Cup of Coffee: May 29, 2024

Good morning!

There were five shutouts in yesterday’s action and, as always, we talk about all that action here. We also commemorate three events in baseball history, one notable, one infamous, and one that is simply weird. There is also talk about Joe Biden’s ballot access drama, an executive’s death for which we have the receipts, a book I’d never read if not for where it takes place, and the return of a power pop band of my young adult days which, if there was any justice in the world, would be super famous.

Let’s get at ‘er.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Padres 4, Marlins 0: Knuckleballer Matt Waldron tossed seven shutout innings, striking out eight to lead San Diego to its third straight win. Jurickson Profar hit a two-run homer and drove in three of the Padres’ four runs. Reliever Jeremiah Estrada closed it out by striking out the side in the ninth. Those three strikeouts were Estrada’s 11th, 12th, and 13th straight strikeouts, all 13 strike threes of which have been of the swinging variety. He’s struck out 18 of last 21 overall. And, as you can tell from his postgame comments, he’s very happy about his accomplishments:

"I feel like I just got done playing a video game and I finally accomplished a mission that I've been trying to go after for so long."

Zoomers, man.

Athletics, 3, Rays 0: Mitch Spence (5.1 IP, 1 H, 0 ER) and three relievers tossed a three-hit shutout and Miguel Andujar’s three-run homer in the sixth constituted all the scoring. Earl Weaver’s ghost could be seen floating above the proceedings, shedding a tear of joy and admiration.

Giants 1, Phillies 0: This one was scoreless through nine thanks to Zack Wheeler’s six shutout frames, three more from the Philly pen, and nine from five Giants relievers pitching a bullpen game. It’d end up being ten scoreless for San Francisco in all. The Giants broke through in the tenth with two sac flies, one of which advanced the Manfred Man and the other of which scored him for the walkoff. Philly reliever Matt Strahm has to love the fact that he lost despite issuing an intentional walk which ended up not mattering at all and retiring the other two batters he faced. The Giants have won ten of 12.

Atlanta 2, Nationals 0: Max Fried continues to dominate, shutting out the Nats for eight frames. Both Atlanta runs came in the seventh when Marcell Ozuna homered and Jarred Kelenic hit a sac fly.

Dodgers 5, Mets 2; Dodgers 3, Mets 0: The Dodgers came into the twinbill losers of five straight but took both ends of it. The first one was a come-from-behind extra innings affair with L.A. plating one each in the eighth and ninth after which Mookie Betts singled home the go-ahead run in the tenth and Freddie Freeman locked it down with a two-run homer. In the second game Gavin Stone (7 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 7K) and Alex Vesia (2 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 3 K) completed the shutout. Will Smith and Miguel Vargas homered.

Blue Jays 7, White Sox 2: Davis Schneider went 3-for-4 with two doubles and three RBI, Justin Turner drove in two, and George Springer had two hits, walked three times and scored twice. Kevin Gausman allowed one earned run and four hits over six innings. The Jays handed the White Sox their seventh straight loss. Chicago is back down to a 43-win pace, which means they’re back in the game as far as threatening the Mets for the worst single-season record in the modern era.

Angels 4, Yankees 3: Yesterday someone in the comments mentioned that Kevin Pillar has been raking since being released by the White Sox and joining the Angels. That he has, and he continued to do so last night, going 3-for-4 with a two-run homer. He is now batting .431/.459/.759 with five homers in his first 17 games for the Angels. Not sustainable, but an objectively hilarious footnote to the White Sox season.

Cubs 6, Brewers 3: Ben Brown has been damn solid of late but he was absolutely fantastic here, pitching seven innings of no-hit ball and striking out ten. Unfortunately he got a no-decision here as the Cubs could only score one run in regulation and a Hector Neris blown save/Willy Adames RBI single in the ninth forced extras. Things got crazy in the tenth when the Cubs scored five runs. One came on a Michael Busch RBI single. Busch had scored the first Chicago run with a homer. The Brewers put up two more runs of their own in the bottom half but it wasn’t enough because, you know, math.

Red Sox 8, Orioles 3: The Red Sox jumped on Grayson Rodriguez early, scoring four runs on five hits in the first two innings. Rodriguez still struck out ten, but it’s been many years since a pitcher striking out double digits was anywhere close to being a reliable proxy for wins. Rafael Devers went 4-for-5 with a triple and two RBI and Rob Refsnyder went 2-for-4 with a two-run home run. Wilyer Abreu homered as well. Brayan Bello won for the fifth time in six starts. It was Boston’s first win over Baltimore in five meetings this year.

Cardinals 7, Reds 1: Good game for the Nolans, as Arenado and Gorman each hit a two-run homer. Iván Herrera went 3-for-5 with an RBI and Masyn Winn drove in two. Paul Goldschmidt and Brendan Donovan each had two hits. Kyle Gibson allowed just one run on two hits in six innings. The Cardinals have won 11 of their last 14 games.

Twins 4, Royals 2: Simeon Woods Richardson allowed two earned runs over five innings, picking up the win. He was backed by Jose Miranda, who hit a two-run single early and Manuel Margot who doubled in a run in the fourth. The Twins are winners of six of their last seven games.

Rangers 4, Diamondbacks 2: Nathan Eovaldi returned and allowed two earned runs over three innings, but I’m sure the Rangers are happy just to see him healthy. Corey Seager went 1-for-3 with a home run and three RBI. It was Seager’s seventh homer in his last seven games. Play of the game: Adolis García catching a fairly deep fly ball and then nailing the tagging-up runner at the plate with a fantastic throw. Ignore the safe call by the ump there, as it was overturned.

Guardians 13, Rockies 7: Josh Naylor hit two homers and drove in five, David Fry hit a tie-breaking three-run blast in the seventh, and José Ramírez hit a two-run shot and scored four times. Triston McKenzie struck out a season-high nine batters, but this was a pretty Coors Field kind of game so he gave up four runs over five innings and got a no-decision. McKenzie is now 0-1 in his last seven starts, even though he has only given up 15 total runs in those games and the Guardians have gone 6-1. This is a pretty good reminder that pitcher wins are dumb.

Mariners 4, Astros 2: Luis Castillo tossed six innings of two-run ball and Julio Rodríguez went 2-for-4 with a go-ahead single in the bottom of the eighth. Rodríguez had singled in a run earlier in the game. Hunter Brown of the Astros limited the Mariners to one run over six innings and struck out nine in a tough luck no-decision. Alex Bregman went 2-for-4 and hit a homer that accounted for both Astros runs.

Pirates vs. Tigers — POSTPONED:

🎶 I've been loving you a long time
Down all the years, down all the days
And I've cried for all your troubles
Smiled at your funny little ways

We watched our friends grow up together
And we saw them as they fell
Some of them fell into Heaven
Some of them fell into Hell

I took shelter from a shower
And I stepped into your arms
On a rainy night in Soho
The wind was whistling all its charms 🎶

The Daily Briefing

Negro League stats incorporated into the MLB record books as of today

As first reported yesterday by Yahoo’s Russell Dorsey, Major League Baseball has, as of today, officially incorporated Negro Leagues statistics into Major League Baseball's historical records. MLB had previously elevated the various Negro Leagues — seven in all — to major league status back in 2020. This move makes the incorporation final and, finally, complete.

While this affects over 3,000 players who appeared in the Negro Leagues between 1920 and 1948, the most conspicuous beneficiary is Josh Gibson, who is now atop multiple leaderboards. Gibson is now the all-time leader in career batting average (.372, to Ty Cobb's .366), slugging percentage (.718 to Babe Ruth's .690), and OPS (1.177, to Ruth’s 1.164). Gibson is also the new single-season leader in those categories, with his .466 average in 1943 supplanting Hugh Duffy’s .434 in 1894, his .974 slugging percentage from 1937 surpassing Barry Bonds’ .863 from 2001, and his 1.474 OPS in 1931 passing Bonds’ 1.422 from 2004.

Gibson is widely regarded as one of the best if not the best hitters in baseball history, and was so considered at the time. He was the second Negro Leagues player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, after Satchel Paige. For many years, however, the bulk of his statistical legacy was based on anecdote and word of mouth, some of which was no doubt laden with exaggeration. But decades of research, which involved collecting newspaper and club scorebook accounts, has created something far closer to an objective statistical basis for Gibson’s greatness as well, allowing him to finally and properly stand aside — and, for the most part, above — every other major leaguer in history.

Rob Manfred released a statement to Yahoo to accompany the news:

"We are proud that the official historical record now includes the players of the Negro Leagues. This initiative is focused on ensuring that future generations of fans have access to the statistics and milestones of all those who made the Negro Leagues possible. Their accomplishments on the field will be a gateway to broader learning about this triumph in American history and the path that led to Jackie Robinson's 1947 Dodger debut."

Gibson’s great-great grandson Sean Gibson had this to say to USA Today:

"When you hear Josh Gibson's name now, it's not just that he was the greatest player in the Negro Leagues, but one of the greatest of all time. These aren't just Negro League stats. They're major-league baseball stats. This means so much for not only the Josh Gibson family, but representing the 2,300 men in the Negro Leagues who didn't get the opportunity to play (in Major League Baseball)."

What a great day for baseball. What a great day for history.

Happy Antitrust Exemption Day

On this date in 1922 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “the business of giving exhibitions of base ball” did not take place in interstate commerce and that Major League Baseball was therefore not subject to either antitrust laws or interstate commerce regulation. The opinion, Federal Baseball Club v. National League, 259 US 200 (1922), was the culmination of a lawsuit which had been brought by the Federal League’s Baltimore franchise which, unlike the other franchises of that upstart league, did not fold or get absorbed into the National or American Leagues and blamed the NL and AL’s anticompetitive tactics as the reason.

While there are far worse Supreme Court decisions on record -- unlike some Supreme Court decisions, no one died, was enslaved, or suffered the deprivation of basic human rights or the infliction of indignities, relatively speaking, due to this case -- it does stand as one of the worst-reasoned high court decisions ever. Mostly because it’s obvious that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes really, really just wanted the baseball owners to win, logic and the law be damned. In this he was a lot like our current conservative Court majority today, one of whom — Alito, natch — once gave a full-throated defense of the Federal Baseball decision, which underscores his status as The Most Wrong Man in America.

Back in 2019 I wrote a full breakdown of the case, the subsequent history of baseball’s antitrust exemption, and its implications. I also explained why Justice Alito is full of shit about it separate and apart from his being full of shit about everything else, basically all the time. I think the piece still holds up. If nothing else it’s a good article to send to someone who asks you why baseball teams can carve up geographic territories and keep owners from selling their teams to people Rob Manfred and the other owners don’t like.

In less well-known history . . .

On this date in 1946 a man named Edward Klep became the first white person to play for a Negro Leagues team. That day Klep pitched seven innings for the Cleveland Buckeyes against the Chicago American Giants in an exhibition game played in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There is no record of Kelp ever appearing in an official league game for the Buckeyes, so while he played on what is now considered a major league team, he did not play in a major league game as far as can be told.

As for how and why it happened: the whole thing was a publicity stunt hatched by Buckeyes owner Ernie Wright, likely inspired by (a) Jackie Robinson’s signing and appearances with the Montreal Royals, which presaged his debut with the Dodgers the following spring; and (b) some basic cravenness and the desire to make a quick buck. Whether Wright’s stunt paid off at the gate is lost to history, but given that there was a fair amount of press coverage it probably drew some gawkers.

Whatever one thinks of a white man playing for a Negro Leagues club in the abstract, Klep had no business being on a field at that level. One of his teammates told reporters that he didn’t throw hard enough and was comically overmatched. Why, then, he decided to do it is lost to history, but given that he had a criminal record both before and after his appearance with the Buckeyes, “money” is a good guess.

Other Stuff

Biden’s Ohio ballot access drama 

I’m not sure how much coverage this got nationally before yesterday, but a thing just happened with Joe Biden, Ohio Republicans, and the November ballot that was both interesting and telling about a great many things in our rather pathetic political age. The quick version:

• The Democratic National Convention is scheduled for August 19-22. This, of course, is when Joe Biden was to be formally nominated by the party;
• Ohio has a law on the books, however, which requires that presidential candidates be nominated by August 7 if they are to appear on the ballot;
• In the past, Ohio election officials have ignored this law on several occasions. For example, in 2020 neither Biden nor Donald Trump were nominated by their parties until late August. Same with Mitt Romney in 2012. They all appeared on the ballot just fine because whoever was Ohio’s Secretary of State at the time realized how dumb it would be not to have one of the two major presidential candidates on the ballot due to an arbitrary and pointless deadline established back when ballot printing and delivery took a long damn time. No one objected because everyone agreed that doing the right thing made more sense than adhering to an old and almost perpetually-overlooked law.
• This time around, however, Ohio Republicans were not willing to overlook the law. Our Secretary of State flat-out said he’d not put Biden on the ballot due to the missed deadline. Per the law, of course, he had every right to do that, even if recent tradition had been to ignore the deadline;
• The process of fixing this problem legislatively (i.e. repealing the law or passing legislation affirmatively allowing Biden to be on the ballot) began. Thanks to gerrymandering, Ohio Republicans hold super majorities in both houses, however, and because not having Biden on the ballot would mean bad things for Democrats further down the ballot — particularly U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, who faces a very tough reelection battle on which control of the U.S. Senate could very well turn — they did not pursue such legislation in particularly good faith.
• Specifically, Ohio Republicans demanded that any legislation that put Biden on the ballot also contain provisions which would greatly hinder the sorts of ballot initiatives Democrats and progressive activists have used to get around our gerrymandered legislature of late. They didn’t like that the people of the state passed an amendment enshrining the right to abortion in Ohio’s constitution, that they legalized recreational marijuana, and that, at present, they are in the process of changing our redistricting process which will, hopefully, end gerrymandering in the state.
• In order to avoid Biden being left off the ballot, yesterday the Democratic National Committee announced that they would formally nominate Biden in July, via “virtual roll call” in order to beat the August 7 deadline. It’ll be like a couple of kids who ran off to get married in Las Vegas before their parents could hold the big wedding the following month. Now the Democratic National Convention, like that big wedding, will be just for show;
• Despite this, it’s pretty clear that Ohio Republicans are going forward with the law that will hamstring ballot initiatives. Which they almost certainly would not have been doing had the governor not called them back for a special session to get Biden on the ballot, so there will be a cost here.

So that’s what happened. Here are the lessons, most of which everyone should have known already but apparently they did not:

• National Democrats should have known already that Ohio Republicans — and presumably Republicans in other states — simply will not “do the right thing” if such a thing is required to get something done. It’s not 1985 or even 2015 anymore. Comity and cooperation are dead and if there is a deadline or a technicality they can use for maximal leverage they will do so regardless of tradition and regardless of the consequences. Every single thing is pure power politics, full stop.
• In light of that reality, it is absolutely inexcusable that the Democratic National Committee scheduled its convention when it did. The entire point of that process is to nominate someone and if scheduling your nominating convention after a certain date keeps your candidate off a ballot, you change the damn date. Republicans — particularly ones in Ohio — have shown that they will break laws in order to get what they want. When they are in the legal right, as they were here, they will not yield under any circumstances, at least without a big cost, nor should the Democrats expect them to do so.
• More broadly speaking, this should impress upon everyone that Republicans have no desire for elections to be fair or sporting in any way whatsoever. It’s not just no longer a priority or an ideal for them, it’s no longer in their DNA. Absolutely no action should be taken with even a scintilla of an assumption that Republicans will do things which ensure fair elections unless they have no choice but to do so;
• This is why taking politicians out of the redistricting and election supervision process is essential. They will never even attempt to draw fair districts or administer elections in an evenhanded way. Hopefully, current efforts to put redistricting in the hands of independent, non-political actors will bear fruit in this regard. There’s little hope, however, of taking election supervision out of the hands of partisans.

There have been so many appalling examples of Republicans acting in antidemocratic ways over the years that national Democrats should’ve been under no illusions that Biden would’ve been on the Ohio ballot as things had been planned. I would have hoped that someone at the DNC would’ve figured that out before yesterday, but that’s what I get for hoping. Of all of the takeaways from this, the biggest takeaway should be that the DNC and its decision makers acted with political incompetence here.

RIP

A notable death:

*I pull out a six-foot long piece of paper on which I've written his eulogy*

You Are Here

I read a book review in the New York Times yesterday that made me go . . . “hmmmm . . .” The book, You are Here, is by David Nicholls. It came out yesterday:

David Nicholls’s captivating new novel takes place almost entirely during a guided, days-long walk through the English countryside, past perilous crags, moors and villages with names like Buttermere, Honister Pass and Bolton-on-Swale . . . David Nicholls’s captivating new novel takes place almost entirely during a guided, days-long walk through the English countryside, past perilous crags, moors and villages with names like Buttermere, Honister Pass and Bolton-on-Swale.

Which are places I went through on the Coast-to-Coast hike I did last fall, so I guess I know where this book is set. And where Nicholls spent, I’m guessing, roughly three weeks in the summer of 2021 or 2022 for research purposes.

Some thoughts:

“She bought thermals in case of snow, sunblock in case of sun, she bought maps and a clear waterproof pouch for the maps, and a rucksack with a pocket for the map pouch plus the capacity to carry 40 liters of clothing, though she struggled to imagine what 40 liters of clothing would look like.” In his pack, the more experienced Michael has a single “night-life shirt” and one pair of underwear, which he scrubs in bathroom sinks and leaves on radiators to dry overnight.”

She should’ve paid for the luggage transport. It was oh-so-worth the money. As for him: I do not believe for one moment that his underwear dried out on a radiator overnight. I packed wool hiking underwear that dries quickly and even I couldn’t get it to dry out on the radiator most nights. Sometimes it worked in places that had dedicated drying rooms with the heat cranked up like crazy, but never in a room temperature room. At the risk of too much information, just know that I was happy I brought multiple pairs of drawers with me and, though I experienced blisters on my feet and ultimately injury to my leg, I did not experience chafing in or around my nethers.

They book their nights at a series of hotels, bed-and-breakfasts and linoleum-infested rooms above pubs, the sort of blandly depressing lodgings where “you might stay the night before a relative’s funeral.”

I doubt I’ll ever meet this author, but based on that description I would bet $100 that he stayed at (a) The Shepherd’s Arms in Ennerdale; (b) The George Hotel in Orton; and (c) The King’s Arms in Reeth. My batting average for decent places on that trip was pretty good, but those three fit that description perfectly and left a good bit to be desired.

Nicholls manipulates the action with a farceur’s finesse, amping up the sexual heat only to have it thwarted by an inopportune text, lumpy twin beds or a landlady’s prim insistence on “no guests after 10, please!”

I’m struggling to imagine any sort of “sexual heat” building on that hike given how damp, cold, and exhausted one is for most of it — one builds up far more passion for hot showers and a pint than anything sexual — but I’ll grant that I was mostly hiking with smelly middle aged and some borderline elderly people, so maybe that changes with more alluring company.

I will bet another $100 that the primly-insisting landlady was inspired by the owner of The Hermitage B&B in Shap. Before I said two words to her she scolded me about where I can and cannot leave my boots for the night and told me that if I got takeaway fish and chips from the place across the street for dinner I could not eat it in my room because she has “many old things that will not be better off for the grease!” Ain’t no WAY she’d stand for two people who booked separate rooms to hook up in the middle of the night. And she’d know, too, as she lives in the place and was out in the hallway fairly constantly.

The review’s windup:

And while I’d never want to trek through so much wooded British acreage, or get so poundingly hung over after sweaty, fragrant pub crawls, “You Are Here” makes its woebegone adventures feel consistently festive and heartbreaking. As my mother always told me, “A little fresh air won’t kill you.” And as I reliably replied, “You don’t know that.”

I’m still of two minds on the effects of fresh air, but I guess we’ll see next time I head out for a hike.

Anyway: I rarely if ever read romances, but I think in this case I’ll have to make an exception.

Watershed Returns 

There was — and is — a power pop band from Columbus, Ohio called Watershed. The guys in the band are around my age. Maybe a couple of years older. They played all over the place when I was in college and I saw them a bunch of times. They, along with fellow Columbus band New Bomb Turks, were the definitive sound of my Ohio State-going years.

Like New Bomb Turks, Watershed was picked up by a major label in the mid-90s and put out an album called “Twister” that . . . unfortunately did not really break them big. They still hung around for many years, however, putting out mini-classics like “The More it Hurts the More it Works” and “The Fifth of July” all while mounting a publicity-grabbing football-related novelty side project in the form of The Dead Schembechlers that was every bit as enjoyably ridiculous as it was inspired.

Given how long and how much I’ve loved Watershed, it was quite a thrill for me when I learned that the band’s founder, guitarist, and vocalist Colin Gawel was a subscriber to this newsletter (Hi Colin!). And it was a wonderful coincidence when, just last Thursday, I bellied up to a neighborhood bar and realized that Gawel and his wife were sitting next to me and we got to meet each other in person.

But the best thing is this: Watershed has a new album out, called “Blow it up Before it Breaks.” I got a promotional copy of it a little over a week ago and it’s fantastic. They dropped a single off of it yesterday called “Another Night in The Ruts” and it’s pure power pop perfection. Here’s the video which, in addition to a certified banger, gives you a very fast video tour of Columbus in the process:

Wonderful stuff. Thanks, Colin! For everything!

Have a great day everyone.

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