Cup of Coffee: August 5, 2024

Good morning!

The White Sox keep skidding, the Phillies stop the bleeding, Lance McCullers gets some bad news, and Billy Beane looks back.

In Other Stuff, the fascists are rioting in the UK, J.D. Vance is not gonna get nominated for Father of the Year, I watched an insane documentary about Nicholas Rossi (aka Arthur Knight), and someone took the pole vault waaaay too literally.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Giants 8, Reds 2: Matt Chapman, LaMonte Wade Jr. and Tyler Fitzgerald homered for the Giants. It was close until relatively late, however, and Chapman flashed some serious leather to save a run:

Well, since he barehanded it I should say he flashed some skin, but I can imagine how that might be misinterpreted.

Twins 13, White Sox 7: Royce Lewis hit a three-run homer in the Twins’ six-run second inning that gave Minnesota an 8-0 cushion and there was no way this White Sox team was coming back from that. In the event, it’s 20 straight losses for Chicago. It’s the longest losing streak in baseball in 36 years and they are now on pace to lose 124 games. The modern record, of course, is 120, by the 1962 Mets. That record is in serious danger.

Before the game, manager Pedro Grifol, was asked about his job status. He said that he knows that team owner Jerry Reinsdorf might have to make "tough decisions.” You know, Pedro, some decisions aren’t all that tough.

Diamondbacks 6, Pirates 5: Paul Skenes got a no-decision after allowing two runs while pitching into the sixth. He still stood to get the W as the Pirates held a slim lead into the seventh but that’s when Joc Pederson hit a three-run jack to put the Dbacks ahead. Ketel Marte added another in the ninth as some much-needed insurance which allowed the Dbacks to hold off a Pirates rally and take two of three.

Marlins 7, Atlanta 0: Edward Cabrera struck out eight in five innings and three relievers completed the six-hit blanking (blankening?). Jonah Bride’s three-run blast capped a six-run fourth. The clubs split the four-game set. I can’t decide if a series between Atlanta and the Marlins should be called “The Walt Weiss Classic,” “The Fredi González Derby” or “The Dan Uggla Invitational.” I suppose Gary Sheffield and Martín Prado-themes are in play as well. Marcell Ozuna cannot be considered because he’s active. And a jerk.

[Editor: Jeff Francouer finished his career with 26 games in Miami.]

Let’s not be ridiculous. This is a serious publication.

Nationals 4, Brewers 3: Luís García Jr. homered in the first and rookie James Wood hit a bases-loaded triple in the sixth while Mitchell Parker held the Brewers scoreless through six. The Nats take two of three. Milwaukee has lost four of five.

Orioles 9, Guardians 5: Gunnar Henderson hit a two-run homer and Adley Rutschman drove in three to help the O’s earn a four-game split. Jackson Holliday also went yard. Eloy Jiménez, who I am finding it harder to see in a different team’s uniform than most of the guys traded at the deadline for some weird reason, had three hits. Maybe Jiménez is just an extremely White Sox guy. Like a Jedi with midi-chlorians, except whatever ex-True White Sox have in their blood comes from the trauma of having to play for the White Sox. Anyway, he’s five for his first nine in black and orange. And gray. And eventually white I suppose.

Royals 3, Tigers 2: The Tigers got eight shutout innings in a bullpen game. The problem is that baseball games last nine and Shelby Miller — who, if you asked me yesterday morning, I would’ve said has been out of the league since roughly 2018 — put two men on and then gave up a three-run pinch-hit homer to MJ Melendez in the ninth. The Royals take three of four.

Also: after seeing Melendez hit the homer, I was reminded that my boss at my first legal job — the summer internship I had at the DOJ Antitrust Division in 1996 — was named MJ, also with no punctuation. Or at least she went by MJ. I’m not sure what her full name was. Given her age I assume it was Mary Jane or something traditional, but I Googled her to see. Turns out her LinkedIn and every other reference I could find for her lists her as “MJ.” That’s some real commitment to the initials game. And a testament to how little about one’s early life exists online if they came of age before there was an online. Whatever the case, I’m happy to see that she’s still around and at least part time practicing/consulting. She was way nicer to an unpaid IL intern than anyone who actually took meetings with Janet Reno had any real need to be.

Rays 1, Astros 0: Rays opener Hunter Bigge loaded the bases with two walks and a single in the first, Kevin Cash yanked him, and then Tyler Alexander (4.1 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 5K) and three other pitchers pulled off the rest of what was a three-hit, 12-strikeout shutout. Alexander got the win despite pitching only four and a third because he was not the starter. Which tells you how dumb it is that we still have a rule that says a starter has to go five innings to get a win, but I suppose I’ve been dying on enough hills lately so I’ll drop it. Brandon Lowe’s RBI double in the third was the game’s only run. The Rays win despite striking out 15 times. Tampa Bay takes two of three.

Red Sox 7, Rangers 2: Wilyer Abreu hit a game-tying solo shot in the fourth and then hit a three-run shot in the sixth that turned a one-run game into a four-run game and gave the Sox the series. According to the game story this all came a day after Abreu’s grandma died. That’s more emotion in a weekend than anyone really wants or needs.

Yankees 4, Blue Jays 3: They had a long late rain delay but D.J. LeMahieu singled home the Manfred Man in the bottom of the tenth to give the Yankees the game and the series and to let everyone go home. Earlier in the game LeMahieu hit a run-scoring sac fly. Juan Soto homered and Trent Grisham grounded in a run. Gerrit Cole pitched into the sixth allowing two.

Dodgers 3, Athletics 2: The clubs exchanged two runs a piece in the first thanks to a Kiké Hernández two-run double and a Brent Rooker two-run homer. That was it for Oakland, however, and Cavan Biggio’s RBI single in the third was the difference. While it’s easy to overlook because he’s doing it in Oakland, Rooker is having a hell of a season: .290/.365/.591 28 homers and 81 driven in.

Angels 3, Mets 2: Not a big-hitting win for the Angels as their runs scored on a wild pitch and two sac flies, but Griffin Canning allowed one earned run, two total, over five and the Angels bullpen shut the Mets down on two hits the rest of the way. Halos take the series two games to three.

Padres 10, Rockies 2: David Peralta hit a three-run homer and Kyle Higashioka and Jurickson Profar also went deep. Knuckleballer Matt Waldron worked into the sixth, holding the Rockies to one run on two hits while striking out seven and walking two. Viva the knuckler. San Diego takes two of three.

Phillies 6, Mariners 0: The Phillies stop the bleeding — or, at the very least, stop the six-game losing streak; they could start bleeding again tonight — behind Zack Wheeler’s eight shutout innings. Kyle Schwarber did what he does best — hit a leadoff homer — and Bryson Stott, Bryce Harper, and Alec Bohm homered as part of a five-run eighth inning which iced things.

Cubs 6, Cardinals 2: Michael Tauchman and Miguel Amaya went deep and Justin Steele pitched into the seventh, allowing two runs. Chicago takes three of four.

The Daily Briefing

Lance McCullers shut down for the year 

Astros pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. injured his flexor tendon in a bullpen session in February 2023. He was not expected to miss a substantial portion of the season, but he suffered a setback following another bullpen session in May, which necessitated surgery the June. The hope was that he’d be ready to return in mid-2024 and, until recently, he had been rehabbing to that end.

Yesterday, unfortunately, Astros manager Joe Espada said that, following another setback, McCullers is being shut down for the year. Espada said McCullers has no structural damage in his pitching elbow, but he gave no specific reason for the latest setback.

McCullers last appeared in a game during the 2022 World Series. Before that he made only made eight starts in the 2022 regular season, having spent most of the year recovering from a right flexor tendon strain he sustained during the 2021 postseason. He was excellent in those eight starts, posting a 2.27 ERA (171 ERA+), but that seems like a million years ago now. He previously underwent Tommy John surgery in 2018 and missed the entire 2019 season recovering from that.

It’s been a rough several years for the guy. Things continue to be rough.

Billy Beane looks back

Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle sat down with Billy Beane for a “hey, the Oakland era is ending” interview. Beane is no longer a part owner of the Athletics and only advises GM David Forst on the most informal of basis. As such, he doesn’t talk about the team’s move to Sacramento/Las Vegas (I bet a condition for the interview was no questions about that). But he does share a lot of memories that people who followed the Moneyball-era A’s will find interesting.

While there is a lot of good stuff in there, I found a couple of passages to be of particular note, and they sort of go together.

The first one was when Slusser asked Beane which of the teams he put together stood out. After citing the 2001 club as the best of his tenure, Beane said this:

I saw on ESPN that to keep that entire team together would have taken the payroll up over $300 million, some incredible number. Now there’s one or two teams that might get there but this was more than 20 years ago. That is a testament to the talent on that team — I’m not sure any owner could have afforded it, and we got a lot of them at the beginning of their careers.

The owners of the Athletics during the A’s “Moneyball Era” of the early 2000s were Stephen Schott and Ken Hofmann, who had put serious budget constraints on the team which continue to this day under John Fisher. Before that, however, the team was owned by Walter A. Haas, who had purchased the team from Charles O. Finley. It was under Haas that the team won those pennants from 1988-1990 and the 1989 World Series. The club also — as Beane himself notes in the interview — frequently had some of the highest payrolls in baseball during Haas’ tenure, and all the talk at the time was that the Giants would have to leave town because the A’s owned the Bay Area. Hell, the Giants almost did leave town around then.

Haas died in 1995. He did not die bankrupt. Indeed, his $12.7 million investment in 1980 had appreciated by around 670% by 1995. And that’s despite the fact that news reports at the time considered the sale price to be below market. So it’s pretty clear those higher payrolls didn’t hurt him or his heirs.

I don’t know how flush with cash Schott and Hofmann were or whether they could’ve, if they had wanted, kept those early 2000s teams together. But John Fisher is worth around two and a half billion dollars, and he certainly could’ve kept together those good teams the A’s put together in the early teens and then again between 2018 and 2020. Even if the business was in the red for a few years because of stadium problems — something Fisher has never bothered to even attempt to prove — it would’ve worked out just fine for him.

Or better. Because later in the interview Slusser asked Beane how he would describe the Oakland Coliseum atmosphere in those days. Beane said, “Justin Verlander had so many victories against us in big games, but he said that [ALDS Game 5 at Oakland in 2012] was one of the loudest and best crowds he’d pitched in front of. That was my experience when we had big crowds and big games — I don’t think there was any place like it.” And in less then two months it never will have the chance to be again.

If John Fisher had bothered to invest in the team even a little bit rather than strip it for parts and hightail it out of town, he’d be the King of the Bay Area now. A hell of a lot of baseball fans would be counting the days until the new ballpark the city gave Fisher — and which he graciously accepted — was completed. And one day soon they would’ve had a moments like the one Beane described again.

Other Stuff

Honey Stay Super

I’ve recommended the writer Kimberly Harrington’s newsletter, Honey Stay Super, in the past. Her latest installment is a great reason to do so once again.

Harrington lives in Vermont, where she has raised her kids over the past 20 years. She’s about to be an empty nester, however, is single, and can work from anywhere. She’s now moving on to a new phase of her life and is searching for a new place to live. Over the next several months she’s taking a tour of various candidate cities. In the latest newsletter she talks about her first stop on that tour, Portland, Oregon. Though I should tell you, it’s not a travelogue, really. It’s more about the mental journey of it all.

As is the case with most of the the things Harrington writes, the latest installment contained a lot relatable content for a person like me. As you know, I’m a recent empty nester. I can work from anywhere. I have raised my kids in a town I sort of accidentally wound up in over the past 20 years and “where’s next?” is obviously the sort of thing I think about a good deal. Harrington thinks about it all more interestingly and deeply, however, and writes about way more eloquently than I ever could.

It’s a good read even if you’re not completely in our demographic. As is everything she writes.

Violent right wing extremists are rampaging in the UK

You may have seen the headlines from England about “protests” in England which have turned violent and destructive, with scores of police officers injured, a mosque burned, and a number of cars and buildings burned. Know, however, that these are not “protests.” It’s an organized campaign of violence being perpetrated by right wing extremists and neo-Nazis. And that’s the case even if some of the media seems confused about such things:

If only we knew who it was to whom anti-fascists were opposed.

The violence was all kicked off last Monday when three children under the age of ten were killed and several other were injured in a knife attack at a dance/yoga studio in the town of Southport, just outside of Liverpool. Soon after the attack an online disinformation campaign, orchestrated by an extremist Islamophobic organization called the English Defence League, falsely claimed that the perpetrator was an undocumented immigrant. In reality the suspect, a person named Axel Rudakubana who turns 18 on Wednesday — was born in Wales to Rwandan parents and had lived with his family in the Greater Manchester area for the past 11 years. But that meant nothing to these extremists spreading disinformation and urging rioters to take to the streets. It was all a pretext for a neo-Nazi/nativist rampage.

The violence has now spread beyond Southport to cities and towns all over the UK. Yesterday mobs attacked a Holiday Inn Express hotel in the town of Rotherham, outside Sheffield, because asylum seekers were staying there pending their hearings. A similar attack on a hotel near Bristol resulted in anti-fascist counter-protesters linking arms and protecting the people in the hotel while shouting "We are many, you ate few! We are Bristol, who are you?!" Which, good to see the pushback. As someone wisely said yesterday, “everything I’ve ever read about fighting fascism boils down to never giving them a single square inch of space.” And when they punch you, you absolutely punch them the fuck back.

While this may be happening in the UK, nearly every western country has experienced a surge in right wing extremism over the past several years. Indeed, you don’t have to think very hard about how this sort of violent, anti-immigrant mob rampage and the overt plans of, say, American Republicans, are philosophically if not organizationally connected. It’s all based on bigotry, lies, dehumanization, and the belief that violence is a legitimate means of political expression. It’s fascism, pure and simple. Call it what it is and do absolutely everything in your power to stop it.

J.D. Vance: Father of the Year

Here was JD Vance, on a podcast on Friday, talking about when Donald Trump called him to tell him he was the V.P. pick:

“My son, who’s 7, is in the hotel room with me, and he’s really into Pokemon cards right now . . . he’s trying to talk to me about Pikachu and I’m on the phone with Donald Trump.and I’m like, ‘son, shut the hell up for about 30 seconds about Pikachu’”

I can’t decide if it’d be worse for Vance to have actually told his seven year old son to “shut the hell up” for simply wanting to share something he likes with his dad or if, as I suspect is the case, for Vance to have not said that to his son but have told a bro podcaster that he did so in an effort to sound cool or tough or sufficiently deferential to Trump. I mean, either one is horrible and one or the other of them has to be the truth, right?

Oh my God you gotta watch the Nicholas Rossi documentary

A few months ago I linked a story from The Sunday Times about a man named Nicholas Alahverdian, who also went by the name Nicholas Rossi. Rossi, who was born in Rhode Island 1987, cut a monstrous path through his home state, Ohio, and Utah as a serial rapist, abuser, stalker, and fraudster. In 2017, wanted by state and federal authorities for even more crimes — and for violating his probation on an earlier sexual assault conviction — he fled the United States for Ireland and then England. While there he faked his own death and assumed a new identity as a man named Arthur Knight.

“Arthur Knight” claimed to be an Irish orphan who grew up like an urchin on the streets of London but who was now a dandyish university instructor in Glasgow. Locals, unaware of his real identity, nonetheless clocked him for a phony. He and his British wife Miranda, however, seemed to be living an otherwise fairly innocuous existence while managing to evade U.S. authorities. But then in 2022 “Knight” contracted a serious case of COVID which landed him in an ICU on a ventilator. While he was in the hospital the staff figured out, based on his distinctive tattoos, that he was a wanted fugitive from America. He was arrested and released on bail while a Utah district attorney attempted to extradite him back to face multiple rape charges. That kicked off a two-year circus in which “Knight” and his wife, rather than lay low, courted press attention during which they insisted that “Knight” was not Rossi/Alahverdian.

I was first drawn to the story when that press circus began a couple of years ago, as “Knight” cut a ridiculous figure, dressing like some stage play version of a posh, mid-century British dandy, complete with tweed suits, pocket watches, and talk about his love of Queen and Empire and all of that. He gave these interviews while wearing an oxygen mask that he didn’t seem to use in the way a person actually requiring oxygen would, while employing a accent that was, to put it kindly, less than consistent. It was all so over-the-top that it was actually hilarious on some level. Except, as I learned in that Sunday Times story of course, there was nothing funny about Nicholas Alahverdian/Rossi or his playacting as Arthur Knight. The man is a monster. A psychopath, really.

Thanks to the heads up from my friend Caryn, I learned over the weekend that there is now a four-part documentary about all of this streaming on Peacock, called “Rossi: A Fugitive Faking Death.” I watched it on Saturday night and ho-lee-shit it’s crazy.

Alahverdian/Rossi is a far, far worse person than even that Sunday Times article described, and the lengths he has gone to over the years to harm people for his own narcissistic satisfaction are almost unfathomable. Almost as a shocking is just how long he was able to get away with it. Indeed, if it were not for some extremely brave women (i.e. his victims), a prosecutor whose own political interests might’ve been better served letting things lie but nonetheless pressed on, and Alahverdian/Rossi himself contracting COVID, he’d likely still be walking around Glasgow a free man.

If you are even remotely into true crime — audacious true crime — you gotta watch this thing. Though a warning: there is considerable discussion and description of rape, sexual assault, and physical and emotional abuse in the documentary, so if that’s not something you’d care to see and hear, I’d skip it.

Look, if you gotta lose . . .

All Olympians want to win a medal. Likewise all Olympians, I presume anyway, are disappointed on some level if they do not win a medal. But if you have to lose out on a medal, there are some ways to do so that are worse than others.

I say that because, as you may have seen if you are as internet-poisoned as I am, on Saturday a 21 year old French pole vaulter named Anthony Ammirati was eliminated before the final round because, well, his la queue caught on the crossbar:

First off: I don’t need anyone who knows more about pole vaulting than me (i.e. literally every single person in the world) to tell me that Ammirati’s vault was doomed before his Jeansonne got caught and that it thus didn’t matter that his pole hit the pole. Maybe that is true. Maybe his thigh DID hit the bar first. I don’t care. You all know I’ve been grumpy and gloomy lately and I NEED THIS dammit.

Second: You thought I said “there are some ways to lose out on a medal that are worse than others” because I was highlighting this as one of the worse ways. Non! This is one of the best ways, man. Sure, being a gold medal winner is maybe the best flex, but “I had totally cleared the bar, but I guess my penis was JUST TOO BIG” is a pretty damn good flex as well, at least in the right company. You can dine out on that one for the rest of your life.

Have a great day everyone.

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