Keepers

These are keepers. Stories that I've written at my personal website about non-baseball topics that are at least somewhat significant and which have a bit more of a shelf life than other things. They skew pretty heavily pre-2020, which is when I began the newsletter and everything began to get generally mashed together there.

Anyway, feel free to browse.

All-Timers

The Axe Murder (07/24/2017): In 1910 my great-great grandmother, Nellie Kniffen, killed my great-great grandfather with an axe. And you think your family has interesting stories.
The Pandemic Diary (02/10/2020-on): Between February 10, 2020 and May 27, 2020 — with some sporadic updates thereafter — I kept a daily diary chronicling my thoughts, impressions, fears, anxieties, and outrages in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. I devoted 121,927 words to it and what it meant for all of us.
Long Chile, Ohio2, and the Snack Rack (02/14/2020): My kids both went viral. My daughter because of an absurd map she drew. My son because he put a bunch of snacks on an ironing board. It made me realize how weird it is to be a Gen-Z kid. And how lucky I am to have a couple of Gen-Z kids;
America’s Best Suburb (1/22/2021): I lived in New Albany, Ohio for 18 years. So did a notable billionaire. So too, once, did the notorious sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. In this piece I try to explain this most artificial and, at times, sinister of places.
UNC’s Football Stadium: Memorial to the Leader of a White Supremacist Massacre (09/19/2018): The University of North Carolina has buried the slave-holding and white supremacist past of some of the leading figures in its history. Including that of its football stadium’s namesake who murdered black citizens of Wilmington, North Carolina in a heinous massacre in 1898.
The Pappy Van Winkle Heist That Wasn’t (09/14/2018): I spoke to the so-called “Bourbon Bandit,” who stood accused of the greatest whiskey heist of all time. Turns out there was less to the story than that which was first reported. And more.
Shyster: How I Went From Practicing Law to Living My Dream (12/31/2011) — A lot of people ask me how I became a sportswriter. This is the answer.

2024

The New Strangeness (11/9/2024): Three days after the election and I feel like an alien in my own country.
There is no coming back from this (11/06/2024): For the second time in eight years I was shocked by the election of Donald Trump. This time, I fear, the damage he will do to our country is irreparable.
J.D. Vance's Fascist Ideology (07/17/2024): I had J.D. Vance's number years before most people did, so his full and eager adoption of straight-up fascism was not a surprise to me at all.
Looking for the Exits (07/04/2024): It's privileged and it's obnoxious, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think hard and think often of leaving this country.

2023

The Coast to Coast Diary (8/2022-09/29/2023): As a 50th birthday present to myself I decided to walk 192 miles across the whole of England following the path of Wainwright’s Coast to Coast. In the end, I only made it 150 of the 192 miles before a leg injury prematurely ended my trip. I nonetheless wrote a journal of my preparation and my walking.
Why Term Limits Suck (09/01/2023): I am opposed to legislative term limits. Here's why they're a terrible idea.

2022

Dark Thoughts on Election Eve (11/08/2022): In which I try to reconcile myself to the fact that most of America is perfectly fine with fascism.
The 1990s and Disappointed Idealism (05/12/2022): I’m often accused of being cynical, but inside every cynical person there is a disappointed idealist, and seeing what I imagined the promise of the 1990s to have been turn out to be illusory and fleeting did a lot to disappoint me in life.

2021

My Night at the School Board Meeting (09/03/2021): I got into a beef with a member of the New Albany, Ohio school board and a good number of my neighbors and decided to show up at a meeting a do some democracy.
Gambling with Cultists (03/14/2021): I spoke with two men who have made thousands of dollars challenging QAnon cultists to bet whether Trump would hold on to power despite losing the election.

2020

The Proud Boys Come to New Albany (10/03/2020): A hate group decided, for some reason, to march in my upscale, lily white suburb. I decided, for some reason, to meet them.
“Medallion Status” and waking up from a comfortable sleep (08/20/2020): A book about coming to grips with one’s tenuous hold on marginal fame helped me come to grips with the end of my time at NBC.
The Ghost of Police Brutality Past (03/09/2020): I got a ticket from an old cop. Given what he was like when he was a young cop, it’s amazing that he managed to hang on to his job long enough to become an old cop.
Tuesdays With Anna (03/03/2020): Each Tuesday I take my daughter to piano lessons and we have a cup of coffee. It’s way more special than that sounds.
Examining Your Luck Tree (02/26/2020): Did you really work hard for what you have? How much did good luck play into it? You don’t know until you really examine it.
A Supposedly Fun Thing That Was Pretty OK (01/23/2020): I went on a cruise. It was OK. Of course this was before a global pandemic killed hundreds of thousands of people with cruise ships being a particularly effective infection vector.
Life During Forever Wartime (01/03/2020): As the United States seemed poised to launch yet another senseless and needlessly destructive war of choice, I looked back at the many, many times we have done so in my lifetime and realized just how thoroughly, and destructively it has shaped us.

2019

Ranking Every Year of My Life (12/31/2019): As 2019 came to a close I decided to take a brief walk through all 46 years of my life and decide which years were cool and which ones sucked.
The Columbus, Ohio Subway System (11/25/2019): Columbus is one of the largest cities in the country but its transit system is almost non-existent. What would life be like if it had a subway? One man gave us at least the beginnings of an idea.
Opioids in Baseball: “More people are going to die if this doesn’t get fixed” (10/20/2019): Over at NBC Sports I wrote about baseball’s growing opioid problem, thrust into the spotlight by the untimely death of Los Angeles Angels’ pitcher Tyler Skaggs.
The Compound in New Albany (10/06/2019): Billionaire Les Wexner was my neighbor for 18 years. His house sits on a 200-acre property that was used by Jeffrey Epstein to imprison one of his victims in the 1990s. I provided an overview for people who might not appreciate how easy that was to pull off.
Just Say No to E + R = O (08/08/2019): There’s a popular self-help/motivational philosophy sweeping sports and, increasingly, education, and it’s privileged bullshit.
Jim Bouton: The Patron Saint for Those Who Chafe (07/10/2019): Jim Bouton was more than a ballplayer or a tell-all memoirist. He demonstrated how hard it is for some of us to fit in and what to do when you can’t.
33 and Me: Fallen nobility, losing wars, arbitraging the Black Plague and my further adventures in genealogy (06/06/2019): I got into genealogy late this spring and found out all kinds of weird and random things about my family.
The Number One Song on Your Birthday Game (01/09/2019): A fun look back at the top of the charts on my birthday over the past 45 years;

2018

Arguments from Authority (08/31/2018) — My daughter’s teacher told her class that she would not trust a sports writer with a political science background. Which . . . yeah, inspired a bit of a reaction on my part.
Gen-Z at the Old Ballgame (08/20/2018) — Baby Boomers? Gen-X? The Millennials? Pfft. After a night at a baseball game with my kids, I can tell ya, they ain’t got NOTHIN’ on Gen-Z.
It is not “uncivil” to stand against indecency (06/25/2018) — Pundits value politeness, but like Joseph Welch before us, we should call out indecency when we see it and demand leaders and institutions which are moral, ethical and just, calls for civility be damned.
There are no shortcuts when it comes to building a civilization (06/10/2018) — We used to do public works for the common good in this country. We still should.
29 Things About My Trip to England (05/28/2018) — Pretty self-explanatory musings of an Anglophile on his first trip back to England in several years.
The Gathering Sound (05/27/2018) — I went to England to follow the band James around. To dip on in, to leave my bones, leave my skin, leave my past, leave my craft and leave my suffering heart.
Happy Birthday Karl Marx? (05/09/2018) — I am not a Marxist, but I play one on the Internet sometimes. Here’s why.
Great Moments in a Broken City (03/07/2018) — The real estate market of San Francisco and, increasingly, many of America’s largest cities, is utterly broken. That, in turn, has broken the cities themselves.
We can do more than offer “thoughts and prayers” (02/15/2018) — Sensible gun control is not difficult. If you want to implement sensible gun control.
“Treat the little mooch and send it home with the rest” (02/11/2018) — A heart-wrenching immigration case in Arizona reveals how our nation is suffering from crisis of empathy.
Weed and Realignment (01/04/2018) — Nearly two-thirds of the public wants legalized marijuana but politicians do not. How did that happen and what does that mean for American politics?

2017

A New Dark Age (11/02/2017) — What happens to a society when people cannot agree on the most basic of facts? What happens when truth itself becomes malleable?
J.D. Vance joins forces with Steve Bannon (10/18/2017) — The “Hillbilly Elegy” author made himself the darling of both the left and right by claiming to speak for the unrepresented masses of poor middle America. His team-up with the odious, alt-right nationalist editor of Breitbart, however, disqualifies him from being any decent person’s spokesman.
Gun Violence: A matter of culture, a matter of laws (10/06/2017) — The mass shooting in Las Vegas shows us that our nation’s problem with gun violence is rooted just as much in our values as it is in our laws.
No, Silicon Valley Cannot “Disrupt” Democracy (07/06/2017) — Tech billionaires entering politics are not magical unicorns changing the game. Stop treating them like they are.
Government is Not the Enemy (03/17/2017) — Ronald Reagan proclaimed government “the problem.” Trump and his followers have declared it the enemy. This is madness. The government plays an essential role in our efforts to attain prosperity.
“Glass House” — The anti-“Hillbilly Elegy” (02/16/2017) — J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” has gotten all of the attention when it comes to the matter of what ails middle America. Brian R. Alexander’s “Glass House” is a far, far better diagnosis of the same disease.
“Field of Dreams” is Absolutely Terrible (02/13/2017) — Everyone seems to love this movie. They are wrong. It’s super bad.
Sports and Politics Share Some of Their Worst Excesses (01/20/2017) — You may look to sports as a refuge from politics, but increasingly, sports and politics are beginning to resemble one another.

2016

Working at Home: Yes, You Have to Wear Pants (11/30/2016) — Some practical advice for those who are lucky enough to call their couch their office.
Baseball, Breitbart and the Post-Factual Society in Action (11/19/2016) — A case study of how lies become “facts” in the age of Trump.
Bubbles, Echo Chambers, Facebook and Connection Trumping Community (11/14/2016) — We’re more connected as a society than we’ve ever been before. Yet, paradoxically, there is less of a shared community than there has ever been before.
Wives, Daughters and a New Dark Age (10/09/2016) — An enlightened age relies on reason and abstract thought to convey information. A Dark Age relies on personal experience and the telling of tales. Our political discourse reveals us to be in the latter.
Andrew Sullivan’s Breakdown is Not Our Own (09/19/2016) — “Living online” and social media addiction has its pitfalls, but falling into them is not inevitable.
Hillbilly Elegy: Good Memoir. Crap Political Science (08/23/2016) — The book that has been hailed as the key to understanding America in the age of Trump is full of crap. That people, especially liberals, are eating it up, is ridiculous.
Birth Rates are Down. So What? (08/22/2016) — The U.S. birth rate is at historic lows. The same people who worry most about it, however, have made it their life’s work to make bringing babies into this world a challenging and even frightening prospect.
Blackout (3/26/2016) — Memory and consciousness are no match for the defense mechanisms of the human mind.
How to Grow Old Without Being a Jackass (03/13/2016) — As people age, they are inclined to denigrate the generations which follow them. They really shouldn’t do that.
Baseball and the End of Equality (02/18/2016) — Our society is becoming a less egalitarian one. Not just financially, but socially as well, with people eschewing interaction with one another and actively avoiding ways to meet in either the figurative or literal public square. Baseball serves as a case study.
Flint, Parkersburg and Beckley: Where Life is Cheap by Design (02/21/2016) — The three towns I grew up in were all poor. They were also all victimized by environmental crimes. This is no coincidence.
Sportswriters: Start Criticizing Your Colleagues (01/02/2016) — There is a culture in sports writing in which criticizing other sportswriters is seen as a faux pas. This is madness.

2015

“We’re not sure WHICH of us puked on your computer, but . . .” (11/15/2015) — A tale of my obnoxious roommates from my freshman year at Ohio State. Man, I miss those guys.
Fuck it, Dude. Let’s Go Bowling. (09/30/2015) — A personal story about my dark history as a bowler and dark present as a guy who goes bowling to fight off depression.
They’re Rebuilding at the Corner of Michigan and Trumbull (07/23/2015) — I wrote a story for NBC about the transformation of the old Tiger Stadium site in Detroit, made possible by some dedicated volunteers.
Surrender, or We’ll Bomb Trieste! (07/20/2015) — I was once an unwitting Neocon whose warlike instincts scared the living Hell out of John Kasich. But hey, college was a crazy time for a lot of people.
Dispatches from My Amtrak Writers Residency (06/03/2015-06/11/2015) — I was one of 24 recipients of the inaugural Amtrak Writers Residency program. I took my trip in June 2015, going from Chicago, out to Seattle, down to Portland and back home again. I was working on another writing project, but I wrote a lot about the trip as well.
Baseball, Bourbon and Bullshit (05/27/2015) — Part a review of the book “Bourbon Empire,” part an essay about how people who like baseball and bourbon are big, big fans of making up silly stories to make things sound more interesting.
The Great Pappy Van Winkle Heist (05/08/2015) — Someone sold a lot of super valuable Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon. But why was it so valuable in the first place?
Media Companies: Get Adults to Run Your Verticals (04/28/2015) — Media companies freak out about their writers creating social media controversies and editorial malpractice. Yet, for some reason, they keep hiring kids with no experience or judgment. Funny how that works.
Each Day We Awake Slightly Altered (03/17/2015) — Aspirational thoughts about how to approach new days. And how to not get trapped in olden ones.

2014

Denying the Horrifying (11/26/2014) — When a horrifying thing, like the killing of Tamir Rice, happens, people deny its horror and its significance because they cannot accept that it could occur.
The Purge (10/17/2014) — Getting rid of old possessions: both necessary and painful.
Bye-Bye Butterworth Green (08/22/2014) — I moved out of the house where I raised my kids for a decade. It had too many ghosts in it.
I Use Women’s Deodorant and I’m Proud of it (07/07/2014) — Men’s products are sold in Manly Colored Bottles, Boxes and Tubes. Which is silly, of course.
Entropy, Thermodynamic Equilibrium and the Death of a Big Swingin’ Dick (02/24/2014) — My boss died. It marked the end of an era. For him and for me.
Jump (01/15/2014) — After my divorce my house felt like the Battlestar Galactica.

2013

What I Wouldn’t Have Written: A Writer’s Defense of Twitter (09/28/2013) — Some say Twitter kills a writer’s creativity. I disagree.
Fighting Ghosts on the Glade Creek Trail (09/02/2013) — I needed to hike in the mountains to reclaim the home that was taken from me.
Just Say No to a Colorblind Society (08/28/2013) — My kids see race. Should I tell them not to? That seems silly to me.
Going to Wonderland (07/19/2013) — Adventures in Therapy
40 (07/14/2013) — Age is just a number.
Crapalachia (05/21/2013) — A review of the Scott McLanahan memoir. Or fictional memoir. Or “biography of a place. Doesn’t matter what you call it, really, because it spoke to me.
A Rube’s Trip to New York (02/21/2013) — I like New York. But I am definitely an Ohioan.

2012

The Shady Economics of Law School (11/29/2012) — I went to law school. It was an OK thing to do once upon a time, but it’s a racket now.
I Got Performance Enhancing Drugs in San Francisco (10/25/2012) — During the World Series, no less.
The Things That are the Worst to Undergo are the Best to Remember (09/16/2012) — Some advice from Ted Hughes about how to reconcile tragedy and survival.
The Spotless Mind (07/26/2012) — Is it better to live with painful memories or to obliterate them?
California Stars (06/21/2012) — My first vacation with my kids after my divorce was a cathartic experience.
The Middle (06/09/2012) — The first few months of watching my kids grow up in a single parent home was . . . tough.
Goin’ to California (03/27/2012) — Place matters to me. California has always been a special place, no matter what was going on in my life.
Old Business (02/15/2012) — Writing up divorce documents wasn’t easy, but the old ritual of legal drafting helped make the process easier.
New Morning (01/24/2012) — I met a girl.

2011

Some Other Beginning’s End (10/29/2011) — The thoughts I had as my 16-year marriage and my 20-year relationship came to an end.
PETA and the 1,000 Buckets of Pig Poop (05/18/2011) — I respect PETA well enough. But when I was a lawyer I had to fight them once. I won.

2010

And with that you can close the book on Calcaterra (12/22/2010) — The last case I ever worked on came to a close.
Where’s Home? (11/27/2010) — I’ve lived in a lot of places, so I get to decide where I’m from.
Boys (10/02/2010) — My son shoved a kid. It created some . . . conflicted feelings.
The Bike Wreck (7/11/2010) — In 1994 I broke my collar bone in a bike wreck. I still made it to the Dylan show, though.
Appellant’s Convictions are Affirmed (1/10/2010) — I represented a guy who was sentenced to a looooong time in prison. The conviction was justified. The sentence sucked.

2009

The Car Wreck (12/26/2009) — I was in a bad car wreck when I was 14. I didn’t get a scratch, though.
Radio Days (11/29/2009) — I was a DJ at a radio station when I was in high school. It was a gas.
Jobs I’ve Left: An Inventory (11/23/2009) — I’ve had a bunch of jobs in my life. This is all of them.

2008

How I got to Ohio (06/06/2008) — People ask me why I live in Ohio. You can thank the Navy and the first Gulf War. Even though I wasn’t a part of either of those things.
The Great 2003 Road Trip — I took a month-long road trip back in 2003. A few years later I wrote it up in 14 mini-chapters. This page is the introduction and links to all of it.