Stick to baseball, 6/11/22.

I had one post for subscribers to the Athletic this past week, on Kumar Rocker’s 2022 debut for the independent Tri-City Valley Cats. (I tried to go see Reading/Altoona this week, but got rained out after I parked but before I even got into the stadium.) My current writing schedule has one more draft blog post coming after I see Carson Whisenhunt’s official 2022 debut on Sunday night, and then an updated Big Board on Thursday, June 16^th.

My guest on the Keith Law Show this week was film critic (and Cardinals fan) Tim Grierson, talking about the logistics of film festivals and their similarities to scouting showcases, plus our thoughts on The Godfather trilogy as the first film marks its 50^th anniversary. You can subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I do send out a free email newsletter about twice a month. My two books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, are both available in paperback, and you can buy them at your local independent book store or at Bookshop.org.

And now, the links…

• Longreads first: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Kathryn Schulz, author of the wonderful memoir Lost & Found, writes about the world of sunken shipping containers and the detritus that washes up on shore from them. I would guess the occasional meeple shows up among the flotsam and jetsam.

• Land in the Chicago area promised for public housing, undeveloped for twenty years, is now going to house a practice facility for the MLS’s Chicago Fire.

• LA Eater looks at the changing of the guard in southern California’s doughnut shops, as the children of the mostly Cambodian immigrants who founded those stores take over from their parents.

• Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen writes in support of reading challenging books and against removing them from school libraries and curricula.

• Steve Kirsch, one of the inventors of the optical mouse and a serial entrepreneur, has become a massive proponent of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and false cures. McGill University’s Jonathan Jarry looks at how Kirsch got from A to B.

• The Daily Beast reports on two twins who are college students in Texas and who are “pushing transphobic campaigns” at their respective schools, the University of North Texas and Baylor.

• The Tampa Bay Rays’ account tweeted several facts about gun violence in the United States, after which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blocked state funding for a new player development facility in Pasco County.

• Writing for DAME, attorney & counsel to the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center Madiba Kennie asks if Supreme Court reform is even possible.

• NPR’s Nina Totenberg writes about the complexity and contradictions of the investigation into the release of the Supreme Court draft opinion that will overturn Roe v. Wade. Speaking of the Supreme Court, Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, emailed 29 Arizona lawmakers to urge them to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory in that state.

• A 13-year-old Baltimore middle school student died suddenly on a school field trip in Cecil County, Maryland. There’s still no indication why he died or details on what happened, five days later. What a nightmare for his family.

• More families are suing Texas over the state’s investigations into parents who provide gender-affirming care to their trans kids. A district court judge ruled on Friday that the state must suspend these investigations.

• Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh tweeted this week that gender reassignment surgery should be illegal for everyone, regardless of age.

• A Baptist preacher in Texas said to his congregation that all gay people “should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head … That’s what the Bible says.” (The Bible does not say that.)

• Sen. Rick Scott’s “plan to save America” denies the existence of trans people. In her newsletter, Parker Molloy explains how his proposed policies, and existing policies in places like Ohio, just make life more difficult for trans and intersex people.

• Belgium’s King Philippe spoke about the damage his great-great-uncle, Léopold II, did to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo through colonization and exploitation of its people and natural resources. For a harrowing but essential read on the topic, I recommend King Léopold’s Ghost, recommended to me a decade ago by one of you, which details the awful period where Africa’s largest country was a personal colony of the Belgian king, and explains why the DRC has been unstable for its entire history since independence.

• An 8-year-old boy who was on vacation with his family in South Carolina was shot and killed by a resident who was shooting at passing cars.

• An Uvalde pediatrician who treated victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary testified before Congress about the state of the bodies he saw.

• The Washington Post has fired writer Felicia Sonmez. I won’t even attempt to summarize this in a sentence or two – the article (from The New York Times) has the details.

• A Catholic group is urging followers to “hide the pride” by going to libraries and hiding books with LGBTQ+ content.

• The Missouri Library Association is urging the Wentzville, Missouri, school board to stop removing LGBTQ+ books from school libraries.

• The Guardian explains “greenwashing,” when companies contributing to climate change run ads, such as on podcasts that tell stories about climate change and the fight against it, implying that those companies are aligned with the show’s aims.

• The Kickstarter for Bark Avenue, a quick pickup-and-delivery game from a new publisher in New York, ends in just two days.