Cup of Coffee: May 28, 2024

Good morning!

Today we say goodbye to Ángel Hernández, talk about Ronald Acuña being sorry, the possibility that the Blue Jays may look bad, what college isn't, the concept of dynamic nominalism, visitors to my town, and Bill Walton.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Blue Jays 5, White Sox 1: George Springer, Bo Bichette and David Schneider homered and Chris Bassitt struck out seven in five scoreless innings. White Sox manager Pedro Grifol has spent the last couple of days ripping his own team for being flat. That ripping has not translated to better results. Also: isn’t the manager responsible for making sure the team isn’t flat? Just asking!

Orioles 11, Red Sox 3: Kyle Stowers had two doubles among his three hits while driving in four, Cedric Mullins had a two-run triple, and Cole Irvin pitched five shutout innings. A five-run fourth inning basically ended it. Baltimore has won five in a row. The Bosox have lost three of four.

Twins 6, Royals 5: José Miranda hit a two-run homer, Trevor Larnach hit a three-run shot, and Joe Ryan allowed one over seven as Minnesota built a comfy lead before a late Kansas City rally fell just short. The Royals have lost two in a row — gasp! — after winning eight straight.

In other news, my son texted this to me at 12:29AM this morning with no comment whatsoever:

Brewers 5, Cubs 1: Craig Counsell came back to Milwaukee for the first time and got a lot of boos. Which, well, I get it. The Brewers were far ruder to him than the fans were, putting up a five-run eighth inning in what had been a scoreless game. The Cubs drop their fifth straight.

Rockies 8, Guardians 6: The Rockies threw some cold water on the red-hot Guardians, with Charlie Blackmon’s three-run homer capping a six-run fourth inning. Blackmon drove in four and made a nifty sliding catch in foul territory at one point as well.

Reds 3, Cardinals 1: Nick Lodolo (5 IP, 5 H, 1 ER) and three relievers combined on a five-hitter. That one run came via a Paul Goldschmidt homer like 16 hours after he hit two dingers against the Cubs. Jeimer Candelario homered. The Reds win their fourth straight.

Nationals 8, Atlanta 4: The Nats were up 4-0 before Atlanta came to bat, was up 6-0 after three, and 8-0 after six. Mitchell Parker pitched five-hit ball into the seventh inning before running out of gas and coughing up three, but thanks to Washington’s 15-hit attack, by then the game was decided.

Giants 8, Phillies 4: San Francisco held a 3-0 lead but fell behind 4-3 before rallying. Mike Yastrzemski and Heliot Ramos each drove in a pair. Blake Snell went four and wasn’t that great. Just a lost season for him so far. His pen and the Giants’ bats picked him up, though, and sent Philly to their third loss in four outings.

Padres 2, Marlins 1: Michael King and three relievers allowed just one run on four hits while striking out 11. Donovan Solano homered and Jake Cronenworth drew a two-out, bases-loaded walk in the seventh to break a 1-1 tie. That run was well-aided by Tim Anderson committing two errors that inning. Ouch.

Mariners 3, Astros 2: A three-run first inning, featuring a Cal Raleigh sac fly and RBI singles from Ty France and Mitch Haniger held up, as Bryce Miller (6 IP 5 H, 2 ER) juuuusst outpitched Framber Valdez (6 IP, 6 H, 3 ER).

Dodgers vs. Mets — POSTPONED:

🎶 Just a box of rain, wind and water
Believe it if you need it
If you don't, just pass it on
Sun and shower, wind and rain
In and out the window
Like a moth before a flame

And it's just a box of rain
I don't know who put it there
Believe it if you need it
Or leave it if you dare

And it's just a box of rain
Or a ribbon for your hair
Such a long, long time to be gone
And a short time to be there 🎶

The Daily Briefing

Ángel Hernández retires 

Umpire Ángel Hernández has retired. He worked his last game on May 9 and has been on a leave of absence since, but yesterday it became official. As Bob Nightengale reported, Hernández and the league were negotiating a financial settlement these past couple of weeks. As The Athletic reported, the official line is that Hernández is ready to go home and spend more time with his family. What actually happened was that MLB asked Hernández if he’d be willing to hang ‘em up and Hernández was amenable. All involved are saying he was not forced out. Here is Hernández’s official statement:

“Starting with my first Major League game in 1991, I have had the very good experience of living out my childhood dream of umpiring in the major leagues. There is nothing better than working at a profession that you enjoy. I treasured the camaraderie of my colleagues and the friendships I have made along the way, including our locker room attendants in all the various cities. I have decided that I want to spend more time with my family. Needless to say, there have been many positive changes in the game of baseball since I first entered the profession. This includes the expansion and promotion of minorities. I am proud that I was able to be an active participant in that goal while being a Major League umpire.”

Hernández, 62, umped his first game in the bigs in 1991 and has been a full-time big league umpire since 1993. He missed almost all of last season due to a back injury, however, and it seemed pretty obvious that his time was drawing to a close.

Hernández was widely considered to be among the worst if not the worst umpires in the game over the past couple of decades. His strike zone was notoriously bad and he made a number of high-profile blunders. Yet, despite his ineptitude, he routinely demonstrated some of the most arrogant and belligerent behavior of any umpire anyone can remember. He was a master of escalation as opposed to deescalation and if anything he got worse with experience.

Hernández, having failed to be promoted to crew chief and having failed to receive what he felt to be his fair share of postseason assignments, filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against Major League Baseball in 2017. The case was dismissed on summary judgment after he failed to provide any evidence backing his claims.

I’m not going to miss Ángel Hernández, that’s for sure, but I’ll wish him good luck all the same and hope that he has a happy retirement.

Speaking of Ángel Hernández . . .

I had already written this bit up when the news of Hernandez’s retirement broke, but we’ll keep it in here as a sidebar.

Last week Sam Blum and Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic wrote a profile about Ángel Hernández in an effort to see if there’s something we’re all missing or if there is more to the man than the miserable official we’ve all come to loathe.

The answer to that question is: not really.

The architecture of the story is similar to other “the thing you thought you knew about this person is wrong” features, but there are no revelations here. Nothing that makes you rethink. Hernández himself declined to participate in the story, so the best way to humanize anyone — to listen to them — does not apply. The best the story does is reveal that, per the stats, Hernández is “the 60th to 70th best umpire, out of 85-to-90” in any given season, rather than the worst, which is not exactly the stuff that lends itself to fundamental reassessment. He’s still far below average and he still pisses off players, managers, and fans alike. A couple of umpires, including the equally-reviled Joe West, say that Hernández is a nice guy in their experience and that he’s misunderstood. But they’re just assertions with nothing to really back them up. And of course, even the worst people can be nice to their friends and coworkers.

The fact that Ángel Hernández is a bad umpire doesn’t make him a bad person, but not every negative assessment of someone’s job performance demands a debunking of that assessment. In the case of Hernández there is really not much upon which to hang such a debunking anyway. This article stands as pretty decent evidence of that.

Ugh

Losing a generational talent for a season due to a freak injury sucks as it is, but to then see him apologize to people for it is a next level bummer:

Sorry💔😪2:10 AM • May 27, 202453.9K Likes   4.82K Retweets  5.43K Replies

To my great delight almost all of the responses in that thread were supportive of Acuña.

There is, however, a certain element of Atlanta fandom with which I am quite familiar from back in my old Barves fan days who I checked in on to see how they were taking this. It’s only a handful of losers saying anything, but those losers are blaming Acuña’s injury on his playing winter ball or being flashy or any number of other things which basically add up to some variation of his not playing the game the right way, not being Dale Murphy, or what have you. I suppose every fan base has an element of that to it, but I hate to see it all the same.

Just get better, get back next year, and continue to be awesome Ronald.

Tossed salads and scrambled eggs

This made the rounds yesterday:

There is no confirmation that these are the actual City Connects the Blue Jays will wear, but it’s worth noting that all of the previous leaks of potential City Connects have been born out to be authentic.

I’m not sure why Nike is so obsessed with the blue-black combination for these things, but it’s both unoriginal and uninspiring at this point. And while I suppose a skyline motif could work under the right circumstances, I have to ask: was there no one involved in the design process old enough to point out that this one looks like the title card from “Frasier”?

Other Stuff

College

When you totally understand what education is all about

I appreciate that college has grown insanely expensive. I appreciate that everyone has to make a living in this world. I also appreciate that it’s been decades if not centuries since a university education was solely about some quintessential enlightenment-era ideal divorced from at least some semblance of vocational considerations.

But if you are viewing a college education through the lens of maximizing your return on investment as opposed to the process of teaching people how to think, how to critically examine evidence and ideas and the greater world around them — about the creation of well-rounded people who can think independently and take on the mantle of adulthood with both responsibility and maturity — you’re not valuing education in any way that truly matters.

Sincerely, a guy who has two degrees in things that have nothing to do with what he’s doing with his life now but is 100% the person he is because he was given a solid, broad-based education that gave him the tools with which to engage and understand the world.

Dynamic Nominalism 

There was a recent story in The New Yorker about the relationship between people being diagnosed with mental disorders and how their behavior can evolve based on that diagnosis. The concept, called “dynamic nominalism, refers to the phenomenon in which being classified as, say, being on the spectrum, or having borderline personality disorder, or having ADHD becomes part of one’s identity. And, if anything, the individual’s behavior tends to more closely mirror the characteristics of the mental disorder once it has been diagnosed than it did prior to the diagnosis.

This is not to say that the disorders in question or their diagnosis are false or that some sort of projection or delusion is at play. Make no mistake: this is not about debunking mental health diagnoses. It’s about how a more definite classification gives focus or clarity to people who are experiencing those symptoms. That certainty, in turn, provides the basis for modeling social identities and offers scripts, if you will, for how to behave. It provides explanations for one’s interior life whereas before there were questions. As the article says, “just as personality tests (see, I’m an introvert!), astrological signs (I’m a Libra!), and generational monikers (I’m Gen Z!) are used to aid self-understanding, so are psychiatric diagnoses.” I’d be quick to add that the difference here is that mental disorders are real things whereas astrological or generational-based personality traits are primarily bullshit, but you get what they’re laying down.

That dynamic is fine inasmuch as it can help and empower people dealing with mental disorders. The problem is that, unlike other medical and scientific classifications, there is near-constant reassessment of said mental disorders and who does or does not have them. This is evidenced by the evolution of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, which is the authoritative guide about said disorders as propagated by the American Psychiatric Association. That evolution has been increasingly chaotic as psychiatry, more so than other medical disciplines, deals with blurred lines and inexactitudes which have led to considerable disagreement, particularly in the more recent editions of the DSM. These disagreements have caused some mental health professionals to reject the DSM itself in whole or in part, leading to a further fragmenting of mental health consensus.

That, in turn, leads to another problem: if the diagnosis of a mental disorder forms a critical part of one’s personal identity, what happens when that diagnosis falls out of favor or changes in significant ways? What happens to people who, for decades, were told they had Asperger's syndrome now that the DSM has dispensed with that as a diagnosis? Or people who had once been diagnosed as having multiple personality disorder now that that has been supplanted by dissociative identity disorder, which carries with it a number of different diagnostic factors? All of that, of course, gets muddier given how prone people can be to misuse the names of actual mental disorders to describe normal personality traits, such as mere neat freaks saying they have OCD or people with mere short attention spans saying they have ADHD.

As someone who has taken quite a journey through the world of serious mental healthcare over the past few years, I can attest to how genuinely slippery the diagnosis of many mental disorders can be. Indeed, it can be monumentally difficult for even the best doctors in the best of circumstances to zero in on what mental health problems a person is dealing with even before one realizes how often diagnostic criteria shifts. There are so many comorbidities at play in even moderately complicated cases as it is! Once you add on a layer in which the application of a diagnosis can itself alter how a patient presents, I cannot even begin to fathom how psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses, assistants, and everyone else in that ecosystem do what they do.

They don’t just lie about the benefits of stadiums 

I’ve written a zillion things about the publicly-financed stadium grift and how it’s bolstered by completely bogus economic impact studies. These are studies commissioned by the folks who want new stadiums and, wouldn’t you believe it, the people they pay to study such matters always conclude that new stadiums are a good idea! Never mind that the studies are not subject to any sort of independent review, let alone a rigorous one. Indeed, more often than not they won’t even supply the underlying data which leads to their conclusions and none of those conclusions are ever realized in practice. These studies are acts of P.R. and propaganda, nothing more.

But such fantastical analysis are not limited to stadium situations. They apply to broader acts of boosterism as well. Such as when the City of Columbus hires a consultant to say patently ridiculous things like this regarding the city’s desire to amp-up its tourism efforts:

According to the latest data from Longwoods International, Columbus welcomed a staggering 51.2 million visitors in 2023, a record for the city, generating over $8.2 billion in local business revenue.

These visits had a broad impact, supporting approximately 82,568 jobs and generating significant tax revenues that bolster local services and development.

If you look at their website, it becomes immediately clear that Longwoods International’s very purpose is to supply tourism authorities with numbers that back the objectives of tourism authorities. In this case the objectives of Experience Columbus, which is our local tourism bureau and which, per the story, is launching a big new campaign which is being promoted by the numbers Longwoods supplies it.

But folks, I am here to tell ya: there is no conceivable universe in which 51.2 million people are visiting Columbus, a city with a population of 907,000 people in a metro area of a little over two million, each year. Such a number would put it above the generally accepted total of annual visitors to Chicago. It’s within spitting distance of New York and is around two-thirds of Orlando, the entire existence of which is premised on millions upon millions of people from all over the world visiting it every year.

You don’t get 50 million+ visitors for Columbus even if you include the cars and trucks that pass through on I-70 on their way someplace else. You might get it if you include every single workday commute into the city proper from the suburbs and outlying areas, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what anyone is imagining when a tourism authority talks about visitors. And I don’t even wanna know what orifice out of which they pulled the $8 billion economic impact figure, the job-creation stats, and the tax revenue claim.

You’ll not be shocked to learn that the linked article makes no effort to scrutinize those numbers. News outlets — even otherwise well-respected ones — never do. They get the press release with the dubious assertions, they cover the press conferences, and they faithfully transcribe whatever the authorities say. It’s a pattern which applies to a HUGE amount of the news we consume. Because news outlets don’t have the budgets, the people power nor, frankly, the interest to do more. Someone handed them a story on a platter and they ran with it as cheaply as their consciences would allow.

None of which is to say you shouldn’t come to Columbus. It’s a far niftier place than you might expect. But it’s someplace you only find nifty if you go for a weekend, once in your life, either on a whim or because you had someone’s wedding to go to anyway so why not add a day on? It’s got a pretty great zoo, several great places to have a meal or a drink if you know to look for it, and a couple of museums and parks that, while not all-day affairs, are good ways to kill some time between breakfast and your cousin’s rehearsal dinner.

But it’s no place anyone is taking the whole fam damily to as a vacation let alone the kind of place you return to over and over. It’s nowhere that is going to genuinely draw over 50 million people a year. Indeed, it’s possible that the most impressive and noteworthy thing in this whole city is the size of the balls of anyone who would claim otherwise.

Bill Walton: 1952-2024

Bill Walton, arguably the greatest college basketball player of all time, a two-time NCAA champion, a two-time NBA champion, an NBA MVP, and an NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award winner died yesterday at the age of 71. He had cancer.

I wasn’t old enough to see Walton play in his prime. He was with the Clippers and had just come back from missing two full seasons with foot injures in the early 80s when I really got to see him in action. But Walton’s late-career stint as a sixth man with Boston was a lot of fun. And of course his career as an announcer and all-around wonderful public person was something to behold. Despite debilitating injuries which caused him considerable pain throughout both his playing career and his retirement, Walton radiated joy, curiosity, and good-natured weirdness about the world. He loved basketball but also knew it wasn’t everything. Indeed, he loved and talked enthusiastically about so many other things that it was positively infectious. Bill Walton just seemed to get life better than most folks do.

While he, obviously, spent his final several decades as a basketball analyst, Walton did pop up in baseball booths on occasion, including a memorable appearance during a White Sox-Angels broadcast with Jason Benetti in 2019, filling in for Steve Stone. From J.P. Hoornstra, then of the the Los Angeles Daily News:

Walton, a retired basketball player, asked Benetti whether the third out of a triple play could carry over to the second inning.

When Angels manager Brad Ausmus took the ball from Sandoval (0-1) after 4 ⅓ innings, Walton asked Benetti if Sandoval would be thrown into the waterfall in center field. He called White Sox pitcher Aaron Bummer “an asteroid soaring through the universe.”

Walton referenced Viagra, Chico Ruiz, Disco Demolition Night, fish overpopulation, Cal State Fullerton, the historical non-fiction book “Devil In The White City,” Richie Havens, Jack Norworth, Albert Von Tilzer, Mt. Baldy and the size of San Bernardino County. He suggested the White Sox bring Trout with them back to Chicago – which would constitute tampering but not Walton’s most egregious misinterpretation of the rule book.

Walton’s basketball commentary was not quite as out there as that, but he definitely had his moments there was well. Which was fine by me. Most broadcasters are too serious. It was nice that Walton didn’t take himself too seriously and didn’t go onto autopilot when he was behind a mic.

Walton, as almost everyone who knew a thing about him knows, was a tremendous Grateful Dead fan. Maybe the most high-profile Dead fan ever. He saw them hundreds of times. He played with them on stage and emceed their concerts and broadcasts. He gave drummer Mickey Hart the Celtics jacket Hart wore in the “Touch of Grey” video. He was once asked what his favorite Dead song was and he said “With the Grateful Dead, it’s all one song – with many different verses. And it’s all one show – with varying amounts of time between the stanzas.” I’ve heard far worse life philosophies.

Rest in peace, Bill Walton.

Have a great day everyone.

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