Cup of Coffee: July 7, 2022

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

Today, as always, we have the recaps. There’s also news of a minor transaction that I only mention to make a dumb joke, one of the Tigers big offseason additions is still MIA, Chris Sale’s ass appears to be red enough for him to rejoin the Red Sox, the MLBPA makes a notable promotion, a study finds that stadiums make perfect polling places, and if you do not know who the Tkarón:to Blue Jays are now, you will by the time you finish reading today.

In Other Stuff a subscriber needs your help to identify some books, and I have items on our theocracy, UK political chaos, gambling sponsorships, and some crappy nostalgia-inspiring Latvian cigarettes.

And That Happened

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Tigers 8, Guardians 2: Miguel Cabrera drove in three while Michael Pineda allowed two runs and five hits over five and four relievers combined to pitch four innings of scoreless relief. In the AP gamer a lot of ink is spilled about how Cabrera could make the All-Star team based on his play this year, with A.J. Hinch saying, “If the commissioner wants to add him as a legend, he's dead on, but when you look around at the guys on our team, he's certainly a viable candidate on his own.” I’ll grant that Cabrera is having a pretty decent late-career season, what with him batting over .300 and possessing an OPS+ of 108, but it’s also the case that he’s only like the eighth or ninth best DH in the American League this year so let’s not go too crazy.

Cubs 2, Brewers 1: Keston Hiura made a catch in the top of the fifth in which he smashed face-first into the out-of-town scoreboard. Then, in the bottom of the fifth, he came up and smashed a 440-foot home run. HIURA SMASH! Sadly for Milwaukee that’s all the offense they’d get while Cubs backup catcher P.J. Higgins hit a tie-breaking two-out double off of Josh Hader in the top of the ninth to give the Cubs the win. In related news, if you had told me that “P.J. Higgins” was a Wrigleyville bar where I got TOTALLY SHITFACED in back in August 1999 when I was visiting friends in Chicago, I’d have no reason not to believe you.

White Sox 9, Twins 8: The White Sox trailed five times in this one and tied it each time, with Andrew Vaughn’s two-run homer in the eighth forcing extra. Their only lead came at the end of the game when Leury Garcia hit a walkoff single in the 10th to help the Chisox avoid the sweep. After the game Tony La Russa was happy, saying “I was dancing in the locker room. Pulled something, too.” I’m going to choose to believe it was the Lindy Hop and he and bench coach Miguel Cairo were reenacting this scene from “Helzapoppin.” 

Blue Jays 2, Athletics 1: Oakland starter James Kaprielian blanked Toronto through six but Matt Chapman homered against his former team for the second straight day in the seventh and Bo Bichette hit a tiebreaking solo home run in the eighth to end the Jays’ five-game losing streak. José Berríos pitched six strong for Toronto.

Angels 5, Marlins 2: Shohei Ohtanti allowed only an unearned run while striking out 10 over seven. He’s not given up an earned run, in fact, in four starts and he’s won his last five starts. He also hit a two-run single. Max Stassi doubled and reached base three time, and Taylor Ward and Luis Rengifo each singled in a run. Mike Trout, who is on a horrible skid, was hitless in four at bats but he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to drive in a run. Not how you wanna do it, but production is production. The Angels snapped a four-game skid.

Mets 8, Reds 3: A double from Starling Marte tied it up in the ninth to force extras and then the Mets exploded for five runs in the tenth, capped by Brandon Nimmo’s three-run shot. Dominic Smith and James McCann knocked in the other two. The Mets take two of three from the Reds.

Atlanta 3, Cardinals 0: Max Fried and three relievers combined for a seven-hit shutout while Marcell Ozuna and Eddie Rosario hit back-to-back homers and Travis d'Arnaud doubled in a run.

Yankees 16, Pirates 0: A blowout is a blowout, but Aaron Boone going for two after each touchdown was a bit of poor sportsmanship in my opinion. I suppose the pollsters reward that kind of thing, though, especially in non-conference games. Anyway, the Yankees hit six homers including grand slams from Aarons Judge and Hicks. Josh Donaldson, Joey Gallo, Kyle Higashioka, and Giancarlo Stanton also went deep.

Orioles 2, Rangers 1: Spenser Watkins allowed only one run while pitching into the seventh while three relievers took it home with a final scoreless two and a third. Both Baltimore runs scored on a Corey Seager throwing error. The O’s complete their first three-game sweep of the season.

Nationals 3, Phillies 2: Josiah Gray gave up two homers to Kyle Schwarber — everyone’s been giving up homers to Schwarber this year — but he was the only Philly who gave him trouble as Gray struck out 11 over six. He was backed by RBI doubles from Yadiel Hernández and Luis García as the Nats snapped their six-game losing streak.

Rays 7, Red Sox 1: Corey Kluber worked six scoreless innings. His counterpart, Brayan Bello, made his major league debut and got tagged for four runs in four innings. Welcome to the show, kid. Randy Arozarena, Kevin Kiermaier, and Josh Lowe hit RBI doubles and Arozarena smacked a homer late in the game.

Royals 7, Astros 4: Whit Merrifield, Hunter Dozier and Emmanuel Rivera each homered early as the Royals staked themselves to a 4-0 lead by the second inning and then held on thanks to some good bullpen work to end Houston’s eight-game winning streak.

Giants 7, Diamondbacks 5: Like the Royals, Arizona had a 4-0 lead early but unlike the Royals they did not hang on. Darin Ruf hit a pinch-hit two-run homer in the eighth to tie it up and Austin Slater hit a tie-breaking bases-loaded double in the ninth to help the Giants snap the six-game skid.

Dodgers 2, Rockies 1: The Dodgers scored one on a wild pitch and one on a walkoff, bases loaded infield single from Mookie Betts. Meanwhile, Dodgers starter Mitch White and three relievers combined to allow only one hit. It was a single by Brendan Rodgers in the sixth which helped score an unearned run thanks to a Cody Bellinger throwing error. Bellinger atoned, though, with three hits of his own and he was the one who came in on the Betts walkoff.

The Daily Briefing

Transaction Wire

It’s a minor transaction, but the Blue Lays claimed pitcher Matt Peacock yesterday. They’d have claimed Matt HBO Max but that was too pricey for them so they went cheaper.

Eduardo Rodríguez is incommunicado

A few weeks back the Tigers placed pitcher Eduardo Rodríguez on the restricted list after he informed the club that “due to personal matters” — Tigers GM Al Avila’s words — he would not be rejoining the club following his stint on the injured list for a rib cage injury. There were no further details provided by the Tigers and no one close to Rodríguez commented either.

Yesterday Avila said that Rodríguez was not communicating with the club. Specifically, Avila said, “we reached out, but he hasn't reached out back. We're just kind of waiting it out . . . It is unusual. But we have no choice but to wait and see what develops as we move forward.” He was then asked if the Tigers might look into voiding Rodríguez’s contract and said, “I’m not going to get into that at this point, because obviously that’s a private situation on his part. I won’t get into those legalities.”

As for that contract: the Tigers and Rodríguez agreed to a five-year, $77 million deal last November. He was the team’s Opening Day starter this year. He went 1-3 with a 4.38 ERA in eight starts before hitting the IL.

As for the present: the mystery deepens. Here’s hoping that Rodríguez is OK.

Chris Sale says he’s ready

Red Sox starter Chris Sale struck out five but also walked five, including walking in a run, while making a rehab start for Triple-A Worcester last night. After the game he said he was ready to get back to Boston. Sale’s words:

Sale’s actions after walking in that batter:

Yep, Sale seems fine! He’s in midseason form!

Bruce Meyer promoted to MLBPA Deputy Executive Director

Over the past couple of years Rob Manfred and the anonymous sources of a lot of MLB-friendly reporters have suggested that the Players Union has gotten too combative or intractable or needlessly adversarial or some other adjectives which are meant to communicate the idea that they’re quite upset that the union doesn’t just roll over for the owners. It’s not always the case, but a fairly good rule of thumb holds that when you’re in an adversarial system and your adversaries are pissed off like that, you’re probably doing a pretty effective job.

In what I choose to believe is related news, the MLBPA promoted Bruce Meyer, the man who led the union's negotiations during the run-up to the shortened 2020 season and during the 99-day lockout this past winter, to the position of Deputy Executive Director. Meyer, 61, a longtime big firm litigator and former right-hand man to Donald Fehr over at the National Hockey League Players Association, was hired in August 2018 as senior director of collective bargaining and legal.

In other moves the MLBPA promoted Ian Penny to senior adviser to Executive Director Tony Clark, with Matt Nussbaum, formerly a deputy general counsel, replacing Penny as general counsel. Jeff Perconte was promoted to deputy general counsel from assistant general counsel. Who is now assistant general counsel? It’s you! Yes, you!

Beyond those moves, former pitcher Kevin Slowey was promoted to senior director of player services from director of player services, a role he had held since 2015. And former pitcher Chris Capuano to senior director of operations, business and strategy, up from the director of operations role he held since 2019.

The Tkarón:to Blue Jays

Artists Casey Bannerman and Kory Parkin have created a new Toronto Blue Jays-inspired jersey that (a) celebrates Indigenous culture; (b) supports Indigenous nonprofits; and (c) is badass as all get-out:

Per Complex:

You can get it here. If you do buy one, the proceeds will support Indigenous charities such as Water First and the Dreamcatcher Foundation, which are working to provide clean water to Indigenous communities.

And if you’re Mark Shapiro or someone high-up at Rogers, you should totally call Bannerman and Parkin and inquire about a massive, massive donation to those charities and a license to wear these during games.

Arenas and stadiums are perfect polling locations

A case study published by Civic Responsibility Project — and conducted and written, along with a couple of other folks, by two of my former podcast mates, Tova Wang and Frank Guridy — shows that using stadiums and arenas as voting locations is basically ideal.

Due primarily to the challenges presented by the pandemic and by what promised to be, and in fact was, record turnout, 48 MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, and NFL sports stadiums and arenas were used for early voting and for Election Day voting in 2020. The team studied that election and came away with three big takeaways:

• Despite the belief by Republicans that using sports facilities for voting would somehow favor non-white or Democratic voters, the data dos not show a consistent difference in Democratic turnout and Republican turnout at stadium polling sites;

• Stadiums were extraordinarily efficient, cutting voter wait time, often by hours. Which makes sense in that, unlike traditional neighborhood polling places, they were designed to fit large numbers of people and equipment, they have ample parking and tend to be near mass transit, and they are accessible for voters with disabilities; and

• There were benefits to the teams which play in the stadiums and arenas in terms of positive community engagement and positive sentiment on the part of the public with respect to the teams.

Which is to say: using arenas and stadiums as polling locations is a no-brainer. I suspect that Republicans will still try to prevent them from being used as polling places in the future because, the first bullet point notwithstanding, they simply do not believe that anything which increases voter turnout benefits them, but the data is the data.

I also suspect that some team owners will try to push back against calls to use the arenas as polling places but, dudes, most of you are just tenants as it is and, even if you’re not, almost all of you took a lot of public money to build these joints, so the least you can do is give back to the public once every 2-4 years.

Other Stuff

Help us, readers! You’re our only hope!

A subscriber named Saadaab wrote me yesterday with a mystery. I could not solve it, but he and I both think one of you may be able to. Take it away, Saadaab:

If you have leads, subscribers, put ‘em in the comments. If anyone who is just here for Free Thursday knows, hit “reply” to today’s newsletter. That’ll send an email to me and I can pass along answers to Saadaab. Thanks!

Nice theocracy we’ve got here

A day after an illuminating story about how Christian nationalists are hellbent on imposing their theocratic will on America, Rolling Stone reports that Supreme Court justices invited right-wing, anti-abortion activists who had cases before the Supreme Court into their chambers to pray with them. Then those justices went on to rule in the activists' favor, such as with the Dobbs decision. The foundry of the ministry in question said that, during his tenure, members of the group prayed with Justices Alito, Thomas, and Scalia. Sometimes the prayers would be general. Other times, however, they’d be about specific subjects which were certain to eventually come before the Court, such as abortion, which the group prayed to end.

If true — and there’s plenty of confirmation of it in the article — it’s an abject conflict of interest. It’s the sort of thing that would, in a sane world, cause the justices in question to be impeached and/or be disbarred but would, at the very least, strongly counsel the resignations of current justices who were involved.

Absolutely nothing will happen to them, however, because the rules do not apply to Republicans in this country. They have simply decided that and no one has or will call them on it.

Meanwhile, in the UK . . .

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to resign amid a party revolt. Like most of you I had no idea this was going on until earlier this week when it started to make the U.S. news, so yesterday I decided to figure out what was actually happening. Ultimately it was a lot of things that led up to all of this but the straw that broke the camel’s back, apparently, was outrage over Johnson appointing a lawmaker who has been accused of sexual misconduct to a high position.

I will say that, as an American, I am somewhat perplexed that anyone still faces consequences for sexual misconduct or anything else for that matter as it’s something our political system has simply decided to ignore. If it was America Johnson could probably just act as if he’s done nothing wrong for a week or two while he waits for people and the media to get bored, but you know how those Brits are with their quaint traditions and adorable sense of accountability. I just wanna pinch their little cheeks they’re so cute.

Now, however, the country just needs to go full-on with it: rather than merely accept Johnson’s resignation, the Queen should take over and assume full monarchical rule. Cut people’s heads off and whatnot. I’ll be in London two weeks from now and I have tickets to the Tower on the morning of July 21. I wanna see some right proper chaos.

Premier League to crack down on gambling sponsorships

The U.K. radically liberalized its gambling laws 17 years ago and, shocker, the country is dealing with a wave gambling addiction and other gambling-related issues. I’d say something like “in a few years, when the U.S. is experiencing the same thing, don’t let anyone say they weren’t warned,” but I’ve been an American long enough to know that we’ll simply ignore the problem and blame other things so that moment of dawning realization/comeuppance will never come to pass.

Unlike the States, the UK at least attempts to deal with some of its problems sometimes, so they’ve spent much of the last year working on gambling reforms, particularly as it relates to professional sports. One of the things that appears to be spinning out of that is potential legislation to reduce the prominence of betting sponsorships in English football.

In an effort to head off such legislation, the Premier League is asking clubs to agree to a voluntary ban on new jersey sponsorship deals from gambling businesses (10 of the 20 top flight teams currently have them). Under the proposal, clubs would end any existing shirt deals within three years. Fourteen of the 20 clubs have to vote yes on the prohibition for it to take effect. If they don’t do something, the U.K. government will decide on a shirt sponsor ban by July 2.

As The World’s Foremost Brentford Supporter,™ this is an issue that is near and dear to my heart. The Bees currently feature a kit sponsorship from a South African betting company called “Hollywoodbets.” If the Wikipedia entry for it is to be believed, it’s a sketchy as hell company that, by all rights, should be illegal in its own home country but somehow . . . isn’t? Either way, the reason I do not own a Brentford replica kit is because I have no interest whatsoever being a walking billboard for a gambling company. Well, that and the fact that I think I’d look ridiculous in red and white stripes, but I’d probably get over that if a new league rule or a new UK law goes into effect that makes Brentford get a different kit sponsor.

As for the gambling companies, yes, this will cause them to lose out on some primo advertising, but I suppose they’ll all make it up when Major League Baseball lets them slap their logos all over its crap in a year or so.

The what tobacco company?

Thinking about a South African company called “Hollywoodbets” reminded me of one of the more ridiculous cases I ever had when I was a lawyer. The client was a tobacco company. But not one of the big ones. It was an upstart, fly-by-night kind of deal called Carolina Tobacco Company.

CTC was one of many startup tobacco companies from the late 90s which came into existence because a competitive advantage emerged. That advantage: all the big old tobacco companies had spent a century or so killing people with lung cancer and, to avoid being sued into oblivion, they entered into a master settlement agreement with attorneys general from all 50 states in which they agreed to pay into big health/anti-tobacco funds each year in order to stay in business. To pay for that, a pack of Winstons or Camels got WAY more expensive. Since CTC and the upstarts had not yet killed people with cancer they did not have to pay into that fund and thus could undercut the big boys on price. A bunch of budget-brand knockoffs came into existence because of that, my client included. Not surprisingly, the big tobacco companies did not like that, so they bullied their new business partners — all of those attorneys general — into going after the startup companies in an effort to put them out of business. That’s why my boss and I got hired by Carolina Tobacco Company.

The substance of the case was kinda boring, but several things about that whole deal still stick in my mind and make me laugh.

First, the client itself. The Carolina Tobacco Company had no operations whatsoever in the Carolinas. The company was legally based in Richmond, Virginia, but it had no operations there either. The actual cigarettes were outsourced to Latvia and made by a cigarette manufacturer called House of Prince. Part of the litigation centered on the Latvia angle so, in the middle of the case, the company switched its outsourcing to a South African company. The packs of cigarettes had this printed on them: “Made Under Authority of Carolina Tobacco Company, Richmond, VA. Made in Latvia.” It later changed to “Made Under Authority of Carolina Tobacco Company, Richmond, VA. Made in South Africa.”

The Carolina Tobacco company itself actually had only one employee: its CEO and President, who was a guy named David Redmond. Redmond had no experience in the tobacco business that I was aware of. He was an importer or all kinds of things who worked and ran his whole operation out of a small business park office in Portland, Oregon (not Virginia, Carolina, Latvia or South Africa). He got into the business simply because he recognized the competitive advantage a startup cigarette company had due to the big settlement agreement for the legacy companies. If it wasn’t cigarettes it’d be something else. The substance didn’t matter. In this he was like Billy Beane or Jeff Luhnow or something, out there exploiting inefficiencies for their own sake.

The cigarette brand itself was “Roger Cigarettes.” As in, the pack just said “Roger” on them and had some fake looking logo which was designed to vaguely invoke colonial-era North Carolina. I don’t smoke, but when the company retained us they sent like 50 cartons of Rogers to our office and a bunch of my coworkers would just grab them and smoke them. They told me that they were like off-brand Marlboros. The CEO later confirmed to us that that was what he was going for. Like, when he went to Latvia to do the deal with House of Prince, they asked him which big cigarette brand he wanted to knock off, he said “Marlboro,” they said “OK” and just did it. If he wanted to sell budget Salems or Old Golds or whatever they could’ve done that too. My coworkers told me, by the way, that the Rogers made in Latvia tasted better than the ones made in South Africa, a large supply of which was also sent to our office a few months later.

David Redmond was a weird dude, but he did one thing that made me laugh. We had lost on several counts at the trial court level and had taken the case all the way up to the Ohio Supreme Court. He was still very happy with our work, though, in that we had allowed him to stay in business for like three years more than the ever thought he’d be able to. On the eve of the Supreme Court arguments he flew into town and took my bosses and me out to dinner. Before he arrived he said he had a “very special gift” for the three of us for all of our hard work. My boss wondered if it might be rare and expensive scotch, for which Redmond had said he had a fondness. When we got to dinner he presented us with engraved cigarette lighters. Rather cheap and shitty ones, too. Mine didn’t even work. He was very proud of his gift and we all acted like it was great. Later my boss threw his away. I think I still have mine in a box in my garage. I think I have a nearly 20 year-old unopened pack of Rogers too. I bet they don’t taste like Marlboros anymore.

Anyway, we lost at the Supreme Court too. They didn’t even write an opinion of substance. You can read the appellate court decision here, though. I wrote the appellate brief. It was actually a damn good brief and I was pretty proud of it. We just didn’t have the law on our side.

And no, I did not feel guilty for representing a tobacco company, because while our opponent was, technically, the state of Ohio, the state’s whole case was pressed by the big tobacco companies like R.J. Reynolds and those dudes, and I’m pretty sure their lawyers did most of the work for the state. There were no good guys here, but the weirdo importer from Oregon who simply saw a way to make some quick cigarette bucks with a geographically ambiguous company was less bad, I reckon.

Have a great day, everyone.