Stick to baseball, 10/11/24.

Nothing from me this week at the Athletic, although I should have at least two pieces going up in the next seven days.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the board game Little Alchemists, a streamlined version of the heavy game Alchemists that also works as a light legacy game, building you up over seven modules to a full midweight deduction game that you could play with the family.

I’ve been much more regular with my free email newsletter since taking some PTO in August, which I don’t think is a coincidence as it gave me some mental downtime after the crush of the draft and the trade deadline.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 9/28/24.

I had three new posts this week for subscribers to the Athletic – my hypothetical ballots for the six major postseason awards, my annual look at some players I was wrong about, and a look at the future of the White Sox based on what’s in their system and their recent development successes and failures.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the board game Let’s Go to Japan, a fantastic game that is about … exactly what it sounds like: planning a trip to Japan, based on the designer’s own yearslong plans to visit the country only to have it postponed for several years by the pandemic.

I sent another issue of my free email newsletter out on Monday. That’s two weeks in a row, so clearly I have the hot hand.

And now, the links…

  • The French cement company Lafarge paid millions to ISIS to keep its plant operating in Syrian territory held by the terror group. The Guardian has the full story, including the $778 million judgment against Lafarge in the U.S., lawsuits from people victimized by ISIS, and now a criminal trial in French accusing Lafarge executives of abetting crimes against humanity.
  • Josh Kraushaar is the editor-in-chief of Jewish Insider, and this past week, he started a false rumor that Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D) accused Michigan AG Dana Nessel of filing charges against pro-Palestinian campus protestors because Nessel is Jewish. Steve Neavling, the Metro Times writer whose interview with Rep. Tlaib was the supposed source of the quote, says the claim is false and she never referred to Nessel’s religion. Kraushaar’s tweet and story are still up, and it’s been picked up by Nessel, by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, and others. The New Republic weighed in as well.
  • Seeing a lot of AI spam on Facebook? It’s the “zombie internet,” says 404 Media’s Jason Koebler, with bots interacting with bots in a facsimile of the old web.
  • The Delaware Drug Overdose Fatality Review Commission released a new report with suggested policies to try to reduce drug overdoses in the state, especially among those recently released from prison.
  • Kurt Vonnegut designed a board game in the 1950s, before his literary career took off. It’s about to get its first commercial release, and the board game blog Space-Biff got to play a pre-release copy.
  • North Star Games, publishers of Evolution, has a Kickstarter live for Nature, a new, standalone, modular game in the Evolution series that streamlines a lot of the rules of the original.

Stick to baseball, 7/6/24.

One piece for subscribers to the Athletic this past week, wrapping up some minor league games I went to over the past week, including notes on Orioles, Rangers, Phillies, and Pirates prospects. Oddly enough, there’s nothing worth going to this holiday weekend, even though I’m home and available. I’m working up the top 100 draft prospects instead, and then will write my next mock, both to run in the Tuesday-Thursday window. I’ll also try to work in a Klawchat this week – the holiday messed up my schedule this past week. I also owe you a newsletter, which is somewhere on the to-do list.

And now, the links…

  • While working up my post with my top ten albums of 2024 so far, I was listening again to the new High on Fire record, which didn’t make the cut. That sent me down a rabbit hole that led me to this 2022 NPR piece on HoF’s Matt Pike, and his embrace of some insane conspiracy theories – and the antisemitic wack job David Icke. It’s a fantastic piece of writing.
  • The Guardian’s Marina Hyde turns her wicked wit on the morbid Tories in the wake of their electoral defeat. Few writers are as deft with the language, or as willing to deploy their extensive vocabularies, as Hyde is: “Farage is the horror version of Inside Out, where Mendacity is only just holding off Racism at the control console.”

Stick to baseball, 4/13/24.

I’ve got some new content coming up this week, with a new draft ranking due to run on Thursday and a draft scouting blog probably running Monday or Tuesday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the collectible card game Star Wars: Unlimited – Spark of Rebellion, which I enjoyed even though I’m not generally a fan of deckbuilders.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter, detailing a rather ridiculous dinner I had at the bar at The Publican, an acclaimed Chicago restaurant where, to say the least, one does not belch as loudly as one can.

I’m going to be on a new TV show, Diamond Dreams starting on Monday, April 15th, on the streaming channel Stadium. The show is a half-hour look at prospects around the minors and for the draft, and will be followed by a show on collectibles where I’ll also offer some comments on the prospects they’re discussing. You can watch via the app on pretty much any platform.

And now, the links…

  • There’s a big scam going around that has tricked a number of content creators into ceding control of their Facebook pages. It starts with what seems to be an invitation to appear on a big podcast, which of course is very appealing to most people trying to build their online audience.
  • Former SCOTUS justice Steven Breyer wants everyone to get along, like his former colleagues on the high court, even though some of those colleagues are busy destroying Americans’ basic civil rights, writes Elie Mystal of The Nation.
  • The Atlantic’s David Graham describes the “Trump two-step:” say something outrageous, claim that’s not really what he said or meant, and then quietly embrace the original statement.
  • Mehdi Hasan wrote in the Guardian that Justice Sonja Sotomayor needs to retire from the Supreme Court so President Biden can appoint a replacement, avoiding the possibility that Trump would get to appoint a fourth justice and give the court a 7-2 majority that would likely last decades. I’m not sure if I agree, but he at least offers a solid argument.
  • Here’s a great summary and index of economic research showing how consistently these sports stadium deals fail to live up to economic promises. If you’re writing about the topic, or know a journalist who is, this is invaluable, because the pro-stadium forces will always trot out fabricated numbers from consultants who give them what they want.
  • A senior editor at NPR wrote a bad-faith, error-filled critique of the public radio outlet on Bari Weiss’s blog. NPR responded, defending its hiring practices and its philosophy. You can find many takedowns of Uri Berliner’s original piece, but one fact that got me was that he accused NPR of downplaying or ignoring the lab-leak theory behind COVID-19’s origins, even when the evidence in favor of a zoonotic spillover kept mounting.
  • WFLA has the story of a young boy with autism who can no longer receive health services because Florida kicked him off Medicaid. We need more stories like this, showing everyday people getting badly hurt by state policies that cut funding for essential services like health care, education, and even school lunches for underprivileged people.
  • Chicago police killed Dexter Reed during a traffic stop where he fired first, injuring one officer, after which the cops fired 96 rounds in less than a minute. The Sun-Times reports that the five officers involved in the incident have been investigated a total of 41 times since 2019, and that the area where they stopped Reed has a disproportionate number of traffic stops. The cops have said they pulled Reed over because he wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
  • Delaware State Senator Sarah McBride is running to be our at-large Representative, vying to become the first trans person elected to Congress. She’s one of at least three Democrats hoping to win the primary, which is tantamount to winning the election in our very blue state. Full disclosure: I’ve met Sen. McBride and we often see each other at our local Brew Haha coffee shop.
  • Is social media really driving a surge in mental illness among teenagers, as Jonathan Haidt claims in his new book? The evidence is mixed at best, according to this review in Nature.
  • Eric Hovde, who is running for Senate in Wisconsin as a Republican, is now facing backlash over his comments from a previous campaign where he called for cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits, attacked single mothers, said alcohol should never have been legalized, questioned whether farmers work hard, and lots of other great stuff.

Stick to baseball, 11/18/23.

I offered my opinions of the Aaron Bummer and Cal Quantrill trades for subscribers to the Athletic. That Jake Bauers trade really didn’t move the needle, but I’ll probably include a thought or two on the Vidal Bruján trade when we get another one so I can include it in a longer column.

On my podcast this week, I spoke with film critic Matt Singer about his new book Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever. You can listen and subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I appeared on Seattle’s 710 AM to discuss the Mariners’ possible offseason moves and the challenge of competing in the AL West in 2024.

My free email newsletter has returned, as I sent out a fresh edition last night, my second one this month.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 10/7/23.

I’ve had one post up for subscribers to the Athletic since the last roundup, with my hypothetical postseason awards ballots for 2023. I do have another story filed for Sunday, so keep an eye skinned for that.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Votes for Women, a (mostly) two-player, asymmetrical game about the fight for women’s suffrage. It’s fantastic, and I also love that this review went up the week that Glynis Johns turned 100.

On the Keith Law Show this week, my guest was MLB’s Sarah Langs, talking about the season that was, who she would vote for in the various awards, and what excited her about this year’s playoff teams. You can listen and subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 6/24/23.

I released my second mock draft for 2023 this week for subscribers to the Athletic. I also did a Q&A to answer your draft questions.

My guest on the Keith Law Show this week was Michael Ruhlman, author of Ruhlman’s Twenty and the brand-new The Book of Cocktail Ratios: The Surprising Simplicity of Classic Cocktails, which is an essential guide for any home bartender. You can listen & subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now, the links…

  • Longreads first: The New Yorker’s Louisa Thomas has a tremendous story on the vicissitudes of Daniel Bard’s career, as he’s had at least two distinct comebacks already in his baseball life. (There’s also a mention of Keith Law Show guest Sian Beilock, author of Choke.)
  • Defector has the story of con artist John Rogers, who scammed people out of millions through his business of buying and digitizing photo archives from major newspapers and professional photographers.
  • NBC News’s Brandy Zadrozny interviewed putative Presidential candidate and science denier Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who shows just how divorced from reality he is, claiming that the powers-that-be prolonged the pandemic, that the vaccines killed more people than they saved (they did not), and that the CIA killed his father. He also still doesn’t understand that the mercury found in fish and the mercury that used to be found in vaccines were in completely different forms that the human body handles differently.
  • The British government is holding over 60 migrants, mostly Tamils, in a makeshift detention camp on Diego Garcia, with conditions deteriorating and what seems like an end-run around refugee rights because the Brits are claiming the island, which houses a military base, isn’t actually part of the UK.
  • Starbucks caved to pressure from bigots and removed Pride décor from many of its stores. Workers from over 150 locations are going on strike to protest the move.
  • The astroturfing group Moms for Liberty, which is pushing book bans and other anti-LGBTQ+ policies, quoted Hitler … again.
  • Thiefdom, a new game from the designers of Clans of Caledonia, is now also up on Kickstarter. I don’t like Clans of Caledonia anywhere near as much as the consensus – I find it a rather soulless economic Euro – but this appears to be a totally different sort of game.

Stick to baseball, 4/2/22.

I had three posts for subscribers to the Athletic in the last ten days, two scouting notebooks from the Cactus League (here’s one, here’s the other), and my annual breakout candidates post. That last one is shorter than usual because I just couldn’t confidently back any other names for it.

I’m working on the next edition of my free email newsletter. You can find both of my books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, in paperback anywhere books are sold, including Bookshop.org.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 3/13/22.

I released my first ranking of draft prospects for 2022 over on The Athletic, and held a live Q&A to take questions about it. I also wrote up the two trades from Saturday night, involving Chris Bassitt and Isiah Kiner-Falefa/Mitch Garver.

Over at Paste, I reviewed The Adventures of Robin Hood, a narrative game from the designer of the Legends of Andor, but with simpler mechanics and a clever encounter system with a two-layered board.

I spoke with the Locked On Dodgers podcast in a two-part interview you can watch here and here. I also sent a new issue of my free email newsletter, talking about Monty Python and the development of my sense of humor.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 1/16/22.

Still working on the prospect rankings – I started the actual writing this week, after several weeks of prep – which will run starting January 31st at the Athletic. I appreciate your patience. My podcast and my Paste reviews will return this week.

And now, the links…