*MLB.com listed Jose Altuve as having the best batting eye on the Astros.
*Verlander is increasingly optimistic there will be a 2020 MLB season.
*Bill Gladstone, owner of the Astros' affiliate in the NYPL, the Tri-City ValleyCats, passed away from COVID-19 complications.
*James Click joined AT&T SportsNet Comcast Houston Southwest for an interview.
*The Astros featured prominently in Jayson Stark's "What We Could Have Learned From April" column.
*The MLBPA rejected MLB's plan for the 2020 Draft.
*Liz Roscher has your KBO primer, whose season starts on Monday.
*FanGraphs' Dan Szymborski: How shortened seasons affect projections.
*Toronto Star: A.J. Hinch helped John Gibbons land an interview with the Astros in January.
*SI: Meet the massage therapist with five World Series rings. Bald Yankees fans with gold chains and track suits are already throwing Molotov Cocktails through his windows yelling "Twenty-Two Short! [Clap clap clapclapclap]"
*The day that Dock Ellis decided to hit every Cincinnati Red he faced.
*Inside the investigation that took down Pete Rose.
*The English Football League wants to finish the season rather than JUST PROMOTE LEEDS TO THE PREMIER LEAGUE.
*Do you like sports, the South, and delicious gas station food? This is the newsletter for you.
*Lovecraft Country, eh?
*Kent State, and the war that never ended.
*Blue Bell done screwed up.
*A deep-dive into Face/Off, the best, most absurd action film ever made.
*Slow TV: Lake Louise to Jasper, Alberta:
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
