Our only goal will be the western shore.

My top 100 prospects ranking for 2025 is now up at the Athletic, but first, I have a funny story to tell you.

My family and I had a small vacation planned for the day after Christmas, to the Bahamas for a few days at a resort where we were meeting another family, friends of my wife’s from grad school and their kids. We’d booked it in April and I barely thought about it again beyond setting up the shuttle from the airport to the hotel and back, figuring we were all good to go.

So Christmas morning, I get up early enough to start the presents with the kids, and then I get the notification that it’s time to check in. I hadn’t traveled outside of the U.S. in two years, so I didn’t know the apps could scan your passport, but I went and got the pile and started with my own … and the app wouldn’t take it. It said I needed to enter a valid expiration date. I had just looked at the passport a few days earlier, because that’s one of those things I always obsess about not forgetting. My passport was due to expire in August of 2025, and I set a reminder on my phone for January 2^nd to start the renewal process.

Except I hadn’t had my glasses on when I looked. My passport had already expired. In August of 2023.

The bigger question was why I hadn’t just renewed it when we got back from our trip to Britain in August of 2022, or at least set a reminder to do so a few months later. The more immediate question was how the hell I was going to get to the Bahamas on the morning of the 26^th when I didn’t have a valid passport. I couldn’t even board the plane without it.

After an hour or so of abject panic* on my part, my wife - who kept her cool, to her great credit - sent me the link to make an emergency appointment at a passport office, and we figured out that I could go to either Buffalo or New Orleans for an appointment the next morning and try to join the rest of them in the Bahamas a day later. I called American Airlines Vacations and got just about the most helpful representative I’ve ever had on the phone; she fixed the flights and made sure all of the arrangements for me and my family were set, putting me on a connecting flight from Buffalo to Nassau at 6 am on the 27^th – if everything should work out.

*Yes, this is a rather first-world problem. That level of privilege was not at the top of my thoughts at that moment.

So we had Christmas dinner on the early side, which was the original plan anyway, and after I cleaned up, I threw some extra stuff in my suitcase – mostly warm clothes, because Buffalo is essentially Canada – and drove to Baltimore to hop the last Southwest flight to Buffalo, which I could get with frequent flyer points. I ate at the Silver Diner at the Baltimore Airport, which is one of my favorite airport restaurants in the country, and hopped the 9 pm flight. (I got the goat cheese omelette. It’s what I always get there. I was all about comfort food at that point.) It is the only time I have ever spent Christmas night alone in my life.

The next morning, I was at the passport office in Buffalo on time for my appointment at 8:30, and while I was in line to check in, I heard at least three other people tell a very similar story: They didn’t know their passports were expired until they went to check in for their flights. They were going all over the world. I wasn’t the only ding-dong in this situation. That was the first time I actually felt better about screwing up.

Within an hour, I was out of the passport office with a receipt for my new passport, which would be ready by 2 o’clock. I went to Betty’s, an all-day restaurant with an artsy vibe, and ate biscuits and gravy, because I was pretty sure I’d earned the luxury at that point. I went to Public Espresso to get more coffee and write a little bit, since that is by far one of the best things I can do to bring my heart rate down. I got the text before noon that the passport was ready. I did it. I was going to get to the Bahamas after all. I was a day late, but I got four nights there, the rest of the family got five, we saw Marcus Samuelsson and Jon Batiste at the hotel, my wife and I got to kayak together for the first time, and I drank a lot of John Watling’s. We had an amazing time.

One small coda – there was a pan-Asian restaurant near my hotel in Buffalo called Teton Kitchen, and I figured I’d go to get something simple there like a noodle dish that wouldn’t prevent me from going to bed early. I walked in and saw the menu was mostly sushi, and what I saw on some nearby tables looked good enough to try it. It broke two of my heuristics about finding good food: don’t eat at restaurants that claim to multiple cuisines well, and don’t eat sushi at places that don’t focus on it. Of course I’m telling you this because it was good. I stuffed myself. It wasn’t up to New York or LA standards, but it was way above sushi I’ve had in smaller cities around the country over the last 20 years. In conclusion, check your passports - with your eyeglasses on.

Proof that I made it. And ate a fish.

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The top 100 is now up, the first of three pieces I’ll have this week. The column of guys who just missed the top 100 goes up on Wednesday, and the ranking of all 30 farm systems goes up on Thursday. I’ll also do a Q&A on the Athletic’s site on Tuesday at 1 pm ET. My top 20 prospects & org reports for all 30 teams start running on February 2^nd, with one division running each day. I don’t know the order of the divisions just yet. Last week, I broke down the Anthony Santander and Jurickson Profar signings.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the game Gnome Hollow, a midweight game where you lay tiles to create paths that give you rewards when you complete them, with some competition on the market board when you turn those rewards in for points. It’s a solid game, a 50/55 on the grading scale, although I would say I liked it more than I loved it.

On the dish, my only post in the last week was my weekly links roundup. Now that the top 100 is out, I’m hoping to get back to writing over there as well, with at least two movies I want to write up and several board games.

Finally, wherever you live, please call your Senators today to ask them to oppose the nomination of RFK Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. His anti-vaccine rhetoric has made him millions of dollars – and his actions provoked a measles outbreak in Samoa that killed 83 people. He is not just unqualified; he is a danger to public health.

Stay sane.

Keith