→ June 11, 2009
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Draft articles and videos.

Aside from one more article tomorrow, I think I’m done with my online draft coverage for this year. Here’s what went up in the last few days, since my stuff isn’t always easy to find:

My day two recap, covering five teams that did something interesting. My day one recap was a little more expansive, since the bulk of the top prospects always go in the top three rounds anyway. My final top 100 ranking went up on Tuesday before the draft started.

I’m quoted a few times in this piece on prep players.

I did two chats this week, one on Wednesday and a predraft one on Tuesday. And yes, they’re working on the chat software bugs.

Radio:

Video:

It doesn’t look like my TV hits from Tues/Weds are online.

I also want to say publicly how grateful I am to the yeoman’s work done by Jason Churchill on the ESPN MLB Draft blog this year. Having Jason to get content up there daily while I was running across the country seeing players and catching stomach flus was an enormous help, and I thought the stuff he produced was outstanding and really moved our draft coverage forward this year. And I assume you all know that if I thought his stuff sucked, I would say so, meaning that what I’ve said here is genuine.

Finally, thanks to all of you for reading and watching and, in many cases, reaching out to me to offer compliments on the work that I did or that Jason did. The best part about this job is that I get to produce unique content that people want to read and like to read, and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of hearing people say that they enjoyed some piece that I read or some random radio hit that I did. Thank you.

Filed Under: Appearances Tagged With:
→ June 9, 2009
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TV tonight.

I’ll be on ESPNEWS at 5:35, 6:15, 6:40, 7:05, and 7:50 EDT, as well as sometime in the 8:00 and 10:00 hours. I’ll also be on ESPN from 9-10. All times Eastern.

Jason and I will live-blog at least the first round on the ESPN.com MLB draft blog as well.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
→ June 8, 2009
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Another projection.

Projection #3. Can’t say I love it or feel that confident about it. The Crow situation is complicating matters; his agents are clearly shopping for a landing spot for him, and so far I don’t believe they have found a taker.

Another videoclip, this one about the top arms in the draft. Oh, and Aaron – moving your hands is good presentation style, if you do it deliberately. Waving them around like you’re drunk and ranting … not so much.

My ESPNEWS hit from today. Can you see the bags under the bags under my eyes? Personally I think I sound awful. Also, that shirt is not purple, but it’s purple on my screen. I’ll show you purple – trust me.

I’ll be on with Brian Kenny tonight at 9:25 pm EDT.

Tuesday media schedule includes ESPNEWS hits at 6, 6:30, 7, and 7:30 pm EDT, and the Sportscenter special on ESPN from 9-10.

There will be a Tuesday chat, tentatively at 2 pm, but I might have to push it back to 3 depending on TV.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
→ June 8, 2009
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Media today + article on Strasburg.

I’ll be on ESPNEWS at 2:40 pm EDT, on ESPN 101.1 FM in St. Louis at 2:20 pm CDT, and on Atlanta 680 the FAN at 3:50 pm EDT.

I wrote a piece destroying the two anti-Strasburg memes I’ve seen this year – that “greatest college pitcher ever” candidates don’t work out, and that pitchers taken #1 overall don’t work out. Just a reality bill that some folks won’t want to pay.

And there’s another video up on players who’ll get to the majors quickly from this draft.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
→ June 7, 2009
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Draft blog post.

Draft blog post is up on Matt Purke’s demands and Randal Grichuk’s suitor.

More “vignettes” from me on building through the draft and ’09 draftees who could move quick.

I’ll be on our St. Louis affiliate on Monday at 12:20 pm CDT to talk draft.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
→ June 5, 2009
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More Klaw than you can stand!

Today’s draft tidbits, all bullet-pointy.

Another article on top prospects in this year’s draft who were undrafted out of high school.

I’m quoted extensively in this survey article on the HS crop in this year’s draft.

Another videoclip, this one about Scott Boras’ role in this year’s draft.

Also, Levi Stahl discusses Elaine Dundy’s The Old Man and Me in this and one prior blog post. I’ve never read it, but loved her first novel, The Dud Avocado, when I read it back in January.

Last up – I’ll be on our Pittsburgh affiliate again on Saturday morning at 10:40 am, and I’ll be on ESPN Radio sometime in the 9 am EDT hour on Sunday morning.

Filed Under: Appearances
→ June 5, 2009
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

I recorded a half-dozen draft preview videos for ESPNEWS and the dot-com; the first two are on Steven Strasburg and the top hitters in the draft. Today’s chat transcript is here. Deadspin had a good post today on the Austin Wood/Mike Belfiore debacle, which quoted me, which is what made it a good post in the first place.

—

After the dual endorsement given by the two critics behind the TIME 100, I expected to love Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, but I didn’t. I liked it, and I can see glimmers of brilliance in it, but the core story just didn’t grab me or propel me forward.

Oscar Wao is a Latino geek in New Jersey caught between his ethnic identity and his inner dork, a lover of sci-fi magazines and role-playing games who speaks in his own stilted vernacular and can not, for the life of him, get laid. His life is brief and not really all that wondrous, although it is pretty crazy, a sort of hysterical realism along the lines of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. The narrative breaks several times to shift narrators and jumps back once to tell the story of Oscar’s grandparents, particularly his grandfather, an educated man jailed over an apparent trifle by the brutal Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. Indeed, Trujillo might be even more of a main character in this book than Oscar is, as the murderous tyrant appears in the subtext even in the present day, and the history of the Dominican Republic seems to parallel (imperfectly) Oscar’s story.

Díaz has a definite gift for language (Beli tried her hardest but she couldn’t spin bomb-grade plutonium from the light-grade uranium of her days) and reading his prose is frequently like tap-dancing on the edge of a deep crevasse – exciting, confusing, frightening, but, assuming you survive, something you’re not likely to forget any time soon. But ultimately, the story revolves around a character who’s not that compelling: Oscar is a geek and unlucky in love and life, but he’s not sympathetic – he’s almost robotic, and naïve only works on my sympathies for a little while, after which I start to wonder how a character who is allegedly quite smart can also be so dense. Diaz’s verbal gymnastics, his cleverness, and the intermittent humor all make Oscar Wao worth reading, but a tighter story and a central character who’s more human could have made this a masterpiece.

Next up: I’ve got about 360 pages left in Gone with the Wind.

Filed Under: Literature, TIME 100 Tagged With: , , , , ,
→ June 3, 2009
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New projection, radio, etc.

New first-round projection is up. As I noted in the comments there and on Twitter, I heard after it was posted that the Rockies are “heavy heavy” on Matt Hobgood for one of their two picks.

Radio hit on Baseball Tonight this evening.

UPDATE they just posted my NYC radio hit with Seth Everett.

Ticket to Ride is a very cool game, by the way. I need to update that boardgames post, once I survive the draft.

Filed Under: Appearances
→ June 1, 2009
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ESPNEWS today.

Live at 3:20 pm EDT.

Last mental_floss quiz should be posted at 5 pm today.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
→ May 30, 2009
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The Phantom Grammy.

Today’s mental_floss quiz: Can you name the fifteen departments run by the Secretaries in the US Cabinet?

Anyway, this is kind of stupid but I’m going to mention it anyway because it annoys me. The University of New Mexico has a reliever named Cole White with a big arm and poor command, and he’ll be drafted somewhere in the top 5-6 rounds. When that happens, you will hear something, somewhere, about how he was nominated for a Grammy, because that’s what it says on his bio page on UNM’s athletics site.

It is also false. Cole White was never nominated for a Grammy, which is easy to prove since Grammy nominations are announced publicly every year. I contacted UNM’s media relations department in late April, asking them to clarify, and was told: “As we dug deeper into it, he ended up in the top 100 for Best Rock Song.”

So I called NARAS and asked them if they issue any sort of top 100 rankings for award categories, and was told no. As it turns out, Cole White wrote a song that his former band recorded, and their record label submitted it to NARAS so that it could be considered for the ballot, but it was not nominated or otherwise recognized for anything other than the fact that it was released commercially and met the general requirements for nomination. His song was one of 15,000 entries on the overall ballot from which the nominees are eventually chosen.

I notified UNM’s media relations department that this was all incorrect on April 29th, and did receive a reply, but they haven’t corrected it on the site, which means the inaccuracy will be repeated once White is drafted and/or signed. I was hoping UNM would just fix it and the story would go away, but a month is probably sufficient grace period for them to fix the error, and it annoys me tremendously that they haven’t. ESPN.com wasn’t interested in the story – and I agree with them, as it really is small potatoes – but I feel like a mistake like that, however innocent, should be corrected.

Filed Under: Media, Sports Tagged With: , ,