Cup of Coffee: May 13, 2024

Good morning!

First things first: the premium account snafu from Friday has been fixed. That’s nice, even if it caused me to gnash my teeth a great deal.

Also: I’m done traveling for the near term, so we’re back to usual newsletter protocols today. We have the recaps, we have the news roundup, and we have the Other Stuff, which includes something impossibly cute, a great TV idea of mine, a naked man walking around Burlington, Vermont, and some followup on a big heist I talked about back in April.

Well, OK, the news roundup is weird today for reasons explain below. But I think it ended up being entertaining thanks to a little bit of baseball history and a little but of food poisoning.

Confused? You won’t be, after this edition of Cup of Coffee.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Diamondbacks 9, Orioles 2: Zac Gallen took a no-hitter into the fifth and ended up allowing two runs and four hits over six. Jake McCarthy homered and Arizona scored six runs in the sixth, all with two out. The O’s played a lot of lousy defense. The Snakes avoided a sweep.

Cubs 5, Pirates 4: A less chaotic game than Saturday’s crap-fest, that’s for sure. More on that one below. Here it was 2-2 after nine. In the top of the tenth Cody Bellinger hit a dribbler single to plate the Manfred Man after which he got put out in a rundown. That meant Patrick Wisdom’s subsequent homer was a solo shot instead of a two-run shot but they got one more run on a passed ball to make it 5-2. Connor Joe hit a two-run shot in the bottom half but the Buccos needed three so that was the ballgame. Chicago takes two of three.

Red Sox 3, Nationals 2: A two-run automatic double from Ceddanne Rafaela and a wild pitch gave Boston all of their runs in the second inning. Brayan Bello came off the IL to give them five strong innings but the four runs of scoreless relief Alex Cora got from his pen was just as important. Also important: Victor Robles’ multiple blunders. In that second inning Robles had a fly ball pop out of his glove that allowed runners on first and second to become runners on second and third, which allowed them to score on Rafaela’s automatic double. Then in the third Robles ran to third base despite it being occupied by Riley Adams after which he was tagged out in a rundown to spoil what looked to be an excellent scoring chance for the Nats. Not a great day for Victor.

Twins 5, Blue Jays 1: Carlos Santana hit a three-run home run and Bailey Ober struck out 10 over six and a third shutout innings as the Twins keep on humming. They took two of three from Toronto and have won 17 of 20 overall. They’re still a half game behind Cleveland due to their awful start, but they’re closing quickly.

Astros 9, Tigers 3: Vintage Verlander, as the future Hall of Famer shut out his old team for seven innings while striking out eight and allowing only two hits. Per the game story, Verlander now has 3,365 career strikeouts, which is just two behind Max Scherzer for 11th on the all-time list and six behind Greg Maddux for 10th. I knew he was climbing that chart but I’m not sure I would’ve guessed he’d be in the top ten this year. If he gets 143 more he catches Walter Johnson for ninth.

Yankees 10, Rays 6: Jose Trevino hit two homers and Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres, and Jahmai Jones all went deep as well. Luis Gil went six scoreless innings. That makes it sound like a rout, but New York led 6-0 and nearly blew that lead before Torres’ three-run shot in the eighth gave them insurance. The Bombers take two of three.

Marlins 7, Phillies 6: Philly blew a 3-0 lead, Miami blew a 6-3 lead but Emmanuel Rivera’s pinch-hit single in the tenth knocked in the Manfred Man and walked it off for the Marlins in the tenth. Jazz Chisholm Jr. doubled and tripled and Josh Bell homered. That snapped a five-game skid, but never fear, Miami fans: today is a new day and they can begin a new losing streak before we go to sleep tonight.

Guardians 7, White Sox 0: Speaking of streaks, my being on the road for a few days followed by the weekend meant that I missed a four-game winning streak from the White Sox of all teams. They reverted to form yesterday, however, getting shut out on six hits by Logan Allen and three relievers. David Fry hit a two-run homer. Andrés Giménez hit a solo shot. This was the tenth time this year the Chisox have been shut out which leads the majors.

Cardinals 4, Brewers 3: Paul Goldschmidt has slumped all damn year but he had a big game here, homering early and hitting a game-tying RBI single in the sixth to help the Cardinals avoid a sweep and end a seven-game losing streak. Fun stuff: Cards manager Oliver Marmol and bench coach Daniel Descalso were ejected in the third for arguing about two calls that first base ump Sean Barber blew but which were overturned on replay in the Cardinals favor. I have no idea if Marmol and Descalso used the famous magic words or somehow behaved beyond the pale, but I will note Marmol’s comments about it all after the game:

Marmol said after the game he was merely trying to fire up his team and didn't have a problem with the umpiring crew. “Alan Porter and Sean Barber are good umpires," Marmol said. “That had more to do with getting something going. Those guys do a nice job. Their job is tough. But at times, you've just got to — a little skid — get something going. I don't have anything against that group.”

I feel like you’re supposed to wait until some time after the fact to admit that you wound up the umps to motivate the troops. It strikes me that saying that your arguments were performatively vociferous a mere two hours later is the kind of thing that might make Michael Hill a bit cranky. But I suppose it worked.

Rockies 3, Rangers 1: Ezequiel Tovar hit a two-run homer early and the Rockies drew a bases loaded walk late, while Ty Blach and a bunch of relievers — well, other relievers — held the Texas bats in check all day. That’s a three-game sweep for the Rockies. Make a wish, folks, those things don’t come along too often.

Giants 6, Reds 5: Casey Schmitt hit a walk-off double in the 10th inning to give the Giants the series and send the Reds to their tenth loss in their last 11 games. It wasn’t all great for San Francisco, though, as they lost Jung Hoo Lee to a left shoulder injury when he leaped at the wall to try to catch a ball. After the game Bob Melvin described Lee's shoulder as “separated," though a Giants spokesperson later said it was a “dislocated" shoulder. Neither are good. Lee will get an MRI on Monday and he’s gonna be on the shelf for some time.

Royals 4, Angels 2: Seth Lugo struck out 12 batters and allowed just one run over eight innings, Hunter Renfroe had a two-run single, and Freddie Fermín and Michael Massey also had RBI during the Royals' four-run fourth inning. Kansas City takes three of four from the Angels.

Padres 4, Dodgers 0: Yu Darvish vexed his old team by allowing just two hits over seven shutout frames while striking out seven and the pen completed the four-hit blanking. Solo homers from Fernando Tatis Jr., Jake Cronenworth, and Xander Bogaerts led the charge as San Diego takes two of three from their division rivals.

Mariners 8, Athletics 4: Julio Rodríguez and Mitch Garver each hit two-run homers and Seby Zavala hit a solo shot. The A’s hit three homers too but they didn’t have anyone on base for two of their bombs and didn’t get supporting RBI singles and sac flies and stuff. The M’s take two of three.

Mets 4, Atlanta 3: The game was either tied or was a one-run affair until the bottom of the ninth when Jeff McNeill reached on a leadoff bunt single and two batters later Brandon Nimmo hit a walkoff two-run homer to help the Mets avert the sweep.

The Daily Briefing

There are dozens of us! Dozens! 

From the Associated Press:

As a sparse crowd headed into loanDepot Park to watch the Marlins face the Phillies Friday evening, a handful of disgruntled Miami fans remained on the outskirts of the ballpark, yelling passionately in hopes their message would be heard.

The small demonstration of no more than 10 people was organized to convey fan discontent with the direction of the franchise. There were signs and posters, including one demanding that owner Bruce Sherman sell the team.

“We are only a few here but the majority of fans are disgusted,” said Luis De Armas, a decades-long Marlins fan and the organizer of Friday’s protest. “We want to continue coming to the games but not when it remains a losing club. All because of an owner who promised us one thing and did something else.”

The headline notwithstanding, at this point I am far more sympathetic to frustrated Marlins fans, whose beefs are 100% legitimate after decades of this bullshit, than I am inclined to makes jokes about how upwards of 75-80% of all Marlins fans showed up for this protest.

Ohtani’s bad back

Shohei Ohtani left after his fourth at-bat in the Dodgers’ win over the San Diego Padres on Saturday night with what manager Dave Roberts said was back tightness. Roberts said, “being up 5-0, we didn’t want to push it. We’ll see how he comes in tomorrow.”

As for how he came in tomorrow, which was yesterday: Ohtani sat. Which was expected. There was a possibility that they’d use him as a pinch hitter but it didn’t come up and it was probably better to rest him than to hope he could spur a four-run comeback yesterday.

Ohtani says he’s feeling better already, so this is probably not a huge deal.

Paul Skenes’ debut

As you no doubt saw, Paul Skenes, the young Pirates pitcher who is heralded as the top pitching prospect to come down the pike in several years, made his debut on Saturday. His fastball reached at least 100 mph 17 times and he had movement that buckled guys’ knees en route to seven strikeouts.

At the same time, he tossed 84 pitches in four innings and change, tons of people watching at home and talking about it online beefed about him being yanked when he was, and everyone watched a couple of runners he left on base when he was yanked score. That’s about the most 2020s kind of debut for a hard-throwing phenom I can imagine. Exciting and intriguing but ultimately deflating for most involved. And that’s before you account for the fact that you can’t watch a young guy with stuff like Skenes pitch these days without thinking “I wonder how long we’ll get to watch him before his elbow explodes?” It’s bittersweet to see these young arms get called up. Like watching the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps sail off to Gallipoli.

Thankfully, we had something to distract us in that game: that fifth inning in which Skenes was yanked featured the Cubs scoring seven runs, six of which came on bases-loaded walks, two of which plated the inherited Skenes runners, all of which surrounded a long rain delay:

Per the Elias Sports Bureau folks, that's the most bases-loaded walks in an inning by any team since the White Sox walked eight times with the based loaded against the Kansas City Athletics on April 22, 1959. Yet, somehow, the Pirates won the game! Huzzah!

At least Skenes’ debut was memorable.

On this day . . .

I don’t do “This Day in Baseball History” stuff very often. This is mostly because, due to the lack of content during the pandemic suspension in the spring and early summer of 2020, I had nothing to write about at NBC and thus did a bunch of “This Day in Baseball History” items to fill the void. I sort of liked doing them — some of it was pretty good work, I think — but it reminds me of a time that was a complete drag and I don’t like thinking about times that were a complete drag.

It’s also the case that “This Day in Baseball History” stuff can quickly get rote. Absent anything truly weird, it’s mostly stuff like “On this day in 1889, Hooger MacDougal of the Watertown Waistcoats struck out 12 batsmen despite having spent the previous night in the drunk tank.” At some point all you can say is “wow, that was something” and move on. A sameness creeps in, ya know?

This past weekend was a bit different for me than my usual weekends, though, and it’s inspiring me to do a “This Week in Baseball History.”

While driving back from Vermont on Friday, Anna and I briefly stopped at an exit on I-90 near North East, Pennsylvania, which is an actual place, not a geographic designation. Anna had been snacking and was not hungry but I hadn’t eaten for nearly eight hours and needed something on my stomach. When you’re in North East, Pennsylvania and you don’t wanna range far off the freeway, the only real option is McDonald’s. I don’t eat at McDonald’s much but I’m not above the occasional Quarter Pounder with Cheese, so that’s what I got. No fries or soda, just the burger. It tasted exactly like a Quarter Pounder with Cheese should taste. Which is to say very salty and very fatty but better than you expect it to taste when you think “ah, I guess I have no choice but to eat at McDonald’s.” I was happy enough under the circumstances.

For about 25 minutes, that is. For that’s when my stomach started to gurgle and seize. And when my muscles all started to feel like they were contracting with tension for no apparent reason. I drove on, correctly assessing that I was not going to either vomit or otherwise befoul my trusty Subaru, but folks, those last three and a half hours were not fun. And that was all before I realized that Beehiiv had disappeared over half of my subscribers, screwing up Friday’s post. By the time I got Anna and her stuff unloaded at her mom’s house and got home and fought with the Beehiiv folks and wrote that supplemental post, my stomach was in knots. Moreover, everything hurt and I was feeling the sort of fatigue that was far more than one usually feels from driving 700 miles, and that’s no small amount of fatigue. I had clearly contracted at food poisoning from that Quarter Pounder.

I’d like to say I rode it out with grace, but we are men and women of action. Lies do not become us. No, my friends, my Friday night involved a LOT of time in the bathroom. While that eased by Saturday morning, the fatigue did not, so I spent almost all day Saturday sitting on the couch in a stupor, with my stomach seizing — but thankfully only seizing — every few minutes. Between Friday evening and dinner last night all I ate was some cereal and a couple of bananas. I ventured a tuna steak and some rice last night and went well, so I’m now out of the woods, even if I was still getting a residual stomach clench up until bedtime last night.

All of which is to say that I wasn’t super ambitious about finding baseball news to write about, so I’m defaulting to a one-off “This Day in Baseball History” item. So, with some help from the Associated Press, let’s do this. On May 13, the following happened:

• 1911 — Detroit’s Ty Cobb hit his first grand slam. After six innings, the Tigers led the Red Sox, 10-1. Boston came back to win the game 13-11 in 10 innings. Clearly they should’ve traded Cobb after that as he demonstrated that He Just Didn’t Know How To Win.
• 1911 — The New York Giants scored a major league record 10 runs before the St. Louis Cardinals retired the first batter in the first inning. Fred Merkle drove in six of the Giants’ 13 runs in the first en route to a 19-5 rout. Merkle did all kinds of good stuff in his long career, so it’s probably one of the top injustices of all time that he’s forever associated with (a) a brain fart he had when he was just 19 years old; and (b) that the brain fart was labeled, per the parlance of the age, “Merkle’s Boner.” 
• 1942 — Jim Tobin of the National League’s Boston club became the only pitcher in modern history to hit three home runs in one game. Tobin’s power, as well as his pitching, led Boston to a 6-5 win over the Chicago Cubs. What’s more, his fourth at-bat was a fly ball caught against the fence in left field. Tobin was an outstanding hitter for a pitcher — especially in 1942, when he hit six homers and had an OPS+ of 126 in 132 plate appearances — but even he was just a .230/.303/.345 hitter for his career, which likely would not allow him to crack a big league lineup unless he was an outstanding shortstop or something. Just remember stuff like that when old people say “back then pitchers knew how to hit.” No they didn’t. Not really. Tobin could hit better than most of them but Boston still would’ve been better off with a DH in every game except for the game on May 13, 1942;
• 1955 — At Yankee Stadium, Mickey Mantle hits home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game for the first time in his major league career. Personally I think that the six doubles he had at Toots Shor’s later that night were more impressive, but I suppose that’s a matter of opinion.
• 1958 — Stan Musial got his 3,000th career hit with a pinch-hit double off Chicago’s Moe Drabowsky at Wrigley Field. The Cardinals won 5-3. Unlike Mantle, I’m guessing Musial did not go to tie one on afterward. He probably said “that’s swell,” after which he celebrated with a tall glass of milk and, it being a Tuesday, watched “Name that Tune” followed by “The Phil Silvers Show” and was in bed promptly at 8:30.
• 1976 — For the sixth consecutive game, George Brett of the Kansas City Royals collects at least three hits. I wasn’t gonna include this item but given what that Quarter Pounder did to me on Friday night, I was put in mind of George Brett (warning: language and mental images you’ll never banish from your mind).
• 1994 — Tim Salmon of the California Angels went 5-for-5 against the Seattle Mariners to give him 13 hits over three consecutive games. I’m far too busy to fact check this, but as I sit here right now I have to believe that he is the best fish-named player to ever don an Angels uniform.
• 2002 — 38 home runs shy of the exclusive 500 home run club, Jose Canseco retires at age 37. If there was ever a player who SHOULD have had the word “boner” — which originally referred to a “bone-headed” act — applied to him it’s Canseco, but no, Fred Merkle gets all the guff. There’s no justice in this world, man.
• 2009 — Adam LaRoche became the first player to have a home run taken away following a video replay review. This would not have happened if then-seven-year-old Drake LaRoche had been allowed in the Pirates clubhouse. He was a leader, dammit, and manager John Russell should’ve respected that.

Ok, enough of that. My stomach is better now so I’ll stop messing around with this kind of business. At least until the next slow baseball news day and/or bout of food poisoning.

Other Stuff

Aww . . .

My parents have some neighbors whose four year old grandson Ari has taken to baseball. They told my parents that he likes Babe Ruth, who he calls “The Baby.” How a kid born in 2019 knows who Babe Ruth is I have no idea, but he does.

Upon learning this, my dad got a copy of my Legends of Major League Baseball book, which has Babe Ruth on the cover, had me sign it, and then gave it to Ari’s grandparents to give to Ari. When I got to my folks’ house for my weekly visit with them yesterday they gave me this note from the young man:

Oh, and there were two Hershey’s kisses with the note, in case this wasn’t adorable enough.

Best part: I don’t have any spare copies of the book laying around anymore so my dad actually bought it online to give to Ari. So really, I didn’t give the kid anything. My dad did. And I got all the credit. And I haven’t paid my dad back for the book either. I’m really winning in this whole thing, frankly. Just cleaning up.

Hi dad!

One of my great ideas is still hanging out there

I read in the New York Times yesterday that Mary Wells Lawrence died over the weekend at the age of 95. Lawrence was the first woman to own and run a major national advertising agency. Her company, Wells Rich Greene, was best known for creating the “I ❤️ NY” campaign.

First off: may Mary Wells Lawrence rest in peace. There is a place in Valhalla for all trailblazers, even if it’s just in advertising.

Second: I would like to take this opportunity to, once again, suggest that Matthew Weiner do a limited series reboot of “Mad Men,” set in the 1980s.

This, by the way, would totally work. It would allow you to center the storyline around the resurgence of materialism of the early Reagan years and do story beats involving the “Where’s the Beef” and Apple Macintosh “1984” Super Bowl ads among other things.

The premise: Peggy Olson — whose 1970-on beats could be loosely based on Mary Wells Lawrence if you wanted to — runs her own firm. While she has been wildly successful, late 1970s malaise and the early 80s recession has really started to harm the business, which has Peggy looking for new blood and new ideas. A chance meeting with her former mentor, Don Draper, who had been driven out of the industry due to some sort of drunken disgrace, makes her think that maybe old blood could work.

Peggy takes a chance on Don, just as Don took a chance on Freddy Rumsen all of those years ago. The character dynamics are reversed from the original series, though Don has a difficult time adjusting to them, partially because he simply doesn’t get feminism and partially because he has spent the past few years trying to recover from whatever Nixon/Ford-era disasters he created for himself and isn’t the Don we used to know. In the end, however, he (a) he experiences at least a small dash of personal growth, accepting both his flaws and Peggy as the boss; but (b) finds out that his 1950s mindset and ethos, however troublesome it was for his personal life and in an office setting, is PERFECT for an ad man in the Reagan years.

The original run of “Mad Men” ended in 2015, with its timeline ending in late 1970. If you start preproduction and begin to clear the actors’ schedules now, you could get something on the air by fall 2025, though time is not yet of the essence here given the timeline I’m envisioning. Even if you waited until 2028, which would put us perfectly in the 1983 timeframe I’m shooting for, you’d probably have to do a bit of aging-up of the actors to account for the fact that most of the characters were smokers and would thus look older than the actors do now. But, hey, hairstyles go a long way.

Elizabeth Moss would be the hardest person to get given how busy she’s been, but she’d be the star, so you could probably interest her. Jon Hamm works a lot, but for as much as I loved his take on “Fletch” and several of the smaller parts he’s done, as the years go on, it’s increasingly looking like Don Draper will be his signature role. Even if he’s all 1970s Leonard Nimoy about it now and doesn’t want to revisit the past or be typecast, he’ll soften up. They always do.

Beyond those two I think that Christina Hendricks, Vincent Kartheiser, and John Slattery are essential, though you’d probably want Jay R. Ferguson too. Given the era we’re talking here, someone has to have a cocaine storyline, and I don’t think it’d be Don or any of the older ones, so you’d need to cast some new young copywriters or account men. Though it may be hilarious to see a coked-out 50-ish Pete Campbell.

Here’s the bottom line: this show would write itself and it would kill. From what I can tell, Matthew Weiner hasn’t had a TV or film credit in over six years so it’s not like he’s busy. While I have accepted that there will never be any more BBC “Sherlock” episodes because the stars and creative team are far too busy with other things now, hardly anyone involved with “Mad Men” has anything better to do with the exception of Elizabeth Moss. And, as we all know . . .

Make it happen, folks.

About Burlington

When I got to Vermont on Wednesday Anna asked me if I saw the naked guy when I drove through town. I said “um, no?” At which point Anna explained that a naked guy had been walking around downtown for a few days. When I expressed surprise she said “it’s not our first naked guy.” I said a few words in response but Anna knows me well and anticipated what my next question was going to be, saying “it’s legal to be naked in public, but you can’t get naked in public. Like, if you leave your house that way and if you don’t bother people it’s fine.”

I’ll admit that was a lot to take in, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t get back to my hotel room, go to a local news website and have all of what Anna said confirmed:

Click for the naked man — who explains that he’s “kind of reinventing [his] life, if you will.” Stay for the witness comments from Shalik from Swanton, Vermont, who is the real hero of the segment.

You all know how lefty and relatively non-conformist I am and how I have longed to live in a more progressive place than Ohio for many, many years. But the more I learn about it, the more I feel like living in Burlington, Vermont would become very exhausting far sooner than anyone expects.

More on that cash warehouse theft in L.A.

You might recall last month that I shared a story about a huge heist in Los Angeles in which thieves made off with something like $30 million from a San Fernando Valley money storage facility. I shared it partially because I love a good heist but mostly because I had no idea there were such things as “money storage facilities.” I, foolishly, believed that that’s what banks were for.

But nah, there are lot of innocuous-looking cash storage facilities in suburbs and industrial areas all over the place. I learned more about them in the Los Angeles’ Times’ followup story about that heist and the world in which it occurred:

The Easter morning heist drew sudden attention to an industry — cash logistics — that normally keeps a low profile and performs some of the roles traditionally done by banks, such as storing huge sums of money.

GardaWorld and its competitors, among them Loomis and Brink’s, retrieve commercial bank customers’ cash in armored vehicles and bring it to facilities like the one in Sylmar, where it is organized and held on behalf of the financial institutions.

In theory, such warehouses should be easier to secure than banks, with far fewer locations to guard, entry tightly restricted and no tellers to hold up.

What follows in the article is a pretty fascinating look at the world of cash logistics in general and GardaWorld in particular, which has grown rapidly over the past several years due to acquisitions of multiple other companies. These acquisitions have been about diversifying in an economy that relies less and less on cash transactions and more and more on credit cards, debit cards, and digital transactions. Still, an expert quoted in the article says, “if you can’t make change, you don’t have a transaction. Businesses still need to accommodate these customers.” And here I thought an entirely different business handled that.

Anyway, I am even more convinced that this was an inside job than I was at first, and I was pretty damn convinced of it at first. Part of why I am convinced of that is because, per the article, there have been past, smaller inside jobs, though on a much smaller scale. I also think this because, per the article, “the cash management industry has been hurt by companies taking ‘severe shortcuts,’ such as requiring employees to work longer hours, squeezing wages and skimping on personnel.” There is not a single industry where this isn’t the m.o. these days and, folks, if you’re gonna fuck your workers, sometimes, they’re gonna fuck you back.

Have a great day everyone.

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