For subscribers to the Athletic this week, I did my annual redraft column, looking back at the best players from the 2011 draft class, as well as the first-rounders who didn’t work out.
Over at Paste, I reviewed Umbra Via, an afterlife-themed game with route-building elements that just did not click for us at all.
My free email newsletter has returned, with my first edition in over a month, where I explain why I just haven’t felt much like writing lately – an unusual feeling for me.
My second book, The Inside Game, is now out in paperback, and I don’t think I’m just being a buy-my-book marketing guy when I suggest that it would make a great Father’s Day gift. Midtown Scholar still has a few signed copies of the paperback available, and you can buy the book via bookshop or amazon or anywhere else you buy books.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: America has a drinking problem. Well, I don’t, but the rest of you do.
- There’s growing evidence that UNC’s decision not to grant tenure to Nikole Hannah Jones was driven by the interference and objections of mega-donor Walter Hussman, Jr, for whom their journalism school is named. In one email to a board member, he wrote that “he was concerned about how Hannah-Jones’s work could clash with his vision for the school and what it teaches.”
- These “leaked” intelligence stories are often based on dubious sources that the authors fail to explain or even question. Indeed, the now widely-spread claim that COVID-19 leaked from a Wuhan lab is still free of actual evidence to support it.
- A group of unvaccinated staffers at a Houston hospital have filed a lawsuit against the hospital’s vaccine mandate, aided by a Houston lawyer with a long history of deranged legal actions including homophobic and anti-trans moves. I can’t speak to the legal issues here, but the plaintiff’s claims (e.g., that the vaccine can alter your DNA, which, come the fuck on already) are crazy, and if a hospital can’t mandate vaccinations, we are going to have to live with the pandemic forever.
- Sharyl Attkisson, a faux-journalist who has spread anti-vaccine disinformation for years and made the news in 2020 when she tried to air an interview with a conspiracy theorist who claimed COVID-19 was the product of a secret a government plan, is threatening to sue Dr. Peter Hotez, author of Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism, for defamation, a baseless threat aimed at silencing one of the most vocal and erudite advocates of vaccination.
- A new editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine explores incentives for increasing COVID-19 vaccine uptake, including mandating it in health care settings, requiring it for access to events that “involve close person-to-person contact,” and raising life and health insurance premiums for people who refuse to get the shot. I’m a big fan of the last approach: people respond strongly to financial incentives, and those of us who have gotten vaccinated shouldn’t be subsidizing those who won’t.
- We loved Mare of Easttown, especially since we caught many of the local references, living just a mile or two away from the border between Delaware (state) and Delaware County. The show’s depictions of the residents of DelCo, however, isn’t very accurate. That county has historically been quite red, with deep racial tensions going back to the Civil War.
- Texas, whose tourism board has adopted the slogan Where The Cruelty Is The Point™, is trying to pass voting restrictions that will disproportionately disenfranchise voters of color. Because that too is the point.
- Arizona has wasted a bunch of taxpayer money “updating” its execution systems, including buying the ingredients to make the same gas the Nazis used to kill Jews, Roma, and other victims in concentration camps. You know what would be cheaper, and also less murdery? Ending capital punishment.
- Democrats in the House and Senate are showing no sense of urgency in the face of attempts to undermine our democracy by the January 6th insurrectionists and their enablers in Congress. Meanwhile, over 100 scholars in political science and the law signed a letter stating their concerns over threats to our democracy and lack of national voting and election standards.
- Climate change is an emergency, so why can’t journalists call it one?
- The best reaction I saw this week to the French Open telling Naomi Osaka that she can go fuck herself was from the Guardian‘s Jonathan Liew, arguing that we in sports media are not the good guys here, and that press conferences are problematic. Indeed, the day after Osaka withdrew, some asshole reporter asked 17-year-old Coco Gauff an insulting, racist question that should have gotten his credentials yanked. (Apparently that only happens if you dial into a press conference from a supermarket.) Scottish tennis coach Judy Murray, mother of two tennis champions in Andy and Jamie Murray, supported Osaka and talked about the absurd demands of the press on players.
- Stanford Law toyed with preventing a student from graduating because he’d distributed a flier mocking the Federalist Society, spawning a complaint from campus snowflakes – er, conservatives. The school eventually dropped its investigation on free speech grounds.
- New York Times health writer Tara Parker-Pope writes about four lessons we’ve learned in the last year for your anxious brain. Strengthening your connections seems like an especially valuable one in a year when most connections have become slack (pun intended).
- Monster Couch announced that they’re releasing the iOS adaptation of Wingspan on July 21st, with pre-orders now open.
Saying that the French Open told Naomi Osaka to “go fuck herself” is absurd, in addition to being a classless way to put it.
Tournaments invite players. Players understand that by accepting the invitation, they must abide by the tournament’s rules: They will play when scheduled. They will accept the rulings of officials. They will meet with the media. And so on.
In return, they are given locker room facilities, refreshments, and prize money based on how they do versus their competitors. The rules are clearly stated for all participants. If a player doesn’t want to accept that arrangement, then they don’t get to play in the tournament.
If a player came to a tournament and played with a two foot wide racquet, they would be disqualified for breaking one of the rules. This is no different.
I think press-related job requirements vs. in-game job requirements are rather different in terms of what can be reasonably accommodated. Good workplaces attempt to accomodate their employees’ needs and shitty ones don’t. And in the US, this may actually be illegal according to ADA requirements.
I see no difference between press-related and in-game. The tournament sets out requirements. If they are not met, the tournament should disqualify the contestant, so as to keep a level playing field. The players all know exactly what is required of them up front.
You mention “employees’ needs”. She is not an employee.
Ah yes, when I turn on the French Open, it’s to watch the press gaggles. I especially enjoy the women of color having to fend off the barely veiled racist questions with polite cliches.
Wait, that’s not it at all. I watch to see them kick ass on the court. And I’m not watching at all now after how Osaka was treated.
Fine, they’re treating treating an independent contractor shittily. Which still may not fly in the US as being ADA compliant. As someone who employs people, there are differences between major and minor job duties. Why not try your best to accomodate, especially when it comes to the minor duties? Beyond the legality issues, it’s just basic human decency to try to treat people well.
They did not treat her “shittily”. They treated her exactly as she was told she’d be treated, exactly as other participants, and exactly as in previous tournaments.
There is no reason to accommodate her. Accommodating her would give her an unfair advantage over other players who received no accommodations.
They are running their tournament in a fair fashion, and honestly, they should be commended for it. Giving an advantage to a star player would not make for an equitable competition.
I think you’re missing a couple important points.
The tournament exist because the players exist. While the tournament invited her, they need her.
Secondly, sports is a great example of people who are in power for unfair reasons make unfair demands to the people who actually make the product valuable. If athletes never spoke up or random dudes in suits, they would still receive a fraction of the profits.
And as to the value of post match interviews, just because we’ve always done it doesn’t mean it has value. Hearing Marshawn Lynch say “I’m just hear so i don’t get fined” or Bill Belichich stating nothing has no value to me. Of course I value interviews, I’m here because Keith writes about athletes, but I’d rather the athletes be treated with respect.
And I don’t believe in following rules just because they are the rules. Prove there is some value to the rule or let’s change it.
I hesitate to even reply to Tony as his response is rather disjointed, but I guess I’ve come this far…
I am not missing any points. The tournament does not “need” her. It is sad for viewers that Osaka is not there, but she made a decision that caused her to be ineligible, and there are plenty of other good players. The French Open will be just fine, even if not quite as exciting.
The people in charge of the French Open are not there for “unfair reasons”. I have no idea what that means. There was no coup staged to take control of the French Open. All players (and really, essentially all athletes) are required to talk to the media. There have been no “unfair demands”. At no point was she not treated with respect.
Your last paragraph appears to advocate for anarchy. I’m not a fan of that.
she made a decision that caused her to be ineligible
Nope. Ineligibility is not the consequence for declining to appear in a press conference. She was issued a fine, after which, she withdrew from the tournament.
As for the “at no point was she not treated with respect,” that’s a lie, as we saw when Roger Federer withdrew.
There’s little to suggest that Roland-Garros officials actually attempted a good-faith dialogue on accomodations, which could have included allowing written answers, private/secluded interviews, etc. It’s hard to see how those accomodations, even including allowing Osaka to forgo press conferences, are more of an “unfair advantage” than the ADA-mandated accomodations (upheld by SCOTUS) for Casey Martin during PGA tour events. As for rule following and questioning their fairness, there’s a lot of real estate between anarchy and blind obedience. Anyway, I’m rather flabbergasted with what I thought was self evident–that employers should show empathy for their employees and try to reasonably accomodate mental health issues. I’m not making any headway here, so I’ll attempt to gracefully bow out.
I’ll make this my last post as well. I truly can’t see how it’s reasonable that anyone feels that Osaka’s position is defensible. But that’s what makes life interesting and the world go round.
She is not an employee. It’s a competition. She wants to be treated differently than any of the other competitors. The French Open even appeared willing to work with her in some form, as per Keith’s first link, the French Open “tried unsuccessfully to speak with her”. I have many thoughts about the Casey Martin comparison, but rather than type paragraphs, suffice to say I do not see how you can draw a line from Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome to Osaka’s refusal to meet with the press. If there was, say, a big science competition, and one of the top scientists got favorable treatment by the organizers and won, I think the other scientists would probably feel…salty. 🙂
As for Keith’s reply, I realize she was not ineligible. It was obvious she was going to be penalized with a default if she kept skipping media obligations, so she withdrew. I used ineligible as a shortcut. I apologize for any confusion.
Reading Keith’s links, I’m confused. I read the first link twice, and saw nothing disrespectful towards Osaka. The second link is an article that keeps trying to compare a guy who played a long match, realized he most likely wasn’t going to be able to stay healthy if he kept playing in the tournament, to Osaka, who made a predetermined choice to not play by the rules. These are two completely different situations that aren’t comparable at all. Should Federer have withdrawn earlier or not entered in the first place? Perhaps. Who knows how he felt coming in. A pitcher may enter a game feeling great, but end up having to tell the manager he’s gassed after the fifth. (For which he should be applauded, rather than going back out there and pitching poorly and risking injury.)
I’d compare Federer to the gassed pitcher, and Osaka to a player with a losing argument with an umpire, but who still argues and says something that he knows is going to get him tossed. I’d issue statements about the exits of those players accordingly. So did the French Open.
Somewhere in here is an underlying “she may have had a point but she did it wrong” or “she didn’t communicate her feelings as effectively as she should have”, to which I’m wondering well – when one has a mental health issue that is interfering with their ability to do their primary job, how would you have them address it? Is the answer “not at all”, and they should just bottle it up and deal with it and then we can collectively wonder why people don’t speak up or advocate for themselves?
I would argue that while perhaps the French Open has the right to require the athletes participate in the media events, it’s still a stupid policy that places undue burden on some of the athletes and actually provides little benefit to the French Open. Is the French Open better off with one of the world’s great players on the court but no answering the idiotic, routine press questions that provide little value, or are they better off sticking to their guns and driving one of the best players away?
And I don’t think the manner in which the tennis press treats players of color can just be readily dismissed either. We saw it with the Williams sisters, and we are seeing it with Osaka.
Folks are ignoring that relationships with the media help fund the tournament and players’ prize winnings. They don’t do it for shits and giggles or to torment players. They do it as part of the multi-billion dollar relationships they have with multiple media outlets.
It’s unfortunate what happened. Neither party handled it particularly well.
Osaka should have spoken with tournament officials prior to the event. The officials should have been more thoughtful in their response. But they didn’t boot her. They reiterated to her the expectations for participation and the consequences for not meeting them. She opted to withdraw.
How much are those immediate post-match interviews worth those media companies? Would NBC rather have Osaka in the tournament but unable to interview her or the current situation? Those interviews don’t add any value to me. If those interviews are really worth it to NBC and other media outlets, then compensate the competitors willing to do them, either from the media companies or the sponsors of the players.
Otherwise, you’ll get more like Marshawn Lynch’s “I’m just here so I won’t get fined.”
“How much are those immediate post-match interviews worth those media companies?”
Apparently enough that they negotiate mandatory participation for all players.
“Would NBC rather have Osaka in the tournament but unable to interview her or the current situation?”
You’d have to ask NBC. But NBC isn’t the only outlet involved. The Open has dozens of media partners around the world. And those without the clout of NBC rely on those pressers as their primary access to the players.
“Those interviews don’t add any value to me.”
That’s dandy for you. You aren’t paying the bills for the tournament.
“If those interviews are really worth it to NBC and other media outlets, then compensate the competitors willing to do them, either from the media companies or the sponsors of the players.”
Maybe that will come to pass. So the less successful and lower earning players will have to continue to be subjected to this egregious process while the rich, successful players can bow out. And everyone’s earnings go down as a result. Is that what you want?
What those interviews are worth to the media companies, or their value to you, has nothing to do with the matter at hand. The matter is fairness in competition. All competitors are required to do a press conference. Letting Osaka not have to spend that time with the media would give her an unfair advantage over other players.
Well, I for one am shocked, SHOCKED, that Kazzy decided to opine on something without getting the facts straight. Naomi Osaka did actually reach out and make her intentions known prior to the Open, both in public statements and privately to organizers. But hey, why bother with 30 seconds of Googling when you can just both-sides an issue and feel morally superior about yourself immediately?
Ad hominem much? No Googling has turned up what you say has happened. Quite the opposite: https://www.rolandgarros.com/en-us/article/statement-from-grand-slam-tournaments-regarding-naomi-osaka
That’s how you link a source, by the way.
BSDI is also a lazy attack.
Try again.
No, it’s not an ad hominem. Pointing out that you are a repeat bad-faith offender is simply stating a reality that regular commenters in this space are well aware of. Further, I didn’t say you were wrong because you’re you (only that I was unsurprised), I said you were wrong because, well, you were factually incorrect. She *did* inform Roland Garros of her intentions: https://apnews.com/article/naomi-osaka-europe-tennis-french-open-sports-41a2df51b550d9ad0d3221897d1e01e2
This is specifically what you accused her of not doing. It did not take long to find this statement. It also specifically mentions why she did not seek to further engage on the issue during the Open, which is all your link speaks to.
The position of the tournament comes down to a giant case of red ass because one of the best players in the world wouldn’t respect their authoritah. It’s a statement designed to appeal to fawning bootlickers around the world. Whether that’s a category you choose to join is up to you.