Cup of Coffee: August 26, 2021

The postseason schedule, owner water-carrying, the most important sports journalist today, Glass Houses, and a public official equating masks with the Holocaust

Good morning!

I read yesterday that people who let their thoughts wander are happier. Given that this newsletter is about nothing if not about wandering thoughts, you should totally subscribe if you’re not already a subscriber:

And hell, if you are, make someone else a subscriber for only a tad more than the cost of a pumpkin spice latte a month:

Today we talk about the postseason schedule, way up on channel 810, provide an object lesson in MLB water-carrying, and read an interview with, arguably, the most important figure in sports media at the present time.

In Other Stuff I continue to think globally and stir shit up locally by outing a school board member who believes that mask mandates are like the Holocaust. Yes, he really said that and, I tell you what, that’s messed up. Finally, there are people out there who get tattoos of Billy Joel album covers. And not of even one of his better albums.

It takes all kinds. Let’s meet all kinds.

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And That Happened

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Orioles 10, Angels 6: The streak is over! The Orioles win! What’s more, they won against Shohei Ohtani who started and gave up four earned runs and went 0-4 at the plate. Still: the Angels were up 6-2 early and were still up 6-4 when Ohtani left the game after six, but the Angels bullpen could hold it. Baltimore scored a run in the seventh and five in the eighth. Ramón Urías and Kelvin Gutierrez each drew bases-loaded walks to put the Orioles up 7-6, and pinch-hitter Austin Hays added a two-run double. Cedric Mullins and Anthony Santander hit solo homers in the first, and DJ Stewart hit a two-run shot off Ohtani in the fourth. Jared Walsh hit a homer after Ohtani left the game.

I think it's actually pretty great that the O's ended their losing streak against the Angels, because by a lot of measures other than wins and losses, I think the Angels are gonna finish calendar 2021 with a way worse year than the Orioles will. Maybe this game will get cited in the litany of horribles.

Dodgers 5, Padres 3: I love to wake up to a bunch of tweets from only like a few minutes prior with people saying “oh crap, this game better end, Craig's gonna be up soon!” Makes me feel like everyone’s mom coming down to break up their party. This morning’s record scratch/hide the Boone’s Farm game came via this 16-inning game which, when adjusting for the Manfred Man, is the equivalent of a 21 inning game in the BeforeTimes.

A fine duel between Walker Buehler and Blake Snell in regulation concluded with Will Smith’s homer off of Snell in the eighth which tied the game up at 1 to force extras. That homer came on Snell’s 116th pitch. He’d stay in for one more batter and make it 122 pitches. I feel like even a new pitching coach is not enough to suddenly transform Snell into a 116/122-pitch-a-game pitcher in the space of five days, but since I didn’t see it, I suppose I won’t judge. Anyway.

Somehow, even with the Manfred Man, the teams did not score in the 10th through 14th innings. The Dodgers plated two in fifteenth via singles but Fernando Tatís Jr. hit a two-run blast in the bottom half to keep things keeping on. In the top of the 16th A.J. Pollock homered scoring himself and the Manfred Man to lead off the inning. The Padres had no answer in the bottom half and everyone went home to go to bed. Well, they went home. At this writing I’m guessing a good many of them aren’t asleep yet.

Cardinals 3, Tigers 2: Lars Nootbaar singled home Paul Goldschmidt in the bottom of the tenth to give the Cards the walkoff win. The Cardinals’ other two runs were also scored by Goldschmidt via solo homers. Want something done in this world you gotta do it yourself.

Astros 6, Royals 5: Yet another extra innings game. This one ended on a groundout — actually, a comebacker that the pitcher couldn’t handle — by Jake Meyers which plated Manfred Man Alex Bregman. Bregman had been at third because just before that Kyle Tucker singled him over. This was Bregman’s first game back in more than two months and, apart from scoring the winning run, all he did was notch two hits and knock one in.

Cubs 5, Rockies 2; Rockies 13, Cubs 10: This doubleheader was gimmicky by nature because of ManfredBall seven-inning contests, but the second game went to extra innings, meaning that the eighth, ninth, and tenth started with Manfred Men. Seeing a late 2021 season contest between these current Cubs and almost any version of the Colorado Rockies sounds tedious enough, but if forced to watch this twin bill I’d probably gouge my eyes out. Anyway, David Bote, Austin Romine, and Patrick Wisdom homered for Chicago in the first game. In Game Two, Ryan McMahon hit a two-run homer in the 10th which was followed by Brendan Rodgers hitting a two-run double that gave him five RBI for the game. Connor Joe hit a grand slam earlier in the proceedings.

Diamondbacks 5, Pirates 2: Carson Kelly and Pavin Smith hit solo home runs to help the Snakes crawl out of an early 0-2 hole and to avoid the sweep. David Peralta singled in the tying run and later doubled in two to cap the scoring.

Rays 7, Phillies 4: Brandon Lowe hit his 30th homer of the year in the fifth to give the Rays a 3-1 lead, Bryce Harper hit a two-run shot in the bottom half to tie things up, the Rays took another lead, Rhys Hoskins homered to tie it up again, but then Francisco Mejia hit a tie-breaking three-run homer in the ninth to give the game to the St. Peterburg Skates. No? Not doing “St. Pete Skates?” Too Gregg Easterbrook? Oh well, feel like that mighta worked if I had started using it 20 years ago.

Blue Jays 3, White Sox 1: Robbie Ray struck out 14 Sox batter in seven innings of one-run ball, but didn’t get the win because when he left the game was knotted at one. White Sox reliever Aaron Bummer came in and lived up to his name by coughing up two runs in the bottom of the eighth inning via three straight two-out singles, one of which knocked in a run. One of those other guys who singled later scored on a bases loaded walk issued by José Ruíz. It was unearned — the Sox should’ve been out of the inning and would’ve been but for an error — but the guy doesn’t score but for Bummer giving up a single to him so there we are.

Twins 9, Red Sox 6: Kyle Schwarber hit a two-run homer in the ninth to tie things up after the Sox came back from a four-run deficit but then Josh Donaldson and Jake Cave homered in the 10th to give the Twins a 9-6 victory. The biggest moment of this game, though, was probably Miguel Sanó’s 495-foot home run in the third. It was the longest in the majors this season and was just seven feet shorter than Ted Williams' famous "red seat" shot that is officially considered the longest in the history of Fenway Park.

Giants 3, Mets 2: Closer Jake McGee induced a game-ending popup from Pete Alonso with the bases loaded to help the Giants escape with a 3-2 win. The Giants were sloppy in this one, but they turned five double plays to pour water on would-be Mets rallies and Brandon Crawford hit a two-run double to bring them back from behind in the seventh.

Cleveland 7, Rangers 2: Franmil Reyes, Yu Chang, Óscar Mercado and Austin Hedges all homered for Cleveland. Three of those homers came off Jake Latz, who was making his big league debut filling in for Dane Dunning, who is on the COVID list. It was the most notable replacement I can think of since Jack Haley took over for Buddy Ebsen as the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz” because of Ebsen’s allergic reaction to the silver makeup. I mean, sure, Dunning was once replaced in the Republic western “Here Come the Cowpokes,” but that wasn’t because of illness, that was because of a laudanum jag.

Marlins 4, Nationals 3: One more extra inning game? Why not! One more long winning streak snapped? Why not! Here Jorge Alfaro hit a game-winning single with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th inning to snap the Marlins’ eight-game skid. In the top half of the tenth right fielder Jesús Sánchez threw out Manfred Man Carter Kieboom at the plate to save the day.

Brewers 4, Reds 1: Brandon Woodruff went six shutout innings and struck out ten. Avisaíl García hit an RBI double. Milwaukee has won 12 of 15 and extended their division lead to nine and a half games.

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The Daily Briefing

The Postseason schedule is once again relegated to cable

I fully appreciate that the reason MLB gets so much guaranteed TV money is because Fox, ESPN, and TBS pay them all that guaranteed money. And I know that, given how much they pay MLB, they can pretty much do whatever they want with the games they buy.

But I also know that one of the big reasons the Field of Dreams Game got such good ratings and so much hype was that it was an over-the-air, showcase game that everyone could watch and everyone was encouraged to watch. Against that backdrop, I can’t help but roll my eyes that the postseason schedule — which just got released yesterday — is, as usual, cast off to cable channels, and not all of ‘em on the first tier:

• Wild Card Games (October 5, 6): ESPN (AL) and TBS (NL);

• ALDS (October 7-13): FS1 or MLB Network;

• NLDS (October 8-14): TBS;

• ALCS (October 15-23): Fox (max three games, but possibly one) or FS1

• NLCS (October 16-24): TBS

The World Series, scheduled for October 25-November 3, is the only Series completely on network TV. Of course, the World Series won’t begin until there have been three solid weeks of playoff games almost exclusively on cable. In those three weeks the major networks — including Fox, the one which will broadcast the Series — will have spent all of its time promoting pro and college football, with baseball being an out of sight, out of mind proposition.

Again, I know that this works out quite nicely for Major League Baseball financially, and that after it sells the rights to its game inventory it has limited power to dictate where those games will air, but like so many other things MLB does, that revenue and its attendant surrender of power comes at the expense of what’s best for the sport over the long haul in any number of ways.

Justin Verlander won’t pitch in 2021

Astros GM James Click said yesterday that Justin Verlander will not pitch this year. Verlander had Tommy John surgery last October, and it was thought that he could possibly return for a postseason run for Houston, that was ruled out yesterday.

This is not super shocking, of course. While it used to be the case that TJ surgery rehab was around a year, these days the rehab timetable is more like 14-16 months.

Verlander, 38, has not pitched since 2020’s July 24th opening day. He will become a free agent after the postseason and, perhaps, a fireballing stint in the Astros bullpen during the playoffs may have boosted his market a bit, he should still be pretty sought-after on a short-term deal.

Jacob deGrom is cleared to throw

Mets ace Jacob deGrom’s latest MRI showed that his forearm has improved and, according to manager Luis Rojas, he has been cleared to begin throwing again.

There is no timetable for deGrom to rejoin the team, but the clearance coming now does give him a chance to ramp up and, perhaps, get in a minor league/training facility rehab assignment in time to get him ready to pitch in meaningful September games. Assuming, of course, that the Mets get close enough to the Phillies and Atlanta to have any meaningful September games. Sorta seems like a long shot at the moment.

Today in MLB water carrying

This came from the good Bob Nightengale yesterday:

The article is behind a paywall, but you don’t need to read it to know what’s in it, as the same article has been written by Nightengale and guys like him around CBA negotiation time for as long as I can remember. The tell here is the reference to the “have-nots,” which implies an inability, as opposed to an unwillingness, to spend money on payroll. Under that construction the argument is, necessarily, one about how the payrolls of clubs like the Dodgers can be reduced.

Any framing of payroll issues which focuses on efforts to penalize clubs which spend money on players in an effort to win and treats clubs which willingly field poor clubs with low payroll as victims is an inherently slanted article which carries water for Rob Manfred and the owners. And we will see dozens of them between now and December.

The New Yorker talks to Katie Strang

In the past couple of years The Athletic’s Katie Strang, often along with Brittany Ghiroli, has broken some of the biggest stories in sports. Off-the-field stories, that is, dealing with sexual abuse and misconduct across the sports world. Her work has been absolutely essential in exposing real wrongdoing by abusers and predators and, in so doing, making the world of sports safer for their would-be victims.

The New Yorker interviewed Strang this week, and it’s a must-read. Not only for the substance of the stories she has covered but also for the tensions that coverage can lead to in a sports media industry that is so deeply intertwined with the leagues and teams it covers and which is so institutionally loathe to stray off the field and look beyond the box scores.

Strang acknowledges that tension and makes it clear that it is no coincidence that her ability to break bigger stories like she does came at The Athletic, which is not a rights holder/parter to any leagues or clubs. She also describes how sports reporting, at least at some places, has begun to evolve away from a state in which it sticks only to the sports. Strang:

I think that we are seeing a seismic shift in sports media in understanding that it is no longer adequate and sufficient to cover sports in such a compartmentalized way that we write about box scores and what happens in the game. Athletes are human beings. They’re not assets; they’re not commodities. They intersect with the real world. And, in order to serve our readers, we have to write about athletes in their intersections with the world with context. And so I think that the media is evolving to understand and adapt to that. But I do think that it is human nature to avoid what makes us uncomfortable. A lot of the reporting that is required now needs you to flex a different muscle.

I don’t know if that shift is “seismic” as Strang says. Indeed, I think that may be some unconscious false modesty on her part, because she, Ghiroli, and only a few others — overwhelmingly women, by the way — are some of the very few who are pushing sports reporting into that admirable direction. But thank God they are doing it.

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Other Stuff

No, masks are not like the Holocaust

This item is about a thing that’s local to me, but I feel like it also speaks to the universal problem of toxic know-nothingness that is overtaking our society — including, increasingly, our school boards — so I’m writing about it here and not on just, say, my Facebook page.

As subscribers know, for the past week I have been ramping up my criticism of the New Albany, Ohio school board — where my kids go to school — for its refusal to impose a mask mandate despite the advice to that effect by the Ohio Department of Health, the CDC, and the overwhelming body of scientific consensus. New Albany is an outlier in this regard, as nearly every other school district in Central Ohio has either a full mask mandate or one for younger children who are unable to get vaccinated. This entire time has been frustrating, but writing about all of that has definitely been cathartic in a sense as well.

I looked into the matter some more yesterday, trying to figure out why the board made its decision to eschew masks. I was specifically interested in determining whether it was out of fear of, and capitulation to, anti-mask advocates as has happened in many communities or, rather, if anti-mask sentiment was near and dear to the hearts of the board members themselves.

In the process of doing that, I was referred to recent Facebook post of one of the elected members of the school board, a local businessman named Philip Derrow. His post, to say the least, dismissed the idea of masks out of hand and suggested that, at least in his case, the anti-mask sentiment was all his own:

That seemed pretty cavalier to me, so I dug deeper, looking to see if Derrow has posted anything else about masks or vaccines or what have you in public spaces.

On Facebook I found posts, such as this one from June 2020, where he appeared to dismiss the pandemic outright. A month earlier he noted, correctly, that given reporting inconsistencies, excess deaths would be a useful measure of how deadly the pandemic had become. He almost completely dismissed the possibility that there would be a significant rise in excess deaths, however, and in the event there were over half a million excess deaths in 2020 and have been well over 600,000 since the pandemic began. This was rather troubling because it was exactly that sort of talk, with all of its attendant skepticism of recognized public health authority, that characterized the backlash to public health measures which hamstrung our nation’s response to the pandemic last year. It was especially troubling to see such talk from an elected official in my community.

So I dug deeper. Which is when I found Derrow’s Twitter account.

It may sound odd to say I “found” an elected official’s Twitter account, but it’s an appropriate term here. Derrow lives in New Albany, of course, but the Twitter account listed its holder’s location as Jackson, Wyoming (some quick Googling reveals that he owns a second home in Jackson). It did not list his occupation and he mentioned his profession only occasionally, but it’s clearly him, right down to the identical avatar for each account. I emailed Derrow at his school board email address twice yesterday seeking comment and confirmation, messaged him at the Twitter account, and messaged him via Facebook, but I received no response from the co-founder of the New Albany Center for Civil Discourse and Debate.

Derrow’s Twitter feed is almost exclusively dedicated to posts about COVID and all that surrounds it. He posts under the guise of an informed skeptic, but his skepticism frequently drifts into an air of superiority. It’s an unearned air, however, as his tweets are overwhelmingly misinformed. He sets forth erroneous COVID information here and half-truths there while frequently circling back to the conclusion that everyone else is wrong. While Derrow’s Facebook posts seem to be pro-vaccine and dismissive of masks, there is a good deal on his Twitter account that, while not exactly anti-vaxxer — he claims he is vaccinated — can be said to be anti-vaxxer-adjacent, such as the endorsement of erroneous claims of the inefficacy of the Pfizer vaccine and his opposition to the FDA’s full approval of the vaccine. He likewise spent a great deal of time in the summer of 2020 passing along the erroneous — and dangerous — claim that COVID was no more harmful than the flu. He’s dismissive of the risk that COVID poses to children. The list of those whom he chooses to retweet and follow -- including notorious COVID fraud and misinformation source, Alex Berenson -- is telling in and of itself.

That’s all pretty bad, but none of it is as bad as a series of tweets he posted 11 days ago in which he compared mask mandates to the Holocaust.

It’s a thread that, at least as of this writing, is pinned to the top of Derrow’s Twitter feed, which shows that he considers it to be significant and well-considered on his part (if the tweets are deleted later I have saved screen caps of the entire thread here). For ease of reading — and so that it cannot be said that I did not provide full context — I’ll set forth the thread, verbatim, as a block of text. The ellipsis represent breaks between individual tweets. I have included a couple of paragraph breaks, also for ease of reading. I have bolded and italicized the most significant passage:

“18 months into the pandemic 16 months of cloth and surgical masks being recommended and then mandated Still not a single properly powered and controlled RCT, anywhere in the world, ever, showing masks “work” . . . It’s even worse for children, who are at statistically near zero risk from Covid, including Delta Yet 10s of millions have been muzzled, deprived of school and social contact, & told they would kill their parents and grandparents if they didn’t sacrifice For the 3rd school year . . .

And then AAP, the largest physician organization ostensibly dedicated to children’s health & well being declaring, from exactly zero evidence That masks don’t harm language & SE development Because it’s never been studied . . . I understand fear of the unknown, in March 2020 I understand parents desperate to protect their children I understand the difficult psychology of risk assessment I understand the Precautionary Principle I understand science, and therefore reject the notion of The Science™ . . .

We know so much more now We know if masks work at all it is marginal, at best We know the vaccines work, imperfectly, & so does convalescent immunity We know scientists & physicians abandoning the principles of scientific & medical integrity has horrific consequences . . .

Our experts and leaders persist in ignoring all we know I won’t assume their motives because it no longer matters They’ve been wrong, consistently A noble lie is still a lie They should be ignored or defied And then replaced . . . And if we are to truly learn from our mistakes these past 18 months Just as Jews after the horrors of the Holocaust We must declare, and implement laws to assure “Never Again” . . .

Never again should we delegate policy authority to those qualified only to provide narrow advice Never again should we willingly sacrifice liberty without objective proof of imminent harm, and an objective restoration plan — in advance . . . Never again should emergency government authority extend beyond 7 days without legislative consent, reconfirmed every 7 days Never again should we blindly follow experts, regardless of the initials after their name, if they don’t provide proof, show their work & admit error . . . Never again should we EVER sacrifice the needs of children to the unfounded fears of adults.”

We have seen such a comparison before, of course. Last May, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly used Holocaust comparisons to criticize face-mask mandates that have been enacted amid the coronavirus pandemic. Greene, as almost everyone knows by now, is notorious for her extreme and inflammatory rhetoric, which has led to multiple social media suspensions and a threat with formal Congressional censure. But while Greene’s comparison jibes with a whole host of other extreme views on her part, Derrow’s invocation of the comparison is considerably more puzzling given that he himself is Jewish.

Regardless of the speaker, however, comparisons such as Greene’s, and now Derrow’s, are deeply, deeply ignorant and patently offensive for obvious reasons. And regardless of Philip Derrow’s considerable confidence about all things COVID, his offensiveness and his ignorance make him profoundly ill-suited for the public office with which he has been entrusted.

Meanwhile, in Texas

Bad comps are bad, but in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott has issued an executive order banned vaccine mandates of any kind.

At this point I’d say that the only difference between Greg Abbott and the leader of an actual death cult is that actual death cult leaders have to have at least a bit of charisma to pull off their plans.

A “Glass Houses” tattoo? Really?

Jelisa Castrodale of Vice found something odd: people — like, multiple people — who have a tattoo of the album cover for Bill Joel’s 1980 LP “Glass Houses” someplace on their body.

It’s an odd choice, and not just because it’s a Billy Joel tattoo. I mean, he may not be your cup of tea (he’s not mine), but he’s super popular even after all these years, so it stands to reason that at least some people are gonna honor him with ink. But “Glass Houses” is something of an odd choice, is it not?

There are some memorable songs on it — my mom would spin that platter quite a bit when I was a kid — but it was by no means his most popular or most defining album. Indeed, it was the beginning of a period in which Joel consciously began to move away from the McCartney-esque songwriting which made him famous in the 70s and work his way through various genre exercises in the 80s. “Glass Houses” was his tougher, New Wave-ish, album. “The Nylon Curtain” was his (kinda) concept album about maturity and his generation looking at where it’s been and where it’s at. “An Innocent Man” is carefree nostalgia for the music of his 1960s youth.

There are all kinds of hits on those records — and even if I’m not a Joel fan I admired him stretching his boundaries in the 80s — but I feel like none of it matches the quintessential Billy Joel of “Piano Man,” “Turnstiles,” or “The Stranger.” Of course, there isn’t a ton of visual content in Joel’s oeuvre, be it logos, videos, or classic photos, that lend themselves to bitchin’ tattoos, so why not get the one with him in a leather jacket getting ready to heave a rock through a window?

Not that it has made the art all that recognizable to people:

What has the response to your tattoo been like? 

Connick: I don’t currently live with enough people who recognize it for exactly what it is. But going to Billy Joel concerts is a joy, when people recognize what’s on my arm. I do like that, but it doesn’t happen as often in general life as I’d like it to. 

I dunno. Maybe the dude should just hang around people like my mom more. Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten a “Glass Houses” tattoo to begin with.

Then again, he may be right.

Have a great day, everyone.