Cup of Coffee: August 14, 2024

Good morning!

Juan Soto went crazy last night, Jazz Chisholm is hurt, so too is River Ryan, Brewers owner Brewers owner Mark Attanasiois in some legal trouble, and you will not believe what people are betting on now.

In Other Stuff, we do not need an Anthony Bourdain biopic, Disney’s litigation tactics are insane, we now probably know who with the Trump campaign got hacked, and I wonder why none of the news outlets which got the hacked Trump stuff have bothered to print it.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Yankees 4, White Sox 1: Just Soto saw 19 pitches last night. He swung the bat five times. On three of those five swings he hit home runs. To say the guy has a good eye and waits for his pitch is an understatement. To say he’s gonna make serious bank when he hits free agency this offseason is an even greater understatement. The Yankees pull into first place.

Padres 3, Pirates 0: Michael King, who came to San Diego via the Juan Soto trade, so I suppose both sides are benefitting, tossed six shutout innings while striking out ten and three relievers finished the blanking. David Peralta homered while Manny Machado hit a sac fly and singled in a run. The Pirates have lost nine times in a row. Nine times? NINE times.

Athletics 9, Mets 4: Shea Langeliers went 4-for-4, including two doubles and a three-run homer on a four-RBI night. He was a triple short of the cycle and, based on what I read in the gamer, he totally could’ve gotten it if he wanted it:

With reporters approaching Langeliers after the game, second baseman Zack Gelof said he wanted to ask the first question.

“Did you know you needed a triple on the last at-bat?” Gelof said.

“No I did not,” Langeliers responded with a grin.

After talking to third base coach Eric Martins, Langeliers said he felt he could have legged out the triple.

“I guess it hadn’t even registered,” Langeliers said. “I didn’t know until I stopped at second, looked in the dugout and the dugout was freaking out. And I was like, ‘Oh, I needed a triple.’”

If I was Langeliers I would’ve said, “Wasn’t it Hobbes who wrote, ‘In the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory.’ I held up at second base in the interests of communal goodwill.” Then my teammates would’ve called me an exhausting dispshit and would continue to shun me as they had since first meeting me. This is why I never took to team sports.

Marlins 5, Phillies 0: Marlins starter Valente Bellozo tossed seven shutout innings. That’s on top of the five and two-thirds shutout innings he tossed against the Reds last Wednesday. Maybe the Marlins have a pitcher here, eh? Jake Burger and Jesús Sánchez each homered. The Phillies have dropped four straight. If anyone sees the Phillies team from before the All-Star break, please alert your local authorities. Their parents just want them to come home.

Reds 4, Cardinals 1: Hunter Greene held the Cards to one run over seven and Jeimer Candelario hit a two-run homer. Earlier Ty France hit a solo shot and Spencer Steer singled one in. The Reds have won three in a row and with this win are assured of taking the series from St. Louis.

Tigers 15 Mariners 1: Tarik Skubal allowed one over six while striking out nine, but he didn’t have to be anywhere near that good give what the Tigers batters did to George Kirby. Catcher Jake Rogers had the biggest game at the plate, hitting a grand slam and two RBI doubles on a seven-RBI night. DH Kerry Carpenter hit two homers and Gio Urshela and Javier Báez also went deep. Eleven of Detroit’s 15 runs and 13 of their 21 hits came off of Kirby. An absolute bloodbath, saved only by the fact that it was over in less than two and a half hours.

Astros 3, Rays 2: Alex Bregman homered for the fourth straight day, Yanier Díaz singled Bregman in, and Jeremy Peña went yard as well while Yusei Kikuchi pitched one-run ball into the sixth. The Astros have won seven straight and expand their AL West lead to one and a half games.

Nationals 9, Orioles 3: Nats rookie first baseman Andrés Chaparro doubled three times and knocked in a run while fellow rookie James Wood went 4-for-5 and scored three times. Third baseman Ildemaro Vargas hit a sac fly and singled home two more. Jake Irvin went six, allowed two runs, and picked up the win.

Guardians 2, Cubs 1: Jhonkensy Noel’s solo shot in the sixth broke a 1-1 tie and proved to be the winning margin. Cleveland’s first run came via a squeeze bunt in which Brayan Rocchio bunted home Andrés Giménez. Matthew Boyd and four relievers held the Cubs to just the one run on five hits. The Guardians have won four in a row.

Red Sox 9, Rangers 4: Kutter Crawford carried a perfect game into the sixth inning. That sixth was far from perfect — the Rangers touched him for four runs on three hits an a walk — but he was probably feelin’ good there for a while and, hey, he got the win anyway. Connor Wong hit a three-run homer. Rob Refsnyder and Nick Sogard each drove in a couple. Texas has lost six of seven.

Twins 13, Royals 3: Twins rookie Zebby Matthews won his major league debut, going five while allowing two runs on five hits with no walks and five strikeouts. And boy did he have some run support, as Max Kepler hit a three-run homer and singled in a fourth run, Matt Wallner scored three times and had two hits, Jose Miranda knocked in two on three hits, and Christian Vázquez homered. Eight of Minnesota’s 15 hits went for extra bases. Don’t get used to that kind of cushion, Zebby.

Dodgers 7, Brewers 2: Will Smith, Shohei Ohtani, Gavin Lux, and Andy Pages all homered and the Dodgers rode a five-run fifth to an easy victory. Gavin Stone allowed one run on three hits in five innings, striking out six with no walks. Landon Knack pitched the final four innings to pick up the save. I don’t know much about Knack so I went to his Wikipedia page and saw that someone had updated his bio to say “On August 13, Knack picked up his first career save against the Milwaukee Brewers after pitching four innings of relief in a 7–2 win.” This was at like 5AM this morning — on a page whose “Career” section is longer than some multi-time All-Stars — so I’m gonna assume his dad writes his Wikipedia page.

Blue Jays 6, Angels 1: Kevin Gausman tossed seven shutout innings, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. stayed hot, hitting his ten homer since the All-Star break, Spencer Horwitz, playing in just his second big league game, went back-to-back with him, and Will Wagner had a two-run double. This is fun: George Springer appeared to get by a pitch on his back foot, started walking to first, the ump called him back saying he wasn’t hit, replay did not or could not overturn it, Springer went nuts — like he had to be restrained by John Schneider to keep him from getting to the home plate ump — and he got ejected. Check it out:

Diamondbacks 4, Rockies 3: Jake McCarthy — who has 15 RBI in his last six games — hit a two-out, walkoff two-run single to save the Dbacks’ bacon. Not that their bacon has been under much a of a threat lately. They’ve won five in a row, 17 of 20, and with this win they locked in their ninth straight series win.

Atlanta 4, Giants 3: For the second straight night the sides go to extras and for the second straight night Atlanta wins in 10. Here Travis d'Arnaud, who had homered in the third inning to make it 3-1 Atlanta, singled home the Manfred Man on a ball that went off the glove of the Giants second baseman and bounced into right field. For some reason Bob Melvin had Tyler Fitzgerald — who has been his best hitter and has a .609 slugging percentage — try to bunt their Manfred Man over in the bottom of the tenth. It didn’t work but, more importantly, that’s some serious loser-ass energy from Melvin, man.

The Daily Briefing

Jazz Chisholm goes on the IL with a UCL injury 

On Monday night Yankees infielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. exited the game against the White Sox in the seventh inning with a left elbow injury. He underwent some testing yesterday and while the exact details of that testing have not been released, Aaron Boone told reporters last night that Chisholm is likely headed to the injured list with a UCL injury. Chisholm will undergo more testing to determine if he will need surgery.

Chisholm was acquired from the Miami Marlins at the deadline and has played fantastically since the trade, hitting seven home runs in his first 13 games with the Yankees. On the season he is hitting 257/.328/.445 with 20 home runs and 26 stolen bases. And now the Yankees look to be stuck with some combination of Oswaldo Cabrera and DJ LeMahieu at third, unless Chisholm makes a miraculous recovery.

River Ryan to have Tommy John surgery

The Los Angeles Dodgers announced yesterday that starter River Ryan will undergo Tommy John surgery. Which means that Ryan will not be back until spring training 2026 in all likelihood. Ryan is the fourth Dodgers pitcher to either undergo the procedure in 2024 or to miss time in 2024 due to TJ rehab, joining Emmet Sheehan, Tony Gonsolin and Walker Buehler.

Ryan, who turns 26 next week, did not debut until July 22, but he was pretty good in his four starts, going 1-0 with a 1.33 ERA and 18 strikeouts in 20.1 innings. Given just how banged up the Dodgers rotation has been the club was no doubt hoping he’d take the ball every fifth day through September and, if his form came even close to holding up over that time, may very well have seen postseason action. Now, nope.

Not that we can’t laugh about this, at least indirectly:

Captain Picard: Computer, detect all lies.

Computer: There are no lies detected.

Brewers owner sued over California coastline dispute

Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio is actually a Los Angeles guy. Well, he’s a New York guy who became a Los Angeles finance guy before buying the Brewers. He still lives in California. Malibu, in fact. And his personal habits in Malibu have gotten him sued. From the Los Angeles Times:

A lawsuit filed last week alleges that Mark Attanasio, billionaire businessman and owner of the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team, has been using excavators to dig up sand from Broad Beach and carry it back to his house as part of an ongoing construction project.

“This case is about a private property owner using a public beach as their own personal sandbox and the disturbing conversion of a public natural resource (i.e., sand from Broad Beach) for a nearby homeowner’s personal, private use,” the lawsuit says.

The suit was filed by Attanasio’s next-door neighbor James Kohlberg, son of Jerome Kohlberg, who founded the global investment company Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

I won’t even pretend to fully grok what goes on with rich people fighting over beachfront property in Los Angeles County. There are public access issues. Real estate issues. Environmental issues. And often one or more of those is used for cover when people really care about one of the others. No one who is rich enough to buy oceanfront Malibu property is without sin.

So no, I have no idea if Attanasio is truly trying to shore up some ocean wall or if, rather, he’s trying to steal sand from some other rich guy. All I know for sure is that when the world is near its end and people are fighting over scarce resources, there is bound to be some billionaire sports team owner involved in the scuffle.

Dystopia Watch

A Friend of the Newsletter forwarded me an email they received yesterday morning:

The 2024 Little League World Series starts Wednesday afternoon with a quadruple-header.

A total of 38 LLWS games will be televised daily on ESPN from August 14-25, and with the sports calendar somewhat light until football starts there will be a ton of fans, and bettors, tuning in to the action at Williamsport.

BetOnline.ag has offered Little League odds (below) for the past three years, and the operator said the sport has seen a rapid rise in popularity.

"The Little League World Series is an exciting tournament that our customers absolutely love to watch and wager on," Sportsbook Manager Adam Burns said. "This might come as a surprise, but we'll take more bets on these little league games than we will on any professional tennis or soccer matches over the next two weeks."

Big time betting on Little League baseball. It’s the sort of thing that just makes you wanna stare into the middle distance for a few hours and wonder when the meteor is coming.

Other Stuff

Let’s not do this, OK?

From Deadline:

Following his breakout role in the Oscar-winning dramedy “The Holdovers,” Dominic Sessa looks to have found his next high-profile project as sources tell Deadline he is attached to star as the late chef Anthony Bourdain in the biopic Tony from Oscar-nominated production company Star Thrower Entertainment. Sources also tell Deadline that A24 is in negotiations to acquire the package.

I was a huge Anthony Bourdain fan and I thought Sessa was fantastic in “The Holdovers,” but I really do not think we need this movie and I hope it does not, in fact, get made.

Since his death Anthony Bourdain has been mythologized and idealized in ways that I suspect he himself would’ve absolutely loathed, and making a biopic about him is only going to exacerbate the mythologizing. Such a thing would serve as a marked contrast to the way in which Bourdain approached the topics he cared about in the course of his career. This is particularly true of his television work, in which he always attempted to look beyond cliche and convention and to capture his subjects, be they places, people, or cuisine, as they were, in their often messy realities, not in some idealized or romanticized form.

How many biopics have actually done that with their subjects? Now how many have instead chosen to leverage and lean into the popular image of a notable figure for commercial purposes, resulting in something which either misleadingly idealizes or romanticizes them or simply exploits them for commercial gain?

So no, I don’t think the odds of this project resulting in something good are particularly great. Let the man, with all of his flaws and complications and contradictions, rest in peace.

This is why people hate corporations

Last October a doctor from Long Island, New York named Kanokporn Tangsuan, her husband, and her mother-in-law visited Walt Disney World. The three of them decided to eat at a resort restaurant called the Raglan Road pub. Dr. Tangsuan had severe food allergies to dairy and peanuts so both she and her husband inquired many times about the ingredients used in the dishes they ordered, seeking assurances that the food was free of those allergens. The waitstaff and the kitchen all assured her that it was safe. That was not true, unfortunately, and Dr. Tangsuan died of anaphylaxis not long after finishing her meal.

Dr. Tangsuan’s husband is, not surprisingly, suing Walt Disney World. Disney, however, has moved to dismiss the case. Why? Because several years ago her husband signed up for a one-month trial of the Disney+ streaming service and Disney is now claiming that in doing so he agreed to arbitrate all disputes with the company, foreclosing his right to litigate.

No, I am not making that up.

I am trying to imagine the meeting during which Disney’s attorneys came up with that strategy. Someone actually had to say, “I bet this guy had a free trial of Disney+ once. Someone get a paralegal to look that up. If he did, he waived his right to sue!” After which someone had to agree with that, carry out the research, put that in a 12(b)(6) motion and sign it. They probably had to get a company employee to execute an affidavit verifying that, yes, the widower/plaintiff did, indeed, click the little box agreeing to terms and conditions for Disney+ and thus lost all rights to a trial against Disney if and when they caused his wife’s death with tainted food many years later. Multiple self-proclaimed Officers of the Court thought that was a good argument and ran with that baby.

I hope the judge fires heatseeking missiles up their rectums. And, short of that, I hope they enjoy a nice view of the lake of fire when they find themselves in Hell.

Full, blatant racism from the Trump campaign

This tweet — from the official account of the Trump campaign — is the most blatantly racist thing I’ve ever seen from a presidential candidate:

Honestly, there have been Klan rallies with more subtlety than that.

Roger Stone was the weak link in the Trump campaign hack

There has been a decent amount of news regarding the recent hack of the Trump campaign. You know, the one in which, among other things, hundreds of pages of J.D. Vance oppo material was compromised. We already knew it came via a phishing attack. The other day CNN reported who the phish was. Roger Stone!

The hackers used access to Stone’s email account to try to break into the account of a senior Trump campaign official as part of a persistent effort to access campaign networks, one of the sources said. The hacking incident, which occurred in June, set off a scramble in the Trump campaign, the FBI and Microsoft, which spotted the intrusion attempts, to contain the incident and to determine if there was a broader cyber threat from Iran.

It’s not 100% established that the info obtained and later sent to Politico, the Washington Post, and the New York Times was a result of compromising Stone or if someone else was also phished. But I’m gonna put my money on the loose cannon septuagenarian with a long and rich history of political dirty tricks and multiple (subsequently pardoned) felony convictions under his belt. The dude is a certified freak and if someone sent him an email promising him something either lurid, grand, kinky, flamboyant, or damaging to his opposition, he’s 100% gonna click on it. For all of Stone’s savvy, I bet he’s among the most easily compromised political actors out there.

Why haven’t we seen the leaked documents yet?

Keeping with the hack. . .

Ever since it made the news on Saturday I’ve been wondering when, and if, any of the multiple media outlets which are now in possession of the Trump campaign documents planned to publish any of it. Because to date there has been bupkis. Politico, the Post, and the Times have published cursory overviews of the hacked documents, but they have not otherwise described their contents or built days upon days of news stories around them.

This can be contrasted with how the media behaved when Hillary Clinton’s campaign was the victim of a similar phishing incident in 2016. Back then there was a constant drip-drip-drip of stories, over the course of weeks, running right up until election day, many of which reproduced the hacked material in full. I mean, can anyone forget John Podesta’s risotto recipe?

At the time many cried foul about the publication of stuff hacked from the Clinton campaign, calling it unethical and playing right into the hands of both the Trump campaign and Russia, which was widely seen to be behind the hack and which was ultimately determined to be the perpetrator. The media, most notably the New York Times, pushed back on that idea, asserting that it had not just a right but a duty to publish the material it obtained.

Indeed, here was the New York Times then-editor-in-chief Dean Baquet, taking part in an NYU journalism panel discussing the press’ role in the 2016 election. The conversation took place in 2020. During the course of it, Baquet insisted that the New York Times was right to publish the docs from the Clinton hack because they were newsworthy. The following exchange then ensued:

Michael Barbaro: There are going to people who push back on this answer. This seemed like a leak designed to inflict political damage.

Dean Baquet: I know. I get it. At the time we didn’t know Russia was behind the release of the emails. 

Michael Barbaro: We knew they were ill-gotten.

Dean Baquet: We knew they were ill-gotten, but here is my view, and I understand it may not be popular: When we learn important things, to not publish is a political act. It’s not a journalistic act. There should not be a whole lot that we learn about important stories that we don’t publish. My view is that publishing is journalism, not publishing is political balancing.

Michael Barbaro: The next time we find a foreign government is behind a document release, what standard will apply?

Dean Baquet: The next big document dump comes in… I’ve even seen other journalists say I hope we understand that we can’t publish that stuff. No. I will read it. We will evaluate it. We will look at in the new context that we understand, which is Russia is actively trying to influence American elections. That will be part of the calculation. But the calculation cannot be, we’re just not going to publish because that would screw up American politics. At that point I will go into business as like a campaign adviser to people and not a journalist.

Michael Barbaro: The next time it happens, and if we believe it’s the act of a foreign government, will we apply a different standard?

Dean Baquet: Sure. We will take all these events into account, and make a judgment about the importance of the material vs. the risk of being manipulated. If it’s the tax returns of a candidate, and it’s really important and compelling, and we’re being manipulated, my view is we have to publish it and say we’re being manipulated… And I’m sure the debate will be more fierce that it was in 2016. But in the end if there is information the American public should know, we’ll publish it. And that’s what we do.

Baquet is no longer the Times’ editor-in-chief but he is still with the paper. Apparently his insistence that the paper would look at the material it has been leaked to determine what in the leak is of actual political importance and publish those things with proper context has fallen on deaf ears. Because now the paper, and all the other papers, are just sitting on this stuff. And they can’t say it’s because none of it is newsworthy, because when you have a several-hundred page document the campaign used to determine who would be the vice presidential pick that’s manifestly newsworthy.

In light of all of that there are only two explanations for why the news outlets who are in possession of the hacked Trump material are not publishing them:

1. They believe their judgment and behavior in 2016 was wrong and irresponsible and they do not want to make the same mistake again; or
2. They’re consciously trying to protect and thus help the Trump campaign in 2024;

It has to be one or the other. And the first option seems rather unlikely given that none of them have even once acknowledged that they made any mistakes in 2016. Indeed, they continue, to this day, to deny that their 2016 coverage was poor and worked to Donald Trump’s advantage. Which either suggests unconscionable stubbornness on their part with respect to admitting fault or constitutes and admission of option 2.

Anyway, If I was the guy who leaked this material — described only as "Robert,” and sending his info via an AOL account — and I saw that the media had steadfastly refused to print or even describe the stuff in anything but broad, cursory detail, I'd probably be mad. Indeed, I’d consider dumping it all online someplace and letting the world see it. Or, if that seemed too risky, I’d look for someone else to leak it to in the hope that they, unlike the major media outlets, published it.

If only there was there were a journalist out there without cowardly executives overseeing them, who possessed a legal background that would enable them to know what can and cannot be done in this regard, and who had nearly unlimited time, unlimited capacity, and the unlimited desire to publish such things! Alas.

Have a great day everyone.

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