Cup of Coffee: February 16, 2023

MLB's impending RSN disaster, Jacob deGrom is back on schedule, the Yankees are already down a starter, the impending balk-a-thon, NYT's anti-trans bias, Les Wexner, gun nuts, and Raquel Welch

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

There’s a lot to get to today, so on we go!

---

The Daily Briefing

I agree, Baltimore Orioles!

Baltimore Orioles @Orioles

Nothin' like a cup of coffee to start the morning. ) ) ( ) ____(____)____(______ \ pitchers & /_ \ catchers report / | \ today /___| \ / \___________/

The RSN dominos are falling

From Sportico:

While Diamond Sports Group appears set to default on $140 million in interest payments, a move which is expected to trigger a bankruptcy filing in the coming weeks, its 19 Bally Sports properties aren’t the only RSNs feeling a financial pinch. According to multiple league, finance and network sources, the three AT&T SportsNet brands in recent weeks have handed over lighter-than-expected envelopes to their respective MLB franchise partners.

An executive with direct knowledge of the RSNs’ financial dealings confirmed to Sportico that the AT&T outlets in Denver, Houston and Pittsburgh submitted their most recent rights payments to their MLB clubs in a timely fashion, although the disbursements were not commensurate with the contracted rates. The teams impacted by the shortfall are the Colorado Rockies, Houston Astros and Pittsburgh Pirates.

The precise amount of the funds withheld is not known but is said to be significant enough to have catalyzed concerns about the long-term viability of the three networks.

In response to this, Rob Manfred said yesterday that, “we are prepared, no matter what happens . . . to make sure the games are available to fans in their local markets.” He added that If Bally’s doesn’t make the required payments — which it almost certainly won’t — clubs will terminate their contracts with it and that MLB would produce games and would try to arrange for cable and satellite distributors to air them.

Which is to say that (a) it will be a mess, and people will have a hard time watching their teams in the short term; and (b) even if MLB does arrange for alternatives, there will be a really big hit to revenue in the short term and possibly longer. Indeed, Manfred admitted that if Bally files for bankruptcy, he does not expect that the clubs and the league can simply replace the lost RSN revenue currently owed in the short term.

This seems like a massive problem that will cause tremendous disruption in both business terms and in the fan experience. I have no idea why it still remains a story that, basically, only sports business people are covering. I predict it will be national news, like, beyond the sports page, within a couple of months at the outside.

It begins

Yesterday at Rangers camp Jacob deGrom felt some tightness in his left side and was pulled from workouts. General manager Chris Young told reporters that it was his decision, not deGrom’s or Bruce Bochy’s, and that given the cold weather and how early it is in camp, they decided to shut him down for a day or two “out of an abundance of caution.” Young said that, if it was the regular season, deGrom would’ve have played through it.

I get all of those caveats — and it’s nothin’ personal — but I don’t feel like Jacob deGrom gets the benefit of the doubt when it comes to injuries and stuff. Every single one of the multiple times he has missed a non-trivial amount of action it has begun with “abundance of caution” and “if it was up to him, he’d pitch through it” rebop. At some point you just can’t assume that he’s fine as the baseline. Rather, you wait to be pleasantly surprised if he can actually go.

Frankie Montas needs shoulder surgery

The Yankees announced that starter Frankie Montas will undergo shoulder surgery next week. “Best case, he would be back late in the season,” manager Aaron Boone said. That’s certainly a hell of a thing.

Montas was having shoulder problems before the Yankees acquired him from Oakland last summer, but it was diagnosed as nothing more than inflammation. Guess it was more after all. The big question — why was this just caught now and not at any time over the past several months — will presumably be answered at some future date, but all we know now is that Frankie must relax.

With Montas on the shelf, Domingo Germán is likely the favorite to be the Yankees' fifth starter.

Stephen Strasburg seems done

Last fall Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo talked about the future of Stephen Strasburg and whether he’ll pitch in 2023. At the time he said, “It's still a little bit of a mystery,” and that, “we're going to have to take it day by day.” All of that came after Strasburg had thrown a total of 31.1 innings in just eight starts over the previous three seasons combined due first to carpal tunnel surgery in 2020 and then thoracic outlet syndrome surgery in 2021.

Strasburg’s health, however, has apparently gotten no better in the past four months. Yesterday it was reported that he suffered setback after a recent bullpen session and that he is not even down at Nats camp in Florida and that there no timetable on him showing up at spring training. Dave Martinez referred to it as a “nerve issue” which strongly suggests that he’s still suffering effects from thoracic outlet syndrome, from which recovery is notoriously dicey.

Last fall I mused that everyone in and around the Nats knows Strasburg is done as a pitcher but that no one can say so given that he’s still under contract and they all have to go through the motions. This all feels like a forgone conclusion with baseball-related window dressing to make it look official.

Bud Black signs a one-year extension

Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black has agreed to a one-year extension through the 2024 season. He was poised to be a lame duck in 2023.

Black is entering his seventh season as the Rockies’ manager. In the previous six he has led the team to a record of 417-453. They made the postseason in 2017 and 2018, Black’s first two seasons at the helm, but finished in fourth place in the NL West the next three years and last place last season. Fair to say, of course, that the problems with the Rockies are not Black’s fault as opposed to the faults of their ownership, front office, and talent acquisition issues.

Balk rule to be emphasized in 2023. Look out.

Jeff Passan reported on Tuesday night that Major League Baseball intends to “emphasize enforcement of the balk rule” during the 2023 season. The idea is to crack down on pitchers who rock back and forth or side to side or whatever as they wind up and pitch. Think Luis García’s rock-the-baby thing or Kevin Guasman’s tap-tap-tap thing.

This matters more now because of the implementation of the pitch clock, which stops once the pitcher begins his delivery. If the pitcher’s delivery takes all damn afternoon, however, and if it varies between pitches, things are a bit unclear.

I get all of that. But I also am old enough to remember the last time the league decided to crack down on balks, way back in 1988. Then a crackdown on pitchers making “discernible stops” — following the 1987 World Series in which the Cardinals complained loudly about Twins pitchers balking all the time but it not being called — led to a lot of early season insanity.

In April 1988 alone Rangers starter Bobby Witt and Oakland reliever Rick Honeycutt tied a record by being charged with four balks in two different games a day apart. Dave Stewart set the single-season balk record . . . by May 18. In all of Major League Baseball history, 13 players have committed 10 balks in a season. Steve Carlton did it in 1979 and John Dopson did it in 1989. The other 11 all came in 1988. It was madness.

I’d like to think that we won’t see that kind of craziness in 2023, but new rules always lead to unexpected results, and when you’re dealing with a rule as nebulous and hard-to-enforce as the balk rule already is, things can get pretty nuts pretty fast.

Mets invite Khalil Lee back to the team for some reason

A couple of weeks ago it was reported that Major League Baseball has opened investigation into allegations of domestic assault against Mets minor leaguer Khalil Lee. The investigation comes in the wake of a criminal warrant being issued for Lee by police in Syracuse, New York, and a civil complaint filed against Lee by his ex-girlfriend.

The criminal warrant cites “criminal obstruction of breath” which is a charge typically associated with domestic incidents that involve choking or strangulation. The lawsuit by Lee’s former girlfriends alleges that on May 7, 2022 Lee assaulted her by pulling her hair and choking her during an argument and that the assault left multiple bruises and marks on her body. Within a couple of days of that report going public the Mets, quite wisely, designated Lee for assignment. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Except now he’s back: Lee cleared waivers, was sent outright to Triple-A Syracuse, and, it was reported yesterday, he will receive an invitation to Mets major league spring training camp.

Good to see that the Mets viewed this situation first and foremost as a means of clearing space on the 40-man roster and, as long as that was accomplished, feel like they have no obligation to actually take a stand against domestic violence and remove Lee from the organization entirely.

Meanwhile, in White Sox camp . . .

. . . Mike Clevinger, himself under investigation pursuant to MLB’s domestic violence policy, has arrived and will be working out with the team despite the investigation pending. The White Sox brass says they have no choice in the matter. They’re probably right about that per the terms of the league and union’s policy, but it’s also the case that the league could place Clevinger and other players under investigation on administrative leave, like they did with Trevor Bauer. Why they have not done so with Clevinger is an open question, the answer to which likely falls along the lines of “well, he’s not playing games now, so the optics aren’t too bad, so who cares?”

As for Clevinger himself:

Chuck Garfien @ChuckGarfien

Mike Clevinger addressed the team today. Apologized for being a distraction in the clubhouse as spring training begins.

Do I expect someone like Clevinger to fall all over himself and apologize for all his misdeeds in this situation? Nah. Like I said, there’s still an investigation pending so he’s wise not to say anything. But it grinds my gears that players who get into off-the-field trouble almost always apologize to their teammates and the club for being a “distraction” but rarely if ever own up to the behavior which led to the “distraction” in the first place. And that’s the case even after their culpability for said behavior is established and punished. If Clevinger skates, or if he gets suspended, serves it, and comes back, he’ll likely only still talk about “the distraction” then, with more apologies to the White Sox.

It just underlines the notion that, in professional sports, it’s considered a way worse offense to disrupt team dynamics or to create bad press than it is to do actually bad things.

---

Other Stuff

New York Times contributors blast the paper’s anti-trans bias

Last month I highlighted some egregious reporting on the part of the New York Times which reflected a blatant anti-trans bias and which framed matters of healthcare and gender-affirming care for trans people — and nearly all other matters related to trans, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people — as controversial and a “matter of debate.” This framing is exactly what conservatives want so that they can portray their blatant bigotry as reasonable and respectable. In this the Times was playing right into their hands.

Yesterday nearly 200 past and present New York Times contributors signed an open letter to the paper’s standards editor condemning this sort of bias in its coverage of trans, non-binary and gender nonconforming people, explaining why it is flawed and, in some cases, blatantly unethical. You can read the letter here. Of note:

For example, Emily Bazelon’s article “The Battle Over Gender Therapy” uncritically used the term “patient zero” to refer to a trans child seeking gender⁠-⁠affirming care, a phrase that vilifies transness as a disease to be feared. Bazelon quoted multiple expert sources who have since expressed regret over their work’s misrepresentation. Another source, Grace Lidinksy⁠-⁠Smith, was identified as an individual person speaking about a personal choice to detransition, rather than the President of GCCAN, an activist organization that pushes junk science and partners with explicitly anti⁠-⁠trans hate groups.

In a similar case, Katie Baker’s recent feature “When Students Change Gender Identity and Parents Don’t Know” misframed the battle over children’s right to safely transition. The piece fails to make clear that court cases brought by parents who want schools to out their trans children are part of a legal strategy pursued by anti-trans hate groups. These groups have identified trans people as an “existential threat to society” and seek to replace the American public education system with Christian homeschooling, key context Baker did not provide to Times readers.

There are many other examples cited, along with other examples in which the New York Times has, historically, been eager to buy into biased or hysterical viewpoints with respect to sexual orientation and the AIDS crisis, thereby serving a conservative cultural agenda, at best unwittingly, but in some cases with full knowledge of what it is doing. Only much later did the Times correct course on such matters.

My personal sense had been that what the New York Times has done along these lines was to naively attempt to be neutral in an area in which there are, actually, bad actors trying their damndest to cast vulnerable and marginalized people as threats and that that neutrality, by necessity, even if inadvertently, validated those odious views. Upon reading the additional examples cited in the letter, and by listening to those who have looked at this more closely, it seems pretty clear to me now that there is blatant anti-trans animus on the part of some Times writers and that the Times is going out of its way to elevate those voices. As a result, the Times’ coverage of trans stories has effectively laundered anti-trans narratives and has seeded the discourse with those narratives. Which, of course, is way worse than naiveté or cluelessness.

But even if one were to believe, as I once did, that it was naiveté or cluelessness, as opposed to malice, it’s a serious mistake and The New York Times needs to do better. Here’s hoping this pressure causes them to do so.

Jeffrey Epstein’s benefactor still controls The Ohio State University

Last fall, Kristina Johnson, the president of The Ohio State University, announced that she was resigning her post effective this May. It was a surprise announcement given that Johnson had just been hired in 2020 and, unlike past short-term presidents, she was not simply taking a better job elsewhere. The sense is that she was being forced out but no one was really sure why.

Yesterday Columbus’ daily newspaper, The Columbus Dispatch, dropped a big report strongly suggesting that Johnson was forced out by Ohio’s richest man/University trustee/Jeffrey Epstein benefactor Leslie Wexner in a power struggle. The upshot: Wexner, who despite having resigned all of his corporate positions in the wake of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, still sits on the OSU Board of Trustees, and still chairs and is the namesake of the Ohio State Medical Center/hospital system, which is massive. He wants the entire Medical Center to report to him, as opposed to the university president, which it always has done. Johnson saw that she was going to lose that power struggle, found her position untenable, and resigned.

To be sure, there is some pushback here, with sources close to the board (read: Wexner), saying that there were complaints about Johnson’s management style, that she was brusque with underlings and lacked communication skills, but it strains credulity that that was the reason she is resigning. I am as certain as I can be about anything that she ran up against Leslie Wexner’s still extant ambitions and his still strong local entourage of stooges and sycophants — one of whom, mentioned in the article, was my boss at my first law firm 25 years ago! — and that she lost.

The politics of a big state university aren’t particularly interesting to most of you, I don’t imagine. And even if it’s the big university in my town, they’re not necessarily super interesting to me, even. Power struggles have happened at Ohio State since there has been an Ohio State and they will always happen. But it’s absolutely gobsmacking to me that, after everything that has been said about Leslie Wexner, particularly with respect to his well-documented and beyond sketchy relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, that he is still calling the shots and, somehow, accumulating power at one of the largest universities in the country. At some point, why isn’t he forced back to his sketchy as hell compound to live out what’s left of his life with his billions in obscurity?

It’s important to note the gun nut’s rights

I got this email yesterday from my kids’ school district:

Dear New Albany Parents and Staff, 

The district was informed this afternoon by the New Albany Police Department that a man was in the Market Square area holding a flag as well as openly and legally displaying a weapon (rifle). New Albany Police were well informed and monitoring the situation closely. Additional staff members are present at parent pickup as well as the bus depot this afternoon for dismissal as a precaution. It is believed the man has left the area. New Albany Police are providing additional support around campus and in the Market Street area . . . Thank you and remember our focus on see something, say something as we are stronger together to create a safe campus for all. 

The Market Square area referred to is a couple hundred yards from the high school my son attends and is right in front of the public library where scores of kids, from elementary to high school, go both during and after school. There are also two ice cream shops, a toy store, and a Starbucks which are full of parents with small children basically all day long. The flag in question, it turned out, was the Gadsden flag, with the “Don’t tread on me” snake, so yeah, the guy’s a peach.

This message was sent to me by the City of New Albany itself:

The New Albany Police Department is aware that an individual is exercising his First and Second Amendment rights in the Village Center. Although the individual was carrying firearms and is legally permitted to do so, there was no indication that he posed a threat. Police will continue to monitor the situation.

I’m so glad to see the school and the city fall over itself to let us know that this friggin’ nut has the right to do what he’s doing because our state government, in turn, is full of nuts who think it’s way more important that people be able to carry around rifles near schools and where families with small children spend their day than to impose even a modicum of sensible regulation. It makes me feel so much better.

Raquel Welch: 1940-2023

Actor, icon, and international sex symbol Raquel Welch has died at the age of 82. No cause was given but her publicist said it followed a brief illness.

Welch achieved almost instant fame with two films in 1966: the Oscar nominated sci-fi film “Fantastic Voyage” and the prehistoric adventure “One Million Years B.C.” In both she was either tightly or scantily clad. In both she gained far more attention for her looks than her acting, even though both are actually pretty good genre films — “Fantastic Voyage” is a trip — and even though she gave perfectly fine performances in each. Hollywood is gonna Hollywood, however, and people are always gonna have a hard time looking beyond beauty when the person in question is as beautiful as Welch was.

That, for better or for worse, basically set the stage for the rest of Welch’s career, though it should be said that she did a lot more than just wear tight and low-cut clothes on screen. She played action heroes in period pieces and westerns. She played powerful family matriarchs in TV movies and on soaps. She was pretty hilarious in a two-part “Mork and Mindy” episode once upon a time. She also was a pretty prolific celebrity spokesperson and entrepreneur, selling beauty and fitness products and the like.

When Welch wrote a memoir she was pretty zen about the whole sex symbol thing, noting that while it was limiting, it was understandable and in any event was better than failure or obscurity. She once said, “I was not brought up to be a sex symbol, nor is it in my nature to be one. The fact that I became one is probably the loveliest, most glamorous and fortunate misunderstanding.”

RIP to a real one, who among all of her other assets, seemed to have a pretty damn good head on her shoulders.

Have a great day, everyone.