The first of three posts from my trip to the Arizona Fall League is now up, examining and excoriating the ridiculous outfield-positioning experiment happening in games at Salt River Fields. My notes on players I saw will run Sunday and Monday in two posts, split up by league. I’ll also work up a post on the five new restaurants I tried on this trip.
I have a newsletter written but have been holding it until the AFL posts were up, so I’ll probably send it on Monday. In the meantime, you can sign up for the newsletter (it’s free) or follow me on Bluesky, Instagram, TikTok, or Threads.
And now, the links…
- A video first, from The New York Times: In the first episode of a new show called “Sound Off,” former Chicago Tribune editor Marc Jacob explains how he thinks the Times is failing readers by whitewashing the lies and corruption of the Trump Administration.
- On to the longreads first … also from the Times, a look at the increase in threats and incidents of political violence aimed at elected officials in the United States. Yes, right-wing elements are pushing some of this, but as someone who’s received such threats, I think it’s also a result of the increasing isolation and depersonalization that come from people who are too online.
- ProPublica’s investigations have found 506 U.S. citizens detained by ICE and DHS under Trump, contrary to the Administration’s lies that say this isn’t happening.
- The deeply unethical vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau championed by RFK Jr. – where some children will be denied the hepatitis B vaccine for six weeks – will go ahead after all, with U.S. taxpayer funding. A hepatitis B infection in an infant can cause lifelong health problems. The study is pushed by anti-vaxxers hoping to find support for their claims that vaccines are harmful. The New York Times also has a story up on how much RFK Jr. is advancing anti-vaxxers’ goals (polies that are already killing Americans).
- Also from ProPublica, Ken Paxton, the Republican candidate for Senate in Texas, has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on junkets around the world, to at least 17 countries, with no business justification for the expense.
- Science details the results of a study looking at why attrition rates are higher for women faculty than men.
- A 19-year-old white man, radicalized by right-wing content online, planned to shoot up a Hindu temple in the Chicago area, and only a jammed gun and a co-worker who thought to call the police stopped a massacre.
- Zeteo reports on how Mike Huckabee, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, is selling trips to Israel with the promise of access to top Israeli officials, and is still raising money for the PAC he pledged to dissolve when he got the job.
- A couple of tech writers announced that they’re going back to X in the last week, despite, you know, all the Nazis, the hate speech, the false information, and the way the owner is trying to undermine our democracy. Another tech writer lists eleven reasons why Elon sucks, using that as his argument to avoid X.
- Mother Jones explains how that Ukraine drone strike on a data center didn’t wipe out a bunch of Russian bots, but people believed it anyway.
- Israel “settlers” attacked Palestinian olive farmers and a Washington Post journalist in the West Bank, part of their annual effort to wreck the olive harvest. These people are not “settling” anything.
- A study from Norway found that wealth taxes did not lead to the affected taxpayers fleeing the country.
- The Times looks at the upheaval in mathematics after the release of hundreds of new proofs and findings generated by OpenAI, including a proof of the quasi-Riemann hypothesis, which may get mathematicians (or AI) closer to solving maybe the most famous currently unsolved problem in math.
- Yet another sexual assault at a frat party, this one at the University of Chicago.
- Singer/guitarist Geordie Greep, formerly lead singer of black midi, was accused of sexual assault by a woman after a show earlier this month in Vancouver. The accusation was followed by a flyer, not written by the accuser, that claimed he’d raped her, a claim she flatly denies.
- Two women have filed a lawsuit accusing disgraced former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) of sex trafficking, after which he attempted to dox them.
- A 20-year-old woman in Milwaukee called the police to ask for protection from her 39-year-old boyfriend; he killed her hours later.
- Bestselling author Sally Rooney (Normal People) has supported the group Palestine Action, which the UK has branded as a terrorist organization, meaning under UK law her publisher could not pay her royalties for her books sold in the country. As a result, Faber will no longer supply her books to stores in Britain, a move she supports. We aren’t the only western country rolling back civil rights.
- Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) holds millions of dollars’ worth of shares in data center companies, so of course he’s pushing legislation that will make it harder for states to regulate their activities.
- Cranio Creations has a Gamefound page up for a new edition of Lorenzo il Magnifico.
- Eagle-Gryphon has a Kickstarter page up for a new edition of Empire: Age of Discovery (previously published as Age of Empires III).
Wow… I’m so disappointed in Whitehouse. I thought he was one of the good Dem senators. Guess I was wrong!
Members of Congress should nit be allowed to own stocks. This is so basic and simple but with the people in charge of the Democratic Party who are currently in charge, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
It sucks because the Restore Trust in Congress act probably had a good chance of passing. The bipartisan sponsors run the entire political spectrum (I’m not kidding AOC and Anna Paulina Luna-tic both support). Instead republicans (unsurprisingly) bent the knee to trump and tried to leverage it into sneaking a bunch of his pet policies in through the back door in the Stop Insider Trading Act.
It’s disgusting that your employer, The NY Times, uses X links and supports Musk on The Athletic.
Keith!
I agree that baseball needs to get more balls into play, and it’s a pitching problem. Do you have any suggestions?
I’ve shared with friends an idea: when each team turns in their lineup card, they include 4 pitchers they’re allowed to use in the 9 innings. (Get rid of the 3 batter rule with this change)
If it’s implemented at the minor League level for a few years first, MLB could tweak it as necessary. Thoughts?
Marc,
I’m not Keith, but for what it’s worth, I’m a big fan of some of the old Bill James solutions, particularly:
* Enforce a minimum width of the bat handle. There’s a maximum width, but not a minimum. Bats with wider handles (and less weight concentrated in the barrel) increase bat control (contact!) and reduce exit velocity.
* Enforce the #$%$# batter’s box and move it *slightly* away from the plate, in stages. This will make it a lot harder to pull pitches on the outside corner.
I wouldn’t be against a deader ball and one with lower seams, but both of those things need to be thoroughly vetted to ensure the changes aren’t too extreme and they don’t lead to injuries.
If we wanted to go nuclear, we could have the rule from my old co-ed slow pitch league: You can hit one ball over the fence for a home run. Everything after that is an out.
One thing that should help is that teams now mostly understand that there is a relationship between how much their park favors pitching and wins.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of the problems are baked into the game: Home runs lead to runs and wins a lot more than singles and steals do, and pitching to avoid contact is the most efficient way avoid home runs. Statistical analysis didn’t create these facts. They were built into the rules of the game as Earl Weaver knew.
@Ripley, it’s a hard problem, and I think some of the low-hanging fruit to improve the game has already been addressed by Bill James’ suggestions (limited pickoff moves, the pitch clock). It’s really hard to actually study bat changes, since Bill James rightly suggested doing so over a many-year period to not affect the current crop of batters too quickly. And I’m not sure that the current hitters could adapt to a more contact-oriented approach. I do wonder if moving the mound back a tad would help hitters deal with the huge increase in velocity, but again, I worry about unintended consequences on breaking balls, etc. I also like the idea of moving fences back and having a ball that carries a bit further to keep HR rates similar, but again, changing the ball to increase carry would affect pitching (lowered seams are, I think, the easiest way to increase carry).
It’s tough to find any story about Ken Paxton that doesn’t have the whiff of corruption to it. His adventures with corrupt Austin real estate developer Nate Paul are probably peak Paxton: https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/16/ken-paxton-impeachment-evidence-senate/
There are people living in 2026 that don’t know that the NYT is a mouthpiece for the Trump crime syndicate? Where do they think MAGA Haberman gets a W-2 from?
KLaw, nice job toeing the company line by reporting that ruZZian data centers are all good. I hope you receive an extra potato to make gnocchi with.
I think you need to move along. I don’t care if people criticize the Times – I’ve done it myself – but do not post baseless attacks on my integrity.
Keith, serious question: Does the company hosting this site have any way to spot when AI agents are dropping questions into your chat?
are you referring to chat questions or comments?