Stick to baseball, 4/3/16.

A rather unproductive trip to Florida (thanks in no small part to rain and high school coach decisions) is over and I’m heading home before my first TV hit of the new season, on this week’s Wednesday Night Baseball Telecast of the Phillies at the Reds. I’ll be on roughly for innings four through six, discussing the teams’ farm systems and strategies as well as this year’s draft, in which the Phillies pick first and the Reds pick second.

I had three Insider pieces over the last eight days: my status updates on the top 50 prospects; my full standings and award winner predictions for 2016; and a scouting blog on Detroit and Atlanta prospects, led by Michael Fulmer.

I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

And now, the links…

  • A North Korean defector describes growing up in one of the country’s prison camps, the mere existence of which Pyongyang has long denied. The Daesh gets the headlines right now, but among formal states in the world, is there any more dangerous than this one?
  • This Bloomberg BusinessWeek piece about an operative who claims to have rigged several Latin American elections is riveting and entirely disturbing, such as the claims about manipulating public opinion via social media sockpuppet accounts. He’s now in prison in Colombia. I know the Cold War CIA no longer exists, but one wonders if an unscrupulous government intelligence agency might find use for this hacker’s skills in disrupting elections in hostile states.
  • Nature discusses the black-hole collision that reshaped physics, because it produced gravitational waves that we could detect, thus providing direct observational evidence of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
  • A charter school – of course – in California has reopened after an unvaccinated student caught the measles, but some stupid, selfish parents still won’t vaccinate their kids.
  • The Netherlands is going to have to close some prisons because they don’t have enough criminals to fill them. A focus on rehabilitation for nonviolent offenders plus decriminalization of personal drug use are factors behind the drop in crime.
  • Donald Trump and his now-charged campaign manager used classic victim-blaming language to try to evade the consequences of an assault caught on video.
  • Climate change – which is actually happening, and caused by man, no matter what every remaining GOP Presidential candidate tells you – is affecting the Antarctic ice shelf more than previously forecasted, which could lead to sea level rises of up to three feet by the end of the century. On the bright side, there’s an enormous financial opportunity right now in future beachfront property near the South Pole.
  • From last year in the New Yorker, can reading make you happier? I’d certainly argue yes; reading is my daily meditation, although I sometimes indulge in the more traditional breathing meditations as well.
  • Why do we teach young girls that it’s cute or even expected to be scared? I’m guilty of this too, although I might be equally guilty if I had a son. I’ve always tended to be a nervous person anyway.
  • This rant by author LaMonte M. Fowler comes unapologetically from the left side of the political spectrum, but his targets are those on the far right, so I imagine many of you will find at least some of his points amusing, as I did.

Stick to baseball, 3/25/16.

My one Insider piece this week covers my breakout player picks for 2016. I also reviewed the simple abstract strategy game Circular Reasoning for Paste. I was unable to chat this week due to travel and attending games in Florida.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 3/19/16.

I had a big scouting blog post from Arizona for Insiders this week, leading with Dodgers outfielder Yusniel Diaz, plus a draft blog post on UVA’s Connor Jones and Matt Thaiss, including thoughts on why the Cavaliers have never churned out a big league starter. My weekly Klawchat transcript is up as well.

I reviewed the simple abstract strategy game Circular Reasoning for Paste.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 3/12/16.

Couple of Insider blog posts this week from Arizona, one on Kenta Maeda, Jose De Leon, and Sean Manaea, and on Cody Ponce, Casey Meisner, Daniel Gossett, and Trent Clark. I also held my weekly Klawchat from the Cartel Coffee Lab location in Tempe. Many thanks to the barista with purple hair.

I appeared on Tor.com’s Rocket Talk podcast, discussing science fiction, the Hugo Award, and a little baseball.

My most recent boardgame review for Paste covers the fast-moving deckbuilder Xenon Profiteer.

And now, the links…

  • A vaccine-denier couple in Canada let their baby die of meningitis rather than get him medical attention, choosing instead to give him natural treatments like maple syrup. They’re now facing criminal charges, as they should, but they’re claiming they’re being persecuted for being anti-vaccine morons. Adults who contract viral meningitis usually recover on their own, but infants are at serious risk and require medical intervention and sometimes must be hospitalized. The article doesn’t specify how their child ended up with meningitis, but it can be caused by a number of viruses, some of which – like measles, mumps, and influenza – are vaccine-preventable.
  • The BBC asks if Starbucks can succeed in Italy, where espresso is ingrained in the culture. The answer is of course they can, because Starbucks doesn’t really sell coffee: They sell highly caloric coffee-flavored drinks, food, wifi, clean bathrooms, but coffee is just a tiny part of the business. And what they’re selling more than any of that is a brand that has global cachet despite the poor quality of their products.
  • Also from the BBC, feeding young children peanuts reduces the risk of peanut allergies. So that naturalist vaccine-denier cousin of yours who didn’t give her baby peanuts till he was six probably increased the chances he’ll end up with a serious peanut allergy. Whomp, whomp.
  • Guardian sportswriter Marina Hyde with some highly intelligent fire-dropping on Maria Sharapova and why we shouldn’t believe her story.
  • Nancy Reagan died this week at age 94; her legacy includes the failed “Just Say No” campaign and associated war on drugs, as well as her part in encouraging her husband to cut funding for AIDS research as the disease was spreading fast in the U.S. Buzzfeed ran a piece from last year on how she turned down Rock Hudson’s plea for help just a few weeks before he died. The Guardian also recounts the Reagans’ refusal to commit resources to fighting the disease.
  • The New York Times with an excellent piece on the debunking of a fake CIA analyst who appeared on Fox News. While the fraudster himself, Wayne Simmons, is fascinating, the bigger question is how Fox let this guy go on air so often, saying so many inflammatory things, without anyone suspecting that his resume was inflated. We’re all susceptible to believing people who tell us what we want to hear.
  • The lawyer who controls Harper Lee’s estate – and has been accused in recent years of manipulating the author to her own benefit – has informed the publisher of To Kill a Mockinbird that the estate will no longer permit the publisher to produce the mass market paperback version. That’s the cheapest version of the novel, the one most schools and schoolkids bought. Does anyone else think Harper Lee would never, ever have permitted this? Yet I see no legal recourse, unfortunately.
  • Lot of Downton Abbey recaps, remembrances, and thinkpieces this week; this piece on Lady Mary as the series’ strongest and most central character was my favorite.
  • I did not care for this Sports Illustrated feature story on Blackhawks star and accused rapist Patrick Kane, but I will post the link here for you to judge for yourselves. I thought that it underplayed the seriousness of the accusations, and the fact that the lack of charges was due to procedural issues and the difficulty of proving rape cases rather than exonerating evidence, and didn’t sufficiently debunk the ‘theory’ it broaches about the connection between the incident and his career year.

Stick to baseball, 3/5/16.

My one Insider piece this week covered the Ian Desmond deal with Texas. I also held my regular Klawchat.

I have two pieces up on Paste this week too: my review of the cool, quick-playing deckbuilder Xenon Profiteer, plus a recap of games I saw at Toyfair. The price has varied a bit, but Xenon Profiteer is $26.49 right now on amazon.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 2/27/16.

My ranking of the top 25 prospects for impact in 2016 is up for Insiders. I also held my Klawchat on Thursday.

I updated my Arizona dining guide for those of you heading to the Valley for spring training.

I also joined the boys of Cespedes Family BBQ on their podcast for an hour of silliness and a lot of prospect talk.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 2/13/16.

So, the first part of the top 100 prospects package is up: the top 100 ranking itself, ten prospects who just missed, and the ranking of all 30 farm systems. My team by team top tens and reports will go up Tuesday and Wednesday. I also held a Klawchat here on Thursday to discuss the top 100.

My latest review for Paste covers Barony, the new game from the designer of Splendor.

I intend to be somewhat scarce over the weekend, and will be visiting Toyfair on Monday to chat with boardgame publishers about their 2016 releases. I’ll post pics of anything interesting on my Instagram account.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 1/30/16.

My latest boardgame review for Paste covers the very strong Warhammer Quest card game, which I liked even though I don’t play any Warhammer anything and don’t do much with RPGs. My usual Klawchat schedule resumed this week now that I’m not bedridden with plague.

The top 100 prospects ranking and the organizational rankings are still scheduled to post the week of February 8th. We may push back the org top tens and reports to the following week because I lost so much time to illness this month.

And now, the links…

  • Luke Bonner, former pro basketball player (and brother of Spurs power forward Matt Bonner), pens a vicious op ed for VICE Sports on how raw a deal NCAA athletes are getting.
  • Uganda receives billions of dollars in foreign aid, yet has one of the most corrupt “democracies” in the world, with President Yoweri Museveni – who used public money to buy himself a $50 million Gulfstream jet a few years ago – running for certain re-election to extend his already 30-year term in office.
  • This isn’t getting much play that I’ve seen, but the Texas investigation into those “fetal harvesting” claims against Planned Parenthood had an unexpected outcome: the grand jury indicted the two people who made the videos, but not PP. There was a tremendous amount of time and money wasted on these investigations across the country, none of which found anything except political gold, and these two “activists” should be asked to pay those costs.
  • Peyton Manning is playing in the big game! Remember when he sexually assaulted a trainer in 1996? No? Wow, I’m surprised that just slipped everyone’s minds. Maybe I should turn it into a jingle. “Pey-ton Man-ning is a creep.”
  • The Supreme Court ruled this week that the federal government can regulate demand response in electricity/energy markets, or “negawatts,” just as it regulates production. This is potentially a huge deal for consumers (in the form of lower wholesale prices) and for our energy usage and thus production of climate-changing emissions, reducing loads on power-production facilities during peak periods. I still don’t understand why there’s a single rooftop in Arizona that isn’t covered with a solar panel, other than the laws that so actively discourage this.
  • Ted Cruz was thrilled to announce an endorsement from Tony Perkins this week. That’s cool, except that Perkins is a longtime gay-basher with ties to white supremacy groups.
  • The Guardian looks back at the influence of the 1996 cult hit film Big Night, which it says helped spark an American food revolution. I found the film so frustrating to watch – it was well-made and well-acted, but how could you not want to throttle the chef who’s cooking the restaurant into bankruptcy?
  • Craig Calcaterra talks some sense on ballpark security. Here’s the truth: MLB probably can’t do anything to stop a terrorist attack at one of its stadiums. But they can pretend to do stuff, like confiscating your bottles of water when it’s 105 degrees at field level so they can sell you $6 bottles of tap water taken off a Native American reservation in drought-stricken California.
  • She died for saying no: Janese Talton-Jackson was shot and killed by a man whose advances she’d rejected. That appears to be all there is to it: He approached her at a bar, harassed her, and then shot her when she continued to say no, according to police documents.
  • I wish this piece had been a bit longer, but it’s still a great topic: tourists who deliberately seek out forbidden or repressive destinations, and the way such tourism might actually help change policies.
  • A six-year-old the Chianti region of Italy suffering from an immunodeficiency disorder can’t go to school because eight out of her eighteen would-be classmates are unvaccinated. These are my people, and still, I say, what the fuck is wrong with them? (Article in Italian.)

Stick to baseball, 1/23/16.

My lone Insider piece this week was on the Tigers’ deal with Justin Upton. I’ve been sick pretty much since noon on Monday and am still down with disease, trying to do as little as possible this weekend.

And now, the links…

  • J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is back with another great post on 22 things you should never buy at the supermarket, meaning you should make them at home instead. I’d add mayonnaise to the list myself, because store jars are huge and I never finish them.
  • Ruhlman weighs in too, by pointing out that no food is actually “healthy,” not even kale. Some of this is semantics; people are healthy, but food, by virtue of being already dead, is not. Food can be healthful – full, or not, of nutrients – but not healthy. The bigger problem, however, is the rush to categorize foods as good or bad for you when there’s a huge range in between, something that depends on what else you eat and your individual genetics.
  • Most of you have likely seen this, but the BBC/Buzzfeed joint investigation on possible match-fixing in tennis is damning, even though it seems like much of this will be difficult to prove to an extent where we’ll see suspensions or expulsions.
  • Ted Cruz isn’t up to speed on the Flint water crisis, even though Flint officials knew about the tainted water over a year ago, per this New Yorker editorial on politicians’ “contempt” for their constituents. Al-Jazeera America, which is about to shut down, ran a damning exposé on Flint water an entire year ago … and still Flint did nothing. And Michigan did nothing. Flint’s Director of Public Works, Howard Croft, refused to admit that there’d been any mistake made whatsoever in that piece; he resigned his post in November.
  • EDBDS’s Spencer Hall gets a bit personal about his own depression.
  • The Atavist has the story of Jewish-American lawyer who successfully sued the government of Iran for funding terrorism, including the attack that killed his daughter in 1995.
  • The half-billion-dollar battle over the toy rights to Disney’s princess characters saw Disney (my employer) pull a license Mattel had held for twenty years and hand it to Hasbro. The reasons are complicated and fascinating.
  • You can become a math person, mostly because the whole “math person” thing is bullshit. Point #4, about teaching math as a language, is the most important in my view – math is like the world’s easiest language because it lacks the irregularities and colloquialisms that trip up most language learners.
  • A heartbreaking story of fetal alcohol syndrome in a 43-year-old woman.
  • Liz Finnegan, erstwhile video game writer for The Escapist, explores the unbalanced nature of “consent” on college campuses, especially once alcohol is involved. I don’t see how you can say that an inebriated person (the woman, in these examples) is incapable of giving consent, but that the other inebriated person (the man) is capable of determining whether the first person is capable of giving consent – that is, not so drunk that clear, affirmative consent is still not sufficient. You couldn’t use that standard in court, but colleges play by their own rules when policing student behavior on campus.
  • Loved Melinda Gates calling out Donald Trump on his anti-science vaccine denial views. Of course, I don’t think he’s got much of a shot with the intellectual crowd anyway, but it would be nice to get this particular lie out of the press for now.

Stick to baseball, 1/16/16.

I traveled to Puerto Rico this week to see the MLB draft showcase in Cayey, featuring likely top-5 pick Delvin Perez, so I haven’t written much anywhere, with just one Insider post, on the Wei-Yin Chen and Gerardo Parra signings. Klawchats will resume this upcoming week, and no, I haven’t seen this week’s episode of Top Chef yet. I did finish The Executioner’s Song on the flight home, and that has to be one of the most addictive books I’ve ever read.

And now, the links…