Keith Law: Prospect Maven, Old-School Hip Hop Head

Fangraphers are of course familiar with the work of Keith Law (or Klaw as he is known affectionately). Since 2006, Klaw has been doing a bang-up job as the scouting writer at ESPN.com where his annual “Top 100 Prospects” column is highly anticipated by prospect nerds the world over. Before moving to ESPN, he was employed in the Toronto Blue Jays front office. And before that, he worked at Baseball Prospectus. Again, these are things the average Fangrapher knows very well.

What is perhaps less well-known (though likely still well-known by Fangraphers) is that Klaw maintains a personal blog that is home to his ruminations on food, books, and other cultural topics. One of those “other cultural topics” is music. Today it was revealed (to the moderate surprise of some) that one of the kinds of music Klaw enjoys is pre-1996 hip hop. Given, also, his fondness for Top-100 lists, it was only natural that he combine the two into a comprehensive “Top 100 old-school hip-hop songs” blog post. It’s a fun read if you are a fan of hip hop feeling a tinge of nostalgia for “the good old days.”

To me, the mere thought of Keith Law rocking out to some old-school hip hop is endlessly amusing. “Can you imagine early 90s KLaw with his walkman (or a boombox) bumping Poor Righteous Teachers?” I asked on twitter. “Someone needs to photoshop him into a picture of Radio Raheem ASAP,” I added.

And indeed, my internet friend and talented photoshopper @Phylan did just that:

Keep fighting the power, Klaw, fighting the powers that be.

UPDATE: Now accepting stage name suggestions in the comments!