{"id":10333,"date":"2024-07-21T10:50:43","date_gmt":"2024-07-21T14:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=10333"},"modified":"2024-07-21T10:50:43","modified_gmt":"2024-07-21T14:50:43","slug":"stick-to-baseball-7-21-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2024\/07\/21\/stick-to-baseball-7-21-24\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 7\/21\/24."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The draft is over, let us go in peace. I wrote a lot of words about it this week, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/5638783\/2024\/07\/15\/mlb-draft-2024-analysis-first-round\/\">an analysis of every first-round pick<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/5638032\/2024\/07\/15\/mlb-draft-2024-analysis-day-one-law\/\">some general thoughts on Day One of the draft<\/a>, and team-by-team draft recaps for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/5640375\/2024\/07\/18\/mlb-draft-2024-american-league-report\/\">all American League clubs<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/5643872\/2024\/07\/19\/mlb-draft-2024-national-league-report\/\">all National League clubs<\/a>. Prior to the draft, I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/5636030\/2024\/07\/14\/final-mlb-mock-draft-2024-travis-bazzana\/\">posted a final mock<\/a> (where I got 9 of the 30 picks right, and am still mad about two I changed from the previous version) and updated <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/5622935\/2024\/07\/09\/mlb-draft-2024-top-100-prospects-final\/\">my ranking of the top 100 prospects in the class<\/a> while also posting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/5632612\/2024\/07\/13\/mlb-draft-2024-prospects-to-watch-will-taylor-thatcher-hurd\/\">25-odd more scouting capsules<\/a> for guys outside of the top 100. I also wrote up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/5635963\/2024\/07\/13\/futures-game-2024-performances-cam-collier\/\">some thoughts on last Saturday\u2019s Futures Game<\/a>. That\u2019s all for subscribers to the Athletic. On this site, I held a <a href=\"https:\/\/klaw.me\/45YrNaA\">Klawchat<\/a> on the Thursday before the draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter on draft day. You <a href=\"https:\/\/keithlaw.substack.com\/\">can sign up here<\/a> for more words from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ll be back in Chicago on Monday to appear on Stadium\u2019s <em>Diamond Dreams<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And now, the links\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Longreads first: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2024-07-07\/a-dream-home-in-sun-valley-then-the-neighbor-from-hell\">This <em>LA Times<\/em> article<\/a> frames a good story very oddly. There\u2019s a mentally ill man living in a million-dollar home in the north San Fernando Valley, strewing his property with all manner of junk, including over 100 vehicles, posing an environmental hazard to the area and obviously creating an eyesore and a safety issue for neighbors. The story centers the neighbors who bought their home for $1.2 million, unaware of the hoarder next door, and local authorities are unable or unwilling to help. The real issue here is that there\u2019s a person here in dire need of mental health treatment, not that the neighbors can\u2019t sell their house.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Three (!) excellent pieces from ProPublica this week. A secretive organization of wealthy Christians called Ziklag is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/inside-ziklag-secret-christian-charity-2024-election\">pouring money into elections to help push their vision of theocracy<\/a>. Members include the Uihleins, the owners of the U-Line company and major backers of the Federalist, and the owners of Hobby Lobby. Arizona Republicans told voters allowing school vouchers to pay for private-school tuition would save taxpayer money, but instead <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/arizona-school-vouchers-budget-meltdown\">they\u2019ve destroyed the state\u2019s education budget<\/a> that\u2019s being covered by cuts to water conservation programs and other essential initiatives. Many judges <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/judges-ethics-codes-recusal-conflict-of-interest-families\">decline to recuse themselves from cases where family members have financial interests<\/a> and there\u2019s no real way to force them to do so.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I saw this <em>Foreign Affairs <\/em>editorial, on how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.com\/united-states\/rest-world-us-president-has-always-been-above-law\">the U.S. President has always been above the law in the eyes of the rest of the world<\/a> (and not in a good way), before realizing it written by a college classmate of mine, Yale Law Prof. Oona Hathaway.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>An L.A. journalist who wrote about officer gangs within the Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department <a href=\"https:\/\/lapublicpress.org\/2024\/07\/lasd-surveils-journalist-deputy-gang-reporter\/\">found himself the subject of surveillance and harassment from the LASD<\/a> in apparent retaliation for his work.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This summary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teenvogue.com\/story\/everything-you-need-to-know-about-jd-vance-trumps-vp-pick\">of what you need to know about J.D. Vance<\/a> comes from <em>Teen Vogue<\/em>, which appears to once again be one of the few outlets willing to cover this election and the threat to our democracy honestly.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Texas Monthly<\/em> looks at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texasmonthly.com\/arts-entertainment\/dallas-jackals-major-league-rugby\/\">Major League Rugby\u2019s plans to grow the sport<\/a> \u2013 at least in Texas.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>First it was crypto, now it\u2019s AI, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/ai-energy-demands-water-impact-internet-hyper-consumption-era\/\">one new technology after another is driving huge upticks in energy consumption<\/a>. The solution is a use tax \u2013 if Meta wants to force AI search on all of its users, make them pay more for the energy they\u2019re consuming.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A Senate committee report on working conditions at Amazon found that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2024\/07\/17\/tech\/amazon-warehouses-prime-day-injuries-senate\/index.html\">45% of Amazon warehouse workers were injured on Prime Day 2019<\/a> as they tried to cope with the massive volume of sales. When I pulled this story up, there were three links to other stories on CNN on the right side of this column pushing deals on amazon, so \u2026 yeah. (Full disclosure: I did purchase about six items on Prime Day.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2024\/07\/violent-threats-american-politicians\/679040\/\">Political violence in America is not new<\/a>; serving in public office comes with it the constant threat of people who want to kill you.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u2019s Lindsey Adler wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/sports\/baseball\/paul-skenes-mlb-all-star-game-ab914d8a\">about Paul Skenes\u2019s splinker<\/a>, the pitch that has made Skenes one of the best pitchers in baseball and a huge sensation beyond the sport\u2019s core fans.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Scientific American <\/em>weighed in on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/what-do-baseball-pitchers-shohei-ohtani-gerrit-cole-and-shane-bieber-have-in-common\/\">how the need for speed is driving an increase in Tommy John surgeries<\/a>. I\u2019m with Brian Bannister here, firmly.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Bad-faith politicians and pundits, mostly on the right, have attacked California Democrats for \u201cwatering down\u201d a sex-trafficking bill, but <em>Reason<\/em> explains <a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2024\/07\/08\/california-democrats-water-down-sex-trafficking-bill-good\/\">why these changes are good policy<\/a> and not, as the opponents claim, about protecting sex criminals.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Rep. Cori Bush wrote about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/opinion\/msnbc-opinion\/cori-bush-reform-supreme-court-watch-democracy-die-rcna161409\">SCOTUS\u2019s right-wing coup and how to fight back<\/a>, although 1) that would require that Democrats gain control of both houses of Congress and hold the White House, and 2) the Court has held power to invalidate certain laws for over 200 years, since 1803\u2019s <em>Marbury vs. Madison<\/em>, and undoing that seems like a large undertaking.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Repairing the hole in the ozone layer remains one of the great achievements in global science policy of the last 50 years, so of course <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/satellite-mega-constellations-could-jeopardize-ozone-hole-recovery\/\">we\u2019re now about to screw it up through pollution from all of the satellites that are falling back to earth<\/a> as they run out of juice.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Influential Portland chef and restaurateur Naomi Pomeroy, a James Beard winner who competed on Top Chef Masters back when I used to watch the show, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pdxmonthly.com\/eat-and-drink\/2024\/07\/remembering-portland-chef-naomi-pomeroy\">drowned while inner-tubing<\/a> near Corvallis.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Workers at Bethesda Game Studios, publishers of Fallout and Elder Scrolls, <a href=\"https:\/\/aftermath.site\/bethesda-union-unionize-fallout-elder-scrolls-starfield\">voted to unionize this week<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was on <em>Real Time with Bill Maher <\/em>and offered <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/chyeaok\/status\/1814502215807389708\">a two-minute takedown of Vance<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A St. Louis-area woman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newspressnow.com\/news\/ofallon-mo-woman-charged-with-making-politically-motivated-false-child-sex-abuse-claim\/article_0650dc78-31e4-5cf2-9b41-02c68e3cae7f.html\">made a false sex-abuse claim against her son-in-law\u2019s political rival<\/a> to try to sink his primary campaign for a state House seat.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Three board game-related Kickstarters of note: Lucky Duck Games, publisher of Chronicles of Crime and Tang Garden, has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/lucky-duck-games\/the-flames-of-fafnir\">a KS up for The Flames of Fafnir<\/a>, a \u201ccompetitive tower-defense game, with a traitor mechanism\u201d that promises a \u201cphysics-based\u201d element.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Sinister Fish has a has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/sinisterfish\/yonder\">a Kickstarter up for Yonder<\/a>, a \u201cfantasy worker-placement game\u201d from the designer of Villagers and last year\u2019s Moon.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And another Kickstarter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/oluwafemi\/the-african-boardgames-convention-ab-con-2024\">to help fund the 8<sup>th<\/sup> African Boardgames Convention (AB Con)<\/a> in Abuja, Nigeria. AB Con 7 was self-funded and held over two days, a first for the convention, and their goal is to build out to a four-day con with space for at least 3000 attendees.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1402,566,49,1083,1080,828,113,190,961,194,1105,1197,1253,1306,870,442,1269],"class_list":["post-10333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amazon","tag-arizona","tag-baseball","tag-board-game-news","tag-california","tag-climate-change","tag-environment","tag-links","tag-longreads","tag-los-angeles","tag-missouri","tag-police","tag-rugby","tag-scotus","tag-stick-to-baseball","tag-top-chef","tag-unions","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10334,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10333\/revisions\/10334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}