Cup of Coffee: February 5, 2024

Good morning!

Today we talk about Hall caps, Theo’s return, a trade, a signing, and a DWI. There are only two items In Other Stuff, but they’re both longish. One is about my family connection to Puritan bestiality. The other is about Gene Hackman. So, yeah, we’re pretty on-brand today here at Cup of Coffee.

 The Daily Briefing

Beltré to wear a Rangers cap on his Hall of Fame plaque, Jim Leyland’s will be blank

It’s no mystery which caps Todd Helton and Joe Mauer will be wearing on their Hall of Fame plaques given that each of them only played for one organization. The other two inductees, Adrián Beltré and Jim Leyland, on the other hand, required the Hall of Fame to make a choice. And yes, it is the Hall of Fame’s choice. While inductees are allowed to offer their opinion — or to request that they wear a blank cap — the Hall makes the final call, with an aim toward accurately reflecting baseball history.

Beltré’s opinion on the matter was in keeping with the Hall of Fame’s choice: the Texas Rangers. That wasn’t a terribly difficult call, I don’t imagine, as he played there for eight seasons, which is longer than he played for the Dodgers (seven years), Mariners (five years), and Red Sox (one year). And while his single best season came with the Dodgers in 2004, he had his best and most consistent multi-season run in baseball with the Rangers. And let’s be honest: if you randomly think of Adrián Beltré, you are absolutely picturing him in a Rangers uniform, which is sort of the point of that “accurately reflecting baseball history” thing.

Beltré, in a statement, offered that justification, even if he gave a respectful nod to his other clubs:

I am grateful for the time I spent with all of my teams during my career," Beltré said in a statement issued by the Hall of Fame. "Looking back, I played more years in Texas than anywhere else and I believe my time with the Rangers represents the peak of my career, individually and from a team standpoint. But I could not have made this journey to Cooperstown without the Los Angeles Dodgers, Seattle Mariners, Boston Red Sox, and their fans, and I am proud that each of the teams I played with will be listed on my Hall of Fame plaque."

Leyland’s career as a manager presented a much more interesting choice. He won his only World Series title with the Florida Marlins in 1997, but his tenure there was short given that ownership conducted a massive fire sale right after they won it all. He managed Pittsburgh for 11 seasons (1986-96), making multiple postseason appearances but never winning a pennant. He likewise had a long run of success with the Tigers between 2006 and 2013, adding two more pennants to his ledger. He managed the Rockies for one year, in 1999, but everyone has sort of forgotten about that.

If they had to pick one of those caps for Leyland, it’d probably be between the Pirates and Tigers. Ultimately, however, it’ll be a blank design. Leyland:

"I will always appreciate the teams that gave me the opportunity to be their major league manager. We had some great moments with every one of those ballclubs, and I'm proud that they all will be mentioned on my Hall of Fame plaque. I want to make sure I show each of those teams respect, and this does that."

Seems fair to me. Especially considering that when I think of Leyland in action I picture him wearing a blazer over a polo shirt and a pair of jeans, walking into the little snack shop at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas at the 2011 Winter Meetings, taking a candy bar and walking right out without paying for it, immediately after which some MLB handler ran into the store and seemed to pay for Leyland’s candy bar. Seriously. I watched the damn thing happen, man. Allison — whom I had just met in person for the first time like an hour before — was with me and she’ll vouch.

Then, ten minutes later, some random guy walked straight into the fountain in the Hilton Atrium:

When they show the overhead shot of the guy I’m off to the left of the fountain, sitting just behind and above the MLB Network set. Leyland’s five-finger discount took place about 100 feet behind the base of the fountain. Which is to say, I had a commanding view of all of that chaos.

Man, now that I think about it, that may have been the most perfect day in my entire life.

Theo’s back in Boston

Former Boston Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein is returning to the organization. Well, the parent of the organization, Fenway Sports Group, that is. His role will be “senior advisor.”

Per Jeff Passan, Epstein will not be in charge of any baseball personnel decisions, but “his voice should carry enormous weight.” Epstein said that in his new role he will be "asking questions, offering opinions, building trust, and supporting the terrific people at FSG to help us reach new heights.” Which makes him the Red Sox’s Minister Without Portfolio, I suppose.

Epstein will also advise on other Fenway Sports Group properties such as the Pittsburgh Penguins and Liverpool, F.C., which will be undertaking a search for a successor to legendary manager Jürgen Klopp, who recently announced that he will step down following the current Premier League campaign.

Epstein has been serving as a consultant to Major League Baseball for the past couple of years. There he worked on rule changes aimed at increasing the pace of play and adding more excitement, including the pitch clock and the new pickoff move rules designed to increase stolen bases. He’ll be stepping down from his role with MLB to return to Fenway Sports Group.

Mariners acquire Gregory Santos from the White Sox

The Seattle Mariners acquired a relief arm on Saturday, getting righty Gregory Santos from the White Sox in exchange for pitcher Prelander Berroa, outfielder Zach DeLoach and a competitive balance round draft pick.

Santos, who is 24, made 60 appearances for Chicago last year, posting a 3.39 ERA (132 ERA+) with a 66/17 K/BB ratio in 66.1 innings. His season was cut a tad short when he hit the injured list in late September with right elbow inflammation, but the Mariners do not believe that to be concerning, apparently. Their plan for him, one assumes, is to fill the spot vacated by Justin Topa, who was sent to Minnesota in the Jorge Polanco trade.

Berroa, 23, is said to have great stuff but he walks a lot of dudes so he’ll likely need a bit more time to work on things before he’s consistently contributing for the Sox. DeLoach, 25, has yet to make his MLB debut, but the Mariners considered him close to being ready given that they added him to the 40-man roster in November. Last year he hit .286/.387/.481 with 23 homers and 88 RBI in 138 games at Triple-A Tacoma. He strikes out a hell of a lot, though, so who knows.

Twins sign Carlos Santana

Minnesota signed veteran Carlos Santana to a one year, $5.25 million deal over the weekend.

Santana, 37, split time between Pittsburgh and Milwaukee last year, hitting .240/.318/.429 (103 OPS+) with 23 home runs and 86 RBIs in 146 games. Back in 2010 he hit a grand slam for the Columbus Clippers as my then six year-old daughter Anna and I sat right behind home plate. As he came to the plate I explained to Anna that when a player hits a home run with the bases loaded, they call it a “grand slam.” I told her that such things don’t happen super often, so she shouldn’t expect it. She then yelled “HIT A GRAND SLAM CARLOS!!” and he friggin’ did. Anna — who was amped up on cotton candy and soda and nachos and popcorn and stuff — started dancing, at which point a camera found her and put her up on the jumbotron, which I pointed out to her, which made her dance even fastier and dorkier and oh my God what a great night that was.

Wait. Where was I? Oh yeah.

Santana is not the player he once was, and probably shouldn’t be playing every day at this point. But the switch-hitter is still pretty solid against lefties, so one could see him as the right-handed half of a platoon at first base or DH. The Twins largely platooned left-handed hitter Alex Kirilloff last year, so you figure they’re planning on doing it again this year too.

If you can’t tell, I’m always gonna root for Carlos Santana, man.

Pat Mahomes arrested for DWI

Patrick Mahomes Sr. — the retired baseball player, not his son Patrick Mahomes Jr., the quarterback of the AFC Champions — was arrested for a DWI in Tyler, Texas over the weekend. It was his third DWI arrest, with prior busts coming in 2012 and 2018. Mahomes served jail time after the 2018 conviction. He faces serious jail time if convicted for a third time.

This sort of thing is never good, but it coming just days before his son leads Kansas City into battle in the Super Bowl is definitely suboptimal.

Other Stuff

Puritans Behaving Badly

Many of you know that I dabble in genealogy. I go hot and cold on it, messing around with it for a few months, letting my Ancestry subscription lapse for like two years, and then going back to it for a while. I just find it interesting. There’s also a method to online genealogical research — a sort of mechanical pattern and habit to it — that is mentally satisfying in some weird way [“check this/check that/save this/next line . . . “]. When my brain is not well-ordered, which it has not been for a few weeks for a number of reasons, climbing up one’s family tree is a good way to clear the mechanism. So, after a fairly long fallow period, I re-upped my Ancestry subscription recently and farted around with it a good deal this weekend.

One of the more surprising things I’ve learned while doing genealogy is that I can actually trace a direct line back to ancestors who came to this continent in the early-to-mid 17th century. This was surprising to me because I don’t think anyone in my family — which was long ago scattered to the four winds by bad fortune, scandal, and a fierce predisposition to anti-social living and general itinerance — actually knew it. Like, if you had asked me or any of the rest of them a few years ago, all of us would’ve guessed that our ancestors skulked into this country some time in the late 1800s, maybe. Too long ago for any of us to have known anyone with living memory of the traditional immigrant experience but not so long ago to where anyone had a part in anything particularly formative in American history. And, of course, since we’ve all been so unremarkable and uncurious ourselves, none of us ever really bothered to look it up.

But I looked it up and I found out that my mom’s family, the Kniffens, came over here in the late 1640s. They did so because they were minor nobles who supported the Crown in the English Civil War, they lost their lands and titles and stuff, and they needed to start over. And they did pretty good at it, becoming prosperous farmers in Westchester County, New York and Bergen County, New Jersey. Well, at least for about 130 years or so until they, once again, picked the Crown in a losing battle and had to hightail it up to Canada when the redcoats lost the Revolution. Again, bad decisions is a common through-line in my family.

My father’s family history is a bit more fragmented than my mother’s. His mother’s family were Russian/Romanian Jews who came here between the 1880s and 1900. We’ve always known about them because that was the only part of my extended family with which I had any relationship growing up. But genealogical research has revealed that his biological father’s family — my dad was adopted by his step-father, Mr. Calcaterra, when he was a boy — has been in North America even longer. There are many branches of that family you can trace depending on which grandparent or great-grandparent’s line you follow, but all of their arrivals predate the American Revolution.

The oldest direct ancestor I can find who immigrated here was my ninth great-grandfather, William Ives. He was born in England in 1607, had a falling out with his family because he got tied up with a bunch of Puritan weirdos, and took a boat over here in 1635, landing in the still very new town of Boston. A couple of years later he joined the expedition mounted by Reverend John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton to leave Massachusetts and set up a new Puritan settlement. That settlement became New Haven, Connecticut, of which Grandpa William was one of the named founders and original landowners. His farm was where the Yale Medical School now sits. He’s buried under New Haven Green.

Families with that kind of pedigree have usually known about that for a long time. Indeed, I have discovered that other descendants of William Ives have made quite a big deal out of it. They have self-published books setting forth the entire family history. For a long time in the 19th and early-20th centuries there were Ives family gatherings/New England genealogy wank-fests in which they all, I presume, talked about how significant our ancestors were. But, again, because my branch of the Ives family picked up and headed west before most of the others — and because, let’s face it, my family has always been full of fuckups who don’t get along with anyone else — this stuff was lost to our history until I started puttering around on Ancestry dot com.

I don’t think I or my more recent ancestors have missed anything terribly important by not being a part of New England establishment for the past 300+ years. But I do think my cousins who have been a part of it have missed out on something good by virtue of being immersed in family glorification for so long.

They all seem to have completely overlooked the guy who was hanged for fucking a pig.

While sifting through various family histories that Ives folks have put together over the years, I found one fleeting reference to the wife of one of William Ives’ sons having “regretted her testimony against William Potter” in a 1662 criminal trial which led to Potter being hanged. I was excited when I read this because I assumed that this ancestor of mine had falsely accused someone of witchcraft or sorcery or something, and that’s REALLY the best anyone with an old New England family history can hope for. That’s the good stuff.

Sadly, it was not about sorcery. It was about the next best thing: bestiality. As you can read here, this William Potter fellow had been shtupping the livestock since he was 11 years old and, at the age of 54, was caught doing the nasty with a pig. His wife and son turned him in and my eighth great-grandmother provided supporting testimony. Maybe she saw? Maybe she just knew what kind of sick twist Bill Potter was and was there to provide character evidence. I dunno.

I do know, however, that there was considerable regret in the town of New Haven after old pig-fucking-Potter went to the gallows. This was partially because people generally liked the guy. Partially because, before he was executed, he changed his will and cut out his wife and son which led to all kinds of drama. Honestly, though, I’d do the same thing. No, not screw a pig — I cannot be more emphatic about that point — but if my wife and kids narc’d on me for a capital crime, they would definitely be disinherited.

Based on everything I’ve learned from my research, my Ives cousins have spent a lot of time celebrating our family’s history, their voyages over the sea, their pioneering spirit, their ties to the founding of Yale University, and high-falutin’ things of that nature. Most of them seem to have overlooked the whole witness-to-pig-fucking thing, however.

Which I find to be very sad. That’s color, right there, man. That’s the kind of thing that sets your bloodlines apart from those snooty Mayflower Society swells who get all of the good press.

My favorite Gene Hackman movies

Late last week subscriber Frank Schloegel — who knows I’m a Gene Hackman fan — hit me up on Twitter to tell me that a somewhat less-known Gene Hackman movie, 1989’s “The Package,” was available on Amazon Prime. Then Frank asked me to rank Gene Hackman movies.

He actually asked me to rank my 5th-15th favorite Gene Hackman movies rather than my top ten because he knows that “The Conversation” is my favorite and he’d rather see me rank the more competitive entries in the man’s filmography.

Eh, I’ll just rank my top 15 and let the chips fall where they may:

1. “The Conversation”: as noted, my favorite film ever. Partially because it’s such a well-done piece of cinema from my favorite era of cinema. Partially because it’s the best 1970s paranoid thriller going, and I love me some 1970s paranoid thrillers. Partially because one of the biggest challenges I have, personally speaking, is finding the correct balance in life between participating in the world vs. merely observing it, and “The Conversation” provides a good reminder for me to be conscious of finding the right balance. Thanks Harry Caul!
2. “Night Moves”: The second-best Hackman movie in which he plays a guy named Harry. Here he’s Harry Moseby, a sad sack private eye who, like all of the best sad sack private eyes in noirs and neo-noirs, takes what seems like a simple job, gets in way over his head, and mostly has no idea what’s going on as he’s fighting for his life. A life about which he didn’t seem to care too much before the plot got rolling. This, by the way, is one of the best L.A. “Hang” films ever made. Even if half of it takes place in Florida.
3. “The Royal Tenenbaums”: Here Hackman plays one of the best bad fathers in recent Hollywood history, made all the better by virtue of Hackman’s inherent charm. I mean, you can’t mess up your family quite like Royal Tennanbaum does if you’re a pure monster, because if you’re a pure monster it’s much easier for your ex-wife and kids to simply dismiss you. If, however, you have that little twinkle in your eye and the ability to be (momentarily) endearing like Royal does, you can do some real damage.
4. “The French Connection”: We’ve had over half a century of tough movie cop antiheroes blurring the lines between right and wrong, but Popeye Doyle is easily the best example of the lot.
5. “Bonnie and Clyde”: Hackman had several movies under his belt before this one, but this is what truly launched his career. It launched New Hollywood as a whole, really, and helped ensure that Hackman would become one of the era’s top stars.
6. “Unforgiven”: Hackman is ruthless as sheriff Little Bill Daggert. A character who, in less-talented hands, could’ve easily been portrayed as some sort of cliche, but Hackman simply does not allow that to happen. Credit Clint Eastwood for that too, of course, because “Unforgiven” is all his, it’s just a perfect movie, and he’d never put someone in that role other than Gene Hackman or one of the damn few who could match him.
7. “Scarecrow”: A minor New Hollywood film that I’m guessing most people haven’t heard of, but pairing Hackman and a young (i.e. non-scenery-chewing) Al Pacino in a character study/road movie was genius.
8. “Prime Cut”: A lesser-known Hackman flick in which he plays a slaughterhouse owner who goes toe-to-toe with Lee Marvin, who plays a mob enforcer. As you might guess, this one is pretty brutal and bloody, but when you encounter a movie in which there’s a chase scene that involves a combine harvester, you pretty much have to watch it.
9. “Superman/Superman II”: Yes, they’re two movies but all of Gene Hackman’s scenes as Lex Luthor were filmed at the same time (if you’re unaware of the complicated history of Superman II, go read about it). Either way, Hackman played a great comic book villain and damn few of the people who played bad guys in the scores of superhero movies that followed “Superman” have even come close. The key to playing a great villain is portraying them like they believe themselves to be the hero. That’s how true villainy works, after all. There’s not a lot of mustache-twirling in real life. Hackman played a lot of bad guys and he always seemed to understand that. Even with a comic book bad guy.
10. “Crimson Tide”: I’m guessing the studio thought it was getting a standard 1990s action/thriller here but Hackman and Denzel Washington elevated it way beyond any reasonable expectations. There aren’t a ton of people who can trade punches with Hackman when he’s playing one of his assertive alpha male characters, but Washington sure as hell can and together they turned what could’ve been a genre thriller into something way better than it had any business being.
11. “Heist”: A little David Mamet goes a long way but in Hackman’s hands Mamet’s often arch-dialogue seems as natural as can be. And who doesn’t like a good heist flick?
12. “Enemy of the State”: Sort of a spiritual sequel to “The Conversation” with Hackman once again donning the glasses and playing a paranoia-addled surveillance expert character who isn’t Harry Caul but may as well be. I think of this like I think of “2010: The Year We Make Contact” vis-a-vis “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It’s not high art on par with what was accomplished by the movie that preceded it, but it’s still pretty damn entertaining and it gets extra points for not trying too hard and trying to deliver more than it can deliver.
13. “Get Shorty”: The thing about Hackman is that, for all of the tough authority figures he’s played, he’s a pretty funny dude. With a respectful nod to his cameo-sized turn as the blind man in “Young Frankenstein,” Hackman as shlockmeister filmmaker Harry Zimm is his funniest role.
14. “No Way Out”: How many taut thrillers has Hackman been in? Feels like a million. He always makes them better.
15. “Hoosiers”: If it wasn’t apparent from this list already, Hackman’s signature gift is to take characters who could easily become cliches and turn them into something much greater. The coach in a formulaic sports movie from the 1980s could’ve been a train wreck — and, actually, the movie itself is no great shakes and hasn’t aged that well — but Hackman was excellent here. He’s just so damn good at wordlessly communicating character-enriching depth and pathos. Of giving off the sense that he knows more and has seen more than he’s letting on. There’s almost always a greater depth and weight to these men simply by virtue of Hackman playing them.

Honorable mentions:

• “Downhill Racer”: In which Hackman plays a coach in a better overall movie than “Hoosiers” was though I think his performance in “Hoosiers” is better;
• “Mississippi Burning”: This has aged REALLY poorly and is way too white savior-y for anyone’s tastes, but Hackman is good in it;
• “Reds”: I haven’t seen it in a very long time but I remember it as a pretty ponderous movie even if I liked Hackman in it. Now that I’m older and understand the history a bit better, maybe I’ll watch it again;
• “The Firm”: In which, once again, Hackman takes a character which could’ve been rote and gives him some depth. Also, let’s hear it for Hackman’s ability to make actors I don’t much care for better simply by virtue of his presence. I’m looking at you Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Kevin Costner, and I’m sure way more; and
• “The Poseidon Adventure,” which is too corny for me by half but it can be dumb fun if you’re in the right mood for it.

Hackman movies that are supposed to be good but which I have not seen:

• “Twice in a Lifetime”
• “Under Fire”
• “I Never Sang for my Father” and
• “The Package” 

OK, that’s enough Gene Hackman for today.

Well, almost enough:

Have a great day everyone.

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