Cup of Coffee: October 27, 2022

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

Only one more sleep until the World Series unless you live in Australia or east Asia or whatever. In the meantime the announcement of World Series umpires allows me to beat one of my oldest and dumbest bits into the ground, there is managerial news in New York and coaching and player news in St. Louis, this World Series will set a dubious diversity mark, MLB is making record sponsorship money, and if you wanna join a class action lawsuit against the league, now’s your chance.

In Other Stuff, if you go on round the bend come back again there's a jug full of that good ole mountain dew, someone is making literary lemonade out of political lemons, slavery is a bad thing but some sheriffs think there should be a “but” after that assertion and, as is often the case, there’s . . . just one more thing.

The Daily Briefing

The World Series umps

No one likes umpires, but they have to have them or else there’d be chaos. Here’s the crew for the World Series:

• Dan Iassogna (Crew Chief)

• James Hoye

• Tripp Gibson

• Jordan Baker (who instinctively avoids clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because he felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible. He was incurably dishonest. He wasn’t able to be at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose he had begun dealing in subterfuges when he was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of his hard, jaunty body).

• Lance Barksdale

• Alan Porter

• Pat Hoberg (reserve)

• Chad Fairchild and Carlos Torres (Replay)

Aaron Boone’s return is official

I talked about this yesterday but yesterday Hal Steinbrenner made it official: Aaron Boone is coming back as the Yankees manager in 2023. His Halship:

If you wanna be cynical — a thing you KNOW I never do! — you can read that as Hal saying “well, he’s still under contract and we don’t wanna pay two managers” so whadaya gonna do? But again, that’s just if you want to be cynical. If you don’t wanna be cynical, you can simply say that Hal Steinbrenner is not particularly interested in doing anything inspiring or improving upon the rather meh-for-the-Yankees status quo.

Adam Wainwright will return in 2023

It seemed pretty clear that Adam Wainwright was going to come back next year rather than retire like teammates Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols did, but we weren’t 100% sure when the season ended. Now we are sure.

Wainwright was scheduled to become a free agent at the conclusion of the World Series so he could have theoretically signed anywhere, but let’s get real. The 41-year-old was either going to re-sign with St. Louis or be done. A new one-year deal is apparently in place, but the terms are not yet known. Last year Wainwright made $17.5 million on a one-year contract.

Wainwright went 11-12 with a 3.71 ERA (103 ERA+) and 143/54 K/BB ratio across 191.2 innings this past season. He’s not the guy he used to be but he’s still better than a lot of guys.

The Cardinals are experiencing major coaching turnover

Staying in St. Louis: a day after we learned that Cardinals bench coach Skip Schumaker is going to become the Miami Marlins manager the Cardinals announced yesterday that Jeff Albert has decided not to return as the team’s hitting coach and Mike Maddux is stepping down as pitching coach. Maddux could take another job within the organization.

If you would like to be the Cardinals bench, batting, or pitching coach, please send your applications and cover letters to John Mozeliak and Oliver Marmol. Headshots are optional.

A dubious World Series achievement

We have chronicled the decreasing number of American-born Black ballplayers in Major League Baseball for several years now, but here’s a new low in that arena:

It ain’t the National Pastime if a big segment of the nation doesn’t take part.

MLB rakes in sponsorship money

A lot has changed in baseball since Rob Manfred took over as commissioner, but arguably the most significant thing his regime has accomplished has had nothing to do with the game on the field but, rather, with massively increasing the amount of sponsorship revenue the league has brought in. MLB has aggressively sought out new sponsors, partners, and Official Whateverthehells of Major League Baseball relationships, all of which have led to a major uptick in revenue that hasn’t cost the league one thin dime to create.

This year, it was reported yesterday, Major League Baseball made $1.19 billion in annual sponsorship rights fees. That’s a 5.6% increase compared to 2021. By way of comparison, that’s about what Major League Baseball’s total revenue was in 1992 or so. Total revenue was only $3.5 billion as recently as 2001.

The biggest sponsors are the usual suspects: AB InBev, T-Mobile, Nike, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. As we know, there are new ones coming online too:

As we’ve recently noted, of course, Terra and FTX are basically collapsing scams/catastrophes, but hey, if you want to pump up that sponsorship revenue you can’t be too choosy. We’ll see that on a much grander scale starting next season when all 30 teams will be getting jersey sponsors. I’m guessing a third of them will be sketchy online casinos an a couple will be crypto plays. Once they’re all announced, maybe I’ll rank them from skeeziest to most respectable.

Wanna join a class action lawsuit?

Major League Baseball has been sued in a putative class action lawsuit in Illinois for sharing viewer data with Facebook:

It’s of no legal moment whatsoever — and it’s probably way too flip for someone with a legal education to say — but at this point in the history of the online world I’d be shocked if I learned that my internet habits were not being shared with giant corporations. Like, it’d be a true upset if, the moment after I watched a Padres-Rockies game, I wasn’t served ads for Padres and Rockies gear on Facebook. Or if the day after my wife and I had a conversation in our living room about who played Al on “Happy Days” that I wasn’t given some “Hollywood of yesteryear” promoted post on Instagram with the Al Molinaro life story or if I wasn’t prompted to buy the entire “Joanie Loves Chachi” series on Blu-Ray.

What? It could be a thing. Someone has to own the IP to that show, right?

Other Stuff

Them that refuse it are few

I was unaware of the fact that there is now an alcohol version of Mountain Dew. I became aware of it yesterday because, apparently, Ohioans are absolutely clamoring for it:

This does not exactly shock me given how Ohio rolls.

Worth mentioning, for those who are unaware, that the name “Mountain Dew” comes from a nickname for moonshine. Moonshine, of course, has an ABV that is much higher than 5% and it has the added benefit of tasting less vile than the Mountain Dew soft drink so, frankly, I’d hush up my mug and fill up my jug with the real McCoy if I had a choice, but no one asks me these things.

Makin’ lemonade

Remember the ill-fated Liz Truss book I talked about last week? The one about her “spectacular rise to power” which was originally scheduled to be published in December? Well, the publisher is slapping a new title on it, adding a hastily-written chapter at the end, and moving up the publishing date:

I can only laugh so hard at this, of course. If one of the 28 ballplayers I wrote about in that kids book I’m doing takes hostages, goes full-Kanye, or loses his legs in a hippo attack or something before it comes out next spring I’ll have to do some pretty fast rewrites myself.

Somebody think of the sheriffs

The U.S. Constitution, eventually anyway, outlawed slavery. There is an exception, however. This is the text of the 13th Amendment:

That “punishment for a crime” exception is why prisoners can be put to work on chain gangs, making license plates, or doing any number of other things states make them do for no or almost no compensation.

This fall five states — Vermont, Oregon, Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee — have measures on ballots via which voters can close that loophole. The idea is a pretty simple one: slavery is slavery, even if the person in question is a convict. Not that everyone is cool with that going away, of course:

Well, if some sheriffs in Oregon are upset about it I suppose slavery is fine.

Yeah, that’s a bit of a cheap shot. If you read the linked article, you’ll see that the concern as articulated by the sheriffs is that the rehabilitative functions of those work programs would go by the wayside. Which is something for which I’d have more sympathy if our criminal justice system cared anywhere near as much about rehabilitation as it once did and as some claim it does now. These days our system is far more of a punitive one than a rehabilitative one. And one driven far more by retribution as well, given how much more prominent shame-based punishments and victim’s rights are when it comes to sentencing compared to other factors. Which, yes, those things have their place too, but criminal punishment requires a deft balance of multiple factors and the part of it which involves actual rehabilitation has far less weight on the scale now than it has in a very long time.

I guess what I’d say to the sheriffs worried about work programs is that if you want to keep them, make sure they are genuinely rehabilitative in such a way that they provide tangible benefits to the prisoners thereby rendering them truly remunerative. Have people work off their sentences or earn actual money for their post-incarceration lives so that they are not thrown back onto the extremely ex-con-unfriendly street without any way to support themselves.

I’m guessing even a modicum of creativity and effort would allow such a work program regime to continue to exist without offending anti-slavery laws while, simultaneously, making it less likely the offenders will re-offend and, in fact, become productive members of society.

Just one more thing . . .

In the past few years since “Columbo” came back into vogue there has been chatter about rebooting the show. Whenever that conversation arises one of two names always, always comes up when discussing the theoretical recasting of the good Lieutenant: Mark Ruffalo or Natasha Lyonne. The former, I suspect, because he kinda looks like Peter Falk and does disheveled and bemused well. The latter because she has played loads of characters who do that seems-to-be-stumbling-around-but-is-actually-way-more-insightful-than-you-think thing. If anyone else has been cited as a possible new Lt. Columbo it’s news to me. It’s always those two.

Thing is: it’d be a really bad idea to do a “Columbo” reboot. For one thing it’d be stifled by comparisons before it even began production and anyone cast in the lead role would be tempted to do a Peter Falk impression. No one needs that given that Falk perfected it all the first time around.

It’s also a bad idea because a “Columbo” reboot is wholly unnecessary. Falk’s personal charm aside, the appeal of a mystery-of-the-week TV show with a charismatic protagonist is not an idea unique to “Columbo.” “Murder, She Wrote” was its own thing. “Monk” was its own thing. “The Rockford Files” was its own thing. There are a bunch of others which have likewise found adoring audiences doing their own thing.

The key to the genre is not importing familiar intellectual property. It’s a far more simple and basic form of entertainment than that. All you need for that kind of show is (a) a good lead actor; (b) a well-drawn lead character with some sort of gimmick; (c) great guest stars to play the killers and/or the victims; and (d) stories that are interesting enough to engage but not so complicated that the show becomes more chore than pleasure to watch. That’s especially true these days when everything is so damn serialized. It’s about 45 minutes or so worth of escapism in the form of a criminal yarn, after which a new one shows up in a week or so.

Which is why I am absolutely overjoyed to learn that there’s a new entry into this category of TV show coming in January. It’s called “Poker Face.” It’s created by Rian Johnson of “Knives Out” and “Brick” fame and it stars Lyonne who, while she has no need to be the next Lt. Columbo, is a perfect choice to lead a mystery-of-the-week detective show given her charm, charisma, and her ability to go from humor to drama and back again with ease. The premise:

And yes, it features a murderer’s row of guest stars, including Adrien Brody, Chloë Sevigny, Nick Nolte, Luis Guzmán, Ellen Barkin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Judith Light, Rhea Perlman, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, and Tim Meadows, all of whom could be the next Robert Culp or Jack Cassidy as far as I’m concerned.

The only downside: this will be on Peacock, not some more widely-adopted platform. That sucks for many of you but it’s OK as far as I’m concerned because Premier League sickos like me already have Peacock. Also, it’ll only be ten episodes instead of 22 or 23 like they used to do back in the old days. Of course there was a hell of a lot more filler in the old days — the less said of “Mind Over Mayhem” the better — so this is likely a blessing in disguise.

The first four episodes of “Poker Face” drop on January 26 after which the remaining six will appear each Thursday. I cannot friggin’ wait.

Have a great day, everyone.