Cup of Coffee: January 16, 2024

Good morning!

First, a little housekeeping:

• Sorry about the green hyperlinks yesterday. I had them in because I was trying to replicate the green links I had over at Substack. I hated the color and thought I had changed it back before I sent the newsletter out yesterday but I apparently just changed it on the web, not the email. I think it’s fixed today;
• I think I ironed out the font variations in blockquotes and bulleted lists like this one. They should all be the same as the body text (it’s Georgia for the record). Now, many of you said that you don’t like this font or the spacing or the kerning (whatever the hell that is) or lodged other complaints about fonts. I am open to changing things, and I’m open to suggestions which properly understand that my design skills are limited to “selecting font from a drop-down menu,” but I do prefer serif fonts. I think I can change some line and paragraph spacing too, so if that’s an issue thoughts are likewise appreciated there as well;
• I realize commenting isn’t quite as robust here as it was at Substack. Things like notifications, nesting, reverse-chron, etc. just don’t seem to be things here. It also does not, apparently, give a “comment here” button on the email. Instead, it requires you to go to the web version of the newsletter to do it. That’ll be another thing I’ll look into, but I think that’s a Beehiiv issue, not a me issue; and
• A lot of people asked if Beehiiv has an RSS feed. It does. I think. There is a way to enable it anyway, and I did what it told me too. The result is that it generated a link to a long XML file? I have never used RSS before so I do not know if that’s what people were looking for. In the past I’ve noticed buttons on web pages that supply that, and I can’t seem to do that here, so someone let me know if that link works. And if you have suggestions as to how to make it visible for folks in the future. As always, I’m pretty dang ignorant about such things.

There will no doubt be more things we discover like this. Sort of like how the guy that bought my old house in New Albany has likely discovered by now that the air vent in the ceiling just inside the front door is actually fake and just covers a hole my dad and I made while trying to fix something nine years ago. There are always surprises!

[Editor: Wait. You put a vent cover over a hole in the drywall rather than fix the hole? And you sold your house in that condition?]

For starters, I always meant to get around to fixing that. I just forgot. Probably because the vent just looked so natural there that I’d go months and months at a time without ever thinking about it. Also, it was a seller’s market and the dude voluntarily waived inspection. If he’s figured it out by now he’s no doubt gotten a lot of mileage out of it in one of those “you would not BELIEVE what the jackass who used to own this place did” stories. I’d say we’re even.

Anyhow, today is a normal newsletter. They all should be going forward. Yay!

Inside today: an extension for one of the game’s best executives, the international signing period, the Iowa caucuses, Great Moments in Civil Rights, saying goodbye to funny highway signs, The $1 million stereo system, and one of those things that I really don’t think anyone is really doing but the New York Times found some weirdos so now we’re gonna pretend it’s a trend. So like I said: normal day.

The Daily Briefing

Atlanta, Alex Anthopoulos agree to a long-term extension 

I missed this over the weekend, what with all of the platform migration business, but the Atlanta Baseball Club has extended the contract of president of baseball operations and general manager Alex Anthopoulos through 2031. As if that’s a real year and not some crazy fantastical future year that will exist long after we’re all dead in the cold, cold ground.

Anthopoulos has been with the club since 2017. In those six seasons Atlanta has compiled a 515-354 (.593) record with six consecutive National League East titles and the 2021 World Series championship. Those 515 wins are the third most in the majors during that span, behind only the Los Angeles Dodgers (558) and Houston Astros (530).

Anthopoulos is a busy GM compared to many of his peers. He’s made a number of trades, signings, and contract extensions, almost all of which have worked out or, at the very least, have not harmed the club. This applies to both big deals such as trading for Matt Olson and Sean Murphy, smaller but key moves such as picking up Jorge Soler, Joc Pederson, and Eddie Rosario in the runup to the 2021 World Series win, and locking up, basically, the entire team’s core for multiple years, often at pretty team-friendly deals.

He’s simply one of the best execs in all of baseball, and now he’s not going anywhere for a long, long time.

The Giants signed Jordan Hicks, plan to make him a starter

Another one I missed over the weekend: the San Francisco Giants have signed Jordan Hicks — he of the 100 m.p.h. fastball — for four years and $44 million. The best part: they plan to make him a starter. He’s only started eight games ever, all in 2022 for the Cardinals, and all were short stints, more akin to bullpen game things than old school starting.

Hicks has five years in the bigs — he’d have six but he opted out of the COVID year in 2020 — and in that time he’s gone 11-21 with a 3.85 ERA (106 ERA+) and a K/BB ratio of 255/133 in 243.1 innings. He had something of a renaissance for the Cards late last season, missing more bats than usual while still maintaining an average of 100.3 on his fastball, so maybe he’s figured some things out apart from just throwing it as hard as hell.

It’s an intriguing signing. Certainly a fun experiment. I don’t give it great odds of working, necessarily, but if it’s gonna work anyplace it’ll work in pitcher-friendly Oracle Park.

The international signing period began yesterday 

Yesterday marked the opening of MLB's 2024 international signing period. The signing period runs from January 15 to December 15. To be eligible to sign, players must be at least 16 years old at the time of signing and must turn 17 by September 1 the following year. Not to make you feel old or anything.

While there is no international draft yet — MLB wants one, the MLBPA has been willing to discuss it but has yet to be convinced it’s worth it — there is a cap on monetary outlays for international signees. These are the “bonus pools” you hear so much about during the course of the year. Usually because of a team giving up bonus pool money in a trade, to sign a player, or as a penalty for being over the Competitive Balance Tax. As a result, different teams have different amounts of money to play with for signing international free agents. This year the pools break down thusly:

• $7,114,800: Diamondbacks, Guardians, Orioles, Pirates, Rockies, Royals
• $6,520,000: Athletics, Brewers, Mariners, Marlins, Rays, Reds, Tigers, Twins
• $5,284,000: Astros, Atlanta, Dodgers, Giants, Mets, Nationals, Red Sox, White Sox
• $5,152,000: Angels, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Cubs
• $4,652,200: Padres, Phillies, Rangers, Yankees

Even if teams hit the cap, however, they can sign an unlimited number of players for $10,000 or less, which is how they fill out all of those low-level rookie ball and Dominican Summer League rosters. Though it should be noted that the Astros got Framber Valdez for a mere $10K. You can luck into a gem sometimes.

If you were on social media yesterday you no doubt saw a ton of teams posting about their newest international signees, all on Day 1 of the period. Which means, of course, that there were handshake agreements to sign these kids well in advance of the opening of the period. That has often been the stuff of scandal in the past. Now I suppose we just nod at it as diligent scouting and academy development and communication and all of that. As always, the less you dig into the specifics of how the international signings work the better Major League Baseball and its clubs like it.

If you want to know about the specific guys clubs have signed, Baseball America is easily the best resource for that. They have an international signing tracker up and have linked scouting reports for many of the early signees.

Other Stuff

Iowa

Last night a man who incited a deadly insurrection in an attempt to thwart American democracy, who a judge determined raped a woman, and who currently faces 91 felony criminal charges across four jurisdictions won Iowa's Republican Caucuses in a blowout.

The secondary story is who came in second: Ron DeSantis. Not that the results did anything to boost DeSantis, as he finished over 30 points behind Trump and will likely drop out of the race, along with third place finisher Nikki Haley, before Groundhog Day. It’s only a story because the political press desperately wants “who is the Trump alternative?!” to be a story. I’d suggest to them that that particular angle should’ve been dropped close to a year ago when it became painfully obvious that no Republican candidate, apart from Chris Christie, who was running for a cable TV gig, not for actual office and who has since dropped out, would dare criticize Trump in any way. Expecting anyone to beat Trump for the GOP nomination was always fantasy, but still expecting it when his “opponents” seemed to believe that the way to defeat Trump was to obsessively lick his boots and viciously attack anyone who dare say that Trump is not God’s Perfect Leader is madness.

The big loser of the night was my fellow Columbus, Ohioan Vivek Ramaswamy. He came in a distant fourth and then dropped out of the race. The media, talking to Republican caucus-goers last night, learned that Ramaswamy did poorly because, among other things, people believed he was an Arab and/or a Muslim, rather than Indian who was raised Hindu and graduated from a Catholic high school. They also did not like that, at least according to them, he hailed from a place where the people who did 9/11 came from. Which is a hell of a thing to say about Cincinnati, where Ramaswamy was actually born. I mean, yes, their chili could be classified as a form of terrorism, and don’t get me started on goetta, but we’re really talking about different things here.

That’s all pretty terrible, obviously, but so too is literally everything about Ramaswamy, even if he’s terrible in a different way than Republican voters think he is. Either way, the fact that Ramaswamy spent nearly a year of his life offering all of the worst possible ideas and most odious statements to these cretins only to have then flatly reject him because they’re ignorant racists tells you a hell of a lot about the Republican Party these days.

It certainly tells you a lot more than New York and Beltway op-ed writers do. You know, the ones who, over eight years into the Trump Era, still stupidly claim that Trump voters are merely alienated by institutions that have failed them and that if we simply try to talk to them more and attempt to truly understand them, we’ll all start to get it. My dudes, all of us, especially those of us who live in places like Ohio, have become quite familiar with Trump voters over these past several years. Probably more so than people who spend all of their time in Manhattan or Georgetown. They’ve been telling us who they are and what they believe and why for a very long time. Or, more specifically, what they do not believe (i.e. reality) because they have eaten up Trump's demagoguery and right wing TV, Internet, and radio propaganda for most of their adult lives. Perhaps it’s finally time to start judging these people by what they actually do and what they actually say, at least to people other the parachuting-in east coast journalists, who are the biggest marks ever.

Anyway, on to New Hampshire, where none of the things I said above will be taken to heart by basically anyone who matters.

Great Moments in the Civil Rights Movement

By now everyone knows just how much corporations, sports teams, and public figures cynically and emptily name-check Martin Luther King Jr. on MLK day. At best they engage in vapid tributes as a means of showing everyone how mindful they think they’re being. At worse you see all manner of people — particularly right wingers — claim, either implicitly or explicitly, that the “content of their character” passage of the “I have a dream” speech is really about MLK outlining a colorblind society in which we need not think about racism. It’d actually be funny if it weren’t so pathetic and damaging.

But, yeah, sometimes it’s just funny. Like when ESPN personality Pat McAfee went on the air yesterday, citing Martin Luther King and comparing his plight to McAfee’s being criticized for putting Aaron Rodgers on the air to defame celebrities and peddle dangerous medical misinformation:

"He had a dream and I think LANK was one of the closest we've had to potentially that dream coming to fruition. So let's realize that as we look around and realize that we're maybe more close than we've ever been. And there's an election about to take place next year where we need to remember that we are more close than we have ever been... now, as somebody who was cancelled by both parties last week, both of them cancelled me. Two political parties canceled me last week and we are still alive. Let's remember we don't need the outside noise. All we need is a little bit of love."

I can’t decide what’s better: McAfee making MLK Day all about himself or his claiming, from a talk show on the world’s largest sports network — which is owned by Disney, and which is paying him $85 million — that he has been “cancelled.” God, I wish I was even 5% as canceled as McAfee is.

An even funnier thing along these lines comes from the world of real estate.

If you’ve ever looked at new housing developments you know that the builders like to give unique names to their floor plans. Sometimes they’re names like “The Harcourt” or “The Chiswell,” which are two examples from my old New Albany neighborhood. A development in New Mexico, encountered in this Zillow listing, has one called “The Harriet.” And get a load of how they describe it:

Just like Harriet Tubman, the icon of American courage and freedom, this home stands out amongst the crowd. The ready to be built Harriett floor plan with it's distinctive elevation features an 'entertainers' kitchen with a bar top between the kitchen and the great room. The owners suite features a spacious walk in closet, and the optional vaulted ceilings in the great room can make it live larger than it is. Discover why this plan was the winner of the 'Buyer's Choice Award' in the Parade of Homes.

Points for not calling it “the master suite” I guess.

Of course the winner and all-time champion in this department posted something too:

For those unaware, During the 1950s and 60s the FBI surveilled and harassed King, his family and his associates. The FBI wiretapped his phone and monitored his movements. The FBI once sent King a tape that allegedly contained audio of him having an affair, along with a letter threatening King with public exposure if he didn’t kill himself. Yes, the FBI counseled Martin Luther King Jr. to actually commit suicide and claimed that if he didn’t, they’d release derogatory information about him. Now, however, the FBI is using him to “reaffirm its commitment” to King’s legacy. Never mind that there is no evidence of an initial commitment in that regard.

Anyhoo, after reading all of that I’m more convinced than ever that America is just a few more posts away from fixing its 400-year-old racism problem. Seriously, we’re almost there people. Can’t you just feel the equality coursing through the veins of the Republic?

Say goodbye to the funny highway signs

You’ve likely noticed that sometimes those overhead electronic freeway signs have funny messages on them. They’re not uproarious or super clever or anything. They’re mostly dad jokes and puns.

But starting in 2026 they’re going to be outlawed:

The U.S. Federal Highway Administration officials said overhead electronic signs with obscure meanings, references to pop culture or those intended to be funny will be banned in 2026 because they can be misunderstood or distracting to drivers.

The agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, said signs should be “simple, direct, brief, legible and clear” and only be used for important information such as warning drivers of crashes ahead, adverse weather conditions and traffic delays. Seatbelt reminders and warnings about the dangers of speeding or driving impaired are also allowed.

Among those that will be disappearing are messages such as “Use Yah Blinkah” in Massachusetts; “Visiting in-laws? Slow down, get there late,” from Ohio; “Don’t drive Star Spangled Hammered,” from Pennsylvania; “Hocus pocus, drive with focus” from New Jersey; and “Hands on the wheel, not your meal” from Arizona.

On the one hand I like the bad dad jokes they put on the anti-distracted driving messages. On he other hand, they often make me wanna grab my phone and take a photo of them which I strongly suspect defeats the purpose.

So: two points deducted for being un-fun lame-Os, but five points added for, you know, trying to keep people alive. Which I guess is more important. Probably.

The $1 million stereo

A story appeared in the Washington Post over the weekend that you gotta read to believe.

It’s about a guy named Ken Fritz who wanted a top-quality sound system in his house. So he did what anyone who likes to spin a few records now and again does: he built a 1,650-square-foot addition on to his home and, over the course of like 40 years, sunk around $1 million into building a bespoke sound system featuring such over-the-top components that (a) even the most intense audiophiles believe to be overkill; and (b) which essentially destroyed his relationship with his family:

Not everyone in the rapidly metastasizing house on Hybla Road shared this excitement.

In the faded photos taken as they worked alongside him, the five Fritz kids are offering pinched smiles, at best.

“Nobody wanted to come to our house, because he wanted to put them to work,” said his daughter Patty, 58. “I think we went camping twice, never took vacation. It was just work, work, work.”

Fritz thought he was teaching them about hard work and focus. A hard-driving boss at his company, he brought the same energy to his after-hours hobby, which he sometimes seemed to think of as everybody’s hobby.

He could be short. He held grudges. Devoted to sound, he often seemed not to listen.

Again, this was all in the name of building a massive sound system, complete with handmade, 10-foot-tall speakers, turntables and amplifiers unlike any in creation, and placing it in a purpose-built wing of the house complete with its own 200-amp electrical system, its own HVAC system, and concrete-filled walls so he could listen to his classical and jazz records. His wife eventually left him. He became estranged from his oldest son. And the way in which the story ends, which I will not spoil here, is definitely something.

Sometimes I lament the fact that I’ve never truly committed myself to any one thing in life with any real depth, be it a career or a a hobby or what have you. I have things I like and things I enjoy, but I’m something of a dilettante when you get right down to it. Then I read stuff like this and feel like erring on the side of things I err on is preferable to erring on the more obsessive side of things.

Sleepunders

There was also a batty-ass story from the New York Times over the weekend about parents who are too anxious to let their children have sleepovers at other people’s houses so they hold “sleepunders:”

It may come as no surprise that parents are experiencing more anxiety in general these days . . . For some parents, one solution to this is the “sleepunder” — also called a “lateover” — where children come to play, but they don’t stay to sleep.

Qarniz F. Armstrong, a mother of three children, ages 12, 14 and 20, has never allowed her children to spend a night away from her, even with other family members. She does, however, want her kids to have normal childhood experiences, so she has settled on letting them attend parties if she can bring them home at bedtime — even if that means 2 or 3 in the morning. Considering the alternative — saying no altogether — Ms. Armstrong, who is 43 and lives in Murrieta, Calif., feels this is “a good compromise.”

The 20 year old, who is past the point of all of this of course, talks about how his mom’s refusal to let him sleep over at people’s houses made him an outcast and eventually the invitations to do things with his friends started to dry up. But hey, if it mildly decreased his mom’s frankly unreasonable anxiety I suppose being a social pariah was worth it, right?

Not that I’m gonna get super worked up about this or anything. Mostly because I am pretty sure this is one of those deals in which the New York Times finds an extraordinarily small number of oddballs and couches the story about them as though it were a trend instead of some weirdos doing weirdo things. Probably because it gets people like me mad and then we share it on our social media accounts and our newsletters. In this it’s similar to the hate-click farm that is the New York Times real estate section with its trust funders who use daddy’s money to buy $4 million homes and then runs quotes from them in which they talk about how they were “budget conscious” and whatever. I like to call people marks, but I am also a mark. We’re all marks about something.

Anyway, the idea of not letting one’s kids sleep over at another kid’s house is not even the most appalling aspect of this story. It’s that the parental subjects of the story believe that it’s better to stay up until like two of three in the morning so they can go get their kids rather than letting them stay the night, going to sleep at 11, blissful in the knowledge that, for at least one night, their kid is someone else’s problem. Just psychopath behavior.

Have a great day everyone.