If we want a better Baltimore, we need a better Baltimore story.
News media publishers are struggling to design a sustainable revenue model for digital media. The good folks at Readability understand the publishing problem and put forth a well-intentioned experiment to redefine how we consume digital information. Unfortunately, on June 13, Readability announced that this model had failed, leaving 90% of the money unclaimed, because only about 2,000 publishers out of millions had registered to receive payment. They are desperately trying to channel the money to the rightful publishers, and getting skewered by critics in the process.
Crowdfunding is a semi-viable option for publishing digital media. Sites like Kickstarter and Indie-Go-Go are helping to fund everything from individual articles to whole books, like Frank Chimero's self-published Shape of Design. Crowdfunding is great for one-off publications like Chimero's book, especially because funders can opt to receive a hard or soft copy of the finished product, but a less sustainable option for weekly or monthly publications.
For the past two years, I've enjoyed a local web publication called What Weekly, which documents the Baltimore Renaissance with vibrant, digital multimedia. What Weekly is a passion project, co-founded by Brooke Hall and Justin Allen. During the past two and half years, they've logged thousands of hours creating, editing, and publishing content for FREE. They have assembled an eclectic band of writers, photographers, and artists, who regularly contribute content to the publication, also gratis.
What Weekly tells Baltimore stories worth sharing. In a recent blog post, Seth Godin recommends elevating the "positive outliers" in a market. "The most efficient way to get the behavior you're looking for is to find positive deviants and give them a platform, a microphone, and public praise. The tribe is hyper aware of what's being celebrated, and when you celebrate those that are moving in the right direction, you create a powerful push in that direction." The folks at What Weekly are Baltimore's positive outliers, and they push Baltimore in the direction of creating, making, and celebrating great art and technology.
What Weekly is now facing the problem of sustainability, and is in imminent danger of shutting down. What Weekly's readership has increased exponentially since its inception, with their site seeing more than 100,000 hits this quarter. And yet, their fan base is noticeably absent in their hour of need. To date, their $10,000 capital campaign on Indiegogo has raised only $7,670 from just 118 backers, averaging only $65 per backer. The campaign has just 6 days left.
This is bad news for Baltimore. Of their thousands of readers, only a small fraction of consumers are stepping up to support them financially. A $50 donation after two and half years of weekly publications works out to less than 40 cents per issue. Few people will be moved to action by a retroactive pay-structure, and contributing to a capital campaign seems more like a charitable donation than paying for content. If What Weekly can raise enough capital to continue, the publishers will need to give some serious thought to designing a more sustainable revenue model.
In the meantime, we must step forward to support them. What Weekly's plight is two-fold. They are suffering from an industry-wide revenue dilemma, as well as local apathy and inaction. If Baltimoreans let What Weekly fail, then they should stop complaining about Baltimore's lingering association with The Wire. We can't fix the crumbling schools, crime rates, or the government corruption overnight. We can start telling different stories, better stories. What Weekly is telling a better Baltimore story.
Let's save our stories:
There are 2 ways you can help What Weekly stay alive while they work to build sustainable revenue streams:
First Way: Donate here - http://www.indiegogo.com/whatweekly
Make a tax deductible donation. There are only 6 days left on our fundraising campaign. There are lots of great rewards left to claim.
Second Way: Vote here - https://www.missionsmallbusiness.com
Vote for What Weekly to qualify for a $250,000 small business grant.
Just login with Facebook, and search "What Weekly," and then click "VOTE."
If you've already voted for someone else that's okay. You can vote for more than one business.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Nashville: Music City
We're officially in the red. There's not a hipster in sight - Tennessee is inhospitable to skinny jeans and irony.
Immediately, we noticed the bold architecture in Nashville. Edgy steel and glass 'scrapers protrude over historic brick and stone structures for a neatly juxtaposed skyline.
We visited the grossly overpriced Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum ($20), which currently doubles as Taylor Swift's closet. The last time I witnessed this much reverence for a fashion archival was the ode to Alexander McQueen at the Met.
Not until this trip did I realize the aptness of the Music City dubbing. If the built-in speakers blaring country tunes on every corner don't clue you in, the monolithic music venue in the midst of construction next to the museum might. It's going to be the Kennedy Center of country music.
For lunch, Matthew insisted on BBQ. After days of couscous, fresh produce, and herbal tea, I supposed it was his turn. Matt chose Jack's BBQ, recognizable by giant pigs atop the sign, no doubt running for their lives.
Imagine every middle-America-red-country stereotype immortalized in one restaurant. Welcome to Jack's BBQ.
As my eyes adjust to the dim lighting, I'm overwhelmed by the smell of smoked meat. We stand in line to order cafeteria style. You can have meat, meat, meat, or meat, or any combination of the above. You can have regular, jumbo, a plate, or a pound. For sides, you can choose veggies, also known as "non-meat." Your choices of veggies include a thick, yellow, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, apples in a brown-sugar sauce, potato salad, or a mush of greenish brown suggesting that these green beans were canned before the Dust Bowl.
I'm a vegetarian for a variety of reasons, but I occasionally make exceptions to avoid offending a host or for a unique cultural experience. BBQ pork is inextricably linked to Tennessee 's culture, so I decided to try a small plate. For sides, I chose cucumbers and apples. Matthew was practically drooling next to me, reading all available tips on FourSquare and Yelp to make sure he got the best plate. Matt ordered three different meats: pork, ribs, and beef brisket, with sides of mac and cheese and beans. He also got a large Sweet Tea to wash it all down. I was pretty sure he would go into cardiac arrest by the time he finished.
I eyed my plate with trepidation. To my left, a couple was bowed deeply in prayer over their plate of meat under the head of a deer on the wall. To my right was what I can only assume to be a shrine to Confederacy. What's a vegetarian atheist to do? I look across the table at Matt, who is eagerly dunking forkfuls of meat into his three cups of BBQ sauce. Sensing my discomfort, he tilts his head and says with a grin, "This is America."
Immediately, we noticed the bold architecture in Nashville. Edgy steel and glass 'scrapers protrude over historic brick and stone structures for a neatly juxtaposed skyline.
Not until this trip did I realize the aptness of the Music City dubbing. If the built-in speakers blaring country tunes on every corner don't clue you in, the monolithic music venue in the midst of construction next to the museum might. It's going to be the Kennedy Center of country music.
For lunch, Matthew insisted on BBQ. After days of couscous, fresh produce, and herbal tea, I supposed it was his turn. Matt chose Jack's BBQ, recognizable by giant pigs atop the sign, no doubt running for their lives.
Imagine every middle-America-red-country stereotype immortalized in one restaurant. Welcome to Jack's BBQ.
As my eyes adjust to the dim lighting, I'm overwhelmed by the smell of smoked meat. We stand in line to order cafeteria style. You can have meat, meat, meat, or meat, or any combination of the above. You can have regular, jumbo, a plate, or a pound. For sides, you can choose veggies, also known as "non-meat." Your choices of veggies include a thick, yellow, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, apples in a brown-sugar sauce, potato salad, or a mush of greenish brown suggesting that these green beans were canned before the Dust Bowl.
I'm a vegetarian for a variety of reasons, but I occasionally make exceptions to avoid offending a host or for a unique cultural experience. BBQ pork is inextricably linked to Tennessee 's culture, so I decided to try a small plate. For sides, I chose cucumbers and apples. Matthew was practically drooling next to me, reading all available tips on FourSquare and Yelp to make sure he got the best plate. Matt ordered three different meats: pork, ribs, and beef brisket, with sides of mac and cheese and beans. He also got a large Sweet Tea to wash it all down. I was pretty sure he would go into cardiac arrest by the time he finished.
I eyed my plate with trepidation. To my left, a couple was bowed deeply in prayer over their plate of meat under the head of a deer on the wall. To my right was what I can only assume to be a shrine to Confederacy. What's a vegetarian atheist to do? I look across the table at Matt, who is eagerly dunking forkfuls of meat into his three cups of BBQ sauce. Sensing my discomfort, he tilts his head and says with a grin, "This is America."
TFA: Good or Bad for Education?
Hardly a day goes by that someone is not lauding or condemning the existence, principles, mission, and personnel of Teach for America. I like to hear as many perspectives as possible, so I follow people on the whole Rhee to Ravitch spectrum. Usually, I refrain from responding, because the rhetoric tends to be more reductive than rational, as tends to happen in 140-character conversations. Tonight, due to lack of stimulation from driving 12 hours across the desert today, I responded to Mary Beth Hertz's (@mbteach) tweet about Teach for America's partnership with J.P. Morgan: "More proof that TFA is not in the business of preparing young people for teaching careers. This makes me sick bit.ly/Lw81mX". (For the record, I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for Ms. Hertz as an educator, this is merely one tweet of many to which I chose to respond.) I replied: "to be fair, they don't *claim* to be in the business of preparing people for teaching careers. They're transparent about the 2 yrs" and braced myself for an onslaught of digital clucking. Since I don't believe Twitter is the best forum for making a cohesive argument, I'll outline my thoughts here and will appreciate your comments below.
Full Disclaimer: I am the archetypal TFA-er. I am white, grew up in a wealthy suburb, went to an ivy-league school, taught for three years, and am now leaving the classroom for a job with a venture capital firm. Case closed, right?
BUT WAIT! When I entered my commitment with TFA in 2009 as a bright-eyed, bleeding-hearted, 22 year-old, I was committed to being a career educator. I would have bet my life on it. It was my calling. My purpose. My reason for being on this earth. In fact, the main reason I joined Teach for America in lieu of the "traditional" path was because it happened to be the cheapest way to get a post-Bacc teacher certification, and I was able to simultaneously get my Master's in teaching with the help of the AmeriCorps scholarship. The plot thickens!
So is Teach for America good or bad for education?
"Teach for America is taking jobs away from career teachers"
TFA teachers work in schools where almost nobody else wants to work. Why? The environments may be hostile, violent, dangerous, resource-depleted, or any combination of the above. On top of that, they teach the kids who are the farthest behind academically with the highest rates of exogenous challenges, which may include poverty, abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, and academic/behavioral/emotional disorders. The last time I checked, people were not lining up for these positions. And when they do, the majority of them are out in 5 years or fewer (that accounts for all teachers, not just TFA corps members). If you teach at a school with a below-average number of special education students and students living in poverty are the minority of the student population, I can pretty much promise you, a TFA teacher will not be taking your job. There is no TFA-Orange County or TFA-Andover because there is no need for TFA to exist in those districts.
Now, in the rare case that Teach for America exists in a region where there is actually a steady supply of teachers, I completely agree that they should pull-out of that region immediately. In theory, TFA's goal should be to close its own doors. I think Wendy Kopp would agree that it will be a great day when there ceases to be a need for TFA because districts across the country are inundated with resumes from talented, certified teachers. This is the area where I think Teach for America as an organization has fallen off track with their mission. Every TFA region should have the goal of annually reducing their corps until they reach 0, at which point the district has a sufficient supply of certified teachers and TFA can leave the region. Instead, TFA has been increasing their corps every year. This either means that the teaching shortage is increasing, or Teach for America has lost sight of their own mission in their quest for expansion. I fear it's the latter. A better approach would be for Teach for America to work more closely with district officials to design and implement a plan to reduce teacher attrition, keep excellent teachers, and attract, support, and train new talent.
"You can't learn to teach in 5 weeks"
I learned to teach five different ways. I took education classes as an undergrad at Penn's Graduate School of education, which were a mix of pedagogical theory and student teaching; I went to TFA institute; I completed a Master's in teaching at Johns Hopkins; I watched great teachers teach; and I taught for three years. Of those five, I solemnly swear that the least helpful forms of preparation for my job were the university level teaching programs. TFA Institute was the most helpful preparation in terms of classroom management, which is about 80% of the battle in a challenging school environment. I used TFA instructional and evaluation methods for about the first semester, and then I developed my own style. So, no, you can't learn to teach in 5 weeks, but you can't learn to teach in a 2 year long top-university Master's program either. Nobody learns brain surgery from reading a book or writing a paper, (and that's what teaching really is: brain surgery without a scalpel).
"Teach for Awhile"
On a regional level, Teach for America is very transparent in its two year teaching commitment. District officials know this when they agree to partner with TFA - there are no false promises of legions of career teachers. Furthermore, the district communicates with Teach for America to estimate the number of teachers they will need each year. This means that either the district is so desperate for teachers that they agree to have TFAers for 2 years rather than no teachers, or they have found the quality of TFA teachers to be desirable additions to their teaching force. Either way, districts choose to enter this partnership, whichs demonstrates that TFA teachers are necessary in the region. Being angry at people who leave the classroom after 2 years is akin to asking someone to loan you $20 and then being angry when they don't give you $100.
"TFA is just a resume builder for the privileged elite"
When was the last time in American history that you saw the country's "best and brightest" clamoring for teaching positions in inner city and rural schools? Never. When a major field experiences a brain drain (especially ones with vast social ramifications like science, education, or medicine), it's in a country's best interest to start a program that will attract talent.
In 1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act that established NASA with a $100 million annual operating budget. The Sputnik crisis created an urgent need for the United States to ramp up efforts in the space race, so they created and funded a program that would attract the country's best aerospace engineers.
We have an education crisis in this country, but not everywhere. There is no education crisis in the town where I grew up, but in Baltimore City, and many other disenfranchised school districts, we have a Code-Red, Sputnik-level crisis. Based on what I've seen during the last several years, we should be doing everything possible to attract our nation's best thinkers to these districts. There is no "Investment Banking for America" organization, because it's already lucrative and prestigious. America socializes young people to believe that if they are intelligent, they should pursue something lucrative and prestigious. Teaching may not be lucrative, but TFA has bestowed a new level of prestige upon the profession, which is a hallmark of successful education systems around the world.
We have an education crisis. It's in our country's best interest to attract our top talent to the field. However, teaching is not right for everybody. Usually, people leave teaching because they want to do something else. The fact that a teacher is choosing to leave the classroom does not in-and-of itself mean that person was an ineffective teacher. Furthermore, just because people are leaving the classroom, does not mean they are abandoning the mission to improve education. This is important. The problems in education are not limited to education, which means we need people with a thorough understanding of the education system to do good work in the tangential sectors of healthcare, social services, law, politics, engineering, and business.
Full Disclaimer: I am the archetypal TFA-er. I am white, grew up in a wealthy suburb, went to an ivy-league school, taught for three years, and am now leaving the classroom for a job with a venture capital firm. Case closed, right?
BUT WAIT! When I entered my commitment with TFA in 2009 as a bright-eyed, bleeding-hearted, 22 year-old, I was committed to being a career educator. I would have bet my life on it. It was my calling. My purpose. My reason for being on this earth. In fact, the main reason I joined Teach for America in lieu of the "traditional" path was because it happened to be the cheapest way to get a post-Bacc teacher certification, and I was able to simultaneously get my Master's in teaching with the help of the AmeriCorps scholarship. The plot thickens!
So is Teach for America good or bad for education?
"Teach for America is taking jobs away from career teachers"
TFA teachers work in schools where almost nobody else wants to work. Why? The environments may be hostile, violent, dangerous, resource-depleted, or any combination of the above. On top of that, they teach the kids who are the farthest behind academically with the highest rates of exogenous challenges, which may include poverty, abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, and academic/behavioral/emotional disorders. The last time I checked, people were not lining up for these positions. And when they do, the majority of them are out in 5 years or fewer (that accounts for all teachers, not just TFA corps members). If you teach at a school with a below-average number of special education students and students living in poverty are the minority of the student population, I can pretty much promise you, a TFA teacher will not be taking your job. There is no TFA-Orange County or TFA-Andover because there is no need for TFA to exist in those districts.
Now, in the rare case that Teach for America exists in a region where there is actually a steady supply of teachers, I completely agree that they should pull-out of that region immediately. In theory, TFA's goal should be to close its own doors. I think Wendy Kopp would agree that it will be a great day when there ceases to be a need for TFA because districts across the country are inundated with resumes from talented, certified teachers. This is the area where I think Teach for America as an organization has fallen off track with their mission. Every TFA region should have the goal of annually reducing their corps until they reach 0, at which point the district has a sufficient supply of certified teachers and TFA can leave the region. Instead, TFA has been increasing their corps every year. This either means that the teaching shortage is increasing, or Teach for America has lost sight of their own mission in their quest for expansion. I fear it's the latter. A better approach would be for Teach for America to work more closely with district officials to design and implement a plan to reduce teacher attrition, keep excellent teachers, and attract, support, and train new talent.
"You can't learn to teach in 5 weeks"
I learned to teach five different ways. I took education classes as an undergrad at Penn's Graduate School of education, which were a mix of pedagogical theory and student teaching; I went to TFA institute; I completed a Master's in teaching at Johns Hopkins; I watched great teachers teach; and I taught for three years. Of those five, I solemnly swear that the least helpful forms of preparation for my job were the university level teaching programs. TFA Institute was the most helpful preparation in terms of classroom management, which is about 80% of the battle in a challenging school environment. I used TFA instructional and evaluation methods for about the first semester, and then I developed my own style. So, no, you can't learn to teach in 5 weeks, but you can't learn to teach in a 2 year long top-university Master's program either. Nobody learns brain surgery from reading a book or writing a paper, (and that's what teaching really is: brain surgery without a scalpel).
"Teach for Awhile"
On a regional level, Teach for America is very transparent in its two year teaching commitment. District officials know this when they agree to partner with TFA - there are no false promises of legions of career teachers. Furthermore, the district communicates with Teach for America to estimate the number of teachers they will need each year. This means that either the district is so desperate for teachers that they agree to have TFAers for 2 years rather than no teachers, or they have found the quality of TFA teachers to be desirable additions to their teaching force. Either way, districts choose to enter this partnership, whichs demonstrates that TFA teachers are necessary in the region. Being angry at people who leave the classroom after 2 years is akin to asking someone to loan you $20 and then being angry when they don't give you $100.
"TFA is just a resume builder for the privileged elite"
When was the last time in American history that you saw the country's "best and brightest" clamoring for teaching positions in inner city and rural schools? Never. When a major field experiences a brain drain (especially ones with vast social ramifications like science, education, or medicine), it's in a country's best interest to start a program that will attract talent.
In 1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act that established NASA with a $100 million annual operating budget. The Sputnik crisis created an urgent need for the United States to ramp up efforts in the space race, so they created and funded a program that would attract the country's best aerospace engineers.
We have an education crisis in this country, but not everywhere. There is no education crisis in the town where I grew up, but in Baltimore City, and many other disenfranchised school districts, we have a Code-Red, Sputnik-level crisis. Based on what I've seen during the last several years, we should be doing everything possible to attract our nation's best thinkers to these districts. There is no "Investment Banking for America" organization, because it's already lucrative and prestigious. America socializes young people to believe that if they are intelligent, they should pursue something lucrative and prestigious. Teaching may not be lucrative, but TFA has bestowed a new level of prestige upon the profession, which is a hallmark of successful education systems around the world.
We have an education crisis. It's in our country's best interest to attract our top talent to the field. However, teaching is not right for everybody. Usually, people leave teaching because they want to do something else. The fact that a teacher is choosing to leave the classroom does not in-and-of itself mean that person was an ineffective teacher. Furthermore, just because people are leaving the classroom, does not mean they are abandoning the mission to improve education. This is important. The problems in education are not limited to education, which means we need people with a thorough understanding of the education system to do good work in the tangential sectors of healthcare, social services, law, politics, engineering, and business.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
#GartnerXC and Louisville
2012 is proving to be a year of change for my family. I'm leaving teaching for a new adventure in Baltimore, we're selling the house in which we grew up, and my brother, Matt, graduated from college and is moving out to California for a job with Cisco, where my Dad also lives and works.
"Aren't you excited to drive across the country?" I asked Matt.
"I'm just going to ship my car," he said.
As someone who lives life biding time between adventures, this seemed unfathomable to me. "POR QUE? Why would you relinquish your chance for the quintessential Kerouac-ian-dharma-bum adventure?"
Despite the fact that Matt is more introverted and solitary than me, he was reluctant to make the trip alone. Since I've been itching for a cross country adventure since I first read On the Road in high school, I volunteered to join him on the drive, then fly home.
And thus, we had the makings of a comically contentious Americana road trip. Matt and I are the odd couple of siblings. For starters, Matt wanted to PLAN the trip, whereas my approach was something like, "I dunno, let's just start driving, eat when we're hungry, and sleep when we're tired." We compromised: Matt planned the route, but agreed not to book any accommodations so we were free to change the route as desired.
Matt drove down from Jersey on Monday and we set off for Louisville on Tuesday. We stopped in West Virginia for lunch, where I spotted a "Hippies Use the Back Door" sign, which reminded me that the next 2,000 miles or so might be slightly uncomfortable for me.
I braced myself for all things fried in Louisville, as Matt calculated how many hours out of the way it would be to dine at the very first KFC. I put a call out to the Twitterverse for dinner recommendations and received 6 options in as many minutes.
Did you know that Louisville has a thriving hipster culture? It's a breed of hipster that seems kinder and less arrogant than their northeastern counterparts, but they love their local, organic foodstuffs! I was delighted, Matt a bit disgruntled. Farm-to-table produce for the win!
On Tuesday night we dined at Garage, which came highly recommended in TWO tweets. We enjoyed a wonderful salad of squash ribbons, radish slivers, lemon, mint, and pecorino cheese, followed by a pizza with thin, whole-wheat crust, loaded with fresh sweet corn.
On Wednesday we had a day chock-full of tourism. We went to Churchill Downs, expecting it to be closed, but discovered a nifty Kentucky Derby Museum and took a tour of the tracks.
We headed downtown for lunch at Hillbilly Tea, another recommendation. Matthew was again slightly disappointed at the lack of deep-battered options, but settled on a duck and bacon burger, while I enjoyed a vegan dumpling soup and strawberry salad.
We ventured to museum row to take a tour of the Louisville slugger factory. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed, so you'll have to take my word that this is a real treat if you are ever in or around Louisville. We grew up in a real baseball family, which you may infer from the two life-size cutouts of Yankees players in our basement. Neatly stacked billets of lumber rest in cubbies labeled for Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Josh Hamilton, Buster Posey, among others.
Matt is not one for photo shoots (he declined to participate in the jockey-dress up bar), but he was plenty willing to pose with Jeter's game-used bat and wax-figurine. I was content to ogle his semblance.
"Aren't you excited to drive across the country?" I asked Matt.
"I'm just going to ship my car," he said.
As someone who lives life biding time between adventures, this seemed unfathomable to me. "POR QUE? Why would you relinquish your chance for the quintessential Kerouac-ian-dharma-bum adventure?"
Despite the fact that Matt is more introverted and solitary than me, he was reluctant to make the trip alone. Since I've been itching for a cross country adventure since I first read On the Road in high school, I volunteered to join him on the drive, then fly home.
And thus, we had the makings of a comically contentious Americana road trip. Matt and I are the odd couple of siblings. For starters, Matt wanted to PLAN the trip, whereas my approach was something like, "I dunno, let's just start driving, eat when we're hungry, and sleep when we're tired." We compromised: Matt planned the route, but agreed not to book any accommodations so we were free to change the route as desired.
Matt drove down from Jersey on Monday and we set off for Louisville on Tuesday. We stopped in West Virginia for lunch, where I spotted a "Hippies Use the Back Door" sign, which reminded me that the next 2,000 miles or so might be slightly uncomfortable for me.
I braced myself for all things fried in Louisville, as Matt calculated how many hours out of the way it would be to dine at the very first KFC. I put a call out to the Twitterverse for dinner recommendations and received 6 options in as many minutes.
Did you know that Louisville has a thriving hipster culture? It's a breed of hipster that seems kinder and less arrogant than their northeastern counterparts, but they love their local, organic foodstuffs! I was delighted, Matt a bit disgruntled. Farm-to-table produce for the win!
On Tuesday night we dined at Garage, which came highly recommended in TWO tweets. We enjoyed a wonderful salad of squash ribbons, radish slivers, lemon, mint, and pecorino cheese, followed by a pizza with thin, whole-wheat crust, loaded with fresh sweet corn.
On Wednesday we had a day chock-full of tourism. We went to Churchill Downs, expecting it to be closed, but discovered a nifty Kentucky Derby Museum and took a tour of the tracks.
We headed downtown for lunch at Hillbilly Tea, another recommendation. Matthew was again slightly disappointed at the lack of deep-battered options, but settled on a duck and bacon burger, while I enjoyed a vegan dumpling soup and strawberry salad.
We ventured to museum row to take a tour of the Louisville slugger factory. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed, so you'll have to take my word that this is a real treat if you are ever in or around Louisville. We grew up in a real baseball family, which you may infer from the two life-size cutouts of Yankees players in our basement. Neatly stacked billets of lumber rest in cubbies labeled for Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Josh Hamilton, Buster Posey, among others.
Matt is not one for photo shoots (he declined to participate in the jockey-dress up bar), but he was plenty willing to pose with Jeter's game-used bat and wax-figurine. I was content to ogle his semblance.
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