Cup of Coffee: May 9, 2024

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

I’m writing to you from beautiful Burlington, Vermont, where it’s like 30 degrees cooler than it is back home. I could get used to this.

As mentioned, due to all of the driving and packing my daughter up and all of that, I’m not doing regular newsletter today. But here are some quick hits at least:

• The Pittsburgh Pirates have called up Paul Skenes, the No. 1 pick in last year's draft and the top pitching prospect in all of Christendom. He’ll make his big-league debut on Saturday against the Cubs. Given how badly he has abused minor league hitters I am eager to see what he’ll do in the bigs. Not that seeing it will be easy given that Pirates games are blacked out in Columbus for some reason, but I’m Very Personally iNterested in seeing it so I suppose I can find a way;

• Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter, has agreed to plead guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of subscribing to a false tax return at an arraignment scheduled for Tuesday. He faces a maximum sentence of 33 years in prison, five years of supervised release and a fine of $1,250,000, but I’m guessing the quick plea will mean it’ll end up being much less. Here’s hoping someone will doublecheck which account he uses to pay that fine;

• A new detail dropped in that case, by the way: last September Mizuhara told Ohtani he needed $60,000 for dental work. Ohtani agreed to pay it and gave Mizuhara a check drawn from a business account. Mizuhara pocketed that money and used Ohtani's debit card to pay the $60,000 dental bill. This may be my favorite fact related to this case yet, and I say that without even being able to imagine what could lead to a $60,000 dental bill;

• Well, maybe that’s my favorite fact. The fact that a dude from the cast of “Real Housewives of Orange County” was Mizuhara’s middleman for payments to the illegal bookie is pretty high up there too;

• My drive up to Vermont was pretty easy. No traffic until the interminable final 15 miles or so on U.S. 7 heading into Burlington, which always takes forever;

• I spent about 10 hours of the 11.5-hour drive listening to a recorded lecture series about the rise and fall of the British Empire. I knew all the broad strokes already but I wanted to listen/read something with more details and the connections and the context and all of that. I still have about eight hours to go on it, but it’s really good so far. Spoiler alert: the British are the bad guys in this saga;

• Steve Albini died yesterday. The guy had some issues, but at least he owned up to ‘em. More importantly for me, he engineered some of the most important music of my life and it’s not hyperbole to say that the work he did helped shape who I am as a person. Also, I was on a podcast with him once, and that was a lot of fun.

Rest in peace, man.

Have a great day everyone.