Weekend Open Thread

Another week down, another week closer to Spring Training. I’m starting to get desperate here. I need baseball. This offseason has been weird in too many ways. Anyway, here are the weekend links:

• With the 2016 Hall of Fame vote compete, it’s time to look ahead. Jay Jaffe posted his annual five-year Hall of Fame projection. He sees eleven players being voted into Cooperstown over the next five years, including ex-Yankees Tim Raines (2017), Mariano Rivera (2019), Derek Jeter (2020), and Mike Mussina (2021). Jay’s the best Hall of Fame analyst out there. Don’t miss it.
• Here’s a fun story from Arwa Mahdawi about a guy named Jeffrey who had kind of a boring wake up, go to work, come home, go to sleep, do it all again the next day life. He was sick of it, so he quit his job to pursue other stuff, until one day he picked up a Citi Bike in lower Manhattan and rode the damn thing to California. The trip took five months.
• A few weeks before El Chapo was captured (again), Dana Priest wrote about the connection between the media and drug cartels in Mexico. The cartels use the threat of violence to control the news and have murdered reporters over their stories. Social media has made it more difficult for the cartels to control the news, but not impossible. Pretty scary stuff.
• And finally, here’s an awesome post on The Players’ Tribune from former NHL player Ryan Whitney, who wrote about his experience playing in Russia. He retired young due to ankle problems and spent his final season as a player in Sochi. The YouTube video cracked me up.

Friday: Here’s the open thread for the evening. Not a whole lotta sports! going on tonight. The Nets are playing and that’s pretty much it. Not even any college hoops on the schedule. Anyway, you know how these work, so go nuts.

Saturday: This is the open thread again. The NFL playoffs resume with the Chiefs vs. Patriots (4:30pm ET on CBS) and Packers vs. Cardinals (8pm ET on NBC). The (hockey) Rangers already played, but the Devils are playing right now, and both the Knicks and Nets will play later tonight. There’s also a whole bunch of college hoops on as well. Talk about those games or whatever else.

Sunday: For one last time, this is the open thread. I’m bumping it up to the top of the site a little earlier than usual because of the NFL playoffs. Today you’ve got Panthers vs. Seahawks (1pm ET on FOX) and Steelers vs. Broncos (4:30pm ET on CBS). The Rangers and Islanders are both playing too, and there’s some college basketball on as well. Have at it.