Stick to baseball, 1/6/24.

I took a few weeks off from these posts around the holidays, but I did write one piece for subscribers to The Athletic over the break, looking at the Chris Sale trade and Lucas Giolito signing.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the games Daybreak, a cooperative game about fighting climate change; and Wandering Towers, the best new family game of last year. Both games were on my ranking of the ten best new board games of 2023.

My free email newsletter will return today (most likely). Several of you have pledged to support me if the newsletter were to go paid; I have no immediate plans to do so, but if that happens 1) I’ll give everyone a ton of notice and 2) I’ll move it off Substack.

And now, the links…

  • Writer Tom Scocca’s piece in New York about his sudden, unsolved medical mystery is the best thing you’ll read all week. It’s well-written, of course, and combines the deeply personal with an inherent attack on our broken health-care system.
  • The New Yorker looks at board games with serious themes, profiling Amabel Holland, a trans woman who co-owns the publisher Hollandspiele and designed the Iron Rails series of games.
  • Stuart Thompson of the New York Times looks at how anti-vaxx ghouls latched on to the death of a 24-year-old man, who showed no symptoms of myocarditis after his COVID-19 vaccination but whose parents think the vaccine gave him myocarditis anyway. George Watts, Jr., had an enlarged spleen – over six times the normal size for that organ – which is a sign of long-term heart failure, chronic inflammation in his brain, and signs of late-stage pneumonia in his lungs.
  • Why do pundits like Jonathan Chait and Nate Silver say outrageous things? Because it’s effective, at least when you consider that attention is their goal.
  • Overtime pay for NYPD officers working the city’s subway stations went from $4 million to $155 million between 2022 and 2023, reducing “major crimes” by 2% but primarily leading to more arrests and fines for fare-jumping. That’s a lot of money to fight a handful of skipped $2.90 charges.
  • Amanda Todd was 15 when she killed herself in 2012 after three years of cyberstalking by a Dutch man who blackmailed her with threats to send nude images of her to her friends and family. He was sentenced to 13 years by a Canadian court, but a Dutch court cut the sentence in half to match that country’s legal standards.

Stick to baseball, 11/19/22.

For subscribers to the Athletic, I wrote two pieces this week, one on the Angels’ signing of Tyler Anderson and the Yankees’ re-signing of Anthony Rizzo, and one on four trades from earlier this week before teams had to set their 40-man rosters. I also held a Klawchat on Friday.

On The Keith Law Show, I spoke to Jessica Grose, New York Times opinion writer and author of the new book Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood, about the book and what we might do to make being a working mother easier in the U.S. You can pre-order her book, which is due out December 6th, and you can listen and subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

With Twitter imploding, you can find me in a bunch of other places, including Facebook, Instagram, counter.social, and cohost, as well as here and on my free email newsletter, which went out again yesterday. Also, you can buy either of my books, Smart Baseball or The Inside Game, via bookshop.org at those links, or at your friendly local independent bookstore.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 7/9/22.

For subscribers to the Athletic, I wrote another scouting blog, looking at some Phillies, Orioles, Nats, and White Sox prospects, including the four big arms the Phillies had at Jersey Shore; and did a quick breakdown of some of the highlights and omissions from the Futures Game rosters. I’ll have an updated, final Big Board for the draft on Sunday, and then a new mock draft on Monday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Ouch!, a fun, silly game for kids as young as five, and pointed out why it works where games like Candyland, my bête noire among children’s board games, fail.

My guest on the Keith Law Show this week was Eric Longenhagen, for an extensive conversation about this month’s MLB draft. You can subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I found my voice again and sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter this week. Also, my two books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, are both available in paperback, and you can buy them at your local independent book store or at Bookshop.org.

And now, the links…

Out of Line.

I don’t play many video games, just because of the time involved in them, not due to any lack of interest – I often enjoy them and get very sucked in, and I can lose dozens of hours to a good narrative-based game, almost regardless of genre. Somewhere along the way last year, I heard about a shorter puzzle-based game called Out of Line, and was caught immediately by the novel 2-D art style. I picked it up last week when it was on sale on Steam, and played through the whole thing in a couple of hours this week. I think it’s fantastic, and that shorter play time works so much better for me than a 100-hour game like Elden Ring – even if I might really enjoy the latter game too.

You play as the very cute character San, and must complete a series of tasks as you move left to right through an underground space to try to escape whatever weird situation you’re stuck in. Early in the game, you get a spear, which is the only weapon you’ll own in the game, although you can use it to do a number of things, like severing branches, creating tightropes, or, most often, shooting it into a wall so you can use it to climb. You get a couple of instructions in the game when you encounter a very specific new challenge, but otherwise, you’re left to figure it out on your own, using nothing but the left and right arrow keys and the two mouse/trackpad buttons. You’ll get some help from NPCs along the way, but you nearly always have to do something to ‘earn’ that help.

The majority of the puzzles involve a combination of figuring out what you need to do, usually using your spear, and some difficulty executing it with a combination of mouse clicks and keystrokes, often before something bad happens. When you do fail, you just restart from a point usually just prior to the point of failure, so it’s not that devastating if you can’t do it the first time – I did one task at least eight times before I got it right, and I was annoyed, but I wasn’t driven to give up or think the game is impossible or something. There was also one sequence in the game that I couldn’t figure out, and went to a playthrough video on Youtube to get the first clue.There was another puzzle I did know how to solve, but couldn’t execute, and thought my idea was wrong, so I went to the walkthrough and it turned out I just had to do the steps more quickly. I don’t have a ton of experience with games like this, but that seems like a reasonable ratio, and it’s possible the issue was my inexperience rather than anything with the game.

San and his spear.

There’s a story behind the game, but it doesn’t matter much to the game play. You don’t need to know anything of it to play, and getting to the end doesn’t give you a conclusion to the narrative, either. The lack of a prologue, combined with the absence of any sort of tutorial, did mean that I didn’t realize there were certain tasks I could have completed to get to 100%, some of which were as simple as just moving to the left in a new environment to collect a cube before resuming the endless scroll to the right. There are 16 achievements in the game, and I only got 12 of them, so I clearly missed some cues here.

I do recommend Out of Line, based solely on how much I enjoyed the playing experience. It looks incredible, with a unique hand-drawn art style that also made it simple to see the goal for each challenge – crossing a chasm, climbing something, opening a gate, and so on. Some puzzles were very simple, some appropriately difficult, but nothing was impossible, even the one where I had to go online for a tip. I’m not sure if there’s much replay value here; twice might be the limit, once to learn the game, then once to try to do it 100%. The walkthrough I found online only takes about 70-75 minutes all the way through, while my one play probably took me 2.5 to 3 hours of active playing time. For the $5 and change I paid for the game, that’s great value.

Stick to baseball, 3/5/22.

I answered some questions on the Blue Jays’ farm system this week, which was a transcription of my appearance on our Spin Rates podcast. The Klawchats returned this week. I’m planning to start written draft coverage this upcoming week with a top 30.

On my own podcast, my guest was author and journalist Kathryn Schulz, talking about her wonderful new memoir Lost and Found, about the death of her father and how she met and married her wife, the author Casey Cep. Listen via The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes, Amazon, that other site, or wherever you get your podcasts. I appeared on the Romantic About Baseball podcast as well.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 11/28/21.

I had two columns this week for subscribers to the Athletic – one on the Puerto Rican Winter League, and how MLB needs to support the league more; and one on the Starling Marte, Mark Canha, and Steven Matz signings.

My guest this week on the Keith Law Show was Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. You can subscribe and listen on iTunes and Spotify.

I appeared on the Five Games for Doomsday podcast, talking mostly about boardgames – my favorites, my interest in them, writing about games and about baseball, and more.

I’ll send out a new edition of my free email newsletter Monday or Tuesday this week. And, as the holidays approach, I’ll remind you all every week that I have two books out, The Inside Game and Smart Baseball, that would make great gifts for the readers (especially baseball fans) on your lists.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 11/13/21.

My one new post for subscribers to The Athletic this week looked at some 2022 draft prospects from last month’s Future Stars Main Event at Citi Field. My ranking of the top 50 free agents on the market this offseason went up last week, also for subscribers.

My latest game review for Paste looks at Brew, a midweight game with incredible art that I couldn’t warm up to – the combination of area control, resource management, worker placement, and take-that mechanics left me feeling more confused than anything. It really does look great, though.

On the Keith Law Show this week, my guest was Sam Ezersky, the digital puzzles editor for the New York Times and the guy you should all yell at when the Spelling Bee doesn’t take ACIDEMIA. You can listen and subscribe on Apple or Spotify. On the Athletic Baseball Show this week, Derek Van Riper and I talked about the Mets’ disastrous GM search, among other things.

As the holidays approach, I’ll remind you all every week that I have two books out, The Inside Game and Smart Baseball, that would make great gifts for the readers (especially baseball fans) on your lists.

Stick to baseball, 7/18/20.

I didn’t write anything this week other than the review here of Patrick Radden Keefe’s book Say Nothing and my review of the lovely little light strategy game Walking in Burano. I will do a season preview with some picks for breakout candidates this week for subscribers to The Athletic, as well as a new game review for Paste, and a Zoom Q&A session on The Athletic’s site on Thursday at 3 pm ET. I answered reader questions on a mailbag episode of my podcast last week.

My book, The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, is out now, just in time for Opening Day (okay, three months before, but who’s counting). You can order it anywhere you buy books, and I recommend bookshop.org. I’ll also resume my email newsletter this week once I have some new content.

I’ll be speaking at the U.S. Army Mad Scientist Weaponized Information Virtual Conference on Tuesday at 9:30 am ET, talking about topics from The Inside Game. You can register to watch the event here.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 4/11/20.

I didn’t publish anything this week at the Athletic, but hope to have two pieces up next week, as well as a new review at Paste and possibly new pieces at Ars Technica and Vulture as well. I did hold a short Persicope video chat on Friday.

My second book, The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, is due out on April 21st from Harper Collins, and you can pre-order it now via their site or wherever fine books are sold.

My publisher is holding a contest where one winner will get a 30-minute chat with me before the baseball season starts, and several other entrants will win free copies of The Inside Game. You can enter for free here.

Also, check out my free email newsletter, which I say I’ll write more often than I actually write it.

I appeared on the Big Fly Baseball podcast this week and spoke with WHB’s Soren Petro about the shutdown, the draft, and the Royals for almost a half an hour.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 11/9/19.

My ranking of the top 50 free agents this winter went up on Monday for ESPN+ subscribers, before the actual start of free agency and thus the deadline for some player options, so a few players are on there who ended up staying with their teams (J.D. Martinez, for one). I held a Klawchat on Thursday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Silver, the new deduction/take-that card game from designer Ted Alspach, who set this new game in the same ‘universe’ (loosely speaking) as his One Night Ultimate Werewolf games.

My second book, The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, will be released on April 21, 2020, and you can pre-order it now. We’re working on some bookstore events for late April as well, with Boston, New York, DC, and Harrisburg likely in that first week after release.

I also have this free email newsletter, you may have heard about it, it’s kind of cool.

And now, the links…