Stick to baseball, 6/16/19.

I had one ESPN+ piece this week, looking at which teams just drafted their new #1 or #2 prospects in last week’s draft.

On July 8th, the day after the MLB Futures Game, I’ll be speaking at the Hudson Library in Hudson, Ohio, about Smart Baseball and signing books.

My free email newsletter is back, at least in the sense that I’ve sent it out twice in the last two weeks, so maybe sign up for that too.

And now, the links…

• Longreads first: The Guardian has an excerpt on a book that argues there are harmful effects of the co-opting of mindfulness by those who push it as a panacea.
• The New Yorker solved the mystery of the McCarthy campaign worker Pat Sylvester who impressed Robert F. Kennedy in an impromptu conversation (that included Taylor Branch, later to win a Pulitzer Prize) at the Indianapolis Airport just a month before Kennedy was assassinated.
• This piece was free but went premium after I bookmarked it – the Chronicle of Higher Education looks at how the University of Utah failed to protect a student who was stalked and later killed by her former partner.
• In the backwater swirling, update: Alabama banned abortion for rape victims but protects the parental rights of rapists. BBC’s The Inquiry podcast asked why is it always Alabama? in this week’s episode.
• Former Congressional candidate Paul Nehlen has turned to advocating violence in favor of a whites-only state.
• Nancy Bass Wyden, owner of New York’s iconic bookstore The Strand, penned an editorial opposing the city’s designation of the building and store as a landmark. Reason also has an editorial on the topic, pointing out the immense power the 11-person landmarks committee holds over New York City real estate.
• Afghanistan veteran and former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander spoke to NBC News about his struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder.
• A single mutation turned almonds from toxic to a major culinary item, as it removed the amygdalin (found in bitter almonds as well as the nuts at the hearts of peaches) from the nuts.
• George Will says that young people have decided the GOP is ‘the dumb party,’ arguing that the Republicans have become the cult of Trump and are devoid of ideas. I tend to agree, but don’t think it’s a fait accompli that Democrats benefit – they need to counter with workable policy ideas of their own and to improve their ground game to capitalize.
• Board game news: Renegade Studios announced a September release for Icarus, a collaborative storytelling game about the fall of a civilization.
• Deep Water Games opened a Kickstarter for Soveriegn Skies, a midweight Euro that promises to play in 45 minutes.