keith — Page 42

→ November 13, 2021
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/13/21.

My one new post for subscribers to The Athletic this week looked at some 2022 draft prospects from last month’s Future Stars Main Event at Citi Field. My ranking of the top 50 free agents on the market this offseason went up last week, also for subscribers.

My latest game review for Paste looks at Brew, a midweight game with incredible art that I couldn’t warm up to – the combination of area control, resource management, worker placement, and take-that mechanics left me feeling more confused than anything. It really does look great, though.

On the Keith Law Show this week, my guest was Sam Ezersky, the digital puzzles editor for the New York Times and the guy you should all yell at when the Spelling Bee doesn’t take ACIDEMIA. You can listen and subscribe on Apple or Spotify. On the Athletic Baseball Show this week, Derek Van Riper and I talked about the Mets’ disastrous GM search, among other things.

As the holidays approach, I’ll remind you all every week that I have two books out, The Inside Game and Smart Baseball, that would make great gifts for the readers (especially baseball fans) on your lists.

Longreads first: This Guardian profile of a French expert on serial killers who wasn’t quite what he said he was is riveting.
As is this New Yorker story on a multi-million dollar fraud in the organic food world, which probably affected every consumer who bought any organic grains in the 2000s and early 2010s.
A reader suggestion: how two wealthy benefactors tried to save Kalamazoo, and perhaps made the failing city worse in the end.
From my friend Tim Grierson, in MEL magazine: How Kenneth Branagh has spent much of his career trying to live up to Henry V.
The University of Florida tried to prevent two of its professors from testifying in a lawsuit against Governor DeSantis. They’re now suing on First Amendment grounds.
Writer Michele Genthoni tells the story of how she lost two adult siblings to COVID-19 because they were vaccine deniers.
Getting back to normal is great, until you test positive.
This 2017 WIRED piece on how false memories work, focusing on researcher Dr. Julia Shaw, is fascinating. People can remember things that absolutely never happened to them, and it’s not even that hard for someone else to convince them.
The NRA mapped out its 20-year strategy of defiance and opposition to any attempt at gun control in a conference call in the wake of the Columbine massacre. NPR obtained a recording of the 1999 conversation.
Portugal has made it illegal for your boss to text you outside of work hours.
I loved the first two Age of Empires games – Civilization in a two-hour package! Although if you play it six times in a row, I suppose you’ve spent the same amount of time not eating or sleeping. Anyway, there’s an Age of Empires IV, and Paste decided to go and call them Dad Games.
The New York Times asked Daniel Radcliffe and director Chris Columbus to look back at Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone on the film’s 20^th anniversary. I enjoyed it even though I think the film is pretty flawed.
I’m sure you heard about the latest right-wing grift, the so-called University of Austin, which doesn’t exist, and promises to offer “forbidden courses” but is really just going to sell bigotry in a nice suit. The school’s main obsession appears to be complaining about anything and everything. I’m curious why Harvard has allowed two of its faculty members, Stephen Pinker and Larry Summers, to join its board of advisors, although both men also associated with Jeffrey Epstein and my alma mater didn’t seem to care.
The same people saying that we need more freedom in classrooms to discuss controversial subjects are also trying to ban – or even burn – books about controversial things.
Speaking of grifters, J.D. Vance missed a campaign finance filing deadline and is ducking two debates in his dubious effort to win the Republican nomination for Ohio’s upcoming Senate race.
There’s a growing body of work that shows how women in the workforce fared worse during the peak of the pandemic, and here’s more, this time showing that women leaders took on more ‘invisible work,’ like work supporting employees or fueling DEI initiates.
The pandemic also drove college-educated mothers out of the workforce because of the added labor required from child care.
One new survey found that 4 in 5 respondents had fallen for at least one piece of COVID-19 misinformation.
The Atlantic writer Caitlin Flanagan’s series of self-owns on Twitter this week was something to behold. She is consistently wrong and impervious to correction.
Two of the women in the group Moms for Liberty, one of the factions leading these silly school board protests over Critical Race Theory and the like, wrote an editorial in the Washington Post explaining why politicians ignore them at their peril. What they do not mention, however, is that Moms for Liberty is an astroturf group almost certainly funded by the Koch Brothers.
Board game news: Z-Man Games announced Ultimate Railroads, a long-awaited reprint of and update to Russian Railroads, one of the best heavy games I’ve played, in one box that includes all of its expansions.
Gartenbau returned to Kickstarter for one last go-round.
If you like super-long, heavy games, like Lisboa and On Mars, the designer of those games, Vital Lacerda, has a new game out called Weather Machine up on Kickstarter and it looks huge and heavy and not really the kind of game I care for.
The creators of Glen More have a Kickstarter ending in 3 days for a new game called Caral.
W. Eric Martin, the editor of BoardGameGeek News and the site’s main writer, has a fascinating essay that points out that the site’s rankings aren’t that useful, in which he also admits that he hasn’t played a lot of the very heavy games near the top of the rankings – just 28 of the site’s top 100, fewer than I have (about 38, eyeballing it).

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: astroturfing, board game news, coronavirus, first amendment, guns, links, longreads, organic agriculture, psychology, stick to baseball, video games

→ November 8, 2021
→ By keith

Bird by Bird.

When I asked readers for suggestions for books about writing, the second-most cited book, after Stephen King’s On Writing, was Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. It’s a wonderful, slim book of short but very potent essays on just about everything related to writing, with an emphasis on fiction (and, at that, I’d say the short form), but much of it is also applicable to other forms of writing or merely the act of writing itself. It inspired me, and I say that as someone who is infrequently inspired at this point, even when it comes to writing about things I enjoy.

The book is filled with advice, and I don’t want to reproduce much of it here, because you should go read the book itself, and also because the advice just sounds much better in Lamott’s voice, with her wry humor and copious examples. She draws extensively on her experience teaching writing classes as well as writing for herself, allowing her to speak about things like writer’s block, creating credible characters, publishing, not publishing, and more in both her own voice and those of her students. I found nearly all of this advice to either ring true to my own experiences – especially that on writer’s block, something I haven’t truly experienced, because I can always just write something else and get things moving again – or to answer questions I’ve always had, such as how to do things like create those credible characters or write dialogue that sounds true, both to how people talk (which isn’t as easy as it sounds) and to the characters speaking it.

There’s plenty in here on getting started, which is something I often hear from aspiring writers is a huge part of the problem – they want to write, but can’t figure out how to begin. (With the first word, of course.) Lamott has sage advice on reasons to write, and reasons not to do so – not if you think it’s a quick route to wealth, or financial freedom, or popularity; if you doubt her, she has plenty of failure stories from her own career, from books rejected by publishers to dealing with self-doubt and the voices in her head that love to tell her she’s not any good at writing. (She is, though. Very.) It’s always helpful to know that other writers, especially those who have had more success than I have or have had longer careers, deal with the same kind of doubts and impostor syndrome that I do, and to be reminded that writing is its own end. Writing should give you joy, to use the popular bromide of the day. If it doesn’t, don’t do it. If it does, then how much you make from it – if you make anything at all, if you even publish – doesn’t matter.

Lamott is an irreverent writer who is perhaps best known for some of her writing on faith, including the best-selling Traveling Mercies, and while her beliefs do show up in the pages here, I thought it was always in service of her larger points, without proselytizing or excluding; on the contrary, she goes out of her way to include people of all faiths and no faiths in the book. I can’t say I was concerned – I try to read as diverse a set of authors as possible – but I include this for anyone who might have felt disinclined to read for Bird by Bird for this reason.

The title of Bird by Bird comes from a wonderful anecdote within an early essay that, in short, is the writing equivalent of taking it one day at a time. One of the biggest obstacles I have always faced as a writer, regardless of my subject, has been the discouragement I feel when I think about the whole project – its size, yes, but my ability to complete it, and make it good, and in a timely fashion, and not to be distracted by that thing I’ve been meaning to bake or that game I’ve wanted to play. So much of Bird by Bird comprises gentle reminders that you can do this, and it’s okay to fail, or think you’re going to fail. Just keep going, bird by bird.

—

I also read another of your recommendations, Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several Short Sentences About Writing. It’s a twee book with advice written to look like verse, in a voice that would make me think violent thoughts about any teacher who lectured in it. There’s some useful advice buried within it, but I encountered at least as much advice that I would say I violate every time I start to write, and while it’s written by a journalist largely for journalists, I’m not sure how much of the counsel here I’d truly endorse. I did enjoy the last 50 pages, with examples of bad writing from students he’s taught over the years, which ranges from the execrable to the unintentionally hilarious. It’s more than a matter of laughing at bad writing, but many of the examples illuminate problems with the language itself, ways in which English, or a lack of command of it, can lead us astray. There’s value in that. Perhaps he should have made three-fourths of the book out of that, and limited his advice to the remainder – without the pompous formatting.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: highly recommended, non-fiction, self-help books, writing

→ November 6, 2021
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/6/21.

My one column this week for subscribers to The Athletic ranks the top 50 free agents in this winter’s class. I also held a Zoom Q&A via The Athletic’s Twitter account. I feel like those don’t get as many questions as my old Periscopes did, so please let me know how I can make it easier for you to ask questions when I do them.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition, the shorter, streamlined version of the massive Terraforming Mars board game. I think it’s better than the original, which is a heavy (physically and in terms of complexity) two-hour affair that just doesn’t benefit enough from the difficulty or length it entails.

My podcast was off this past week, but will return this Tuesday with a new episode. I was on the Athletic Baseball Show again on Friday, which you can catch on Apple or Spotify.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: How two BBC journalists risked their careers to expose Jimmy Savile’s decades-long history of child molestation, and how various people in power tried to squash the story.
Insider’s Julia Black has a damning exposé of Barstool founder Dave Portnoy, with multiple women accusing him of engaging in nonconsensual violent behavor during sex. Much of the subsequent coverage focused on the stock price of Penn National Gaming, which owns 36% of Barstool, rather than the actual substance of the allegations. The Cut has a summary if you’re not an Insider subscriber.
A cheating scandal rocked the bridge world, leading to mass forfeits at a recent European championship.
In 1994, Rodney Wilson, a high school teacher in Mehlville, Missouri, came out to his students, and nearly lost his job. Things in Missouri aren’t really much better 27 years later, as a gay teacher in Neosho was forced to resign because parents said he was going to “teach their kids to be gay.”
ProPublica exposes how Gov. Jim Justice (R), Gov. Jared Polis (D), former Secretary of Edumucation Betsy DeVos (R), Sen. Rick Scott (R), and other wealthy Americans avoid paying most or all income taxes, using loopholes around philanthropy, family trusts, the SALT deduction, and other forms of chicanery.
Via Craig Calcaterra, who posted this link in his newsletter this week, a story from Bitter Southerner on what exactly is “Braves Country,” and the lies Atlanta fans are telling themselves about the team’s name, imagery, and chop.
Dr. Aaron T. Beck, the developer of cognitive behavioral therapy (itself a rejoinder to Freudian analysis), died this week at age 100.
There’s been some real-world fallout at GrubStreet from the Bad Art Friend story.
Whether the non-troversy over Critical Race Theory caused the Virginia gubernatorial race outcome or not, it is a non-troversy and the guy stoking it admitted as much on Twitter. He’s funded by dark-money titan Charles Koch, of the Koch Brothers. Don’t fall for it.
The HPV vaccine is cutting cervical cancer cases by nearly 90%. Can your horse deworming paste do that?
A new wave of COVID-19 cases, mostly among unvaccinated people, has overwhelmed Colorado ICUs. Gov. Polis (D), mentioned above, has refused to reinstate any sort of mask mandates or restrictions on capacity.
The Harvard Gazette asked a pediatrician about vaccinations for 5- to 11-year-olds.
Dr. Sheri Tenpenny, the quack who testified before the Ohio legislature that COVID-19 vaccines would make you magnetic, bragged about traveling on airplanes while sick with COVID-like symptoms. Ohio still hasn’t yanked her medical license.
The so-called ivermectin meta-analysis preprint that claimed to show evidence the anti-parasitic drug worked against COVID-19 has completely fallen apart now that three of the studies it used have been retracted (or otherwise shown to be bogus).
A great thread on the value of mentorship, in this case in academia, but applicable to all fields.
Senator Tom Carper (D), one of our two Senators from Delaware, wrote an editorial in the Delaware News-Journal indicating that he has finally come around to supporting ending the filibuster. Here’s hoping he can convince Sen. Chris Coons (D) of the same.
And the grift goes on till the break of dawn: Trump’s DC hotel cashed in big-time on the January 6^th insurrection.
Do you want to be better at recycling? And sometimes you put stuff in the yellow (or green) bin that belongs in the trash? You’re wishcycling, and might actually be making the situation worse. Here’s a guide to doing recycling better. Did you know you can recycle pizza boxes after all? I had always read that the grease stains on them made them unsuitable for recycling, but it turns out that that is incorrect.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: coronavirus, delaware, environment, links, longreads, missouri, psychology, the swamp

→ October 31, 2021
→ By keith

Music update, October 2021.

Whew, that might be the most loaded month I’ve seen since I started doing monthly new music playlists in January of 2015 – a function, I’m sure, of the easier access to all kinds of music, and perhaps my expanding tastes, but there was just a lot of great fucking music released in October. I omitted plenty of tracks from artists I like, including new material from CHVRCHES, Yard Act, Metronomy, Snail Mail, Frank Turner, Jack White, Shamir, Tom Morello, Soft Cell (!), Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, and more. I also ended up cutting Janelle Monaé’s new version of “Say Her Name,” since it’s 17 minutes long and a new version of an old track from 2013. As always, if you can’t see the widget below, you can access the playlist here.

White Lies – As I Try Not to Fall Apart. Few bands have channeled ’80s new wave as successfully as White Lies, who don’t so much mimic the sound as the entire vibe of those synth-heavy (and heavily made-up) bands from that era that was so formative for my own music tastes. This is easily one of my two or three favorite songs of theirs, right up there with “There Goes Our Love Again.”

Cœur de Pirate – Tu peux crever là-bas. Cœur de Pirate’s latest álbum, Impossible à aimer, is her best full-length LP so far, with some incredible melodies beneath her typically dark, incisive lyrics. This track is the strongest on the album, and for those of you who don’t speak French, it means “you can die over there.”

The Mysterines – Hung Up. This Liverpool group, led by singer/guitarist Lia Metcalfe, will finally get to release their debut album Reeling on March 11^th, but in the meantime, here’s another driving, snarling track in the vein of their earlier tracks like “Gasoline” and “I Win Every Time.”

Gang of Youths – the man himself. This Australian indie-rock quintet are running headlong into comparisons with peak U2 with tracks like this one, an atmospheric rocker with introspective lyrics about the death of lead singer Dave Le’aupepe’s father.

The Wombats – Ready for the High. I’m always going to want the Wombats to recreate their incredible no-skips 2015 album Glitterbug, even though I’m sure they want to continue to evolve past that. This is a pretty good twist on that sound, with Matthew Murphy’s typically absurd lyrics and a little more crunch to the guitars. Their sixth album, Fix Yourself, Not the World, is due out on January 7^th.

alt-J – U&ME. Speaking of wanting a band to be something else, the version of alt-J from their debut album is long gone, and they’re just another decent indie band now, with a clear commercial leaning they didn’t have a decade ago. But this song is pretty catchy.

Hatchie – Crush. Yep, this is a cover of one-hit wonder Jennifer Paige’s 1998 song, which reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, but Hatchie makes it less overtly poppy and more dream-pop.

Courtney Barnett – Write a List of Things to Look Forward To. Definitely one of Barnett’s better guitar riffs, with a tempo that better complements her laconic vocal delivery than some of her slower material. She also released “Smile Real Nice” from the soundtrack to the upcoming Apple+ series Harriet the Spy.

The Districts – I Want to Feel It All. The opening to this track keeps tricking me into thinking it’s Nine Inch Nails’ “Down In It,” which should give you some idea of the change in style here for these indie-rock stalwarts.

The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die – Trouble. Terrible band name, although I suppose it fits their retro-emo sound. This was my favorite track off their latest album Illusory Walls, which reminded me of Pure Reason Revolution’s blend of metal elements into emo tracks.

Speedy Ortiz – Cutco. Sadie Dupuis, who records as a solo artist under the name sad13, re-recorded this early track, from when Speedy Ortiz was primarily a solo project for her, as part of the upcoming double LP The Death of Speedy Ortiz & Cop Kicker…Forever, a joint reissue of their first album and their first EP, both released in 2011.

Sprints – Modern Job. Another strong post-punk track from the Irish group who brought us “The Cheek” last year.

Michael Kiwanuka – Beautiful Life. The first new music since his last album KIWANUKA won the Mercury Prize is this soul/trip-hop track from the upcoming documentary Convergence: Courage in a Crisis.

Sunflower Bean – Baby Don’t Cry. This is Sunflower Bean’s second one-off single in the last two-plus years, since the King of the Dudes EP, with no word on a new album coming, although they do plan a UK tour in the spring.

Hinds – De la Monarquía a la Criptocracia. Maybe this is the step forward I’ve been waiting for Hinds to take, with lyrics that aren’t so much yelled-sung as just sung. Maybe it’s because they’re singing in their native Spanish, although that wouldn’t explain the stronger guitar work, but regardless of the reason, this is an evolutionary step the band needed.

DARGS featuring James Chelliah & Moses Boyd- Hold On, Part 2. DARGS is David Darghi, a producer who’s released just two short tracks so far (and the first was not, in fact, “Hold On, Part 1”). I found this because he worked with drummer Moses Boyd, who had my #1 song of 2020, “Shades of You.” It’s a relaxed, sensual track with vocals from “existential indie” rapper Chelliah and an unnamed female vocalist, which I think is a bit weird.

The Lottery Winners – Much Better. I have no idea how these guys keep churning out one great pop melody after another, but they have another one with the earworm chorus to this new track.

Anxious – In April. If I say punk-pop, you’re probably not thinking of that as a compliment, but this Connecticut five-piece’s sound here is less overproduced or cloying than many bands that earned that moniker.

The Horrors – Against the Blade. The Horrors haven’t released an album since 2017’s V, but they announced their second EP of 2021, also called Against the Blade, featuring this heavy, industrial track.

The Boo Radleys – I’ve Had Enough I’m Out. What a surprise to find out these Britpop stars were still around, although I’ve found a lot of acts from that era can’t recapture the sound that carried them on up the charts in the late 1990s. A lot of the Boo Radleys’ recent tracks are too slow and very light on the pop part, but this one comes the closest. I’ll still choose “Wake Up Boo” and “It’s Lulu” over this, though.

Band of Horses – Crutch. Band of Horses’ sixth album, Things Are Great, their first LP since 2016, will be released on January 21^st. This lead single is strong, very jangle-pop, and is their first new material featuring guitarist Ian MacDougall and bassist Matt Gentling.

The War on Drugs – Change. Yes, it’s too long – six minutes and four seconds – but this is two straight tracks from The War on Drugs that feature a cohesive hook rather than more of a general vibe, which is how I’d describe a lot of their earlier material.

Lemaitre feat. Anna of the North – What About U. This is definitely Lemaitre’s best track since 2019’s “Rocket Girl,” featuring Betty Who, here going for a more ethereal, softer sound that works with Anna Lotterud’s voice.

Defcon Lawless feat. Band of Skulls – Slicktalk. I know nothing about Defcon Lawless, but have liked a lot of Band of Skulls’ music in the past, especially 2014’s Himalayan, and the psycheledic-rock backdrop they contribute here behind Defcon Lawless’ rhymes makes this something very different from most modern rap tracks.

Parquet Courts – Walking at a Downtown Pace. I have never liked anything by Parquet Courts before this new album, Sympathy for Life, but there are at least three bangers on this record. It seems like they settled down and worked on songcraft without totally compromising their garage-rock sound.

Potty Mouth – Contessa Barefoot. I don’t get the song’s title, but I’m glad Potty Mouth is back with their power-pop sound, although this doesn’t have quite the killer hook of “Cherry Picking.” UPDATE: A reader pointed out that Potty Mouth announced their breakup this week. This song will be on their final EP, 1% Happier, due out November 19.

Geese – Rain Dance. This Brooklyn quintet’s debut album, Projector, just dropped this month, barely a year after the members graduated from high school. Guitarist Foster Hudson cites Television’s debut album as a major influence, which is very evident across the album, but if you want a contemporary comparison, imagine black midi with less of the noise-rock trappings. Other standout tracks include “Low Era” and “Disco.”

Spoon – The Hardest Cut. I’d say this is the hardest Spoon song I’ve heard, but I’m good with that.

Mastodon – Teardrinker. Hushed and Grim just dropped on Friday and I haven’t gotten to listen to it all the way through yet, but I’ve loved this, “Pushing the Tides,” and “Savage Lands” so far.

Zeal & Ardor – Götterdämmerung. The death growls are back, but so are the great metal riffs, including a pedal-point riff here that really drives this song forward. This gospel/death metal band’s next album is due at some point next year.

Kowloon Walled City – Lampblack. Featuring Ian Miller of Puig Destroyer and the Productive Outs podcast on bass, KWC just released Piecework, their first new album since 2015, on October 8^th.

Kælen Mikla feat. Alcest – Hvítir Sandar. I’m interested in this Icelandic goth/avant-garde trio’s music thanks to the guest appearance here by shoegaze-metallers Alcest, whose last two albums were among my favorite metal LPs of the past decade.

Toundra – El Odio, Parte I. An eight-minute instrumental from this Spanish progressive metal band, which only does instrumental music, and a preview of their upcoming album Hex.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2021 in music, alternative, indie, melodic death metal, metal, Music, progressive metal

→ October 30, 2021
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 10/30/21.

Nothing new at the Athletic this week as I finished writing up the top 50 free agents ranking, which will run shortly after the World Series ends.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Happy City, a light city-building card game that’s ideal for younger players, ages 8 and up, who aren’t quite ready for Splendor. If you’ve played Machi Koro, this has a similar vibe, but without the dice or the unbalanced cards.

My guest on my podcast this week was Christina Kahrl, who helped me preview the World Series and some of this winter’s free agent market. You can listen and subscribe to my podcast on Spotify or iTunes.

The latest issue of my email newsletter was about a hat – one that’s very important to me, though. And, as the holidays approach, I’ll remind you all every week that I have two books out, The Inside Game and Smart Baseball, that would make great gifts for the readers (especially baseball fans) on your lists

And now, the links…

Longreads first: ProPublica has the story of how Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell and run for years by his ethically challenged son, discourages and dismisses students’ reports of rape and sexual assaults.
Why is the idea of gender provoking such a backlash around the world? It’s an unholy alliance of religion, misogyny, and homophobia/transphobia, and feminists should not ally themselves with those trying to roll back progress on human rights.
Steph Apstein spoke to multiple Native American leaders in asking why MLB still allows the “synchronized, team-sanctioned racism” of the tomahawk chop? Meanwhile, Rob Manfred totally whiffed when asked about the chop, lying about Native Americans’ views on it and landing on the wrong side of the issue.
The Columbia Journalism Review published the second part of its series on paid advocacy groups writing content for local news outlets.
The Posies broke up this week as multiple women accused lead singer Ken Stringfellow of sexual misconduct.
That SEPTA (Philadelphia transit) rape incident where people watched and filmed the assault without calling the police? Yeah, the cops made that part up. The lesson here is to not take authorities at their word.
Bobcat Goldthwait has some thoughts on the hoax that is “cancel culture.”
A white man in Texas killed a Moroccan man who was sitting in a car in his own driveway. It took 11 days for authorities to arrest him.
My colleague Levi Weaver called out the Rangers for their refusal to acknowledge LGBTQ+ fans. It’s outdated, it’s exclusionary, and it’s pandering to the wrong element.
Meanwhile, the NAACP urged pro athletes to avoid signing with teams in Texas over the state’s rollbacks of reproductive, voting, and LGBTQ+ rights.
Oh, and a Texas state rep who’s running for attorney general is trying to start a book-banning investigation of public schools in the state, demanding that schools disclose if they have any of eight hundred and fifty books – not in their curricula, but just in the buildings.
Ohio isn’t that much better, as the Republican Governor forced out the Board of Education President who authored an anti-racism resolution that has since been repealed, because in Ohio, racism is good!
Chevron’s ten-year vendetta against an environmental activist who exposed the company’s extensive pollution in Ecuador has led to the activist’s jailing on contempt charges. Steven Donziger has been under house arrest for over two years, all part of the company’s revenge against him for his exposé and the $9.5 billion judgment against them in Ecuador.
Vaccinated people are 63% less likely to spread the delta variant of COVID-19 than unvaccinated people are.
The bizarre backlash against critical race theory in elementary schools – where it’s never taught – was in reality an astroturfing campaign by conservative dark-money titan Charles Koch.
Jim Squires, a Democrat running for the U.S. House in Texas’ 22^nd district, held up a “The ‘Chop’ is Racist” sign at Game 2 of the World Series.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: baseball, coronavirus, links, metoo, ohio, philadelphia, religion, science, stick to baseball, texas

→ October 27, 2021
→ By keith

Homegoing.

My daughter had to read Yaa Gyasi’s acclaimed debut novel Homegoing for her 9^th grade English class, reporting that she thought it was extremely well-written, just sad. I tend to enjoy post-colonial literature, so I thought I’d give it a shot, further encouraged by the fact that the novel had won the PEN/Hemingway Award.

The novel is a sequence of fourteen connected short stories that follow the descendants of two Asante half-sisters, one of whom was sold into slavery, the other married to an English colonizer, down to the present day, by which point both lineages are in the United States. What happens from there isn’t as simple as you’d expect – this isn’t Sliding Doors, where everything is great in one set of stories and awful in the others – as Gyasi builds a new character in every chapter, developing them as independent people but also recognizing how history would define not just their circumstances but their personalities as well. The stories move through several centuries of history, from the way contact with Europeans tore apart the Gold Coast to how slavery and Jim Crow laws continue to limit Black Americans’ economic opportunities.

Even as the setting shifts from present-day Ghana to the U.S., the shadow of colonization obscures everything that happens in Homegoing. The course of history was changed when white people showed up in Africa and decided it was theirs – the land, the resources, and even the people – and the ramifications echo down through seven generations in this novel. Gyasi doesn’t deny her characters free will, but we are all shaped by our circumstances, and her characters’ circumstances build on themselves like a matryoshka, so that the characters in our present day, who would appear to have more freedom and more opportunity, are still weighed down by the centuries of oppression that preceded them.

I can also see why my daughter wouldn’t love the stories in this book, as most are grim, many are violent, and few offer much hope. There’s some graphic content in here, including rape and sexual assault, enough that I assume many schools wouldn’t assign it, but it’s almost certainly an accurate depiction of the way the English treated the Asante natives, and later enslaved, and of course the way American slaveowners treated their slaves.

Where Gyasi excels is in her ability to create one interesting character after another, despite only giving us a short time with each of them and also working with the constraints of the previous story in each chain (and, I presume, the subsequent stories as well). It’s an impressive feat of imagination within the confines of the novel’s structure, marking her as someone who is as deft with the short form as well as the longer.

It’s also why I’m not talking much about the individual characters and stories – they’re so short that I don’t want to spoil too much of them. Esi is the half-sister who is enslaved, then raped by a British officer; her daughter, born of that assault, grows up a slave in the American south, and manages to send her baby with an escaping slave to freedom in Baltimore, starting a chain of misery that moves back into the deep south and then to New York, with racism, further violence, forced labor, and more. Effia marries the Governor of the slave castle where, unbeknownst to her, her half-sister Esi is held in the dungeon below. Their child, Quey, is ill at ease in the white man’s world and returns to his Asante people, beginning a back-and-forth pattern between the Black and white cultures in east Africa until the final story sees their descendant in Alabama, where the two stories will eventually reconnect. It’s a masterwork of planning, with the parallel narratives coming together in a way that is driven by coincidence yet feels natural, almost inevitable, and that will never have you thinking how meticulous the novel’s structure is.

Next up: I’m reading some of the books on writing that you all recommended, having finished Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and started Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several Short Sentences about Writing.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: african literature, african-american literature, american literature, ghanaian literature, highly recommended, historical novels, short stories

→ October 23, 2021
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 10/23/21.

My second (and final) Arizona Fall League notebook went up for subscribers to the Athletic on Monday; the prior one, with notes on MacKenzie Gore, Zach Thompson, and more, went up last Thursday. I held a Klawchat on Friday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed The Hunger, the newest game from designer Richard Garfield (King of Tokyo, Magic: the Gathering).

On my podcast this week, I spoke to Trevor Strunk (@hegelbon) about his new book Story Mode: Blah Video Games and the Interplay Between Consoles and Culture, which you can pre-order here. And you can subscribe to my podcast on Spotify or iTunes.

Longreads first: Nature spoke to scientists who say they’ve been subjected to the most vicious attacks ever during the pandemic, including death wishes and death threats.
A con artist scammed would-be adoptive families out of over a million dollars before she was finally caught. She preyed on their desire to have children, often taking thousands of dollars in “expenses” for pregnant women who placed their babies with other families or who never actually existed at all.
Tara Smith wrote about how to eradicate diseases back in December of 2019, just as SARS-CoV-2 was emerging. She tweeted this link this week to say that we’re not eradicating this virus as long as it has numerous, unknown animal reservoirs.
My colleague Adam Crafton wrote about the horrendous treatment of LGBTQ+ people in Saudi Arabia, the government of which now owns 80% of Newcastle United.
If we want to stop climate change, we have to stop burning things.
Normalize quitting, says Lindsay Crouse in a New York Times video.
There’s a real debate to be had over how powerful natural immunity from a COVID-19 infection is, but politics is derailing it. People screaming that it means they don’t need a vaccine cause those on the other side to dismiss the point entirely.
OK, Joy Pullman. You go first.
Why is Judge William Pryor advancing the career of a law student who has made blatantly racist statements?
Trump supporters in a north Texas county that TFG won by a 4-1 ratio still hounded an election administrator out of office, accusing her of having a liberal agenda.
The Trump Administration used its food aid program to give millions to connected firms and to promote the then-President. No one will ever be held accountable for this.
Netflix fired the organizer of the employee walkout to protest the transphobic content in the recent Dave Chappelle comedy special, claiming the employee leaked confidential data.
A white cop in Louisiana grabbed a Black woman by her hair and slammed her to the ground multiple times. ProPublica also has the story. The incident, of which there is video, occurred five weeks ago, and the officer has not been identified or, as far as anyone has reported, disciplined in any way.
Minneapolis schools using online survelliance software called Gaggle are outing LGBTQ+ students to their parents.
Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote an op ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, calling out fellow Democrat Joe Manchin’s obstructionism and refusal to support climate-change mitigation policies that would benefit his constituents.
Paris Hilton (!) wrote an op ed in the Washington Post calling for regulation and reform of the “troubled teen” industry, which she says generates $50 billion in revenue per year.
St. Helena, one of the few places in the world that has yet to report a single COVID-19 case, is hoping to use that status to lure more tourists to the remote South Atlantic island.
Something’s rotten in Dover: Two Democratic state Senators here in Delaware are facing calls for their resignation, but the party is treating them differently. Gerald Brady used a horrible ethnic slur referring to people of east Asian descent in an email, while Darius Brown was arrested and charged with “offensive touching” and disorderly conduct after allegedly punching a woman in the face during an argument. Both need to go.
Evolution in action: Elephants in Africa evolved tusklessness when poachers targeted them for their ivory.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: climate change, coronavirus, cults, delaware, evolution, lgbt rights, links, longreads, louisiana, minnesota, science, stick to baseball, texas, the swamp

→ October 22, 2021
→ By keith

Klawchat 10/22/21.

Starting at 1 pm ET. Subscribers to the Athletic can read my second scouting notebook from the Arizona Fall League.

Keith Law: Look here junior, don’t you be so happy. It’s Klawchat.

Tim: What should be the first priority for the Cubs? Sign Correa?
Keith Law: That seems like the wrong direction. This team isn’t rushing back into contention in 2022, not with that rotation. They’re building now, whether they say so or not.

Millie: Who has the highest ceiling out of the AL rookie pitchers this season?
Keith Law: Does Shane Baz count in your mind? He’d be my choice.

James: How big a deal the DBACKS won the final game of season and pick second instead of first ?
Keith Law: History says it’s a big deal, based on how much more valuable 1st overall picks have been than 2nd. In this particular draft, I think it might be less of a big deal, because the class looks deep up top in bats, and I don’t think there is a clear 1-1 guy (yet).

Noah: Hi Keith, I’m just here once again to thank you for your reporting and chatting and also to do my weekly “how the hell is Sandy Alderson still running the Mets?” spiel. But seriously, why and how? (same goes for his son)
Keith Law: I don’t understand why he has any say in the new President/GM hires. I can only imagine it’s a Manfred thing. As for Brynn, the midyear promotion and new contract raised a lot of eyebrows around the sport. It doesn’t matter if he deserved it – that decision should be reserved for the new GM, and since his father gave it to him, it’s impossible to see it as anything other than nepotism.

James: What places have you gone to eat in AZ for the fall league ?
Keith Law: I wrote that up here yesterday.

Javis: Given the rough left-side defense and the wealth of SS talent available this offseason, should the Red Sox consider realigning Devers and Bogaerts to make room for a premium SS? (Bogaerts to 2B? Bogaerts to 3B and Devers to 1B?)
Keith Law: I’m pretty sure they view Nick Yorke as their 2b of the future, and would probably avoid moving Bogaerts there as a result. OAA has both Xander and Devers among the worst in baseball at their positions this year, but is that their talent level, or perhaps a function of positioning? If it were just one, I’d blame the player, but with two guys on the same side of the infield both grading out that way, perhaps it’s systemic.

James: Been to tratto by Bianco in Phx to eat yet ??
Keith Law: Yes, right when it opened. Wonderful.

Deke: If you were in charge of the Padres, what would your offseason strategy be?

(Personally, mine’s “experienced manager, try to find some bullpen reinforcements, do whatever it takes to find a real first baseman, and do almost nothing else.” Getting healthy is the biggest task without a close second.)
Keith Law: Agree on the biggest task part. They probably make the playoffs if their rotation stays healthy. And with Gore looking like he’ll be ready to help, I’m more bullish on their starters. They’re also going to have to make a decision on Abrams/Tatis in the near term. One moves to CF, I assume, and then Grisham goes to a corner?
Keith Law: As for the manager, I don’t agree it has to be someone with experience in the majors. Just don’t hire someone with no managerial experience at all.

Aaron in Indy: Yeah, Klawchat.

OK, looking at this from a outsider, but was stunned about the Mgr. change in St. Louis. No bias (I’m a reds fan) but it seemed like Shildt had a decent but flawed team that played hard all year long and did reach the playofffs. Any inside reason why the Cardinals organization made this move??
Keith Law: The local press has indicated it’s that he wouldn’t work with the R&D department as much as Mozeliak liked. To which I say, why the hell wouldn’t he?

Tim: Do you think Luis Robert will win an MVP in his career?
Keith Law: He has the tools to do so, but I think the approach at the plate will be the thing that keeps him from getting to the top. Of course, Abreu won last year, and wasn’t even close to the most valuable player in the league – or even top 5 – so who the hell knows.

JL: As an Atlanta fan, please tell me why I should feel this one won’t end differently than all the other heartbreaks they’ve given me in my lifetime. Please, Keith? I’m begging you.
Keith Law: I never made LCS picks before the series because I was in Arizona, but I said on TSN Vancouver after game 3 that I would have picked the Dodgers before the series started, even though the odds were now more stacked against them. I’m sticking with that. They have the pitching advantage now, even though they have to win two games.
Keith Law: I guess that’s not the answer you asked for.

Deke: Did you see the incredibly assholish JD Vance tweet mocking the Alec Baldwin situation? It’s just incredible where we are these days.
Keith Law: No, but I wish folks would just ignore his performative assholishness, because attention is all he’s after.

bk: Are you still in AZ? Will you get to see Gabriel Moreno?
Keith Law: I left on Sunday. He wasn’t there.

Dave: Are you team dark mode or light mode on iPhone?
Keith Law: Light mode. Much better for your eyes.

Gabe: im looking to get into the fiction genre , what book would be a good start?
Keith Law: It depends a bit on your tastes, but if you’ve really not read fiction since high school, try something genre that appeals to you – a good mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, whatever fits. You’ll learn what you like as you continue reading, and then if you decide you want, say, more “serious” literature, you can move up to that.

Brian, CT: Keith, Tennis has effectively gotten rid of line judges and gone to all electronic calls. How much longer are baseball fans going to have to put up with what happened in Game 4 of the ALCS?
Keith Law: The automated strike zone is coming. Maybe 2023.

Alex In Austin: Your reporting from the AFL and automated strike zone was informative. Do you think with more time and adjustments that pitchers would be more aggressive in the zone and long-term it could lead to more swings and a faster pace? Or, should the zone just be expanded an inch on both sides? I guess the good news is it seemed accurate.
Keith Law: My personal opinion is that they’ll have to widen the zone a little bit to avoid games like the last one I saw, with 22 walks in 7.5 innings. But with an automated zone, you can fine-tune it (during offseasons, please, not midyear or even midgame) to get the desired levels of called balls and strikes.

Alex: Just curious, but did you ever end up reading Klara and the Sun? Always enjoyed your thoughts about Kazuo Ishiguro’s books but didn’t see a review posted here.
Keith Law: Not yet. It hasn’t been out that long.

Clayton: After Gore, Abrams, Campusano and Hassell, anyone stand out to you in the Padres organization?
Keith Law: I mean, that’s good enough, no?

KM: What are good body wash / deodorant / etc options for someone with sensitive skin and no toxic chemicals / ingredients? (I know you’re well educated on a variety of issues and value you your opinion)
Keith Law: I’ve never looked into that, but beware products that claim to be “non-toxic.” The dose makes the poison. “Non-toxic” is pandering marketing speak. Also, don’t drink your body wash. Selenium sulfide is extremely effective at treating dandruff. Selenium itself is an essential trace mineral with antioxidant properties. It’s also poisonous at less than 1 mg/day.

Deke: I’m sure there’s an Athletic piece about this at some point, but if there’s not — how do you expect the big five (or four?) at SS to shake out? Who goes where?
Keith Law: I don’t do team predictions for free agents – I don’t see why my guesses provide any real value to you – but I have already begun free agent rankings, with some thoughts on what I think these players merit in the current market, and those will run on The Athletic right after the World Series.

Justin: Are you in favor of something like a $100 mil salary floor? Even the Pirates might be watchable if they were forced to spend the $60 mil to get there and did so intelligently .
Keith Law: Not if it comes with a cap.

Cold Turkey Stearnes: Do the Padres get Gore on the 40-man this winter, hope rule 5 status keeps him in the org, or are they down enough on him to not care much?
Keith Law: Are you actually asking if the Padres would consider not protecting him? That’s … well, just read what I wrote about him last week.

Cole: Any thoughts on the Angels parting ways with Matt Swanson as scouting director?
Keith Law: I’m assuming Minasian wanted his own guy in that role – Swanson was an Eppler hire. Certainly not Swanson’s fault that the Angels rushed Adell, or traded Wilson to save a few bucks.

Zack: What app / device did you use to track your running? I know you mentioned it in a blog post way back?
Keith Law: Fitbit. Does the job well enough.

Adam: All I want for Christmas is a full, healthy season from Trout and Buxton in 2022.
Keith Law: Don’t we all. Throw Tatis in there too.

Jeff: Keith, what would you do with the glut of righthanded 1B/DH/LF on the White Sox? Is to too early to consider trading Eloy and looking to get more balanced between LH/RH?
Keith Law: That’s an interesting thought. Not so much about getting more balanced L/R, but using the corner bat surplus maybe to address a need elsewhere.

This is about politics: SCOTUS is likely to uphold the Texas abortion ban. If they do, will this be the tiger-catches-its-tail moment for the GOP?
Keith Law: My gut reaction is yes, in that it will mobilize a lot of independent voters, but 1) that’s really not an evidence-based opinion and 2) if the GOP has gerrymandered the shit out of the country, will it matter?

gjf: I know you listen to music a lot , what headphones / earbuds do you recommend?
Keith Law: I have Bluetooth headphones from Raycon I really like for audio. They’re not great for phone calls but the audio quality is tremendous and their battery life is very strong.

Randy: I recall you saying you’ve heard mixed things about Elijah Green (before the showcase circuit). Where do you see his general range after his performance this summer? Top 5? Top 10? Closer to back of the first?
Keith Law: He’s going in the top 10 for sure, barring injury or some weird disastrous James Wood-type spring. I hear the same things on him – off the charts physical gifts, real questions on the hit tool.

Chris: If the Yanks give Seager over 300m and he has to move to 3B in a year or two, will he hit enough to justify it?
Keith Law: Yes.

Michael: have you seen or heard anything about how Nolan Gorman is taking to 2B?
Keith Law: Looked okay in the brief look I had in AFL, but not as good as he’s looked at third.

Frank Thomas the Tank Engine: Is there a way to make a pitch clock work?
Keith Law: Yes.

Steve: Keith: has Houck shown enough of a 3rd pitch to profile as a starter next year.
Keith Law: Not yet.

nb: Hey Keith – As a suffering Phillies fan, I’m glad they’re making changes to the player development area. I mean at this point guys like Kingery, Howard, Moniak are simply organizational failures. My question is this: When evaluating and rankings, how much stock do you put in the organization they’re with? Let’s say there are 2 prospects who you had similar scores on heading into the draft and they both play the same position. One gets drafted by the Phillies, the other by the Dodgers. Does the fact that LA does a much better job developing their guys make the LA draftee a better prospect? Thx!
Keith Law: I don’t consider it at all. Any player might be traded at any time, and an evaluation of the player should be team-agnostic.

R. Mann: Do you buy into “moving Torres to 2nd base makes him a better hitter”?
Keith Law: Helped Luis Urias this year.

Guest: What’s the slot money drop from picking #1 versus 2nd? The Pirates were able to pay for an extra 1st roundish player using savings.
Keith Law: About $600K this past year. That’s not what paid for the Pirates’ bonus to Solometo, though – they signed Davis well under slot, and that paid for it.

JR: Had Lindor not signed an extension and played out his last year making him a free agent, what type of contract do you think he gets this off season? More or less $/years?
Keith Law: Similar. Maybe the down year gets him a little less, but I doubt it – it’s not like he seemed to be an appreciably different player and he’s still quite young for a free agent.

Cold Turkey Stearnes: What is the lowest grade a defender will play a position at as a regular in the Majors? Obviously a well-below average 1B would become a DH, but what is the line for say a CF moving to a corner, or a SS moving elsewhere on the infield?
Keith Law: Depends on your alternatives, no? Teams play below-average defenders at SS, CF, etc. because that’s the best option (sometimes to get a bat in the lineup).

PK: Best newish board game for 10 year old son to play with parents? We like cooperative games but he’s gotten better about losing recently (we’re Cubs fans).
Keith Law: How about Juicy Fruits? That’s my review from August or so. One of the best new games I’ve played this year and definitely good for a 10-year-old.

Jay: Given the Red Sox’ history with Mookie Betts (deciding to deal him, rather than give him a long term contract), do you see them shopping Devers this winter, when his value will be at its highest, rather than next winter, when he’ll be eyeballing free agency after the 2023 season?
Keith Law: My guess is they’ll try to extend Devers. Sounded like Betts was always determined to get to free agency.

Shane: Still reason to believe in Jeter Downs?
Keith Law: Yes. Two-level jump was probably too much to ask.

3EB: Is Anthony Volpe headed towards being one of the top 10 prospects in all of baseball to start the season next year?
Keith Law: No.

Dan: Have you been following the local Ben Simmons drama? I generally always on the players side – holdouts, strikes, opt-outs – go get your money while you can and don’t let the team take advantage of your rare talent. But I can’t understand Simmons’ perspective here. It seems like he thinks some valid criticism of his play have made his team relationship irreparably damaged (as an outsider with limited inside knowledge, of course). I’m curious as to your thoughts given your experience with team-player relationships.
Keith Law: He plays basketball, right?

Chris: Keith, I don’t know what to make of Tristan Casas. I know a lot of people are very high on him, but stats-wise, the numbers aren’t there. I saw he hit a HR in the AFL the other night, but then also saw it was on a 93mph fastball. What’s the proper expectation for him next season, and then in the future?
Keith Law: I like him, obviously, given past rankings, although I think there’s a fair amount of projection involved there – that he’s going to hit for more power as he gets older. Looking back, I’d compare him in that way to Freddie Freeman, who didn’t get to power until several years into his MLB career (around when the league-wide HR spike began, too). Freeman was a solid producer in the minors, then a solid big leaguer for a few years, then became a superstar. That used to be a pretty typical career path. I’m not saying Casas will be Freeman but I could see a similar slow trajectory towards his ceiling.

Gerry in Philly: Preston Mattingly a good hire by Philly? Minor league system is seriously flawed
Keith Law: I’ve heard excellent things. Met him a few times but never chatted more than casually.

Dave: I recall you being extremely bullish on Derek Hill when the Tigers drafted him. He obviously hasn’t lived up to expectations, but seemed (to my untrained eye) to hold his own in the majors this year. Is there still room for growth there and/or reason for optimism?
Keith Law: Loved the swing, the defense, the speed. He’s disappointed for two reasons – he’s been hurt a lot, and he has refused to develop any kind of patience, which his sort of hitter absolutely has to have. You can’t be a fast low-power low-OBP guy unless you’re Andruw Jones on defense.
Keith Law: That said, he could still do it. I’m a Hinch fan, and I’d like to see what he and his staff can do with Hill over a full season.

Matt: Thanks for the chat, and the recent AFL writeup. As a Cleveland fan, I’m curious about Palacios. Kind of a guy who popped at the upper levels, and from everything I’ve read, finding a defensive home might be the biggest issue. I know AFL is a short look, but do you see him at 2B? Chances he could hit enough for LF? Or is this just an “interesting” guy who probably fits somewhere on the bench?
Keith Law: More than a bench guy for me. Maybe a Tampa Bay-style multi-position guy. He can hit/get on base, though. I’m in.

Ryan: Will the owners lock out the players? It would be really stupid to do so since the owners are making so much money on their teams, franchise values … and those greedy greedy players… how dare they want more money for the services they provide.
I just hope CBA talks stall we get a more balanced take on what’s going on as opposed to every
Keith Law: I think we get some kind of interruption, but I am just hopeful that the two sides see there’s too much money at stake to lose a chunk of the season.

Tony: About two years ago, I wrote to you in a chat asking about how you feel about prospects who you doubt certain skills. And how, you don’t take pleasure in saying, “See, I told you guys he wouldn’t make it.” It was actually centered around Austin Riley when his bad speed was getting majorly exposed at the MLB level. I believe your response was along the lines that you are delighted when you are proven wrong because that means a kid made it. I’m sure that has to be what you feeling for Riley now considering how much he really did struggle out of the gate. I’m glad that his team gave him the chance to keep working on his game to make those adjustments.
Keith Law: Absolutely. Can’t believe you remember that (I didn’t), but I appreciate you bringing it back up. Having spoken to Austin for my story, too, I can tell you he’s someone you want to root for. And I told him how proud he should be of himself for doing something so unusual – very, very few hitters can make this big of a change to their approach in the majors, and especially now with pitching as good as it’s ever been. It’s incredibly impressive and I’d say it’s one of the things I most love about my job – watching players grow and improve, whether I predicted it or not.

Jeff: Were you able to see CWS prospect Jose Rodriguez at the AFL? If so, thoughts?
Keith Law: Yes, a little. (Sorry, just went to grab my notebook.) Kind of a slap hitter, bit stronger than that but below-average power, with no approach. See ball, hit ball.

Matt: What should our endgame for COVID be? I don’t see the virus ever fully going away, and I don’t want to carry on with restrictions forever, either.
Keith Law: The restrictions are the price of ignorance. If everyone were vaccinated, the virus wouldn’t go away but its circulation would be diminished enough that we could get back to semi-normal. I’ll probably wear masks for a long time, though. (It’s nice to not get the flu or many colds, either.)

Mike Trout: Feels like a while since I’ve seen a movie review on your blog. See anything good lately?
Keith Law: Nothing in a while now. We’ll do more movies when the season ends.

Ted: FWIW, I agreed with your take at the time that the Cubs didn’t get enough for Darvish. Looking at it now, do you see any of the four prospects obtained becoming a “guy”?
Keith Law: Preciado stands out. Still think the return was light, though.

Michael: My kid is a freshman in college. He seems depressed. Loves school, having a ton of fun, but not going to class and has trouble getting out of bed. I can’t make an adult go in to therapy and am trying to be supportive and also give tough love from afar. Any tips?
Keith Law: You did mention the one thing I’d push for – there should be tons of resources for him. You could reach out to the school as well. Not going to class is a big red flag, to say nothing of the possibility he fails a class or two.

Ryan: Saw the headline “MLB clubs plan to give housing to minor leaguers” this week. It was great that they cut all those minor league teams so teams had more to spend on things and do that to start this year… oh wait, MLB had to be dragged through the mud and see other teams use it as an advantage before telling everyone to do it. Those stories about minor league life are terrible and MLB should be ashamed for how they’ve treated minor leaguers… just because they were treated this way in {pick a year} doesn’t mean it’s ok now.
Keith Law: Yep. It’s a good step. Still too little and way too late. Call your Congresspeople if you care. The hashtags and wristbands are cute and all, but they aren’t going to create real change.
Keith Law: You know what got the housing policy changed? News stories about players sleeping in cars and the like.

Clayton K: Most healthy water for you?
Keith Law: I shoot for a hydrogen to oxygen ratio of 2:1. I try to avoid heavy water, though. It doesn’t deu any good.

Jon: What are your thoughts on the Eagles this season?
Keith Law: We’re not that good. But maybe it’s a development year for Hurts?
Keith Law: Sucked to see Zach Ertz go, though.

Tom: The long nightmare of the Albert Pujols contract is finally over, however, the Angels weren’t close at all to making the playoffs, and they still have Upton’s money pit deal (he’s secretly been as bad as Pujols the past few years). What do they do this off-season? I guess try to address pitching as best they can?
Keith Law: That’s what I would do. Plow it into starting pitching.

Joe: High school teacher here – will the pledge of allegiance ever go away in schools? We still have it on the announcements every day but almost no one stands or recongnizes it anymore. Can we just let this thing go or would we hate America too much if we did that?
Keith Law: Eventually. It’s an absurd exercise in performative patriotism.
Keith Law: I’m glad to hear kids don’t stand for it. You don’t have to pledge allegiance to our government, let alone a piece of cloth.

Danny: You said before the season that if scouts thought Austin Wells had even a 20% chance of catching, he’d be a top 100 prospect. Have those odds of catching changed after his first pro season?
Keith Law: Nope.

Marani: From afar, I always got the impression that Aaron Boone was neither part of the problem nor part of the solution for the Yankees, but Yankees fans seem to be near unanimous in their disappointment that he’ll be back next year. How would you evaluate his managerial skills?
Keith Law: I would agree with you – he’s certainly not part of the problem.

Deke: Allison Williams leaves ESPN because of the vaccine mandate and goes to the Daily Wire, where Matt Walsh said “Yes, I said that I don’t like female analysts and reporters in football. No, I don’t care if that upsets you. No, I don’t apologize. Yes, I think women are feminizing traditionally male spaces. Yes, I think that’s bad. Yes, I’m right. No, your whining doesn’t change any of this.”

No question, just … damn, what an incredible self-own on all sides.
Keith Law: He’s a fountain of bad takes. Also, as someone who left ESPN, imagine leaving them for that site. That’s a choice, all right.

Graham: I tweeted you about this the other night—the Braves used a defensive replacement in CF Wednesday night that wasn’t Pache. If they aren’t using Pache there, why is he on the roster, and as a follow up, have they totally given up on him?
Keith Law: First question, agreed, second one, I don’t think so at all.

Shane: RIP to the perpetually underrated Peter Scolari
Keith Law: Oh wow. He was indeed underrated. So good on Newhart.

Max: Should the Cardinals be giving Alex Reyes a shot as a starter or just accept that he’s bullpen material and ride him that way?
Keith Law: His delivery & injury history really say “reliever.”

Paul: Not sure I saw him come up on any of your playlists. Have you listened to Bartee Strange?
Paul: and nevermind you did recommend some of his stuff please disregard.
Keith Law: Hah, yep, Mustang was pretty good, looking forward to what he does next.

Paul: Are you familiar with Seiya Suzuki at all? Any comparisons or what to expect?
Keith Law: If he’s posted, I’ll write him up.

Nate: Idk if you saw where the Astros apparently just lost Ehsan Bokhari to the Cubs FO…do you have any thoughts on what the Astros FO is currently like now? Like has Click made any effort to bring his own lieutenants to offset the brain drain, or done anything different to help reshape things from the Luhnow regime? Seems like we’d already had a pretty big exodus of guys to begin with even before that
Keith Law: Known Ehsan for a while, he’s extremely sharp. I think Sarah Gelles has taken over his role, and she’s also very well-regarded, although I don’t know her personally.

Alex: Have you ever thought about doing board game video reviews?
Keith Law: Funny, I have. Hoping to do something along those lines this winter.

Luis Urias: You claimed moving Luis Urias to 2B helped him become a better hitter this year, but who’s to say that he couldn’t have improved this year regardless of his position? I thought correlation doesn’t equal causation?
Keith Law: OK. It was pretty easy to see the change from watching him, but you do you, I guess.

JBisson: Thanks so much for these chats, Keith. Always one of the highlights of my day. Do you think Leody Taveras made enough improvements with the bat to warrant an extended look in the TEX lineup in 2022?
Keith Law: I really hope to see him back in CF for them next year. Way too young to give up on him.

Eric: Will 2022 be another completely lost year (Top 5 pick) for the Orioles?
Keith Law: Hard to see them competing with the pitching currently in the organization & the competition in that division.

SD: Is Abrams playing in the fall league? Have you seen him?
Keith Law: He did not play at all last week. I was told he wasn’t physically ready but I don’t know if that was the broken leg or something else.
Keith Law: I mean, still related to the broken leg. Obviously if he had a broken leg now he wouldn’t play. That would be a bad idea.

Pat D: I know you mentioned doing movies after the season, and I know you’ve brought up the book several times, so any interest in seeing the new “Dune?”
Keith Law: 100%.

Bob: You made a brief comment on Pedro Leon. I know it’s tough when a player doesn’t do much in a live look, but was your negative tone suggestive that others have not seen big tools?
Keith Law: I thought I acknowledged the big tools, just that he looked really bad against a lot of different pitchers last week.

Mike Trout: James McCann isn’t blocking anyone. ETA for Alvarez?
Keith Law: 2023 for Francisco.

Mike: And for heaven’s sake, don’t you be so sad.
Keith Law: Glad someone got it. I was afraid my age was showing.
Keith Law: That’s all for this week. Thank you so much for reading, as always, and for all of your questions. Free agent rankings will be up around November 5th, so keep an eye out for that. And don’t forget my books The Inside Game and Smart Baseball as you do your holiday shopping! Stay safe, everyone.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: klawchat

→ October 21, 2021
→ By keith

Arizona eats, 2021 edition.

Last week marked my first trip to Arizona in two years, since my last run through the Fall League, which also marks the longest I’d gone between visits to that state since my first trip there as an ESPN employee back in 2006. As such, I had some old favorites I had to visit – the Hillside Spot, Matt’s Big Breakfast, Crêpe Bar, Cartel Coffee (three times, including the airport location), Grimaldi’s (to taunt my daughter, who loves that place), and, for books, Changing Hands. That didn’t leave a ton of opportunity to try new places, but I did manage to work in four new spots.

Tacos Calafia has five locations in the Valley, two of which are close to ballparks – Peoria (on Thunderbird, one long block south of the stadium) and, most importantly, Surprise, a relative wasteland when it comes to non-chain food, with only Saigon Kitchen to really speak for the area. Tacos Calafia offers a very short menu of “Tijuana-style” tacos, with four or five meats, a small salsa bar, and a few other dishes like quesadillas, nachos, and vampiros that are based around the same meats. I tried the al pastor (pork) and pollo (chicken), and would agree with the assessment of my friend Bill Mitchell, who recommended the place, that the meats are plus, and the reason to go there. The toppings are nothing special – I’m really not into guacamole that is blended until completely smooth, but that’s personal preference – so you’ve got to go for the meats. Three tacos will run you $9-10, and I didn’t need anything more than that.

Speaking of Peoria, which isn’t all that much better for non-chain food than Surprise, on a whim I decided to see if there was a good Thai place nearby. Sala Thai had unusually positive reviews and comments online, and I think they’re well justified (based on one meal of one dish, so SSS applies). Pad see ew is my go-to dish at new Thai places because it’s usually not too sweet, like pad Thai can be, and there’s plenty of variety around the dish so a restaurant can make it their own, so to speak. Sala Thai’s was damn good, savory and barely sweet, with a lot of broccoli and some caramelization on the noodles themselves, which reminded me of the wok hei you get at Chinese restaurants. I actually wasn’t that hungry for this meal, but ate because I knew waiting till after the game was a bad idea, and yet I devoured this.

Over in downtown Mesa, Que Chevere is a food truck gone brick-and-mortar, serving Venezuelan staples – empanadas, arepas, cachapas, and more. Mindful of my inability to eat anything in the car without making a mess, I chose the empanadas con pollo, and my god am I glad I did. I love just about all empanadas; it’s a giant dumpling that’s baked or fried, so what’s not to love? Que Chevere’s empanada dough differs from those I’ve had before. It must have had cornmeal in it, because it tasted like a hush puppy (a fried ball of cornmeal-based dough) with shredded chicken in it. The chicken itself was a little dry, since it’s white meat, but the cilantro-lime dipping sauce took care of that (and I didn’t drip any on my shirt).

I went to Pa’ La’s original location maybe two years ago to try their vaunted grain bowls, a type of dish I don’t generally enjoy, and was kind of blown away by it. Claudio Urciuoli has now expanded to a new, larger location, helmed by one of his protégés, on Washington Street in downtown Phoenix. The new spot has a more complete menu that is mostly centered around small plates, heavy on the fish. The plates are small, but the seafood is superb, with incredibly delicate yellowtail in the special crudo dish I tried. A local review had raved about the shrimp, but I found them underseasoned and kind of tasteless, although they were certainly of high quality. The pickled white anchovies (boquerones) were briny, oily, garlicky, and bright, although they needed bread, not the fennel crackers that came with them and proved unable to soak up any of the deliciousness left on the plate. For dessert, I went with the frozen chocolate mousse with miso bananas, which hit the palate like ice cream with an umami boost from the miso. Their menu changes constantly, and I’d like to see what it looks like on another day – or to go with a crowd so I could try more things. But what they really need is more bread, as that’s Urciuoli’s specialty, and it was mostly absent from the menu.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, phoenix, tacos, tapas, thai cuisine, venezuelan cuisine

→ October 19, 2021
→ By keith

Fox in the Forest app.

The Fox in the Forest is a great trick-taking game for two players in a small box, working primarily with just a small deck of 33 cards, numbered 1 to 11 in three suits. Odd-numbered cards have special powers that can upend the traditional trick-taking rules – you must follow suit, and if you can’t, one of the suits is the trump and you can win the trick by playing that suit instead – such as by letting you swap a card from your hand for the card that determines the current trump suit, or letting you start the next trick even if you lose. You also have to try not to win too many tricks or you’ll be “greedy” and get zero points for the round; your opponent has to win at least four of the tricks for you to score anything. Play continues, with points awarded in each round, until one player amasses 21 points for the victory.

We now have a beautiful new app version ($4.99 for iTunes, Android, and Steam.) of the game from Dire Wolf Digital, the studio that has created a whole string of outstanding adaptations of tabletop games, including Root, Sagrada, and Lanterns. As you might expect, the graphics and animations here are superb, and there’s a small challenge mode for solo play. The AI player is a little disappointing, however, as even on its hardest setting it still misses some easy strategies like deliberately losing all remaining tricks to make you Greedy and thus leave you with zero points.

The app’s setup is clean and easy to see even on the small screen of a phone. Your cards are laid out at the bottom of the screen, and you can drag and drop one to your play area on the left when it’s your turn. You can see a card’s effects with a simple tap and hold on the card, although the text may still be a little small for some players (I didn’t need my glasses, but I at least thought about it). The animations and sound effects were similar to those in Lanterns – they don’t specifically add to game play, but they’re fun and short enough that they enhance it without slowing anything down.

The AI player isn’t great – I’ve had no trouble beating it on hard mode, usually by a fair margin, as the focus seems to be on winning the next trick more than a holistic strategy that considers all of the ways to win in Fox in the Forest. The challenges are also a mixed bag – some are great, like the one that adds a fourth suit or another that requires you to win the treasure points you get when you win a trick with a 7 in it, while some are silly, like the one that randomizes all of your card values after each trick.

Online play wasn’t available until release day (October 18^th), so I haven’t been able to test those out, but the local version doesn’t include a pass-and-play option, which I think would be a huge addition for a two-player game like this – it’s perfect for passing the phone back and forth on a plane or in the car (preferably while neither of you is driving). Dire Wolf says that feature is under consideration for the future, and I’d put that at the top of my wish list. In the meantime, it’s a fun distraction for solo play, and I hope an improved AI is coming as well – Dire Wolf did tighten the AI in their Raiders of the North Sea app after release – to give the app more replay value.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: apps, board games, card games, two-player games

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