THE SPACESHIP DOCKS, THE PASTOR PRAYS, AND JEFF OWES GARTH A TUITION CHECK
Welcome back to the World League of Baseball, where the playoffs are here, the stakes are entirely fictional, and somehow — somehow — the moral calculus has never been higher.
Let me begin with the most important development in the WLB this autumn, which isn't a baseball development at all. I've obtained Chris Broyles's LinkedIn profile.
For two columns now I've been telling you that Chris Broyles left the corporate world to found B Degree Creative & Communications, a boutique firm offering, in its own words, "persuasive media" for high-stakes moments. A man who walked out of KPMG to bet on himself. The spaceship. The Core Pathways Model. The visionary going solo.
As of August 2026, Chris Broyles is a Senior Managing Director at Ankura.
He went back. Twenty-one months after founding his own firm, he docked the spaceship at a consulting company. Can't Stop the Spaceship turned out to mean "can't stop the spaceship from returning to a large professional-services firm with a benefits package."
But here's the part I can't get over: his LinkedIn lists both jobs as "Present." B Degree: Present. Ankura: Present. He's simultaneously the founder of a boutique and a senior managing director at a firm with thousands of employees. That's not a career. That's a Schrödinger's résumé. Somewhere, in a quantum state, B Degree is both running and not running, and the only way to find out is to open the box, and nobody will open the box because it's a LinkedIn profile.
And let's appreciate the symmetry with Jeff. In the same calendar year, Jeff Burris is leaving corporate life at 55, and Chris Broyles — at 53, because Christmas — is returning to it. They passed each other on the escalator. One of them is going up toward a "Senior Managing Director" title. The other is going down toward a recliner and a DMB roster screen. Only one of them is smiling, and it's not the one with the title.
Meanwhile, he's listed his top LinkedIn skills as "Content Management Systems (CMS)," "Creative Briefs," and "Legal Media." The man wrote a book, produced a nationally syndicated radio show, ran trial graphics for some of the biggest law firms in America, and the algorithm decided his signature talent is Content Management Systems. That's like if Rickey Henderson's baseball card listed his top skill as "jogging."
The Manifesto Problem
Now: the essay.
Chris has written a long, serious, genuinely well-argued LinkedIn article titled "A 2026 Reckoning with Newton Minow." It's about how screens and algorithms are hollowing out the inner lives of children. He invokes the famous 1961 "vast wasteland" speech about television. He talks about how the modern feed isn't barren — it's been cultivated. The child, he writes, has become the product. He coins a concept he calls the "Verification Horizon" — the point beyond which you can no longer tell what's real from what's generated.
I read the whole thing. It's thoughtful. It's meaningful. I agreed with most of it. And I would like to now point out several things.
One. Chris Broyles wrote a manifesto about the dangers of spending your life staring at screens — while managing a simulated baseball team for 154 games, on a screen, in a league with a live chat room, a podcast, a weekly awards feed, and a sabermetrics columnist. He argues that adults owe children an "unengineered interior" — a private life that isn't measured, optimized, and routed back to them. Chris, your Huanca Wankers have 154 games of runs created, quality-start percentages, inherited-runner rates, and a stat called TBWH/PA. There is no engineered interior more engineered than your interior.
Two. He says we owe children boredom, because boredom is where imagination begins. Chris, you watched every inning of an 87-67 season. You have not been bored since March. You have been the opposite of bored. You've been checking box scores while writing an essay about checking things.
Three. The Verification Horizon. The point where you can't tell real from generated. Chris, buddy, I need you to look at the byline of this column. It says "Bill Simmons 2.0." You're being roasted by the Verification Horizon. And the best hitter on Andrew Harris's team was a .556-hitting version of a children's theatre CEO. If ever there was a league where nothing could be verified, it's yours.
Four. He laments a world in which the economic engine is "the engagement metric" — and closes with the line that the crop should not be the engagement metric. My editor's emails about this very column, for eleven straight installments, have been about engagement metrics. Chris Broyles is the crop. I'm the crop. We're all the crop. Mel from Foul Territory is in the crop. And the farmer is my editor, who stopped using exclamation points because she knows the harvest is guaranteed.
Five. The best detail in the whole piece is accidental. When I got the text of the essay, right in the middle — between the section about AI confidants and the section about the Verification Horizon — was a block that said "Recommended by LinkedIn," followed by three other articles the algorithm thought you'd like. Chris Broyles wrote an essay about how algorithms interrupt your attention to serve you more content, and the algorithm interrupted his essay to serve you more content. Newton Minow would have needed to lie down.
Six. The essay reveals that, as a young man, Chris wanted to work in children's media. He interned at a kids' TV operation in Chicago. And the guy who actually ended up running a children's arts organization? Andrew Harris. His old bandmate. The man who kept eating at the Krystals. Chris wanted to be in the kids' business; Andrew is in the kids' business; and Andrew finished sixteen games ahead of him. Some people get the dream job and the better record. Some people get Content Management Systems.
Seven. His LinkedIn lists his high school as Oak Ridge High School. Oak Ridge. As in the Oak Ridge Nukes. The CPU team. 33-121. Managed by "Commissioner." Chris Broyles's alma mater's namesake is the second-worst team in the league, and his Wankers went 15-7 against it. He went home for homecoming and beat up the band.
He also apparently attended something called The Fenn School before that, which sounds like the boarding school in a Wes Anderson movie where a boy in a blazer runs a beekeeping club. That boy grew up to name his team the Huanca Wankers. Education is a journey.
The Wankers, Briefly, Because They Made the Playoffs
The Wankers finished 87-67, fourth place, and claimed the last playoff spot. They hit 251 home runs, the most in the league. Howard Johnson started 151 games at shortstop, hit 44 home runs, and even got a first-place MVP vote. Gammons gave him full credit for playing a premium position, which means the decision I've ridiculed all season turned out to be defensible. I hate it. I'm moving on.
His pitching staff issued 52 intentional walks. The next-highest human team issued 12. Chris Broyles, who once wrote that we owe children "friction," built a pitching staff whose primary strategy was avoiding friction. Just put him on. Don't engage. Walk him and move to the next screen.
And his bullpen blew 25 saves in 67 chances. Twenty-five. That's not a bullpen. That's an inbox.
But here's the thing I have to say out loud: Chris Broyles swept Jeff Burris at home, October 1 through 3, during the stretch run, and nearly cost Jeff the pennant. A man writing a manifesto about protecting the developing mind, who now has a corporate title again, single-handedly almost ruined the retirement party of a man leaving his corporate title behind. That's not a baseball series. That's a career-transition support group that got violent.
The Wankers are in the playoffs. The spaceship is docked at Ankura, but it's still in the hunt. The book is still on Amazon. The essay is still on LinkedIn, surrounded by three algorithmic recommendations. And Chris is somewhere in Chicago, a Senior Managing Director, refreshing worldleaguebaseball.org on his phone between meetings. Newton Minow is watching. The wasteland is watching back.
Chris Carpenter: The Pastor Who Had Everything Except Wins
The Nicaragua Crepe Wrappers finished 83-71, sixth among the human-managed teams, 21 games back, and out of the playoffs. I want to be gentle here. The man is a Discipleship Pastor. Gentleness is his business.
Roger Clemens won the Cy Young Award in a near-sweep: 14 of 16 first-place votes, a 2.58 ERA, the league's most innings, seven complete games, three shutouts. Gammons says he saved 62 runs over league average, and the next-best pitcher was 22 runs behind him. The best pitcher in the World League of Baseball pitched for the team that finished last among the humans. That is the most ministry thing that's ever happened in sports. The best singer in the choir, in the smallest church, in front of the fewest people. The sermon was perfect. The pews were empty.
And here's the thing nobody's talking about: Chris Carpenter the player started 150 games in left field. One hundred fifty. He hit 21 home runs and drove in 93. Every other owner in this league put themselves on the roster as a cameo. Andrew Harris made 44 starts. Brett got 15. Jeff put a pop star in the lineup instead of himself. Garth sent himself to the minors. Chris Carpenter gave himself a full-time job and showed up every single day. Of course he did. He's the only man in this league whose entire profession is showing up every week for the same small group of people whether or not anybody is winning anything.
He also had Cal Ripken hit .219. Ripken played all 154 games at shortstop, and contributed what I'd describe as attendance. Which, in fairness, is what a pastor values most.
Here's what will haunt him: on October 4, in the last weekend of the season, the Crepe Wrappers beat the Rick Astleys in fifteen innings. Tony Pena walked it off. Chris Carpenter's team knocked Jeff Burris out of first place, with two days to go, in a game that went 470 pitches. For about 24 hours, the Discipleship Pastor was the most consequential man in the WLB.
And then the Astleys beat him the next two days, retook the lead, and won the pennant. The Crepe Wrappers went 6-16 against Jeff on the year. Coach Burris's son. The man whose father once heard Chris Carpenter discover profanity in a church gym. Forty years later, Coach Burris's boy is still the one deciding how Chris Carpenter's weekend ends.
He's out of the playoffs. He has the Cy Young winner. He has a full-time left fielder named Chris Carpenter with 93 RBI. And, presumably, a Sunday sermon about the parable of the laborers in the vineyard — the one where the guy who shows up all day gets paid the same as the guy who shows up at the last minute. Andrew Harris made 44 starts. Chris Carpenter made 150. Andrew Harris is in the playoffs. The Lord is teaching a lesson, and the lesson is Iron Knob.
The Playoff Look-Ahead, Which I Provide Because Apparently There Are Playoffs
Four teams. Four owners. One championship that exists entirely inside a computer.
The Rick Astleys, captained by a retired man with all the time in the world and nothing to fill it with except demoting Dennis Eckersley.
The Iron Knob Explosions, who beat the Astleys 13-9 in the season series, piloted by a man who may or may not know the playoffs have started.
The Knockemstiff Slap Daddies, the MVP, 224 home runs, 123 errors, and a commissioner-owner who will be in charge of uploading his own playoff results.
The Huanca Wankers, who swept the Astleys three weeks ago and are the last team Jeff wants to see, managed by a man who just wrote 4,000 words about putting down your screen.
If the bracket goes the way brackets usually go — 1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 3 — then Jeff's first opponent is the team that swept him at the worst possible moment, and Andrew and Brett, who went 11-11 against each other this year, settle things between two old friends where one of them has administrator access. Somebody tell the Foul Territory guys to clear their schedules. Somebody tell Mel he'll finally get some airtime. Somebody tell Donna not to wait up.
Garth Graham and the Tuition Ladder
I saved Garth for last, because Garth deserves it, and because Garth's October has turned into something that no fifth-place finish can capture.
The Fugging Honey Badgers finished 84-70, fifth place, out of the playoffs. They went 9-1 in their last ten, including eight straight wins — all of which came against the computer teams, which Gammons pointed out the way a radiologist points out a shadow on an image: gently, clinically, and with no room for argument. The streak was real. The streak was also scheduled. Garth went 7-15 against Chris Broyles all year, which is an eight-game swing against the team he finished three games behind. And his rotation had a .351 quality-start rate, the worst among the human teams by a mile. Bruce Hurst gave up 249 hits in 173 innings with a 6.14 ERA. Drabek went 10-16. McCaskill's ERA was 5.97. The bullpen, meanwhile — Andersen 9-0 with a 1.77 ERA, Montgomery 28 saves in 30 chances — was brilliant. The relief corps did everything right, and they were constantly coming into burning buildings.
But on the final day of the season, with nothing to play for, eliminated for three days, the Honey Badgers walked into Iron Knob and beat Greg Maddux 4-2. Mike Moore went eight. Montgomery got the save. And that game handed the pennant to Jeff Burris.
Garth Graham — radiologist, Chief of Staff, former Kiss Me Kate lead, the man who got his girl and stalled out on the way home — decided the 2026 World League of Baseball pennant with nothing on the line. He was the last man standing between Andrew Harris and a championship, and he said no. Out of principle. Or spite. In Tennessee, those are the same thing.
The Proposal
So I'd like to now make a proposal to Jeff Burris.
Because I have new information about Garth too, and it changes everything. Garth Graham currently has three people in college. Three. And one of them — I want everyone to sit with this — is his wife. And next fall, his daughter, currently a senior in high school, makes it four.
Do the math with me. Brett Houlberg is bracing for one tuition bill next fall, and he has a private equity recap to absorb the blow. Garth Graham is already paying three, with a fourth on deck. Kids in college. A wife in college. A daughter writing application essays. Every person in the Graham household except Garth is currently enrolled in some kind of school, and the only one who isn't working toward a diploma is the one paying for all of them.
Picture the kitchen table at the Graham house on a weeknight. A wife with a laptop open and a syllabus. College kids home for the weekend with group-chat panics. A high school senior asking whether "fifth place in a fake baseball league" counts as an extracurricular. Everyone is studying. Everyone is being graded. And at the end of the table, the radiologist — the Chief of Staff, the man with a medical degree, the man whose entire job is reading things carefully — is the only person in the house without homework. Except, of course, his homework is the tuition statements. Three of them, with a fourth arriving in August. He reads them the way he reads an MRI: slowly, in silence, looking for the thing that shouldn't be there, and finding it every time on the line marked "Balance Due."
This explains the entire Honey Badgers season. Why did Garth's rotation give up 1,543 hits? Because Garth was budget-shopping for pitchers. You can't run a $40 million rotation when you're paying three tuitions with a fourth in the on-deck circle. Doug Drabek is not a pitcher. Drabek is a cost-saving measure. Bruce Hurst is the generic-brand cereal of starting pitchers. Garth's bullpen was elite and his rotation was a clearance rack, which is exactly how a man with three tuitions furnishes a house: the one room people see is beautiful, and everything else came from a dorm-supply sale.
It also explains why Garth demoted himself back in the summer. He wasn't being self-aware. He was cutting payroll. He was the only player on the roster he didn't have to pay for.
Now, Garth, I know what you're thinking. "Bill, I'm a Chief of Staff. I'll be fine." Garth, you're Chief of Staff at a hospital in Loudon, Tennessee. You've got three tuitions, a fourth coming next fall, and a wife writing papers at the kitchen table. You're one fee statement away from picking up a weekend shift reading ankle X-rays at an urgent care in a strip mall.
So here's my proposal.
Jeff Burris, you are retired. You are 55. You have, by any reasonable estimation, a lot of free time and no current employer. And the only reason you have a pennant is that Garth Graham, eliminated and three tuitions deep, went into Iron Knob on the last day of the season and beat Greg Maddux for you. He did it for free. He did it out of love, or spite, or the deep Tennessee instinct that if he can't have it, Andrew Harris definitely can't either.
Jeff, you owe him a semester.
Not all of them. You're retired, not crazy. Just one. Pick a kid. Or pick the wife, as a gesture, since she's the one closest to graduating with the least time left to enjoy it. Or — and this is the elegant move — cover the daughter's first semester next fall, so Garth's household goes from three tuitions to four without his checkbook ever noticing. Send a check to the bursar's office with a memo line that says "Pennant, 2026, Rick Astleys." Let it be the first and only transaction of your retirement that doesn't involve demoting Dennis Eckersley.
Brett can't help — his recap is already earmarked for a meal plan. Andrew's busy being a light on an empty stage. Chris Broyles has a new job, a new title, and a manifesto to promote. Chris Carpenter will pray for Garth, which, frankly, is the most valuable thing anybody's offering.
But Jeff's got the time, the pennant, and the guilt. That's the only fair settlement. Jeff's been negotiating settlements for thirty years. This is the last one. And it's the only one he's ever owed.
And Garth — I'll say it now, and I'll say it with more sincerity than I've said anything in eleven columns: you're the most honest man in this league. You didn't win anything. You've got three people in college and a fourth filling out applications. You were the lead in Kiss Me Kate, and now you're the one guy at the kitchen table who isn't getting graded. Except by me. And by me, Garth, on the last day of the season, against Greg Maddux, with nothing on the line?
You got an A.
I threw up in my mouth a little. It was emotional. I'll see you in the playoffs. God help me, I'll see you in the playoffs.