Cup of Coffee: August 12, 2024

Good morning!

There were four teams who had scheduled days off yesterday: the White Sox, Cubs, Cardinals, and Royals. I know they’re doing scheduled Sunday off-days once in a great while now, especially to facilitate dumb two-game interleague series, but it’s still weird. Indeed, I can’t recall many if any Sundays in which four teams had off. Oh well, it made the recaps shorter.

Anyway: today we talk about the games we did have, we look at baseball at the Bristol Motor Speedway, we find something new to complain about when it comes to the Oakland Athletics’ bosses, and we celebrate (?) the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the longest and most disruptive work-stoppage in baseball history.

In Other Stuff you would not believe who is calling someone else a “chameleon,” there is a 271-page dossier I’d love to get my hands on, a couple of studies have identified some pretty destructive consequences of legalized online gambling and, in a huge upset, some researchers have determined that the world is probably not in any worse a state of moral decline than it ever has been, even if it feels like it.

Oh, and today is the fourth anniversary of the launch of the Cup of Coffee newsletter. It went live with an announcement post on August 12, 2020, with the first substantive newsletter following five days later. Feels like yesterday! Thanks to all of you who have been here since Day 1 and to all of you who have joined the party since.

If you know anyone else who should join the party, by all means, tell ‘em about it:

Now let’s get at ‘er.

Subscribe to Premium Membership to read the rest.