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Stick to baseball, 5/3/25.

I had one post for subscribers to The Athletic this past week, a draft scouting notebook on Riley Quick, Kyle Lodise, some UVA bats, and three college hitters who could be top ten picks in 2026.

At Paste, I reviewed the two-player game Floristry, which is important as I think it’s the first two-player title to use an auction mechanic that really works, but unfortunately that doesn’t have enough game beyond that.

And now, the links…

  • Longreads first: The New York Times has the bonkers story of how a bunch of college-aged and high school kids stole nearly $250 million in crypto from one guy, and then got caught within a month because they were so sloppy about it. It includes a real-world kidnapping story that demonstrates how this stuff can and will spill over into physical danger, even for people not directly involved in the scams. (Also, the victim of the original theft is a ding-dong, falling for some of the most obvious tricks to get him to divulge his passwords.)
  • Polygon, the great gaming-news site that was under the Vox umbrella, was decimated after Vox sold it to a content-farming group, with nearly all Polygon staffers laid off. It’s now part of the same company that runs clickbait sites like ScreenRant. I wrote two pieces for Polygon in 2021-22, but if those disappear I’ll repost the reviews here for posterity.
  • Scientific American reports on the mass-brainwashing effort around measles, spearheaded by the Republican Party and specifically the Trump Administration, pushing the twin lies that the measles vaccine causes autism (again, it does not) and that measles isn’t that harmful (it has already killed two children in the U.S. this year, and can cause the fatal condition SSPE in people who recover from the infection).
  • The same anti-vaccine lunacy has led to a jump in pertussis cases – over 8400 already in the U.S. this year. Whooping cough kills about 1% of infants under one, children too young to be vaccinated, who contract the bacterial illness.
  • And bird flu continues to spread, with more people getting infected, raising the specter of another pandemic. If only we had some sort of government agency that could track and respond to this sort of thing.
  • A mathematician in Australia seems to have solved the problem of finding a generalized solution to polynomial equations of power 5 or greater. I keep seeing the same headline for this one story, but nothing further about the method, or whether other mathematicians agree with what sounds like a controversial approach (among other things, he says he “doesn’t believe in irrational numbers,” which…).
  • Two board game Kickstarters of note, even as the Trump tariffs threaten the entire industry: Flamecraft Duals, a two-player version of the hit game Flamecraft that promises to be more directly competitive; and Nippon: Zaibatsu, a brand-new edition of a heavy game from 2015 just called Nippon.

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→ May 2, 2025
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Music update, April 2025.

A couple of hotly-anticipated albums (by me!) dropped in April, along with one surprise release, although I’m not sure any of those albums truly lived up to expectations. As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist here.

SAULT – K.T.Y.W.S. SAULT returns with 10, their tenth album, as usual with no fanfare or advance publicity. It’s better than Acts of Faith, the religious album they released in December, and probably ahead of any of the five individual albums they released on one day in November 2022. The album as a whole goes back to the ‘70s funk and R&B sound that characterized their first couple of albums, although there’s nothing quite as hard-edged, and much of the political songwriting is still absent here. All of the songs have initials as song titles, with this one standing for “know that you will survive,” which is kind of a gimmick and not a great one, in this case underscoring that the lyrics aren’t as strong as they were on SAULT’s earliest work. So my quick review of 10 is that the music is better and the lyrics are just meh when they’re there at all.

Obongjayar – Sweet Danger. Obongjayar first came to my attention with his appearance on Little Simz’s “Point and Kill,” fitting here as Simz has worked with SAULT’s Inflo multiple times. His music is a sort of crossover Afrobeat mashup, with some pop and electronic elements. This is the fourth song he’s released from his second album, Paradise Now, due out on May 30th.

Rachel Chinouriri – Can we talk about Isaac? Chinouriri put out an album last year that made Paste’s top 100 list for the year, although I missed it completely. She’s an English singer-songwriter who has cited two of my favorite bands, Oasis and the Libertines, as influences, along with Daughter, who’ve made a bunch of appearances on my lists here … and Coldplay, which can cut different ways depending on what part of their discography she likes. You can definitely hear the pop influences on this track, which comes off her new EP Little House.

Tunde Adebimpe – Ate the Moon. The lead singer of TV on the Radio released his first solo album, Thee Black Boltz, in April, and it was surprisingly tepid. I figured after this many years in the industry, with no new music since 2014, Adebimpe’s first LP would be bursting with ideas and ambition, but it’s not. There are two great songs in “Magnetic” and “Drop,” and a couple of decent tracks like this one, but I was hoping for a big swing and instead he just sort of went the other way for a soft single.

Hotline TNT – Julia’s War. My favorite track yet from this NYC rock act who are often miscategorized (in my view) as “shoegaze” just because they use a lot of distortion. It’s rock, definitely the sort you’d have heard on college radio 20 or 30 years ago, and this track has their best hook to date.

Say Sue Me – In This Mess. Say Sue Me are from Busan, South Korea, and have released three albums going back to 2014, but this was the first track of theirs I’d heard. It’s powered by a huge guitar sound that powers the track through six and a half minutes, veering a little into My Bloody Valentine territory near the end.

Turnstile – Never Enough. It doesn’t sound like a Turnstile song at the beginning, but be patient – the punk sound is still here. This is the title track from their next album, due out June 6th, and they’ve already dropped two more songs from it.

swim school – Alone With You. Not to get too deep in the weeds here, but I think swim school’s sound contains far more shoegaze than Hotline TNT’s does – which makes sense, as swim school, who hail from Edinburgh, have mentioned Slowdive as a major influence. Their self-titled debut album is due out on October 3rd, after a “mixtape” and three EPs so far in their short career to date.

Sunflower Bean – There’s a Part I Can’t Get Back. I thought Sunflower Bean might be running away from the hit, “Moment in the Sun,” when the first few singles from their new album Mortal Primetime all seemed heavier and more rock-oriented, but the album is pretty balanced between that and some more pop sounds. The best tracks are the singles they released ahead of the LP – this, “Nothing Romantic,” and “Champagne Taste.”

Momma – Rodeo. Someone, possibly a writer at Paste, described Momma as incredibly derivative of 1990s alternative rock, and yet still somehow really good. I completely agree. They sound a lot like Veruca Salt. I hear Hum in this track. If you remember the Sheila Divine there’s a little of that on the record. It’s all good, just maybe a little too familiar and pleasant to ever be great.

Wet Leg – Catch These Fists. I was thelow person on Wet Leg’s debut album, particularly the widely-praised hit “Chaise Longue,” but I did like “Angelica” and I think when their melodies show as much effort as their lyrics do, they’re on to something pretty good. This song fits that as well – the main guitar riff is catchy and the lyrics are smartassy but not obnoxious.

Yaya Bey – Dream Girl. Yaya Bey’s 2024 album Ten Fold earned widespread praise and made Paste’s top 50 albums of the year; it didn’t land for me at all. This is the first song of hers I’ve really liked, leaning hard into 1970s/1980s R&B sounds, with a little Prince vibe to the synth lines and vocals. Her next album, Do It Afraid, is due out on June 20th. (I only just learned that her father was Grand Daddy I.U. of the Juice Crew, one of the most important hip-hop collectives of the 1980s, where Big Daddy Kane and Kool G Rap got their starts. You may know their song “The Symphony,” which samples Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” and features both of those rappers along with Masta Ace and Craig G.)

DaWeirdo & Freddie Gibbs – Brother$. Here for the Freddie Gibbs verse.

Pat junior & Tecoby Hines – Nothing to Lose. This is the first song I’ve ever put on a playlist after discovering it on TikTok. That app’s algorithm showed me a slew of mediocre mostly white rappers before this song popped up; Pat Junior, who won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance in 2024, has incredible flow to his vocals, and the music behind him here would make Stetsasonic and Digable Planets proud.

Cœur de Pirate – Cavale. I’ll include anything Béatrice releases; outside of one single in 2023, this is her first new material since 2021’s Impossible à aimer, and her first since having her second child. There’s a new album coming later this year from the Québécois pop singer/pianist, but that’s all the details I could find.

OK Go – Once More with Feeling. This is the most classic OK Go-sounding song on their new album And the Adjacent Possible by a country mile. It’s their first album since 2014, but unfortunately it’s pretty downtempo for these guys, losing what I liked most about their sound.

The Amazons – Night After Night. I’ve always appreciated the Amazons’ big guitar sound – they offer huge, muscular, heavily distorted riffs, so most of their best songs automatically sound anthemic. Their fourth album, 21st Century Fiction, comes out in a week, on May 9th.

The New Pornographers – Ballad of the Last Payphone. This song came out on vinyl earlier this year but just hit digital platforms in April; it’s a mid-tier New Pornographers song.

Ball Park Music – Please Don’t Move to Melbourne. I should hate a band called Ball Park Music, but they’re a perfectly delightful indie-pop band with that jangly sound that I think has become distinctly Australian in the last decade or so. This should be the B-side to the Melvins’ song “Stop Moving to Florida.”

Hives – Enough is Enough. Just two years after their comeback album The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons, the Hives are back with another new LP, The Hives Forever Forever the Hives, and, uh, they’re being really humble about it.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Deadstick. Are they just taunting us at this point? The Phish/King Gizzard crossover is pretty big, and now the latter have put out a song with a similar title to one of Phish’s most popular tracks, “Meatstick” (which I think is kind of annoying). I can’t imagine this is a coincidence.

Ghost – Lachryma. The act is a little tired, but beneath the silly Satanic trappings and the masks, this is straight-up ‘80s hard rock, and I suppose their gimmicky isn’t all that much worse than hairspray, is it?

Tropical Fuck Storm – Dunning Kruger’s Loser Cruiser. It’s not that great of a song, but how could I possibly pass up a title like this?

Onslaught – Iron Fist. Wikipedia mentions Onslaught as one of the “big four” of British thrash metal, but they weren’t all that successful in their original run in the 1980s; the only one of that quartet I’d heard of at the time was Acid Reign, so I suppose the “big” part is just local to Britain. Anyway, Onslaught re-formed after about a 15-year hiatus, and have released more albums since their return than they did in their first stint, with their eighth overall LP, Origins of Aggression, due out on May 23rd. It’s a double album of covers, including this one of a Mötorhead song, and re-recordings of Onslaught songs from the ‘80s.

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→ May 1, 2025
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Atlanta & Tuscaloosa eats.

One of my last draft scouting trips of the spring brought me to Atlanta for the weekend with a detour to Tuscaloosa, my first-ever first to Alabama’s home stadium as they’ve generally been one of the weakest SEC teams for draft prospects.

In Atlanta, I hit Varuni Napoli, which would now make my top 50 pizzerias list if I revised it today. It’s Neapolitan pizza but just stretched a little differently, so the pizzas are larger with less of a puffy exterior ring, while they still have the wet centers that are the hallmark of the style. I went with their sausage, mushroom, onion, and red pepper pizza, a standard option that happens to be one of my favorite combinations as is. The dough was still airy around the edges, and the sausage, which is sliced like pepperoni so it cooks more quickly, had a peppery kick and strong fennel-seed note. The sauce was excellent, slightly sweet and slightly tangy. I haven’t been to Antico in a decade or more, so it’s tough to say truly that this is better … but I think it might be.

Buttermilk Kitchen showed up on some list of the best brunch spots in Atlanta, and I saw they 1) had homemade biscuits and 2) promised they made everything from scratch while using local ingredients where possible, which, coincidentally, are my two main criteria for breakfast when I’m in the south. The biscuits are enormous drop biscuits and very, very buttery, while also a little sweet even before you try the blueberry-basil jam it comes with. One of those and two eggs probably would have been a full breakfast for me on any day, although this was Sunday and I knew this was essentially breakfast and lunch in one, so I ordered the daily special omelet with butternut squash, onions, and fontina, along with hashbrown fritters as the side. The fritters were more like little knishes than hashbrowns, with the center more akin to mashed potatoes. The omelet was a gamble because I don’t normally care for butternut squash, but it looked like the best choice to get some vegetables without resorting to the lunch part of the menu (it was 10 am, I can’t eat “lunch” at that hour, it’s uncivilized). I wouldn’t have even thought to put winter squash in an omelet. It worked, though, I think because the eggs were so fresh and there was so much cheese that the squash was a supporting player in the whole dish. That had to be at least three eggs’ worth of omelet, and it was seasoned perfectly as is. I ordered a cortado, which is on their menu, but they seem to think that means a full-sized latte instead. I will caution you that parking there is complicated, although on weekends they share some of the neighboring lots – check their website for specifics.

I met some board-game world friends for dinner at Miller Union downtown, not too far from Georgia Tech, for a meal that reminded me in the best possible way of FnB in Scottsdale, one of my favorite restaurants in the Valley. The menu was heavier on small plates with a small number of larger entrees, and the smaller plates weren’t all that small, anyway. The smoked trout with spaetzle and mushrooms was the consensus winner at the table, with the pasta (it’s pasta, I know it’s not Italian, so what) a sponge for all of the umami coming from the other ingredients, and the smoky notes from the fish well-balanced by other flavors so it didn’t overwhelm the dish. The farm egg with celery cream is apparently a longtime standard, and it’s definitely one of the weirdest things I’ve eaten in some time: it shows up in a soup bowl with the yolk barely set in a pool of what looks like a latte, and you break the yolk and swirl it into the cream before dipping the crusty bread into it or spooning it on top. It’s good, just unusual; I kept expecting a different flavor profile, because I’m used to dipping bread into a pasta sauce, while this is rich and more muted. The butter-poached shrimp with English peas, salsa macha verde, and benne (sesame) seeds was on the quieter side, with delicate flavors even in the sauce, with particularly sweet peas since they’re in season now. I had the duck breast entrée, which was cooked medium rare (as it should be) and remained tender, with a blueberry mostarda, creamed greens (spinach and maybe mustard greens?), and corn pancakes. That last bit wasn’t great – they were dry, and there wasn’t anything for them to sop up elsewhere on the plate – although that’s nitpicking. I had two cocktails since I wasn’t driving, first a Last Word and then their gin-lemon-thyme syrup cocktail, which one server said was their riff on a gimlet, but a gimlet is gin/lime without sweetener so I don’t know if that’s apt. I was afraid a second Last Word (does that make the one before it the Penultimate Word?) would put me on the floor, so the latter drink was a sound compromise and much lighter on the palate. They have an enormous wine menu, if that’s your beverage of choice.

I had coffee at Spiller Park the other two mornings I was in town, visiting their newest location in Midtown and the Moores Mill store, so I’ve now been to all four spots. The biscuits at Midtown are solid – that’s a rolled biscuit, so very different from Buttermilk Kitchen’s, and while I like both varieties I’m definitely in the rolled camp (think Biscuitville or Cracker Barrel’s kind). The Moores Mill shop offers bagels; I had the Controversial Vegan, with mashed avocadoes and sumac onions, which was very sharp and highly spiced with sumac.

I only ate one meal in Tuscaloosa, and that had to be Dreamland BBQ, which scouts have been telling me about for years. I’d been to the Birmingham location, but I’m a believer in trying the original whenever possible, and it’s better in terms of the food and the atmosphere. The ribs were solid but a little tougher than I expected; the smoked sausage, though, was fantastic, perfectly moist, smoky, just faintly spicy, no sauce required although I did as I was told and tried the dipping sauce it came with (I wouldn’t bother). It’s a bare-bones menu – ribs, sausage, pulled chicken or pork, with platters or sandwiches, and just four sides: cole slaw, potato salad, baked beans, and mac & cheese. I picked the first two, because I was already out on a ledge eating that much pork, and believe it or not, the cole slaw was excellent. It’s so often an afterthought at barbecue places – sometimes it’s a goopy mess, sometimes it’s clearly not that fresh and so it has no crunch, and sometimes people put weird shit in there – that it was a delight to get a very basic, straightforward version that was fresh and not overdressed. Also, if you get the sweet tea, be prepared for a sugar rush. It was all great but I don’t know that I’ll go back, just because I don’t eat like this any more and certainly shouldn’t eat like this any more at my age.

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→ April 30, 2025
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We Were Once a Family.

The 2018 murder-suicide of the Hart family became a national story, first because it seemed like a tragic accident, then because it was an unthinkable crime where the parents murdered their entire family. News coverage afterwards tended to focus solely on the women, asking why they had done it, with some bigoted attacks that argued against gay couples’ rights to adopt. What nearly all of the ensuing news coverage omitted was anything about the six children, all of whom were Black and came from Texas, while the mothers, both white, lived in Minnesota.

Roxanna Asgarian covered the story for The Oregonian and developed her work into the book We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America, which tells the stories of the six children before and after their adoptions, and then branches off into a broader examination of the dysfunctional child-protection systems operating in Texas and many other red states. Her efforts to know who the six children, two sets of siblings, were, and to get to know their surviving family members – including an older brother whose life has been defined and probably ruined by Texas Child Protective Services – make for an exceptional if gut-wrenching read, filled with grief and needless suffering. The second half of the book loses the narrative greed of the Harts’ story, with broader descriptions of the many failings of the foster industrial complex, including the reckless pace at which Texas separates children from their birth parents, often adopting them out of state, with the policy hitting Black families at a disproportionate level. Asgarian’s arguments are convincing, but her strength is in the human stories that fill the first half of the book.

The Harts, Jennifer and Sarah, had a checkered history even before they took in the first trio of children; they’d fostered a teenaged girl before, but a bizarre incident at a Green Bay Packers game led them to lie about the girl and kick her out. They adopted three siblings from Texas after the mother relinquished her parental rights following multiple arrests for cocaine usage and her violation of an order not to contact her children. Those three children were already showing some signs of neglect and abuse when the Harts rushed to adopt three more children, all half-siblings. Minnesota investigated them after a teacher reported possible abuse of Hannah, one of the children, but the Harts managed to talk their way out of it – the educated white women having their word accepted over that of a Black child – and then decamped for the west coast, first Oregon, and, when Oregon authorities came calling, to Washington. It appears that another possible investigation was the provocation for the women, particularly Jen, to decide to kill the entirely family, rather than face prosecution for the way they starved and abused the children.

These kids were deprived of their shot at a normal life by a Texas justice system that was already stacked against Black families, and that pursued a policy of pursuing potential adoptions simultaneous with efforts by the parents to meet criteria to reunite with their children. The parents in this case had the misfortune to run into a corrupt, racist judge named Pat Shelton, who later earned some notoriety when he helped his daughter escape serious charges for an accident where she was driving drunk at age 19 that killed her passenger; she somehow also got credit for finishing her community service hours while still in prison. The Houston Chronicle referred to his courtroom as “running a kind of adoption express,” and he also operated a crony system that rewarded lawyer friends of his who didn’t talk back or fight his wishes in court. It’s emblematic of the approach in Texas that sees taking children away from their birth parents and giving them to adoptive parents as the solution to a problem. Once the kids are with their new families, they’re off the books, so to speak. There’s little or no follow-up, and often those kids get trafficked out of state where the birth parents can’t even see them, let alone work to regain any parental rights. Asgarian doesn’t draw the comparison, but it’s analogous to Texas and other states claiming their abortion bans are somehow “pro-life,” when there are no life-supporting policies to help mothers and children after birth.

Asgarian avoids the salacious aspects of the murder, and is careful when discussing the fraught topic of interracial adoptions, discussing multiple evidence-based perspectives and research papers, while mentioning the imperfect parallel to the policy of removing Native American children from their homes in the U.S. and Canada until well into the 20th century. It’s a thoughtful approach, but it also means the resulting work loses much of its humanity as soon as she leaves the stories of the children or their birth families. Some of the strongest parts of the work are with the boy who lived, Dontay, who had been separated from his three younger siblings before the Harts adopted them; Asgarian worked for months to gain enough of his trust for him to talk about his experiences in foster care and in institutions. She paints empathetic portraits of the birth mothers, especially Sherri, Dontay’s mother and the mother of the first three children the Harts adopted, and her husband Nathaniel, who comes across as something of a saint in the telling. (Another of Sherri’s sons, Devontay, was the boy who hugged a cop in the so-called “hug heard round the world” photograph during protests after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.) It’s a deep reminder that these six children died when there were people who loved them and never stopped trying to get them back; the government of Texas in particular chose to send them to a life of abuse rather than permit the possibility of reunion.

When Asgarian ties these two halves together, showing that the policies of the state of Texas began the collapse of dominoes that ended in the murders of the six children, the result is a cogent indictment of a system that purports to protect children while treating them like trash to be removed from the house, after which it’s taken away and no one ever has to see it again. It is angry, and it is infuriating, but at its best, it’s also a book of profound humanity. And maybe it’s a call to the rest of us to stop ignoring what is happening on our watch.

Next up: By the time this runs, I’ll likely have finished Alexei Panshin’s Rite of Passage.

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→ April 29, 2025
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A Day in the Life of Abed Salama.

Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, Nathan Thrall’s A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy uses a single, devastating incident – an accident involving a school bus that killed six children and a teacher – to explore the nature of life in the West Bank under Israeli occupation back in 2012. The depiction of how a regime of apartheid – a word used by an Israeli official Thrall quotes in the book – makes life for ordinary Palestinians so much harder, and in this case probably resulted in more deaths and severe injuries than there otherwise would have been, comes across even more starkly today in light of the last eighteen months.

Abed Salama is a father living in the Palestinian town of Anata, on the ‘wrong’ side of the separation wall Israel built along the Green Line in the West Bank, whose only son, Milad, was on that bus at the time of the crash. An unqualified driver entered a busy intersection on a poorly-maintained road for Palestinian at high speed, slamming into the school bus, which then caught fire, burning several children and a teacher to death, although heroic efforts by several people rescued many children from the same fate. Thrall explains how the Palestinian-Israeli conflict shaped the lives of many of the adults involved, with many of them involved in Palestinian rights groups, some of them designated as terrorists by Israel, while Israel’s control of the West Bank and push to claim land through force and settlements has boxed Palestinians into tiny enclaves that often leave them without access to key public resources – like quality hospitals. Even the roads are segregated; Israel built a major highway to bypass the intersection where the accident occurred, but it’s off limits to most Palestinians.

Thrall, who is Jewish and lived in Jerusalem for several years, places blame for the accident and its aftermath squarely on the Israeli government – on several governments, really, dating back to Israel’s independence, the Naqba, and ethnic cleansing efforts like Operation Bi’ur Hametz, which wiped Palestinians out of the city of Haifa a few months after the UN partition order. Abed’s entire life has been shaped by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; he was involved in the DFLP, a Marxist-Leninist group that was under the PLO’s umbrella, and was tortured and jailed for several months by a military tribunal. (Thrall notes that over 99% of verdicts by military tribunals against Palestinians are ‘guilty,’ and that at one point 40% of Palestinian men had been arrested during the occupation of the West Bank.) Abed’s extended family includes people working for the provisional government who maintain relationships with Israeli authorities – and get special privileges for doing so – and people who are or have been jailed for fighting Israeli forces, sometimes simply for throwing stones at Israeli officers. He explains how the Oslo accords presented Palestinians with a lopsided deal that they had little choice but to accept, creating concentric zones of control that limited Palestinian authority in the West Bank to those enclaves, where moving freely between them meant passing through checkpoints and facing possible arrest or detainment. It’s a brief history of the conflict from a side that isn’t as commonly presented here – I wasn’t aware, for example, of how little land the Palestinians truly controlled after Oslo, knew nothing of the Haifa operation, and have no memory of the mass murderer Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 Palestinians and wounded over 100 more in a mosque during Ramadan, possibly a reaction to the first Oslo accords. The list goes on.

The main premise of the book is that none of this had to happen as it did, but that systemic and structural barriers made the accident more likely and its outcome far worse than it needed to be. The economy of the West Bank depended almost entirely on Israel, which tightly controlled the movement of people and goods within the territory and across the border into Israel. The Palestinian authorities – which are still rife with corruption, a point Thrall doesn’t address – lacked the funds and especially the power to build or maintain basic public infrastructure, including roads, hospitals, and firehouses, because of the garrote Israel has placed around its economy and territory. Thrall even quotes an Israeli official referring to the highway on which the accident occurred as the “apartheid road,” because Israel built its own highway (60) through the area and that portion of the road is forbidden to anyone with a Palestinian license plate. Several of the victims of the accident went to the local hospitals, which are understaffed and have inferior equipment, because getting them across the border into Jerusalem would have taken too long. Thrall even points to the ages of the bus and truck involved in the accident as the result of Israeli policies that have left Palestinians much poorer than their neighbors – although, again, corruption in the Palestinian Authority has to be a factor here.

I don’t think Thrall soft-plays the violence committed by some Palestinians against Israel, but it’s not his focus beyond implying that Israel’s response to any such attacks has been to tighten its grip on the West Bank and Gaza. They built the separation wall and argued it was to protect against terrorist attacks from Palestine. They have limited Palestinian movement even within the West Bank under the guise of preventing further attacks. Thrall doesn’t argue directly against Israeli security efforts, making no claims about their effectiveness or lack thereof, but presents evidence that the de facto police state that exists at least in the portions of the West Bank that abut Israel make daily life much harder for Palestinians who have nothing to do with any Palestinian terror groups. The result here is families devastated by the losses of their children, in several cases even unable to see their kids’ bodies, identifying them by scraps of clothing because their bodies were too burned for recognition. That is a tragedy that should affect every reader, regardless of one’s views on this particular conflict.

(I’m going to keep comments open here for now, but given the nature of the subject and the tendency I’ve seen for this topic to lead to personal attacks, I may close them at any point and will delete any comments that resort to insults or other invective.)

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→ April 28, 2025
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The Book of Love.

The Book of Love is Kelly Link’s first novel, coming nine years after her third short story collection Get In Trouble was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction – a rarity for genre fiction of any sort. This novel, following a quartet of teenagers after three of them end up accidentally dead and are purposely brought back to life by a demon of questionable intent, is a damn masterpiece.

The novel opens with Susannah mourning the disappearance and presumed death of her sister, Laura, and two of Laura’s friends, Daniel – Susannah’s putative boyfriend – and Mo, a year earlier. But it turns out they were just mostly dead, and in the second chapter, we meet the three of them, plus a fourth character, as the guy they thought was their boring music teacher Mr. Anabin reveals he’s brought them back from the death place, and that he’ll give them another chance at life, altering everyone else’s memories so they think the trio were just away on a study-abroad program in Ireland. It turns out that this is part of a more complex deal between Mr. Anabin and another demon (or whatever he is) named Bogomil, whose history is longer and more complicated than anyone imagined. We follow the four as they try to figure out how to fulfill Mr. Anabin’s requests so they can stay alive while also navigating their relationships with each other, with people in their New England town of Lovesend, with a new visitor or two, and with an all-powerful evil entity who would like nothing better than to just eat them all up.

Link builds the world of this book piecemeal, giving us hints as we go along as to what lies just beyond the ‘door’ through which the three friends passed, even holding off on introducing or explaining some key characters until well into the narrative. It adds to the book’s dreamlike atmosphere, which itself connects to Susannah’s dreams about Bogomil and the way Mr. Anabin and later other characters play with sense and memory, while also keeping the reader from becoming too omniscient, so we can better feel the confusion of the troika as they seek to understand their situation and their changing abilities.

The book overflows with interesting characters, highlighted by the fantastic four at the heart. Susannah and Laura are sisters, opposites in nearly every way, but believable and fleshed-out, even more than the two boys. Daniel’s a bit of a goof, a well-meaning one, the guy who drifts through life while good things happen to him; while Mo is a more tragic figure who hates Daniel for exactly that reason. The way the four interact, with fights and tiffs and real moments of emotion, may be the greatest strength in a book that is as strong as any I’ve read in a year.

The story meanders at times, yet it never feels padded and certainly doesn’t slow down for anything or anyone; the final quarter or so seems to move at top speed, as the trio figure out some things about their predicament and the various competing forces lock Lovesend under a spell that may end in the destruction of the entire town. I don’t know if Link entirely stuck the landing here; it’s imperfect, but not bad by any means, just perhaps a little too tidy, where everyone gets some variation of a happy ending – or at least not a sad or tragic one. The denouement with the final boss is also of debatable quality; it works, barely, but again relies on a little hand-waving that this is all just fine and go with it. And I did go with it, to be clear.

If you like the work of Neil Gaiman, which I always have, but are looking for similar literature by any other author for obvious reasons, this is the most Gaimanesque novel I’ve ever read. It has dark, creepy elements, and it sits on both sides of the divide between life and death, with flawed main characters and demons from the benevolent to the purely evil. It has the feeling of an impossible story, that no one should be able to write this well, with prose this clear and clever, with characters this three-dimensional, and with a story that nearly sets the pages on fire as you progress. It’s on the list of finalists for this year’s Nebula Award, and I have no idea how the Hugos whiffed on it. The Book of Love is a marvel.

Next up: Alexei Panshin’s Nebula-winning novel Rite of Passage.

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→ April 26, 2025
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Stick to baseball, 4/26/25.

I had two posts for Athletic subscribers this week, a draft scouting notebook on Ethan Holliday, Eli Willits, and JoJo Parker; and a minor league scouting post on some Mets and Orioles prospects in high A. I’m very worried about what I saw from Carson Benge. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

I’ve updated the top 50 pizzerias post from yesterday to reflect two places that closed (one just within the last five months).

And now, the links…

  • Harvard is fighting back, suing the Trump Administration over the latter’s (likely illegal) attempts to cut funding to research programs the school conducts on behalf of the government. The Times has more on the conservative twits on the Harvard Board of Oversees who wanted to make a deal with Trump – even though Columbia tried that and it got them nothing.
  • Vox has the story of grid-scale batteries and how they might help green energy sources replace more fossil fuels … if the Administration doesn’t stop it.
  • The damage from President Trump’s irrational and ever-changing tariff … uh, are they even policies? … may be irreparable and will certainly last well beyond his term.
  • Mississippi was on a heater last week in its effort to prove it’s the most backward state in the union. Their Supreme Court ruled that a transgender teen can’t legally change their name until they’re 21, because that’s the age of majority in that state. (For reference, the age of consent in Mississippi is 16. Real consistent there, fellas.) And then their Governor declared April Loser Heritage Month.
  • The Guardian has a story on former Royals minor leaguer Tarik El-Abour, who played four games in the Arizona Rookie League in 2018, making him the first player in the history of affiliated ball who was known to be autistic. (I don’t know what the best phrasing is for that, but I hope the point is clear.) El-Abour responds to the hateful, ignorant comments from the Secretary of Health and Human Services where he painted autistic people as a burden on society.
  • Texas’s House passed a school vouchers bill despite broad opposition from the public, because Trump bullied a number of legislators into voting for Gov. Abbott’s pet project. The program seems very likely to drain funds from public schools that need it and allow wealthy Texans to send their kids to private schools on the taxpayers’ dime.
  • The six brownshirts who forcibly removed a woman from a town hall in Idaho last month have been charged with various crimes, five of them with battery and four with false imprisonment.
  • Greater than Games has effectively shut down as a result of President Trump’s futile tariff war. Their most popular game is Sentinels of the Multiverse.
  • Bitewing Games has a Kickstarter up for two travel-sized board games, Gingham and Gazebo, the latter of which is from designer Reiner Knizia.

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→ April 25, 2025
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Top 50 pizzerias, 2025 update.

Jeez, it’s been seven years since the last time I ranked pizzerias; the pandemic really just took the wind right out of my sails on this one, and then I kept putting it off because it seemed like a way bigger undertaking than it actually was. I’ve been to around two dozen more Neapolitan or Neapolitan-adjacent pizzerias in that span, excluding ones I’d already tried and have revisited. Fitting them into the old ranking was tricky just because of the time elapsed here – there are places on this list I haven’t visited in a decade, and some I went to within the last year. I’ve also included two spots on the top 50 that serve something other than Neapolitan-style pizza, but which I thought belonged here for the sake of completeness.

Links go to the blog post where I originally reviewed each place. As far as I can tell, all of these places are still open, but please throw a comment in if you see I’ve included any spots that closed. We lost a few off the last update, including Co. and Nicoletta in Manhattan, plus the New York location of Via Tribunali.

1. Pizzeria Bianco, Phoenix

2. Kesté, New York

3. Pizzeria Sei, Los Angeles

4. Mission Pizzeria Napoletana, Winston-Salem

5. Motorino, New York

6. Roberta’s, Brooklyn

7. Una Pizza Napoletana, New York

8. Delancey, Seattle

9. Razza, Jersey City

10. Garage Bar, Louisville

11. del Popolo, San Francisco

12. San Matteo, New York

13. Pizzeria Mozza, Los Angeles

14. Pizzeria Lola, Minneapolis

15. cibo, Phoenix

16. Lucali, Brooklyn

17. Frank Pepe’s, New Haven (New Haven style)

18. Atmosphere, Sarasota

19. A Dopo, Knoxville

20. Pizzeria Vetri, Philadelphia

21. Pizzeria Stella, Philadelphia

22. Spacca Napoli, Chicago

23. Paulie Gee’s, Brooklyn

24. Don Antonio by Starita, New York

25. Pizzaiolo, Oakland

26. Ribalta, New York

27. flour + water, San Francisco

28. 2 Amy’s, Washington

29. Federal Pizza, Phoenix

30. Antico, Atlanta

31. Totonno’s, Brooklyn

32. La Piazza al Forno, Glendale, AZ

33. Via Tribunali, Seattle

34. Bricco, Haddon Township, New Jersey

35. ‘Pomo, Phoenix

36. Settebello, Las Vegas

37. Pizza Rock, Las Vegas

38. Pizzeria Virtu, Scottsdale

39. Pizzeria Beddia, Philadelphia

40. Il Cane Rosso, Dallas & Metroplex

41. Ravanesi, Concordville, PA

42. City House, Nashville

43. Desano, Nashville

44. Jon & Vinny’s, Los Angeles

45. Di Fara, Brooklyn (Sicilian)

46. All-Purpose, Washington, DC

47. Renzo, Charleston

48. Rubirosa, New York

49. Apizza Scholls, Portland, OR

50. Toro, Durham

Some honorable mentions, all places I’d recommend but that just didn’t make the cut, by location:

Austin: The Backspace

Charlotte: Inizio

Chicago: Piece (New Haven style), Pequod’s (deep dish … I’m not a fan of the style but this is the best I’ve had)

Los Angeles: Stella Bara

Northern New Jersey: Emilio’s (Nutley)

New York: Zero Otto Nove (Bronx & Westchester), Joe’s (NY style, various locations in the city)

Orlando: Pizza Bruno

Philadelphia: Barbuzzo, Stina

Phoenix & environs: Fabio on Fire (Peoria), Craft 64 (Scottsdale), Il Bosco (Scottsdale), Forno 301 (Phoenix), Grimaldi’s (Brooklyn coal-fired)

San Juan: Verace

Wilmington, DE: DiMeo’s (NY style)

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→ April 24, 2025
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Klawchat 4/24/25.

Starting at 2 pm ET. I’ve got scouting notebooks up this week on Mets & Orioles prospects and on three of the top HS prospects in this draft class for subscribers to the Athletic. And tomorrow I’ve got an update of my top 50 pizzerias in the U.S. coming here on the dish.

Keith Law: Years gone by, I’d say we’ve kicked some ass. Klawchat.

Aaron C.: Is there a food or cuisine that you’ve made a good faith effort to like, ordered different items or prepared different ways and damn it, it’s just not for you.
Keith Law: Lao & northern Thai cuisine. There’s something about the spices those cuisines use, particularly in seasoning meat, that comes across as very bitter to my palate. I’ve just stopped trying to make myself like it – it’s not for me, and that’s probably my loss in the end.

JJ: PCA playing like a future MVP. What’s a fair contract to get him locked up?
Keith Law: How many future MVPs have 37% chase rates? Dude’s had a good week and a half. He was just as bad the week and a half before that.

Richard: Just saw that the 2025 Hugo finalists are out, and you have read the Kingfisher entry. Have you read any others worth recommending?
Keith Law: Haven’t read any of the others yet. I did really enjoy Kelly Link’s The Book of Love (review coming next week), which was nominated for the Nebula.

Richard: The Astros are talking about Cam Smith playing Centerfield now.  Right field felt like a stretch, but Center seems nuts, right?
Keith Law: I think it’s especially nuts to ask him to learn an even tougher position than his natural one (3b) in the majors. It speaks to the lack of a plan for the player. He’s your best prospect; stop treating him like he’s roster fodder.

John O: Ty Floyd is 4 months shy of 24 and pitching in A. Considering that and no proven pitch beyond his fastball, what should expectations be moving forward…2027+ relief role? found money for any role?
Keith Law: That’s awfully quick for a guy who has made all of four starts since he was drafted. He missed 2024 after shoulder surgery; the fastball appears to be back and he has a functional (but no more than average) changeup. The slider sucks right now, and that’s a real concern, but he’s pitched so little that I doubt anyone has even considered tinkering with his pitch mix.

Aaron C.: Should I be more excited for Nick Kurtz’s debut or terrified that my A’s – already the worst defensive team in baseball! – are accommodating Kurtz by playing Tyler Soderstrom in LF and, like last night, are bringing in SETH BROWN as a defensive replacement?
Keith Law: Yeah I’m thrilled to see Kurtz up, even though he wasn’t great in AAA. There had to be a better way to do that than to put Soderstrom in the outfield, no?

PhillyJake: Off topic, but something I’m wondering about: Do you prefer ops+ or wRC+ ? Both are used by writers in the context of a person with a score of 110 is 10 percent better than average. I know of you’re not liking OPS in general as it takes two distinct stats are treats them equally when they shouldn’t be.  I don’t know enough about wRC that I should probably read more about it.
Keith Law: wRC+. I believe the stat on which it is based is much more accurate.

Andy: Do UCLA and USC still have prestige when it comes to college baseball, or did the move to the Big 10 basically kill any stature that they had?
Keith Law: USC lost its stature a while ago; they’ve been bad for more than a decade. Both schools are now getting beat in their own backyard by SEC and ACC schools. That’s really where it all starts – they have to recruit better, and if that means they need more NIL money, well, get to it.

foolsgold71: are we overevaluating prospects from certain teams like the Dodgers? players like Diego Cartaya and Bobby Miller have been a major disappointment
Keith Law: Cartaya has a serious back problem – chronic for sure, possibly degenerative? Throw that one out the window.

Andy: How is NIL affecting college baseball? Besides obviously giving top talent more reason to do college, is it trickling down to help lower level schools or are there just more kids getting paid to not play for SEC schools?
Keith Law: Right now we’re getting a huge concentration of talent in the SEC/ACC. Tennessee, LSU, Arkansas – these schools are building super-rosters. I don’t think we’ve reached equilibrium, though, because of what you hinted at: it’s often going to be better for real prospects to play somewhere else and get more playing time or a more prominent role than it is to be the Tuesday starter for Clemson.

Andy: Matt Shaw was given almost 20 games, and whilst he didn’t look good, it isn’t like the Cubs seem to be hurting from getting nothing at 3b. With signing retreads or utility guys there, what do they have to lose for him to struggle for a bit until he can figure it out?
Keith Law: No idea why they rushed to demote him. If you’re going to be that quick with the hook, you should never have promoted him in the first place.

Aaron C.: Every year, you write up “guys you got wrong” and thoughtfully explain what you got wrong and why. Who are the dudes who were better/worse than you thought where your explanation is essentially the “shrug” emoji?
Keith Law: Austin Wells catching is one. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t wear pinstripes who foresaw him becoming a passable catcher. Even area scouts who loved him as a kid and as a hitter said there was no way he’d catch. I don’t think he’s very good, but he’s adequate.
Keith Law: If Brett Baty never hits in the majors, he’ll be a wtf guy for me. I don’t have a real explanation there. Big strong guy with a good swing who hit pretty much everywhere. Also kind of shocked at how quickly Dylan Carlson stalled. Another one everyone liked who just … stopped hitting.

Corey: How should the Red Sox handle their imminent roster crunch, how long do they keep Mayer + Anthony in AAA ?  Will a rehab stint be enough to build Yoshida’s value for a trade with no slot for him in Boston ?
Keith Law: Yoshida’s dead weight … a platoon DH? maybe a platoon LF in another park? Tough to see them moving him – at the least, don’t make a promotion for Anthony contingent on moving a bad contract.

Corey: Assuming Alcantara returns to normal, what should Boston’s offer be ?  A package starting with Arias + Cespedes ?  Including a pitcher – Valera or Perales ?
Keith Law: Not my strong suit but gut reaction is that seems like a lot to give up for a guy just back from TJ.

Jay: This is probably a more nuanced answer than should be in a chat, but what are some of the things that some org’s are doing to get their batting prospects to hit their upper end projections more consistently? I’m thinking BOS & BAL and why can’t that be replicated for orgs that struggle with that like PIT & COL despite having years of plus draft grades by you and other publications? I’m thinking about the current struggles and or downright misses for guys like Davis, Veen, Gonzalez, Swaggerty, Romo, Montgomery, Beck, and countless others for my two beleaguered teams (PIT fan living in DEN…). Thanks Keith!
Keith Law: I believe we had a story on Boston’s hitter development, and ESPN did as well, and while I don’t think that’s the ONLY way to develop hitters, it’s instructive in the sense that they are doing things other clubs aren’t. The Dodgers are too. It’s fair to point to Pitt and Colorado and ask why they aren’t doing at least some of the same stuff – particularly when we’re talking about modest expenditures on people and technology.

JJ: Top 100 picks for the upcoming draft — how many will you end up seeing in person before the draft?
Keith Law: I’ll be over 50 … some guys won’t sign in the end, but I’ll have 50+ from my own Big Board, at least. Been a good year.

Eric: Does it make sense for Drake Baldwin to play a few times a week in ATL as opposed to every day in Gwinnett?
Keith Law: I don’t hate it for a catcher. I might for any other position.

PJ: The Cubs have played 26 games, and 23 of them were against teams over .500 (the Pirates have played 6 such games). It’s almost shocking they are 16-10.  How aggressive do you think they should be with Cade Horton?  Put up a 1.07 ERA in April
Keith Law: That’s a health question as much as anything else. Not sure how much they want to manage his innings.

Alek: Cj Kayfus hitting the snot outta the ball once again. No clue why he’s repeating AA. But could he have an offensive impact for Cle 2nd half of this summer?
Keith Law: Maybe … I think he’s going to underperform those numbers against better pitching. Solid hitter, not a star.

Ken: Zebby Matthews looks ready. Why do you think Minnesota hasn’t called him up yet?
Keith Law: Honestly that’s a question for Aaron or Dan. I assumed he’d be in their rotation.

OJ: I know it’s early in the minor league season, but some of Atlanta’s position player prospects who are young and raw/toolsy are starting to hit (Isaiah Drake, Ambioris Tavarez, Nick Montgomery, a few more).  Do you think it’s small sample size, or does ATL have something cooking?
Keith Law: Tiny sample.

Ben (MN): Have you ever heard of players trying to manipulate the data other teams have on them? For example, a hitter known as a patient hitter intentionally swinging at the first pitch in blowout games to appear more aggressive. Do players ever try things like that?
Keith Law: Never heard of that. The one thing I’ve heard is teams overpromoting very young players with sort of middling tools to boost them in models that overweight age relative to level.

James: Brandon Pfadt a GUY?
Keith Law: Yes.

James: Had you gotten into bitcoin investing or anything or do you play safe in index funds or s&p 500?
Keith Law: No bitcoin. My money is all in tulips and South Seas shares.

Chris: Roch Cholowsky a 1-1 candidate?
Keith Law: I don’t think so. first rounder, thought he was one in HS, don’t think he’s in that 1-1 tier right now.
Keith Law: Justin Lebron is the college name I hear most as a 1-1 guy for next year. Bear in mind that that player was Jace Laviolette this time last year, and he may not go in the top 15.

Chris: You’ve mentioned often, most recently in a scouting notebook, how changes to the Minor Leagues have made developing raw HS players incredibly difficult. Clearly the decision to ditch short-season ball was because of $, but I have no idea why the Complex season now starts earlier. It’s all clearly hurting teams’ ability to develop players. Do you think most MLB owners favor these changes just to cut costs, or is all of this because of a vocal minority of owners who only care about the money instead of player development? And, do you see any hope of this changing, post-Manfred?
Keith Law: I think that this is all about cost-cutting and that everything MLB is doing is aimed at cutting the minors further and farming out player development to colleges. Which would be taking the goose that lays the golden eggs and torturing it to death in the most sadistic way you can imagine.

Guest: I’m going to see the Nashville Sounds vs Durham Bulls minor league game this weekend – anybody promising to be on the field maybe?
Keith Law: Sorry, I don’t have the rosters memorized. For questions like this the best resource I can offer is my top 20s for each team – Rays and Brewers.

James: Any change in your opinion on Jacob Wilson? Small sample size but seems to be hitting at all levels – Luis Arraez 2.0?
Keith Law: Not only am I not changing my opinion on any  player after 90 PA, Wilson has one walk in those 90 PA, and he’s making almost no hard contact.

Paul: If you were Rizzo, would you go Ethan Holliday at 1-1 or would you go another route? He seems to be worthy of that pick in this class based on your personal ranking, just wondering if you’d go EH, arm or a lower ranked college bat?
Keith Law: Slot there is $11 million. Pick your final set of players and offer them each $9 million to see who takes it. I wouldn’t give anyone in this draft full slot.

Garrett: The July draft seems like a disservice to teams for many reasons: No short-season affiliates; Complex leagues end a week later; Upcoming trade deadline.

Now that we’re entering year 5 of it, do you have a sense of how organizations view it? I assume it hasn’t been well received.
Keith Law: Baseball people almost unanimously hate it. These are decisions made by business people who do not understand that players are the product. If you ruin player development, you ruin the product.

Taker55: What is your take on which org is best equipped to take this Jack Bauer kid? 102 from a HS LHP seems unfathomable and the upside seems otherworldly.
Keith Law: I don’t think the upside is “otherworldly.” There’s a whole lot to pitching beyond velocity. Bauer had trouble throwing strikes last summer at 90-91.
Keith Law: He is not a first rounder for me.

Colter Bean Fan: First to worst, please rank: Hess, Cunningham, ERC, Schlittler & (healthy) Hampton?
Keith Law: My Yankees top 20 is here.

Taker55: Did you see Sharon Osbourne going after Kneecap for their political comments during Coachella? War Pigs was ok but stay off Margaret Thatcher apparently.
Keith Law: Seeing some of those ’70s and ’80s rock icons go conservative is depressing, but I guess not that shocking. Then again, I didn’t exactly need Paul Stanley’s thoughts on trans rights.

Colter Bean Fan: I know you’re skeptical of S.Jones (so am I, and the lazy Judge comps drive me mad) but put any stock in his setup/stance modification making any difference? Swing looked good couple days ago vs. Hartford.
Keith Law: Still striking out at an untenable rate.

JJ: It amazes me how many baseball players progress from year 1 to 2 (although so far Chourio is not). What do you think of a sophomore of the year award? Recognizes how hard the game can be. Curious how many ROY’s in the last 10 would win it.
Keith Law: Just not a fan of making more awards. There’s a push for a Reliever of the Year award now. Meh.

Chip: If you could go back in time to say the 70s or 80s with the in game strategies of today but the same rosters, would you have such an advantage that you’d be hard to beat? Or would you just be Earl Weaver 2.0?
Keith Law: Doubt I could do better than Earl did.

Casey: Are you psyched for the new black maps album to drop soonish? Dunno exactly when, but hopefully in May.
Keith Law: I forgot they existed. Will keep an eye out for it.

Colter Bean Fan: Lombard Jr. love his swing. Do you see a Correa comp — just in terms of swing mechs? *NOT re: overall prospect status as CC was obv. an absolute stud coming out of HS where Lombard is not near his level)
Keith Law: I can’t say I’ve seen a similarity there.

James: Ethan Salas’ glove is so advanced for his age but do you think that SD is hurting his long term hitting development by being so aggressive with his assignments/promotions or do you think it’s not a big deal in the end?
Keith Law: He shouldn’t be in AA. He’s not ready.

Dan: Has Spencer Torkelson shown enough change this year, to show that he is a ML starting caliber First Baseman? Or is this just a hot start to a season?
Keith Law: Anything is just a hot/cold start at this point. I know people love to claim that certain stats “stabilize” by X at bats … because they don’t understand how stats work. Really. It’s like hearing Trump voters talk about tariff policy.

BK: Does Garrett Mitchell have too much swing and miss to ever be a consistent hitter?
Keith Law: I worry he does.

BK: Thoughts on Augustin Ramirez hit tool. Will he stay at catcher?
Keith Law: Can hit. Not a catcher. Worse than Wells ever was.

BK: Thanks for your monthly music lists – you have helped me discover a lot of new music. What are your thoughts on the band Almost Monday?
Keith Law: Don’t know them. Are they better than ‘Til Tuesday?

Sam: What’s the most random/unexpected great meal you’ve ever had?
Keith Law: What a great question. I remember one in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, where it was basically a little family restaurant and I had the best fried rice dish I’ve ever had in my life – and it was several meals’ worth for a few dollars. I had a stuffed Egyptian flatbread (very much like naan) at a counter-service spot in Monaco, of all places, that was out of this world. Maybe a decade ago I went to this tiny restaurant in Stanton, VA, that some newspaper (the Washington Post, maybe?) said was the best restaurant in the country – and it was amazing, even though the place was nothing to look at. I’ve had great szechuan duck in Charlottesville that melted my face off. Even just recently, I had outstanding Neapolitan pizza in Sarasota at Atmosphere.

Mike: Sean Linan has posted some wild numbers so far, with massive swing and miss in a small sample. What can you tell us about him and what he might turn into?
Keith Law: He had a pretty high whiff rate last year too – it’s a plus changeup, a weird one with high spin (that pitch usually has very low spin), and his slider is probably average. It might be a 45 fastball and he’s pretty maxed out physically. I’d like to see him at a higher level since he’s repeating low A.

Jay: What is your long term projection for MacKenzie Gore? Seems like the control has been better this year. Can he be an ace still or is he more likely a #2 or #3?
Keith Law: As much as I would love to see him become an ace, I worry that the four-seamer is too straight … it got crushed last year, hasn’t so much this year in a small sample but as far as I can tell it’s the same pitch.

Zack: Antwone Kelly has reportedly been touching 100 MPH this year. Is someone with the potential to be a big riser this year, and can he stick as a starter being sub 6-foot (if listed data is right)?
Keith Law: I’m assuming you mean the Pirates prospect … is he really 5’10”? I just pulled up video and he looks bigger than that. Might be out of date. Anyway he hit 99 last year. Good arm all around, might have the mix to start.

James: With NIL has your stance changed on staying in school vs draft?
Keith Law: Not really – still has to do with how advanced and mature you are out of HS, and whether you’re better served in a pro development system or at college.

Matt: Your offseason write-up of Nestor German seemed more exciting than what you wrote a few days ago. Has he lost any luster based off one look that you had?
Keith Law: The arm slot is higher than what I thought I saw on video – a good argument for seeing guys live vs just video scouting. It’s tough to stick as a starter from up there because you can’t work laterally. He does have the pitch mix to start, and he throws strikes, but yes I like him a little less after seeing his Iron Mike act.

JG: Astros fans (at least in the fan groups I’m part of) seem to have it out for Dana Brown.  I think he’s doing the best he can trying to clean up the mess created by the owner and his minions after they fired Click and hired Brown.  What do you think?
Keith Law: I think he’s been put in an impossible spot.

Chris: I know you like to have something tangible to change your opinion on a guy, does Ben Rice adding strength count?
Keith Law: Adding strength counts, but in his case it doesn’t address the actual concerns about his game (swing & decisions).

CVD: Mitchell Parker is leading the NL in WAR, and sporting a 1.39 ERA.   Time to believe??
Keith Law: No.
Keith Law: It’s April 24th. Everything is a small sample right now.

Ben: James Wood- appears to be on his way to stardom.   What changed from him falling into the 2nd round in the 2021 draft?
Keith Law: He had a terrible spring at IMG – striking out at a very high rate, scouts thought he wanted to go to school – and since he got into pro ball he’s worked really hard at controlling his large strike zone. It’s a lot to ask any player but he’s so athletic he might be able to pull it off even at 6’7″.

Craig: Are Xavier Neyens and Mason Pike (WA high school prospects) first rounders this year?
Keith Law: Maybe and no.

Jimmy: going to be in Chattanooga over the weekend should we pick the game that Chase Burns is going to start?
Keith Law: Absolutely.

Jay: Could Espino still make it  for CLE or has he lost too much development time to injury the past 2+ years?
Keith Law: I’ll be surprised if he ever pitches again. It’s been three years since his last game.

Matt: After the Cam Smith-to-CF announcement, I happened to check his Statcast page and was shocked by the 95th percentile Sprint Speed (which I imagine is part of this CF decision?)! I don’t remember seeing plus speed as a tool for him in anyone’s scouting reports, so I guess I’m wondering where this came from? Of all the tools, that seems like the one that would’ve been easiest to notice!
Keith Law: Sprint speed <> run tool. It’s a snapshot over a very small distance, and that’s not really what speed is – you can have a very high sprint speed but be closer to average over 90 feet.

Brian: Does The Athletic have a stick to sports policy? I remember you being more outspoken in the past.
Keith Law: I would suggest you check out my weekly link roundups on Saturdays.

Matt: Obviously the sample is tiny, but Alfredo Duno has thus far drastically cut down his K% and swstr%. If that guy can really keep his K% under 20%, how high is the ceiling there?
Keith Law: I think the bat might be elite. Just do not see that large body sticking at catcher.

Jay: Will the ability to frame/receive diminish with an ABS challenge system? Wouldn’t that help guys like Ramirez stick behind the plate or is the ability to control a run game with success rates near 90% still too much a factor?
Keith Law: Framing will diminish and thank god, what a stupid skill that is. Receiving isn’t about stealing strikes, though. That’s different.

Guest: If you were the president and say, hypothetically speaking, you were in the pocket of a foreign adversary, would you be doing anything differently than the current administration is doing?
Keith Law: Hypothetically, no, this hypothetically looks a lot like the hypothetical situation you described.

Brandon Hyde: What went wrong for the Orioles, and can they fix it this season?
Keith Law: Pitching. They needed to replace or re-sign Burnes, and they didn’t. Now they have a logjam of hitters, some of whom are losing trade value, and not enough starters. Joe Sheehan wrote in his newsletter today that it’s the worst rotation in baseball by performance so far. SSS, yes, but also, they didn’t do anything to address it this winter.

JJ: Is Shane Smith a mirage or is it sustainable?
Keith Law: I believe he’s a big-league starter. Might have a mediocre year this year given the jump, but I think he’ll end up a good #5 or even a #4 in time.

Taker55: Do you keep playing Cagliaone at 1st base or do you see what he looks in the outfield?
Keith Law: Outfield.

Andy: It’s NFL draft week and as an aside in one of the draft previews, there a mention that teams monitor the mock drafts. Not necessarily for who they are taking, but for the general level where people are being valued. Does that line up with how baseball people think of mock drafts?
Keith Law: Yes.

JJ: I get we can’t trust SSS in the majors/minors, but does that explain in part why drafting is such a crap shoot since we are mostly judging off of recent performances?
Keith Law: We’re not judging that much off recent performances, though. It’s recent looks, but there’s a lot of consideration to whether a spring performance might be skewed by randomness or bad luck – that’s where Trackman data can really help teams.

Chaim Bloom: Should I buy on Victor Scott II?
Chaim Bloom: Matthew Liberatore looks much better this year. Think he’s finally reach some of the potential or SSS?
Keith Law: I’m all in on Scott. If Liberatore is going to keep a walk rate of 2% all year, yes, great, but you can guess whether I believe that.

Andy: How does it feel that you went to a “Anti-Semitic, Far Left institution,” like *checks notes* Harvard?
Keith Law: I’m so glad Harvard finally decided to fight back. I do not often say I’m proud of my alma mater for anything, but I am right now. “Far left” is fucking hilarious, btw. Wasn’t true when I was there and I don’t believe for a second it’s true now.

Staunton Va: You went to The Shack in Staunton! It did get big media coverage.
Keith Law: that’s it!

LW: How did Mize get his groove back?
Keith Law: More splitters (best pitch in college), improved slider and more of it, cut back on the 4-seam, so he’s giving up a lot less hard contact. This I think is sustainable because it all makes sense together – he’s reduced his use of the pitch that got hit the hardest, he’s amped up the use of his best swing-and-miss pitch, and he improved a third pitch that I actually liked in college but that didn’t play that way in the majors.
Keith Law: The story all fits together.

Joe Nathan: James Tibbs and Cam Smith went 13 & 14th in the draft last year, both played together at Florida State as well. Not even a year later Smith is in the majors, and Tibbs is in high A. On the surface, Tibbs had better numbers than Smith in college last year, so how did we arrive here today? Is there something that the Cubs and/or Astros saw that made Smith the type of player that could be pushed, or is there some other explanation that you are aware of? To me it’s super fun and interesting, and Smith also moved from 3B to RF and looks like he belongs (and maybe will see time in CF now?!?).
Keith Law: It’s a great question – Tibbs could probably be in AA, for what that’s worth, but your point still holds. I don’t think Tibbs is ready for the majors. I didn’t think Smith was either, though!

Thatssotaguchi: Moved family to Italy two years ago under the assumption (gestures vaguely) all of this would be happening. MAGA in-laws are visiting for two weeks in May. How do I not kill them?
Keith Law: Wine?

Colter Bean Fan: Is there a dish you’ve made that sticks out in your mind b/c it seemed a bit of a pain in the arse to make but incredibly good/satisfying upon tasting? Mine would be red beans and rice (soaking the beans 24 hours and then cooking for hours while smashing the means to promote creaminess.. all well worth it)
Keith Law: Tiramisu. Made it once from scratch. Biggest mess I’ve ever made in the kitchen. But it was delicious.

Joe Nathan: No question, just wanted to say thanks for the Shades of Gray recommendation, loved it & Red Side Story. Hopefully it won’t take nearly as long for another sequel!
Keith Law: Pretty sure Fforde said he’s working on the third book already.
Keith Law: His stuff is almost all great, btw. The Constant Rabbit is a one-off that’s funny and a pretty obvious satire; Early Riser is more dramatic than most of his works, still really good; and the first quartet of Thursday Next novels are all awesome.

Frank: What do the Pirates do with Henry Davis?  Seems like he needs extended time in the big leagues to show if he can do it because the bouncing back and forth between AAA where he has had success and the Majors where he has not is not working.
Keith Law: He needs to be in the majors, in the lineup every day. Catch some, DH some, fine, but never the outfield.

Paul: Any concerts coming up?
Keith Law: TBD – just need to get through draft travel.

Patrick: What round do you see Eli Pitts getting picked?
Keith Law: Day two, if signable (I have no idea what anyone wants for $ at this point).

Kelly: What became of former Rays 2-way draft pick, Brandon McKay?   Could he still have a career as a position player?
Keith Law: Blew out, shoulder and elbow. Re-injured the UCL last year. He might be done, unfortunately; he hasn’t had an at bat since 2021.

Paul: Piggybacking on my concert question, I was disappointed with the limited touring of Sam Fender here in the states. It feels like he is someone that should be a lot bigger than he is. But then again I’m middle aged.
Keith Law: I worry we’re going to see fewer dates from any artists not born in the US because of the sudden turn in how we treat anyone coming into the country. I didn’t know until just recently that our Fourth Amendment protection from unlawful searches doesn’t apply within 100 miles of our borders (per a SCOTUS ruling) … not that that’s the biggest priority right now, but a rational Congress should fix that.

Jakob: You vote on awards – can you explain why writers vote on just one award, versus all of them?
Keith Law: It’s two votes per team, so 30 per league for each award.

Brent: I have 4 and 6 year old girls who want to play board games with mom and dad. Do you have any game recs? Candyland hurts my soul, memory match games are blah, and one can only play Yahtzee so many times. Thanks.
Keith Law: Dragomino, Outfoxed, Ticket to Ride First Journey.

Ryan: Miguel Vargas homered today – what ever happened there? Is he still a salvageable big leaguer?
Keith Law: I would like to think so but he stopped hitting the ball hard in the majors.

Jesse B: Luis Peña, Braylon Payne, and Jesus Made similar to the RedSox Big 3 in a few years, what do you think?
Keith Law: I think that Carolina team has an OBP of .420 as an entire roster. You can’t get a better example of the problem of small samples than that.
Keith Law: That’s all for this week – thank you all for reading, as always. I’ll have at least one more scouting notebook up next week, possibly two, depending on some weather & personal commitments. In May I’ll have a top 100 Big Board for the draft and my first mock, probably both around the middle of the month. Take care & be safe out there.

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Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat marries the dark history of the United States’ assassination of Congolese Premier Patrice Lumumba, done with the full consent of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskold and several other western leaders, with music from some of the great American jazz musicians of the time – as the U.S. was sending them on friendly missions to emerging post-colonial Africa. The contrast between this blue-note diplomacy and the vile, racist machinations of the CIA, President Eisenhower, and their co-conspirators makes it a tense, compelling watch, even though you probably already know how this ends. It was one of the five nominees for this year’s Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. (I watched it free on Kanopy, which I can access through my local library, and it’s also on iTunes, Amazon, etc. for rental.)

The film has no narration but does use some on-screen quotes to keep things moving along, which allows the music to continue throughout almost the entire film. It’s a who’s who of mid-century American jazz, including Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach, Melba Liston, and others, most of whom visited Africa on state-sponsored goodwill tours and/or became pan-African activists at home, tying the movement to U.S. civil rights efforts. (Gillespie’s quixotic campaign for President in 1964 gets prominent mention, even though it came three years after the Lumumba assassination.) The story begins several years before Congo’s independence, with scenes from independence movements across colonial Africa, speeches from African and American activists – including several from Malcolm X – and significant footage of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who became a champion for African independence movements because those groups often espoused socialist or communist ideology. Much of what plays out before Lumumba is elected happens at the UN, where we see speeches from Khrushchev and from ambassadors from Belgium, the U.S., and many non-aligned nations that had already obtained independence. The on-screen text also explains the importance of the Congo’s vast mineral resources, which at the time were led by huge uranium deposits that could be used in nuclear weapons, although today the emphasis has shifted towards coltan, a mixture of niobium (columbium) and tantalum that is extremely important to the manufacture of capacitors for electronic circuits – like you’d find in whatever device you’re using to read this.

This all sets the scene for the intrigue that ultimately led to the torture and murder of Lumumba by a rival leader, Moïse Tshombe, who led the breakaway State of Katanga. Tshombe was interested in power, and Katanga is the most resource-rich region of the country, so he had plenty of backers in the west. Days before Congo became independent, Belgium privatized the mining company Union Minière, taking the dominant force in the Congolese economy away from the native population and depriving the new government of a major revenue source – the final insult in Belgium’s seventy-year misrule of the territory and abuse of its citizens. Union Minière was based in Katanga, so Tshombe was the perfect stooge for the west, and was happy to oblige first through his political activities, smearing Lumumba as a communist, and then later through violence.

Throughout the film, director Johan Grimonprez (who is Belgian) intersperses the history of the conflict and subterfuge with the music, a jarring but effective choice that turns the whole endeavor into a visual fugue, with the music the counterpoint to the infuriating history on the other side. The struggle for independence across Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, went on just as Black Americans were fighting Jim Crow laws, and the response of the United States government in both cases was built on suppression and violence. At the same time, President Dwight Eisenhower, who apparently was an early proponent of assassinating Lumumba, tried to use American jazz stars to spread American culture to these new and emerging nations, calling them “jazz ambassadors” and sending them around the world to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, southern and eastern Asia, and to Africa. Louis Armstrong’s tour of the Congo, which appears to be the only time the State Department sponsored such a tour in the continent, turned out to be a cover for the CIA’s coup. Over 100,000 people showed up to watch him perform in the capital, then still called Léopoldville, while Lumumba was under house arrest; less than two months later, he would be dead at the CIA’s hands.

No country bears more responsibility for the now 65-year tragedy of the Congo, a fake nation with borders set up by Belgium’s King Leopold that has been beset by civil war for nearly all of its history, than Belgium does. Grimonprez gives more attention to the United States and the UN, but gets a few stabs in at Belgium, particularly in how Belgian leaders and officials tried to claim that colonizing the Congo was almost an altruistic affair, bringing civilization to a “less developed” people. Their colonial rule was one of the most brutal and damaging of any, a story hinted at here and told at great and gruesome length in Adam Hochschild’s tremendous book King Leopold’s Ghost.

The film ends with Lumumba’s death and the turning of sentiment on the part of the jazz ambassadors against the U.S. government, although there will still a few more such tours into the early 1960s. There isn’t so much a conclusion here, as the stories of the Congo and the CIA’s involvement in coups and assassinations would continue for decades, and the U.S. does still occasionally send musicians out on goodwill tours, if not quite to the same level as they did in the late 1950s. It’s an important slice of history, not just for Africa but for the United States as well, a reminder of the great power we can wield through the impact of our culture and the value of our diversity, and the great evil we can do when we do not hold the powers that be accountable for their actions.

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