Cup of Coffee: April 23, 2026

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

And That Happened

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Mets 3, Twins 2: And the streak ends at 12. Clay Holmes played stopper, allowing just two runs over seven innings while Mark Vientos' eighth inning RBI single broke a 2-2 tie and New York managed to hold on to that slim lead. Francisco Lindor knocked in a run on an infield single in the first and scored on a Francisco Alvarez RBI double in the fourth. Unfortunately he left the game right after that due to left calf tightness, so even a skid-ending win can't be fully enjoyed.

Cubs 7, Phillies 2: The Phillies now have the longest losing streak in the game at eight. And the Cubs now have an eight-game winning streak. Here Pete Crow-Armstrong doubled in the tying run in the second and Ian Happ singled in the go-ahead run in the third. Later Seiya Suzuki and Michael Busch homered and Crow-Armstrong singled one in to create some distance. Matthew Boyd couldn't make it through five but the Cubs pen put up four and a third shutout frames to seal this one. It's probably also worth noting at this point that the Phillies and Mets have identical records at 8-16 and Philly has a way worse run differential.

Marlins 4, Cardinals 1: Janson Junk blanked the Cards on just one hit over five and six total Marlins pitchers held St. Louis to just one run on four hits. Jakob Marsee drew a bases-loaded walk and singled in a run. Owen Caissie and Agustín Ramírez each singled in a run as well. The Fish take two of three.

Rays 6, Reds 1: Nick Martinez had a nice outing against his old mates from Cincinnati, allowing just one run over eight innings. Junior Caminero homered and the Rays got a bunch of RBI singles and such while avoiding a sweep.

Astros 2, Guardians 0: Astros starter Peter Lambert struck out eight and gave up just three hits over six innings of work. By the time the relievers were done it was a five-hit, ten-strikeout shutout. Both Astros runs came in the first inning on a Yordan Alvarez homer – his MLB-leading 11th on the season – so action was not exactly the name of the game here. Houston takes two of three in the midweek series.

Orioles 8, Royals 6: Pete Alonso hit a two-run homer early but the Royals took a 3-2 lead by the fourth thanks to a homer from Vinnie Pasquantino and a couple of RBI singles. Baltimore reasserted itself with a six-run sixth inning during which Coby Mayo hit a three-run shot. Carter Jensen and Kyle Isbel each hit solo shots in the bottom of the sixth but the Royals would never get closer than two again. The O's win the series two games to one.

Angels 7, Blue Jays 3: Nolan Schanuel and Mike Trout hit solo homers as the Angels built a 3-0 lead that lasted until the seventh when the Jays tied things up. Schanuel struck again in the eighth, however, with a bases-loaded double that plated all three runners and Vaughn Grissom came up next to single Schanuel in. Lost in the comeback was the fact that Angels starter Jose Soriano tossed five scoreless innings to lower his ERA on the season to 0.24 over 37.2 innings across six starts. It's probably also worth mentioning that Jordan Romano who, the last time he was mentioned in these pages was getting lit up by the Yankees, worked around a couple of base hits to close things out in the ninth. Los Angeles snaps a four-game skid and avoids being swept.

Mariners 5, Athletics 4: The Athletics led 2-0 and 3-1 but the M's came back thanks to Cal Raleigh hitting his second homer in as many days, a couple of sac flies, and Julio Rodríguez plating the go-ahead run with a groundout in the seventh inning. Andres Muñoz came in to close things out in the bottom of the ninth but . . . didn't, allowing a game-tying solo homer to Nick Kurtz. Seattle didn't crumble, however, and mounted a two-out rally in which Raleigh and Rodríguez singled and then Josh Naylor singled Raleigh home for the walkoff win.

Also: at one point in this game Logan Gilbert caught a 108 mph line drive comebacker off the bat of Athletics right fielder Carlos Cortes's bat . . . in his jersey:

It was not an out because a player actually has to catch and control a batted ball in his glove or his hand. If the ball lands in some other part of his uniform like his hat or something the ball is considered dead and the batter is awarded first base. Not the sorta thing you see every day!

Tigers 5, Brewers 2: Casey Mize, who tossed six innings of one-run ball, righted the ship a day after the Tigers pitching staff shat the sheets. And hey, Jake Rogers' one inning of knuckleball work on Tuesday must've given the bullpen a breather, because they only gave up one run in three innings on this night. Spencer Torkleson hit a two-run jack in the fourth, Kerry Carpenter homered in the eighth, Kevin McGonigle had an RBI double, and Colt Keith singled in a run. Kenley Jansen worked out of a bases-loaded jam to save it. He's been doin' that for 1,000 years, it seems.  

Atlanta 8, Nationals 6: Michael Harris II hit two homers – a two-run shot in the second and a solo shot in the third – while Drake Baldwin and Matt Olson went deep as well. Harris' second homer was the go-ahead run. Olson's was a three-run job that made a 5-4 game into an 8-4 game in the fourth. The Nats would get two back with solo shots from Joey Wiemer and James Wood in the sixth but the dingers didn't build any momentum for a comeback.

Yankees 4, Red Sox 1: Max Fried was ace-like, tossing eight innings of shutout ball while striking out nine to pick up his third win of the year. Amed Rosario was responsible for all four of the Bombers' runs, hitting a three-run homer and a sac fly. New York has won five in a row and will go for the sweep this evening.

Pirates 8, Rangers 4: It was knotted at four heading into the ninth when the first two Pittsburgh batters reached. One out later pinch-hitter Jake Mangum came up and knocked in the go-ahead run with a groundout. That brought up Oneil Cruz who smacked a three-run homer off the tippy top of the right field foul pole to put the game out of reach:

That guy has some power, man.

Rockies 8, Padres 3: Hunter Goodman, which would be an AMAZING name for a 17th century Puritan and/or a character in a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel, had two doubles and a homer. I'm sure his spouse, Prudence Goodwyfe or whatever, was pleased. TJ Rumfield knocked in two and he, Mickey Moniak, Willi Castro, and Jake McCarthy had two hits each in Colorado's 15-hit attack, making up for their anemic showing on Tuesday. The Rockies have now won ten games. They didn’t win their 10th game last year until June.

Diamondbacks 11, White Sox 7:  Ildemaro Vargas hit two homers and drove in five and Nolan Arenado added a two-run shot among this four hits and three RBI.  Geraldo Perdomo and Corbin Carroll both had three hits. Diamondbacks hitters had three triples and three homers, which is pretty good for the old slugging percentage. Speaking of slugging, Chicago's Munetaka Murakami homered for is fifth straight game. He now has ten homers on the year.

Giants 3, Dodgers 0: Tyler Mahle tossed seven shutout innings and the Giants staff four-hit the mighty Dodgers. They even kept Shohei Ohtani off base, snapping his 53-game on-base streak. Ohtani did pitch six shutout innings himself, but after he left Patrick Bailey hit a three-run homer in the seventh for the game's only runs. San Francisco goes for the sweep this afternoon.

The Daily Briefing

Padres sign Lucas Giolito

The San Diego Padres signed righty Lucas Giolito to a one-year. $3 million contract with a mutual option for 2027. There are escalators in the deal which can make it worth $8 million.

The Padres immediately optioned Giolito to High-A Lake Elsinore to get him into game shape, though Giolito and his agents claim he's been ramping up on his own during his extended free agency. Still, the dude ended last season on the injured list with flexor irritation and he didn't have an actual spring training, so the caution is more than warranted. Whatever the case, he must be placed on the Padres' big league roster within 25 days or else he can duck out of the deal and try his luck elsewhere.

Giolito made 26 starts for the Red Sox last year and, late season health issues notwithstanding, he had a decent season, going 10-4 with a 3.41 ERA (118 ERA+). The fact that he barely got any sniffs during the offseason was a bit unexpected even with the flexor injury, but (a) those numbers masked some less-than-great peripherals; and (b) a story circulated a couple of weeks ago which suggested that Giolito was seeking something along the lines of three years and $60 million+, so maybe he and his agents were just misreading his market.

Whatever the case, this seems like a good match. The Padres lost Yu Darvish for the season, Joe Musgrove's return from Tommy John has hit a snag, and Nick Pivetta recently suffered an elbow strain, so San Diego needs pitching. Giolito is pitching.

Yankees players want alternate jerseys

The Athletic reported yesterday that Some Yankees players have gone to the front office to request that they be allowed to wear alternate uniforms during some road games. They don't want anything nuts like City Connects or whatever. Rather, they are basically asking to be able to wear something akin to their batting practice tops. Like so:

For now the Yankees have only two official jerseys: the classic pinstripes and the classic gray on the road. And they are the only club without names on the back of both their home and road jerseys. Every other MLB team has or has had an alternate at one time or another, but not New York. Hell, they only started to relax their facial hair policy a year ago.

Personally, I love the classics. I love it when teams wear their regular home whites and their regular road grays and I've found the proliferation of solid top alternates, many of which look pretty damn bad from a fashion perspective in my humble opinion, to be rather depressing and uninspiring. But I accept that my views on that are pretty damn old fashioned and aren't based on utilit or even rationality. And, if I'm being honest, it's way more necessary for the Yankees to loosen up their stuffy image than it is for me to have my little idiosyncrasies catered to, so I'm OK with them letting their (modest) freak flags fly.

Your kids' Little League team is "an asset class"

Sports Business Journal has a story about how there has been an explosion in the streaming of youth sports. The article is framed around how useful it is for scouts and other talent evaluators to have so many streamed high school baseball games, and there's a nod to how it gives the opportunity for players and their families to have access to video which can help preserved cherished memories. But it eventually gets to the heart of the matter:

“Youth sports was a sleeping giant asset class,” said Scott Bushman, director of media partnerships for Spiideo, an AI-powered sports performance and video broadcasting firm. “Maybe for a long time, it flew under the radar” . . . There are a dozen youth sports streaming services, and nearly as many business plans. BallerTV’s goal is more straightforward: content for its own sake. Annual prices range from $95 to $239 depending on the tier and available features. BallerTV also created a product, BallerCam, that turns an iPhone into an AI camera.

People love to think of their kids' ballgames as an "asset class."

In any event, there's a disparaging reference in the article about how, once upon a time, the only way to get video of youth sports was to be the parent in the stands with the camcorder on their shoulder. Frankly, I'd love to go back to that world. It was way, way less icky.

Bleacher Seats and Luxury Suites: Democracy and Division at the Twentieth-Century Ballpark

A member of the Cuppagentsia alerted me to a new book by someone they know that seems right up the alley of this here newsletter. It's called Bleacher Seats and Luxury Suites: Democracy and Division at the Twentieth-Century Ballpark. It's by a fellow named Seth S. Tannenbaum. From the publisher, University of Illinois Press:

Celebrated as a democratic space for all Americans, the major league ballpark in fact privileged the middle- and upper-class white male fan while tacitly marginalizing poor urban residents and people of color. Seth S. Tannenbaum examines how the game’s economically and socially stratified system reflected changing understandings of urban space, inclusion, and the body politic.

Major League Baseball owners and executives masked exclusion and division by touting the game’s accessibility and instituting few overtly discriminatory policies. Affluent white males enjoyed a comfortable, safe space that reinforced their status as the prototypical American citizen. At the same time, ballparks relocated in response to how these favored fans felt about cities. Tannenbaum traces this journey from the urban locales of the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium through the suburban-oriented Dodger Stadium and Houston Astrodome to the cloistered fantasy of city life offered by Camden Yards. As he shows, owners’ pursuit of greater profits incorporated existing barriers that helped shape the structure of modern parks.

A revealing social history, Bleacher Seats and Luxury Suites revises the persistent myth of the ballpark as an egalitarian melting pot.

Beyond the description, indicia of the book's quality comes from a couple of people who have read and blurbed it: my erstwhile "Say It's Ain't Contagious" podcast mates and professors Frank Guridy, of Columbia University, and Adrian Burgos, Jr. of the University of Illinois, each of whom sing the book's praises. Guridy, who has written his own book about where sports stadiums fit into the social fabric, says, "At a moment when sports franchise owners and politicians continue to tout the public benefits of stadium construction, Tannenbaum offers a useful history of the longstanding exclusionary dynamics embedded in the fan experience.

I had a chapter in my book about how the stadium experience has become, essentially, a luxury experience which is available to an ever-shrinking portion of sports fans. Tannenbaum's book is a much deeper dive into that dynamic which shows that, actually, there is nothing new about it.

Other Stuff

Gerrymanders for me, but not for thee

As you no doubt saw, on Tuesday Virginia voters went to the polls and approved a new congressional map for the state that is intended to boost Democrats’ chances of winning the House. It's a Democratic gerrymander, aimed at countering rampant Republican gerrymandering across the country.

As someone who lives in a state with an extreme Republican gerrymander on both the state and federal level, I deplore gerrymandering. It renders the votes of millions of people completely worthless and creates a class of safe seat legislators who don't have to care a lick about what the public wants. But it's also the case that what Virginia Democrats and Democrats in some other states are doing in response to it is the least bad of the options available.

I'd love it if taking the high road were the most effective thing here, but Democrats have repeatedly advanced measures to ban partisan gerrymandering around the country and Republicans have worked to sink such measures time after time because they simply don't give a shit about democracy or basic fairness. This "nothing but power" game is the game Republicans wanted to play, and now Democrats are playing it too. I'd love electoral reform in which there was no gerrymandering at all, anywhere, and fair representation was universal, but unfortunately we don't live in that world. This is prisoners' dilemma stuff at the moment so the Dems gotta do what the Dems gotta do unless and until Republicans want to drop their weapons too.

There's a lot to read about the current gerrymandering wave in various places if you're super interested in the subject – stuff about the ethics of it, how bad gerrymandering is for democracy, and the like – but I'd recommend not reading any of it in the Washington Post, which has truly shown its true pro-Republican colors with this topic. If you doubt that, here's what the Washington Post's editorial board had to say after Texas put forth the latest in a series of extreme Republican gerrymanders last August:

And here's what the Washington Post editorial board said in the wake of the Virginia referendum on Tuesday night:

I used to pay actual money to that newspaper. Crazy.

Trump continues to order the extrajudicial killing of innocents

Last year Donald Trump began ordering the U.S. military to conduct airstrikes on small boats in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela and in the Pacific off the coasts of Colombia and Ecuador. So far these attacks have killed close to 200 people. Some by direct fire and others by drowning or exposure, as survivors of these attacks have usually been left to float in the open ocean and suffer before their deaths.

Trump has said that these strikes are aimed at interrupting drug smuggling, but there has never been a single factual showing by the United States that any of the people killed in these strikes was involved in such activity. Indeed, the few survivors of these attacks have turned out to be simple fishermen. But even if that were not the case, no U.S. or international law allows for the summary execution of suspected criminals. Indeed, the fact that Trump has made no effort to arrest and try the people he is targeting gives the whole game away. Trump is ordering the deaths of people so he can get some bloodthirsty kicks and some cheers from the sadists in his political coalition. This is murder, pure and simple.

Yesterday The Guardian ran a rare first-hand account of one of these attacks, told by the Ecuadoran fishermen who survived it. It began like all of the other ones, with a drone attack on their boat that came with no warning whatsoever. But, possibly because the boat in question was larger than many of the other targets, it remained mostly intact with most crew members surviving despite its superstructure being destroyed. Then the fishermen were taken into custody and taken to El Salvador:

Shortly afterwards, the crew say they were approached by a US patrol boat, and were ordered to board. Palacios says that when the crew were onboard the patrol vessel, their phones were confiscated and most photos and videos of the attacks wiped. Once the men were on the patrol boat, the US personnel boarded the fishing boat and stole the crew’s food and the beer, Palacios said.

When Palacios looked back at the Don Maca, it was already in flames. “We saw the ship burn,” he said. The crew of the patrol boat spoke English to each other, and used a translator to address the Ecuadorians. “From the moment we arrived on the US patrol boat, they were pointing guns at us, shouting: ‘Get in, get in,’” said Palacios, 54. “They handcuffed us, put hoods over our heads and pushed us around. We were terrified they were going to kill us.”

According to the crew’s account, they were held for several hours by the US vessel before being transferred to a Salvadorian patrol boat and, after several more days at sea, eventually to El Salvador, where they were taken to a military base and questioned. Later they were handed over to immigration authorities and taken to a UN shelter.

There's no legal basis for these strikes. No excuse-creating memos or opinions from inside the U.S. government purporting to establish their legality changes that. This is blatant, murderous criminality, conducted by the United States government. Trump and every person in the chain of command involved in these strikes should be prosecuted for murder and, in the case of the attack described in this Guardian story, attempted murder.

Test your British insult skills

I'm not gonna say that my Brand™ is strong, but almost as many people sent me the link to this "Can You Tell Real British Insults From Fake British Insults" quiz as sent me the "If Columbo was Doctor Who" thing over the past couple of days. Both are worth your time, of course, because they're fun and silly and it's always good to spend some time online farting around.

For what it's worth, I only got two of the eight quiz questions correct, one of which was a wild-ass guess. Maybe I hang out around too gentile a group of British people and not enough plonkers, wazzocks, and clypes.

I'm cool with doing badly on the quiz, however, because in my mind the best British insults aren't the sorts of regionalisms being tested here. They're the ones created by adding literally any noun whatsoever to the word "absolute." "Olivia, you're an absolute shoe tree," for example, or "Ian, you're an absolute parsnip." Almost anything works, but "absolute [root vegetable] is particularly devastating.

Just goes to show you that I have much further to go on my Become The Most Pathetic Anglophile One Can Possibly Become journey. But we're always learning. That's life, innit?

Have a great day everyone.