Cup of Coffee: October 12, 2023

The Phillies make a statement, an Atlanta radio announced embarrasses himself, Houston and Arizona advance, the Yankees are doing . . . something, a dry hike, the Von Erichs, and Marvel TV

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

Three of the four Division Series are completed, with Texas, Houston, and Arizona having punched their tickets to the LCS. After the thumping the Phillies gave Atlanta last night one suspects that they’ll be there pretty soon themselves. We’ve really only had one good game so far in the Division Series but we’re definitely seeing some dominant performances.

Let’s dive into those, and the other business of baseball and the world writ large, shall we?

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And That Happened

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Phillies 10. Atlanta 2: The Phillies jumped on Atlanta early and never stopped jumping, with not one but two homers from Bryce Harper and not one but two homers from Nick Castellanos. Trea Turner and Brandon Marsh went deep as well.

Harper, who had been the subject of taunting from Atlanta infielder Orlando Arcia for making the final out of Game 2, gave a major stare to Arcia as he rounded second base following his first dinger and gave that throat-slash gesture above as he crossed home plate. He did the same later — both the stare and the throat-slash — following his second homer in the bottom of the fifth. All of that was pretty damn epic — has anyone hit big homers like Harper has over the past few years? — but it led to some predictable whining from some of the Atlanta faithful and/or employed:

There was a lot of that same kind of noise from random Atlanta fans which crossed my timeline. It’s all pretty pathetic whining.

Arcia taunted Harper. Harper returned the favor. Happens all the damn time, it’s pretty hilarious as long as it doesn’t get physical, and in no way is it even conceivably related to “today’s climate around the world.” If that was an honest sentiment by the radio guy it’s a stupid sentiment. If, instead, it’s a matter of some homer making a cynical and frankly offensive comparison in an effort to throw crap on a player whose only offense was being good at baseball and standing up for himself, the person who said that should grow the hell up and stop their idiotic and disingenuous moralizing.

Oh, and if we’re gonna start talking about offensive gestures that occur during baseball games, the last goddamn person anyone wants to hear from is someone representing the franchise of the Tomahawk Chop. I’ll make you a deal, radio dude: find some tape of you condemning the Chop as offensive during an Atlanta game and I’ll simply roll my eyes at your dumb comments about Harper rather than have them make me think you’re a blithering idiot.

OK, where were we? Oh yeah: Phillies lead 2-1 and can clinch a trip to the NLCS tonight.

Astros 3, Twins 2: Michael Brantley hit a solo shot and José Abreu hit a two-run homer, which was his third longball in two games. After a solid start from José Urquidy the bullpen closed the door with Hector Neris and Bryan Abreu combining for five strikeouts over two and a third hitless innings and Ryan Pressly striking out the side in the ninth for the save. That clinched the series for Houston. They now head to their seventh straight ALCS, this time facing off against Texas.

Diamondbacks 4, Dodgers 2: The Dodgers postseason ended quickly because they couldn’t get a single decent starting pitching performance. Lance Lynn laid the final egg, allowing four homers — to Geraldo Perdomo, Ketel Marte, Christian Walker, and Gabriel Moreno — all in the third inning. Given that the L.A. offense has been no great shakes either that was way too big a hole to climb out of and the Dbacks finished off the sweep with ease. Arizona returns to the NLCS for the first time since 2007, where, if I was a betting man, I’d say they’ll be facing the Phillies.

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The Daily Briefing

One more thing on Harper-Arcia

Both Bryce Harper and Orlando Arcia were asked about their respective taunting following last night’s game.

Harper, to the Fox on-field reporter:

"Yeah, I stared right at him. It's just a game. It's fun. Everybody played a really good game. That's what it's all about."

I mean, it was about more than that obviously but Harper was the hero of the day and he more than answered back so he pretty much has a free pass here as far as I’m concerned.

Arcia, for what it's worth, was not happy that his post Game 2 “ha-ha, atta-boy, Harper!” quotes were reported, telling NBC Sports Philly that “[Harper] wasn't supposed to hear it, that's why we were saying it in the clubhouse.”

Eh, sorry Orlando. You said that when the clubhouse was open to the press so it was more than fair game. Players, especially veterans like Arcia, know this. If he wanted to say stuff in private he could’ve done so before the press was allowed in — there is always a delay there — or in one of the many parts of the clubhouse that is off limits to reporters.

Like I said up in the recaps: Arcia talked, Harper answered. He more than answered, actually, and he did his talking on the field. Advantage Bryce Harper.

Francisco Lindor had elbow surgery

The Mets announced yesterday that Francisco Lindor underwent surgery to remove a bone spur from his right elbow. He is expected to be ready for Spring Training.

Lindor, who will turn 30 this offseason, is coming off a really nice year. He hit .254/.336/.470 (120 OPS+) while joining the 30/30 club by smacking 31 homers and stealing 31 bases while being caught only four times. Unlike so many of his teammates he was durable too, playing in 160 games.

2024 will be the third season of Lindor’s 10-year, $341 million contract.

Hal Steinbrenner is gonna do . . . something. Maybe.

The Yankees are coming off a supremely disappointing 2023 season in which they went 82-80 and finished in fourth place in the AL East. As the season wound down to its ignominious end there was some speculation that manager Aaron Boone could be sacked. And there were some voices saying that maybe year 248 of the Brian Cashman Era wasn’t necessary and that the Yankees should look to freshen things up.

Since then . . . silence. There were some weird, cryptic comments from team owner Hal Steinbrenner that he was going to bring in consultants to go over the Yankees operations but then that was walked back to some weird, not-very-clear notion of the Yankees merely talking to consultants to see what they do and then trying to apply that to themselves. Or something. I don’t know, really. It never made sense and it smacked of an organization that has lacked any sort of urgency for some time trying to look like it was doing something to keep the press off its back for a bit.

Yesterday Steinbrenner continued to make things about the organization’s direction as clear as mud. From the AP:

“We’re going to be making some changes. Some may be more subtle than others. But I think we’ve uncovered certainly things we can do better,” he said Wednesday during a panel discussion with team president Randy Levine at Sportico’s Invest in Sports conference.

Asked by The Associated Press afterward what changes could be made, he said: “Anything’s possible. There’s a lot more discussions to be had.”

There were already some discussions, of course. Last week in Tampa, the AP reports, Yankees brass met and talked about stuff. What kind of stuff? King Hal summarized what was said in those conversations to the AP yesterday:

“I want you to challenge everything, all of our philosophies, all of our practices, but more importantly, in a respectful way, I want you to challenge each other. I want you to critique each other. Check your egos at the door,” he recalled.

“At times it got a little dicey. but it was respectful the entire time,” Steinbrenner added. “And there wasn’t one stone we left unturned, from health of the team, what we’re doing in the clubhouse, clubhouse culture, what we do in the weight room, analytics, pro scouting, biomechanics, is there enough communication between everybody.”

This will all result in the same GM coming back for the umpteenth year, the same manager coming back for the seventh year, and a lot of weird wish-and-hope roster moves that result in things like your high school gym teacher somehow being the Yankees opening day left fielder. I’d bet my children on it.

Anthony Bass thinks he has a genuine grievance

Back in late May then-Blue Jays' reliever Anthony Bass shared an Instagram story which instructed Christians to boycott Target and Bud Light due to the brands' support of LGBTQ+ rights. The guy in the video he shared said “For those who don’t know, Target has begun pushing the message of transitioning to young people and teamed up with a satanist to push pro Satan clothing and pins to children. The enemy isn’t even hiding anymore.”

The Jays attempted some half-hearted damage control after that but then decided, screw it, they’d let Bass speak to the media about and answer for himself. That did not go well. Bass began his statement by saying “I'm going to make this quick”— always the sign that some heartfelt comments are on the way! — before talking about how he has family and friends in the LGBQT+ community and offering vague words to the effect that “the ballpark should be for everyone.” He did not apologize and he did not take any questions. Bass clearly didn’t want to be there and he clearly had no problem with the video he shared beyond how much it pissed his bosses off. He thus did the bare minimum in an attempt to make the controversy go away.

And, of course, it did not. Less than two weeks after the controversy the Jays DFA’d Bass and subsequently released him. Per roster rules he was paid his full $3 million salary for 2023 and has been a free agent since his release, though he did not land with another team.

Yesterday the Canadian Press reported that Bass has been exploring filing a grievance of some kind. He said he was told by the MLBPA that there wasn't a grievance opportunity here because he was paid his guaranteed salary but Bass believes his release was not a baseball decision and thus he’s entitled to . . . something, saying “if this causes future issues, I think there is a strong case to be had.” I’m guessing by “this” he means the Jays releasing him not “me, suffering the consequences of my own stupid actions.”

Whatever. Not seeing it, dude. It’d be one thing if the Jays had tried to put him on the restricted list or claim he wasn’t owed his money for some reason. But they paid him. Do I think that Bass was, as the Jays brass said at the time, released strictly for a baseball reason? Eh, not really. I think they got rid of him because he’s a jackwagon they didn’t want around. But under his contract he could’ve been released for any reason or no reason and no beef would come unless he was not paid what he was owed.

So yeah, good luck, bro.

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Other Stuff

Welp, I made my choice

The other night I was in bed, waiting for the cold medicine to kick in, and decided to watch a video some dude made of his Coast to Coast walk from 2022. This was this guy’s second time doing it and he chose a few much longer days and a couple high-route options that I did not choose, but it’s really well done and it gives you a pretty good feel of what the walk is all about.

I watched a lot of these kinds of things before my hike but they really didn’t do much for me because they were sort of abstract in a lot of ways. Seeing this dude eat lunch in the same places I ate and make the same sorts of comments about various places he encountered that I did, however, made it way better. Like, I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who noticed that the clock in the church tower at Brompton-on-Swale ran fast and that the King’s Arms Inn in Reeth was kind of a shithole.

There were some bits of it, though, which pissed me off. Like this:

The photo on the left is a screencap from his video. The photo on the right is mine, taken in the same place, basically from what would have been his point of view in that photo.

Something tells me that he choose a better time to hike than I did. Oh well, I made my damn choice. And while that choice really bit me in the ass couple of times, I got some great “JESUS I COULDA DIED” stories out of my wet walk that he didn’t get from his dry one.

“Iron Claw”

I don’t follow wrestling at all now, but I was a big wrestling fan when I was a kid. From the early 1980s until, oh, 1988 or so, after which time I basically gave it up. I watched it all and was lucky enough to live in places where I could see it all. Or, at the very least, most of it.

Like a lot of people I watched WWF stuff back in the late Bob Backlund/early Hulk Hogan days when it was still called WWF and as it began its rise to dominance. I also watched AWA during that weird time ESPN ran with it and brought guys like Rick Martel, Larry Zybysko, and Nick Bockwinkel into my life. I was mostly partial to the NWA, however, first via Georgia Championship Wrestling before it merged as a broadcast entity into Mid-Atlantic Wrestling as the NWA territory system was breaking down and transforming into the WCW. The world of Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Magnum T.A., Nikita Koloff and the Rock and Roll Express, all beamed into my living room via TBS, was extremely my jam.

One of the big NWA-affiliated territories back then was World Class Wrestling, which was the Texas promotion run by Fritz Von Erich and starring his sons, David, Kerry, Kevin, Michael, and eventually Chris. It was rare to find that promotion on TV where I lived, but there were some random broadcasts. It was heavily covered in those Apter wrestling magazines I consumed like crazy, though, and I paid close attention to it. The territory was big enough that the NWA had to bow to it on occasion and let, say, Kerry Von Erich hold the title belt for a time. Those rare instances in which I could see Kerry Von Erich come out to Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” — the best use of Rush music ever — and utterly destroy The Fabulous Freebirds, Gino Hernandez, or whoever he was facing were insanely enjoyable.

What I did not know until later was just how tragic a fall the Von Erich family — the real name of which is Adkisson — experienced. Fritz Von Erich’s first born son died in an electrocution/drowning incident at the age of seven in 1959. David Von Erich died in 1984, at the age of 25. I was a big wrestling fan so I was aware of it when that happened. His death was officially attributed to a freak infection. It was all treated as shocking, tragic aberration that was later used as an inspirational storyline as Kerry Von Erich challenged Ric Flair for the NWA belt, but later wrestlers who knew David would reveal that he died of a covered up drug overdose. Mike, Chris, and Kerry Von Erich all died by suicide in 1987, 1991, and 1993, at the ages of 23, 21, and 33, respectively. Theirs was a story of physical and mental abuse by their father, drug addiction, untreated mental illness, and the very real crushing physical and mental toll professional wrestling exacts from its participants.

Much has been written about the so-called “Von Erich Curse” over the past few decades. In December a movie is coming out about the family called “The Iron Claw,” after the family’s signature submission hold. A full trailer for it dropped yesterday:

“The Iron Claw” has yet to screen for reviewers, but based on that alone it looks like it’s gonna be one hell of a movie. The wrestling sequences themselves seem extremely true to what people like me watched on TV back in the 1980s. Here’s hoping that the final product is a thoughtful and sensitive handling of a truly tragic story.

Rethinking Marvel TV

I no longer claim to be The World’s Biggest Marvel Mark™ because, frankly, Marvel products have sucked eggs of late.

There have been ten MCU movies released since “Avengers: Endgame” came out and, by my estimation, only one — “Spiderman: No Way Home” — has been truly great, four have been OK though forgettable (“Black Widow,” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” “Spiderman: Far From Home,” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) and the rest have ranged from “meh” (“Guardians of the Galaxy 3,” “Thor: Love and Thunder”) to abjectly bad (“Eternals,” “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness”).

The TV situation has been worse. “Wandavision” was pretty good, even if the new Doctor Strange movie basically ruined all of the character work that series accomplished. I liked “What If. . . ?” though it was a trifle. “The Falcon and the Winter Solider” had its moments but didn’t really hang together. The first season of “Loki” was excellent, at least until the somewhat muddled ending and, frankly, I’m worried about Season 2. I was amused at some parts of “She-Hulk” but it was kind of all over the place and was extremely shoddy and cheap looking from a special effects perspective. “Moon Knight” started strong but turned into a dumb, pointless mess. “Ms. Marvel” was the first Marvel product I didn’t finish because I was bored out of my mind and “Secret Invasion” was the first Marvel product I didn’t even bother to watch. I simply could not care and nothing I’ve heard about it has suggested that I made a bad choice in that regard.

Against that backdrop comes an article in “Hollywood Reporter” which talks about the fiasco that has been Marvel’s TV shows of late. One eagerly anticipated show, the “Daredevil” reboot, was stopped in mid-production due to the writer’s strike and when it resumed they basically tore it up and are starting over because it was a giant mess. That’s a hell of a thing given how good the original Netflix Daredevil show was at times and how much good material they had to work with. And, dudes, when the studio who thought that “Secret Invasion” was just dandy thinks the show is so bad it can’t go forward it must be REALLY bad. Or, hell, maybe it was genius and Marvel execs just have no idea what’s good anymore. We’ll likely not know for a long time.

The key takeaway from the article, though, is that Marvel execs are the problem:

Through it all, the company eschewed the traditional TV-making model. It didn’t commission pilots but instead shot entire $150 million-plus seasons of TV on the fly. It didn’t hire showrunners, but instead depended on film executives to run its series. And as Marvel does for its movies, it relied on postproduction and reshoots to fix what wasn’t working . . . As it moves forward, Marvel is making concrete changes in how it makes TV. It now has plans to hire showrunners . . . Showrunners will write pilots and show bibles. The days of Marvel shooting an entire series, from She-Hulk to Secret Invasion, then looking at what’s working and what’s not, are done.

It’s worth noting at this point that one of the major points of contention in the recently-settled writers’ strike was that studios had increasingly taken writers out of the production process in favor of executive control, like what Marvel had been doing. A key victory for the writers came when studios agreed to the writers’ demands that the people running the creative process be writers, not the execs.

I suppose this article exists because Marvel is trying to spin things to the trade papers as them making a conscious decision to change course in the name of quality. But I suspect that a big part of this change is a product of the writers’ strike. I suspect that the product will improve as a result. It can’t get worse.

The labor angle aside, the lesson of Marvel these days seems to be that when you have fresh ideas and big, engaging stars you can get away with a hell of a lot. Once basically every idea in the genre has been run into the ground and fans — even the biggest marks — aren’t simply content to lap up whatever you give them, you gotta work a little harder and a little smarter.

Have a great day everyone.