Cup of Coffee: May 3, 2024
Trout's loyalty, Buehler's return, Urías' plea, cable drama, Vegas is cold on the A's, independent journalism, another dead Boeing whistleblower, Trump, and a pound
Good morning!
Today we talk about Mike Trout’s loyalty, Walker Buehler’s return, Julio Urías’ plea, we have a Quote of the Day, yet more broadcast drama, and maybe I’m reading it wrong, but Las Vegas seems to not be betting all that much on the Athletics.
In Other Stuff, independent journalism is the only way to go, another Boeing whistleblower dies, Donald Trump is horrible but he is a born poster, and I found a pound.
And That Happened
Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:
Marlins 5, Rockies 4: I’ll be damned if the Marlins didn’t just complete a three-game sweep. It once again took them extras to win — Jesús Sánchez hit a game-winning single in the bottom of the 10th — but they did it. Luis Arraez, who was the Manfred Man for the winning run, had two hits and Josh Bell homered. Now they fly to Oakland to take on the A’s this weekend. I don’t think the three-game streak will turn the series into a hot ticket or anything, but with the Marlins finally waking up and the A’s playing surprisingly good baseball for a dead team walking it might make for some pretty good games.
Orioles 7, Yankees 2: Ryan Mountcastle and Jorge Mateo each homered and drove in two, Ryan McKenna also homered and Jordan Westburg hit a two-run triple. Kyle Bradish made his season debut and allowed one run while pitching into the fifth. Baltimore’s four-run fifth was helped along by a bad Gleyber Torres error. It’s looking in the early going like the AL East is gonna come down to the O’s and the Yankees. If this series was any indication, however, it’s not gonna come down particularly close, as Baltimore takes three of four and looks to be the clearly superior club.
Mets 7, Cubs 6: Francisco Lindor didn’t start, as he left Wednesday’s game with flu-like symptoms. And these were real flu-like symptoms, not a euphemism for a hangover. We know that because . . .
He didn’t do a number two at shortstop, thank goodness, but he did come off the bench to to hit two two-run doubles, including a walkoff job in the 11th to help the Mets earn the series split. That’s, like, three number twos. Starling Marte came up big on defense, throwing out Cubs runners at the plate to end both the top of the 10th and top of the 11th innings. No word about his digestive tract, which is probably for the best. The less we know about such things the better, really.
Giants 3, Red Sox 1: Yastrzemski goes deep in Boston. Mike, not Carl, of course, though Grandpa Yaz did say hi to him in the clubhouse before the game. According to the AP gamer the Hall of Famer did not stay to see Mike hit his homer, however. Which, fine. My paternal grandfather died during the LBJ administration, I never met my biological paternal grandfather who died when I was ten, and I really didn’t see or know my maternal grandfather all that much and I turned out OK.
[Editor: So your years of therapy and your obsession with researching and writing about your messed up family are just random, unrelated things, eh?]
Look, you’re a figment of my imagination and I do not have to take this from you.
[Editor: Yet here we are]
*checks to see when his next therapy session is*
OK, I can make it until Tuesday.
Rangers 6, Nationals 0: Nate Eovaldi and three relievers combined on a four-hitter. Eovaldi might’ve gone farther except he left with groin tightness in the sixth. Washington only scored two runs in the three-game set, though they did win one of the games. I bet that doesn’t happen very often. We’ll get more word on Eovaldi today, I figure, but he’s probably gonna be on the shelf for a bit.
Astros 8, Guardians 2: Jon Singleton homered and had three RBI and Jose Altuve had three hits. Jon Singleton, man. I’m sad about José Abreu losing it but I hope it gives Singleton a good chance to play and play well. Man, that guy has had a journey.
The Daily Briefing
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t
Ken Rosenthal wrote a column in the wake of Mike Trout’s meniscus injury. In it he talks about how it seems very unlikely that Trout will ever play for another team again given his now chronic injury history and given how much he’s still owed.
That’s not a particularly controversial statement. I mean, yeah, I could see Trout turning into a modern day Johnny Mize and serving as the final piece/ringer for a contender, assuming (a) he’s not expected to play 150 games; and (b) the Angels subsidize a hefty amount of the money owed to him if he is traded. But the “someone makes a blockbuster deal for Mike Trout so he can continue his superstar career on a winner” window is likely closed.
The weird thing about Rosenthal’s column, however, is that he dumps a fair amount of criticism on Trout himself for not trying to get out of Anaheim before now:
A trade of Trout, of course, was a long way from ever happening. To the dismay of many opposing fans, the three-time MVP and 11-time All-Star has steadfastly refused to ask out of Anaheim, maintaining he wants to spend his entire career with one team, like his boyhood idol, Derek Jeter, and win with the Angels.
At the start of spring training, Trout said he was “pushing, pushing, pushing” upper management to add free agents, an indication, perhaps, of his growing impatience. Well, his fuse needed to be shorter. He waited too long.
After detailing the many mistakes Angels owner Arte Moreno has made running his team over the years, he winds up here:
And now where are the Angels? Stuck with two players, Trout and Anthony Rendon, who combined are earning nearly $75 million annually through the completion of Rendon’s contract in 2026 yet cannot stay on the field. Which is where Trout’s tolerance for Moreno’s erratic stewardship becomes less understandable. The team is a mess, has been a mess, is going to be a mess for at least the next few years.
Rosenthal goes on to say that Trout’s insistence that he could return to form and that his hope would be that the Angels can contend as he does so “a fanciful notion” and, after noting the instances in which Trout might’ve demanded a trade or forgone contract extensions and tested the market, he says “he could have been celebrated for escaping a bad situation rather than criticized for staying put.”
There isn’t anything false in Rosenthal’s assertions, but I nonetheless find the column, as a whole, to be rather weird. We’re pushing 50 years since the advent of free agency. Over that time, players who leave their original club to go elsewhere have usually been criticized for chasing paychecks or chasing rings. Meanwhile, the rare players who spend their entire career with one team like Derek Jeter and Chipper Jones are typically lauded as being a step higher in the pantheon specifically for that reason. Now we have a guy who has tried to be like them and he’s ripped for that.
I get that Trout’s case is different than Jeter’s and Jones’ in that those guys played for perpetual winners while Trout plays for a dysfunctional franchise that likely will not see the postseason again until he’s either gone or mostly out the door. But doesn’t that just mean that the flowers handed out for “loyalty” and the “mercenary!” barbs thrown at players who have left via free agency were disingenuous all along? It was always about winning, right?
I dunno. Like most people I wish Trout was healthy and I wish he had found his way to a winner at some point. But I can’t sit here in judgment of him for not trying to leave. I don’t know him or his life or his values. I couldn’t make a column out of any of that one way or another. It just is, and I think beyond simply noting it, there isn’t much hay to make.
Walker Buehler to start on Monday
Dodgers pitcher Walker Buehler will start against the Miami Marlins on Monday in Los Angeles. It will be Buehler’s first major league game since June 10, 2022. Buehler had his second Tommy John surgery and a flexor tendon repair in his right elbow since that last start.
He’s been rehabbing in the minors for a month or so, making six starts in all, mostly at Triple-A Oklahoma City. His last start came on Tuesday against the Salt Lake Bees in which he struck out five batters in five innings, allowing only a run. The club presumably waited to see how he felt the next day before announcing his return to the bigs, he presumably felt good, and now it’s back to Los Angeles for the two-time All-Star.
Julio Urías pleads no contest to misdemeanor domestic battery
Free agent pitcher Julio Urías pleaded no contest to a single misdemeanor domestic battery charge yesterday. He was placed on 36 months of probation, received 30 days of community labor, and will be required to attend a 52-week domestic violence counseling course. He must also pay a domestic violence fund fee, not possess any weapons, not use any force or violence, pay restitution to his victim, and abide by a protective order that was put in place at the time of his arrest. In exchange for his plea four other misdemeanor charges -- a second count of domestic battery involving a dating relationship, and one count each of spousal battery, false imprisonment, and assault -- were dismissed.
The then-Dodgers pitcher was arrested last September on suspicion of felony domestic violence following what witnesses described as a physical altercation between Urías and his wife outside of BMO Stadium in Los Angeles after a soccer game. The Dodgers placed him on leave. He became a free agent at the conclusion of the season. Eventually, the L.A. County District Attorney declined to pursue felony charges but the City Attorney’s office pursued the misdemeanors.
Urías was previously arrested back in 2019 after he shoved a woman to the ground. Authorities ultimately deferred prosecution in that case, conditional on Urías completing what I presume was the same 52-week domestic violence counseling program which he was just ordered to attend. He was given a relatively light 20-game suspension by Major League Baseball at the time. Now that the criminal proceedings are over Rob Manfred is up to bat once again. One presumes that as a two-time offender he’ll be punished far more severely by the league this time around.
Quote of the Day
Actually that’s the quote of Wednesday evening, but I didn’t see it until yesterday so better late than never.
The latest cable headache: Comcast takes Bally’s off the air
Life is never easy in the world of cable broadcasting. After more than a year of angst regarding the bankruptcy of Diamond Sports, whose Bally Sports channels carry multiple baseball broadcasts, a deal was finally reached to keep the channels on the air and for it to keep paying baseball teams for the right to do so. Now there’s a new hiccup in that one of the major cable companies upon which the Diamond restructuring plans relies is not playing ball:
Cable provider Comcast stopped broadcasting Bally Sports channels on Wednesday, taking some MLB games off the air and imperiling the bankruptcy restructuring of the sports channels' operating company.
Diamond Sports, a Sinclair subsidiary that broadcasts nearly half of all MLB, NHL and NBA games, has said that its bankruptcy restructuring depends on renewed deals with three major cable partners, including Comcast, that provide 80% of the company's revenue.
There are 12 teams affected by this: Atlanta , the Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers. If you’ve been watching them on Comcast, you ain’t watching them anymore. Or at least for the time being.
This is pretty standard carriage dispute, the likes of which cable customers have long been accustomed. I’m assuming that unlike some other carriage disputes Comcast is playing harder ball than usual given Diamond/Bally’s weak position, but who knows what goes into these things beyond just a disagreement about money.
If I was Rob Manfred I’d consider lifting MLB dot tv blackouts for the affected Comcast customers, though I honestly don’t know how such a thing could be verified without Comcast’s participation. Of course, given that the future of sports broadcasting probably looks a lot more like how all MLS games are streamed on Apple TV, giving the league a 2000+ game package to sell a streamer or broadcaster, Manfred may want to see the whole damn thing fail so we can hurry up and get to the future.
The latest from Las Vegas
Per the Las Vegas Review-Journal, we learn that a Bally’s Corporation executive said that there’s no urgency in developing plans for a resort attached to the Major League Baseball stadium presumably being built by the Oakland Athletics on the Tropicana site. A Bally’s official speaks:
“We have minimal capital required to supply to them (the Athletics),” said Diao, senior vice president of finance, in response to an inquiry about when details of the resort would be rolled out.
“We have absolutely no urgency whatsoever to get to certainty because our option value increases over time closer to the date and (with) the more that they invest closer to the 2028 season. While we understand that you would like to have some certainty, that’s not how we maximize the value of that option.”
I’m not the greatest parser of businesspeak ever, but that sure strikes me as a nice way of saying “we’re gonna wait and see if the A’s actually build this friggin’ stadium before we commit to putting a certain kind of resort there, because if they crap out we’ll add six or seven acres onto our plan.”
Other Stuff
Independent is the only way to go
No, I’m not talking about political identification (we all know self-proclaimed “independents” always vote Republican). I’m talking about journalism. As in, it seems that the only way anyone can actually critique power with any amount of gusto these days is to be out on their own, answering to no one but their readers.
The latest example of this: Ken Klippenstein, the investigative reporter who resigned from The Intercept the other day and announced that he’s going 100% solo.
Klippenstein spends a lot of time early in his post offering his statement of purpose, and it’s a pretty good purpose as far as purposes go:
Here’s why you should read me here: I’m going after the rich, who hide their insatiable greed behind well-publicized, tax-deductible philanthropy. I’m going after the bureaucrats, who blather about public service and sacred oaths and then run for the corporate revolving door to cash in while manipulating the federal agencies they once ran. I’m going after the retired generals on TV and on the lecture circuit holding forth on every war despite their failure to ever win one. I’m going after anyone described as a “luminary,” the squeaky clean, feel-good types who spout platitudes while harboring deep, dark secrets. I’m going after the journalistic priesthood, like Judith Miller’s editor for her bogus Iraq WMD stories, whose punishment was being made editor-in-chief of ProPublica (salary: $480,000) and chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board. And any public figure confused about what young people are so mad about or how people could be dissatisfied with an economy where most Americans can’t afford to own a home.
But there was a final reason why Klippenstein left The Intercept which, traditionally, has been seen and has styled itself as a “speak truth to power” kind of place. That reason? It in no way wants to actually speak truth to power.
Klippenstein’s final straw in that regard came when he researched and reported an article about questionable charitable donations by Jeff Bezos that seemed far more calculated to grease palms and engage in circle jerks with his wealthy friends than to serve any true philanthropic purpose. Except . . .
Enter the Intercept’s general counsel David Bralow, who said he had problems with the article. He didn’t have legal concerns. Bralow instead thought it inopportune, saying that attacking Bezos might not sit well with the Intercept’s own billionaire donor, Pierre Omidyar, especially at a time when he was keeping the organization afloat . . . “A business, just like ours, has the obligation to remain sustainable,” he continued . . . Bralow said that Annie Chabel, the CEO, had concerns about how the story might come off to the Intercept’s donors.
That story was ultimately published but Klippenstein and his editor were increasingly held up in their reporting and publishing of subsequent stories, often for spurious reasons. Rasons that seemed far more calculated to protect the interests of those who funded The Intercept as opposed to advancing journalism. Klippenstein’s editor was eventually fired and that caused Klippenstein to quit.
Because I write about baseball and the other random bullshit I never had some moment of truth like that when I worked for NBC. They generally indulged me, my idiosyncrasies, and my hobby horses, and when I was finally fired it was part of a company-wide layoff/downsizing, not because I crossed some line or whatever. But as the years went on it became increasingly clear that they’d prefer I not write about certain things, that they were far more interested in promoting viral fluff, posts that fed into talk radio-style “debate,” and lists and things than columns railing against Rob Manfred, team owners, leagues, the media, and sponsors. And this was no doubt because, just as Klippenstein’s bosses were broadly in league with Jeff Bezos types, my bosses did business with sports league executives and sponsors and they were, of course, part of the media. Which, sure, I get that. But that’s where all the power is and what’s the point of pretending to be doing journalism in that or any other arena if you’re not gonna give hell to power?
Anyway, I think Klippenstein is a pretty damn good reporter and a good hell-raiser and we need a lot more of those these days than we have. The only way to really do that without being on someone’s leash is to be off on your own. Now Ken’s out on his own. If you’re interested in that kind of work you should definitely check him out and give him a follow. If you like what you see, consider a subscription for the vital work he does.
Another Boeing whistleblower dies
Last March a man named John “Mitch” Barnett was in the middle of giving depositions in a whistleblower lawsuit alleging Boeing retaliated against him for his complaints about Boeing’s quality control lapses when he was found dead from a gunshot wound that was ruled a suicide. Now this:
Joshua Dean, a former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems and one of the first whistleblowers to allege Spirit leadership had ignored manufacturing defects on the 737 MAX, died Tuesday morning after a struggle with a sudden, fast-spreading infection.
Dean had been healthy and fit at the time he fell ill.
The damndest things, those deaths. Each of which just so happens to benefit Boeing. The damndest things.
Oh well. Nothing to do for the rest of the day but watch movies I guess.
Say what you want, but the man is a Born Poster
Donald Trump has repeatedly fallen asleep at his criminal trial in New York. If Biden had done this there would’ve been 50 op-ed pieces about how it proves he’s not able to handle the job of president. But while Trump has been mocked a fair bit for it on social media and on late night talk shows, he has mostly skated on it in the actual news coverage.
Neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times seems to care about Trump’s inability to stay awake while he’s literally on trial for his freedom, but at least some outlets — like The Atlantic — have started to write non-jokey pieces about it. That appears to be enough to make Trump, whose ego is as fragile as an eggshell, at least somewhat self-conscious about it. Otherwise, why would he post this?
Like just about everything else he says it’s complete horseshit — it’s what your grandma says when she falls asleep while watching “NCIS: Los Angeles” — but at least it’s funny horseshit. The man belongs in prison and I truly believe that if he regains office we risk sliding into an authoritarianism from which we’ll never be able to climb out. But let’s be honest: he can be funny. It benefits no one to lie about that.
This will 100% happen
Yesterday afternoon I found a British pound coin in the parking lot behind my house:
There’s a chance I could figure out whose it is if I truly wanted to.
It was not far from where Allison parks and given that she’s been to the UK twice in the past year it might’ve fallen out of her pocket or a bag or something and then fallen out of her car. As I’m writing this she’s not home so I haven’t asked her yet.
It’s also possible it belongs to the guy who lives a couple of doors down from me and who parks in the same lot. He has gone back and forth to London several times over the past few years on business and, right now, is in the process of moving over there permanently (his house is for sale if you wanna be my neighbor). Decent odds he dropped it, but I don’t know him that well and I feel like going up and asking him “is this your coin?” would be rather weird.
I’m going to the UK next month, so as soon as I took the coin inside I put it in the bag I plan to take. I am certain I will enjoy my entire trip, come home, open my bag, and realize "shit, I still have that pound coin." I am writing about it here in an effort to remember to spend it, but I am certain I still will not.
Have a great weekend everyone.
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