A #CBG2015 Roundup

This blog has been taking a little Christmas vacation—Christmas for baseball-and-politics lovers, of course, being the June Congressional Baseball Game. As you've hopefully noticed from following my Twitter feed, I would never go dark during such a critical period—I've just been active elsewhere. For those who may have missed it, though, here's a recap of my Congressional Baseball writing out there in actual, respected publishing outlets:

• To bore everyone to tears get everyone psyched in advance of the game, I wrote a sabermetric scouting report for the game over at FanGraphs, whose meticulous and intelligent number-crunching has inspired me, for the past few years, to keep a similar record of advanced statistics for the Congressional Baseball Game. In developments that may or may not have made me squee, the piece (and my database of stats) were picked up by the likes of the New York Times and FOX Sports.
• Don't worry, old school readers, I poked my nose outside my spreadsheet long enough to watch the game too, which I attended and covered for The New Yorker. I talked to a Republican player you may have heard of—Rand Paul—and President Obama showed up to the game as well, giving me the opportunity to write about presidential figures throughout the history of the game.

Democrats ended up winning this year's tilt, 5–2, extending their seven-game winning streak but by a narrower margin than their superstar-studded team is used to. Despite the loss, Republicans should feel really good about their standing going into next year, as they've finally found a pitcher good enough to keep them in games (Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina). I learned a ton writing about the game this year, as I do every year; it seems like there's an infinite amount of information, history, and fun angles surrounding the game. I hope you enjoy reading about it as much as I did writing about it.