Stick to baseball, 11/23/24.

Nothing new from me beyond the dish this week. I’ll write up big transactions when they happen, and I should have a board game review up next week, although the game I’m targeting I have yet to play, so we’ll see. EDIT: Hey, we got a trade last night, after I’d scheduled this post, so here’s my writeup of the Jonathan India-Brady Singer trade.

If you’re looking for me on social media, you’re most likely to find me on Bluesky and Threads. I’m winding things down on Twitter, just posting links there, and I locked the account due to the change in the blocking policy. You can also subscribe to my free email newsletter.

And now, the links…

  • And in a related story, Harvard magazine looks at the causes of our housing crisis, led by the lack of affordable housing (and of any will to build it) along with draconian zoning laws that pull the ladder up behind existing homeowners.
  • Florida State Rep. Rick Roth (R) is a farmer turned politician who long fought attempts to crack down on immigration, but turned into an anti-immigrant hawk in 2023 – hurting his constituents but not him. Funny how that works!
  • Roxane Gay writes, “Enough.”
  • ProPublica reported on two maternal deaths that resulted from Georgia’s draconian abortion ban, using documents obtained from a state committee on maternal mortality. The state then fired the entire committee.
  • Ken White, aka Popehat, wrote about one of his own cases, defeating what he called “the most purely evil and abusive SLAPP suit” he has ever seen. A 21-year-old Stanford student named King Vanga was charged with gross vehicular manslaughter for a car accident that killed two people. He then sued the family members of the deceased for defamation because they contacted the school with the details of the criminal case. Really.
  • Board game designer Kory Heath, whose games include Zendo, Blockers, and this year’s hit game The Gang, took his own life this week at age 54. Boardgamegeek has a memoriam to Heath and links to other tributes.
  • I’ve mentioned the death of board game evangelist Amber Cook a few times now. She left behind a 6-year-old son, and there are several fundraising efforts to try to help provide for his future, including a huge bundle of RPGs available for just $25, over 90% of their aggregate list prices.

Stick to baseball, 11/11/24.

We updated my ranking of the top 50 free agents in baseball this offseason on Monday after all options were declined or exercised to reflect the actual free agent pool. My next article there will probably come when we have a big transaction.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter, covering my feelings on the election, on Saturday.

I locked my Twitter account earlier in the week due to the site’s change to allow blocked users to see your posts. At this point, I will only post links to my work there, and I’ll be more active on Bluesky and Threads. Of course, I’ll still be here, and in the comments under my articles on The Athletic.

And now, the links…

  • Multiple women have accused University of Florida men’s basketball coach Todd Golden of stalking and sexually harassing them, according to a report in the independent site The Alligator. The University received a Title IX complaint against Golden on September 27th.
  • A 13-year-old girl in Florida went to the police after she was raped by her adoptive father; the police didn’t believe her and charged her with lying. When he raped her again, she recorded it on her phone. Taylor Cadle, now 21, came forward this week in a PBS story on the police’s complete mishandling of the case.
  • Prof. Donald Fanger taught my favorite class at Harvard, Comedy and the Novel, where we read several novels I still love, including my all-time favorite, Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. Prof. Fanger died this July at age 94.
  • France is prosecuting seven people involved in spreading the lies that led to the beheading of a French teacher who had shown an example of the cartoons from Charlie Hebdo that Islamist terrorists cited as their reason for murdering 12 people at the magazine’s offices in 2015. The actual killer was shot dead by police shortly after he murdered the teacher, Samuel Paty; this trial is about the online “hate campaign” that took place before the attack.
  • Trump’s Truth Social platform outsourced coding jobs to Mexico even as he threatened companies with retaliation for sending jobs outside of the U.S. American Second to Profits.
  • Elon Musk’s false or misleading claims about the election, including those about the major candidates, were viewed over 2 billion times, according to an analysis by CNN. I’m sure that had no effect on anyone’s voting choices, though.

Stick to baseball, 10/26/24.

I spent last week in the Arizona Fall League and filed three scouting notebooks, one with some initial observations, a second was all about pitching, and a last one that wrapped up a bunch of additional position players.

I sent out another issue of my free email newsletter this week; with Twitter increasingly overrun with misinformation and white nationalists, I’m there less and less, and the newsletter or one of the Twitter alternatives (Threads, Bluesky) are better ways to keep up with my work.

I appeared on All Things Considered’s Weekend Edition on NPR to preview the World Series (before the LCS actually ended!) and then did the same on NBC Morning News yesterday. One of my tweets made this SI roundup of people mocking former Reds infielder Zack Cozart’s incredible ignorance.

And now, the links…

  • Two stories from ProPublica: Arizona’s school voucher program is supposed to help low-income families, but they’re not the ones using the vouchers – it’s wealthy parents doing so. A claimed lack of prosecutors in Anchorage is leading to dozens of cases, some involving serious crimes like domestic violence or child abuse, being dismissed without trial. Other dismissed cases include 270 people arrested for suspected DUI.
  • Thanks to Arizona’s 15-week abortion ban, a pregnant woman who learned at 18 weeks that her fetus had a very high likelihood of spina bifida had to travel to Las Vegas for an abortion and ended up recovering in a casino hotel room. Abortion is health care.
  • This week in Bad Decisions: a doctor leading a large study on transgender youth said she didn’t publish her research findings because the results might be weaponized by anti-trans forces – which, of course, got out, and was promptly weaponized by anti-trans forces, even though the key quote here is this: “Puberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements, (the doctor) said, most likely because the children were already doing well when the study began.” It’s also news that the children on puberty blockers didn’t get worse. Regardless of the results, her decision to withhold the results hasn’t helped anyone at all.
  • Israel threatened a Palestinian teen reporter, telling him to stop filming in Gaza, and when he didn’t, they killed him.
  • The hypothesis that Barnard’s Star, the second-closest star to our own, might have a planet orbiting it dates back at least to when I was a little kid. Now there might actually be some proof.

Stick to baseball, 9/7/24.

Two new posts for subscribers to the Athletic this week – one just on Red Sox prospects I saw recently, including their top 3 prospects plus 18-year-old Franklin Arias; and another on prospects from several other orgs, including Jarlin Susana (Nats), Vance Honeycutt (O’s), and Parker Messick/C.J. Kayfus (Guardians). This past week’s schedule really did me no favors, unfortunately, and nearly all of the teams close to me missed the playoffs.

At Paste, right at the end of August I had a review of the game Rock Hard 1977, designed by former Runaways bassist Jackie Fuchs (Fox); and a related ranking of the five best thematic games I’ve played.

And now, the links…

  • After the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection, several big tech firms kicked Trump off their platforms and major media outlets appeared at least to push back on his constant falsehoods, but those guardrails are largely gone as those for-profit entities see dollars in a competitive race.
  • Vaccine opt-outs continue to climb in Florida schools, including life-saving vaccines like MMR and TDaP. The inevitable outcome of this is kids hospitalized or killed by ignorance, made possible by the state’s governor and surgeon general coming out strongly against vaccinations.
  • A Minnesota police officer with a long history of driving misconduct, including causing four crashes while on duty and driving 135 mph in a 55 mph zone without using his siren or lights, hit another car while driving 83 mph, killing an 18-year-old passenger. Shane Roper had been suspended twice for his driving but was still on the force and allowed to drive a police car.

Stick to baseball, 8/31/24.

I’m back to work this week, having gone to Delmarva on Wednesday night to catch Boston’s latest teenaged phenom, Franklin Arias, and will have a long scouting notebook up in a day or two covering that and three other games I haven’t written up yet. I’m a little at odds and ends for next week, as it looks like the schedules of the local teams are pretty unfavorable, and I may have to wait and see on the playoffs.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the board game Rock Hard 1977, designed by Jackie Fuchs, a four-time Jeopardy! champion who happened to be the bassist for the influential rock band the Runaways under the name Jackie Fox. It’s fantastic, and spurred me to rank my five favorite thematic board games (meaning games where the theme is great and well-integrated with game play).

I’ve been holding off on a newsletter until that review went up, so I’ll try to get one out this weekend. You can sign up for free in eager anticipation.

And now, the links…

  • “The truth is that Staten Island kind of sucks.” I’d argue that’s half-right; Staten Island just sucks. It’s the worst of the five boroughs, lacking the culture or diversity of the other four – and it doesn’t have the subway. New York should just hand it to New Jersey. The two states should build a bridge from Jersey City straight to Brooklyn. But this Baffler longread argues that it sucks because it’s Trumpy and xenophobic, and that there are other “little Staten Islands” around the rest of the city, too. And now they’re talking about seceding from the rest of the city on which they depend for their financial existence.
  • The City of Philadelphia released a farcical economic “study” that purports to show that building a new sports arena in Chinatown will benefit the city even though the 76ers already play in a perfectly usable facility that doesn’t require destroying a historic neighborhood and displacing residents.
  • Once upon a time, Chipotle was the “good” fast-food outlet, trying to use better quality ingredients and cultivate relationships with farmers, but ultimately, the profit motive has won out – they’ve been accused of denying raises to unionized workers at a Michigan location in violation of federal law.
  • Lionsgate put out a trailer for the new Francis Ford Coppola film Megalopolis that included a bunch of fake quotes from movie critics blasting some of the director’s older and more acclaimed movies. Megalopolis looks like it’s going to be a giant disaster, after mostly bad reviews at Cannes and multiple stumbles already from the studio and the director.
  • Ohio Republicans, who have repeatedly shown themselves to be some of the worst enemies of democracy, have approved language for an anti-gerrymandering ballot question that is designed to confuse voters into voting their way. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who voted seven times to use district maps that were ruled unconstitutional by courts, drafted the confusing language.
  • A cop in Massachusetts raped a girl he met through the state’s program for kids interested in law enforcement careers and then murdered her when she became pregnant, according to charges filed last week. The article I linked refers to “sex acts” before the victim, Sandra Birchmore, was 16 years old, but doesn’t use the correct word for it: rape. This is statutory rape and we need to stop normalizing it by avoiding the term.
  • Mainstream news outlets complaining about the DNC’s credentialing of over 200 content creators are authoring their own extinction, according to Mark Jacob, whose newsletter covers the way right-wing propagandists have run rings around the MSM. Jacob argues that journalists need to refocus on real journalism, like investigative pieces, now that the subjects can often go around them to talk directly to their audiences/customers.
  • A conservative alumni group at the University of Virginia has pressured the school into suspending campus tours given by a student-run service because they talked about how Thomas Jefferson owned slaves and raped them. Really.
  • The denialist group Biosafety Now, which continues to push the debunked lab-leak theory and includes a wide number of prominent anti-vaxxers, has added economist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, whose advice to then-President Trump on the pandemic was disastrous, to its board. This same group has worked closely with Republicans in Congress to push false claims that China is responsible for creating SARS-CoV-2 and should be held responsible for damages.

Stick to baseball, 8/17/24.

I’m on PTO from the Athletic this week and next, so there won’t be any new content from me over there until the week of August 26th. I had some plans to hit a Blue Rocks game last week, before my PTO, but 2+ inches of rain in our area scotched that (although they did play on one of those days, which flabbergasted me because that field doesn’t drain well). I was on the road a ton this week – something like 23 hours in the car in the last five days – so I don’t have as many links as usual, either.

I’ve got a review filed to Paste for Rock Hard 1977, the board game designed by Runaways bassist Jackie Fox (Fuchs) that was also my #1 new game from Gen Con this year.

I do have a newsletter half-written, so feel free to run over and sign up (it’s free) before I finish the damn thing already.

And now, the links…

  • The plastics industry is pushing to change the rules on what they can label “recyclable” – in short, if something could, hypothetically, be recycled, they want to label it as such, regardless of whether such recycling is readily available or feasible. I see this crap already with things labeled “compostable” that require access to industrial composting, so you can’t just throw it in your home compost bin or pile.
  • The chief of police in Millersville, Tennessee, is under investigation by the state for all kinds of malfeasance, and when Channel 5’s Phil Williams spoke to him, the chief called Williams a pedophile.
  • These weirdos’ attacks on Vice-President Harris for not having kids will only backfire on them, writes Jess Grose of the NY Times. I think it already has, to some extent.

Stick to baseball, 7/21/24.

The draft is over, let us go in peace. I wrote a lot of words about it this week, including an analysis of every first-round pick, some general thoughts on Day One of the draft, and team-by-team draft recaps for all American League clubs and all National League clubs. Prior to the draft, I posted a final mock (where I got 9 of the 30 picks right, and am still mad about two I changed from the previous version) and updated my ranking of the top 100 prospects in the class while also posting 25-odd more scouting capsules for guys outside of the top 100. I also wrote up some thoughts on last Saturday’s Futures Game. That’s all for subscribers to the Athletic. On this site, I held a Klawchat on the Thursday before the draft.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter on draft day. You can sign up here for more words from me.

I’ll be back in Chicago on Monday to appear on Stadium’s Diamond Dreams and other programming. You can watch via the Stadium app (visit watchstadium.com to download) or if you have the sports package on Youtube TV, Roku, etc.

And now, the links…

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, 6/17/24.

For subscribers to the Athletic, I posted my annual ten-year redraft, looking back at the 2014 draft class, plus the annual column on first-rounders from that class who didn’t pan out.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the new deduction game Archeologic, which I thought was too easy to solve and didn’t offer any new mechanics to make me want to play it more.

I sent out another edition of my free email newsletter last week, detailing my misadventures with travel and phone alarms.

And now, the links…

  • The four members of R.E.M. were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and sat down with CBS’s Anthony Mason to discuss the honor, their careers, their opposition to a reunion, and more.

Stick to baseball, 6/1/24.

Nothing new this week at the Athletic, but I have a top 50 pro prospect rankings update slated for Monday the 3rd.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the roll-and-write game French Quarter, from the designers of Three Sisters and Fleet: the Dice Game. I think it’s fantastic, although it’s harder than any of their previous games to play well.

I’ll be back on Stadium on Monday at 2 pm ET for Diamond Dreams and somewhere in the 2:30 pm show Unpacked for one more segment. We’ll discuss some of my new rankings on the first show and have an interview with Colt Emerson lined up.

A million bonus points if you know what today is, by the way. I’ll accept two answers, although one is more obvious than the other.

And now, the links…

  • Longreads first: You’ve probably seen this Guardian longread on the so-called “pro-natalist” family who, among other things, think nothing of physically abusing their children in the name of “discipline.” My issue with the piece is this: The parents claim that their parenting is “evidence-based,” yet they then do many things, including smacking their children, that are unequivocally contrary to all available evidence – and the piece’s author does not push back in any way. That is your job as a journalist.
  • WIRED has the story of Jane Willenbring, the victim of sexual harassment by disgraced Professor David Marchant while they worked in Antarctica, whose willingness to come forward led to Marchant’s firing and the renaming of the glacier that once bore his name.
  • A nurse at NYU’s Langone Health hospital mentioned the genocide in Gaza during her speech accepting an award for her compassion in caring for mothers who’d lost their babies. The hospital fired her. They’ve said she was warned before “not to bring her views on this divisive and charged issue into the workplace.” The hospital took its name from Republican billionaire donor Kenneth Langone, who has previously compared critics of rising income inequality to Nazis.
  • UC-Irvine law professor David Kaye writes in the New York Times that we should allow the International Criminal Court to do its job after the Court announced charges against the leaders of Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. The U.S. has remained outside of the ICC for twenty years, even though we could do the most good by accepting its tenets and supporting its efforts to pursue war-crimes charges – as we have asked the ICC to do against Vladimir Putin.
  • Even before Friday’s verdict, Greg Sargent noted that Trump’s anti-media rhetoric had turned more dangerous with the convicted felon’s apparent endorsement of a rant about how he’ll “get rid of all you fucking liberals.”
  • The Washington Post sat on the story of Samuel Alito hanging pro-insurrection and pro-nationalist flags at his house for several years. The New York Times has been reporting on the story now, including this very measured piece on what seems to have happened, including disputes over the order of some of the events in the neighborhood dispute.
  • A passenger on a United flight into Fresno this week has tested positive for measles. This should be a criminal offense – they put many, many other people at risk through their actions, like driving drunk.
  • Michael Hiltzik writes in the LA Times that now Democrats are just as bad at Republicans in putting political concerns over science, as Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA) continues his sham hearings promoting the debunked lab-leak hypothesis.
  • Pope Francis apologized for using the Italian equivalent of the f-slur and saying there was too much of that in the priesthood when arguing against allowing celibate gay men to take orders. I think there’s too much emphasis here on the word choice and nowhere near enough on pretty much everything that lies behind it.
  • Luthier is the latest complex game from Paverson Games, publisher of last year’s excellent heavy game Distilled. There’s a full site up for the game but the crowdfunding link isn’t open yet. I saw Luthier at PAX Unplugged; it’s gorgeous and huge, but my guess is it’s too long a game for my personal tastes and attention span.