Cup of Coffee: June 11, 2024

Good morning!

Today we talk about The Athletic’s annual player's poll, another bad City Connect uniform is out, one merch company acquired another, we witness a Great Moment in Job Security, I spend a little time being a romance novel detective, and we discuss the latest appalling episode in the tenure of the dreaded Justice Alito.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Mariners 8, White Sox 4: It was 4-0 White Sox entering the bottom of the eighth when the Mariners rallied to tie it up via a Dominic Canzone homer, a two-run single from Mitch Haniger, and a bunt RBI single from Luke Raley. Then in the bottom of the ninth the M’s loaded the bases and Cal Raleigh hit a walkoff grand slam:

“Big Dumper does what he does,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said after the game. I don’t think that would do any better with more words or context, frankly.

Orioles 5, Rays 2: The O’s complete the four-game sweep thanks to a leadoff homer from Gunnar Henderson, a game-tying two-run shot from James McCann, and then a two-run double and an RBI single from Ryan O’Hearn. That was enough for Corbin Burnes, who went seven, scattered five hits and only allowed a couple of unearned runs.

Twins 5, Rockies 0: Chris Paddack has allowed a lot of crooked numbers of late, but he had his best start in over a month last night, pitching shutout ball into the seventh after which three relievers finished the six-hitter. Royce Lewis’ two-run homer in the eighth broke it open. Lewis has homered four times in his last seven games.

Yankees 4, Royals 2: Juan Soto returned to the lineup. He walked and singled which is something I’d like you to specifically forget when you read the first item down in today’s Daily Briefing. Actually, there were no fireworks at all from New York’s bats on this night, with all of their runs scoring on singles and a sacrifice, but Carlos Rodón pitched shutout ball into the seventh and finished having allowed one run on five hits over seven. The Yankees have won ten of 13. Kansas City has lost nine of 14.

Brewers 3, Blue Jays 1: Colin Rea allowed just one run on three hits while working seven innings while Jackson Chourio and Willy Adames went deep. Those homers were the first for the Brewers in five games. The best part of this game, however, came when, in the fourth inning, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. fouled off a pitch and lost his grip on the bat, which went flying and got stuck in the netting above the Blue Jays’ dugout. It was high up and no one could get it down for two more innings. So it just sat there like a doofus. Assuming, at least, it’s OK to anthropomorphize baseball bats.

Padres 6, Athletics 1: Jake Cronenworth and Fernando Tatis Jr. homered, in the third and fifth, respectively. That makes it three homers in four games for Tatis, who is riding a 16-game hitting streak. The bottom of the seventh was eventful as there was a three-minute delay because some of the Petco Park lights went out. When play resumed, Donovan Solano drew a bases-loaded walk, Jackson Merrill hit an RBI single, and Ha-Seong Kim added a sacrifice fly. The A's have lost nine of their last 12 games and are a season-worst 16 games under .500.

Giants 4, Astros 3: It was 1-1 after regulation and Houston put up two in their half of the tenth. The Giants rallied, however, with Brett Wisely singling in a run, Patrick Bailey singling in Wisely, and then Austin Slater singling in Bailey for the walkoff win.

The Daily Briefing

The Athletic’s annual Player’s Poll is out

Each year The Athletic anonymously polls players on all manner of topics, ranging from the best player in the league, the most underrated, the most overrated, and stuff like that. This year’s poll is out now.

The Player Poll is not scientific, as only a little over 100 players respond and not all who do respond answer all of the questions. But, as The Athletic says at the outset, it provides a fun snapshot into player sentiment. Oh, and this time around, in a fun twist, The Athletic presented players with several questions suggested by readers. Those are more open-ended and vibe-based, but they do cover a lot of interesting territory.

Here are the questions presented:

• Who is the best player in baseball?
• Who is the most overrated player in baseball?
• Putting aside their stats and going solely on vibes, who do you most want on your team?
• Evaluate this statement: Anthony Rendon was right — the season is too long.
• Which team would you sign with if contracts, state taxes and rosters were not a factor?
• What organizations have bad reputations among players?
• What is the most irritating criticism of the current game coming from former players?
• Should MLB shut down midseason so players can participate in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles?
• Have analytics helped your career, hurt your career, or made no difference to your career?
• Have you ever seen or heard of a player being put on the injured list when they weren’t injured enough to merit it?
• Was the Dodgers’ offseason spending good for the game?
• Are you in favor of or opposed to MLB adopting the salary cap and floor system used in other major sports leagues?

I won’t give you the results — you should read The Athletic for that — but I am still laughing at the fact that a player ranked Juan Soto — Juan Soto! — “most overrated.” His rationale: "I feel like all he does is walk and hit singles, and doesn’t hit for power like he’s portrayed." I guess a .603 slugging percentage -- .531 career -- ain't what it used to be. On the bright side, whoever it was who answered that question will probably spend several lucrative years as a Fox or TBS analyst when his playing days are over.

That guy aside, most of the results seemed plausible and logical. And, as always, it was a fun article.

The Twins City Connect uniforms are out

Whaddaya think?

For what it’s worth, the Twins are saying this is more of a “state connect” than “city connect” uniform, with the primary theme being lakes, which makes sense. As far as the symbolism goes — never mind that uniforms are designed to be broad identifiers to fans sitting far away as opposed to subtle symbolism delivery devices — you can read a breakdown here. The most obvious bits:

• The blue ripples on the jersey are meant to represent the shimmer of water;
• The yellow is meant to represent a lakeside sunset;
• The “MN” is a respectful nod to Michel Ney, the First Prince de la Moskowa, First Duke of Elchingen, and a French military commander and Marshal of the Empire who fought in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars before being executed for treason in December 1815. The Twins did not say that in their release, of course. I’m just making the most logical assumption.

My thought is that, once again, these look like something a cheap baseball video game uses when it can’t get an MLB/MLBPA license. What’s worse is that the Twins regular uniforms look so good! I wish they wouldn’t bother, but Nike is gonna Nike and Rob Manfred doesn’t care as long as the checks clear.

In other gear-related news . . .

New Era and '47 have announced an agreement under which the former will acquire the latter.

Based on my personal experience with those two brands, I would guess that now, rather than having to choose between inconsistently sized and cut merchandise on the one hand and flimsy merchandise that quickly loses its shape on the other, we will have inconsistently sized and cut product that is flimsy and quickly loses its shape all in one convenient product. If that’s not progress I don’t know what is.

Other Stuff

Great Moments in Job Security

Yesterday Mike Tomlin agreed to a contract extension with the Pittsburgh Steelers that puts him under contract through the 2027 season.

You all know I don’t care about football, but I’m not gonna lie: it’s nuts to me how long the Pittsburgh Steelers keep coaches. That team has had only three head coaches — Chuck Noll, Bill Cower, and Tomlin — in my not-particularly short lifetime. If Tomlin stays on through this contract I'll be 54 when it's up. If he gets one more short extension, the team will have only had three coaches in the space of 60 years.

To be sure, I have no idea if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t know enough about the NFL anymore to know if Tomlin, like Noll circa 1990, is considered to be past his sell date or, alternatively, if the Steelers are better off for having the sort of stability they’ve had. I’m 100% ignorant and agnostic on all of those and related points. I’m just saying that it’s crazy, in this day and age, for a top-level pro sports team to cycle through top guys once every 20 years on average.

You are Here

A couple of weeks ago I linked a review of a novel called You are Here by David Nicholls. It’s a romance, and I don’t usually read romances, but my interest was piqued by the fact that the story takes place along the Coast to Coast trail in northern England, which all of you know, based on my never shutting up about it, that I hiked last year. So I got the book, began it last week, and finished it yesterday.

I won’t talk about the plot in any detail because it just came out and some of you may wish to read it yourselves, but know that it involves a small group of people, most of whom do not know one another but who all have a mutual friend, who begin hiking the Coast to Coast trail. All but one of them are only doing the first couple of legs for a weekend while the last one, a 42 year old man named Michael, plans to do the whole thing. For various reasons one of the others, a 38 year old woman named Marnie, stays on longer, walking with Michael after the others drop out.

It’s a romance so you can imagine how it goes. If you’re skeptical of romances, however, know that while there is a certain formula to it, it is not overly-obvious or cliched. To the contrary, it is a very well-written book with well-rounded characters, mature and thoughtful themes, and considerable depth. An engaging examination of early middle age, early middle age love, loneliness, marriage, divorce, separation, and that kind of thing.

Of course I mostly read it for the hiking bits and in that regard it delivered far better than I thought it might.

It became obvious very quickly that Nicholls hiked the Coast to Coast before writing the book and his descriptions of both the trail and the stops along the way are spot-on perfect, down to a given stand of trees here, a crumbling stone building there, a particularly tough climb or boggy bit of land, or a particular country lane. So many times while reading I thought to myself, “I know EXACTLY where that is!”

It’s also abundantly clear that Nicholls stayed in many of the same inns and B&Bs in which I stayed. And I say this notwithstanding his claims to the contrary:

The unlikely stars of hit TV shows and films have recently not been A-list actors, but filming locations: think the grand mansion that served as the set of Saltburn (and inspired thousand of eager visitors) or the sunny climes of the [Italian] Riviera, which formed the backdrop of the recent Ripley remake. But any fans of author David Nicholls’ work should consider themselves warned – the sites mentioned in his new book may be not only difficult, but downright impossible, to locate . . .

. . . The 57-year-old novelist told audiences at the Hay Literature Festival, which is currently taking place in Wales, that the settings for You Are Here ‘are genuinely all made up. The first night they stay in a pub on the shores of a lake – that pub doesn’t exist. Don’t try and book it.’ . . . You Are Here contains a disclaimer from Nicholls, which explains that while he ‘tried to describe the landscape as accurately as possible, the pubs, hotels and restaurants along the way are all entirely fictional’. He also added that he has ‘taken a few small liberties with the route’.

There’s a short postscript to the book itself with a similar disclaimer.

I will grant that the pub on the shores of Ennerdale Water mentioned above does not exist — all the inns at that first night’s stop are a bit west of the lake — but he’s lying about some of the places in some of the other towns:

• Michael and Marnie stay at a romantic luxury hotel on the shores of Ullswater which he places in Patterdale. Patterdale is not actually on the shores of Ullswater, but the hotel he describes is EXACTLY like the one a mile north in Glenridding, which IS on the shores of Ullswater and is where many hikers, myself included, stay as an alternative to Patterdale. It’s obvious what place he’s describing;
• Michael and Marnie have a notable moment of connection at a chippy in the town of Shap, and it is obvious which chippy it is to anyone who has had the misfortune of staying overnight in the town of Shap. Mostly because there is only one chippy in Shap and it is described in the book exactly how it exists in real life;
• Most importantly, one of the key turning points of the book takes place at a ruffly Victorian B&B in the town of Kirkby Stephen. Not only is it abundantly clear that it’s the place where I stayed when I made it to that town, but even the landlady, whose rules impact the plot of the book, is EXACTLY like the landlady I met when I stayed there, right down to the hairstyle he describes. I’m guessing Nicholls met her too. I can even imagine him thinking that he should try to disguise her more, but the real woman is so perfect for the part — straight from Victorian B&B landlady central casting — that he had to go with her because it’d be silly not to.

Not that any of this matters THAT much. I mean, I totally get why Nicholls would say that these places are all fictitious given how, as described above, people tend to do pilgrimages to locations they see in films and read about in books, and no one really wants to encourage that kind of thing. It’s probably annoying.

That said, if You are Here becomes a big hit, and especially if it gets made into a popular movie like one of Nicholls’ earlier books did, it’ll likely happen. And if it does? Well, in that case I may have to start up a “The Sights of You are Here” tour. I’ll only charge a modest fee. Promise.

Justice Alito thinks it’s his job to fight to "return our country to a place of godliness."

Supreme Court justices are, in theory, supposed to be dispassionate arbiters of the law, above everyday political considerations. We know, practically speaking, that that’s often not true, yet we treat them as if they are apolitical in certain respects. They are given lifetime appointments. They are great deference in how they carry out the work of the court with virtually no oversight by the other two branches of government. The idea being that, to do otherwise, would unwisely enmesh them in politics. On their end, they have traditionally eschewed taking public positions on political topics precisely so that they can maintain the appearance of impartiality.

Supreme Court justices likewise — and I hope this would go without saying — cannot be in the business of doing things expressly prohibited by the Constitution. Sure, we argue all the time about their opinions with respect to Constitutionality — is this or that law constitutional or not — but we must agree, must we not, that Supreme Court Justices cannot themselves do what the Constitution explicitly says they cannot do.

Against that backdrop, get a load of this Rolling Stone report about Justice Alito’s recent remarks at the Supreme Court Historical Society's annual dinner on June 3:

Justice Samuel Alito spoke candidly about the ideological battle between the left and the right -- discussing the difficulty of living "peacefully" with ideological opponents in the face of "fundamental" differences that "can't be compromised." He endorsed what his interlocutor described as a necessary fight to "return our country to a place of godliness." And Alito offered a blunt assessment of how America's polarization will ultimately be resolved: "One side or the other is going to win."

In sum: a sitting United States Supreme Court justice has explicitly aligned himself with one political party, says that his side has to win and that there’s no compromise with his ideological opponents, and, finally, agreed with the notion that it is his job as a federal judge to spread godliness.

Anyone who has followed Justice Alito’s career knows where he stands politically: in lockstep with conservative and religious interests aligned with the Republican party. Those people also know that Alito’s rulings are almost exclusively calculated to further those political beliefs. That, of course, does not make him putting so fine a public and vocal point on it like this any less jarring or alarming. Indeed, saying this out loud signals to anyone who comes before the bench that he is anything but impartial and that he will rule based on his political and religious convictions, not on the merits of the case before him. It’s unethical and it’s wrong.

Have a great day everyone.

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