Cup of Coffee: July 6, 2023

It's time for an All-Star break sale!

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

It’s a special Free Thursday this time around, as it’s the day I’m kicking off my All-Star Break sale!

Yes, it’s still a couple of days until the All-Star break, but I wanted to get a jump start on things. Also, unlike some of my past sales, this one applies only to annual subscriptions. So now would be a fantastic time for Free Thursday only folks to take the plunge and for those of you on monthly plans to go to an annual plan.

One more thing: with Twitter dying, so too is my primary means of promoting the newsletter. I’m not too worried about it, but I’d be lying if I felt great about it, so if you could share this with someone who may be interested, by all means, do so!

Thanks, gang. You’re the best. Now on with the show.

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And That Happened

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Reds 9, Nationals 2: In the second inning of this game Nationals manager Dave Martinez called on the the umpires to check Elly De La Cruz’s bat to make sure it was legal because he had a little piece of plastic on the knob of the bat. The umpires made him take it off because they weren’t sure and had not yet heard back from the league yet on a determination. Eventually the league communicated back with the crew that the plastic thing was fine and that De La Cruz could use it. Then, in the fifth inning, De La Cruz hit a 450+ foot homer, looked back at ump — or maybe the Nats dugout — and gestured for them to check again. He went on to add two doubles and scored another run. The guy is absolutely wonderful. Joey Votto also homered and finished with three hits and Will Benson had two hits and two RBI. The Reds have won seven of eight.

Astros 6, Rockies 4: Yainer Díaz homered twice — a solo shot in his first at bat and a two-run shot in his second — and Jeremy Peña added a two-run shot to make it 5-0 early. After the game Dusty Baker said this about Díaz: “He drove in all the first three runs with some booming home runs and we needed that.” With that sort of trenchant insight I’m shocked Dusty didn’t give up managing for television years ago. Oh well, TV’s loss. Colorado would make a game of it, with homers from C.J. Cron and Randal Grichuk turning it into a 5-4 contest by the top of the seventh, but Mauricio Dubón’s RBI single in the bottom half provided a cushion.

Athletics 12, Tigers 3: Eduardo Rodríguez returned from a long stint on the injured list to make his first start since May 28. It didn’t go well, as he gave up five runs on six hits in four innings, setting the stage for an Athletics rout. After the game A.J. Hinch said “health-wise, he checked out great, which is very important. It was a weird game for him, because I thought his stuff was OK and he got some strikeouts, but they took advantage of their chances.” I’d say.

Phillies 8, Rays 4: Taijuan Walker allowed four runs and five hits over seven innings but he was backed by a 17-hit attack led by Bryson Stott, J.T. Realmuto, Alec Bohm, and Nick Castellanos which allowed him to pick up his sixth win in a row and tenth overall. Four straight losses for Tampa Bay. Six of ten overall.

Marlins 10, Cardinals 9: Miami had a 5-0 lead by the second, had blown it by the third, took an 8-6 lead by the sixth, blew it in the ninth, but then plated two in the bottom half on a Joey Wendle infield single combined with a Jordan Hicks throwing error to first base that sailed down the right field line to give Miami the walkoff win. Or to give St. Louis the stagger-off loss. Whichever you prefer.

Orioles 6, Yankees 3: Dean Kremer allowed two runs — one earned — on four hits over seven innings while striking out ten. Brand new callup Colton Cowser, about whom I have more down in The Daily Briefing, singled in a run and scored on fellow rookie Jordan Westburg’s two-run triple. Ryan O’Hearn hit a two-run homer in the ninth as the scuffling O’s get a much-needed win.

Atlanta 8, Guardians 1: Sean Murphy, Matt Olson, and Austin Riley all homered. Michael Soroka was staked to an early 4-0 lead and was up 5-0 in the fifth, but while he was effective he was not efficient and was pulled at 99 pitches with one out to go before being able to qualify for the win. Atlanta has won 18 of 20 and hasn’t lost a series since Chuck Tanner managed the team. At least it feels like it.

Red Sox 4, Rangers 2: Brayan Bello took a shutout into the sixth and ended up allowing just two runs over seven. This a start after he took a no-hitter into the eighth. That was definitely needed after the Sox played a couple of games in which they pitched eleventeen different dudes out of an ever-tiring pen. Justin Turner had a pair of RBI singles.

Twins 5, Royals 0: Pablo López pitched a four-hit shutout, striking out 12. He retired 15 straight from the third to the eighth inning, including a stretch with six consecutive strikeouts. Feels like both the Twins and the Marlins won the Luis Arráez trade, eh?

Cubs 4, Brewers 3: Closer Devin Williams collapsed, failing to hold a 3-1 lead in the ninth. Mike Tauchman doubled in two runs and scored the third when Nico Hoerner reached on a Brian Anderson throwing error to complete the Cubs comeback. It was the second blown save for Williams in 20 chances. It happens even to the best of ‘em.

Padres 5, Angels 3: Manny Machado homered and drove in three runs. The Padres held Shohei Ohtani hitless again. Indeed, he was 0 for 10 with two walks with two strikeouts in the series. Is it just a slump or is the blister and cracked fingernail that took him out of Tuesday’s game as a pitcher affecting his hitting as well? The Padres sweep the three-game series. They now face the Mets over the weekend in a battle between underachieving titans that we all sorta wanna watch in a twisted and perverted way. Like Bumfights.

Giants 2, Mariners 0: Alex Cobb tossed six shutout innings with seven Ks and three relievers finished off the seven-hitter. Lamont Wade Jr. accounted for both Giants runs via a sac fly in the third and reaching on an error in the fifth which allowed a run to score. The Giants snap a four-game losing streak.

Mets 2, Diamondbacks 1: The Mets, meanwhile, extend their winning streak to four behind an outstanding outing from Kodai Senga, who went eight, allowing just one run on four hits while striking out a dozen. He wasn’t the only good pitcher here, though. His counterpart, Tommy Henry, shut the Mets out for six and neither team scored until Christian Walker homered off of Senga in the seventh. New York plated their only two runs in the ninth via a Francisco Alvarez solo shot and a Mark Canha triple. Thanks to Senga and the pen, two was enough.

Dodgers 6, Pirates 4: J.D. Martinez and David Peralta hit back-to-back homers in the fifth. Martinez’s was a three-run shot. It was not a well-pitched game, with Pirates pitchers Osvaldo Bido and Rosany Contreras combining to issue four walks over the fourth and fifth inning. A couple of Bido’s walks set up that Martinez blast. Both of them were called for pitch-clock violations. The Dodgers bullpen created a few jams late but slipped out of them. Hard to tell from just a box score but it seems like it was a hard game to watch. It lasted 2:44. Without the pitch clock this seems like it’d be a three and a half hour kind of ordeal.

Blue Jays vs. White Sox — POSTPONED:

🎶 The sun is out, the sky is blue
There's not a cloud to spoil the view
But it's raining, raining in my heart

The weather man says clear today
He doesn't know you've gone away
And it's raining, raining in my heart 🎶

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The Daily Briefing

Jimmy Cordero suspended for the rest of the season for domestic violence

Yesterday afternoon Major League Baseball announced that Yankees reliever Jimmy Cordero has been suspended for the rest of the season for violating MLB’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy. Per the press release, Cordero has “accepted” the suspension, meaning that it was almost certainly a negotiated penalty which entailed his agreement not to appeal.

Unlike most of these cases, no incidents or arrests involving Cordero had been reported prior to MLB making its announcement. For its part MLB never publicly reveals the facts or findings of its domestic violence investigations, so we don’t have the details of what he did to deserve this punishment. One presumes that it’ll come out soon, however.

Cordero's ban, which amounts to 76 games is eighth longest the 16 suspensions the league has given out since adopting the domestic violence policy in 2015. The longest, 324 games but reduced to 194 on appeal, was handed to Trevor Bauer. Sam Dyson got 162, José Torres got 100, Hector Olivera was hit with 82, and Cordero’s teammate Domingo German got an 81-game penalty.

Cordero, 31, has appeared in 31 games for the Yankees this season, posting a 3.86 ERA (100 ERA+) and a K/BB ratio of 34/10 across 32.2 innings. He has been a key part of a Yankees bullpen which, in turn, has been a key part of keeping the club’s head above water with injuries to Aaron Judge and slumping bats up and down the lineup. Now he’s gone.

Mike Trout had surgery

This time yesterday it was unclear if Mike Trout would require surgery to repair his broken hamate bone. Now we know: he did require it. And he had it yesterday. And it was successful. They say that about all the surgeries, of course. Even the ones that are horrifically botched, but I’d like to think they’re being honest here.

They’re saying Trout will be out 4-8 weeks. My guess is that, four weeks from now, the Angels competitive position will be such that it won’t make a ton of sense for him to rush back and that eight weeks or more, followed by a lot of talk about getting in shape for 2024, will be in order.

Colton Cowser joining Orioles

The Baltimore Orioles promoted top outfield prospect Colton Cowser yesterday. Cowser, 23, was the fifth overall pick in the 2021 draft.

Cowser has hit .330/.459/.537 with 10 doubles, a triple, 10 home runs, 40 RBI, 54 runs and seven steals in eight attempts in 56 games at Triple-A Norfolk this season. Word on young Mr. Cowser is that he hits the ball hard to all fields and has patience at the plate but that he will strike out a lot. He’s going to play a corner because Cedric Mullins has center on lock, but he can apparently handle center field too, so defense should be a plus. Whether it’s Austin Hays, Anthony Santander, or Aaron Hicks who see a decrease in playing time is Brandon Hyde’s problem, not mine, but between the DH and the way players rotate through on most clubs, figure that Cowser will get his hacks along with all the others.

Cowser is one of several O’s prospects to get called up in the last year, with Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson and Jordan Westburg also making the show. See Tigers fans: sometimes rebuilds actually build something.

The Atlanta Baseball club is splitting from Liberty Media

Front Office Sports reports that the Atlanta Baseball Club is going to be split off from Liberty Media and become its own public company. The move is part of a larger reorganization plan that was first announced last year and which is aimed at “better highlighting” Liberty’s component parts. Particularly the baseball team, which has been wildly successful both on and off the field over the past several years.

We all know the on-field stuff: Atlanta currently has the top record in all of baseball, is on its way toward its sixth straight division title, and it won the 2021 World Series. Financially speaking, Liberty says the team’s first-quarter revenue grew 35% this year. Its 2022 revenue was $588 million and, with attendance slightly up, it looks to go higher this year.

The split from Liberty Media is poised to take place on July 18 when the entity will become known as Atlanta Braves Holdings Inc. All the neater and more self-contained to sell you, with, my dear.

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Other Stuff

Coke at the White House

From the New York Times:

A small amount of a white powdery substance was found in the White House on Sunday evening, according to a person familiar with the episode, and an initial test by emergency response workers determined that it was cocaine.

A huge swath of the White House staff are type-A twentysomethings from high-pressure east coast schools who work 100-hour weeks in the hopes of achieving massive power and success one day. In light of that I’d consider it more newsworthy if they didn’t find cocaine there.

Goddamnit, Brentford

In April the Premier League announced it will ban betting logos from the front of clubs’ shirts. The rule will not come into effect until the 2026-27 season, however.

In May, Brentford F.C.’s leading goal-scorer, Ivan Toney, was handed an eight-month ban after being found guilty of breaching the Football Association’s rules on gambling. He was also diagnosed with a gambling addiction which, once the details of his betting became public, was absolutely unsurprising. He is undergoing treatment, but it’s certain that Toney will be fighting the urge to gamble for the rest of his life.

You would think that these two things, taken together, would inspire Brentford to move away from having the South African online casino, Hollywoodbets, as its primary kit sponsor. Welp, you would think wrong, because Brentford just re-upped with Hollywood Bets for two more seasons.

Per The Athletic, the difference in revenue between having a gambling kit sponsor and a non-gambling kit sponsor is pretty significant. So much so that, to make up the difference between them, Brentford would have to go back on its decision to freeze its already lowest-in-the-Premier-League season ticket prices. And, of course, Brentford is already one of the lowest if not the lowest revenue clubs in the top flight, so money can be tougher to come by.

But Jesus, dudes. at some point you have to have some goddamn principles. At some point, even if your team owner made his bones in the gambling business, you have to appreciate how shitty it is to send your gambling-addicted best player out onto the pitch with a damn casino logo emblazoned across his chest.

Guess not, though. Which I suppose saves me some money as a Brentford fan, because I’ll not wear any of their merch if it has a gambling ad on it too.

Old Gator reviews The Wingmen

There’s a new book coming out next month that will almost certainly be up the ally of Cup of Coffee readers. It’s called The Wingmen: the Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship between John Glenn and Ted Williams, by Adam Lazarus. Old Gator, a commenter too active to be called “emeritus” but too venerable to be common, has obtained and read an advance copy of it and today offers a review.

I get sent advance review copies of lots of books. Roughly eighty five percent of the time I won’t want to bother writing a review and another ten I won’t bother to read them at all if the topic doesn’t interest me. A few days ago, though, a  book arrived as unbidden as a Jehovah’s Witness in my mailbox that a quick glance at the cover nailed my curiosity. The book is The Wingmen: the Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship between John Glenn and Ted Williams by Adam Lazarus.

I knew that both John Glenn and Ted Williams were Marine combat pilots in Korea, but didn’t know they had flown together or that they remained fast friends thereafter. But yeah, they join the list of odd friendships like, well, like Toshiro Mifune and Lee Marvin, who met while filming Hell in the Pacific.

I’m fond of iconoclastic biographies but this one didn’t qualify. John Glenn has always been represented in popular culture as the ultimate A-Attaboy, courageous patriot, Marine combat pilot in two wars, hero astronaut, devoted husband and father. There wasn’t much you could fault about him unless you preferred having the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers for upstairs neighbors. Then there’s Ted Williams, one of the greatest hitters in baseball history (though Adam Lazarus repeatedly refers to him as THE greatest), obsessive blue water and fly fisherman, serial philanderer, pugnacious with the press and contentious with obnoxious fans, yet also a tireless advocate of children’s health care and a co-founder of the Jimmy Fund. Thanks to the alembic of combat aviation, these two unlikely and unlike heroes formed a remarkable friendship that lasted from the Korean war, when they flew missions together, until Williams’ death at 83 of a life lived intensely but badly. Glenn, a remarkable physical specimen who never smoked, rarely drank, and kept up a lifelong fitness regimen, was in such great shape he was able to return to space at 77 years old. Lazarus’ book pretty much confirms everything you already thought you knew about both of them.  

Since I’m a licensed pilot myself and fascinated with aviation matters in general, I especially enjoyed the description of how his ground crews had repeatedly to shoehorn the six foot three Williams into the cramped cockpit of his F-9F Panther fighter bomber. I have to credit Lazarus for providing us with a riveting account of the challenges and perils Glenn and Williams faced on a daily basis on their bombing runs into North Korea, especially the time Glenn helped guide Williams in his crippled Panther back to the safety of their home base. The friendship of these two guys, so very unlike each other, was forged in a wartime crucible of covering each other’s asses. Much of the first half of the book, which provides the most harrowing accounts of what the two pilots endured, reads like a factual version of The Bridges at Toko-Ri. 

Lazarus also does a pretty good job of discussing the acute political differences between Glenn, the dedicated Democratic senator from Ohio, and Williams, the good buddy and staunch defender  of Richard Nixon and brainlocked Republican booster. Their mutual respect and affection for each other somehow transcended those differences, even when, to Glenn’s disappointment, Williams refused to endorse him during any of his senatorial or presidential campaigns. As opposed to that, Williams -  by then a near-paraplegic from a stroke – made sure to attend the blastoff of Glenn’s trip aboard the space shuttle in his late seventies, crying “that’s my friend John in that thing!” as the craft thundered skyward. 

If I have any misgivings about the book, it would be that Lazarus invested far more time and detail the two friends’ aviation and wartime experiences and in Glenn’s subsequent political life than in Williams’ baseball career. Moreover, though  I sympathize with the authorial anxiety of influence malaise and couldn’t fault him for not wanting to seem like he was rewriting The Right Stuff,  he also assiduously skirted the issue of Annie Glenn’s lifelong stuttering problem, which conditioned much of her social life. She was classified as 85% speech dysfunctional because of it and once she received therapy for it when she was 60, became a crusader for speech therapy for others (and since she lived to be 100 years old, that meant she had 40 more years of philanthropy ahead of her). 

On the other hand, we are given some wonderful snapshots of the two pilots at liberty in Japan during leaves, when Williams delighted in showing Japanese kids proper batting stances and letting them hit imaginary tape measure home runs off his imaginary pitches. As gruff and confrontational as he was with the press, this complex star was a pushover for kids.

One of the most amusing anecdotes closes the epilogue of the book. During a press gathering late in both of their lives the irascible Williams launched into a profane tirade. After a few minutes the normally soft-spoken Glenn looked at him and said, quietly but sharply, “Ted.” Taken momentarily aback, Williams soon resumed his rant. Glenn repeated, “Ted.” This time Williams shut up, muttering “okay, I can’t compete with the big fucking American hero.”

Thanks so much, Gator!  

Have a great day, everyone. And remember: 20% off annual subscriptions through the All-Star break!