Cup of Coffee: June 10, 2024

Good morning!

The London Series concluded yesterday, Steve Cohen said something he’ll probably have to walk back, Bryce Harper is an expert panderer, Kiké Hernández regrets nothing, speed finally pays off for Jayson Werth, the English have gone too far, and hero dies doing what he loved.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Mets 6, Phillies 5: Oi! The Mets were behin’, right, bu' came back an' rallied la'e, innit? Three runs in the nointh, they done! Da Phillies dinnit quit, though, thinkin’ they’d still be able to nick the bloody match. They moun'ed a rally, is wot they done, bases loaded wi'h only one ou'! Bu' ‘hen Nick Castellanos broke 'is bat wi'h a dribbler righ’ in fron' ov the pla'e, an at 'urned ino a fowce ou' at 'ome/ca'cher-'to-firs' game-endin’ double play, don’t you know, an all ‘at was lef’ was the chin-waggin’. Mets supporters wen’ ‘ome right chuffed with the split, I’d say.

In related news:

Mets infielder Jeff McNeil likes an idea floated by Harper -- to have more teams come and hold a cup-style tournament.

"It would be cool if you had four teams here -- you could get five, six games," he said after New York's win. "It is tough coming over here for two games and then flying back to the States. If you could get more teams over here, make it more of an event, it would be a lot of fun."

As someone who goes to the UK a lot — and I’m going again on Wednesday! — I agree, more time there is better. Let’s put a few teams there permanently, let some UK media outlet give me a job that forms the basis for a work visa, and I’ll just stay there, right? Right. Bob’s your uncle, etc.

Rangers 7, Giants 2: Marcus Semien got hit in the head with a pitch and it knocked his helmet clean off but he took his base, scored a run, and later launched a two-run homer. He’s tougher than the rest of us, that’s for sure, but we have a lot of evidence for that already. Indeed, I’m guessing Semien is in the 95th to 99th percentile for toughest big leaguers today. Adolis García stole home. Nathan Eovaldi went seven, struck out five, walked one and gave up two runs on five hits. The Rangers avoid the sweep.

Nationals 8, Atlanta 5: A seven-run fourth inning pretty much decided this one. Keibert Ruiz hit a three-run homer and CJ Abrams drove in three as the Nationals take three of four from the Barves. Atlanta’s 2023 first round draft pick Hurston Waldrep made his MLB debut and looked good until that fourth inning train wreck. Growing pains, man. And that’s separate and apart from him having to overcome having a name like Hurston Waldrep. Guy has been playing with a handicap his whole life based on that moniker.

Twins 11, Pirates 5: You don’t see many seven-run tenth innings, but that’s what the Twins did yesterday afternoon. It was all kicked off by Manuel Margot’s leadoff triple and things got increasingly out of hand from there on out. A bases-loaded hit-by-pitch, Carlos Santana’s two-run double, a two-run single from Carlos Correa, and an RBI single from Max Kepler put things far out of reach. Prayers up for Pirates reliever Ben Heller, who gave up all seven runs — six earned — and plunked three batters. He also allowed five runs in one inning against the Dodgers on Thursday, and has an ERA of 49.50 now. All of this after being called up from Triple-A Indianapolis less than a week ago. I don’t know anyone who wants to go to Indiana willingly, but he probably does right now. The Twins avoid the sweep.

Orioles 9, Rays 2: Grayson Rodriguez took a perfect game into the sixth, Adley Rutschman hit a grand slam and drove in six, and Anthony Santander homered as well. Not much else to say there. The O’s have beaten the Rays three straight times and go for the sweep this evening.

Cubs 4, Reds 2: Ian Happ hit a bases-loaded and bases-clearing double in the first inning and Michael Tauchman singled in a run in the second. Seiya Suzuki went 3-for-5 with a double and run scored. Shōta Imanaga allowed two while pitching into the seventh. Chicago avoids the sweep and snaps Cincinnati’s seven-game winning streak.

Guardians 6, Marlins 3: Tyler Freeman hit a tie-breaking three-run homer in the seventh, Gabriel Arias also went deep, and José Ramirez doubled and drove in a run. He has 62 RBI on the year. That’s something like a 150+ RBI pace. I know RBI don’t mean anything, but big numbers are fun. Cleveland takes two of three and now moves on to face the Reds in the Battle for Ohio. Loser gets stuck with Ohio.

Tigers 10, Brewers 2: I watched this one and I liked it, not just because the Tigers won — I’ve reverted to my Michigan youth in many respects lately and like to see the Tigers win — but because the home team wore white and the road team wore gray and dammit, that’s what baseball is supposed to be. That’s my most Boomer baseball opinion, by the way. Whites and grays. I suppose there are worse Boomer opinions to have, so I’m fine with it. Anyway, the Tigers had an eight-run fifth capped by Jake Rogers’ three-run homer. Gio Urshela and Zach McKinstry each had a two-run single. Riley Greene finished with two doubles and an RBI and made a fantastic catch in left field that, despite breaking his sunglasses, was pretty damn spiffy.

Red Sox 6, White Sox 4: Sox win! But though it was Boston who won on this day, Chicago should consider this weekend a victory what with the split of the four-game set which should feel like a sweep given how bad they’ve been going. This one was decided in the tenth when Jarren Duran reached on an error by Michael Soroka which sent the Manfred Man from second base to third, after which Jamie Westbrook plated him on a sacrifice fly. After that Rob Refsnyder singled home another run for insurance. David Hamilton homered and doubled. Kenley Jansen struck out five batters in two innings for the win and Cam Booser finished things off by fanning two in a perfect 10th inning. No one rolls over like the Chisox roll over, that’s for sure. There’s less fight in the Chicago White Sox than there is at a monthly Quaker meeting.

Mariners 6, Royals 5: Kansas City’s MJ Melendez hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to force extras but Julio Rodríguez singled home the Manfred Man in the tenth after which Cal Raleigh singled home both Dylan Moore and Rodríguez to give Seattle enough breathing room to ride things out and to avoid the sweep.

Cardinals 5, Rockies 1: Alec Burleson homered, Masyn Winn drove in two and starter Andre Pallante went five innings, allowing three hits and no runs to pick up the win and to earn the series split for the Redbirds.

Angels 9, Astros 7: It was a seesaw game for a while but Houston took a 7-4 lead in the sixth thanks to a Jose Altuve homer. The Angles mounted a comeback, however, with one in the sixth, two in the eight, and then a walkoff two-run homer by Logan O’Hoppe in the ninth which allowed the Halos to avoid the sweep. O’Hoppe had four hits on the day. Mickey Moniak and Michael Stefanic each drove in two.

Blue Jays 6, Athletics 4: Isiah Kiner-Falefa had a five-RBI day capped by a bases-loaded, bases-clearing double in 10th to push Toronto past Oakland. Toronto wins the rubber match. I have no idea where the term “rubber match” came from, but we all know what it means so who cares?

Diamondbacks 9, Padres 3: Jake McCarthy's two-run homer capped a six-run second inning. I’m guessing that the winning percentage for teams who put up six-run second innings is pretty high. McCarthy and Kevin Newman each had three hits. The Dbacks have won six of nine, while the Padres have lost six of eight. I’m sure that means something but I’m bad with numbers so I’ll just say “huh, yeah.”

Yankees 6, Dodgers 4: Aaron Judge went 3-for-4 with a double and a homer and, frankly, it’s ridiculous how good he’s been for the past month and a half. Oswaldo Cabrera and Trent Grisham homered, with Grisham driving in three. Tyler Glasnow struck out 12 in six innings but allowed five, and that has to be all kinds of frustrating. The Yankees salvage one as the Dodgers take two of three.

The Daily Briefing

Oh.

Mets owners Steve Cohen held a press conference before yesterday’s second London game and he was talking about how his firm has a big office there, how he goes there a lot, how he loves the city, and all of that. Then he said this:

"I love London. I think the food here is fantastic. I think it's better than New York."

Look, I will 100% share a photo of my full English breakfast when I get one on Thursday or Friday morning, and Allison and I have a few places we love to hit whenever we’re over there. I will even defend British food against the hate it often gets because that hate is massively overstated. There are loads of good things if you know where to find them. About 65% of it is Indian or middle eastern food of various stripes, 25% is breakfast food (Gregg’s sausage rolls are a significant subset of that), and 10% of it involves meat pies, which I realize I am a weirdo to love as much as I do.

But even my shamelessly Anglophilic ass will not say that London has better food than New York. Like, it’s not even remotely close. Indeed, if you know what you’re doing, you can probably find better food on a single New York street or avenue than the whole of London ranging from cheap street food to haute cuisine.

I’m guessing Cohen, under pressure and mockery from the New York press — and no small amount of skepticism even from folks in London — will soon walk back this quote as a product of momentary location-based exuberance if he hasn’t done so already. Travel is fun and press scrutiny can sometimes make you lose your gravity a bit, but Jesus man, you gotta get back home, get a slice of pizza, a bagel, about 11 different Caribbean dishes, and keep your head about you.

Cohen is not the only one pandering to the Brits

When in Britain, do what the British do. Including a soccer-style slide-on-your-knees celebration after hitting a game-tying home run:

Harper, who is well-known for pandering to the local fans like no other, also had a bat with the Philly Phanatic dressed as a member of the King’s Guard with him this weekend. Plop that dude down in the Mongolian Baseball League, watch him go 3-for-4 with a double, a homer, and four RBI, and his ass will be singing the praises of Ulaanbaatar while he wears cleats with the words “sain bainuul” written on them. And God bless him for that wholesome shit. There’s no one like him and I kinda love him for it.

Kiké Hernández made an error while mic’d up during a game

I’m not a big fan of manager or player interviews in the middle of ballgames. The manager interviews are always exercises in empty cliches and they distract from the action. The player interviews can be kind of fun in exhibition games, especially if the player in question is funny, but it still takes me out of things so I’d rather not have them honestly.

On Friday night Kiké Hernández of the Dodgers showed us another problem with those interviews when, while mic’d up for the Apple TV broadcast, he made an error, probably because he was distracted:

Not that he regrets it. Asked afterwards if the error would make him rethink doing in-game interviews Hernández said, “No, because we’re getting paid. I like money.”

Which is how most of us — me included — learned that guys get paid for being mic’d up in games. Ten grand for wearing a two-way microphone for at least one inning in a regular-season game and $15,000 in the postseason. I guess that’s not all that much for a guy making several million bucks a year, but the more grounded guys probably remember when it was a lot of money and value it accordingly.

Jayson Werth’s horse wins the Belmont Stakes 

Dornoch, a horse co-owned by retired Phillies and Nationals star Jayson Werth, won the Belmont Stakes on Saturday. It ran down Preakness winner Seize the Grey down the stretch and held on for a a one and a half-length victory.

Until I read some recent stories about Werth’s ownership stake in Dornoch I had no idea that he was in the horse racing game. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised He’s always had a love for speed.

Other Stuff

Thank you, you wild and wonderful weirdos

Last week I shared a link to a cool t-shirt, the proceeds of which went to help the Trans Lifeline charity. As of Saturday morning:

Thank you, all.

The English have gone too far

I’m going to England later this week. Originally I had no plans to return to the British Museum, but I may have to do so now. Not as a patron, however, but as a liberator:

OK, fine, maybe I won’t go all Nic Cage in “National Treasure” here, but this is legitimately bad:

In a glass display case in the British Museum’s Room 26, visitors will find more than two dozen exquisitely fashioned pipes, as well as bowls and other objects recovered from mounds built by the prehistoric Hopewell people of the Scioto Valley.

The display, though small, is the most comprehensive in the world, and is only a small fraction of the Ohio Hopewell items the museum owns.

The pipes, carved some 2,000 years ago from various types of soft stone, known collectively as “pipestone,” were used to smoke tobacco, perhaps during ritual ceremonial observations.

Unlike a lot of the stuff in the British Museum, the Hopewell artifacts were not taken by British soldiers or imperial officials or anything. They were actually excavated by a couple of Americans in the 1840s who had hoped to place them in the then-new Smithsonian Institution. When the Smithsonian didn’t have the money to acquire them the items were sold to the British Museum. Not that that that makes this whole deal any less plunderous. You’d hope such things would be studied and displayed near where they were found and that items which were used in religious rituals would be treated as the sacred items that they are. Of course, putting any hopes on 19th century America or Victorian Britain treating anything related to non-white folks with the proper reverence or respect was probably the biggest sucker’s game ever.

Question: can you bring a hammer in your carry-on luggage these days? Because I may be bringing a hammer in my carry-on luggage on Wednesday. No reason.

The English have gone too far, Part II 

When Friedrich Engles was a young man he was a budding radical, writing critiques of the poor living and working conditions for factory workers in Berlin. Engles’ father was a wealthy mill owner and, needless to say, he wasn’t a big fan of what his son was writing. So he decided to send Friedrich to a mill he owned in Salford, United Kingdom, just across the river from Manchester. “Young Friedrich will learn about the beauty and wonder of capitalism!” he no doubt mused. His father, however, was about to be supremely disappointed as, en route to Salford, Young Master Engles met a fellow named Karl Marx. Once he got to Manchester, he documented the conditions of the factories and the slums, wrote his first proper critique of political economy, later linked back up with Marx, and the rest is history.

Against that background, a Manchester real estate developer is marketing a £2.5 luxury penthouse flat called “The Engles,” and that is a hell of a choice. And it’s not going over well!

A multimillion-pound luxury penthouse flat named after the revolutionary socialist thinker Friedrich Engels is the latest example of Manchester repurposing its radical history for profit, local people have said . . . Jonathan Schofield, a writer and guide who runs Engels tours of Manchester, said: “It’s actually built on a slum, if you go back in history. Basically it was very, very densely packed terraced housing, and now, 350ft up or something, there’s a penthouse named after the one who wanted to see the end of all that.”

And yes, the place is in a part of town called Deansgate which, if you go there now, is full of luxury high rises and high-end shops and shit. A member of Manchester’s city counsel attempted to be diplomatic about it, but he’s also pretty naive:

“New housing development will often refer to historical Manchester figures such as Engels or Alan Turing in their developments as part of placing their developments in the historical context of our city. I hope those who move in to these developments will look at what the history of our city tells us about how the future should be looked at too.”

Color me cynical, but I feel like anyone moving into a $2.5 million apartment named after Engles is either so oblivious that thinking about such things is simply never going to happen or is so poisoned with irony that the future is meaningless to them.

The latter of which describes me if I had that kind of money, obviously. Because if I did I would TOTALLY buy the Engels flat and make a big obnoxious deal about it in the process. I’m not necessarily proud to admit that, but you know I would.

William Anders: 1933-2024

William Anders, the astronaut who flew on the first manned space mission to orbit the moon and who took the famous “Earthrise” photograph in 1968, died over the weekend. He was 90.

Except Anders didn’t die of old age or of some common old age malady. He died in a goddamn plane crash. In a plane he was piloting over the San Juan islands in northwest Washington State. And it wasn’t some late model Cessna or anything. It was a vintage Beechcraft T-34 Mentor. There is video of it that I’d rather not look at again, but it appears as if Anders was attempting a loop that he couldn’t pull out of before hitting the water. The dude was fucking going for it.

I don’t want to diminish any person’s death or the tragedy felt by their survivors, and I know the phrase “he died doing what he loved” is trite and overused. But I’ll say this much: if a wizard appeared before you in, say, 1955 and said “take my offer and you will be the first person to ever see the dark side of the moon, what you do and say there will become world famous, inspirational, and unforgettable, after that you will spend over half a century making a good living in multiple influential government and private sector positions, and you will still be healthy and active and still flying planes at 90. The only catch is that you’ll die in a plane crash at some point after your 90th birthday,” I’m guessing a non-trivial number of you would take that deal.

Rest in peace to a true hero of humanity.

Have a great day everyone.

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