Insider Finance - Business - A major controversy at MLB

Nicholas Carlson, December 7, 2022

Hello, Insiders. The year is coming to a close, so you know what that means: it’s time for end-of-the-year roundups. And I’m very excited that an incredible story by Insider’s Kelsey Vlamis was featured in Longreads’ “Best of 2022” story picks.

Kelsey’s “Disaster at 18,200 feet” is a gripping look at what really happened when a mountaineer fell 1,000 feet while summiting North America's tallest peak, Denali.

Incredibly, the climber survived, but how did he end up ascending with three strangers? Why weren’t they roped for protection? And why was one of them criminally charged six months later? Read Kelsey’s stellar report to find out. But now, let’s get started. 

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The big story

Dr. Meredith Wills; Rachel Mendelson/Insider

Major League Baseball used two balls again this year — and evidence points to a third.

The baseballs have been a source of controversy in MLB for years. 

Back in 2017, several players and coaches noticed the balls used at the World Series were slicker than normal. And last year, Insider reported there were two distinct baseballs in circulation during the 2021 season. One had a center weight roughly two and a half grams heavier than the other, making it carry further off the crack of the bat.

At a press conference earlier this year, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced the league had adopted a more consistent baseball for the 2022 season.

But that’s not true, according to a new analysis of more than 200 balls used in games during the 2022 season conducted by Dr. Meredith Wills, a Society for American Baseball Research award-winning astrophysicist. MLB did not settle into using a single, more consistent ball last season — Wills' research suggests it used three.

Read the full story here.

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Marianne Ayala/Insider

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• How does someone “fall” off a cruise ship? A man who spent hours treading water after going overboard was rescued in a rare success story, but experts say the chances of falling off are slim — and is almost always caused by reckless behavior, foul play, or intentional acts. Here’s what experts told us.

• Insider identified at least 15 killings over five years driven by transphobia. As uncovered during a major investigation into transgender homicides, the killers were mostly young men who turned violent after being intimate with a transgender woman. A queer criminologist told Insider, “We live in a society in which we are taught to fear, hate, and be repulsed by transgender people.” Read the full story.

• You may pay nearly $8 for a McDonald's Big Mac in Massachusetts versus $3 in Oklahoma. A college student created a Fast Food Index that tracks the cost of popular items from McDonalds, Taco Bell, Chipotle, and Chick-fil-A — and found disparities in prices throughout the country, and even for locations across the street from one another. Here’s why.

Watch this

Manoomin, meaning "the good berry," is a type of wild rice that has been harvested by the Ojibwe people in the Great Lakes region of North America for centuries. At $24 per pound, manoomin costs 15 times as much as white rice. Here’s why it’s so expensive. 

Today's team

This edition was curated by Nicholas Carlson, and edited by Hallam Bullock, Lisa Ryan, Jordan Parker Erb, and Shona Ghosh. Get in touch: insidertoday@insider.com.

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