norms of online harassment, as detailed by conservative, anti-Trump writer David French. If you’re voting for Trump, these are your comrades-in-arms. You surely deserve each other.
- A University of Hawai’i professor opposed to genetic modification of food crops participated in the harassment of University of Florida Professor Kevin Folta, one of the leading proponents of GM crops. So why is Valenzuela still on the staff of a public university?
- Why should you care? Well, genetic modification has produced tobacco plants that produce high amounts of artemisinin, a potent anti-malarial treatment.
- So-called “detox” products are a scam. Really. All of them. Your liver takes care of most of this for you – including, by the way, the trace amounts of ethylmercury that used to be found in vaccines as thimerosal.
- Friday’s DDoS attack on a DNS provider is a really bad sign for the future of the internet. I used to work for a company (prior to my baseball career) that made anti-DDoS software and was purchased by a larger firm in 2010, but my lay understanding of this attack is that the sheer quantities of data being thrown at servers are bigger than most solutions can handle.
- Useful tips on how to succeed in meetings by not paying attention better than anyone else.
- The proposed new ballpark for the Rangers in Arlington, Texas, is just a giant transfer of wealth to the team’s owners, and if you live in Arlington, you should vote against the proposal next month. They can afford to build their own stadium without taking money from the public’s pockets.
- Trump repeated a pro-life claim about babies being “ripped” from their mother’s wombs in the debate, sparking this post from a woman who had to terminate her pregnancy or die of preeclampsia. Her “abortion” came at 23 weeks, but the alternative was to die (and have the fetus die with her).
- Where the fuck are mainstream Republicans on Trump’s vote-rigging claims? Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake are among the few who have stood up to deny him, and we should all remember the names of other Republicans who did so – and those who didn’t.
- Governor Mike Pence’s administration in Indiana may be engaging in some old Jim Crow-style voter suppression. Maybe that’s the kind of vote-rigging Trump is warning us about!
- The mayor of nearby West York, Pennsylvania, resigned after he posted a series of racist memes mocking President Obama and black Americans in general. I bet you can’t guess who he’s supporting for President!
- Daniel Dale has become one of the most popular fact-checkers on Twitter, with daily updates on the candidate’s falsehoods. Dale wrote a story for Politico on how and why he ended up in this role.
- I linked to a few stories about Kelly Oxford’s #notokay Twitter campaign last week; the stories kept coming this week too, including one from a woman who says the tweets helped her realize she’s been assaulted and a related story from Goldie Taylor on why she didn’t talk about her rape for 30 years.
- We’ve got a scandal brewing here in Delaware, where the Christina School District illegally withheld over $7 million in funds that should have gone to charter schools. That district, which includes the town of Newark and the University of the Delaware, has been plagued by low ratings and complaints about poor school performance, even though it doesn’t include the most economically disadvantaged parts of the state.
- The Telegraph used Phil Collins’ revelation that he’s a recovering alcoholic to cover the new trend of “mid-lifers” developing severe drinking problems.
- Couple of tweets worth seeing. First, more on the people you’re in bed with if you’re supporting Trump:
I live near KKK headquarters, and I want to make sure everyone sees the paper they left in my driveway, promoting #TrumpPence16. His base: pic.twitter.com/cWVf3LhDus
— Casey (@pari_passu) October 16, 2016
And this one, in which the tweeter (?) trolls Dilbert creator, Trump supporter, and man no longer in touch with reality Scott Adams:
dilbert is mine now pic.twitter.com/CyY6aKJ8oL
— leon (@leyawn) October 19, 2016
Has numbnuts Scott Adams had anything to say about that strip?
I haven’t seen anything yet, but I refuse to actually follow him. He and Dinesh D’Souza had a nice race to the bottom this week.
Why the principled stand against the NYRB of all publications?
Because they outed Elena Ferrante.
Keith,
What did you make of your ex-colleague’s “launch” of his Senate campaign on CNN. It could be charitably described as morbidly fascinating. Was there anything there that surprised you?
“As I often say, Democrats generally use guns to commit crimes. Republican use guns for sport and for self-defense.” Scott Adams blog… Apparently, he’s a racist too.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/152115888936/the-crook-versus-the-monster
How you gathered that S.A. is a racist from that article is beyond me. Please elaborate.
Because he suggests that the actual, overt racism of Trump is nothing more than normal, garden-variety fear of “the other.”
Hi Keith, I enjoy your visits to the BBTN podcast. I think you have a typo in the bullet point about the Arizona Republic nominating a Republican for the first time ever in the 10/22/2016 “Stick to Baseball” blog.
Is it just me, or does Gambia seem like a future Olympics host?
At least The Gambia would have adequate aquatic facilities when they do.
What’s happening to David French and his family is absolutely horrific. Now that he’s experienced it, perhaps he’ll acknowledge the role he played in if not egging on at least diminishing the impact of these Twitter mobs when they went after people whose politics he disagreed with: https://twitter.com/Spacekatgal/status/789639134008651778
Maybe you should give equal time and mention the anti-Trump folks who showed up at his rallies & physically accosted people who went to hear Trump.
There is no “equal time” notion here. I post what I want to post. If you want “fair and balanced,” you know where to find it.
1) Answering constitutionally-protected speech with violence is always wrong.
2) Only one major presidential candidate has explicitly advocated for violence.
3) One’s motivations are suspect when one deflects instead of calling out their own fucking team.
I knew there would be no equal time, sir…I’ve seen your twitter posts.
Dear Salty, Only 1 major party candidate violated federal law, but got a pass because she’s above the law. BTW, did you notice that her nose is much longer now than it was a few months ago?
As a biologist, I’m quite embarrassed that I did not notice her unusually fast nose growth. Thank you for changing the subject to point that out to me.
Asshattery aside, reasonable people can disagree over whether Secretary Clinton violated any laws (the FBI argued that she did not). Personally, I feel that Secretary Clinton was at least careless and foolish for setting up the server, and her explanations are wanting. That’s a decided negative on her ledger for me, but not disqualifying. Were a moderate Republican running, I might have had a real decision to make. Of course, I now look forward to a nuanced post on your preferred candidate’s relative strengths and weaknesses.
I’m just certain that the news networks that Jim Rogers listens to give “equal time” to all positions.
Jim,
Remind me which major party candidate bragged about sexually assaulting women. As soon as you’re done talking about equal time over there in the no-spin zone of course. No rush my friend!
He explicitly states that democrats generally use guns to commit crimes while the only logical implication is that the criminals democrats are minorities.
That’s hardly the only logical implication, Shaun. There are far more “majorities” than minorities in the democratic party.
So the Democrats who are for more gun control are the ones commit who more crimes with guns?
Well, anecdotally there are some pretty hilarious/ironic gun charges against Democratic politicians and/or activists who have railed against legal gun ownership in some form or another (my favorite is Leland Yee; http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-california-yee-idUSBREA331K720140404); I haven’t heard of any Republican officials being charged with gun crimes, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. I don’t know of any studies that actually have looked into what political party people who commit gun crimes are associated with, but I’d feel comfortable guessing that a good portion of people who commit violent crimes regularly (i.e. gang members, drug dealers, career criminals of all varieties really) are also not going to be the most politically engaged.
I find it ironic that you link to the story of Rae Carruth’s son and the abortion piece at the same time.
Virtually no pro-lifer (and Trump is just a charlatan mimicking genuine pro-life opinion, to be sure) would ban abortion when the mother’s life is in danger, and when the fetus is non-viable. Meanwhile, thousands of fetuses are killed in the womb at the same stage of development as Carruth’s son was at the time of the shooting despite no threat to the mother.
Don’t bait-and-switch your cowardly abortion position. Don’t act like we are discussing fetuses that are already, for all intents and purposes, dead. Don’t act like every abortion is done to save a woman’s life. Just admit what your position is, which is that a healthy and viable fetus in a healthy and viable woman is void of any and all rights prior to its first breath outside the womb. You’re lying to yourself by blabbing about esoteric and crucial circumstances that happen in a small percentage of cases.
Also, “so-called Islamic State”? Why is it so-called? You become an expert of the Koran recently? Who made you the arbiter on the terms of jihad?
Wow, you’re kind of a jerk, aren’t you, Terry?
It is bizarre that you see the Carruth story as being a commentary on abortion. Meanwhile, your representations of both sides of this debate are flat-out incorrect. There are plenty of pro-life zealots who believe that no abortion is tolerable, regardless of circumstances. Mike Pence, at times, has been among that cadre. So has Ted Cruz. So has Scott Walker. At the same time, I’ve NEVER heard any pro-choice person claim that the only fetuses who are aborted are non-viable or are a threat to the life of the mother.
And ISIS is “so-called” because while they claim to be a state, they are not recognized as such by the nations of the world. Further, as they are about to relinquish all of their territorial holdings, they will soon fail the single most important test of nationhood.
Terry,
There is much dickery afoot in that post. How did you take that away from the Rae Carruth story?
Terry: I will not justify your comments with a response. You’re not welcome here if that’s how you intend to speak to me.
Keith
Jim – please point to the logic of those in the majority only using guns to commit crimes. He’s trying to say something with his statement.
This election is the blowhard vs the liar.
The blowhard wants to limit immigration. The liar wants open borders.
The blowhard is promising more jobs for Americans. The liar is promising “free” college.
The blowhard is a successful businessman. The liar allowed Americans to die in Benghazi.
I’m going with the blowhard.
Benghazi Derangement Syndrome
You really and truly think Donald Trump is not a liar? You might want to read the story on Daniel Dale linked above.
In any case, Hilary Clinton is promising more jobs too:
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/jobs/
She has not advocated free college for everyone (that was Bernie Sanders), does not want open borders (that’s a distortion of a point she made about energy policy), and was not responsible for people dying in Benghazi (she was secretary of state, for god’s sake, not chief of security).
Meanwhile, the lying blowhard has said nothing about HOW he will bring more jobs or HOW he will secure the border. You see, the devil with these things is in the details. Anyone can say they want world peace, or they want to balance the budget, or they want to give everyone a truckload of free candy, but it doesn’t mean anything if they have no idea how to accomplish that.
And if you count being given your start by daddy and THEN being propped up over and over by daddy again, plus four bankruptcies, plus screwing over countless employees and partners as “successful,” then yeah, you’re right on that one.
It’s your right to vote for Trump, of course. But you really ought not come to a blog like this and spout easily-disprovable nonsense about your reasons.
Jim: Your summary bears no resemblance to the truth. And as for liars, check out how many lawsuits are currently pending just against “Trump University.”
The blowhard is also a liar. And I question how you claim him to be successful businessman after multiple bankruptcies and lost near makes no difference $1 billion in one year, a year in which only three Fortune 500 companies lost more. So enjoy voting for the blowhard/liar.
How about not one of those things matter, because he’s simply not qualified to be president? He doesn’t understand foreign policy, his grasp on domestic policy is limited at best, and, oh wait…he has bragged openly about sexually assaulting people. Yes, he has been a successful businessman (anyone saying he’s not is just ignoring the facts; he’s had some rough stretches, and is probably not worth anywhere close to what he claims, but anyone who can afford to lose $1 billion in a year and not completely collapse is clearly doing something right), but being successful in the private sector bears little to no resemblance to being successful in the public sector, and certainly has nothing to do with being president. I can’t stand the idea of Hillary Clinton as president, but the mere thought of Donald Trump being in charge of our foreign policy and our military scares the living hell out of me.
If net worth is your sole metric for determining success in business, then yes he would be successful. But that isn’t the sole reason to me. For one, he started out with a lot of money from his dad, so he isn’t self-made. He has also realized that when it comes to lawsuits, the far richer person will win. They can play a long game that the smaller business cannot afford. This has helped him screw over many, many people and force them to settle for far less than they originally agreed to. Plus, a lot of his properties were built on the backs of huge tax breaks and incentives, so he wasn’t risking a lot in these ventures but had a lot to gain. So his money wasn’t made ethically and a lot of the risk he’s had was on the taxpayers. Now, he’s turned into Krusty the Clown and putting his name on anything and everything (are Trump Police Barricades next?). So he’s made a lot money, but that alone doesn’t determine success, IMHO.
addoeh, by your definition, then no one who started out rich can be successful, because they already had money. I never said he was ethical (he’s not), that he didn’t benefit from a biiiiiiiig head start or beneficial tax code (he did), or that he was “self made” (he’s clearly not, at least not completely so). I said he was a successful businessman; lots of people in this country have turned a couple hundred million into nothing, and he did not do that. In fact, he significantly increased his wealth. I’m not sure why his lack of risk makes him unsuccessful; if I were investing, I’d want to invest my money with the person who risks it the least; wouldn’t you? Monetizing his name is probably the smartest thing he could do, because his money isn’t at risk, and he still earns regardless. Does any of this mean he’s a good person, or would make a good president? Of course not. But two years ago, before this travesty of a campaign, would you really have said he wasn’t a good businessman?
Trump’s success as a businessman requires two data points, neither of which do we have, unambiguously:
1. How much did he inherit/receive from his father?
2. How much does he have now?
There is an argument to be made, based on some publicly-available figures, that he would have more money now if he’d just put his inheritance into a conservative mutual fund than he has from his real estate career.
CB, I’ve heard the same, with the assumption that he received about $200 million from his father in the mid-1970s, which in a fund following the S&P 500 would be somewhere in the $10 billion range. However, that exists in a vacuum; it assumes no withdrawals/use of the money, which is crazy, particularly given the lifestyle he lives. Even with significant dividends, it’s unlikely he would be able to maintain such a life without using and investing that money in other ways. In the end, you’re correct, to accurately determine how successful (or unsuccessful) he has been, we’d need to know those two things, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that a guy who is generally estimated to be worth at least a few billion has been successful in his business dealings, even if not everyone he worked with came out nearly so well.
The money is only one part of the successful equation for me. Ethics also plays a big part. So if he is unethical, he isn’t successful. That only makes him rich.
Ok, but that’s success as a person. Success as a businessman is generally accepted to be, at least mostly, about how much money you make, with the caveat that it needs to be done legally, which as best anyone can figure out, he has done with few exceptions.
Jeremy, he’s repeatedly breached his contracts with his vendors. That is not legal. That he had the resources to grind them out and force them to take steep discounts rather than engage in costlier litigation does not change the fact his actions were against the law. Our legal structure lacks the enforcement mechanisms to bind somebody on that side of the imbalanced power dynamic, but Donald Trump routinely defrauds those he does business with. That Trump University is the subject of a lawsuit is only due to the fortituous fact that all of his victims in that situation can come together for class certification, something that the stiffed vendors cannot do.
Hey Keith, you have a typo in the bullet about the Arizona Republic endorsing Hilary. You said its the first time they’ve endorsed a Republican instead of Democrat.
I read your Insider article about the Hazen hiring and have some thoughts about the internships.
You recommend banning unpaid internships to address the problem of minority front-office hiring in baseball. But that would be a panacea, at best. When teams get stacks of resumes for their internship — whether paid or unpaid — they are naturally going to gravitate to the candidates who went to the best schools. Lets be honest: a black history major with a 3.4 GPA at NC State is not going to beat out a white mathematics major from Dartmouth with a 3.4 GPA, even if you ban unpaid internships.
Instead, here would be a proposal that may actually get underrepresented candidates into MLB internships. MLB creates an internship program (we’ll call it BOP for Baseball Opportunity Program). Every team would be forced to hold open one summer internship for a BOP candidate (that’s 32 internships) with eight additional internships at MLB HQ. The team internships must be in a department (GM’s office, analytics, scouting) that has to do with on-field talent (as opposed to marketing, ticket sales, etc). In order to apply, you *must* meet 2 of the following 3 criteria: (1) be a racial, ethnic, or gender minority, (2) have a family income below a certain level and/or (3) currently be attending a public university.
MLB HQ takes the applications for the program and identifies the 40 most promising candidates. The resumes of those 40 candidates are distributed to the MLB teams, who must hire one of the candidates for a 10-week internship before March 1. The 8 remaining candidates work in NY at MLB HQ in departments that teams would consider valuable experience (like labor relations). MLB pays these interns a stipend to pay cost of living during the internship.
The easiest way to break into MLB in any position is to know someone. If someone in baseball can personally vouch for you, it instantly gives you a leg up on the hordes who are mass-mailing their resumes. If you put underrepresented candidates in a position to know someone and have experience, they are going to be much more likely to get hired and move into a front-office pipeline position.
Why force feed minority hiring? Jobs should be awarded on merit.. The Pirates fielded an all black starting lineup in 1971; the first time that was ever done in mlb. This was based on what the manager decided himself, not forced upon him.
NBA teams regularly field all black starting fives. Nobody cares, because these are the best players. That’s the way it should be in all fields, IMO.
So, your assumption is that only white people have merit when it comes to running MLB teams, since 95% of the executives (and all but one of the GMs) are white?
At this point Jim (Crow) is being so obtuse as to be following in the hallowed footsteps of Mark, NH, Kordell and all the trolls dearly departed. It must be nice to reside in whichever country he is from that has no historical injustices to be righted.
While I can understand why people would argue for hiring decisions being based solely on merit, pure meritocracy has likely never existed anywhere. And if you argue for pure meritocracy, how do you solve the problem where White-sounding names get 50% more interview callbacks than African-American sounding names, despite resumes being identical?
Thanks for posting that Salty, was trying to find it and kept thinking of a different research org. Good man.
Typo re: the link to Arizona paper endorsing Clinton (see ‘Republican’)? “The Arizona Republic received death threats after the paper endorsed Hillary Clinton for President – the first time the paper had ever endorsed a Republican for the office.”
Fixed, thanks.
http://www.iamatexan.com/2016/10/24/alert-texas-voting-machines-changing-trump-votes-to-clinton/?utm_content=buffer982ec&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
This is interesting. Hopefully this is just isolated
An unproven/unverified anecdote.
Keith, I hope you are right
The odds of three actual people all coincidentally starting their posts “WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING” (always four times, no exclamation point) are the same as those of bumping into Keith at an Olive Garden. (snopes linked by Keith above).
Numerous more-recent posts start with “Hey everyone, just a heads up!” supposedly from different people and localities. And the notion that election officials in Texas, of all places, would shrug and say “it happens” is a stretch. According to today’s snopes report, the one instance officials say was reported was investigated and showed no problem with the machine, and the woman told them she might have accidentally selected Clinton instead of Trump.
The Snopes article for the Texas voter fraud claims.
http://www.snopes.com/texas-vote-switching/