The girls and I are headed down to the lake today to take care of some administrative tasks and hopefully get a swim or two in if the weather holds. Seems like the perfect day to clear out the queue of links I’ve hoarded over the past three weeks. We’ll begin with a couple older, and lengthy, pieces I held on to for our Boston trip.

To kick things off, Tom Verducci’s wonderful profile of Vin Scully. It’s become cliche to say it, but Vin is an American treasure and will be missed when he hangs up the mic after this season.

The voice of baseball: Get to know Vin Scully, the man behind the mic


Our kids have played Minecraft occasionally since they got an iPad 18 months ago. When they play, they play a lot. Then they won’t for months. So we only have a small glimpse into the world the game has created. I really enjoyed this deep look at the mechanics of the game and how kids have been sucked into it.

The Minecraft Generation


The World War II generation is fading away a little faster each year. I don’t know which is the more interesting fact: that there are still Nazis to be prosecuted, or that we may have just had the final former death camp worker go on trial in Germany. Alison Smale wrote about the trial of Reinhold Hanning for the New York Times.

A Front-Row Seat to Germany’s Reckoning With Its Past


You know I love music, I love lists, and I really love music lists. So of course I’m sharing the latest ranking of one-hit wonders I ran across.

Ranking the Top 20 Chart-Topping One-Hit Wonders


The first of two pieces by Joe Posnanski, here he writes about Muhammad Ali came to light the Olympic flame in 1996.

History In The Making


You always have to take these “I regret how I acted” articles with a large dose of salt, especially when the subject is up for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Still, I found Barry Bonds’ acknowledgement that he was a gigantic prick for most of his career a fascinating read.

Bonds Regrets the Way He Acted


Published on Father’s Day, this is a pretty amazing piece by Sam Mellinger on George Brett and his father.

George Brett has never stopped trying to please his old man, in spite of it all


Finally, who better to write about the Cleveland Cavaliers winning the NBA title than Cleveland native Posnanski.

Titles and Tears