Cup of Coffee: June 8, 2023

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

The smoke from those Canadian fires banged a couple of games last night and it was absolutely the right call to bang ‘em. Hell, we’ve only got a fraction of the bad air from all of that here in Ohio that folks on the east coast are dealing with and I could feel it while out walking yesterday afternoon so there was no way it made any sense to allow tens of thousands of people to sit outside in the ballparks and dozens of ballplayers and coaches to be forced to work in all of that as well.

But there were 13 other games that went off and we’ll talk about those and everything else worth talking about today. We’ll also talk about a lot of things not worth talking about today but we do that every day so it’s OK. Stuff like tertiary-at-best-level 16th century explorers, Jimmy Pesto, Lionel Messi, Martha Stewart, and The Iron Sheik.

And That Happened

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Athletics 9, Pirates 5: Back-to-back wins for the A’s who jumped out to a 7-0 lead before the Pirates even got a chance to bat. Indeed, their first seven hitters of the game reached base against Pittsburgh starter Roansy Contreras and there’s not much you can do after that. Ryan Noda homered and reached base four times. Seth Brown had three hits. Jace Peterson had two hits including a two-run double in that hella first inning.

Padres 10, Mariners 3: Gary Sánchez — who is playing for his fourth organization this season and it ain’t even Flag Day yet — homered again. Juan Soto had five hits and drove in four as the Padres, like the A’s, rattled off 17 hits on the afternoon. Michael Wacha allowed two hits in six scoreless innings, striking out seven.

Reds 8, Dodgers 6: Cincinnati overcame a 6-2 deficit in a four-run third inning and, later, Will Benson hit a walkoff homer to send the Dodgers to their fourth straight loss. Elly De La Cruz hit his first big league home run and it was not a cheapie. The two-run bomb went 458 feet and left his bat at 114.8 mph. The dang ball almost went completely out of Great American Ballpark, landing in the last row of the right field stands. You can watch it here. Oh, and later he hit a triple, making it to third base in just 10.83 seconds, which is the fastest time from home to third in the major leagues this season and the second-fastest since the start of the 2020 campaign. Power. Speed. The dude is certainly making his presence felt in his first couple of major league games. And yes, it counts even if he did it against a mostly dead Noah Syndergaard.

Marlins 6, Royals 1: Jesús Sánchez homered, singled twice and had four RBI and Luis Arráez singled twice to boost his batting average to .403. Miami has won six straight. The Royals have lost six of seven.

Rays 2, Twins 1: Isaac Paredes and Randy Arozarena each homered — Arozarena’s was a walkoff in the ninth, a half inning after the Twins tied things up at one — and six Rays pitchers combined to give up one run on three hits. The Twins have lost four in a row and have only scored five runs in their last five games.

Diamondbacks 6, Nationals 2: Corbin Carroll homered and Zach Davies was more than solid while pitching into the seventh, striking out eight while allowing only three runners to get past first base and picking up his first win in more than a year. Indeed, Davies has only won three games since joining the Diamondbacks before the 2022 season and two of them have come against Washington. There are probably some inferences to be made there.

Blue Jays 3, Astros 2: Chris Bassitt went eight innings with his only blemish being a two-run homer he gave up to Yordan Álvarez in the top of the fourth but a bottom of the fourth inning Bo Bichette homer put the Jays on the board, a sixth-inning Brandon Belt homer tied things up at two, and an Alejandro Kirk RBI single in the seventh put Toronto up to stay. The Blue Jays have won nine of 12. Game only took two hours and three minutes.

Guardians 5, Red Sox 2: Amed Rosario and Josh Naylor each had three hits and an RBI and Josh Bell drove in a pair of runs. Rookie starter Tanner Bibee pitched five innings, allowing one earned. Red Sox first baseman Triston Casas, second baseman Enmanuel Valdéz and third baseman Rafael Devers each committed errors in the fourth, leading to a pair of unearned runs.

Atlanta 7, Mets 5: Michael Harris II hit a two-run, tie-breaking homer in the eighth inning to give Atlanta their second come-from-three-runs-behind victory over the Mets in a row and their fourth straight win overall. Pete Alonso left this game in the first inning after being hit in the wrist by a 96.5 mph pitch from Charlie Morton. X-rays were negative, but we’ll see how he’s feeling today. But really, all the Mets are feeling bad right now given that they’ve dropped five straight games.

Brewers 10, Orioles 2: Milwaukee center fielder Joey Wiemer went 4-for-4 with two homers, a double, and drove in five. Willy Adames also homered and doubled. Corbin Burnes tossed eight shutout innings and struck out nine while allowing two hits and no free passes as Milwaukee wins in a walkover.

Cardinals 1, Rangers 0: Jon Gray struck out 12 with no walks over nine innings but took the rare complete game loss by virtue of his giving up a solo homer to Alec Burleson with two outs in the eighth. Meanwhile, Jack Flaherty and three relievers combined on a four-hit, 12-strikeout shutout. Also: Marcus Semien's hitting streak ended at 25 games, so it was a tough luck night all around for Texas.

Giants 5, Rockies 4: Down 4-0 heading into the seventh — and having been no-hit by Connor Seabold into the sixth — San Francisco came back with five runs across the seventh and eighth innings to beat Colorado for the tenth straight time. Austin Slater had a pinch-hit RBI single and Casey Schmitt hit a two-run single in that seventh frame. Slater drove in another in the eighth and the Giants took the lead on a Patrick Bailey squeeze bunt.

Angels 6, Cubs 2: Mickey Moniak hit a three-run double and Mike Trout and Luis Rengifo homered as the Halos win their third straight.

White Sox vs. Yankees; Tigers vs. Phillies — POSTPONED:

Both games were cancelled in the wake of all the damn smoke floating down from Canada and into the eastern United States. The Phillies-Tigers game will be made up tonight, when both teams had been scheduled to be off.  The Yankees and the White Sox will play a single-admission doubleheader beginning at 4:05PM this afternoon.

🎶 They asked me how I knew my true love was trueOh-oh-oh-oh-oh, I, of course replied"Something here inside cannot be denied"(Do-do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do, whoa)

They said, "Someday, you'll find all who love are blindOh-oh-oh-oh-oh, when your heart's on fireYou must realize smoke gets in your eyes" 🎶

The Daily Briefing

The Cup of Coffee Target Field meetup is coming soon!

Hi, Nato Coles here,

I'm happy to report to all that the official Target Field Cup of Coffee meetup has been booked! If you've paid attention to updates, you'll know that the game we chose is Saturday June 17th, here in Minneapolis, Minn. where the Twins will be hosting the Detroit Tigers. There will be one more announcement late next week about the meetup, but right now with the date approaching I merely want to let anybody who still might be interested in going (there are currently 15 or 16 in our party) that there are a few more tickets available.

Subscription to Cup of Coffee not required for purchase - but it helps. Email me at [email protected] if you want to make a late-ish grab for one. Alright that's it for now, more next week . . .

The Dodgers are reinforcing the gate Aaron Judge smashed down

Last weekend Aaron Judge broke through the damn outfield gate while making a catch. He broke a toe in the process and is now on the injured list. He also broke the damn gate and now the Dodgers are gonna reinforce it and add some protective padding. Here’s Dodgers president Stan Kasten via The Athletic:

I can’t decide if this is more akin to the natives of Skull Island adding more bamboo in an effort to keep King Kong out or that “I Think You Should Leave” sketch in which the door, actually, goes both ways.

The shitty 70s sports account strikes again

If you’ve been involved in sports Twitter to any degree you’re likely aware of the popular Twitter account called Super 70s Sports. The account’s thing: tweeting photos and videos of 1970s athletes or plays and to make some comment about how things were better and players were tougher back in the day.

At its most benign Super 70s Sports will show legitimately cool plays, old hairstyles, and can serve as the jumping off point for remembering some guys you may have forgotten about or, if you’re younger, you’ve never heard of. But it’s also prone to a lot of crappy Boomer-ass back-in-my-dayism and traffics in a lot of old-man-yelling-at-cloud nonsense with respect to modern athletes. Sometimes it crosses the line into truly toxic crap, such as some pretty ugly transphobia. It also has this weird habit of calling nearly every Black athlete it features “badass” which I feel is loaded with some questionable baggage, but we’ll leave that go for now. Between that and its pretty mean-spirited and retrograde world view when it comes to toughness and masculinity I’ve come to find Super 70s Sports to be a pretty distasteful account.

Case in point: on Tuesday, just after the news that Jacob deGrom would undergo Tommy John surgery, the account posted this:

I don’t care how much juice the guy behind this account gets from doing the “players were tougher back in the day” schtick, but this is pretty shitty. The guy is using a serious injury and what was, to deGrom, a pretty clearly emotionally devastating diagnosis as a means of burnishing his brand and stoking Twitter engagement. Setting aside the fact that it’s stupid and ignorant — for every Fergie Jenkins and Bob Gibson there were multiple Steve Busbys and Mark Fidryches who lost their promising careers due to arm injuries back in the 70s and scores of other pitchers who simply broke down physically to almost no notice — it’s just cruel and lacks empathy.

And yeah, contrary to what several people said to me on Twitter on Tuesday evening and into Wednesday, it’s quite possible to have empathy for a guy who has a nine-figure contract. Indeed, the bar is shockingly low. You don’t have to care about deGrom or to be sad about his injury or to worry about him or to even hope he ever pitches again. All it requires is to not revel in someone else’s physical misfortune. To not make fun of a guy for getting a serious injury that requires surgery.

You’d think that wouldn’t be hard, but I suppose that’s a big ask for a guy who got a TV deal out of liking sideburns and talking about how videos of guys getting brain injuries kick ass.

Other Stuff

Lionel Messi is coming to MLS

World Cup winner Lionel Messi has agreed to sign with Major League Soccer's Inter Miami.

Messi is saying that the move to the U.S. is about wanting to begin to step out of the spotlight and “focus on me” but it’s also the case that they’re backing up the cash or cash equivalent truck for him.

Per The Athletic both Apple, which carries all MLS games via its subscription product, and MLS/Messi gear sponsor Adidas will be giving Messi a cut of revenues or profits. The deal will also likely include the option to purchase a percentage of an MLS expansion club upon the end of his time as a player, much like what David Beckham got when he joined the L.A. Galaxy. That bit is why Beckham is now part owner of Inter Miami. Maybe one day Messi will own, like, San Diego SC and will entice Harry Kane or Erling Haaland to come over. Or Las Vegas SC which would be a perfect landing spot for Ivan Toney!

I understand that the level of competition in MLS is going to be a bit of a step down from what Messi has experienced in France’s Ligue 1 or Spain’s LaLiga, let alone the Champions League and on the international stage, but by signing with Miami he’ll get the chance to go St. Louis this July and, assuming he plays next season, there could be road trips to Columbus, Cincinnati, and Kansas City too. Which are basically the Paris, Marseille, Barcelona, and Madrid of America, so it’ll almost be like he never left the top leagues.

Jimmy Pesto arrested for participating in the January 6 insurrection

Jay Johnston, an actor who appeared on “Mr. Show,” “Arrested Development,” and in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” — but who may be best known for doing the voice of Jimmy Pesto on “Bob’s Burgers” — has been arrested in California and charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

At this point I’d say “never meet your heroes” but I think it’s a stretch to assume that the guy who did Jimmy Pesto’s voice on “Bob’s Burgers” was actually anyone’s hero.

I have no idea what Johnston’s defense will be but I do hope he and his attorney let him take the stand. I am certain that his tale of what happened that day will be riveting storytelling.

Martha Stewart of all people thinks that it’s horrible that people are working at home

Martha Stewart gave an interview to something called Footwear News in which she decried the fact that people are still working remotely. Indeed, she thinks it’s awful and horrible in oh so many ways:

It’s probably worth noting that Stewart gained fame through her cookbooks, design books, entertainment books and, later, her “Martha Stewart Living” TV show, all of which were written, photographed, and filmed in her Turkey Hill home in Connecticut. It’s further worth noting that, in the interview, just before the passage above, appears this line:

She continued to work . . at home. Where a lot of other people like to work too, but I guess it’s different and déclassé if non-rich people do it.

Always look on the bright side of the destruction of Earth’s human habitability

It was reported yesterday that, due to climate change, Arctic summer ice could be mostly gone by the 2030s. That’s about a decade sooner than previously anticipated.

That obviously sucks for about 1,000 terrifying reasons, but on the bright side, we’re likely to see a massive reduction in cannibalism incidents and scurvy cases among sailors searching for the Northwest Passage. Plus, I’ve been hoarding Martin Frobisher collectibles for ages and I feel like I’m about to cash in.

Which is something Frobisher never did. Get a load of this loser:

His rivals used to call him “Horny for Hornblende” and it would piss him off like crazy. It was the worst thing that happened to him until the time he got shot in the leg and the surgeon screwed up the removal of the ball leading to an infection that killed him. When news of his death began to circulate, the other explorers filled the group chat with jokes about how the fatal bullet was made out of hornblende. Guy just couldn’t catch a break. Explorers are the worst.

Anyway, I make jokes about obscure explorers to distract me from the utter destruction of the planet that will make it impossible for my grandchildren to live even remotely long or fulfilling lives. lol

The Iron Sheik: 1942-2023

Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri — better known as professional wrestler The Iron Sheik — died yesterday at the age of 81. He had, like a lot of retired wrestlers, suffered from a number of health problems for years, though making it to 81 is pretty amazing for a guy in his line of work.

Unlike so many 70s and 80s wrestlers whose gimmick was being The Big Evil Guy From the Country Americans Hate At The Moment, The Sheik was actually Iranian. He moved to the United States many years before the Iranian Revolution, however and, as a one-time bodyguard for the Shah’s family, his pro-Ayatollah Khomeini, anti-U.S. stuff was just a bit, but he had been a noted amateur wrestler in Iran. He did not make the 1968 Iranian Olympic team but he was an AAU champion and would go on to be an assistant coach for the U.S. team at the 1972 games in Munich.

After the 1972 games he was persuaded by AWA honcho Verne Gagne to train as a pro. He worked for the AWA for a while, primarily as a face, until the time of the Revolution at which point he shaved his head and turned heel. It was a brilliant gimmick given the mood of the United States in the late 1970s and he generated all kinds of heat by waving an Iranian flag and spouting anti-American stuff. He’d take the gimmick from the AWA to the then-WWF and then around to various NWA-affiliated promotions until returning to Vince McMahon land in 1983, at which point he was made a transitional world champion, defeating longtime champ Bob Backlund in December of 1983 and then losing the title to Hulk Hogan in early 1984.

Soon after his brief title run the Sheik paired up in tag team action with Nikolai Volkoff, who, while actually being Croatian, played a Soviet character. When they hit the ring, with the Sheik waving his Iranian flag — and, despite not being Arab, wearing a kaffiyeh for some reason, likely tied up in winding up racist Americans — and Volkoff making a point to sing the Soviet national anthem before every match, the wrestling crowds of Reagan-era America would lose their goddamn minds. It was glorious. The two of them won the WWF Tag Team Championship from Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo at the first WrestleMania in 1985 and were always a joy to watch.

After that, unfortunately came a long period of decline for the Sheik, in which drug problems and legal problems plagued him. In 2003 his eldest daughter, Marissa, was murdered by her boyfriend. He would leave the WWF and return multiple times while wrestling with other promotions, managing, acting, and engaging in other wrestling-related business ventures. Starting in the late 2000s he became known for his Twitter account, which featured often hilarious profanity-laden Tweets denouncing various celebrities and other wrestlers. Or just giving advice:

The account was written, for the most part, by the Sheik’s managers, but they captured his TV voice, which was itself low key hilarious, pretty perfectly.

Rest in Peace Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri.

Have a great day everyone.