Stick to baseball, 5/13/17.

My one Insider post this week was my first ‘mock’ draft for 2017, although it’s really too early for that sort of exercise. And I held a Klawchat on Thursday.

Smart Baseball is out now in the U.S. and Canada; you can order it here or get it at any local bookstore. We are working on getting an ebook version out in some international markets, but I can’t promise anything there yet.

I have two signings/talks this week, for which I’m very excited (and a little anxious, to be honest). The first is in Decatur, Georgia (Atlanta area), at the Georgia Center for the Book on Tuesday at 7 pm, and the AJC was kind enough to lead their book events page with a note about my appearance. The second is in Minneapolis at Moon Palace Books on Thursday at 6:30 pm. I hope to meet many of you at these events, both of which are free to attend.

I’ve been asked by many of you about organizing other events. If a bookstore reaches out to Harper Collins to invite me, and I can work it into my schedule, I’m certainly open to doing more. I do have further events scheduled for Toronto, Miami (July 8th), and Berkeley (July 19th), plus am hoping to do signings at GenCon and PAX Unplugged later this year.

I spoke with SUNY-Oswego Professor of Digital Media Brian Moritz about the book, analytics in sports, and being a writer. I joined The Young Turks’ video show to discuss the book and media resistance to advanced stats. I also spoke with ESPN Radio in Dallas, with ESPN 1530 in Cincinnati, and with SI Now about the book & Mike Mussina’s Hall of Fame case.

And now, the links…

• The best thing I heard this week was NPR’s half-hour program looking back at the riots in LA after the Rodney King verdict.
• TIME is running a series on the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that’s worth your time. I’ve said a few times that the #1 reason I buy organic dairy and eggs is to avoid contributing to the overuse of antibiotics in livestock.
• A Nature editorial argues we need standardized language around antibiotic resistance to help combat the problem.
• “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care,” said GOP Representative Raul Labrador in a quote that will one day go on his tombstone. But it turns out people with C. Difficile infections often don’t get medication because of lack of funds, even though the drug (vancomycin) is available as a generic. (Abstract only; article requires subscription.)
• Dr. Chad Hayes explains why anti-vaxxers who demand double-blind studies are delusional, if not outright cruel. Such studies would violate basic medical ethics.
• Norway is reopening a 46-year-old cold case around the murder of a still-unidentified woman who’d been traveling in the country with numerous passports and aliases.
• The New York Times has been producing some great journalism this year … and some absolute trash, like an editorial by the head of an anti-abortion group that relied on pseudoscience and didn’t properly identify the author’s role with that organization, which runs “crisis pregnancy centers” that primarily exist to try to deter pregnant women from getting abortions, and has called abortion “the worst holocaust in human history.”
• And then the Grey Lady comes back with Tim Egan’s strong editorial asking who will save our republic, a call to Republicans to stand up against the ongoing battle between the Administration and the Constitution.
• A West Virginia journalist was arrested for yelling questions at HHS Secretary Tom Price. Did he break the law by trying to get past security? Or was this a violation of our right to a free press?
• The failed state of Venezuela continues its downward spiral, a story with real implications for MLB and hundreds of players in organized baseball. The latest protest saw police pepper-spraying a “grandparents March” in Caracas.
• VICE Sports goes back to how the Timberwolves drafted a 27-year-old player in Qatar over Isaiah Thomas, a bizarre story that reminded me of the old days of MLB teams giving large signing bonuses to Dominican players who’d faked their ages and even names.
• Reading more books is good for your brain. I knew I wasn’t just wasting my time! This Quartz piece reviews seven tips to increase your reading output, although I’d say tips 1 and 2 are by far the most valuable. (Also, it’s cute that they hold up Bill Gates reading 50 books a year as amazing.)
• A North Carolina reverend and political activist told NPR that the recent executive order on “religious freedom” is just thinly disguised religious bigotry.
• Texas, continuing its own downward spiral, is now considering a bill that would allow adoption agencies to reject gay or non-Christian couples, even if they receive state funding, under the guise of “religious freedom.”
• Iowa Republican Congressman Rod Blum walked out in the middle of a scheduled interview because he didn’t like the questions. He’s under fire for voting for the Trumpcare bill even though it appears his constituents don’t (or may not) support it.
• Is American capitalism inherently anti-innovation? And are the ongoing cuts to government-funded research killing our economy’s capacity to innovate? I don’t know, although I wish the author hadn’t used Juicero as a jumping-off point for his arguments.
• Can other countries replicate Germany’s success in retaining manufacturing jobs? The differences between their culture of innovation and skills development and ours are stark.
• Three classic Atari videogames will be adapted as boardgames within the next year, although I’m not sure how these solo games will work in cardboard.
• Goofy fun: mental floss looks at eleven bizarre international borders, including the famous Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog borders where a town is split between Belgium and the Netherlands, but not by anything resembling a straight line. (And yes, they flipped East & West Germany in one of the graphics.)