This week I had two related columns for subscribers to the Athletic – my 2010 redraft and my list of the 2010 first-rounders who didn’t pan out. A few people got particularly unpleasant over the redraft, which is quite unusual, mostly because they didn’t read the intro. I held another Klawchat on Thursday.
On The Keith Law Show this week, I had Cubs’ superutilityman Ian Happ as a guest to talk about coffee, especially his collaboration with Connect Roasters to sell a specific blend of Guatemalan beans, with $3 from every bag going to COVID-19 relief charities. You can buy the coffee at coffeeforcovid.com, and you can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes or Spotify.
My second book, The Inside Game, made the New York Times‘ list of six recommended summer reads in the sports category, which is incredibly flattering. You can buy The Inside Game or Smart Baseball on bookshop.org or at any local stores if they’re opening back up near you.
I’ve been better about sending out my newsletter lately – feel free to sign up here to get weekly-ish musings and links to everything I write.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: Ed Yong continues his outstanding coverage of the pandemic for The Atlantic with a sobering look at the “patchwork” pandemic, including the lack of a peak and rolling outbreaks still going on across the country. Note how many instances he documents of the federal government abdicating its responsibilities to state and local authorities, and his statement that Arizona reopened “while cases were still rising” – bad news for MLB teams with training sites there.
- Former NHL player Akim Aliu’s essay “Hockey is Not For Everyone” is a damning look at racism in North American hockey.
- Serious Eats explains the science behind sourdough starters.
- Drowned out by some dubious news about a commercial COVID-19 vaccine venture was the news from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center about two studies showing another vaccine protected primates against the same virus.
- Quarantine fatigue is real, but policymakers can learn from HIV-prevention efforts who realized abstinence-only efforts don’t work and instead focused on risk reduction strategies.
- The shutdown has forced many LGBT kids to return home to families that have rejected them or parts of their identities.
- Nearly half of the accounts on Twitter tweeting about the pandemic are bots, according to new research from Professor Kathleen Carley and others at Carnegie Mellon.
- VICE looks at the disturbing AF world of COVID-19 “truther” groups on Facebook, which promulgate bullshit conspiracy theories and engender anti-lockdown protests.
- BuzzFeed runs through some of the quacks and fake experts pushing pseudoscience and conspiracy theories about the pandemic, including Judy Mikovits, the disgraced researcher behind the bogus documentary “Plandemic.”
- Some COVID-19 patients show severely depleted levels of T cells, which may be a clue to potential treatments.
- As if we didn’t have enough to worry about from the pandemic, it has interrupted inoculation efforts around the world to the point that measles and polio outbreaks are becoming more likely.
- Iowa’s efforts at testing for COVID-19 and sharing that data with local officials appear to be a disaster.
- Dr. Dannagal Young, a Professor at the University of Delaware, describes how her late husband’s brain tumor led her to chase numerous conspiracy theories in a quest to regain control of their lives.
- White people’s “unreasonable fear,” which is itself unjustified, is killing black Americans, writes conservative journalist David French for TIME.
- I knew this was likely coming, but I’m still so disappointed that Gen Con 2020 has been cancelled.