Cup of Coffee: April 4, 2024

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

Today, after the baseball stuff, I talk a lot about death. But don’t worry, it’s fun. The writing, I mean. Not death. That’s probably a drag. Just go with it. I haven’t steered you wrong yet, have I? Of course not.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Angels 10, Marlins 2: Patrick Sandoval allowed two and struck out seven while pitching into the sixth, Taylor Ward homered, had three hits and drove in two, and Zach Neto had two hits and two RBI. Also: if I had written a sci-fi short story when I was 14 I totally would’ve named the protagonist “Zach Neto.” The Marlins finish their opening home stand 0-7. That’s a hell of a thing.

Twins 7, Brewers 3: Ryan Jeffers hit a tie-breaking three-run homer to cap off a five-run seventh inning for the Twinkies. Earlier that frame Byron Buxton hit an RBI double and Carlos Correa singled Buxton home. Young Jackson Chourios hit his first big league home run for the Brewers in the losing cause. I want him to do well. In part because he seems like a nice guy, but mostly I just want to read interviews from him in which he talks about being in grade school and looking up to old timers like Jonathan Lucroy or whoever.

Rangers 4, Rays 1: Nate Eovaldi shut ‘em out for seven and only had one run of support via a Corey Seager homer. Texas put up three insurance runs in the top of the ninth, however, thanks to a two-run single from Josh Smith and an infield single from Marcus Semien. Eovaldi has allowed only two runs in 13 innings this season.

Red Sox 1, Athletics 0: After the game Alex Cora said “Yeah, we didn't play well. Defensively we were bad . . . we hit a lot of ground balls, a lot of non-competitive at-bats and all that . . . we didn't play good defense . . .” But of course they won, which tells you a lot about the 2024 Oakland A’s. The one run came on an Enmaunuel Valdez sac fly. The good pitching came from Nick Pivetta’s five shutout frames and four shutout innings from four relievers. But again, it’s the A’s.

Guardians 8, Mariners 0: Logan Allen pitched shutout ball into the seventh and José Ramírez doubled twice and drove in a pair. The most interesting thing here was that Josh Naylor drove in three runs but never got on base, grounding out to plate one and hitting two sac flies. Way to do a lot while doing a little. George Kirby had some bad defense behind him but it’s not like he was any good either, as all eight of those runs were earned. Pitching was supposed to be Seattle’s strong suit — some believed they’d have one of the best staffs in baseball this year — but they’ve given up 31 runs in seven games while scoring just 17.

Yankees 6, Diamondbacks 5: It was 2-2 from the fifth until the tenth, with the Yankees’ two runs coming on a two-run homer from Aaron Judge. Once we got to extras Alex Verdugo hit a two-run homer of his own, but since it’s Alex Verdugo we’re talking about it was a lot more gross. Arizona answered back with two of their own in the bottom half of the tenth thanks to some bad Yankees defense, but the Bombers went ahead again in the 11th on a balk and an RBI double from Judge. The Snakes had one more in them in their half but they needed two and the Yankees just held on. It’s possible they would’ve plated another one but Torey Lovullo lost his DH due to an injury replacement. To wit: his shortstop, Luis Perdomo, got hurt so he moved his DH, Ketel Marte, to cover short. When you put your DH into the field he gone. As a result the Dbacks had a pitcher batting with the bases loaded, while trailing in extra innings. Oops.

Padres 3, Cardinals 2: Joe Musgrove allowed one over six and was backed by a Kyle Higashioka homer, a Jurickson Profar bases-loaded walk and a Fernando Tatís fielder’s choice. Higashioka also threw out two baserunners in the same inning he hit the homer which, hey, nice inning. The Dads avoid a sweep.

Nationals 5, Pirates 3: Joey Gallo started the season 0-for-12. Then this game happened and he went 3-for-4 with a homer and a double. Baseball: ya never know, folks! Luis García Jr. doubled three times and scored twice, CJ Abrams had a pair of RBI, and Trevor Williams allowed two runs while working into the sixth.

Reds 4, Phillies 1: Zack Wheeler struck out ten and only gave up three hits but one of ‘em was a two-run double by Christian Encarnacion-Strand and another was an RBI double to Elly De La Cruz. Frankie Montas went five and two third and allowed just one run and the Reds bullpen kept things nice and quiet. Cincy takes two of three.

Cubs 9, Rockies 8: The Cubs led 8-2 after six innings, completely blew that lead by the eighth, but then Seiya Suzuki, who had already homered and drove in three by that point, grounded into a fielder’s choice to score the go-ahead run and put Chicago over. The winning run was scored by a guy who reached on a strikeout/wild pitch combo, which probably ranks as one of the more demoralizing ways one can put a runner on. After the game Bud Black said “I love the fact that we didn't melt when we got behind.” Better to melt when you’re tied late I guess? I’m not sure I’ll ever truly understand Rockies baseball.

Astros 8, Blue Jays 0: No-hit on Monday, one-hit on Wednesday. And with the exception of some timely hitting in the ninth inning the Toronto bats weren’t all that hot Tuesday either. Cristian Javier one-hit the Jays for five and four Astros relievers each tossed a no-hit frame. Yordan Álvarez hit two solo shots and doubled in a run on a 4-for-5 night. Jeremy Pena homered and knocked in three as well. Jose Altuve went deep.

Dodgers 5, Giants 4: Shohei Ohtani hit his first homer in a Dodgers uniform — a 430-foot shot in the seventh — and scored a run on a 2-for-4 night. From the AP gamer:

I read a lot of AP game stories and while they almost always note when a player is speaking through an interpreter when quoted, they never, ever give the interpreter’s name. With all of the Ohtani drama, however, I suppose they feel it necessary to say “no, this is not the interpreter who is alleged to have stolen millions of dollars in connection with an illegal gambling scandal.”

In related news, there has still been no word whatsoever about Ippei Mizuhara’s whereabouts, no attempt, it seems, to get a comment from him in the wake of the accusations against him, or anything. I know he has not been charged with any crime yet and that he’s a private citizen with a right to privacy, but I can’t remember the last time there was just zero heard from or about a person in such a position. Like, usually you usually at least see photos or see them going into a lawyer’s office or something. I find this all so weird.

Atlanta vs. White Sox; Tigers vs. Mets — POSTPONED:

There was a roaring in the wind all night;

The rain came heavily and fell in floods;

But now the sun is rising calm and bright;

The birds are singing in the distant woods;

Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;

The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;

And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

The Daily Briefing

The A’s seem to be headed to Sacramento 

The Athletics are reportedly severing ties with Oakland after this season and will be playing in Sacramento from 2025-28 or whenever it is that their alleged Las Vegas stadium is completed. From ESPN:

It seems that the offer Oakland officials were reported to be making to the A’s to stay in the Coliseum — complete with rent payments in massive and symbolically precise amounts that were aimed at shaming team ownership for its bad faith negotiation tactics over the years — was not accepted. Shocker, that. And I love that they’re apparently not informing Oakland of the decision. On-brand, I suppose.

Major League Baseball schedules are typically finalized in May and distributed to teams by July, so this decision had to come pretty damn soon. Would love to be a fly on the wall in clubhouses when A’s opponents, all of whom likely counted the day they played their last game in a minor league park to be the day they truly became successful ballplayers, learn exactly when they’ll be traveling to Sacramento next season.

I’d also like to be a fly on the wall of the A’s team offices when their employees, already faced with the prospect of uprooting their lives to move to Las Vegas in a few years, learn that they either have to make an interim move to Sacramento, commute 80 miles to work each day, or quit.

John Fisher and Dave Kaval have spent years butchering this entire process. It’s therefore fitting that their team will be the junior tenant in a bush league ballpark for the foreseeable future.

That’s a new one

Milwaukee Brewers reliever Trevor Megill is on the seven-day concussion injury list. He did not get hurt in a game or while training. Indeed, I’m pretty sure the manner in which he sustained his concussion is a first in the history of major league baseball. From ESPN:

I do not offer this to make light of the situation. As someone who has suffered from food poisoning, someone who has fainted, and someone who has had a concussion, I can tell you that all of that sucks hard. But I can’t say that I’ve seen all three of those things in quite that kind of package before. Figure none of y’all have either.

What ever will the Royals and Chiefs do?

While perusing the next-day stories about the failure of the Jackson County, Missouri tax vote, I saw a number of those sports business sites — almost all of which tend to do heavy P.R. lifting for teams, leagues, and TV networks — characterize it as something which “leaves the long-term future of both teams in question” or words to that effect. Almost all of the coverage casts it as some sort of adversity that has been thrust upon the Royals and Chiefs and, oh, what now will they do?

You know what would be cool? If someone besides weird, widely disliked cranks like me and J.C. Bradbury would frame this as the owners of the Royals and Chiefs putting their futures in question their own damn selves. Because they're the ones claiming they need a billion+ in taxpayer dollars to stay. They’re the ones who wove the fiction that their stadiums are decrepit and unviable when they clearly are not. They’re the ones who introduced the prospect of them leaving town as the ultimate end game. They, to use the parlance of wrestling/internet arguments, worked themselves into a shoot over all of this. They created a phony story about the dire need for public subsidies in order to get some goodies and now, apparently, they believe that story of dire need. Voters didn't do shit to them except call their greedy-ass bluff.

The Royals and Chiefs "need" new stadiums like I "need" a beach house. It'd be great to have it. It'd enhance my life in lots of wonderful ways, without question. But your failure to give me a beach house does not put my vacation future in doubt in a way that is at all relevant to you. If I want a beach house, I have to buy one myself. Same goes for the insanely wealthy people who own businesses, one of which is part of an actual monopoly, the other an effective one. Cry me a damn river.

Meanwhile, in Oakland . . . 

I’m presuming this is real because it’s been floating around for over 24 hours and no one has debunked it yet (you’ll wanna zoom in):

Thoughts:

• I’m happy to see that the Coliseum staff is still being encouraged to give customers the best experience possible. Grace in adversity is always possible;

• I’m disappointed, though not surprised, that Coliseum staff are being ordered to police any anti-Fisher/anti-Las Vegas move sentiment. Someone should tell John Fisher that while brutally efficient dictators can, at times, stamp out dissent, pathetic and feckless ones like him never will;

• I’m disappointed, though not surprised, that MLB teams are trying to memory hole the old, decent jerseys in favor of the new shitty Nike/Fanatics ones. The entire world is laughing at these goddamn things yet baseball seems content to just pretend everything is fine. It’s the most hilarious bit I’ve ever seen;

• Based on those metrics, I predict that C-Gate will be closed over 75 times this year;

• Who did Drew piss off to be stuck at the Oakland Coliseum all week? Is Drew OK? I think we need Drew proof of life at this point. I’m scared for him.

Oh, and if there were 3600 fans at that A’s game the other night I’ll eat my hat. Otherwise things are going great.

Other Stuff

Today we will be talking about nothing but death. I’m sorry if that’s upsetting to any of you, but that’s just what The Content Gods dictated for today. I do not question Them, for They have blessed me for many years. Indeed, when a writer tells you they have no ideas or that they’re suffering from writer’s block, it is almost always attributable to their having denied The Content Gods. It is because they have somehow strayed from the path which They so generously set out and illuminated for us. I adhere to no formal religion, but I shall always appreciate the gifts The Content Gods have granted me and I shall endeavor to always honor Their wishes.

Dear Abby went hard yesterday

It’s been a long time since I read Dear Abby on a regular basis. So long ago that, in my mind, all of the letters to her deal with conflicts over casseroles or someone acting rudely at a baby shower. Yesterday’s, however, was punk fuckin’ rock:

To her credit, Dear Abby did not give voice to the clear and inescapable conclusion here — Grandpa totally murdered Great-Grandpa, probably with an axe — because it’d probably be rude to make such an accusation, however obvious it is. But the nut of her advice suggests to me that Abby knows the score and is trying to trap the letter-writer. “What positive thing would be accomplished by sharing this unpleasantness with them?,” Abby asks. “You are a caring individual; let your conscience be your guide” Abby is telling her to clam up and help the grandfather cover up his murder. She wants the letter-writer to become an accessory after the fact.

Abby’s got this all laid out, see? While we don’t know this letter-writer’s identity, Abby likely does, and now she has dirt on her. Abby owns her ass. What, you think she won’t take advantage of that? The original Dear Abby may have gotten rich on syndication fees, but the newspaper industry is flat busted now, jack, and a woman has to make a living somehow.

So go head, tell your secrets to Dear Abby. She’ll listen. Oh, she’ll listen good.

The New Science of Death

The Guardian published a fascinating article the other day about how a small group of doctors and scientists are trying to figure out what, exactly, happens when we die. About the physical or metaphysical processes which occur between clinical death — the stopping of heart function and respiration — and the cessation of brain activity. Brain activity which, per a couple of case studies in the article, can be far, far more active and seemingly ordered after clinical death than probably makes any of us feel super comfortable.

There is, of course, a lot more to this than straightforward scientific inquiry. Like almost all emerging disciplines, there have emerged philosophical rifts within what remains, broadly speaking, an empirical approach to the study of near-death experiences. The article lays out how this area of study has broken into roughly three schools of thought:

• The religious adjacent, most notably represented by the psychiatrist Raymond Moody who, back in the 1970s, coined the term “near death experience” and popularized the now cliche notions of dark tunnels, white lights, and loved ones beckoning to us from the afterlife in his book, Life After Life. These people, obviously, seek to proselytize about the alleged reality of life after death;

• Then there are what are known as the parapsychologists, who seek to determine the scientific nature of consciousness and whether or not consciousness exists independent of the brain. Is it an invisible yet real energy separate from our bodies and, if so, can it persist after the death of the individual? That seems just as woo-woo as the religious/Moody folks — it strikes me like they’re talking about The Force, Luke — but they are at least trying to approach the matter while adhering to the scientific method and evidence as opposed to belief, faith, or anecdote;

• The last group — which I am shocked and sort of saddened to learn is the smallest group — are the researches who are merely trying to determine what is going on when someone is dying and why it’s going on on a strictly biological level. They are akin to dream researchers who want to know why and how we dream but are not interested in dream meanings or interpretation. You know. Killjoys.

My obedience to The Content Gods notwithstanding, I am squarely on the side of the killjoys in that last camp (shocker). I would, of course, be thrilled to learn that the white light and feeling of peace that will bathe my senses as I stroke out one day really is my Great Grandpa Woodford, welcoming me to the afterlife. Or that, per the second camp, death is merely the process by which my consciousness will be transmuted into the Earth’s magnetic field or something. I just kinda doubt that’s the case.

What I suspect is that all of those near-death sensations we hear about are a function of ours brains flooding every cell of our bodies they can reach with massive doses of dopamine and pain-killing compounds in a vain effort to save us from what it wrongfully believes to be a temporary crisis. Even the old life-flashes-before-your-eyes thing, I figure, is a means of distraction and protection. Your brain’s equivalent of your parents dragging out the old slides and home movies to keep you calm and occupied when you’re down in the basement during a particularly scary tornado warning. It’s your brain thinking “It’s far better for Craig to vividly remember that weekend at the lake in 1987 than for him to think too hard about the doctor, here in 2059, stopping chest compressions and saying ‘call it: 2:47pm.’ so let’s play that video.”

Like I said, I hope I’m wrong about that. But if I’m not, let’s give a big shoutout to our brains, because that’s an awfully nice thing for them to be doing for us on what will, in most cases, be our crappiest day on Earth.

Nearly Drowning 

As the previous item might suggest, I don’t fear being dead. To be clear, I don’t want to die — I rather enjoy life! — but I don’t worry much about no longer existing one day. I spent billions and billions of years not existing. I was pretty good at it. This strange, often absurd, and frankly embarrassing period in which I’m not not existing is but a momentary blip after which things will return to normal.

I do have some rather strong opinions about the manner of my death, however. Like most people, the longer from this particular moment the better. The less regret-filled I am at the time the better. The less pain the better. The less aware of my death’s imminence the better. That last one is pretty important. Dreading a thing is almost always worse than the experience of the thing itself and, for as strange as it may sound, I think that applies to death too. I really don’t want to see it coming, even if I want it to come as many years from now as possible.

I do have a specific fear when it comes to manner of death. The most distress I’ve ever felt in my life came on the handful of occasions when I was unable to breath for a few moments. Childhood croup attacks. Some adolescent horseplay which left me on the bottom of a giant pile of people, unable to catch my breath or to let anyone above me know I couldn’t do so. A few moments in a Chinese restaurant back in 1999 when I tried to swallow a larger-than-I-thought piece of broccoli only to have it lodge in my throat. I got it out just as the person I was with realized what was happening and was about to give me the Heimlich maneuver. One day I will lose consciousness and die and when I do I will stop breathing. I hope against hope it is in that specific order.

Which makes it no surprise that drowning seems like a particular drag to me. I don’t fear it so much that it keeps me away from water, mind you. I swim in he ocean, in lakes, and in pools. I’ve gone whitewater rafting a load of times. I’ll ford a rushing river if it seems reasonably fordable. I like boats and ships. I’ve waterskied. My dread of drowning sits over there on a shelf like a book I’ve read and know very well but which I rarely take down even if I think about it more than most other books.

That dread also, perversely enough, causes me to read stories about people drowning or nearly drowning whenever I come across them. Like this one at Longreads by a writer named Maggie Slepian, who almost bit it while kayaking in Montana a few years ago. She tells how it all went down, right down to what went through her mind when she thought she had breathed her last.

I’ll admit that some of the essay is annoying as hell. She spends the whole first part explaining how she was a pretty reckless outdoorsperson. She freely admits that she routinely engaged in activities or levels of activity that were beyond her experience and capabilities, primarily in the pursuit of mountain town social capital. The cool kids climbed this or rafted that so she did too, even if she knew she was in over her head. On the day of her near death, she brushed off certain safety checks because she was with a guy she was sort of infatuated with and she didn’t want to seem less impressive than she was. I got a strong sense that, while she is now acutely aware of the unreasonable risks she took, she wasn’t wholly unaware even at the time. She just didn’t care on some level and mistook her past good luck in precarious situations for skill. As a pretty cautious person when it comes to the outdoors it’s super hard for me to get my mind around that sort of thing.

That aside, it’s a pretty riveting tale. In part because of her recounting of the actual incident, her efforts to save herself, the thoughts that went through her head when she couldn’t, and her last-second rescue. As far as true tales of harrowing adventure go it’s pretty good stuff. But the story is mostly good for what came after. The part in which she talks about her panic attacks and later her dissociative episodes, all of which was a function of her quite understandable PTSD, which took her some time to accept she was experiencing. There is also, apropos of the previous item, a little talk about near death experiences and their nature. And it certainly ends in a place I was not expecting it to end.

A good read, but something to stay away from if you’re uncomfortable with the sort of territory it covers.

The End of the World

Over the past couple of days a Twitter prompt has been going around asking people to name the best movie soundtrack of all time.

Movie soundtracks, as a commercial product, probably peaked somewhere between the late 1980s and early 2000s. That period after moviemakers realized how many people would actually buy such albums but before it was easy to just get that one banger from the trailer or the closing credits online. As such, you will not be surprised to hear that the most popular answers to that prompt were extraordinarily Gen-Xy: “Singles,” “Less Than Zero,” “Reality Bites,” “The Crow,” “Grosse Pointe Blank,” “Trainspotting” and similar soundtracks came up over and over. All of those are pretty great, no question, but none of those are my favorite.

Yes, my favorite movie soundtrack is of that, but while it has gotten critical love, it’s almost never mentioned in the “best movie soundtrack” conversation. It’s the soundtrack to Wim Wenders’ 1991 movie “Until the End of the World.”

The movie was a near-future sci-fi thing, set in 1999. For the soundtrack, Wenders went to all of the artists involved — U2, Lou Reed, R.E.M., Patti and Fred Smith, Nick Cave, Depeche Mode, Talking Heads, and a bunch of other fantastic people — and asked them to compose a song the likes of which they thought they’d be writing and performing in 1999. While the movie itself has aged at least a little poorly, the music sounds just as fresh today as it did 33 years ago. Depending on what your definition of “fresh” is, of course. At the very least there’s a timeless retro-future vibe to it all which most of you probably know is RIGHT in my damn wheelhouse.

If you want a good summary and critical assessment of this uniquely fascinating soundtrack you can read more about it here. A key passage of the piece not only sums up the album but may come the closest to summing up my own personal world view, with its reference to “that uncer­tainty about both present and future that is the postmodern condition.” Unquestionably dark, yes, but it’s “not an apocalyptic work; instead, it offers the hope that we may someday move on from our preoccupations, whether technological or emotional, and look back on them as if they were . . . impermanent romances.”

I know I come off as a cynical pessimist a lot of the time, but if anyone asks you how I see the world you could do worse than to tell them that.

“Until the End of the World” is not just my favorite soundtrack of all time. It may very well be my favorite album of all time, full stop. It’s the album I’d put on exactly sixty-nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds — the full run time — before the meteor hits. It’s what I’d listen to on my deathbed if I knew my time left was best measured in hours rather than days. I’d want to hear it on CD, though, not on vinyl because it may be the most CD-era album of all time. I can’t really explain what that means, but you probably know what I mean. And while someone once created a close approximation of it as a Spotify playlist, you can’t really stream it because it hasn’t been officially released in digital form and the only version of Neneh Cherry’s “Move with Me” you can find online is her own album’s version, not the dub mix from the soundtrack. Not that that’s not good too.

I don't care what happens to me after I die. I don’t care if my kids put my body out behind a barn to see what happens when humans decompose, leaving my granddaughter to write in to some future Dear Abby about it. I don’t care if there is life or some sort of continued electrical consciousness once my brain function ceases. For as much as I dread the idea, after I’m dead won’t care if I drowned. Or, for that matter, if I was defenestrated or if I died of exhaustion after a night of hot sex and tequila shots with the reigning Miss Universe on my 108th birthday. Bury me or burn me or put me out with the poorly-sorted recyclables, it will make no difference to me.

But I would like anyone who cared about me and who is still around when I shuffle off to play this album in its entirety, preferably at night, in a darkened room, and preferably with an expensive glass of something by their side. At least once. That'll be enough. That’ll be more than enough.

Thanks for bearing with me through today’s rather dark turn. Have a great day everyone.