Stick to baseball, 5/20/18.

I was busy this week, including posting another first-round mock for next month’s MLB draft (Insider).

For Vulture, I ranked the 25 best board game apps for mobile devices, considering anything available for iOS or Android. Steam-only titles were not eligible.

For Paste, I reviewed the light deduction/puzzle game Automata Noir, a fun filler title that lets you do a little more than most deduction games where you’re just trying to guess who’s the bad guy.

PennLive asked fifty Pennsylvania librarians for their summer beach read recommendations and one kind soul recommended my own Smart Baseball, now available in paperback.

I’ll be appearing at Washington DC’s Politics & Prose on July 14th along with Jay Jaffe to talk baseball & sign our respective books (or I can sign Jay’s and he can sign mine, whatever you fancy).

And now, the links:

Comments

  1. Sam Harris may be the most frustrating man alive. (By which I mean frustrating to me.) I used to find his writing compelling, even where I didn’t particularly agree with him. But after his meltdown with Ezra Klein, I’ve had a hard time taking him seriously. He appeared to accuse Klein of arguing in bad faith, yet was evidently unwilling to really explain why he believed as much. Klein, for his part, came across as sincere, if a bit confused by Harris’ reaction. For a man who brands himself as a champion of rational thought, Harris increasingly seems incapable of self-reflection. It’s disappointing.

  2. Other than stating they are going to take down the leakers, the White House has down very little in that regard. I suspect they like having information come out from leaks so they can claim “fake news” and change the narrative to the leakers.

    The following article brought a smile to my face. It’s about an Australian man who saved may have saved millions of babies due to his blood plasma and donating blood every two weeks for 60 years. Whatever the actual number is doesn’t matter, it’s a lot.

    https://www.smh.com.au/healthcare/final-donation-for-man-whose-blood-helped-save-2-4-million-babies-20180511-p4zerp.html

  3. So does this mean that Statcast data is only good for explaining to us why things that have already happened, happened? Or will there be more tweaking or development to find something about its data that is predictive in nature?

    I honestly don’t care about the SNL “bias.” I mean, last night’s opening sketch wasn’t exactly timely in any way, since The Sopranos ended, what, a decade ago? But I agree with what you say in that we just need to keep fighting against Trump and those who enable him. I’m never interested in hearing the bullies whine about how they’re not getting a fair shake.

    As always, screw the Confederate flag. It is acceptable only in two places: museums and battlefields. I just wish the battlefields would stop selling merchandise with it depicted (at least, the last time I was in Gettysburg five years ago they still were. I haven’t been to another battlefield in close to two decades).

    Evangelical voters make up a quarter of the population? Yikes. I was hoping it was much lower than that. Like the NRA, they always seem to have way too much influence. Like, if a candidate came out and said he/she was atheist or agnostic, his/her campaign would probably be dead. Which is why I could never run for office if I ever so desired.

    • So does this mean that Statcast data is only good for explaining to us why things that have already happened, happened? Or will there be more tweaking or development to find something about its data that is predictive in nature?

      The piece I linked just says the x-stats MLB is using don’t do what they’re supposed to do. xwOBA doesn’t predict wOBA, for example. That doesn’t mean Statcast data lack predictive information, though. I bet it’s in there, but perhaps it’s in data that aren’t public.

      Evangelicals are 1/4 of the population, but I believe they constitute a higher percentage of the electorate. We are a secular nation by our constitution and longstanding judicial precedent. That is in jeopardy as long as evangelicals have this disproportionate power in government. It is incumbent on all of us who believe in the separation of state and religion – which includes nonreligious people as well as religious people who still appreciate the importance of a secular government – to vote for candidates who pledge to uphold and strengthen this separation.

    • “as long as evangelicals have this disproportionate power in government”

      Is it really disproportionate? A quarter of the population is a pretty big number. I would expect any group of that size with that level of enthusiasm to exert substantial influence. Isn’t that how democracy works? I would prefer a total separation of church and state, but it’s not realistic at all given the U.S.’ current demographics.

  4. I’ll leave this here, without commentary (even in your Onion).

    https://www.theonion.com/the-onion-has-finally-read-michael-cohen-s-2013-email-1826197533