The collected thoughts of sportswriter, bookworm, & food critic Keith Law
There will be a KlawChat today over at the Four-Letter at 1 pm EDT.
I’ll be on WZON in Portland, Maine, today between 4 and 6 pm (we’re pretaping in the 3 pm hour); on WKNR 850 in Cleveland at 4:10 pm; and on the Thom Abraham Show on ESPN 106.7 in Nashville after 4 pm CDT, although I’m waiting to hear a specific time from them.
I’ll also be on Miami’s 790 the Ticket with Jonathan Zaslow on Friday at 11 am.
I did a Q&A on the Cardinals’ draft over at Future Redbirds. The first commenter made my day.
The dish is the blog equivalent of a cool indie band. Nice.
I’ll be on ESPNEWS today at 3:40 pm EDT, and after that I’m off to the doubleheader at Lowell in case any of you will be in attendance. Feel free to say hi.
If you can read Italian, check out .144, a blog written by a diehard baseball fan in Italy (and a great supporter of the growth of baseball in Italy, and the associated site PlayItUSA, with articles on US-based sports all written in Italian. It’s a good resource if you’re trying to improve your Italian vocabulary, which I’m doing right now in advance of the August visit of one of my cousins from Genova.
At 1 pm EDT over at the Four-Letter.
I’ll be on XM 175 with Jeff Erickson today at 12:05 pm EDT, and then will do a chat on ESPN.com at 1 pm EDT.
I’ll be chatting today at the Four-Letter at 2 pm. I’ll also be on TV to talk about the draft at 4:10 EDT on ESPNEWS, again in the 7 pm hour (Pregame) on ESPNEWS, and possibly on Baseball Tonight at 10 pm, although that last one isn’t confirmed. On Thursday, I’ll be on the Herd on ESPN Radio at 10:25 am PDT, and of course, the draft show is 2-6 pm on ESPN2.
Quick note – there will be a KlawChat today at 1 pm over at the four-letter, and I’ll be on our Omaha affiliate (1620 AM) today at 2:30 CDT.
I was saddened to hear of Charlton Heston’s death, but I can’t say I’m all that familiar with his work, having never seen any of his most famous movies. The Heston role that I know the best only lasts for a few minutes, although it was a tour de force on par with Judi Dench’s turn as the Queen in Shakespeare in Love. Heston appeared in the definitive adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Phosphorus is highly toxic and flammable, forms compounds that explode on contact with oxygen, is the key ingredient in detergents and nerve gases, and is absolutely essential to life. It’s good fodder for what amounts to a biography of a chemical element, and John Emsley’s The 13th Element: The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire, and Phosphorus
Emsley focuses on four areas of phosphorus’ story: Its early history and manufacture, its valuable commercial uses, its less benevolent uses in explosives and chemical weapons, and its environmental reputation (not entirely deserved). The narrative is a bit clunky, and Emsley tends to veer off into list mode, rattling off a number of famous murder/poisoning cases involving phosphorus in one of the book’s later chapters, and one chapter seldom connects to the next. But most of the book is highly readable, with some of the more technical content siphoned off into sidebars, and it was news to me that phosphorus’s rap for causing eutrophication wasn’t entirely fair, and the history of phosphorus’ use in chemical weapons, including nerve gas, is sadly relevant today.
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I’ve got a 1 pm chat today on ESPN.com, and you can also hear a few minutes with me on today’s Baseball Today podcast.
One of my favorite general-sports blogs, The Big Lead, asked me to do a wide-ranging Q&A for their Opening Day … uh, edition. For those of you who came over from TBL, welcome. If you share our interests in food, books, and the occasional movie, feel free to stick around.
Also, I’ll be on the Pulse radio show shortly after 9 pm EDT tonight, and my Hot List hit is now 4:10-4:20 pm EDT.
I’ll be on AllNight with Jason Smith tonight (Monday night). Not sure what time it’ll air; sometimes they podcast it the next morning on espnradio.com.
I’ve got hits lined up on local ESPN Radio affiliates this week as well (all times local):
* Tucson (1490 AM), Wednesday, 4:15 pm
* Nashville (106.7 FM), Friday, 4:45 pm
* Pittsburgh (1250 AM), Saturday, 10:40 am
I should be on ESPNEWS on Sunday morning starting around 8 am EDT for a baseball roundtable.
And on Tuesday at noon EDT/9 am Phoenix time, I’ll be doing a half-hour chat on ESPN.com on the rookie class of 2008.