Cup of Coffee: June 22, 2023

Another disputed play at the plate, two winning streaks were extended, Hal Steinbrenner doesn't get it, the Nats and O's settle a beef, Alito is corrupt, I meet the neighbors and go to a reunion

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

Another replay review on a play at the plate helped decide a game last night, so that’s fun. Two long winning streaks were extended, Hal Steinbrenner doesn’t appear to understand what team he owns, the Nationals and Orioles have reached a settlement on their years-long TV money dispute, and there’s a new movie about the Negro Leagues you gotta see.

In Other Stuff, Justice Alito is corrupt, a New Mexico legislator tries to raise hell over a Costco receipt, I talk about how I “meet” my new neighbors, and I get a little cosmic and misty about attending a reunion of sorts.

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And That Happened

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Reds 5, Rockies 3: That’s eleven straight wins for Cincinnati thanks to Jake Fraley’s tie-breaking, two-run homer in the eighth. The streak is Cincinnati’s longest since they won 12 straight in 1957. That’s when they were actually called the Redlegs because society didn’t want anyone thinking that Frank Robinson and Joe Nuxhall were communists. That club finished 80-74 and finished in fourth place, BTW. Here’s hoping better for the current team which, based on the name, could be full of communists maybe? You can never be too careful, so let’s assume. If they do win the division, though, there’s probably a lesson in there. And perhaps a threat to the American Way of Life.

Guardians 7, Athletics 6: Bo Naylor singled for his first big-league hit then scored the go-ahead run in the eighth. Big day for a guy who now shares a big league roster with his big brother. If the big brother-little brother dynamics with which I am familiar held, he was almost certainly congratulated by Josh Naylor with a “deez nutz” joke or, perhaps, a hurts donut. Or, really, given that Josh Naylor went 4-for-4 with a solo homer, he probably just teased Bo over his cute, adorable “good” game.

Yankees 4, Mariners 2: Jake Bauers, Billy McKinney, and Anthony Volpe homered while Jhony Brito pitched shutout ball into the sixth. The Yankees win their first series since Aaron Judge Hulk-smashed through that wall in L.A. In the AP game story there was a little note saying “Seattle manager Scott Servais declined to answer a question about Gerrit Cole wagging his finger 15 times Tuesday night after striking out Caballero to end the seventh inning.” Who the hell counted the finger wags?

Rangers 6, White Sox 3: Jonah Heim got boned on Tuesday night with that plate-blocking call but he hit a three-run homer here and no replay ump could take that away from him. I mean, they could, but they didn’t thank God. Ezequiel Duran also homered as the Rangers take their third win in four games. Touki Toussaint pitched four hitless innings for Chicago. I looked him up an he’s just 27 which is crazy given that he was once included in a trade with Bronson Arroyo who, without looking, I’m gonna guess is like 80 now and talks about how he liked Dylan until he went electric at which point he tuned out.

Blue Jays 6, Marlins 3: Sandy Alcantara continues to be frustrating, giving up five runs over seven. He’s 2-6 and his ERA is now at 5.08. I’m starting to wonder whether it was a good idea to include him in that Stars of Major League Baseball book I wrote. Like, if this is not just some bad fluke year, it’ll be like finding some old book talking up LaMarr Hoyt or something. Could be embarrassing for me but the advance check cleared so what do I care? Anyhoo, Matt Chapman homered and doubled for the Jays. George Springer hit a two-run single and it was 5-0 Toronto before the Marlins came to bat for the second time.

Tigers 9, Royals 4: Zack Short homered and drove in three and Matthew Boyd allowed two runs and scattered six hits in six innings, striking out seven without a walk. Javier Báez got his 1,000th career hit. He also got his 1,001st career hit but we like round numbers so that one wasn’t notable.

Diamondbacks 5, Brewers 1: Zac Gallen allowed one run on three hits over seven frames to pick up his ninth win and to help the Dbacks take two of three from Milwaukee. Arizona stole seven bases here. I didn’t watch this one so someone who did tell me: was William Contreras setting up too deep? Like in Wauwatosa or something?

Rays 7, Orioles 2: Taj Bradley allowed one run over six while striking out eight and Randy Arozarena and Isaac Paredes hit back-to-back homers in a four-run second inning. Arozarena had an RBI single as well as the Rays split two with the O’s.

Cubs 8, Pirates 3: The Cubs finish off the three-game sweep, win their eighth of nine overall, and send Pittsburgh to its ninth straight loss. Nico Hoerner hoemered, tripled and drove in three, Ian Happ doubled twice and drove in two, and Kyle Hendricks pitched into the seventh allowing just three hits and one earned run.

Astros 10, Mets 8: Alex Bregman had three hits and Yainer Díaz and Chas McCormick hit two-run homers. Daniel Vogelbach had three hits and three RBI and Pete Alonso hit his 23rd homer on the year but the Mets nonetheless dropped two of three to Houston. What a nightmare year for them.

Nationals 3, Cardinals 0: Trevor Williams shut the Cards out for six, scattering five hits, striking out four and not walking a batter. The bullpen allowed only two hits in three shutout frames. CJ Abrams went 3-for-4 and homered while Jeimer Candelario doubled in a run and knocked in another on a groundout. Washington ends a five-game skid.

Twins 5, Red Sox 4: Kyle Farmer singled home the Manfred Man in the bottom of the tenth for the walkoff win. That snapped Minnesota’s three-game losing streak. Max Kepler homered and had an RBI single. The Red Sox were 3-for-15 with runners in scoring position and left nine runners on base.

Dodgers 2, Angels 0: Two-hit shutouts are less impressive when seven pitchers combine to accomplish them but a win’s a win I guess. Freddie Freeman and Miguel hit solo homers for the Dodgers, who swept the two game series. Shohei Ohtani allowed only the Freeman homer in seven innings while striking out 12. It was a nice audition for Andrew Friedman and the Dodgers brass, who will likely be making a nearly half-billion dollar offer to Ohtani come November.

Giants 4, Padres 2: For the second straight night a disputed replay review at home plate helped decide a game. In the fifth inning Giants catcher Blake Sabol was thrown out by Fernando Tatís Jr. while sliding into home following a two-out single from Joc Pederson. Sabol was indeed initially ruled out, but the call was challenged by San Francisco and changed following a lengthy review which concluded that Gary Sánchez blocked the plate. Unlike in the Rangers game, here Sánchez was, indeed, way up the line and, yes, he was blocking the line to the plate, though he was only there because he was fielding the offline throw and he did have the ball in his possession before the runner got to him. A much closer call of course and, unlike the Rangers-White Sox play, I feel like reasonable people may disagree about this one, but I also don’t think this one is called a block even last year. I mean, what the hell was Sánchez supposed to do, stand out of the way and let the throw hit the backstop? It’s like there’s a new directive from the league to crack down on this maybe. I dunno. Either way, the run standing turned a 1-0 game into 2-0 game and, rather than having the inning end, it allowed the Giants to score two more runs via Mike Yastrzemski and J.D. Davis RBI singles.

In any event, the Giants winning streak is up to ten. It wasn’t all good news for them, however, as Yastrzemski was removed from the game with left hamstring tightness. There will likely be an update on that today.

Atlanta vs. Phillies — POSTPONED:

🎶 Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me
From a great height
From a great height
Height
Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me
From a great height
From a great height
Height
God loves his children
God loves his children, yeah 🎶

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The Daily Briefing

Hal Steinbrenner doesn’t understand his business

The Yankees are almost always good. They’ve only missed the postseason four times in the past 28 years. While one could say that Yankees fans have become spoiled as a result of that, one could also say that Yankees fans have, quite understandably, been conditioned to expect that.

That conditioning came via many decades of George Steinbrenner owning the club and making winning both his own personal brand and the personal brand of the Yankees. Reasonable or not, Yankees fans have been told since the 1970s that anything less than a championship is failure. To be sure, most Yankees fans don’t take that literally, but they do expect the team to be competitive and to make the postseason every year.

This has been a frustrating Yankees season. Not a horrible one — they were lights out in May — but they’ve been pretty bad in June and, more importantly, they’ve been shown to be a pretty damn average team when Aaron Judge isn’t in the lineup. In the words of a former Yankees manager, that’s not what you want, and that state of affairs has led to a lot of frustration in the fanbase. Pretty legitimate frustration, actually, not some sort of spoiled or entitled frustration. This Yankees team could and should be better, and it’s not, it’s also kind of a drag to watch most nights, and even outsiders can understand that.

One person who doesn’t seem to understand it, however, is owner Hal Steinbrenner. He made a radio appearance Wednesday with Michael Kay during which he said he was “confused” about the anger from the fan base:

"They are upset. I'm a little confused, this year, being the third week of June, why they're so upset, but they're upset and that's gonna get my attention, of course.”

Hal Steinbrenner was three years old when his father bought the Yankees. He thus has no living memory of anything but the Steinbrenner era. He was brought up in the often looney Yankees world of the 1970s and 1980s when his dad raged at anything short of a World Series title and fired countless managers for not delivering it. He was a young adult when his dad was suspended and subsequently mellowed a bit and the Derek Jeter dynasty came about, delivering World Series championship after World Series championship and cementing the notion that anything less than excellence is failure in the world of the New York Yankees. Again, maybe that’s an unreasonable expectation, but it’s a well-known expectation that Hal Steinbrenner’s father encouraged and to which he became heir.

So how that dude sits there now, in 2023, and claims that he is confused that fans are upset at how the 2023 Yankees are rolling is kind of mind-boggling. The Yankees are trotting out poor lineups and rosters with poor depth, they’re many games out of first place, show now real potential of improving barring massive changes, and almost everyone in a position of power in that organization seems to have been granted a sinecure many years ago that protects them from any accountability whatsoever. How does he not see that that might make some New York baseball fans angry? ANYONE should be able to see that!

I’m pretty sure that success in the current era of Yankees baseball is defined not by winning and championships but by how much money is pouring in and how much the value of the team is appreciating and that nothing else matters. When Hal Steinbrenner acts confused that fans are upset about uninspiring Yankees baseball, those thoughts are validated. “They’re upset? Don’t they realize how much revenue came in last quarter?”

I tells ya, if DA BOSS was still alive . . .

Nats-Orioles reach settlement on years-long MASN dispute

After many, many years of litigation, arbitration, negotiation, and consternation, the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals have reportedly settled their dispute over the value of the Nationals’ local television rights from 2012 to 2016. MASN is going to pay the Nats around $100 million, which is more or less the difference between what MASN — which is controlled by the Orioles with a minority stake owned by the Nats — and the Nationals believed to have been owed the Nationals over that period. While there are still disputes about the ongoing value of Nats broadcast right post-2016, this settlement is expected to provide something of a framework to determine those amounts in an easier fashion than what we’ve seen to date.

All of this is a function of the doomed-to-fail deal that brought the Nationals to Washington from Montreal all those years ago. To make that happen, Major League Baseball needed Peter Angelos and the Orioles to sign off on letting a new team into the Orioles’ territory. That sign-off came via a novel TV rights agreement in which MASN would broadcast Nats games and pay them slowly-escalating rights fees for the privilege over a period of years. After six or seven years the Nats expected a certain amount, the Orioles and MASN thought they should be paid way less and then all the lawyers got involved.

The ongoing dispute has cut into the Nationals expected revenues. It has also thrown a wrench into the plans of the Lerner family to sell the team, a prospect which became unworkable with the rights fees stuff up in the air like it was. Like I said above, it’s not all over yet, but there is now likely light at the end of the tunnel which will give the Nationals a more predictable revenue streams and which may allow the Lerners to sell the team at some point in the near future.

Honestly, it was probably easier for the teams and the network to settle now than it ever has been. Ten years ago when they began beefing about this, cable TV money was massive and the competing sides viewed the stakes as insanely high. Now that cord-cutting and streaming has made the regional sports network model far less lucrative there is way less to fight over and there is a much greater incentive to simply cut bleeding money on legal fees and split up what remains. Honestly, both the Nats and Orioles probably could’ve come out better off if they had settled this back in the Obama era than they are for doing so today.

“The League”

The filmmaker Sam Pollard has a new documentary out about the Negro Leagues called “The League,” The film, produced by Ahmir K. Thompson, who you likely know better as Questlove, is comprised of newly discovered archival footage and interviews with Willie Mays, Monte Irvin, Buck Leonard and other luminaries. It recently premiered at the Tribeca Festival and it’s getting rave reviews. It will have its theatrical debut next month.

I know I have a lot of Ohio/Columbus subscribers. Those folks should know that The Wexner Center for the Arts will be screening “The League” on July 21-22 and, even better, Sam Pollard himself will be there for it in person and will be doing a Q&A after each screening. Cup of Coffee subscriber Dave Filipi, the Director of Film/Video at the Wexner Center, will be running the show. I have already bought my ticket for the Friday evening showing so if you go we can all gang up, Cup of Coffee-style, and think of some good questions for Pollard.

Also: be sure to wear White Sox gear. Dave is a Twins fan so he’ll love it.

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Other Stuff

Justice Alito is corrupt

Pro Publica reported yesterday that a billionaire flew Justice Samuel Alito to Alaska on a private jet for a luxury fishing vacation. In the years that followed, the billionaire regularly had business before the court. Alito never recused himself and did not report the seat on the private jet and the luxury vacation on his mandatory disclosure forms.

You’d think that such a thing would be highly embarrassing for a public official, but Justice Alito is built different. Indeed, based on his explanation, which he totally non-defensibly put in the form of a Wall Street Journal op-ed he rushed to have published before this report came out, he’s built out of about 200 pounds of horse shit:

As for the flight, Mr. Singer and others had already made arrangements to fly to Alaska when I was invited shortly before the event, and I was asked whether I would like to fly there in a seat that, as far as I am aware, would have otherwise been vacant. It was my understanding that this would not impose any extra cost on Mr. Singer. Had I taken commercial flights, that would have imposed a substantial cost and inconvenience on the deputy U.S. Marshals who would have been required for security reasons to assist me.

Back in the day I defended a couple of public officials for accepting improper gifts and bribes and things and, I gotta tell ya, it never once occurred to me to argue that, actually, my client accepting private luxury travel, lodging and meals saved taxpayers the obligation of paying for it. It’s almost genius if you squint at it jusssssst so. But only almost, because once you stop squinting you realize how laughable such an argument is. To be fair, though, this is at least in keeping with Alito’s political and judicial thinking in which it’s basically illegitimate for the government to do anything while private interests should be completely free to act in any way they like, up to and past the point of hilariously obscene levels of corruption.

Anyway: like Clarence Thomas, who Pro Publica also exposed for accepting improper gifts, travel, and the like recently, nothing is going to happen to Alito. For whatever reason this country believes in checks and balances for the president and for Congress but not for the judicial branch. They’re monarchs, appointed for life, immune to all laws, oversight, and if you listen to Alito on the matter, even basic criticism.

Hell of system we have.

I bet she thinks she raised hell

I probably should’t give much of a crap about a rando lunatic state legislator from New Mexico, but I couldn’t help but laugh at this:

1. I was unaware that President Biden dictated pricing at Costco;

2. If she bought 58 items and paid $783.31 for them before sales taxes — and to be clear, Joe Biden does not establish New Mexico state sales taxes — the average cost of these items was $13.50. Costco, of course, sells things in bulk. While, on a per ounce or per unit basis, that can be a good deal for people compared to grocery stores, the items themselves are pretty expensive. Like, she mentioned that razor blades were included. Costco-sized packs of razor blades can be like $35-45. The big box of Quaker instant oatmeal is like $15. That’s a lot of money, but it’s not something I think the president needs to answer for;

3. Even if this all does raise to the level of political grievance, I feel like these folks should’ve learned last year, after performatively whining about inflation for months, and getting the media to pound it like crazy, to the point where they mistakenly predicted a “red wave” based primarily on inflation concerns only to see voters largely ignore that as something to be solved at the ballot box, that these kinds of economically illiterate appeals don’t get you anywhere;

4. Someone should probably tell her that inflation has actually fallen pretty dramatically this year; and

5. You can tell she thinks she raised hell with this thing because she turned off the ability of anyone but her followers from replying.

In closing: please, make it stop. Make all of it stop. I’m so tired of living in the dumbest timeline imaginable.

How I meet the neighbors

We took possession of our new house on Tuesday. We won’t be staying in it until we move our furniture over there this coming Monday but for the last two days I’ve been over there cleaning — people who are not us are gross, man — getting the internet set up, accepting deliveries, and things like that.

My new house is on the city grid but it’s sort of in a pod of six or eight little condo/cottages that share a set of landscaped walkways that go between the back patios and where we park and where the trash cans are and stuff. While going back and forth through there I met a couple that lives just down from us. It was just “hello, we’re new here” but that’s a lot for me. I’m not an introvert or anything, and I’m always pleasant to my neighbors, but I’ve never been particularly neighborly if that makes sense. I lived in my New Albany neighborhood for 18 years — I was literally the first person to move into that neighborhood when it was built — but I somehow never really got to know anyone. I was generally friendly with parents of kids that Carlo and Anna played with but once they got a bit older that all sort of atrophied. The person I know the best there was someone I first met through work in the mid-2000s and they only moved in after that. I’ve shared a townhouse wall with a family for many years now and we’re on a “hey, how ya doin’” basis if we’re both outside at the same time but it’s not like we’re friends. I don’t mean to be antisocial but when it comes to neighbors I guess I just sort of am.

One thing I definitely am, however, is a low-level spy. An inveterate Googler who also knows his way around the county auditor website like he lives there and someone whose use of LinkedIn is dedicated to figuring out what, exactly, that sonofabitch’s deal is. Which means I do not know my neighbors but, actually, I kinda know my neighbors. And almost anyone else I encounter whose name is more distinct that “John Smith” or “Mary Wilson.”

Yesterday I was at the new house and Allison was back in New Albany working. There’s a house across from ours that is notable to us for a couple of reasons and, while taking a break, I looked up the address on the county auditor site and did a couple of quick searches. I then dutifully informed Allison that I now knew the actual deal of the people who lived there. Her reply:

It’s amazing that I work alone and can live in a place for decades without actually getting to know people, huh?

Reunions

A few weeks ago I mentioned that my old law firm was having a reunion for those of us who were cast out or walked out into the wind many years ago. I was not 100% convinced that it was not some sting operation in which they were just trying to lure those of us who stole office supplies on the way out the door back to face the consequences, but it all went down last night and I decided to bite the bullet and go.

I’m glad I did:

That’s John on the top left, Michele below him, Julie next to her, Mark next to Julie and I can’t remember who the devilishly handsome guy on the right was but I liked the cut of his jib. John is still at the old place. The other three are still practicing law but elsewhere. The guy on the right claims he’s making a go of it as a pamphleteer of some kind but it sounds kinda sketchy.

There were other people there, of course. Many current members of the firm. A few others who had gone off elsewhere. The current summer associates were there too because, as anyone who has worked at a law firm knows, summer associates will go anyplace where someone else is picking up the tab and, frankly, they’re scared to not go to social events because they’re worried it’ll jeopardize their career prospects. Oh, those sweet summer children.

This core group, however, was who I came to see. We were tight as hell back in the day. I’ve sorta kept in touch with them but last night was the first time we hung out all together in like 14 years. I missed those people. Part of me didn’t realize how much I missed them until last night, but we talked and laughed and even cried a little. We recounted old war stories. We remembered the dead. We no doubt made the current summer associates wonder how in the hell any of us were able to hold down jobs back in those days given how out of control we often were at the time.

I think I forgot how much I missed those people because, for a whole host of reasons, I’ve spent many years trying to forget that time in my life. I was in the wrong career back then. I was in the wrong marriage. I was never irresponsible or jerky to the point of it being a legitimate problem, but 30-35 year old Craig was not the sort of person 49 year old Craig would much care for. That guy carried himself, both personally and professionally, in a way that, while appropriate for the job at the time, was not in keeping with the person he really wanted to be. When he started actually being the person he wanted to be his legal career suffered for it. There’s probably a life lesson in there somewhere.

I’m glad that guy grew up and figured his life out, but I realized last night that, in addition to those people, I do actually miss those days sometimes. I think there’s enough of a safe distance between then and now to where I can acknowledge it and not pretend, as I often do, that it was all a miserable blur.

Bruce Springsteen once said something pretty damn profound about that whole dynamic:

“Whoever you’ve been and wherever you’ve been, it never leaves you. I always picture it as a car. All your selves are in it. And a new self can get in, but the old selves can’t ever get out. The important thing is, who’s got their hands on the wheel at any given moment?”

I’m pretty satisfied with who’s driving these days, but I agree that it’s important to remember who else is in the car.

Have a great day everyone.