Cup of Coffee: September 11, 2020
This ain't a football game. We do this every day.
Good morning, all. And I do mean all, because it’s another Friday Freebie, with today’s newsletter available to the general public, not just subscribers. In light of that, if you know someone who might be interested in this sort of business, by all means share:
And if you’re reading this and are not already a subscriber, by all means, consider a subscription, because as Earl Weaver once said, “This ain't a football game, we do this every day.”
Now that the anthem’s over and we smoked that heater, let’s get on with it.
And That Happened
Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:
Royals 11, Cleveland 1: Rookie Brady Singer had a no-hitter going into the eighth inning before allowing a two-out single to Austin Hedges through an infield shift. Hedges hit it right where the second baseman would’ve been too, which is quite a kick in the beans. The again, I’m guessing a handful of outs Singer recorded before that were shift-aided. Try as you might, you can’t hack life, friend. This world is gonna get what it wants one way or another.
Singer was at 116 pitches anyway, so that ninth inning would’ve been a hard ask. And, despite that, he tossed eight innings of one-hit shutout ball, striking out eight, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. Meanwhile his friends with the bats did some serious damage, with Maikel Franco and Adalberto Mondesí each hitting three-run homers and Edward Olivares adding a solo shot. The Royals have won three straight since stopping a seven-game losing streak.
Atlanta 7, Nationals 6: The Nats jumped out to a 5-0 lead after two, but when you have a lineup that can score 29 runs on Wednesday you don’t worry too much about needing six or more on Thursday. Freddie Freeman hit two two-run homers — one in the fourth and one in the seventh — Ronald Acuña Jr. hit a two-run shot in the fifth, and Dansby Swanson hit a solo shot in the eighth. Atlanta’s rotation is a hot mess at the moment, but the lineup seems pretty adept at bashing its way to victory. Freeman, by the way, has five homers and 20 RBI in his past seven games in case you’re laying wagers on the NL Player of the Month Award. Which, if you are, my God, you degenerate, get some help.
Cardinals 12, Tigers 2; Tigers 6, Cardinals 3: Yadier Molina hit a two-run homer in the second inning of the first game to kick things off and it was 9-0 Cardinals by the end of the third. Rangel Ravelo drove in three. Molina, Tyler O’Neill, and Lane Thomas knocked in two a piece. In the nightcap St. Louis held a 3-1 lead after six but Detroit blitzed ‘em for five late. Jeimer Candelario, who homered for Detroit in both ends of the twinbill, hit a two-run single in the seventh, plating two and putting the Tigers ahead. Then Jorge Bonafacio hit a homer to make the comeback sweeter.
At the end of the day, of course, a split doubleheader means neither team made any progress from the time they woke up. Zero net velocity. It feels like every doubleheader has been split this year. Both literally and metaphorically.
Athletics 3, Astros 1: Sean Manaea took a perfect game into the sixth and ended up allowing only two hits in seven innings of one-run ball while Matt Olson hit a two-run homer and Chad Pinder singled in a run. The win gave Oakland four of five in the series and puts the A’s six and a half games up over Houston in the West.
Angels 6, Rangers 2: The Angels salvage one in the series thanks in part to a nearly 450-foot Mike Trout homer, his MLB-leading 16th, and thanks to rookie Jared Walsh’s third homer in the last five contests. It was a three-run shot that put the Halos on top. Dylan Bundy allowed two runs and four hits while working into the eighth and striking out a season-high 12.
Marlins 7, Phillies 6: Thanks to Miami’s late July COVID outbreak, Philly and the Marlins are playing a SEVEN GAME SERIES, which includes three makeup games and two doubleheaders. It’s the longest non-postseason series anyone has played since the New York Mets and Chicgao Cubs played a seven game set from August 31 to September 3, 1967, which was before even I was born. Things kicked off pretty well for the Fish, as Starling Marte hit a tying, three-run double off Brandon Workman in the eighth inning and Jorge Alfaro singled home the winning run in the ninth for the walkoff victory. The Marlins, despite getting smashed into a pasty goo by Atlanta on Wednesday night, have won three of four.
Red Sox 4, Rays 3: Bobby Dalbec homered for the fifth straight game. Earlier this season I said his name sounds like that of a quarterback on a second-tier southern college football team, but I suppose he has some baseball chops too. Rafael Devers hit a two-run homer and had an RBI single. The Rays have lost three in a row and their AL East lead over Toronto is now only three and a half games.
Cubs 8, Reds 5: The Reds had an early three-run lead but six Cubs relievers combined for five and a third innings of six-hit ball to make room for a comeback. As for that comeback, Willson Contreras had four hits and rookie Nico Hoerner had three RBI. Ian Happ drove in two Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Cameron Maybin each had two hits. This one ended well after midnight Central time. Which is closer to my wakeup time than my going to sleep time some nights.
Padres 6, Giants 1: Manny Machado and Jorge Ona each homered — it was Ona’s first big league hit — and Mitch Moreland doubled in two as the Padres cruised. This despite starter Chris Paddack leaving the game early after spraining his ankle. He suffered the injury at some undetermined time before the third inning, likely while dragging his foot on his delivery. If that’s the case someone should probably look into that delivery because it probably shouldn’t be spraining your ankle. Anyway, six San Diego relievers blanked the Giants over the final seven innings.
Diamondbacks 5, Dodgers 2: Carson Kelly hit a two-run homer, Christian Walker added a two-run double, rookie Daulton Varsho hit a go-ahead RBI triple, and rookie pitcher Riley Smith got his first career win to give the Dbacks a rare victory. And I do mean rare, as they came into this one having lost 18 of 20. That’s not an easy thing to do, losing 18 of 20. Like, you have to try hard to do that. It does explain all those rookies and randos figuring in the contest, though. When you lose 18 of 20 in a 60-game season, you pretty much blow things up and start planning for next year.
As for Los Angeles, Mookie Betts played second base in this one. He did so, the Dodgers said, because they just want to have him as an option in case things go sideways or get weird in a postseason game. They also noted that he used to be a middle infielder and takes grounders there every day, so why not? Which, fine, but I can’t say I’d have the guts to do that if I were in charge of the team. One rough double play turn from a guy who hasn’t played the infield on anything approaching a regular basis for six years and your $365 million investment is in a clunky knee brace for the next decade and change.
Orioles vs. Yankees — 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 weatherman says clear today
He doesn't know you've gone away
And it's raining, raining in my heart
Oh, misery, misery
What's gonna become of me?
I tell my blues they mustn't show
But soon these tears are bound to flow
'Cause it's raining, raining in my heart
But it's raining, raining in my heart
And it's raining, raining in my heart🎶
The Daily Briefing
Fans don’t want athletes to “stick to sports”
A poll conducted by the Washington Post finds that most Americans support athlete activism and say it is acceptable for them to kneel during the national anthem. A full 62 percent majority says that athletes should use their platforms to express views on national issues, including over eight in 10 Black Americans and seven in 10 adults under age 50.
Just bookmark that for the next time some shithead grifter like Clay Travis asserts, with zero evidence, that athlete activism turns fans off, kills sports’ popularity, and sinks sports network ratings. They want that to be the case because they’re racists and/or paleo-conservatives in desperate search for confirmation of their biases, but it’s not born out in the numbers or in the minds of most people. Most of those who say it does are either not boycotting sports because they LIVE for sports or because they’re not actual sports fans but, instead, are trying to score political points.
The Dodgers don’t want to put their family in a bubble for the postseason
UPDATE: Below is how this appeared when it went out in the newsletter this morning. I’m hearing, however, that Rosenthal’s take — which I repeated — that the Dodgers are outliers regarding the family bubble idea is not true and that there is widespread, genuine concern about it among players.
Original: Ken Rosenthal at The Athletic writes about MLB and the MLBPA’s yet-to-be-finalized plans for a bubbled postseason. The idea at the moment is for AL teams to play the postseason in southern California and NL teams to play in the two Texas stadiums, with the World Series taking place at Globe Life Field in Arlington. By doing that, the players won’t have to travel much and can basically play in bubbles, not unlike what we’ve seen in the NBA and NHL. If they want their families to be with them, family members will have to first enter a seven-day quarantine. Again, that’s not the final plan, but that’s where it’s heading.
The Dodgers players, however, are not pleased with the idea. Rosenthal writes:
The way Justin Turner and some other Dodgers players see it, their team has diligently observed the game’s health and safety protocols and avoided COVID-19 cases during Spring Training 2.0 and the abbreviated 60-game season . . .
. . . “You’re asking us to choose between our families and the playoffs?” said [Justin] Turner, the Dodgers’ union representative. “That’s a stupid question, especially when we’ve played however many successful games this season. Obviously, there were two blips early on (outbreaks with the Marlins and Cardinals) but it was out of poor choices by individuals. Other than that, it has been a pretty successful season. Why change all the protocols now?”
Apparently most teams are OK with it, but the Dodgers are outliers. That said, Turner and the Dodgers make some good points about the illogic of the bubble for family members given that players will be allowed to start postseason play just a day or two after being at home with their families anyway. Hanging over all of this is that MLB’s primary objective here is less player safety for its own sake than it is player safety that will allow for the extremely lucrative postseason to be played without interruption, and when you have mixed concerns like that you’re going to get some disharmony while trying to nail it all down.
In the end I suspect it’ll be a non-issue, though. Everyone is all about grabbing that playoff loot, and if it means not seeing junior or the missus for a few days, well, that’s what FaceTime is for.
Giants drop Panda
The San Francisco Giants designated Pablo Sandoval for assignment. Between that and letting Hunter Pence go in August it’s been a rough couple of months for aging Giants heroes. Of course, the fact that the Giants are playing better baseball and have a great shot at the postseason means they have less leeway to keep guys around simply because they’re fan favorites. Folks have to produce.
Sandoval was hitting .220/.278/.268 with one home run and six RBI this season and that’s not gonna cut the mustard, even if he did hit three homers in Game 1 of the 2012 World Series. I was there for that game, by the way. I was the sickest I’ve ever been in my life, but it was still pretty amazing.
Other Stuff
Yesterday was the first day of self-pick for Honeycrisp apples at the orchard near me:
There have been a lot of stories written about the death of cities and how people should move to the country and all of that, but I think they’re mostly bunk and that the people who write that stuff don’t understand cities or the country very well. But I will say that living adjacent to the country — places, like where I live, where you can just pop out and in ten minutes be in the middle of rolling farmland and orchards — definitely has its advantages. And Honeycrisp apples are The Truth.
Wanna know what Peak Ohio is? Peak Ohio is the State Attorney General recommending that Ohio State sue The Big Ten conference for cancelling the football season. I used to work for the Ohio Attorney General’s office. If I still did today, man, I would be so fired. Probably for sending a memo saying “maybe things should just happen or not happen as external forces and reason dictates and we should accept it for the greater good?” If you’re a lawyer and you say stuff like that you’re probably not gonna be a lawyer for very long, though, I suppose.
Fallout from the whole Trump/Woodward thing on Wednesday includes Republicans, predictably, defending Trump for downplaying the true threat of the pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 Americans. “It doesn’t bother me,” said Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. Others said much the same thing. When you're at "I don't care that the president's deceit led to thousands of preventable deaths" we may as well just go back to hunting and gathering. Our system is so broken and our leaders so corrupt that trying to hash any of this out rationally seems pointless.
To that end, Vanity Fair has an interesting interview with a former Republican strategist talking about what Trump means for America, how the race shapes up, and what the Republican Party is now, after 3+ years of bowing to Trump. This is not the usual “Oh, I misjudged things” kind of ass-covering you see from a lot of Republicans (and which you’ll see a lot more from them once Trump loses and the all rush to pretend they never really supported him). It’s clear-eyed and sober analysis of why it was so easy for Trump to seduce the GOP. It’s because the GOP had no principles to begin with. At least not the ones it claimed to have. Money quote:
”I think Trump looked at the Republican Party with sort of an animal instinct and realized that this is a group of weak people who don’t really believe in anything, except winning, except power. And if I can give them power, they will allow me to be whatever I want to be. And I think he was right.”Most of the cartoons people my age watched as a kid were, actually, just toy commercials in very poor disguise. But I can’t think of any that tried less hard to hide that than the folks who put this one out:
Yesterday I recorded the latest episode of the Bob Dylan podcast, “Everything is Broken,” that Mike Ferrin, Steve Goldman and I do every couple of weeks. The new episode — covering Dylan’s 1989 comeback album “Oh Mercy” — will drop Saturday morning. Follow me on Twitter and I’ll retweet it that day or just come back here on Monday morning and I’ll have the link then. For now, you can listen to our previous five episodes here. There are some good albums in there. And there is also “Empire Burlesque.”
Defector, a new sports (and other things) blog from the people who resigned en masse from Deadspin last year launched yesterday. If you’re familiar with Deadspin — which still exists, but with different writers and a slightly-narrowed focus than it had before — you know what to expect from Defector. The work of the people launching Defector is singular and quite often vital and anyone seeking a well-balanced sports/cultural/political diet will want to check them out. It is a subscription site, as befits a group of writers who rebelled against what sounded like some really shortsighted corporate mandates and strategies aimed at traffic maximization at the expense of original Deadspin’s unique voice.
Their intro post, by Editor-in-Chief Tom Ley, though, is free. And while it touches on some of the well-publicized drama of the group’s departure from old Deadspin -- the controversial memos, the internal dissent, the firings, and the mass resignations -- the real story, well told here, is one of corporate media masters misunderstanding or not caring about what readers want because they’re just looking for the biggest traffic numbers and the most concentrated delivery of sponsored content possible. It's a dynamic that is not unique to Deadspin. It’s a dynamic I know well.
Most modern online media outlets that had their roots in the world of blogging grew because of niche appeal among a passionate and dedicated group of readers who formed something of a personal connection with the writers. A lot of big companies took hold of all of that and rode it. Some of them, like NBC I should note, did so in good faith and in the form of a constructive partnership with writers for a very long time. The idea, as pitched to me and Mike Florio and most everyone else who was involved in the “Talk” era of NBC Sports, was “we love what you do and want you to do it for us!” That it lasted over ten years for me and is still going on for some of them is a testament to that approach being able to work.
At some point, however, a lot of those big companies — and Deadspin’s corporate overlords sound like one of them — lost the plot in an aim to get bigger and attempt to gobble up as much of the diminishing ad-revenue available out there in the marketplace. In chasing video trends and SEO strategies and in trying to be all things to all people. In doing so, they never really grokked those strategies and ended up pleasing almost no one. Some of that’s not their fault — Google and Facebook have wrecked the online ad market and it has required increasingly desperate measures to remain successful — but some of it is. Some of it is about not trusting your original vision or the vision and voice of your writers. Some of it is about not being happy with a fiercely loyal audience of moderate size and trading them for one that doesn’t give a shit about your work and will click over to ESPN or any number of other sites simply because the wind blew from the north instead of the west that morning.
When people like me or the Defector people launch a pay website or newsletter, we’re doing it in order to reconnect with that core audience who will respond to our stuff, even if it’s niche stuff. Doing so is satisfying purely on a creative level — it’s great being able to write whatever nonsense I want to write every day — but it’s also a smart business play, at least for some of us.
Given all the overhead and the number of people involved in running NBC Sports, Bill, Nick, Ashley, Aaron, D.J., Drew, Matthew, all the other “Talk” site writers, and I needed to reach hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people a day in order to pull our weight. Now I only need to get a microscopic but dedicated fraction of that for Cup of Coffee to work. Same with Defector vis-a-vis Deadspin, I suspect. Such an approach asks a lot of readers — it asks for your money and given that most of us don’t have unlimited funds, it asks for you to make some hard choices — but it also promises a way better product.
There are only a few stories and jokes and features and editorial stances and obsessions that’ll make hundreds of thousands of people happy and there are others that will only make a fraction of them happy. I prefer the stuff that appeals to the fraction. I’m just wired that way and, frankly, I’m better at it. I want to talk to the people who like that stuff too and I have very little desire to talk to the people who think various websites are basically interchangeable. So far, y’all seem to like it when I write that kind of stuff too. So again, thanks.
I don't know why I delayed subscribing for a week or 2. It's not like I haven't read Craig's writing for years. But today's newsletter ended the wait. I swear to God though if you ever just stick to sports I'll quit and donate to Saturday Are For the Boys in your honor
The bit at the end today all about Defector and what folks like you are doing is bang on. I subscribed to the newsletter obviously because I want to read about baseball, but I also did so as much or perhaps more because I missed hearing what you had to say every day. Your written voice has entertained me for years, so why would I not want to support that since I can? Anybody can be some guy on a faceless, voiceless website. It's not everybody who can make you feel like you know someone you've never met, like their words are your friend and like those words are something you need. That's exactly what's missing from so much of the content floating around out there. It's great that it's there, but would anyone truly miss it if it wasn't?