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.
Waiting for Daniel to tell me what to think about the links.
He hasn’t even given us permission to read them yet. We must be patient.
While I won’t defend Daniel, who clearly had an agenda, we had 2 more instances this weekend- The flamethrower in Colorado shouted “Free Palestine” at a rally for Israeli hostages & a University of Michigan garden was vandalized with Pro-Palestine messages..Obviously, the Colorado deal is much worse.
I will mention a good book I read recently “The Human Scale” by Lawrence Wright. (this is a fiction book, though Wright has been primarily a non-fiction writer, “The Looming Tower”, about FBI/CIA dysfunction leading up to 9/11, is probably his best known work). Anyway, it gave a very good background on the Israel/Palestine struggle & history of the region that added a lot of color/increased my knowledge of the “Why” of the ongoing struggles of that region, tied into a particular story about an FBI agent with family roots in Hebron. Balanced & fair look.
You are omitting quite a bit on Cuomo, but the multiple instances of harassment should suffice
Clemson vs Kentucky, tied 2-2, bottom 3rd. Elimination game. Runner on third, one out. Clemson plays infield in.
Is this the defensive equivalent of sacrifice bunting? My assumption is playing to prevent one run would increase expected runs allowed, similar to playing to score one run (via sac bunt) decreasing expected runs scored.
Sorry for asking here, wasn’t sure where else to ask and would certainly forget by your next chat.
I am also very curious to hear some expert opinions on this.
How often does it actually work? It’s more difficult to field a sharply hit ground ball, and then the throw has to be on target with a runner running on contact.
Pete Alonso recently was in this spot and threw the ball like Ricky Wild Thing Vaughn.
That seems like an apt analogy. You do that in a tie game in the 9th when a run ends the game. I’ll defer to the Tom Tangos of the world to calculate the actual contingency tables.
Juuuuust a bit outside?
Also, final score in the aforementioned game: Kentucky 16, Clemson 4. Playing the infield was irrelevant both in the moment (batter walked so Clemson went to double play depth) and in the outcome
Look at the scores of the games today. Third game in a row, teams are running out of pitching. It’s a high scoring environment and I feel like infield in that early in the game is a panic move.
Fundamentally, I don’t hate it if there is only a guy on third. Where it gets worse to me is when you have multiple guys on and you just increase the odds of giving up a hit and multiple runs.
I’ve dined alone hundreds of times over the years (as a man), and I don’t recall receiving the kind of treatment described by the female author of that piece. However, I have often been asked if I’d prefer to take a seat at the bar (at restaurants that aren’t busy). Well, no, if I preferred to be seated at the bar, I wouldn’t have asked for a table. Sometimes, they tell you to wait at the bar even though there are plenty of open tables. (If this is a ploy to get me to spend money on alcohol, it is doomed to fail since I don’t drink alcohol.)
The thing that does happen to me when I dine alone and am reading a book or magazine or newspaper is that you get weird comments about it that you wouldn’t get if you sat alone staring at your phone. Or, for that matter, if you sat with other people all staring at your phones. Dining alone provides ample opportunity for people-watching, and it is astounding how many couples sit in silence looking at their phones, and how many groups of friends sit in mostly silence looking at their phones. And then there are the parents with small children where the parents look at their phones while the child watches a video on the phone, with the volume turned up in a public space. Phones are a scourge.
I haven’t read the article yet, but, I am also a male who enjoys dining alone (or with people). I appreciate the fact that I have never been bothered when I dine alone. I’ve also had numerous “dining alone” experiences in which I ended up in good conversation with my neighbors. I often have a “conversation piece on me to indicate a willingness to chat with people. I might have a book with me, which I’ll place on the edge of the table. Or, I’ll be playing game on my ipad. Conversation often follows. Which is fine with me. If I genuinely do not want to socialize, I’ll ask for a corner table and make i obvious I am entirely focused on whatever I am doing.
And, yeah, phones… ugh. When I dine with people, my phone is in my pocket with the ringer on silent.