Updates! Meet-Ups! Book Club! Need Your Feedback!

Some housekeeping for the stretch run

Angel Stadium scoreboard noting Shohei Ohtani used to work here. (via meredith_lynn/Instagram)

Hi friends-

We are going to have a busy next seven weeks so I want to be sure to do a housekeeping email to help everyone keep it all straight.

1. Our book club for this month is Ball Four by Jim Bouton. Due to an unavoidable scheduling conflict I have to move our zoom discussion of the book from this Monday, September 9th to Wednesday September 11th at 8:30 PM ET/5:30 PM PT. I apologize for the schedule change, but now you are free to watch the first Monday Night Football game of the season. (I know everyone is waiting with baited breath to see if Aaron Rodgers will last four snaps before suffering a season-ending injury this year, instead of three). This book club zoom will last one hour. It is open to all paid subscribers, and you don’t need to have read the book to join and hang out and talk ball with a bunch of other baseball nerds. I’ll send out the zoom link with a reminder next Wednesday morning:

2. When we do our live game chats on Friday and Sunday I’ve been sending out the links via email and push alert via the Substack app. I asked you guys on Sunday if you guys want me to stop emailing the links to avoid clogging your inboxes, and the resounding answer was no. This is because many of you don’t use the Substack app so you don’t get the alerts that way. If you would like to get alerts through the Substack app when I start game threads you can follow the instructions here.

   As a reminder: youu can control whether you receive newsletters and links to chats and zooms from me solely via email, solely via the Substack app, or both. You can do this by going into your Substack account settings and toggling your preferences. It should look like this:

   

   You can also select whether you want to receive notifications when someone replies to your posts in the chats.

   I’m telling you all this because during the final weekend of the regular season through the end of the World Series we will be chatting daily in the Substack app and I do not want to annoy you by unwittingly clog your inboxes with links to chats daily! If that sort of thing frustrates you then you can change your settings so you get a tidy little push alert from the Substack app when the chats start instead.

3. We have two options for our Long Game LA meet-up this month. The first option is we go to the Dodgers vs. Padres game on Tuesday September 24th at 7:10 pm. This is appealing because the Dodgers and Padres could be fighting for playoff seeding. This is unappealing because it is a school night in the middle of the week.

   The other option is we to go to an LA restaurant/bar like Barney’s Beanery in Westwood on Saturday, September 28th at like 3 PM. What we learned from our New York meet-up was that hanging in a restaurant was actually more conducive to conversation/getting to know each other than sitting in long rows at the ballpark. Plus a Saturday afternoon hang probably means more people would be able to make it.

   I would like you guys to discuss in the comment section below and also email me your preferences!

4. A generous reader has donated 2 tickets behind home plate to Battle of the Badges at Citi Field on Thursday, September 12. This game will be hosted by former Mets great David Wright, and will feature former college and minor league baseball players from the FDNY and NYPD. It’s a charity event to help support the FDNY foundation as well as the families of those in uniform who lost their lives on 9/11. The first person who emails me saying they would like the tickets will receive them for free!

   That’s all for now. More baseball writing from me soon!

   -mk