Cup of Coffee: April 9, 2024

Good morning!

Normally my day is like this:

But not yesterday! I went outside and stuff becuase of the eclipse.

Did you enjoy the eclipse yesterday? We did. It was pretty trippy. There were three highlights:

• The AT&T workers who have been down a manhole in front of my house working on landline cables for three days came out, sat on their truck and watched it with us;
• Having lived near downtown traffic for most of the past year has sort of inured me to that noise, but a couple of minutes before maximum eclipse action it got really quiet and then, a couple minutes after, you could hear the city start back up again; and
• My daughter Anna was up in Burlington, Vermont, in the middle of the totality. When it went fully black there she took some video. In the video you can hear her telling everyone around her, “it’s OK, you can take your glasses off now” but no one believes her because, I presume, they have become super familiar with Anna’s particular brand of bullshit over the past two years. You reap what you sow, I suppose.

Anyway: I give the total eclipse five obstructed stars out of five. Would eclipse again.

Now let’s get to work.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Nationals 8, Giants 1: Blake Snell began his first game as a San Francisco Giant in extremely Blake Snell fashion, facing four batters, going to full counts on all of them, racking up 26 pitches, and not allowing a run. He was up to 72 pitches by the end of three — giving up three runs by then — and that was it for him for the night. After the game he said, “I was being more careful than I usually would, usually I would just throw it over the plate . . . Then I was really amped up, too, I was really excited to pitch. Bad combination I guess.” He had me until “usually I would just throw it over the plate” because, folks, using a lot of pitches and going deep into counts is sorta what Blake Snell has always done, even when he won his Cy Young Awards.

For what it’s worth, I was right there with the people howling about no one signing Snell all winter long but, on some level, I get it. Having Blake Snell on your team is sort of like going to the dentist. It’s good for you. It brings you tangible benefits over the long term. But it’s a fairly miserable experience in real time, so wanting to avoid it is pretty understandable, even if it’s not a good idea to do so.

Anyway, all three of the runs against Snell came in the second, when rookie Trey Lipscomb singled in a run, made it to third on an RBI single by Luis García Jr., and then stole home when García got caught in a rundown between first and second. Lane Thomas hit a two-run homer and singled home a run as well. Ildemaro Vargas doubled home a run and drew a bases-loaded walk.

Guardians 4, White Sox 0: The Guardians home opener was supposed to be a day game, but they moved it to last night for logistical and, I presume, to some extent, safety reasons. But they did open the gates to the ballpark early and let fans in and is seemed cool as hell:

That video has no sound but elsewhere I saw that, when the moon was fully blocking the sun, the fans in the stands chanted “José! José! José! José!” referring to Guardians star José Ramírez. I mean, I presume it was Ramírez. I don’t think a Cleveland crowd, even all these years later, have forgiven José Mesa enough to call out his name like that.

The chanting — which I am going to consider to be entreaties to the Sun God — obviously worked, as Ramírez hit a two-run homer in the fifth. The other two runs both involved Andrés Giménez, with him scoring the game’s first run on an error in the third and driving in the second one when he was plunked with the bases loaded in the fourth. Five Cleveland pitchers blanked the Chisox on four hits. They were led by Tristan McKenzie, who tossed five and two-thirds shutout frames.

Yankees 7, Marlins 0: Nestor Cortes went eight, giving up just two hits and not allowing a run. Not that he needed to be that good as both Anthony Volpe and Juan Soto hit three-run homers in the Yankees’ six-run fourth inning. Alex Verdugo singled in the Bombers’ seventh run in the fifth. The game took only two hours and one minute. The Marlins are 1-10. That’s how they started the 1998 fire sale season when they ended up going 54-108. That team was managed by Hall of Famer Jim Leyland and the GM was future Hall of Famer — at least I think he’ll be — Dave Dombrowski. No one ever really mentions that club when those two come up.

Pirates 7, Tigers 4: Jim Leyland’s name comes up all the time with these two teams, but that’s not important for our purposes anymore. What is important is that Bryan Reynolds homered — it was his 100th career dinger — and Connor Joe, Jared Triolo, and Joey Bart each had two RBI as the Pirates win their third game in a row and improve to 9-2 on the season.

Reds 10, Brewers 8: Not a lot of pitching in this one as the clubs combined for 18 runs on 22 hits. Elly De La Cruz led the charge for the Redlegs, hitting a 450-home run to center and hitting an inside-the-park homer. The latter was, like a lot of inside-the-parkers, a function of an outfielder taking a chance on a diving catch, missing the catch, and allowing the ball to roll for days. In all Cruz had three hits and scored four times, Will Benson also homered, and Spencer Steer had two RBI. Not that it was necessarily easy. The Reds led 8-0 after four innings and 9-3 after five, but the Brewers pulled to within one run by the seventh. The inside-the-parker was an insurance run at the end.

Dodgers 4, Twins 2: James Outman and Shohei Ohtani homered — Ohtani doubled twice as well — Will Smith singled in a run, and Freddie Freeman had a sac fly. James Paxton, who I continue to forget pitches for the Dodgers, allowed two runs on three hits over six. Those three hits were all Minnesota managed on the day, and their last 18 batters were retired in order.

Blue Jays 5, Mariners 2: José Berríos pitched shutout ball into the seventh and enjoyed a 4-0 lead by the time he left the game. Davis Schneider and his mustache hit a two-run single. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had two hits and drove in a run. The Mariners have lost five of six.

Phillies 5, Cardinals 3: The Cards rallied for two in the bottom of the ninth to tie things at three and force extras but Alex Bohm doubled in a run and Bryson Stott hit a sac fly to give Philly a two-run cushion in the tenth that they’d maintain. Lost by then was the fact that Spencer Turnbull (6 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 6K) and Miles Mikolas (6.2 IP, 6 H, 2 ER) had themselves a pretty decent pitcher’s duel going for a while. But when a game goes into extras the starting pitchers’ accomplishments are almost always lost . . . like tears in the rain.

Mets 8, Atlanta 7: Atlanta built an early 4-0 lead, the Mets tied it up, Atlanta went up 5-4, the Mets tied it up, and after that the pattern broke down to some degree. Brandon Nimmo hit a three-run homer in the fifth, a solo homer in the seventh, and had an RBI single in the eighth on his 4-for-4, five-RBI night. That single put New York up by three and that was juuuussst enough to withstand a late Atlanta rally.

Astros 10, Rangers 5: No near-no-hitter here, as the teams combined for nine runs in the first two innings. Five of those were scored by Texas in the first against Houston starter Blair Henley, who was just called up to make a spot start for the injured Framber Valdez (see The Daily Briefing below). Texas knocked the young kid around in his debut, that’s for sure, and Henley was knocked out of the game after recording only one out, but the Rangers would not score any more runs for the rest of the evening. Meanwhile the Astros poured it on. Yordan Álvarez hit a two-run homer and doubled in a run. Victor Caratini hit a three-run shot in the fifth. I’m not sure that makes young Blair Henley feel any better about his very short, very rough first day at work, but at least he didn’t take the L.

Rockies 7, Diamondbacks 5: Ryan McMahon had three hits, Charlie Blackmon homered and tripled and reliever Jake Bird retired Eugenio Suárez with a bases-loaded fly to deep right to end a late Dbacks threat and the ballgame. Arizona manager Torey Lovullo won his 499th game last week, Since then his club has dropped five in a row.

Angels 7, Rays 1: Angels starter Tyler Anderson shut the Rays out for seven, Mike Trout tripled and homered, and Taylor Ward drove in three on two RBI singles to help the Halos cruise. They’re 6-4. That’s not shabby.

Padres 9, Cubs 8: Chicago took an 8-0 lead but blew it thanks to a seven-run sixth inning powered by two-run homers from Jake Cronenworth and Xander Bogaerts. In the eighth, Fernando Tatís Jr. hit a go-ahead, two-run home run to complete the biggest comeback in Padres history:

That’s some superstar stuff, folks.

The Daily Briefing

Red Sox, Ceddanne Rafaela agree to an eight-year extension

The Boston Red Sox and outfielder Ceddanne Rafaela have agreed to an eight-year, $50 million contract extension. The 23 year-old, who has only played in 38 games between last year and this year, is now locked up through the 2031 campaign.

Rafaela has played in all ten of the Red Sox’ games in 2024 and is hitting .233/.286/.400 (101 OPS+). In parts of five minor league seasons he has hit.280/.331/.475 with 60 home runs and 115 steals and has played fantastic defense. While he played some infield last year all of his action has been in center in 2024 and that’s, presumably, where he’ll stay. If for no other reason than if the Sox put him in the infield again people are gonna start making Mookie Betts jokes and I figure the Red Sox don’t much care for those.

Rafaela is the second young player Boston has locked up to a long term deal of late, with starting pitcher Brayan Bello recently agreeing to a $55 million deal that keeps him under team control through 2029. Which suggests to me that new GM Craig Breslow has a plan, and that plan is to do things like Atlanta does.

Quote of the Day: Gerrit Cole wants mom and dad to just get along 

As we discussed yesterday, over the weekend we had MLB and the MLBPA issuing dueling statements about what has been causing all of the pitcher injuries. Tony Clark and the union apparently believe this is all about the pitch clock. Major League Baseball thinks it’s a broader issue, while citing their own, undisclosed studies suggesting that it’s . . . something else.

Meanwhile, one of the game’s top stars, Gerrit Cole, just wants everyone to figure this stuff out and try to fix it:

"I'm just frustrated it's a combative issue. It's like, OK, we have divorced parents and the child's misbehaving and we can't get on the same page to get the child to behave, not that the players are misbehaving, but we have an issue here and we need to get on the same page to at least try and fix it.

"Rob [Manfred] cares about the players. He's supposed to care about players, he's supposed to really deeply care about them, like that is his job. I don't know if he wrote that statement, I don't know who wrote that statement, but did anyone put a name on it? At least Tony [Clark] did."

The frustration is fair. So too is calling out Rob Manfred for not putting himself out in front of this issue. Indeed, I’m pretty sure that after this past weekend’s news, Manfred is content to pretend that this, like any other problem that has arisen on his watch, isn’t a problem that requires addressing. We’ll next hear from him during his press availability during All-Star weekend, where he’ll sling some platitudes and that’s about that.

Quote of the Day II: Oh, Mariano 

WABC radio host Sid Rosenberg: “I’m very afraid, Mariano, for New York and this world . . . I’ve got a 19-year-old daughter, she’s gonna turn 20 on Sunday, and a 15-year-old son, and I think we need President Trump to win or it could be very, very ugly. Do you agree with that?”

Mariano Rivera: “I agree with that . . . President Trump, he’s my friend. I can’t deny that. Before he was the president, he was my friend. Because of that, I’m going to vote for him.”

I know where Mariano Rivera stands politically. I know that he has been close with Donald Trump for a long time and even was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom from him. I also know that you don’t wanna know much personal or political stuff about any ballplayer because you’re more than likely to be disappointed. But it still bothers me that a player I liked so damn much, and who otherwise seems so decent, so strongly supports such a morally and ethically bankrupt piece of shit like him.

Do we have another injured pitcher?

Framber Valdez was supposed to take last night’s start for the Astros against the Rangers but he was scratched due to soreness in his left elbow.

Manager Joe Espada told reporters that Valdez felt the soreness while he was playing catch. He hopped a quick flight from DFW to Houston yesterday and met with team doctors. No word as of press time what’s going on with him but, yeah, not good.

Other Stuff

Leading AI companies are basically pirates 

The New York Times ran a story over the weekend about how the big tech companies have essentially thrown all ethics and, in some cases, legalities aside in an effort to get a leg-up in the artificial intelligence wars:

The race to lead A.I. has become a desperate hunt for the digital data needed to advance the technology. To obtain that data, tech companies including OpenAI, Google and Meta have cut corners, ignored corporate policies and debated bending the law, according to an examination by The New York Times.

At Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, managers, lawyers and engineers last year discussed buying the publishing house Simon & Schuster to procure long works, according to recordings of internal meetings obtained by The Times. They also conferred on gathering copyrighted data from across the internet, even if that meant facing lawsuits. Negotiating licenses with publishers, artists, musicians and the news industry would take too long, they said.

Like OpenAI, Google transcribed YouTube videos to harvest text for its A.I. models, five people with knowledge of the company’s practices said. That potentially violated the copyrights to the videos, which belong to their creators.

Last year, Google also broadened its terms of service. One motivation for the change, according to members of the company’s privacy team and an internal message viewed by The Times, was to allow Google to be able to tap publicly available Google Docs, restaurant reviews on Google Maps and other online material for more of its A.I. products.

This is blatant disregard for intellectual property rights. In the case of Google and OpenAI, it’s likely knowing disregard.

The article says that Google has been trying to change its terms of service on the fly so it can access your Google Docs and Google Sheets in ways it never could have before, and may have actually been doing it before it changed the terms of service. Open AI execs, meanwhile, have made clearly specious “fair use” arguments when told that what they were actually doing with respect to scraping YouTube videos and other online data was probably illegal. I’m guessing that this was all based on the assertions of company officials whom everyone is afraid to confront as opposed to cogent legal arguments from in-house or outside counsel. It’s the stuff that leads to punitive damages, assuming the various lawsuits trying to stop this business get so far.

And they should. This business is far, far more egregious than musicians sampling the work of others or individuals downloading songs on Napster or Mozilla 25 years ago, all of which led to major lawsuits, legal and regulatory responses, and a fundamental change in the way which creative industries did business. Now the the tech titans are doing it and, while those lawsuits are pending, no one within the industry seems particularly interested in stopping what they’ve been doing. They all seem to want to get to the top of the sector no matter what it takes and hope that by the time the bill comes due they’re too big and important to fail.

What we’re left with these companies, their funders, and their backers essentially saying “We and our products cannot exist without access to everyone’s information and intellectual property, which we cannot afford to actually license.” And rather than the response being “well, then you don’t have a viable business, do you?” The response is “um, OK, do what you need to do then and I suppose it’ll all be sorted out at some point.

Neither you or I could live by those rules. We’d be sued into bankruptcy or possibly even imprisoned. But Meta, Google, and OpenAI can I guess, because of money. Doesn’t seem all that cool to me.

Maybe Jesus will fight back against the AI companies

I have a contact form on my personal blog over at WordPress that allows people to email me. In the past year or so I’ve gone from getting almost no spam through it to getting a lot of spam through it. I haven’t shut it down yet because I still get occasional legitimate inquiries, tips, and real people reaching out to me, but the day I shut it down is coming.

In the meantime, about 97% of the spam emails I get through the contact form are pitches for AI products which will write blog posts for me. Yesterday, however, for the first time that I can recall, I received a spam email through the form which appeared to be opposed to AI:

If you look closely in the Bible, there are very specific warnings of the rise of AI.

Revelation 13 talks of the emergence of the Anti-Christ, a great deceiver that will rise in times of great chaos and confusion. And, right now, AI’s influence is rapidly spreading around the world in disguise.

Sadly, most people are blissfully unaware. Or perhaps already corrupted by its “touch.”

Even more alarmingly, AI is getting more and more powerful.

Chat GPT 4, a version of Microsoft’s AI, was opened to the public in March 2023

It is reported to contain 10 times the knowledge base of Chat GPT 3…

And have 100 Billion times more processing power.

What comes next?

American Christians have made a short documentary to help you understand and prepare for the dangers of AI.

If you truly believe in God, and his biblical prophecies, I urge you to watch the video now.

Because Big Tech could take it down at any moment.

Honestly, I’m down for what appears to be a staunchly evangelical Christian group and the AI people fighting a holy war. I’m not sure who I’d prefer to win that battle as both of them threaten the things I value the most, but as long as they each damaged the other pretty badly I’d be OK with it.

De-extinction 

I feel like I’ve been hearing about scientists trying to bring back wooly mammoths and dodo birds via gene splicing and other vaguely Jurassic Park-esque means for like 20 years. Yet I still have not seen any wooly mammoths out and about. Feels like something of a ripoff.

Now, though, we’re being assured once again that it’s just around the corner. But they’re denying any connection to Jurassic Park-style technology:

The science behind the project is simple: Work out the genes that make an extinct animal what it is, and then replicate those genes using the DNA of a close existing relative.

"It's almost reverse Jurassic Park," says Mr Lamm, speaking to Sky News.

"In the film, they were filling in the holes in the dinosaur DNA with frog DNA.

"We are leveraging artificial intelligence and other tools to identify the core genes that make a mammoth a mammoth and then engineering them into elephant genomes."

So they’re thwarting God’s Plan via AI. Someone tell me which side of the previous two items they’re on, because I’m totally confused as to the relevant battle lines here. And while we’re at it, can someone tell me whether God has any intellectual property rights? I feel like that’s relevant here as well. I hear He’s got great lawyers.

Quote of the Day: Tim Booth

My favorite band James has a new album coming out on Friday so lead singer Tim Booth is doing some interviews. At age 64, in a band that has been around for 40 years, it’s inevitable that he’d be asked about aging. In an interview that came out yesterday he told a story about how he was in the back of an Uber that had a small fender bender due to his driver having some sort of medical emergency:

He’d had an allergic reaction to eating Sharon fruit. I thought he’d had a heart attack, it looked so final. I got him in the ambulance and his brother drove me home. The brother said to me, ‘Well, when you get to 50, you’re in sniper’s alley’, which I thought was an amazing statement. I’d just written this whole song going, “Folks, it’s time to go, let’s hit the road, death’s a fixture go and kiss her’ and I was a bit freaked out. So that happened during the making of the record.

“When you get to 50 you’re in a sniper’s alley” probably best describes the randomness of not particularly old but not particularly young death.

Intellectually we all know it can totally happen, but if it does it feels as if it came out of nowhere. It’s inherently random — it’s nothing personal to either the sniper or death itself — but there’s an understandable search for reasons or for an explanation that satisfies our need for order and fairness. And for most of us, the first time we hear of it, it’s far away. Then it it hits someone we once knew. Then it’s someone we truly know. It’s as if the sniper is refining his aim and getting closer to the target.

Truly young death is an unequivocally shocking tragedy. Old death is part of the deal. Middle aged death is something in between. It probably won’t get us if we are cautious, but if we stick out heads out just a bit too much . . .

That’s not a new James song. It’s from ten years ago. They’ve only released three from the upcoming album and the best of the three — “Life’s a Fucking Miracle” — is age restricted on YouTube and won’t let me embed it. Besides, “Moving On” is a better song, and a better song about death, anyway.

Have a great day everyone.

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