Cup of Coffee: June 14, 2024

Good morning!

I’m coming to you from the cold and rainy north of England again, but don’t worry, I have beer to keep me warm.

Let’s jump into our latest vacation version of Cup of Coffee.

Settling the Scores 

• Royals starter Alec Marsh took a no-hitter into the seventh against the Yankees and finished with seven innings of one-hit shutout ball. The Bombers came back, however, plating three in the eighth to take the lead. Then, in the ninth, Maikel Garcia hit a two-run double off Clay Holmes for the walkoff win;
• J.D. Martinez hit a two-run walkoff homer to power the Mets past the Marlins;
• White Sox starter Garrett Crochet struck out 13 Mariners and allowed just one run in seven innings. He didn’t have much run support and the bullpen failed, allowing a different Sox pitcher to vulture a win. Chicago is probably gonna trade Crochet before the deadline, and I understand the case for doing so, but he’s been about the only thing worth watching on this team this year;
• Atlanta beat the Orioles, which allowed them to avoid being swept. It also snapped a five-game losing streak, which was their longest in a single season since 2017;
• The Dbacks demolished the Angels, giving them eight wins in their last ten;
• The Athletics dropped their sixth straight. Early in the season they had some frisky moments, but as I said at the time, there’s nowhere to hide over the course of 162 games and, given everything about that club, this sinking was inevitable;
• Rangers reliever David Robertson struck out Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman in succession last night. He also did it on Wednesday. He’s the only pitcher to do it at all this season. Let’s hear it for wily veterans;
• The Rangers victory gave Bruce Bochy 2,126 career wins as a manager. In so doing he passed up Joe McCarthy to move into ninth place on the all-time wins list. He’ll pass Bucky Harris later this year. If the Rangers go on a tear he could catch up to Dusty Baker for seventh place, but if they stay a roughly .500 team that won’t happen.

Anyway, here are the scores from Thursday. At least I think they’re the Thursday scores. Read the next item below, which explains my confusion over this. Made even more complicated by the fact that the Rangers-Dodgers game was still going on when I woke up this morning and, brother, that’s a thing that is gonna screw me up for the rest of the day:

Atlanta 6, Orioles 3
Tigers 7, Nationals 2
Royals 4, Yankees 3
Cardinals 4, Pirates 3
Rays 3, Cubs 2
Mets 3, Marlins 2
Red Sox 9, Phillies 3
Twins 6, Athletics 2
Diamondbacks 11, Angels 1
White Sox 3, Mariners 2
Rangers 3, Dodgers 1

Following baseball from this side of the Atlantic Ocean

I’ve often thought about how great it would be to move to the UK — or, really, anywhere to this side of the Atlantic Ocean — in large part because of how easy it would be to do the singularly weird job I have.

When you have one daily deliverable, as I do, and the expectation for delivery is somewhere between 6am and 7am U.S. Eastern time every day, being five or six hours ahead is a huge advantage. It means that one can do almost all of one’s work between the time one wakes up and noon, after which one can close the laptop and be done for the day. Compare that to what I do now: (a) a lot of work between 5AM and 6-7AM; (b) a good deal of dead time during the day; and (c) a lot of work between, oh, 8PM and bedtime.

To be sure, I’m not complaining about my current schedule. My job is barely a job in the traditional sense, and I thank my lucky stars every day that I’m able to get away with this scam. But boy, being able to do almost all of it in one concentrated period of time would make for better life balance and I’d never feel like I was half-assing the late game recaps because I wouldn’t be rushing to write them in the wee small hours. So yeah, that’s why I think about writing from this part of the world a great deal, even if it’d up my consumption of condensed games and highlights compared to actual live games. But it’s not like I can or do watch anything but a fraction of the up to 15 live games a night/day as it is.

All of that being said, I will never get used to what is presented below, which is what the “day’s” MLB schedule looks like from England at around 9PM England time on Thursday evening:

As you can see, the “Thursday” schedule includes games that actually took place in the U.S. on Wednesday, but which began on Thursday, UK time. As you can also see, the “Friday” schedule has games which were played in the U.S. on Thursday. And though they’re not visible here, it’s worth noting that the U.S. Friday games that begin before 7PM Eastern are also listed as Friday, so at a glance it’s difficult to tell who was playing who when. Like, did the Yankees have a doubleheader against the Royals on Thursday or did they simply play a night game on Wednesday, making it Thursday UK time, and a day game on Thursday, also making it Thursday UK time? Yes, it only takes a few minutes to suss that out, but it’s still kind of confusing.

I feel like if I were doing daily recaps over here I’d just VPN back to the US for my scores and change my computer clock to U.S. Eastern time to make it all make immediate sense. Either that or devote an entire wall to large, analog world clocks like you’d see in a government or financial office in a movie from the 1960s or something. I’d get used to it all, but it’d definitely mess with me. As a basic tenet of my existence, I require order, not chaos, and scoreboards like the one posted above are chaotic.

Anyway, these are the sorts of things you think about when your wife has gone to sleep at 8PM because she couldn’t sleep on the plane the night before and you yourself are too tired to watch a movie or go out to a pub or something.

Yesterday

We didn’t do a hell of a lot in Manchester yesterday. Neither of us slept particularly well on the plane Wednesday night so we were good and beat by the time we got into town. We dropped our bags at our hotel, which obviously did not have a room ready yet, and, since neither of us were starving, we pushed the full English to today. Instead we grabbed some breakfast at a fun little cafe/bakery in the Northern Quarter that, in addition to catering to Allison’s dietary restrictions, is woman-owned and woman-run and gave off all the right vibes. The roasted potato/pepperoni plate and massive amounts of coffee kept me from crashing.

Beyond that, though, it was a pretty uneventful day. We were notified that our room was ready at around 10:30 and, since we were still in rough shape, we went there and crashed for a couple of hours. We had thoughts of a nice long stroll through town but a steady rain and the cold wind didn’t make that seem too inviting. If we each hadn’t been here multiple times in the past we’d have braved it, but we’re largely beyond the sightseeing portion of visits to Manchester as opposed to purpose-driven things like tonight’s concert, so we just did some shopping, got a couple of pints, and then had dinner at a fantastic Chinese restaurant that has a dedicated gluten-free fryer, which is not something you can find in Chinese places very easily back home. The upshot to it all: touring a place is great, but going to a great place enough times where you can cut back on the touring and just sort of hang out is, in my opinion anyway, the ultimate travel goal.

So, as I said, the de rigueur full English breakfast at the Koffee Pot was pushed to this morning. Then some more hanging around — and, because the weather is supposed to be a bit better, more wandering — followed by the James concert tonight. Which actually begins at like 4pm for us because we got the VIP tickets that let us into soundcheck, a post-soundcheck Q&A with the band, and that kind of thing. That will then require us to kill a lot of time out by the venue, which is next to Etihad Stadium, and appears to have nothing else really going on nearby, so who knows what we’ll do. Though, since there is great mass transit here we could just come back into the city center and find something good to eat. Play it by ear, I suppose.

Odds and Ends

As you probably know, the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes are relocating to Utah. They have been working on a name change and yesterday they revealed it, the team’s new colors, and the new uniforms. The name: “Utah Hockey Club” or “Utah H.C.,” which is a soccer-style moniker the likes of which have become more popular in the U.S. I have no problem with that as I like the notion of nicknames being true nicknames that reveal themselves organically over time rather than corporate-created IP identifiers. If fans want to call them one thing and the media wants to call them something else, and the club wants to, over time, see what best fits, great. That’s how it used to be one in baseball so I’m cool with it. The look, however, is not that great:

The colors are good but given the lack of imagination for the sweater graphics, they may as well be called the Utah Generics.

The Supreme Court unanimously rejected an attempt to restrict access to a key abortion medication, mifepristone, yesterday. This overturns a lower court ruling that was issued by a frankly out-of-control anti-abortion zealot of a judge who Republicans have turned into their culture war judge of choice via cynical as hell forum shopping. Don’t cheer too enthusiastically about this ruling, however, because the court rejected the challenges to the pill’s legality based only on standing, given that the plaintiffs in the case neither prescribed nor used mifepristone so they had no injuries which could be resolved in a lawsuit. Rest assured, however, that anti-abortion activists will renew their challenge with different plaintiffs soon in an effort to get a second bite at the apple and, if they provide even a fig leaf of standing, this lawless court will no doubt ban mifepristone despite the fact that it is safe and effective and has fewer and less severe side effects than Tylenol.

In related news, yesterday Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic-led bill that would establish federal protections for in vitro fertilization. Democrats introduced the bill for two reasons: (1) because Republicans have strongly advocated for so-called “fetal personhood” laws which would render IVF, which involves the discarding of fertilized embryos, illegal; and (2) because they want to put Republicans on blast regarding abortion and reproductive rights in an election year. Republicans claim they’re pro-IVF but their support of all manner of “life begins at conception” stuff renders those claims hollow. The GOP says it’d support laws which, rather than totally protect IVF, would merely deprive states who ban it from receiving Medicaid money. Given that Republicans likewise have a long and rich track record of not giving a shit about healthcare for the poor and voluntarily rejecting Medicaid money out of pure ideology, their counter to the Democrat bill is obviously a sham.

All four of the members of R.E.M. sat for an interview with CBS Mornings’ Anthony Mason. It was a wonderful segment from a band who, unlike almost any other band of their stature, (a) left the scene when they felt it was right for them; (b) has stayed retired, absent rare, random one-offs at award ceremonies and things; and (c) remains friendly and on good terms with one another. It’s fantastic stuff. There is more to chew on in this nine-minute segment than in some 1-2 hour rock documentaries, including a revelation of sorts from Bill Berry regarding his departure from the band in the mid-90s. And at the end they tease a part 2 to the interview, so check that out when it drops later today.

My friend Kevin sent me this on Twitter yesterday and, though I hate to admit it, it pretty much captures my entire vibe when it comes to England:

I blame Ray Davies. 

Liam Fray, the singer and founder of this band, Courteeners, is part owner of the first place we had a pint yesterday, Smithfield Social. It ain’t exactly a pub — press at the time it opened in 2021 referred to it as being “an all-day dining destination, inspired by Liam's favourite hangouts in the Lower East Side of Manhattan,” which, fine, OK — but we love Courteeners so we couldn’t not go there.

Have a great weekend everyone.

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