Cup of Coffee: June 18, 2024

Good morning!

Trea Turner returned for the Phillies, the Cardinals pushed themselves above .500, the Mets had quite the hit parade, Paul Skenes Day was a success for Pittsburgh, a first place team is getting its ace back, a second place team is losing a phenom, Derek Jeter had a castle, apparently, and a retired MLB player and former coach has died.

In Other Stuff we talk about an ax-wielding amateur, the perils of social media, and I share a bit from my last full day in the UK.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Phillies 9, Padres 2: After a long road trip which included a stop in London — who goes to London? Seriously? — Kyle Schwarber homered twice, Alec Bohm hit a three-run blast, Rafael Marchán had four hits and an RBI, and, most encouragingly of all for Phillies fans, Trea Turner returned from a month and a half on the IL, had two hits, and scored a run. The Padres, meanwhile, have lost four straight and eight in a row on the road. Asked about it after the game manager Mike Shildt said “No concern about this club at all. This too shall pass.” No one wants to hear panic from the skipper, but I feel like a little concern is warranted.

Mets 14, Rangers 2: In all of baseball history, teams have who have had 14 runs on 22 hits are 232-0.

[Editor: Do you think making up statistics like this is helpful?]

Fake statistics are useful for everyone. Forfty percent of all people know that.

[Editor: Move along]

Fine. DJ Stewart hit a three-run homer, Brandon Nimmo hit a two-run shot, Francisco Lindor doubled in a run, Mets hitters had seven RBI singles, and their final run scored on a fielder’s choice. That’s six straight wins for the Mets. It’s panic time for the Rangers, if it wasn’t panic time already. They’ve lost four in a row and 22 of 33 overall, they’re six games under .500, and they’re nine games behind the AL West-leading Mariners.

Cardinals 7, Marlins 6: Masyn Winn hit a two-run homer in the top of the 12th inning and Dylan Carlson threw out what would’ve been the tying run at the plate as the Marlins attempted to rally in the bottom half to give St. Louis the win. The Cardinals, after a fairly dreadful start to the season, have won five of six and now have a winning record, standing at 36-35. Miami lost its sixth straight and has dropped 12 of 14 games in the month of June.

RedSox 7, Blue Jays 3: On Sunday it was stolen bases. Last night it was the longball as Tyler O’Neill hit two homers and Rafael Devers and Ceddanne Rafaela each went deep as well. In closing, the Boston Red Sox are a land of contrasts.

Pirates 4, Reds 1: It was Paul Skenes day in Cincinnati, and the young mustachioed man delivered, allowing one run on six hits over six innings while striking out seven. With the win Skenes moves to 4-0 on the season and his ERA falls to 2.29. He has 53 strikeouts against seven walks in 39.1 innings, and, more importantly, the Pirates are 6-1 in his starts. Less importantly but still fun: per Statcast, Skenes has thrown 65 pitches of 100 mph or higher this season The second-most in the major leagues is the Los Angeles Angels’ José Soriano who “only” has 36.

Atlanta 2, Tigers 1: Max Fried (5.1 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 6K) and three relievers combined to allow one run on five hits. Atlanta didn’t score until the seventh, however, as Tigers right-hander Reese Olson pitched six innings of shutout ball. They tied things up with Forest Wall’s RBI single in the seventh and took the lead on an Ozzie Albies solo homer in the eighth. Atlanta has won four of their last five

Giants 7, Cubs 6: The Cubbies had a 6-3 lead after seven, but Patrick Bailey’s solo shot in the eighth made it 6-4, and then Thairo Estrada hit a three-run blast in the ninth to pull the Giants ahead and to victory. The most frustrating part for the Cubs outside of the loss was that the two guys who were on base when Estrada went deep — Jorge Soler and Mike Yastrzemski reached on a catcher’s interference and a walk, respectively. Talk about shooting yourself in the dick.

Dodgers 9, Rockies 5: The Dodgers built a steady lead, extending it to 9-1 by the ninth inning, while backed by James Paxton’s seven inning, one-run performance. The Rockies rallied for four runs via a couple of homers in the bottom of the ninth but teams who build up 9-1 leads after eight and a half innings have what I am sure is an impressive all-time record that I will not specify because I don’t need my editor on my ass again. The Dodgers didn’t hit any homers en route to victory. Shohei Ohtani, Miguel Rojas and Jason Heyward had three hits, Will Smith and Heyward each knocked in a couple, and five different Dodgers batters had an RBI base knock of their own.

Angels 5, Brewers 3: Zach Plesac pitched six innings of four-hit ball in his Angels debut — and his first start in 14 months — while Zach Neto hit a two-run homer. Luis Guillorme had an RBI triple during the Angels’ three-run third which was helped along by bad Brewers defense. The Angels have won four of six.

The Daily Briefing

Gerrit Cole to make his season debut tomorrow

It’s official: reigning Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole will make his season debut tomorrow against the Orioles. As of Sunday the Yankees had announced their rotation for the series and had Nestor Cortes listed as tonight’s starter and Luis Gil listed for Thursday with Wednesday as “TBD,” but everyone knew what as going down. Now it’s officially going down.

If you would’ve told me when Cole first hit the IL that (a) he wouldn’t be back until mid-June; but (b) the Yankees would be 50-24, would be in first place, and would have the best record in baseball, I’d have flat told you that you were crazy. But that’s where they are. And now they get the best damn pitcher in baseball back.

Anthony Rizzo has a broken arm

Not all Yankees news was good news yesterday: their first baseman Anthony Rizzo has a fractured arm that will put him out between four and six weeks. The injury occurred during Sunday night’s game when he collided with Red Sox pitcher Brennan Bernardino, who was covering first. Rizzo fell and landed on his wrist.

Rizzo has not been having a good season, but the Yankees don’t have an obvious replacement for him either, so the Bombers could be active on the trade market for a first baseman.

Atlanta places Hurston Waldrep on injured list

In the recaps yesterday I noted that Atlanta’s young pitching prospect Hurston Waldrep has been beaten up pretty badly in his first two big league appearances. It’s gotten worse: he’s been placed on the injured list with a sore elbow.

A specific ailment has either not been diagnosed or Atlanta is not saying yet, but Waldrep told the team he felt sore after Sunday’s three and a third inning outing against the Rays. Overall Waldrep is 0-1 with a 16.71 ERA through two starts and, before word of the injury came out, Brian Snitker suggested he’d be optioned back to Triple-A, but now that he’s on the IL he’ll continue to make that sweet, sweet MLB minimum salary. Not that that’s better than good health, of course.

Here’s hoping this is just something minor and temporary. Though given how things have gone for young phenoms in recent years, I’m not feeling super great about it.

Wait, Derek Jeter had a castle?

I used to sort of obsess on baseball players’ houses, mostly because so many of them were kind of obnoxious. The sorts of places people buy when eight or nine figures are suddenly dropped in their lap when they’re the same age as people who are still living with roommates, living on fast food, and assume that 13 bathrooms are better than three or four, so they definitely go with the bigger place.

Derek Jeter was a favorite of mine in this regard. I remember writing about his Trump Tower apartment and his 30,000 square foot compound down in Tampa that he rented to Tom Brady for a spell and then later sold to developers who plan to demolish the monstrosity. I had no idea, however, that he also owned a frankly ridiculous castle in Greenwood Lake, New York, about an hour northwest of Yankee Stadium. Or, I should say, he did own it, because I read yesterday that he finally sold it. From the New York Times:

The four-acre lakefront home in Greenwood Lake, N.Y., known as Tiedemann Castle, went into contract on May 25, two years after it failed to sell at auction, and six years after the Hall of Fame shortstop initially put it on the market for more than $14 million. The asking price was slashed to $6.3 million this year, and the sale is currently pending.

The so-called castle has a main house, a guesthouse, pool house and a boat house. It’s more than 12,500 square feet and has six bedrooms and 13 bathrooms. Small by Captain Jetes’ standards, but sorta crazy given that (a) his family only has five people in it; and (b) when he bought and lived in the place he was single. What’s more, as far as I can tell, he has NOT lived in it since his three children were born. Just your standard 13-bedroom bachelor pad.

Oh, and it’s as ugly as sin:

If they ever make me king I’ll decree that anyone who builds something they dare to call a “castle” must have working, as opposed to ornamental, battlements, arrow slits, and an inner keep. Oh, and if you own one, you have to swear fealty and pledge troops. If you wanna pretend to be a lord, Mr. Big Shot, you better build and act like a lord.

I’m guessing there’s no athlete in recent memory who has been described by sportswriters as “classy” more often than Jeter. But, boy howdy, that does not extend to his real estate tastes, which are about as gaudy and obvious as anything this side of the Russian Oligarch set.

Mike Brumley: 1963-2024

Former big leaguer and big league coach Mike Brumley was killed in an automobile accident in Mississippi on Saturday night. He was 61 years old.

Brumley, the son of big league catcher of the same name who played for a couple of seasons in the 1960s, was a 1983 draftee of the Boston Red Sox. A year later he was a throw-in the trade which sent Dennis Eckersley to the Cubs in exchange for Bill Buckner. He spent almost all of his career as a utility infielder, playing for the Cubs, Tigers, Mariners, and the Red Sox before serving two stints with the Astros around a brief stay with the Athletics.

After his playing career Brumley served as a minor league coach and manager in multiple organizations for several years. His last job was as the minor league hitting coordinator for Atlanta from 2018 to 2022. The news of his death was initially relayed to Atlanta third baseman Austin Riley, for whom Brumley was an important mentor. He had this to say about learning of Brumley’s death after Sunday’s game against the Rays:

"I got a text about 2:30 this morning and I have been up since. There are very few people that have been role models in my baseball career, my dad being No. 1 and Mike Brumley being No. 2. I feel for his family and his kids and everybody that he was close to. This is a tragic day. Prayers out to his family. It's a tough pill to swallow."

Rest in peace Mike Brumley.

Other Stuff

Amateur

A man wielding an ax in a Hamburg, Germany entertainment district full of soccer fans in town for the Euros was shot by the police on Sunday, hours before the Poland-Netherlands match. The man reportedly threatened police officers with “a pickax and an incendiary device,” which was a bottle with a rag hanging out of it that appeared to be some sort of Molotov cocktail, but he was shot by police before he could injure anyone. He is currently in the hospital recovering from the shooting and will eventually face formal charges.

I don’t mean to diminish the seriousness of this incident — and don’t want to be one of those guys who argues from authority — but if this assailant had been brought up in my family he’d know that the best way to do damage with an ax is to wait until your victim is asleep. That’s Ax 101, man.

Fair

Per the New York Times, the surgeon general said he would urge Congress to require a warning that social media use can harm teenagers’ mental health.

Based on what I’ve seen over the past 15 years or so — and based on my own inner monologue which sounds a lot like Hal 9000’s “my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it”/”Bicycle Built for Two” speech on most days — I’m not sure why he’d limit the warning to teenagers.

Brighton

I woke up in my London hotel at around 6AM yesterday morning and, after finding a real cup of drip coffee at the Pret a Manger in the train station next door — thank GOD for Pret when one is sick of Americanos, which is about the only coffee you can get in UK coffee shops — I spent a leisurely couple of hours watching game highlights, portions of condensed games, and doing yesterday’s recaps, proofreading the newsletter, and being far more leisurely about stuff than I usually have to be to get the newsletter out before 7AM when I’m on Eastern time. I could get used to that for sure.

Later in the morning Allison and I got on the train to Brighton, where our friend April lives. April is an American who Allison knows from back in her L.A. days and who I met 12 years ago. She’s been over here for several years, has a two-bedroom flat in a hip area of the prettiest damn town you can imagine, so of course we had to stay with her.

Brighton gets a lot of comparisons to San Francisco. That’s not strictly accurate in any real way, as the population of Brighton and Hove is under 300,000 people, but it has hills, fresh breezes, it’s progressive, broadly speaking, has a sizable gay population, and a lot of stuff like that so I get it. Either way, I really dig it on its own merits and would like to come back for a longer stay. To that end April told us that we can stay in her spare room for months on end, even when she’s back in the United States if we want to, so that’s good. Or bad. Depends on how you look at it. I probably don’t need anyone encouraging me in this regard, but I guess we’ll see how the election goes this fall and whether my cats miss me when I get back.

As for our day: after settling in we wandered down the hill from April’s neighborhood, on through a shopping/commercial area called The Lanes, and then to the waterfront. We walked along the beach for a bit. We had a drink at a nice pub. We got to see the Grand Hotel where the IRA tried to bomb Margaret Thatcher back in 1984. That was the one where, afterward, the IRA said “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.” I don’t condone terrorism, but you gotta admit that quote is pretty badass.

Come evening we went to one of the nicer pubs I’ve been to over here — borderline fancy, even — which does a Monday roast in addition to a Sunday roast, so I naturally had to do that. Pork belly and cracklin’, mate:

After that we strolled down the coast again and caught this sunset:

Yeah, that’ll do.

Back at April’s apartment we watched 80s indie/alternative videos on a streaming service called Roxi, which plays basically every music video you can think of, commercial-free, sorted either by genre or by playlists you create. There are also “party” features, for lack of a petter term, where you can play it on your TV and anyone in your house or space or whatever can choose videos via a QR code or Alexa or whatever sort of like a bar’s TouchTunes. It’s the perfect service for anyone who has ever lamented the fact that MTV doesn’t play videos anymore.

April’s boyfriend works for the company and April did too for a while, though she doesn’t anymore. It’s got some notable investors like Simon Cowell, Kylie Minogue, Sheryl Crow, Robbie Williams and U2’s Adam Clayton. It’s supposed to be coming to the US soon if it’s not in some places already. Per Variety the U.S. launch is apparently in partnership with the dreaded Sinclair Communications, which is a real damn bummer, but in practice it was fairly amazing to watch. Given our preferences it showed us deep-ass cuts from Nick Cave, the Pogues, and a bunch of others like that. I could see it being super cool as long as shitty corporations don’t mess it up. Which they probably will, but let’s hold out at least a little hope.

I fly back to New York today, but the flight gets in too late to connect to Columbus, so it’s one night at the TWA Hotel at JFK and then back to Ohio tomorrow morning.

I couldn’t think of a thematically appropriate song today, but The Kooks are from Brighton, so here we are.

Thanks for indulging me, and have a great day, everyone.

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