Opening Day in Oakland, With Prospects of Doubleheader of Anguish for A’s Fans As the A’s take the field for their home opener Friday against the Seattle Mariners, the team’s overachieving glory days depicted in last year’s “Moneyball” starring Brad Pitt as General Manager Billy Beane are a warm, if distant glimmer. While Opening Day […]
Category: My Writing
From Bowling to Bars: Urban Baseball Parks Boost Business: CNBC.com, April 2, 2012
From Bowling to Bars: Urban Baseball Parks Boost Business Twenty years ago, the Baltimore Orioles did something that at the time ran counter to every trend in stadium construction: They built their new ballpark right in the heart of downtown Baltimore. That not only proved beneficial to the Orioles, who continue to draw crowds to […]
Merger With Investigative Unit Likely to Mean Major Shift in Bay Citizen Coverage: New York Times, March 29, 2012
Once a media reporter, always a media reporter. Although I had not written my media column in the San Francisco Chronicle for several years (I left the paper in 2007, but Media Bytes had ended well before that), The Bay Citizen assigned me the story of their own merger; because of an arrangement they had […]
Bay Citizen, Center for Investigative Reporting to Merge: The Bay Citizen, March 27, 2012
Once a media reporter, always a media reporter. Although I had not written my media column in the San Francisco Chronicle for several years (I left the paper in 2007, but Media Bytes had ended well before that), The Bay Citizen assigned me the story of their own merger. It was a good chance to […]
Top Fantasy Baseball Tips: Executive Travel, March 2012
Writing this story led me to the tip about pig farmer Lindy Hinkelman’s fantasy baseball expertise, which I wrote for the New York Times. Top Fantasy Baseball Tips Follow this fantasy baseball advice to build and manage a winning lineup. The movie Moneyball made it clear: Anyone with a computer, a head for stats and […]
The Mechanisms of Pain: UCSF, Feb. 29, 2012
The Mechanisms of Pain Pain sensations take many forms, from the sting of a bee to the throb of an injury, from the ache of arthritis to the corrosive effects of a tumor. Scientists have studied pain for decades, yet very little is understood about the root causes of pain – the molecular mechanisms that […]
With long-term consequences, community college students struggle to pass college-level math classes: EdSource Extra, Feb. 7, 2012
In a new journalistic experiment, I wrote a story for the educational nonprofit EdSource to accompany a report on how students at community colleges are having trouble passing their math classes. With long-term consequences, community college students struggle to pass college-level math classes Large numbers of community college students are struggling to pass the college-level […]
Pig Farmer’s True Prizewinner is His Fantasy Baseball Team: New York Times, October 2011
I broke this story at the end of the 2011 baseball season, when the best fantasy baseball player in the world – with winnings of more than $300,000 over the past three years – was revealed to be Idaho pig farmer Lindy Hinkelman. Modest Farmer, Managing Mogul The National Fantasy Baseball Championship, a contest paying […]
Treatment is Key to Prevention of HIV/AIDS, Doctors Say: UCSF, June 2011
This story was my contribution to a UCSF package on the 30th anniversary of the discovery of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Treatment is Key to Prevention of HIV/AIDS, Doctors Say Doctors fighting HIV/AIDS have a new strategy working for them: Use the treatment of the disease as a way to prevent it – […]
The Search for the Big Picture: UCSF, May 2011
The science of biology is undergoing a historic transformation, from one based on observation to one based on creation, and UCSF is in the forefront of driving that change. The move to a New Biology promises to accelerate an era of astounding discovery and achievement, in which science will not only cure many diseases and […]