Cup of Coffee: November 12, 2020

Good morning, and welcome to Free Thursday!

Hello to all of you who have signed up for the mailing list or are skating by to take a peek today. I hope you enjoy the peek. And hey, if you really liked it, maybe consider making it an every day thing?

Or sharing it with someone who might?

If not, that’s fine. I’m just happy you’re here today.

As for today, we have a couple of Cy Young winners who were not at all surprises, someone committing to the Mets, the Angels — probably — committing to a new general manager — Tony La Russa and the White Sox committing to the role of bad guys, Major League Baseball trying to get its minor league P.R. in order, a Proud Boys Civil War, some illegal hot spring chicken cooking, The Queen’s Gambit, a complete lack of voter fraud and the Man in Black meeting the man in the rumpled raincoat.

Let’s get at ‘er.

The Daily Briefing

Shane Bieber, Trevor Bauer are Cy Young Award winners

The Cy Young Award winners were announced last night and there were no surprises here: Shane Bieber of Cleveland won it in the American League and Trevor Bauer of Cincinnati won it in the National League.

Bieber was the unanimous pick, getting all 30 first-place votes. It’s not surprising why. He was the most dominant starting pitcher in baseball in 2020 winning the pitcher’s triple crown while going 8-1 in 12 starts, posting a 1.63 ERA and a K/BB ratio of 122/21 in 77.1 innings. He led the AL in wins, winning percentage, ERA, strikeouts, ERA+, FIP, hits allowed per nine and strikeouts per nine. If he hadn’t been the unanimous AL Cy Young winner it would’ve been one of the biggest scandals in awards voting in a dog’s age.

Bauer had much more competition, with both Jacob deGrom and Yu Darvish putting up fine seasons. In the end, though, he took home 27 of 30 first place votes with Darvish getting the other three. That after a 2020 campaign in which he went 5-4 but led the NL with a 1.73 ERA and struck out 100 batters and walking only 17 in 73 innings. He’s a free agent now. He’s going to make bank.

Bauer is the first Reds pitcher to win a Cy Young Award. Which, when you think about it, is not super shocking — the Reds don’t have the most notable history of starting pitching ever — but they did employ Tom Seaver for a time. As it was, Seaver (1981), Mario Soto (1983), Danny Jackson (1988), Pete Schourek (1995) and Johnny Cueto (2014) finished in second place for the award. I’d never have guessed Schourek. I probably would’ve guessed Jose Rijo. I dunno.

Anyway, congrats to the Ohio pitchers.

What white reporters talk about when they talk about Trevor Bauer

Last night, after Bauer won his Cy Young, ESPN’s Jeff Passan — who has done multiple in-depth stories on Bauer in the past — tweeted this:

All respect to Passan, who is a great reporter, but this take gives me a massive case of the nopes.

Yes, Bauer took a while to bloom as a pro and he has made a big point of talking about workouts and training and all of that, but his story is way more complicated than that.

For starters, he was a heavily scouted high schooler who spent his youth going to elite baseball camps that only the super talented and privileged kids can really attend. He went on to star at UCLA, one of the best baseball programs in the country, and ended up being the third overall pick in the draft. He may not look like a Mr. Universe competitor, but he’s an extraordinarily physically gifted athlete who had been labeled a can’t-miss prospect from a very early age.

Except he did miss for a while. It took him years to bloom, primarily, because he had a difficult and often petulant personality and he had a well-known reputation for being hostile to coaching when he was with the Diamondbacks, which really complicates the whole “unlikely underdog product of a superior work ethic” narrative about him. Indeed, if his work ethic was better, there’s a chance it wouldn’t have taken him until he was 27 to truly break out.

This sort of thing isn’t new, though. Since the beginning of the sport, baseball reporters — most of us scrawny white dudes who washed out of organized sports not long after we got fuzz on our nethers — have lionized guys we perceive, falsely or otherwise, to be products of hard work, contrasting them with people who are perceived to be more physically gifted. The “scrappy” infielder or the “baseball rats.”

It’s all an exercise in projection, though, with the reporter likely bringing in subconscious personal baggage. Silly notions about how they themselves could be that guy if they had only worked a bit harder. It’s also an exercise in racism on some level or another. Reporters have historically discounted the physical gifts of white players and played up their brains and character while discounting the hard work, brains, and character of Black and Latino players, who are often referred to as “gifted” or “specimens.” The former group is often said to have “exceeded their limitations.” The latter is often criticized for having “wasted their natural talent.” It’s toxic garbage.

Oh, it’s also worth noting that the white players who get the “he’s a hard worker” treatment are the the guys who happen to give baseball reporters good access and plentiful interviews. That is no accident at all.

I’m not saying here that Passan is consciously trafficking in racist tropes. Nor am I saying that Bauer has not worked hard on his craft. I’m simply saying that characterizing Bauer in this way is lazy and misleading and that in doing so, it falls into something that looks a hell of a lot like some bad old business sports writing has attempted to slough off, and I’d wish Passan would think harder about it before perpetuating it like this.

Tony La Russa and Jerry Reinsdorf are trying to get their talking points out

It’s been several days since the Tony La Russa DUI story broke and there has still been no public statement about it from the team, from La Russa, or from owner Jerry Reinsdorf. I guess they’re trying to just Trump their way through this bad news by pretending it never happened, and hoping everyone moves on.

But they’re not relying on that solely. They’re using their reliable media mouthpiece, Bob Nightengale of USA Today — the guy who first reported that La Russa was the leading candidate for the White Sox job and who is plugged in with Reinsdorf and the ChiSox brass — to try to do damage control. Specifically, he went on the podcast hosted by NBC Sports Chicago’s Chuck Garfien and said a couple of outlandish things.

The first one:

That phrase — “pulled over for suspicion of a DUI” — is as telling as all get-out. It’s a phrase a cop or a lawyer may use, not what real people say when discussing this stuff. I would bet my healthy liver that he used that phrase because La Russa, Reinsdrof, and whatever lawyers are involved think it plays better than “La Russa was arrested for drunk driving” and want to make the technical distinction that he has not yet been convicted. As if that’s what’s important here.

As for the “there are a lot worse things” part, I mean, yeah. La Russa could commit war crimes or shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die, but that’s hardly of consequence here. A man whose primary job is to have good judgment employed terrible judgment, not for the first time, and could’ve killed someone due to his irresponsibility. Maybe focus on the shitty and irresponsible thing he did do rather than try to make us all imagine the other shitty and irresponsible things he could’ve done but didn’t.

But wait, there’s more!

Holy false equivalencies, Batman!

If Nightengale came up with those “defenses” on his own he should be ashamed of himself. If they were fed to him from Jerry Reinsdorf and Tony La Russa as a means of putting out this fire, well, he still should be ashamed of himself, but Reinsdorf and La Russa should be too. It’s absolute garbage.

God, there’s a lot of garbage today, isn’t there?

Marcus Stroman accepts the Mets qualifying offer

The Hot Stove Season used to be dominated by transactions reporters like Ken Rosenthal and Jon Heyman. They still get their stories of course, but I really love how news breaks in the 21st century:

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, taking the qualifying offer from the Mets is probably the smart play for Stroman. He opted out in 2020 and that brings with it some uncertainty for 2021 and beyond. Maybe some potential free agent suitors are hesitant to make a big offer, ya know? Worst case: the layoff does harm Stroman, he has a bad year but pockets $18.9 million. Best case: he has a great year and then can hit a less financially freaked out market next winter without a qualifying offer hanging around his neck at all, since that can only happen to you once.

Or, maybe, Stroman scopes the news Mets ownership, Steve Cohen’s promises from his introductory presser about spending money and building a winner come true, and he says “screw it, I’m staying with the Mets” and signs a long term deal.

I mean, Stroman himself definitely seemed to like what he saw on Tuesday:

The rest of the qualifying offers

The deadline for accepting or rejecting qualifying offers was yesterday afternoon. In addition to Stroman, Kevin Gausman of the Giants accepted one. Rejecting them were Bauer, DJ LeMahieu, J.T. Realmuto, and George Springer.

Oh no, I fell into a time machine which has its controls set for last Monday! That’s when I guessed who would or would not accept their qualifying offers! I can just make out what last week me was writing . . .

Man, I was smart last week, huh? Should I tell him what last night’s Powerball numbers were? Eh, nah. Screw that guy.

Braves Assistant GM favored to get the Angels GM job

Alden González of ESPN reports that Perry Minasian, an assistant general manager with the Atlanta Braves, is the front-runner to be the Los Angeles Angels' new GM.

Minasian been an assistant GM under Alex Anthopoulos since 2017 and, in that time, the club has (a) recovered admirably from massive sanctions leveled upon it following the international signing scandal under previous GM John Coppolella. The club has won the NL East for three years running and seems poised to be a perennial contender due to a hefty amount of homegrown talent. “Contending” and developing “homegrown talent” are a couple of things the Angels have found to be pretty darn challenging for some time, of course.

A decision is expected from the Angels today.

MLB asking teams to stop leaking minor league affiliate information

In the past week we’ve seen multiple P.R. messes in which major league teams have publicly announced who their minor league affiliates would be for next year without, you know, telling the minor league affiliates in question.

In the past that would’ve been impossible, because it was an arm’s length business transaction with the two parties agreeing. Now that Major League Baseball has colonized the minors in the name of King Rob I, however, they can and are simply dictating how this all goes. With the added, awkward twist of, you know, a bunch of minor league teams being de-affiliated against their will. That’s bad enough news as it was but, as the Staten Island Yankees, Trenton Thunder, and Columbia Fireflies discovered in the past few days, learning about it from Twitter adds insult to injury.

Major League Baseball is now trying to fix that. No, they’re not going to stop dictating the terms of the majors-minors relationship like McArthur ruling Tokyo under Operation Blacklist, but they are going to try to be less public about it:

“Please, guys,” Rob Manfred is basically saying, “I don’t mind if you disrupt people’s lives and business relationships and leave everyone on edge by virtue of your caprice, but please, let’s try not to make it public, OK?”

Someone get that man a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Braves re-sign Josh Tomlin

The Atlanta Braves have re-signed right-handed reliever Josh Tomlin to a one-year, $1 million contract. The deal includes a $1.25 million club option for the 2022 season.

Tomlin, 36, made five starts and 12 relief appearances in 2020 finishing with a 4.76 ERA, and 36/8 K/BB ratio in 39.2 innings of work. He was much better in the long relief role and the Braves will almost certainly want him doing that next season. If he’s not — if he’s taking a handful of starts — it probably means something went wrong.

Other Stuff

Proud Boys Civil War

The far right group the Proud Boys has repeatedly attempted to push back against the idea that they are white supremacists. They claim, instead, that they exist only to defend “Western Civilization.”

During my run-in with the Proud Boys last month there was at least one Black man in their ranks. Whenever I attempted to take photos or videos of them, someone would try to get him as close to the front as possible so he’d be visible. Like so:

Right after I took that photo the fellow on the left yelled at me “how can we be racists if we have African-American members?!” They also made a big point to remind me that their leader, Enrique Tarrio, identifies as Afro-Cuban. More than once someone yelled, “our CHAIRMAN is a Black guy!”

One could quite easily push back against these assertions by noting that citing “Western Civilization” is the most obvious racist dog whistle imaginable and that flashing “white power” hand signals, aligning themselves with white supremacist organizations, and taking part in white supremacist marches undercuts that argument a smidge.

But now one doesn’t even have to do that because now one of their leaders is leaning in to it.

According to the Orlando Sun-Sentinel, Kyle Chapman, the founder of the so-called “tactical defense arm” of the Proud Boys claimed in a message on the encrypted chat app Telegram that he has staged a “coup” against Tarrio. His message in part, as reproduced at Raw Story:

He also referred to Tarrio with a racial slur and wrote that the Proud Boys will now focus on “the issues of White Genocide, the failures of multiculturalism, and the right for White men and women to have their own countries where White interests are written into law and part of the body politic.”

I mean, I didn’t need any of that to realize that these dumb sad drunks were white supremacists, but it’s always nice when someone has your back on something, right?

There is no voter fraud. At all.

The New York Times contacted top election officials in every state to ask about illegal voting. Officials in 45 states responded directly. For four of the remaining states, The Times spoke to other statewide officials or found public comments from secretaries of state. None said they had found evidence of any substantial fraud.

If you hear Trump or any other Republican talking about “illegal votes” or “fraud” they are full of shit. If any of your friends, acquaintances, or coworkers are talking about it, they too are full of shit.

I know it will be hard after everything that’s happened over the past few years, but let’s try to normalize living in a reality-based society.

There is, however, illegal hot spring chicken-cooking

Three visitors to Yellowstone National Park were sentenced to two years’ probation, fined between $500 and $1,200, and banned from the park for two years after they and  were caught cooking chickens in a geothermic hot spring. You’re not allowed to do that. Even if the chicken was delicious, which one of the defendants said it was.

I went on a snowmobiling trip to Yellowstone back in 2006 and it was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done in my life. It was probably also about 100x more destructive to Yellowstone than cooking a chicken in a hot spring but, again, rules are rules. And hot springs are no joke. Those things’ll kill ya, man.

There’s a great book about that, by the way, called “Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park.” It’s a fantastic if sometimes horrifying read about peopled being scalded to death, attacked by bears, falling off cliffs, and other assorted misadventure. It’s comforting, though, because, in an age in which it seems people have reached new depths of stupidity, it reminds you that people have been dumb for a really damn long time.

There are really weird and inappropriate statues, too

Mary Wollstonecraft was an enormously important feminist writer, philosopher, and advocate for women's rights. While she was, unfortunately, over a century ahead of her time, her best-known work, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” was massively influential for suffragists and early feminists. Her impact cannot be overstated.

As such, it’s certainly appropriate that she have a statue in a place of prominence. And now she has one! Except it’s a naked silver woman on top of a swirling mingle of vague female forms:

It has led to widespread derision, primarily because of the tiny nude woman on top. The outcry is not based on the fact that there are boobs and genitals depicted. No one is being a prude about it. It’s that that’s not Mary Wollstonecraft but, rather, just some nameless, conventionally-attractive female form that seems tailored for the male gaze more than anything else. “A naked ‘everywoman’ who just so happens to have super perky breasts.”

Has there been a statue of a male statesman, writer, philosopher, or activist who lived in the last, oh, 1,000 years which depicted him as some anonymous, inanimate naked guy? Would we do this with Einstein, Mandela, or Sartre? Of course we wouldn’t. Why do we keep doing this kind of stupid shit with women?

Biden’s Inauguration

The Daily Beast had a story yesterday about the potential logistical issues of the upcoming Biden inauguration:

Easy: you don’t hold it.

There is nothing that says you have to have a big, crowded swearing-in ceremony, a massive gathering of people, a parade, and a night of gala parties. And that’s before you realize how stupid it is to do all of that stuff during a pandemic.

Here’s what you do:

• Biden gets sworn in in the Oval Office, after which he gives a brief TV address with a few presidential words and says that he has a lot of work to do to undo the shitshow of the past four years;

• He concludes by announcing that, in lieu of inauguration festivities, there will be a V-COVID Day celebration at some point in mid-to-late 2021 once the vaccine has been distributed to the bulk of the population;

• The V-COVID DAY events consist of a daytime memorial tribute to the hundreds of thousands of pandemic dead followed by an evening of restrained and tasteful celebration that, finally, points us forward toward a better tomorrow.

Done and done. That was not hard. Someone put me in charge of this crap.

Happy 50th Birthday, Exploding Sperm Whale!

Today is the 50th anniversary of the time state officials in Lane County, Oregon attempted to clear a 45-foot beached sperm whale carcass by using 20 cases of dynamite.

Was it successful? No. But it did create arguably the greatest segment in the history of local TV news:

“Everyone on the scene was covered with small particles of dead whale” and “the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds” are not the sorts of things you hear on TV every day, but when it comes to the news, accuracy is important above all other things.

The man behind “The Queen’s Gambit”

Allison and I began watching “The Queen’s Gambit” on Netflix recently. We’re not quite done with it — we tend to watch things slowly rather than to binge — but we’re really digging it. You don’t need to be into chess to enjoy it, by the way. Like any good show or movie about a pursuit or a sport or whatever, it’s about the people doing it and their often relatable personal challenges viewed through the prism of their profession or pastime, not just about the nuts and bolts of the profession or pastime itself.

I didn’t realize before I began watching it that the book it was based on was written by Walter Tevis, the same author of “The Hustler,” “The Color of Money,” and “The Man Who Fell To Earth,” but it’s a hell of a thing to know that the guy who invented Minnesota Fats and an alien who would later be played by David Bowie was also the guy who wrote a book about a teenage girl chess prodigy.

Over at The Ringer, David Hill recently wrote a fantastic piece about Tevis, his life, and his writing. There may have been a lot more prolific writers than him, but he had his finger on the pulse of what motivated people, and what held them back, that I always appreciate in a writer:

Great story. Check it out.

Just one more thing . . .

I watched another “Columbo” on Tuesday night. This was “Swan Song,” the 1974 episode in which Johnny Cash played the guest murderer.

“Swan Song” is often cited as a top “Columbo” episode, but I think it’s somewhat overrated. People like it because Johnny Cash is in it. Which, hey, I get it. Johnny Cash was a badass and he improves almost everything. He did a good job here as an actor too, so this is no criticism of him.

I just think that, like a lot of the ones NBC stretched to two hours on first run, it has a lot of filler. My God, once you start paying attention to that you can’t not see where they were obviously just trying to pad time. Also, while I think the crime and its solution was satisfying — the whole bit with Columbo planting the seed in Cash’s mind that he was going to hire a boy scout troop to comb the mountain to find the thermos was pretty sweet — it repeated some ideas from earlier episodes. Particularly the “caught in the headlights” moment near the end, which “Columbo” had employed at least twice before. Once earlier in the same dang season.

That aside, I liked it. It’s not a top episode for me, even if people say it’s a top episode because it’s so memorable, but it is solidly above average.

Oh, and it had a great cameo from Sorrell Booke, the actor who, a few years later, would go on to play Boss Hogg on “The Dukes of Hazzard.” He played Cash’s record producer. His part was of almost no consequence to the plot. I think he had like two lines and they easily could’ve been cut and replaced with some easier exposition elsewhere, but he totally brung it when it came to style:

There was no reason at all he needed those shades or the shirt — which I could not find a better photo of — that was covered in a microphone print. I appreciated the extra effort. It absolutely owned.

Have a great day, everyone. And if you’re a visitor today, and if you enjoyed today’s Cup of Coffee, maybe consider a subscription?