My two ESPN+ posts this week covered a slew of low-A and short-season prospects for the Yankees, Phillies, Red Sox, and Orioles, including Roansy Contreras and a third look at Grayson Rodriguez; and my wrapup of this year’s Under Armour game, full of high school prospects for the 2020 draft. I held a Klawchat on Thursday.
At the moment, it looks like I’ll be in Bristol on Wednesday for ESPN’s Trade Deadline special, driving home that night and flying out to Gen Con the following morning. That probably spikes a chat for this week, but I’ll return for one on the 7th or 8th.
You can still subscribe to my free email newsletter to get additional writing, typically of a more personal nature than what you find elsewhere. My deepest thanks to all of you who sent such kind replies to my most recent newsletter, and a seriously-fuck-off to the one guy who decided it was a good time to be an ass to me.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: The Atlantic looks at why so many rape cases go unprosecuted or even uninvestigated: Because men still don’t believe women.
- “The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge,” from New York‘s The Cut, lives up to its title and then some – it’s a con story, but also a head-scratcher that an intelligent man could be such an easy mark.
- Say it ain’t so, Mo: Mariano Rivera is a Trump supporter and has aligned himself with an anti-Semitic pastor who says Jews deserve blame for their own genocide at the hands of Nazi Germany. Rivera spoke to the New York Daily News after the first story appeared but reaffirmed his views.
- Women face a substantial obstacle in their careers, regardless of type: gender roles in our society give them little time to themselves. Women are still expected to handle the lion’s share of the family responsibilities, even at the expense of their vocations or creative potential.
- Dutch parents have long engaged in “dropping” their teenaged children, sending them into the woods in small groups at night and telling the kids to find their own way back to base camp.
- Wyoming Valley West school district, northwest of Philadelphia, made news by threatening to send kids to foster care over unpaid school lunch debts, and then turned down a $22,000 offer from the founder of La Colombe Coffee to clear those debts. Maybe it’s not about the money after all.
- Ed Kilgore’s piece in New York on the argument against impeaching Trump even if you believe he’s guilty of obstruction is worth reading, even though I still come down on the side of impeachment.
- Three Ole Miss students posed with guns in front of a shot-up Emmett Till memorial, which somehow doesn’t violate the school’s code of conduct.
- Singer Nick Cave had a rather wonderful response after someone referred to his fans as “pretentious fat lesbians.”
- Rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, a major driver of anthropogenic climate change, also lead to reduced nutrition levels in rice.
- Your bagged salads or lettuces may, on rare occasions, also include reptiles or amphibians, alive, dead, or perhaps in pieces.
- I was relieved to see my friend Will Leitch had a very positive review of Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
- The Hidden Brain podcast had an episode on vaccine refusal and other kinds of denialism called Facts Aren’t Enough.
- Renegade Games announced an upcoming title based on Katie O’Neill’s graphic novel The Aquicorn Cove. It’s a cooperative title listed for ages 10+, although the book is aimed at readers aged 7 and up.
I don’t know if it’s my imagination but it seems like for every Sean Doolittle there are a dozen Mo Rivera’s (or Daniel Murphy’s, for that matter) in MLB. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Thank you as always for these posts.
Regarding OUATIH, I thought it was pretty good overall, though not quite in Tarantino’s upper echelon.
That being said, I’m still debating with myself over whether or not the film goes too far. I mean, I’m not sure how much I should say to avoid spoilers, but there are definitely moments that can be questioned. I can say that I don’t agree with Rich Juzwiak’s review on Jezebel, for example, which basically seems to complain that Sharon Tate doesn’t have a lot of lines. Ultimately the film isn’t about her, and her story is just the backdrop. I’m not sure if the analogy really works, but it’s basically like how Titanic isn’t about Titanic and the real people who were on it, but about the fictitious couple who fell in love and had the tragedy happen to them.
Even so, I’d recommend seeing it and drawing your own conclusions.
I thought it was easily his weakest film, though still worth seeing for some of the ideas and Leo’s excellent performance.
Always Death Proof as his weakest. Just thoroughly boring and uninteresting.
As a Yankees fan, I am so pissed off at Rivera’s views. Just fucking abhorrent. I can support his belief that an imaginary man gave life to his fastball where the science suggests…gee…I dunno…PED’s? But I cannot put up with anyone that still defends Trump at this point. Fuck Mariano Rivera.
What podcasts do you listen to Keith? Always looking for ones to explore.. thank you
My favorites are The Hidden Brain, Grierson & Leitch, BBC The Inquiry, and Hugh Acheson Stirs the Pot. I also really enjoyed the two seasons of Crimetown, BBC’s The Assassination, and NPR’s The Grift.
I actually think this film is better than Tarantino’s last two. I liked them both but he seemed content to do them as genre pictures, where this seemed more heartfelt and original.
It’s his most laid-back movie to date, and you have to come in ready to indulge his love of Hollywood, but I liked it enough that it never felt long to me.
The link to your newsletter actually goes to a chat.
Thank you. I’ve fixed it.