2019
July
09
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

July 09, 2019
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In today’s edition, we have a path to democracy (Sudan), leadership without leaders (Hong Kong), Democrats for Trump (Kentucky), next-gen farmers (Alaska), and empathy through music (Iraq via Chicago). 

But first, let’s talk baseball. If Shakespeare were alive, he might declare that “something is rotten” in the state of the ballpark.

We are at the All-Star break of Major League Baseball (MLB). Pete Alonso won the Home Run Derby Monday night. But instead of enjoying this annual apogee of summer, fans are abuzz about juiced balls.  

Home runs are up a whopping 19% over last year. Players are on pace to hit 6,668 home runs, smashing the record 6,105 hit in 2017.

And dingers are going farther than ever, Sports Illustrated reports.

Last month, MLB confirmed the balls are, well, different. The drag coefficient is lower. Less drag means longer flights. The drag is lower because the “pill” (the core) is consistently centered, said the MLB commissioner. But he insists no changes were made in the baseball production process or the materials. 

Baseball has long been a mirror of American societal values, a kind of moral compass. The sport champions individual achievement as well as team cohesion. It’s built on adherence to rules and sportsmanship. (Remember the Pete Rose lifetime ban?) It has charted the evolution of U.S. civil rights (see Jackie Robinson).

To some, the 2019 home-run binge smells like someone is messing with the integrity of the national pastime. “It’s a ... joke,” complains Justin Verlander, the starting pitcher in Tuesday night’s All-Star game. 

But hitters aren’t complaining. And fans seem conflicted, torn between tradition, precedent, and the fireworks of more offense. 

If Yogi Berra were here, he’d have an appropriately ambiguous response: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Kin Cheung/AP
Journalists photograph a protester defacing the Hong Kong emblem inside the meeting hall of the Legislative Council in Hong Kong, July 1. Protesters took over the legislature, tearing down portraits and spray-painting pro-democracy slogans on the walls of the main chamber.
SOURCE:

Atlas of U.S. Elections

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Jacob Turcotte and Story Hinckley/Staff
Thomas Newman
Jennifer T. Sharrock (l.) is a beginning producer in Palmer, Alaska, who needed land to expand. She was matched with Jan Newman (r.), a land owner, through a farm link program of the Alaska Farmland Trust.
Pinar Istek/IWMF
Iraqi-American musician Rahim AlHaj plays his oud, a string instrument commonly used in the Middle East and North Africa, during a rehearsal before a performance on May 5 at the Logan Center at the University of Chicago.

The Monitor's View

Reuters
Members of Afghan delegations talk at the intra-Afghan conference for peace in Doha, Qatar July 8.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Frank Augstein/AP
A gallery employee stands in the rainbow colors of the installation ‘Beauty,’ where fine sprayed water is illuminated by a light, as part of the exhibition ‘Olafur Eliasson: In real life’ at the Tate Modern Gallery in London, Tuesday. The Tate Modern has brought together about 40 works of Eliasson, spanning the past three decades.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us. Come back tomorrow: We’re working on a story about the mayor of Huntington, West Virginia, who’s created a new model for tackling the opioid crisis. 

More issues

2019
July
09
Tuesday
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