For subscribers to The Athletic this week, I re-ranked the top 50 prospects still in the minors, updating the list to reflect various graduations and some of the new information from the small sample of 2025 so far. I also did a Q&A on the site to answer questions about it.
I’m due for another newsletter but got a little caught up with the top 50; you can subscribe here for whenever I send the next one out, hopefully over the weekend.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: The Seattle Times does a deep dive (pun intended) on how humans have pushed the Columbia River to its limit through overfishing, hydroelectric power projects, irrigation projects, and mismanagement.
- A sheriff’s deputy in King County, Washington, has been arrested and charged with raping a teenaged girl in the department’s Police Explorer program – at least the second such incident I’ve read about in a program of that sort, along with another cop in Massachusetts who killed the girl he raped and staged it as a suicide.
- A Mississippi man left his citizenship hearing only to have ICE arrest him and threaten to deport him. Kasper Eriksen is a Danish national, married to an American woman with four kids and another on the way. He’s still in custody, but the family has no money coming in because he’s their sole source of income. Abolish ICE.
- Utah Republicans ordered a study on gender-affirming care for trans youth, and it says they’re all full of shit and should leave trans kids alone. Of course, the same politicians are lining up to dismiss the study.
- Elon Musk’s legacy in Washington is “disease, starvation, and death,” writes Michelle Goldberg (accurately) in The New York Times. Musk’s decision to unilaterally shut down USAID programs has killed thousands, and may end up killing many more, around the globe.
- Trump’s crypto scam – I mean, that’s redundant, all crypto is a scam – is a $4 billion self-enrichment scheme, explains the Philly Inquirer.
- Trump pardoned a tax cheat after the man’s mother paid the $1 million to attend one of Trump’s fund-raising dinners. I’ve said this before, but this is the most corrupt Presidency in the history of our country and nobody is doing anything to stop it. Well, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) is trying, at least.
- Sen. Jodi Ernst (R-Iowa), who is up for re-election next year, responded to a constituent’s question about SNAP and Medicaid cuts by saying “we’re all going to die.” This clip should appear in every Iowa Democrat’s campaign ad from now until November 2026, regardless of what office they’re running for.
- A Texas cop searched national license-plate cameras to track a woman who he said “self-administered” an abortion.
- Ohio State Rep. Rodney Creech (R) was accused by his own daughter of sexually abusing her, yet his Republican colleagues – who knew of the investigation – backed him for re-election last November. Let me repeat that: Ohio Republicans backed a candidate who may have molested his own daughter.
- As a man who often eats alone in restaurants, I loved this Times piece on how weird people get when women dine alone. Some of it was familiar to me, but of course much of this never happens to me because I’m a man. People in restaurants or bars who serve me or sit next to me often just assume I’m traveling for work. Clearly that is not the assumption people make about women. Also, eating alone can be a wonderfully restorative experience.
- Zohran Mamdani’s poll numbers are rising and he appears now to only trail the $60 million man Andrew Cuomo – who resigned as Governor after multiple women came forward to say he sexually harassed them in the race to be NYC’s next Mayor.
- In The Harvard Crimson, Yona Sperling-Miller ’27 offers to fight our A-1 Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in a televised cage match, with the winner getting the $2.7 billion in federal grants that the Administration is threatening to cancel. This wonderful piece is simply titled, “Come at Me, Bro.”
- This short excerpt from Marcus du Sautoy’s new book Blueprints: How Mathematics Shapes Creativity on how prime numbers have helped create some memorable pieces of music made me add the book to my wishlist … although it’s not out until September.
- 25th Century Games has a new Kickstarter up for two space-themed games, Observatory and Star Gazers.
- Only two days remain in the Restoration Games Kickstarter for Battle Monsters: Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, a remake/update of the 1992 game Battle Masters.