Cup of Coffee: August 24, 2023

Bad news for Shohei Ohtani, a big day for Aaron Judge, the usual dysfunction from the White Sox, the oldest player you’ve seen play, voter fraud, Russian "accidents," NYT nihilism, and my new book

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

It’s a good day to be here as a lot went down yesterday. Some of it — particularly as it relates to Shohei Ohtani — was bad. Some of it — Aaron Judge’s big night — was good. Pour yourself a big hot cup of Joe and catch up with us, won’t you?

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And That Happened

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Reds 9, Angels 4; Reds 7, Angels 3: Shohei Ohtani started the first game of this doubleheader — and homered as the DH — but left the mound alongside a trainer early in the contest with what was at first called “arm fatigue.” Hours later, however, Angels general manager Perry Minasian told reporters that Ohtani has a tear in his UCL and will not pitch the remainder of the season.

Ohtani said he was not feeling any pain and that what he was experiencing — just not feeling right, he said — is similar to what he’s been going through the past few starts. It’s unknown if he’ll require surgery to repair the UCL. If he does it’ll be his second Tommy John procedure and will, obviously, impact his impending free agency in a major, major fashion. Of course even if he doesn’t go under the knife it’ll impact the market for his services and, more importantly, his pitching future will be in question. Ohtani will get a second medical opinion in the coming days. Only then will we know what’s going on with him for certain. For now, though: major, major bummer.

Furthering the bad news for the Angels: Mike Trout went right back on the injured list just one day after he returned to the team from a seven-week absence due to a broken hamate bone. They’re calling it “lingering soreness” and the Angels will shut him down for at least ten days. Just a lost season for the once Greatest Player in the Game and now a big question mark for the current Greatest Player in the Game.

In all of that there were two baseball games played in Anaheim yesterday, both of which were won by the Reds. Elly De La Cruz had a whale of performance in the first one with six RBI that came via a three-run homer and a three-run triple. Spencer Steer had three hits and drove in two. In the second game Matt McLain went 2-for-5 with a home run and three RBI and Tyler Stephenson hit a two-run shot. The Reds cling to a half game lead for the third NL Wild Card.

Yankees 9, Nationals 1: It was a big night for Aaron Judge, who hit a solo homer in the first, a grand slam in the second, and a solo shot in the seventh for a six-RBI evening. D.J. LeMahieu homered as well. Maybe most surprisingly of all given how he’s been going, Luis Severino tossed six and two-thirds shutout innings Imagine if Judge had been healthy all year, if LeMahieu had been effective all year, and if Severino hadn’t been an arsonist all year. [imagines]. Actually, given everything else with theYankees it probably would’ve led to a lot of games in which Judge did great things and I ended up switching the Tungsten Arm O’Doyle recaps from the Angels to the Yankees, but it still would’ve been cool. As it is, he’s got 27 home runs and 54 RBI in 72 games while posting a line of .279/.406/.645 (185 OPS+). Fantastic season, even if it was a massively interrupted one.

Atlanta 7, Mets 0: Charlie Morton was dominant, tossing seven shutout innings with 11 strikeouts while allowing only two hits. That’s the third straight outing in a row in which Morton hasn’t given up a run. Two of those have come against the Mets, one against the Yankees. I guess he ❤️ NY. Marcell Ozuna went 3-for-4 with a home run and four RBI and Vaughn Grissom had a two-run triple. Atlanta takes two of three and concludes the season series against their division rival having gone 10-3.

Cardinals 6, Pirates 4: St. Louis scored five in the first two innings. The Pirates came back but could not come back all the way. They should’ve known that was impossible. Bob Dylan said so in “Mississippi.” Richie Palacios had three hits and drove in two.

Cubs 6, Tigers 4: Yan Gomes hit a tie-breaking, two-out single in the eighth. It was tied because Detroit's Kerry Carpenter hit a grand slam in the sixth. The Cubs took two of three from the Tigers.

Brewers 8, Twins 7: The Twins blew a 6-3 lead, but took a 7-6 lead in the top of the tenth. Then Willy Adames — who had hit a game-tying two-run homer in the seventh — drove in the tying run with a single + error combo that put him at third base. Brice Turang followed right after, scoring Adames with a walkoff infield single. That’s five straight wins for Milwaukee.

Fun fact that I, somehow, did not know: American Family Field in Milwaukee has a retractable roof but does not have air conditioning. I just assumed it did, but nope. Since it was nearly 100 degrees in Milwaukee yesterday they partially closed the roof to provide shade, but otherwise it was a total scorcher. Maybe part of those big renovations that Mark Attanasio wants can include a couple of window boxes? Maybe a ceiling fan?

White Sox 5, Mariners 4: Chicago blew a 3-1 lead in the top of the ninth and tied things back up in the bottom of the ninth via an Andrew Benintendi single. The Sox won it in walkoff fashion in the tenth when Cal Raleigh had Manfred Man Tim Anderson picked off between second and third. J.P. Crawford fielded Raleigh’s throw, threw the ball down to third where Anderson should’ve been dead to rights, but it ricocheted off Anderson’s helmet allowing him to come home and score. Just like they drew it up.

Royals 4, Athletics 0: Cole Ragans struck out 11 batters over six scoreless innings and Bobby Witt Jr. and Dairon Blanco homered. The Royals avoid the sweep.

Giants 8, Phillies 6: Welcome to the Giants, Paul DeJong. San Francisco’s newest player went 3-for-5 with a home run and four RBI in his first game with the club. Two of those RBI came in the top of the tenth inning, which gave the Giants the lead. Earlier he hit a two-run homer in the fourth. That dinger gave them a 4-0 lead, which they’d blow thanks to back-to-back homers from Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner in the sixth and then a three-run homer from Bryce Harper in the bottom of the ninth which forced extras. That blew the save for Camilo Doval. Indeed, he’s blown four straight save opportunities, so maybe someone should look into that.

Padres 4, Marlins 0: Seth Lugo tossed six shutout innings for the second start in a row. Four relievers allowed only one hit the rest of the way. It should’ve been just three relievers, but Robert Suárez was ejected in the eighth before even facing a batter for having sticky stuff on his left wrist and arm. That’ll be an automatic suspension for him, that’s for sure. Xander Bogaerts hit a two-run homer in the sixth. Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr. each singled in a run. The Pads take two of three from Miami.

Rays 6, Rockies 5: Randy Arozarena and Isaac Paredes homered and AL batting leader Yandy Diaz went 2-for-4 with three RBI including a two-run single which tied things up in the ninth and forced extras. The Rockies collapsing late? Now I’ve heard everything! Brandon Lowe led off the bottom of the tenth with a walkoff RBI single, knocking in the Manfred Man.

Orioles 7, Blue Jays 0: Dean Kremer threw six shutout innings while striking out five and the pen offered three no-hit innings to close it out. Anthony Santander homered twice, both solo shots. Kevin Gausman struck out nine against his old laundry but didn’t come anywhere near a win here.

Red Sox 7, Astros 5: Adam Duvall needed a moment after fouling a ball off his foot while batting in the top of the tenth inning. The moment served him well as he then hit a three-run homer which put Boston up and ultimately gave them the win. Dude hit a three-run home run Monday and a solo shot Tuesday too, so he probably never wants to leave Houston. Bad news for Boston, though, as Kenley Jansen had to leave the game with right hamstring tightness after three pitches. There will likely be an update on him today.

Dodgers 3, Guardians 1 — SUSPENDED: Big rain came through Ohio last night, suspending this one when a mere delay turned out to be insufficient to deal with things. It will resume this afternoon with the Dodgers leading 3-1 in the top of the third.

🎶 Above the planet on a wing and a prayer
My grubby halo, a vapor trail in the empty air
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly
Out of the corner of my watering eye
A dream unthreatened by the morning light
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night

There's no sensation to compare with this
Suspended animation, a state of bliss
Can't keep my mind from the circling sky
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I 🎶

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The Daily Briefing

White Sox bring back Tony La Russa as a consultant, hire Dayton Moore as an advisor, expect to name Chris Getz GM

According to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, who everyone knows is Jerry Reinsdorf’s mouthpiece, reported yesterday afternoon that the White Sox have brought back Tony La Russa in a consultant role, that former Royals GM Dayton Moore, who is currently an advisor with the Rangers, is expected to join La Russa in the front office, and that former White Sox player and current assistant general manager Chris Getz is expected to be named general manager.

This is about the most White Sox set of moves ever. It’s Reinsdorf bringing back his old ride or die La Russa, bringing in a long-tenured senior baseball executive in an amorphous position in which he almost certainly answers only to Reinsdorf, and installs a young internal hire as the GM who will almost certainly have every move he makes second-guessed by the old guys, thereby undercutting his vision and authority, assuming of course he even has some given that he’s spent his entire front office career as a subordinate to a couple of guys who just got the axe.

Absolutely perfect brand-enhancement, Jerry. No notes.

It sounds like Terry Francona is going to retire after the season

Cleveland Guardians manager Terry Francona has had a host of health problems over the past several years, some of which have caused him to be absent from the dugout for extended periods. Yesterday he told the press that, after the season he plans on having shoulder replacement surgery and a pair of hernia operations. Those each will have long recovery times and, from the sounds of it, they are going to cause him to call it quits on his managerial career, even if he doesn’t wish to formally announce it right now. Francona:

“I need to go get healthy for my life, and this lifestyle is just too difficult. I also know how I feel about doing the job a certain way, and I don't think I can necessarily do that anymore. And that bothers me. I don't want to fib to people (about my future), but I also don't want the last six weeks to be about me. The focus has to be on the players.”

All of that came a day after he made some oblique comments regarding his future, giving no details, but saying he felt “old and beat up” but saying that he did not want to lie about what he’ll do next season even if he didn’t want to say anything specific yet.

Francona has had a very good, long run as a major league manager. It’s almost certainly going to land him in the Hall of Fame. Here’s hoping that he can have a lot of good relaxing years both before and after that happens. If that means hanging up his hoodie it’s for the best.

Suzyn Waldman caught on hot mic saying Yankees game “boring”

Via Awful Announcing we learn that, in the middle the Yankees’ ninth straight loss on Tuesday night, New York broadcaster Suzyn Waldman called out the proceedings as “boring”:

With the score tied 1-1, the team formerly known as the Bronx Bombers sent three to the plate with nothing to show for it in the bottom of the fourth inning. And as WFAN’s Yankees radio broadcast was finishing up a commercial break before the start of the fifth inning, Waldman’s voice could be heard saying, “God, this is boring.”

Ironically, Waldman’s hot mic moment came during a commercial advertising the ability to listen to every Yankees radio broadcast on the Audacy app.

While some franchises suspend broadcasters who comment on the poor play of the local nine, I doubt the Yankees will do anything here. I mean, given how things have gone for the past couple of months, saying that the Yankees are “boring” is actually far too kind. I mean, even their GM is saying way worse things.

How MLB Network shills for the owners

My erstwhile colleague Bill Baer wrote some good stuff over at his newsletter yesterday about how MLB Network subtly and sometimes not so subtly shills for the owners and the league. His jumping off point was a segment in which Brian Kenney and Mark DeRosa talk about what kind of contract Shohei Ohtani might get in free agency and they comically lowballed it. Well, it was comically lowballed at the time, as it aired before Ohtani left last night’s game with a torn UCL and we have no idea what that’ll do to Ohtani’s free agent value, but they obviously didn’t know that yet, so Bill’s points still stand.

Some folks may have seen that segment and figured that it was just a matter of opinion, but as Bill notes, there’s a method to this madness:

MLB Network viewers will see it and accept it as a realistic contract offer. Then, when they hear that Ohtani wants $500 million, they will pick their jaw off the floor, run to the Internet, and call him greedy. They’ll call into radio stations to complain about greedy players. Some reporters and other media figures will parrot Kenny’s lowball figure uncritically, providing much the same effect on fans . . . When fans are disgusted with these so-called high contract demands, they let their teams’ owners get away with not spending money to put a competitive team on the field. “We would’ve loved to have Ohtani,” Rays owner Stuart Sternberg might say, “But $500 million was way out of our price range.” With no pressure from fans to spend on the roster, the Rays will enter yet another season with a sub-$100 million payroll and Sternberg will pocket more of that sweet, sweet revenue-sharing money.

If you only casually consume baseball media this may all seem like conspiracy theory stuff to you, but this pattern has played out over and over again over the years. And, as Bill notes, MLB has and will push out people who challenge the league and its priorities. I mean, when you shitcan Ken Rosenthal of all people for not toeing the league’s line it’s impossible to argue that you don’t have an agenda.

Not that there’s anything wrong with agendas. I have one (well, a dozen, but one as it relates to baseball economics) and Bill has one and a lot of others have them too. But we are pretty up front about it. MLB and its Network and affiliated media pretend they don’t, presenting their business as if it were straight news and unbiased opinion. It’s anything but.

The oldest player you’ve seen play in person

Yesterday morning I retweeted a video of Carl Yastrzemski throwing out the first pitch at a Giants-Red Sox game back in 2019, with his grandson Mike catching it. In so doing I commented on how great Yaz looks for his age, though I mistakenly thought the first pitch occurred more recently. Not that it matters much. Yastrzemski turned 84 the other day. Looking and throwing so good at 81 was no less impressive.

As I watched that video I was reminded that I actually saw Yastrzemski play in person once. I am not 100% sure about which game it was because I was but a wee lad, but a solid guess is that it was the Red Sox-Tigers game on September 18, 1982.

That was a weekend day game and almost all of our Tigers games when I was a kid were weekend day games, so that tracks. And while I don’t remember much specifically from the game I do remember it being on the cooler side and rather cloudy that day, and looking back at old weather tables shows that day to match. I suppose the game could’ve been in 1983 — they played the Tigers late that season too — but while I knew from baseball cards that Yaz was an old timer by the time I saw him I feel like there would’ve been a bigger deal made about seeing him if he was a week from retirement like he was in late September 1983. There wasn’t any hubbub about it that I can recall, though, so I’m doubtful that was it. With no ticket stubs or photos of the game I can’t nail it down definitively, so I’m just gonna say it was September 18, 1982. If that’s right, I witnessed Carl Yastrzemski go 2-for-4 with a homer and two RBI. Of which I have no recollection, but in my defense I used to spend a lot of time at those games eating Ball Park Franks and watching old men smoking cigars and younger men with gross mustaches and crop top t-shirts with no sleeves drinking way too much beer and wondering if they were going to murder me.

None of that is the point, of course. The point is that I am old enough to where I saw a dude who is now 84 play in person, which seems kind of jarring to me. This is like someone telling me, back in 1982, that they had seen Pie Traynor or Sloppy Thurston play.

[Editor: It’s actually worse than saying they saw Sloppy Thurston play. Had he lived that long he would’ve only been 83 years old in 1982]

I DIDN’T ASK YOU!

Anyway, I’m pretty sure Yaz is the oldest player I’ve ever seen play. He was born just after that crop of early-to-mid-1930s babies like Aaron, Mays, Kaline, and guys like that and they had all retired by the time I started going to games. Brooks Robinson, Cookie Rojas, and Ron Fairly were still playing in the first season I went to a big league game and they were older than Yaz, but I didn’t see them. Gaylord Perry, Jim Kaat, and Phil Niekro were slightly older active players during my early game-going experiences too, but I know I never saw Perry or Niekro play live and I’m almost positive I didn’t see Kaat in person. I suppose someone might’ve slipped through the cracks who was born before August 22, 1939, but I don’t think so.

Anyway, this all makes for a fun game: who is the oldest player you’ve seen in person? Or who would’ve been the oldest person if they were still alive? Yeah, I know there are some Silver Foxes among you subscribers who saw Hoyt Wilhelm pitch in the early 70s or who, as children, saw Mickey Vernon or someone who can put my Carl Yastrzemski entry to shame, but it seems like a fun game to play, no?

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Other Stuff

No, I did not watch the Republican debate. I have no interest in listening to a bunch of nihilist/arsonists talk about how they’re going to destroy civil society in an effort to woo a bunch of people who would sooner nominate an incarcerated Donald Trump than any of them. They’re all playing for second place, with half of them hoping Trump gives them a VP nomination, and I’m not sure how that’s any of that messy in-house stuff from the American Fascist Party is any of my business, frankly.

Trump is right! There was voter fraud!

Former president Donald Trump and no small number of GOP officials have blamed his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election on widespread election fraud. While People Who Hate America have dismissed these claims as false and irresponsible, Good Patriots know that Trump was right and that there were evil-doers out there trying to rig things. If you doubt them, look no further than the Great State of Ohio, which has conclusively found there to have been purveyors of duplicity, chicanery, skullduggery, and deception in our midst!

A Shaker Heights attorney who donated to ex-President Donald Trump’s campaign was convicted Tuesday of election fraud for voting twice in the last two general elections.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Andrew Santoli ordered sheriff’s deputies to take James Saunders straight to county jail after finding the 56-year-old guilty of two counts of illegal voting, a fourth-degree felony . . . Federal Elections Commission filings show Saunders made multiple small donations to Trump’s reelection campaign in both 2017 and 2020, as well as super-PACs supporting Trump’s candidacies. Saunders also made several reoccurring donations beginning in March 2020 to the National Republican Congressional Committee and WinRed, the GOP’s fundraising platform.

Wait. I’m sorry. I forgot that it does not count when a Republican does it.

Accidents happen. Some more than others.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch/mercenary whose troops had been fighting in Ukraine but who launched a rebellion against Russia in June before Valdimir Putin claimed the matter had all been settled and there were no hard feelings, died in a plane crash yesterday. There are unconfirmed reports that it was shot down. But dudes, it was totally shot down. Indeed, if Prigozhin survived the initial impact and was able to give an interview as he hurtled toward his demise, and if you were able to interview him in those moments, even he would say “yeah, this totally tracks, actually.”

There are people out there saying that this is no surprise. I disagree. Well, his death is no surprise, but I was fully convinced Prigozhin was going to “accidentally” fall out of a 30-story building or totally unexpectedly bump into someone who just so happened to be holding a syringe filled with polonium-210 or something. The plane crash was, to me, unexpected. And a little lazy, frankly. Putin used to be so inventive with his cold-blooded murder. He must be mellowing in his old age.

If you’re inclined to be mad at me for making jokes about this, by the way, know that Prigozhin himself was a murderer, with his Wagner Group responsible for no small number of atrocities in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Fun fact: killing people with sledgehammers became part of his and his group’s brand. From a well-sourced Wikipedia entry on him:

“T-shirts and other merchandise depict sledgehammers alongside the Wagner logo, supporters and members of the group pictured themselves holding both real sledgehammers and replicas in photographs shared online . . . In November 2022, when the European Parliament adopted a resolution designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, Yevgeny Prigozhin sent a sledgehammer smeared with fake blood to the European Parliament. Then a group of Russian ultranationalists threw sledgehammers at the Finnish Embassy in Moscow and Sergei Mironov, a Russian parliamentarian, posted a photo of himself posing with a sledgehammer branded with Wagner’s logo atop an engraving of a pile of skulls.”

So, yeah, while I think Putin deserves to be fired into the sun for being a murderous tyrant, I find myself bereft of fucks to give about Prigozhin either.

In other news, there are dozens of members of the U.S. Congress who believe that this country should be more like Russia and that we should support Russia more. Don’t listen to these psychopaths.

The Nihilist Times

In 2006, the late David Carr wrote about political commentary/whack job Anne Coulter in the New York Times, decrying her hateful bomb-throwing:

ONCE again, Ann Coulter has a book in need of flogging, and once again, people are stunned by what a "vicious," "mean-spirited," "despicable" "hate-monger" they say she is. Ms. Coulter, who seems afflicted by a kind of rhetorical compulsion, most recently labeled the widows of 9/11 "harpies." It is just one in a series from a spoken-word hit parade that seems to fly out of her mouth uninterrupted by conscience, rectitude or logic . . .

. . . As published at the height of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal in 1998, "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" reflected her background as a lawyer and was fairly scholarly, considering what came after it. But once her lethally blond franchise became part of public consciousness, or at least the lower stem of it that feeds off cable talk, she quickly learned that hyperbole is best sold by the ton. She has since suggested wistfully that Timothy McVeigh should have parked his truck in front of The New York Times, joked that a Supreme Court justice should be poisoned, and said that America should invade Muslim countries and kill their leaders. And she recently admitted that she is "no big fan" of the First Amendment that allowed her to say all of that.

Yesterday, this appeared in the New York Times:

Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted an online conversation with Ann Coulter, who writes the Substack newsletter Unsafe, and Stuart Stevens, a former Republican political consultant, to discuss their expectations for the first Republican debate and the future of American politics.

I get that running a massive media empire is difficult, and I get that politics often makes it such that those one opposes yesterday may become those with whom one might align tomorrow, but “don’t provide a platform for an irresponsible, venom-spewing asshat whom we have rightfully excoriated in the past” seems like the lowest possible bar. Most restaurants’ 86 lists have more staying power than that.

There are at least eleven dozen commentators who could’ve weighed in with their shallow pre-debate bullcrap yesterday. That the New York Times decided that Anne Coulter should be there instead is appalling. It makes me wonder how the people who run the opinion section of that paper sleep at night.

Legends of Major League Baseball

Check it out, y’all:

Yep, that’s the followup to my previous book, Stars of Major League Baseball. Except this time, instead of profiling the 28 biggest stars of baseball today, I profile the 28 biggest stars in baseball history. It comes out on October 3, but you can preorder it now. I just got those two advanced copies in the mail and it’s oh-so-satisfying to hold them in my hands.

Like the last one, Legends of Major League Baseball is aimed at young readers. The publisher says its for ages 9-12 but a lot of people told me that their much younger readers liked the last one. There are some nice big photos of each of the players in it and, with each bio being a page long or so, it’s an easy book to read to your little baseball fan at night. Of course folks can still read it if they’re older than 12 as I don’t dumb things down in either my facts or my prose. Kids can handle more than a lot of publishers think and I’m happy that the folks at Abbeville Press agreed with me on that score and let me write it how I wanted to.

Plus, as always, I’m half full of crap about a lot of things, so you even adults can read it and argue with me! Bonus: while you’d never do this with your laptop while reading this newsletter, you can totally throw a book across the room or pitch it into the fireplace when you get pissed at me for — for example — the fact that I included A-Rod in my 28 Legends but not Cy Young. Note, however, that I am not responsible for Rickey Henderson being shown in a Yankees uniform as opposed to an Athletics uniform. There were some photo rights issues with the more recent dudes.

Anyway, I got a lot of great feedback from so many of you on Stars of Major League Baseball. People sent me photos of their kids reading it and told me that their budding young baseball fans just devoured the dang thing. Of all the stuff I’ve been fortunate enough to do in my career that, by far, has made me the happiest. And yes, I include listening to Ozzie Guillen explain at the 2009 Winter Meetings how, unlike Tiger Woods, he would’ve been able to cheat on Elin Nordegren without getting caught and beat over the head with a nine iron. That’s a close second, but the kids loving my book edged it out.

Thank you, as always, for your support.

Have a great day, everyone.