Cup of Coffee: April 17, 2025

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

We're doin' something weird today with the recaps. Just go with it!

And That Ha[iku]ed

By Cup of Coffee subscriber Doug Chapin (dba DMCj)

Craig’s traveling
So here’s something different
Recaps as haikus!

Yours truly will try
Writing a pregame haiku
And again postgame

Atlanta at Blue Jays
Spencer Strider’s back!
Seeks to impose a steep tax
On Canada’s lumber

Blue Jays 3, Atlanta 1
Of course Strider shoved
But he got no run support
Plus, Vladdy went deep

Mets at Twins
Twin Cities sunshine
Hopefully will distract fans
Twins have yet to spring

Twins 4, Mets 3(10)
Twins blow a late lead
But Mets bullpen gives it back
Ty France walks ‘em off

Tigers at Brewers
Milwaukee memory
Ballpark beer vendor postgame
“Need one for the road?”

Brewers 5, Tigers 1
Hits almost even
But Tiger gopherballs sting
Three homers tame Cats

Astros at Cardinals
I’m like the Astros
Despite that trash can nonsense
I miss Dusty, too.

Cardinals 4, Astros 1
You go, Lars Nootbaar
Three-run dinger seals the game
As ‘Stros bats whimper

Cubs at Padres
Run differentials
Both sky-high in San Diego
Hence division leads

Padres 4, Cubs 2
Pads’ Pivetta prime
Six innings of one-run ball
Manny drives in two

Guardians at Orioles
After a good year
The O’s didn’t sign anyone
Guess what happened next

Orioles 9, Guardians 1
Birds bats go long thrice
Jackson Holliday’s is grand
Guards never in it

Nationals at Pirates
Nats versus Buccos
Proof that low-budget rosters
Are futility defined

Pirates 6, Nationals 1
This one got chippy
Nats’ Perez goes up, in twice
Yep - the benches cleared

Mariners at Reds
This middling game
Has seventeen syllables
My bad - I mean wins

Mariners 5, Reds 3
Big Dumper, big game
Catcher hits two dingers
Both teams now 9–9

Diamondbacks at Marlins
My inner teen badly
Wants nothing more than to
Squeeze out a Pfaadt joke

Diamondbacks 6, Marlins 2
Snakes make Pfaadt noises
Scoring five runs unanswered
Fish go quietly

Giants at Phillies
This game’s pitchers are
An undefeated starter…
And Aaron Nola

Giants 11, Phillies 4
Twenty hits total
Only one homer (Harper)
McCovey Cove weeps

Red Sox at Rays
Fake Yankees ballpark
Is bad enough for Boston
But it’s in TAMPA

Red Sox 1, Rays 0
‘Twas a pitchers’ duel
David Hamilton solo
The only scoring

Royals at Yankees
Listen carefully
There in Yankee Stadium
George Brett’s STILL screaming

Yankees 4, Royals 3
Captain America
Puts up a 3-for-3 night
Royals lose it late

Athletics at White Sox
The A’s left Oakland
White Sox fans all very sad
Their team stuck around

Athletics 3, White Sox 1
Three-run A’s sixth
Thrills the 10K attending
Wow, Sacramento!

Angels at Rangers
Death, taxes, sunrise
Each is inevitable
Like Qorbin sucking

Rangers 3, Angels 1
Rangers’ early runs
Back Qorbin’s five-and-a-third
He wins his first (grrrr)

Rockies at Dodgers
Dodger Stadium
Outbound traffic slow, except
Shohei’s home runs

Dodgers 8, Rockies 7
Pitchers misread start
Sixteen runs in first three frames
Ohtani goes yard

The Daily Briefing

Hunter Wendelstedt hit in the face with a batted ball, taken to hospital

There was a very scary moment in yesterday's Mets-Twins game in Minneapolis. Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt, who was working first base, was struck in the face by a line-drive foul ball off he bat of Mets outfielder Tyrone Taylor. Wendelstedt immediately hit the dirt. After a few minutes he was able to slowly walk off the field under his own power, holding a towel against the left side of his head. He was taken to a hospital for further examination.

After the game crew chief Todd Tichenor told reporters that Wendelstedt was alert, coherent, and speaking but that he was going through a concussion protocol. "Hopefully, it's just some stitches, is what I'm thinking," Tichenor said, though one assumes we'll get an update on that today.

White Sox designate Mike Clevinger for assignment

Good riddance to bad rubbish: the Chicago White Sox DFA'd pitcher Mike Clevinger yesterday. The nine-year veteran has been, to use a technical term, ass in eight relief appearances this season, allowing five runs on five hits while issuing eight walks in five and two-thirds innings.

What's crazy is that Chicago even had him on the staff in the first place. He had a good year for them in 2023, so I get that they brought him back on a one-year deal last year. But then he sucked for a couple of appearances before undergoing season-ending surgery on a disc in his neck. That's not the sort of injury one can imagine a 33 year-old pitcher easily snapping back from and, given that Clevinger is a certified piece of garbage, I'm not sure why you'd take another chance and spend another $1.5 million on the guy in the first place. But they did, it didn't work, and now maybe we're done with Clevinger.

Kim Ng named commissioner of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League

The Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL) has named former Marlins general manager Kim Ng as its commissioner. It's a key hire at a key moment for the league, which is embarking on a major expansion starting this summer.

Ng, 56, was a college softball player herself at the University of Chicago. She began her career in baseball while serving as an intern with the White Sox before ascending to roles as assistant general manager with the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers and then spent several years as a senior vice president at MLB before her time with the Marlins. Ng has been serving as an adviser to the AUSL as it ramps up for a tour which will feature four teams competing in 24 games across ten cities. The league will then become a six-team league which will compete in permanent locations.

ESPN will be a broadcast partner of the AUSL. The network is slated to carry 33 total games in 2025.

José Miranda has had a bad week

Over the weekend Twins third baseman José Miranda got demoted to Triple-A after making a really boneheaded base running mistake in which he assumed he was out at second base even though he had not been called out, only to be tagged out as he attempted to jog off the field. A pretty embarrassing moment to be sure.

But then his week got worse.

On Tuesday Miranda was placed on the injured list. But not because of anything that happened on the field. Rather, he hurt himself buying a pack of bottled water. Per the Star-Tribune, he was shopping at Target on Monday when a case of water "slipped from his grasp, and he felt pain when he re-grabbed it before it fell."

Everything has been bad for the Twins so far this year.

Memory Lane

Facebook Memories gave me a reminder this morning that, on this date in 2011, ESPN identified Ron Washington as the Texas Rangers "Head Coach":

When announcing the upcoming end of MLB's relationship with ESPN, Rob Manfred cited the notion that, in its programming decisions, ESPN no longer shows baseball the respect it deserves. I'd argue that that's been the case for a long time.

Other Stuff

Judge launches proceedings to hold the Trump Regime in criminal contempt

James Boasberg, the federal judge who is overseeing the case involving the Trump Regime's disappearing people to El Salvador, has issued an opinion finding that "probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt." From the court's opinion:

On the evening of Saturday, March 15, 2025, this Court issued a written Temporary Restraining Order barring the Government from transferring certain individuals into foreign custody pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act. At the time the Order issued, those individuals were on planes being flown overseas, having been spirited out of the United States by the Government before they could vindicate their due-process rights by contesting their removability in a federal court, as the law requires. Rather than comply with the Court’s Order, the Government continued the hurried removal operation. Early on Sunday morning — hours after the Order issued — it transferred two planeloads of passengers protected by the TRO into a Salvadoran mega-prison.

As this Opinion will detail, the Court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt. The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory . . . The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it. To permit such officials to freely “annul the judgments of the courts of the United States” would not just “destroy the rights acquired under those judgments”; it would make “a solemn mockery” of “the constitution itself.”

As a rule, judges don't swear, yell, or scream in written opinions. But if you've been around litigation long enough you know when a judge is mad. This, appearing in the introduction, thereby setting the stage for everything that comes after, is good evidence that this judge is mad:

It appeared that the Government had transferred members of the Plaintiff class into El Salvador’s custody hours after this Court’s injunction prohibited their deportation under the Proclamation. Worse, boasts by Defendants intimated that they had defied the Court’s Order deliberately and gleefully. The Secretary of State, for instance, retweeted a post in which, a news headline noting this Court’s Order to return the flights to the United States, the President of El Salvador wrote: “Oopsie . . . Too late 😂😂.”

Judge Boasberg has given the government until April 23 to either explain what steps it will take to "purge" (i.e. remedy) its contempt or to identify who made the decision to defy the court's orders and let the planes proceed to El Salvador, at which point the judge would almost certainly refer that person for prosecution.

Given how strident Trump has been about his illegal orders to send people to Salvadoran prisons, and given just how bad it will play to Americans if those he sent to those prisons are returned and are able to tell their no doubt horrific stories, I highly doubt that the Regime will simply reverse the imprisonments and return its victims to the United States. If it, instead, names someone whose order it was to defy the court, I strongly suspect it will be a scapegoat of some sort. And, regardless of who it is, there will likely be an effort by Trump to pardon that person.

Which, fine. He's going to do what he's going to do. But even if he does, it's critically important for the courts to make it clear that the Regime has engaged in blatant illegality and Judge Boasberg's opinion stands as a clear and unflinching description of the government's lawlessness in this case.

It's important for the people to know what is being done in their name. It will, in time, have an effect even if it doesn't stop Trump in his tracks. The government is engaging in massive lawlessness that rises to the level of crimes against humanity. Its atrocities must, at the very least, be documented until such time the perpetrators can be effectively punished.

Trans women are women. No matter what the UK government says

In a victory for hateful transphobes everywhere, yesterday the UK supreme court ruled that, for the purposes of a law known as the Equality Act, the terms “woman” and “sex” refer to a biological woman and biological sex, essentially erasing the rights of trans women.

Among other things, the ruling means that transgender women can no longer sit on public boards that are set aside for women and, in all likelihood, will lead to much greater restrictions on the rights of transgender women to use various services, public facilities, and other spaces reserved for women. Beyond that it will create a great deal of chaos, as the UK has issued gender-recognition certificates to transgender persons for a couple of decades now which, before this ruling, were thought to provide a certain security for trans persons in that it allowed them to be legally recognized by their true gender. Now all of that is thrown into doubt.

Trans women are women. Trans men are men. They are entitled to all of the same rights and protections as anyone else. Despite what the hateful people who pushed for this result and the hateful people who issued it have to say about it.

Another reason not to buy a Tesla

There is no shortage of reasons not to buy a Tesla, but we've learned of another one: Per a class action lawsuit that was just filed in California, Tesla, ”knowingly overstates the distances traveled in Tesla vehicles” by remotely manipulating odometers, allowing the company to shirk its warranty responsibilities and to sucker people into buying extended warranties. From The Street.com:

“Tesla Inc. employs an odometer system that utilizes predictive algorithms, energy consumption metrics, and driver behavior multipliers that manipulate and misrepresent the actual mileage travelled by Tesla vehicles,” reads the lawsuit. “In so doing, Defendants can, and do, accelerate the rate of depreciation of the value of Tesla vehicles and also the expiration of Tesla vehicle warranties to reduce or avoid responsibility for contractually required repairs as well as increase the purchase of its extended warranty policy.”

In the complaint the named plaintiff of the lawsuit explains his normal driving routine and claims that he should have averaged roughly 20 miles driven per day. His vehicle's odometer, however, bore out use of 72.35 miles per day. As a result, his warranty expired well ahead of schedule. What's more, he claimed that after his warranty expired, he noticed “a decline in the vehicle’s reported average daily miles” despite then driving longer commutes. It's as if Tesla gooses miles early to get the car past warranty eligibility and then tries to cover it up, more or less.

The Street article refers to this as "a sneaky tactic," but odometer fraud is not a matter of hijinks. It's a federal criminal offense. Pursuant to 49 U.S.C § 32703 anyone convicted of odometer fraud can face up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine. On top of that, perpetrators can face a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation (i.e. per vehicle whose odometer is altered).

The guy who owns and runs Tesla is an actual Nazi who is illegally cancelling cancer research, is stealing government money and secrets, and is throwing thousands of people out of work, yet there are reasons beyond just that not to buy his cars.

Elon Musk is Immortan Joe

It'd be awful if any person illegally took over the United States government and then worked to illegally dismantle in the space of a couple of months, but the fact that Elon Musk is the one who is doing it is particularly galling because the dude is a straight up freak show. The Wall Street Journal ran an article the other day with the latest insight into his whole deal, and folks, it's a doozy.

The focus of the article is the fact that Musk has dozens of children with a number of women, the entire setup of which is like something like Immortan Joe's whole deal in "Mad Max: Fury Road." Among other things, we learn from it that Musk hits up women via DMs on Twitter, offering to have babies with them. Afterward he sets them up with money partly structured as loans in exchange for silence and his particular conditions. Conditions which include the women moving with the children to his compound in Texas He refers to the children as his “legion.”

From the article:

In Musk’s dark view of the world, civilization is under threat because of a declining population. He is driven to correct the historic moment by helping seed the earth with more human beings of high intelligence . . . “To reach legion-level before the apocalypse."

That last quote – "To reach legion-level before the apocalypse" – is Musk himself speaking in a text message to one of the mothers of his children. He has also told others that he is concerned "about what he called Third World countries having higher birthrates than the U.S. and Europe." He likewise urged the mother of one of his many children her to deliver the baby via caesarean section because, as he has posted on Twitter before, "vaginal births limit brain size and that C-sections allow for larger brains." He also told her she should have ten babies. The article just goes on and on like that, with each revelation sounding more insane than the last.

The U.S. government is effectively being run by an unhinged Nazi/eugenicist drug addict who keeps a harem of women on a private compound in Texas, all of whom are sworn to secrecy under the threat of financial ruin. This is all fine, I'm sure.

Pennsylvania has broken containment

Some local news:

Over the past several years Sheetz has opened some 90 stores in Ohio. Now we're getting Wawa. Pennsylvania has broken containment and none of us are likely to survive.

Guest Post: Shana Bartles

Hi fellow left-leaning baseball nerds,

I'm Shana Bartels and you may know me from Yankees fandom circles, but this has nothing to do with baseball. I'm not going to show you sad-looking shivering puppies with a Sarah McLachlan song playing in the background, but I am trying to raise donations for a worthy cause.

My mom Karen and I comprise a tiny family business called Make Mark Mend. We make jewelry and other things by hand and sell our merchandise on Etsy and Amazon Handmade. Since 2022, we've been selling various Ukraine-themed items (mostly earrings but also plaques etc.) to raise money for Ukrainian war relief efforts – 50% of the proceeds go directly to Razom For Ukraine, which does amazing humanitarian work. To date, we've already donated over $700, which helps to equip war-torn areas with desperately needed medical supplies and helps to rebuild bombed-out neighborhoods. We also source our handmade lampwork beads directly from talented artisans in Ukraine (the listings that say "made in Ukraine" are easy to identify on our pages), so the other half of the proceeds goes toward ordering more supplies from them, which supports their small businesses and helps us continue the cycle of generating more donations for humanitarian aid.

If you subscribe to Craig, I don't need to tell you how dire things are with the current United States government (or what's left of it) actively working to advance Vladimir Putin's agenda. You already know that shit's been really scary and it's only getting worse. In a time when government aid is practically non-existent, NGOs have to fill in the gaps. So you can buy yourself or a friend something pretty to help the cause – that's a win-win. (We also have lots of other pretty things for Pride and other stuff too! It's better for the environment if you order more than one item to be shipped at a time, I'm just saying.)

Thank you Craig for the platform and infinite thanks to everyone who helps us continue the cycle of donations! Slava Ukraini, fuck Putin, and let's go Yankees.

Sorry, Shana. You mention "Angel" and you're gonna get "Angel."

Have a great day everyone.