Cup of Coffee: April 21, 2022

Pitch clocks, evacuations, Muay Thai, vicious home run trot attacks, sponsor patches on uniforms, ballplayer gambling endorsements, masking and RVs

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

We’re a bit truncated, particularly with the recaps today. You can blame my dad for that. Seems he’s hellbent on getting his ICU loyalty card punched enough times to get the free sub or whatever the hell it is they give you for that accomplishment.

The short version: when you’ve had major heart surgery, an extended hospital stay, and you’ve already got CLL that has blasted your immune system into basically nothing, you are a great candidate for getting C. diff. When you get C. diff once — like he had a few weeks ago — you have a one in six chance of getting it again, which he did. It’s like winning the shittiest possible lottery.

He went back into the hospital on Monday when I was in Vermont. Because my parents are terminal Midwesterners they basically did the old “ope, didn’t want to bother you when you were traveling” thing so I didn’t know until yesterday morning. I spent much of yesterday with him in the hospital, went back home mid-afternoon figuring that I’d just see him again in the morning, but then around 9pm he took a bad turn and I had to pick up my mom and come back to the hospital with him. He was admitted to the ICU a little after 11 and I stayed with him until way past zero dark thirty, came home and crashed. As of now he’s doing as OK as one can do in that situation, but suffice it to say, looking at box scores was not really high on the priority list.

But hey, there were enough items completed before all that went down to where we’ll go through the motions today, eh?

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And That Happened

Here are the scores. Normally at the point I would have highlights but, as I noted above, life did not allow for that last night or early this morning. But talk amongst yourselves about these games.

I’ll give you a topic: five shutouts on a single night is too many shutouts and maybe, at a time when pitchers’ dominance has fundamentally altered the nature of the game, deadening the ball to make life harder for hitters was not the greatest idea.

Phillies 9, Rockies 6
Dodgers 5, Atlanta 1
Guardians 11, White Sox 1; Guardians 2, White Sox 1
Brewers 4, Pirates 2
Padres 6, Reds 0
Giants 5, Mets 2
Orioles 1, Athletics 0
Rays 8, Cubs 2
Angels 6, Astros 0
Yankees 5, Tigers 3
Cardinals 2, Marlins 0
Diamondbacks 11, Nationals 2
Blue Jays 6, Red Sox 1
Royals 2, Twins 0
Mariners 4, Rangers 2

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The Daily Briefing

The minor league pitch clock is working

I’ve been an advocate for a pitch clock for some time. I’ve been to a lot of Triple-A games where the 20 second pitch clock has been used for several years now and it’s completely unobtrusive, even unnoticeable, to fans while increasing the pace of play. Now, with the recent widespread adoption of a 14-second clock with the bases empty and an 18-second clock with runners on across the minor leagues, we have some data to show just how well that stricter pitch clock is working.

Over 132 games through this past Sunday, the average game time was 2 hours, 39 minutes. In a control set of 335 games run without the clock to begin the minor league season, games lasted an average of 2 hours, 59 minutes. Only 15% of games exceeded three hours, compared to 52% of games exceeding three hours last season when there was no timer in place. Scoring has not been noticeably impacted.

Under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, Major League Baseball can impose rules changes with 45 days notice. It is unlikely, both for technical reasons and out of an interest in not disrupting an in-progress season with such a significant rule change, that MLB would put pitching clocks into major league games this year, but assuming this minor league experiment continues to go smoothly, I’d bet we get them next year.

Which, again: good. And not necessarily because of game length, which I’m not primarily concerned about. It’s all about game pace. If you watch video of games even from the 1990s, the rhythm of the game was way, way better, with pitchers pitching, getting the ball back, and pitching again without the eons between pitches we see now. It was simply a far more aesthetically pleasing game when pitchers did not take forever to gear up for max-velocity, maximally-executed pitches. Making them work faster will likely cut down a tad on the velocity which has taken so much action out of the game. It’ll be easier to follow pitching sequences and watch pitchers setting up batters and batters adjusting that we can now in the age of basically isolated pitches separated by vast spans of time.

No, this won’t take us back to the 1970s or anything — long commercial breaks and an unprecedented level of bullpen use prevents that — but it will be an improvement.

U.S. Capitol evacuated due to Nats pregame entertainment

The U.S. Capitol was evacuated last night after police identified an aircraft that they said posed “a probable threat” to the building. The plane: a twin engine number carrying members of the U.S. Army Golden Knights, who then parachuted into the Nationals Park during the pregame festivities before the Dbacks-Nats game.

Seems like a communication breakdown between the pilot, the FAA, and the Capitol police, with the latter two not fully aware that someone was parachuting into Nats park.

This may make the to-10 season highlights for the Nats in 2022, actually.

Quote of the Day: Tommy Pham

On Tuesday night Luke Voit of the Padres slid into home plate and took out Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson. As he crossed the plate, Voit brought his arms down and smacked Stephenson on the head, forcing him out of the game with a concussion.

The slide looked rough — kind of like pro wrestling — but the roughness seemed to be more a function of Voit not knowing what the hell to do with that body of his than it was malicious. And, ultimately, it was ruled a clean slide. Even Reds manager David Bell said he didn’t have any complaints about it being dirty or anything, even if he did not like the result.

Stephenson’s teammate Tommy Pham took issue, though. Pham:

“The way his hands hit him, it was dirty as fuck. I don't like it at all. The way his hands hit him in the face, it was dirty. If Luke wants to settle it, I get down really well. Anything -- Muay Thai, whatever. I know an owner who’ll let me use his gym if we need to settle anything.”

It’s been a while since I’ve offered a “lighten up, Francis” but this seems to call for it.

No one tell Tommy Pham about this

A college baseball game between Weatherford College and North Central Texas College featured a home run trot that was interrupted between third and home by, basically, the pitcher going all Brian Dawkins on the batter:

OLIVIA witherite ⁷ @Oliviawitherite

holy — never seen anything like this before.

Gonna go out on a limb and guess that there was some history there, because I don’t feel like a mere home run justifies running a dude down like freight train.

Rockies, Kyle Freeland ink an extension

Starter Kyle Freeland and the Colorado Rockies agreed to a five-year, $64.5 million contract extension on Tuesday. It includes a sixth-year player option, so he’s in Colorado through at least 2026 and could be in 2027 as well.

Freeland, a first round pick in the 2014 draft, has helped anchor the Rockies rotation since debuting in 2017. Since then he is 40-42 with a 4.27 ERA (115 ERA+) in 127 games, 122 of which have been starts.

Dave Stewart joins Nashville expansion initiative

Nashville has, for years, been floated as a potential location for a new or relocating MLB team. It has also, for a few years now, been home to a venture called Music City Baseball, which seeks to land a team in, well, Music City. You may recall hearing that Phillies GM Dave Dombrowski and White Sox manager Tony La Russa, along with various Nashville-based and/or music industry celebrities such as Justin Timberlake and Darius Rucker, were involved with the group.

On Tuesday Music City Baseball announced that they have appointed former MLB ace, former Diamondbacks executive, former agent, and current real estate mogul Dave Stewart to lead its Diverse Equity Ownership Initiative. That will feature Stewart, along with several other minority investors in Music City Baseball, and its chairman, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, seeking to attract more racial/ethnic minority investors. That will, in turn, result in the first majority minority-controlled professional sports franchise in North America. At least if the group actually does land an expansion team.

From Music City Baseball’s press release:

“The time has come for Black ownership in Major League Baseball. Now, more than ever, we need to change the dynamics and unlock access to ownership for minorities,” said Stewart. “We are creating a historic opportunity with the Nashville Stars, and I’m proud to lead our efforts to secure an ownership group that is aligned with our core mission, values, and legacy.”

The proposed team name, the Nashville Stars, pays homage to the Negro Leagues teams that played in Nashville in the 1940s and 1950s. Stewart, in his search for owners, will honor that legacy and continue the ongoing partnership with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

It has been 24 years since the last MLB expansion. That’s, by far, the longest such stretch without an expansion club since the expansion era began in 1961. Rob Manfred has said that there will not be expansion unless and until the Oakland and Tampa Bay stadium situations get sorted out. Once that happens, though, it would appear that the Nashville Stars are on track to be one of the new clubs.

Padres first team to introduce sponsor patches on uniforms

The new Collective Bargaining Agreement permits the introduction of sponsorship patches on uniforms and helmets and stuff. Those will begin appearing on the field in 2023. On Tuesday the Padres became the first team to announce who their jersey sponsor will be — Motorola — and what the patch will look like:

That’s something I probably would’ve gotten more worked up about a couple of years ago, but the combination of (a) Rob Manfred selling and/or getting sponsorship for absolutely everything that isn’t nailed down; and (b) my watching English soccer has pretty much desensitized me to it. At least as a matter of principle. Like most battles I fight, it seems, that one has been lost so there’s not a ton of sense in continuing to fight it.

Not to say that this is as palatable as it is in soccer. There are far more wide shots on soccer broadcasts than in closeup-heavy baseball games, so you tend not to notice the corporate logos and wordmarks as much as you do the clubs’ overall color schemes while casually watching a game. And those color schemes, for that matter, are far more important in soccer because it used to always just be colors as opposed to baseball where the words on the chest and patches on the sleeves have always featured team branding. Soccer’s sponsorship, while FAR less subtle than baseball’s new patches, somehow disrupts the overall vibe less. At least when watching a game. When it comes to buying merch, welp, you simply become the billboard in soccer.

At least this Padres example integrates team colors in the logo, so that’s better. I can’t imagine all of them will given that color is important to most brands. In the end I’ll probably be more invested in the particular brands in question as opposed to aesthetics, however. As the old saying goes, there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, but I imagine some of the sponsors are likely to be sleazier than others, so expect plenty of shade from me on this matter going forward.

Charlie Blackmon becomes first active baseball player to get a gambling endorsement deal

Got this press release yesterday morning:

“MaximBet has just announced that it has reached a partnership agreement with the Colorado Rockies’ Charlie Blackmon, officially entering sports betting’s first-ever endorsement deal with an active professional baseball player.”

Given that Blackmon could be banned for life for using the product, at least in certain ways, and given that the ONE sport for which he has demonstrated expertise and insight is the ONE sport for which he cannot use the product, I question how great an “endorsement” it can be. But congrats to MaximBet, whatever the hell that is, for getting the imprimatur of a pro athlete on their product to at least suggest to gambling addicts that Blackmon’s involvement means something.

Greg Holland was DFA’d

The Texas Rangers designated reliever Greg Holland for assignment on Tuesday. He had given up four earned runs, including three homers, in four and two-thirds innings over five appearances on the young season. It would appear that the three-time All-Star reliever and the 2017 AL saves leader is just simply out of gas. He had made the Rangers out of spring training after signing a minor league contract.

If this is the end of the Holland he’ll finish with a 3.14 ERA (130 ERA+), 220 saves and 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings across an excellent 12-year career.

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Other Stuff

Amy Kaufman speaks

Amy Kaufman, the ex-wife of former baseball writer Jonah Keri, sat down for an interview on CBC talking about her experience as a victim of intimate partner violence and how she’s moving forward following Keri’s sentencing to 21 months in prison.

Warning: the video contains disturbing details of violence assault and mental cruelty and abuse.

It’s my personal choice, man

Even though I had strongly suggested on Monday that there’d be no newsletter yesterday, I had given half a thought to doing at least a truncated one anyway. Ultimately the travel day just took too much out of me.

The final straw, actually, came after the second leg of my light landed back here in Columbus. Anna and I left baggage claim and made our way to the elevator for the airport parking garage. Another man got on the elevator. Anna and I were wearing masks. He was not.

Man: “Haven’t you guys seen the news?”

Me [not knowing what he was referring to; wondering if something huge happened while we were in flight]: “No, what happened?”

Man: “You don’t have to wear those masks anymore.”

Me: “We fucking want to, how about that?”

I am not going to die on the hill of mask-wearing because that battle has been lost. I am under no illusions about that. Indeed, anyone who read my Pandemic Diary knows that, even back in 2020, I knew that that battle would be lost. We’re a country that decided long ago that we are far more concerned with the avoidance of even the most minor inconveniences than we are in engaging in even the most basic and minimum forms of beneficial collective action. The moment masks and vaccinations and things got politicized it was over. That happened a very, very long time ago, even if it took some unqualified judge in Florida to ultimately act in the case of masks on airplanes.

But just because I’m not going to wail and scream when the final few precautions still left in place in this country are inevitably thrown aside does not mean I’m not going to attempt to be sensible myself. Or to do what I feel comfortable doing. I find airports and airplanes to be rather icky public spaces and, while it did not occur to me to wear masks in them before 2020, I get some psychic comfort out of doing so now and likely will continue to wear masks in airports for some time. Same with grocery stores. Even if COVID goes down to zero — which it is not doing — I rather like the fact that my family and I have gotten far fewer colds, sinus infections, and various other forms of crud in the past couple of years than we used to get.

Which is to say: it’s none of that guy’s or anyone else’s goddamn business what I’m doing. You’d think the sorts of folks who like to parrot the “it’s a personal choice” line when they do stupid-ass things would understand that, but of course, it was never about it being a “personal choice” in the first place, was it?

Van Go

Like a lot of people, I often fantasize about leaving all of my responsibilities behind, getting into a car, and aimlessly driving around the country with only my whims and wits as my guide. Unlike a lot of people who fantasize about such things, however, I rarely if ever have set that fantasy in a camper van that comports with the idealized, Instagram-friendly #VanLife lifestyle of Mercedes Sprinters with loft beds and all of that business.

There are a few reasons for this, many of which are tied up in how artificial and privileged that whole scene strikes me. I won’t paint with too broad a brush, but it sure seems like that world is populated by a lot of folks with a lot of money on their hands who are playing bohemian for a bit while kind of ignoring the fact that there are people who live in vans out of desperate economic necessity. It’s just a bit too “Common People” for my tastes, ya know?

A bigger reason, though, is that when I was a child my family vacations were almost always RV vacations. We had a Midas mini that looked a hell of a lot like the one at the top of this item. Instead of a trust fund paying our way my dad kept a wad of cash in the gaucho cushions.

While we never went way out west with it we took that RV from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Key West, from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to the Mississippi and everywhere in between. There were some fun times on those trips to be sure, but once you spend a lot of years taking RV vacations in a rig like that, well, you get it out of your system. If I go wandering the highways and byways of North America again some day the nights will be spent in places where the beds don’t fold up into dinette sets during the day and the toilet leads to an actual sewer system instead of a holding tank.

Whether it was in spite of my skepticism of #VanLife types or because of it, I rather liked this story from Caity Weaver of New York Times Magazine about spending a week in a rented conversion van in California. I was prepared to hate it at first because I figured it was going to be someone who has never camped before “discovering” that camping can sometimes be a pain in the ass:

To suggest that the worst part of vacationing in a van is sleeping in a van is not fair to the other aspects of the endeavor, which are also all the worst part — but it is cramped, slovenly and bad.

But the article was funny and, once you got past the parts in which she just complained about it, the central observation, about how both vacation photos and memories lie to us in surprising ways, is a worthy one.

Indeed, as I sit here right now I can remember how uncomfortable my little side dinette bed in the motorhome was, how little I enjoyed campground showers, and how miserable I was on that entire trip to Nova Scotia. But I can simultaneously remember falling asleep in that bed with the window open and listening to the waves of Lake Superior crash on the beach on which we were parked, how fun it was to run around those campground with my brother and friends we’d bring along with flashlights at night, and how, for as miserable as I was on that trip to Nova Scotia, how beautiful it was and how, now, 37 years later, I am so very happy we went.

Maybe memories don’t lie. Maybe they just change. And with them so too do the experiences which formed them.

Have a great day, everyone.