Cup of Coffee: January 28, 2021

Good morning! Welcome to Free Thursday! And welcome to the Midwest in January. Here’s your coffee, oatmeal, and seasonal affective disorder lamp:

All necessary, really. I’m generally content, but the steely-gray skies and cold-but-not-snowy stretch we’re in just sort of saps any joy that attempts to creep in. You can cheer me up, though: sign up for a subscription:

Sorry. I know that was emotionally manipulative. But six bucks is six bucks.

Today we have some bad news for Curt Schilling and J.G. Taylor Spink and some dreary news if, like me, you don’t much care for the gambling industry’s slow takeover of baseball. Well, it’s not a “takeover” given that baseball is inviting it, but either way, baseball is being enslaved by Gamblor and its neon claws. There’s some hot stove news too, of course. As always, I’ll cover that.

In Other Stuff we talk about the crappy, misogynistic culture of, well, everything, dumb money, my friends the Proud Boys, Frau Blücher (“neeeighh!”), Jason Isbell and Lyle Lovett, and New Deal Chic.

The Daily Briefing

Sorry, Curt

In the course of his diaper-filling rant on social media on Tuesday night Curt Schilling requested that he be removed from the Hall of Fame ballot for his final year of eligibility. It was a “you can’t fire me, I quit!” gesture, except it came off far less defiant than it did pathetic.

And it’s going unhonored. Yesterday BBWAA secretary-treasurer Jack O'Connell said in a statement that removing Schilling from the ballot for his 10th and final year of eligibility would be “a violation of the rules set forth by the National Baseball Hall of Fame's board of directors, who have commissioned the BBWAA to conduct the annual elections.” O’Connell added that, “The Hall of Fame assigned the BBWAA to be the electorate in 1936. This association has abided by the rules for 85 years and shall continue to do so. The BBWAA urges the Board to reject Mr. Schilling’s request.”

Looks like another year of Schilling acting like he’s not mad when, in reality, he’s really, really mad.

The Fox Sports Regional networks are now “Bally’s Sports”

Back in 2019 Sinclair Broadcasting purchased the Fox Sports regional networks which Fox was ordered to sell in order to get its own acquisition by Disney approved by regulators. Last fall Sinclair sold naming rights to the regional sports networks to the gambling company Bally’s.

Yesterday the renaming was made official, with Sinclair announcing that the Fox Sports regional network will be rebranded as “Bally Sports,” complete with new logos and stuff, replacing the current Fox Sports logos. The new logo has the Bally name in red script. From Sports Business Journal:

None of this will matter for viewers very much, of course. At least not at first. We tune in to see the game and are already marketed to by any number of companies, so what the channel calls itself probably doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference.

This does make me cranky, however, as it’s the latest reminder of just how thoroughly sports has simply become a MacGuffin for the gambling industry.

Sports leagues, sports networks, and sports websites will always chase the money, of course. They all “pivoted to video” for the illusory promise of video revenues a few years back, with many destroying themselves as that mirage disappeared. There's real money in real gambling, though, so I can only begin to imagine how sports and sports media will debase themselves to chase it.

Today it’s the Nationals partnering up with MGM to put a sports book in Nats Park, sports websites increasingly cluttering up their pages with gambling-related content or running full-blown gambling verticals, and sports channels being named after casinos. What will it be tomorrow? Will all sports content be primarily geared toward gamblers or will there still be room for, you know, people who are fans of sports for their own sake?

I don’t mean to come off as overly judgmental here. If you’re into betting on sports, good for you. I’m not going to stop you. It’s just not for me and I just find that whole world dreary. I find that gambling causes the tail to almost exclusively wag the dog as far as talking about sports goes. I find nothing less interesting than hearing about teams covering or not covering the spread or some gambler’s parlay. The cliche you hear in movies before someone is about to wager on something is, “so, ya wanna make it interesting?” Sorry, dude, but if you don’ find baseball interesting on its own, we don’t have much to talk about.

Longer term, I think there’s more at risk than just boring sports gambling discourse coming to dominate the scene. Major League Baseball and baseball media jumping into bed with the casinos is their right, but I strongly suspect that they’ll find that it’s not the same thing as entering into deals with Chevy or Budweiser or whatever. Gambling interests are not content to simply be used like that. The very nature of the gambling industry is to control the circumstances which present risk and to put itself in the superior position to those who do business with it. I suspect that, like the observer effect in quantum physics, simply interacting with gambling like this will change baseball, whether baseball likes it or not.

The Spink Award is going to get a new name

J.G. Taylor Spink was the publisher of “The Sporting News” from 1914 until his death in 1962. “The Sporting News” of that era was referred to as “The Bible of Baseball.” It was the first and usually final word on baseball news for most of the 20th century. It was, scientifically speaking, a Big Fucking Deal.

In honor of Spink’s legacy, each year the Baseball Writers Association of America gives out the J.G. Taylor Spink Award to a writer who has made “meritorious contributions to baseball writing.” It’s a lifetime achievement award, complete with a place on the stage in Cooperstown during the induction ceremony each July. To baseball writers it too is, scientifically speaking, a Big Fucking Deal.

Recently, however, the BBWAA held a vote on a proposal to remove Spink’s name from the award. The organization is expected to announce the results on that sometime in February. Yesterday, Ryan Fagan of The Sporting News set forth his and his colleagues’ view on that matter. And the view is overwhelmingly in favor of stripping the Spink name from the award.

Why? Because Spink was as racist as the day is long:

Fagan doesn’t just assert this. He sets forth an exhaustive accounting with excerpts and historical context which make it clear that Spink’s and “The Sporting News’” racism was not a matter of occasional, isolated, insensitive commentary in keeping with the less-enlightened time in which it was published. No, as Fagan’s article makes clear, Spink used the unprecedented power that “The Sporting News” had to shape the country’s views about race and baseball in a concerted effort to perpetuate a segregated system and to perpetuate the stereotypes and bigotry which buttressed that system.

“The Sporting News” of today isn’t quite the same publication that Spink helmed, but a repudiation of J.G. Taylor Spink on the pages of “The Sporting News” nonetheless carries some extra weight as far as I’m concerned. Especially given how well-thought-out and well-researched Fagan’s article is. It’s worth your time.

Bye-Bye Miller Park, hello American Family Field

Today in Milwaukee:

I wrote a lot about ballpark names a year ago. I stand by every word. Beer names are better than insurance names, full stop.

Blue Jays acquire Steven Matz from the Mets

The Blue Jays have acquired lefty Steven Matz from the Mets in exchange for pitchers Sean Reid-Foley, Yennsy Díaz and Josh Winckowski.

Matz had a 9.68 ERA in 30.2 innings in 2020 while giving up a staggering 14 homers, but like I’ve said so many times here, 2020 may not be a super useful campaign for gauging where a guy is these days, especially pitchers. Matz posted a 4.21 ERA in 160.1 innings in 2019 and a 3.97 ERA in 154 innings in 2018.

It’s quite possible that the Mets unloading Matz has less to do with his quality, actually, than their other plans. The club just acquired another backend, left-handed starter in Joey Lucchesi, and getting Matz’s $5.2 million salary for 2021 off the books could make it easier to sign Trevor Bauer, for whom New York is said to be a frontrunner.

Reid-Foley is the only player the Mets are acquiring in the deal with significant major-league experience, posting a 4.40 ERA in 71.2 career innings. Díaz had a cup of coffee — see! it’s a baseball term! — in 2019 and was decent at Double-A that year. Winckowski, a 15th round pick in 2016, last pitched in High-A ball in 2019.

Hot Stove Notes

• Masahiro Tanaka is in agreement to sign with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of the Nippon Professional Baseball league. He made it official just a few minutes ago. We talked about this the other day, of course, so it’s not a huge surprise. Tanaka was a two-time All-Star in his seven seasons with the Yankees, posting a 3.74 ERA in 1,054.1 innings and a 3.33 ERA in 10 postseason starts. I’m still waiting to hear something from him about this. If it was simply a matter of wanting to either stay with the Yankees or go back home to Japan, no harm no foul. The Yankees aren’t spending any money and you gotta do what you want. If, however, Tanaka wanted to stay in MLB but simply couldn’t draw any interest from the bigs — or if other big league teams were outbid by Rakuten — it’s embarrassing for Major League Baseball. He plans a press conference soon and said he’ll explain his decision then;

• The Mets signed lefty reliever Aaron Loup. Loup had a 2.52 ERA in 25 innings for the Rays last season and made nine postseason appearances;

• The Yankees signed righty reliever Darren O’Day. The 14-year veteran has a 2.51 ERA in 576.2 career innings and was particularly effective for Atlanta last year, posting a 1.10 ERA in 16.1 innings; and

• The Nationals have signed former Red Sox catching prospect Blake Swihart to a minor-league deal with an invite to big-league camp. Swihart last played in the big leagues in 2019, when he hit .163 in 43 games for the Red Sox and Diamondbacks. He’s probably a bust at this point but he can play a lot of positions and is still just 27 years old, so he’s certainly worth a shot.

Mets name Zack Scott acting general manager

The Mets have named Zack Scotttheir acting general manager. Scott spent 17 years in the Boston Red Sox’s front office and was the Mets’ assistant general manager until yesterday. This promotion was necessitated, of course, by the firing of general manager Jared Porter last week. Whether Scott is the eventual successor of Sandy Alderson as the President of Baseball Operations like many figured Porter would be or just a placeholder to do the day-to-day work of running a front office that Alderson doesn’t want to do is an open question.

Brodie Van Wagenen hired as COO of Roc Nation Sports

Speaking of former Mets general managers, Brodie Van Wagenen — who was an agent before running the Mets — is now in the agent business again, having been hired as the new Chief Operating Officer for Roc Nation Sports.

Emphasis on the “Operating Officer” part and not on the “agent business” part. I say that because for agents to work in baseball, they have to be certified by the MLBPA, and I question whether a guy who leapt from representing players to representing owners is going to be so quickly welcomed back into the representing players business. Guess we’ll see.

This is not an odd pairing, of course. Van Wagenen was running CAA’s baseball business when when Jay-Z started the sports part of his empire, and CAA partnered with him to get it off the ground. Robinson Cano is a Roc Nation client, for example, and his monster deal was negotiated by CAA and Van Wagenen.

Other Stuff

In the Company of Men

Jennifer Barnett, the former managing editor of The Atlantic, wrote a Medium post yesterday explaining her departure from the magazine in 2015. In the post Barnett details how her unnamed boss was abusive and manipulative to her and the magazine’s staff, how he undermined her and froze her out of work decisions, events, and meetings, and all manner of other crap. Barnett’s career basically ended because of her boss’ marginalization of her and the larger, male-dominated culture of big media.

It only takes two seconds of Googling to learn that the guy she’s talking about is James Bennet, who after his time at The Atlantic went on to be the editorial page editor of the New York Times. There he infamously hired Bret Stephens, who sucks in 1,000 different ways, and published last summer’s op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton that was basically a fascist screed. He was forced to resign after admitting that he didn’t even read the Cotton piece before publishing it. As Barnett notes, however, those kinds of consequences tend not to last for men in journalism. And they didn’t for Bennet: just two days ago he was hired to what sounds like a cushy job for The Economist.

I’d normally call a story like Barnett’s “eye-opening” or something, but it’s not at all surprising. Having basically worked by myself, outside of an office during my media career I’ve never witnessed this sort of thing first-hand in a journalism setting, but I’ve heard women describe the sorts of situation she describes at their media jobs. I most certainly witnessed this dynamic during my legal career. The culture in which male partners encouraged after-hours drinking for both social and professional reasons, which served to freeze out women or people who made their families their priority. The culture of mental abuse and singling out of anyone perceived to be weak or vulnerable in any way.

These stories keep coming out. Nothing seems to change. Women continue to be marginalized and abused. Men continue to fail upwards without lasting consequences if, indeed, there are any consequences at all.

“Dumb money”

The GameStop stock market stuff we talked about yesterday morning was massive news by yesterday afternoon. The speculation driving that and a bunch of related wilding in the markets — people are now driving up AMC stock for cryin’ out loud — caused people to go sort of nuts, and other, unrelated bad economic news led to the biggest one-day drop in the Dow since October.

While trying to get at least a moderate mental handle on what’s going on, I read this passage in the New York Times:

That term, “dumb money” is one I remember reading last year in a story that explained Wall Street Bets and the broader day trading world. That story also served as a good reminder of just how much the stock market has become, basically, a casino. Non-institutional investors’ money is dumb not just because it’s unknowledgeable. It’s dumb because it’s going up against the house, as it were, and the odds are stacked against it from the beginning.

I don’t like gambling in baseball. I don’t like gambling in our economy. Sometimes I feel like I’m just not made for these times.

The leader of the Proud Boys is a snitch

The story of the Proud Boys has taken a delicious turn. Their leader’s a snitch:

Of course you don’t, Enrique.

Probably worth asking if his snitching days are actually over. He was arrested in Washington two days before the goddamn insurrection, after all. An insurrection that, as the Proud Boys’ leader, he would’ve been expected to be a part of but was conveniently not around for. I realize that real life is not like the movies, but if this were a movie, my man’s cop handler DEFINITELY would’ve made a point to make sure his informant was off the streets before he had to get involved in the real shit, which would risk compromising him as a stoolie later.

I dunno. He might still be able to inform on his buddies. The Proud Boys are many things. Evil. Dangerous. But they are also really, really stupid. Always remember that.

Cloris Leachman: 1926-2021

Cloris Leachman — whose obituaries all cite “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” first, but who the cool kids know best as Frau Blücher from “Young Frankenstein” — died yesterday at the age of 94.

OK, I’ll grant that her Oscar came from “The Last Picture Show” and the first of her many Emmys came from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” And I’ll grant that she was amazing in both of those. But the first thing I ever remember seeing her in was “Young Frankenstein,” and that’s not a movie, or a part, you can ever really forget:

Not that that was the alpha-omega. She had a wonderful career. She did a million things. Hell, she was in “Dancing with the Stars” when she was in her 80s. She was the best. Go read her full obit here.

Lyle Lovett and Jason Isbell are doing a livestream tomorrow night

Lyle Lovett has been doing a series of livestream concerts. They’re casual affairs, with a notable guest, during which he and they do songs, trade banter, and generally make you realize how cool Lyle Lovett and his friends are. So far his guests have included Elvis Costello, Shawn Colvin and Chris Isaak.

Tomorrow night he’s doing one with one of my favorites, Jason Isbell. It’ll take place at 9PM Eastern. It’s only $10. It’s OK if you don’t show up right at 9, too, as it’ll be available for streaming to whoever buys it through February 4. I got my ticket yesterday. You should get yours today.

All hail the New Deal

I’ve talked a few times recently about the New Deal programs the Federal Writers Project and the Federal Art Project. Each of those, in my view, were good and worthy public works projects which brought with them significant public goods. Recently some have been proposing reboots of them to deal with the massive damage the pandemic has done to writing and the arts.

After reading about that an old friend of mine sent me a present:

That’s right, my dudes: Federal Art Project merch. You can get yours, and a lot other cool throwback and quasi-throwback stuff at Civil Standard.

No, I’m not getting kickbacks for either this or the Lovett/Isbell thing. I gather a lot of people who write newsletters do that sort of thing but I guess my brain just doesn’t work that way. Please, no one tell me how much money I’m leaving on the table by not whoring Cup of Coffee out for affiliate marketing. It’ll just depress me. In other news, did I mention I’m selling coffee mugs with the newsletter logo on ‘em? For real. I am. Check ‘em out.

Have a great day, everyone. And if you’re just visiting today, take a chance, take a chance, take a chance on me: