Cup of Coffee: December 31, 2025

Good morning! And welcome to the last day of 2025. While I don't think 2026 is going to be a walk in the park, I am happy to see this old rotten year go.

Like last week, I am taking a couple of days off for the holiday, so there will be no newsletter tomorrow or Friday. We will be back to work on Monday. And since that's two Thursdays in a row without a newsletter, let's make today Free Wednesday:

Hi everyone!

The Daily Briefing

Anthony Rendon's contract to be restructured

In November it was reported that the Angels were going to buy out the remainder of Anthony's Rendon's contract and that Rendon would retire. Now it has happened, more or less. Per Sam Blum of The Athletic the Angels and Rendon have agreed to a restructuring of his contract to defer the $38 million he is still owed. The deferral period is somewhere between three to five seasons, but the sides have not revealed the specifics.

The key thing here is that Rendon will not re-join the team. He is not formally retiring, at least not yet, and at the moment he remains on the Angels' roster, but he will eventually be released by the club. It's hard to imagine anyone else wanting to pick him up at this point, of course, so it's safe to assume that whether he formally retires or not that Rendon's career is functionally over.

Rendon, 35, signed a seven-year, $245 million contract with the Angels before the 2020 season. At the time of his signing he was coming off a World Series win with the Washington Nationals and several seasons of excellent performance. He has played in just 257 out of a possible 1,032 games since signing that deal, however, making him one of the bigger busts in the history of free agency.

Elsewhere . . .

• The Miami Marlins acquired outfielder Esteury Ruiz from the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for minor league right-hander Adriano Marrero. Ruiz stole an AL-leading 67 bases as a member of the Athletics in 2023, but he played sparingly in 2024 and was DFA'd and traded to the Dodgers in early 2025. He played sparingly in L.A. too, but had a decent year at Triple-A. Marrero is just 18 but he is said to have excellent stuff, so maybe he'll be something down the line; and
• The Angels signed reliever Kirby Yates to a one-year deal. The 11-year veteran is coming off a pretty terrible season for the Dodgers in 2025, in which he posted a 5.23 ERA (80 ERA+) and was profoundly hittable. He has a recognizable name, however, and that seems to be a top priority for the Angels.

Other Stuff

That answers that question

Yesterday I was wondering if Trump had launched an illegal war of aggression in Venezuela or if his dementia had simply hallucinated it, either of which would be really bad. Turns out it was really bad option number one:

The C.I.A. conducted a drone strike on a port facility in Venezuela last week, according to people briefed on the operation, a development that suggests an aggressive new phase of the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against the Maduro government has begun.

The strike was on a dock where U.S. officials believe Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, was storing narcotics and potentially preparing to move the drugs onto boats, the people said.

No one was on the dock at the time, and no one was killed, they said. But the strike is the first known American operation inside Venezuela.

But don't worry, Trump's cognitive problems played a role here too in that, typically, covert CIA operations like this one manifestly did are kept secret. Trump, as noted yesterday, has talked about it in front of open microphones on at least two occasions since it went down, including while calling in to a radio show.

I suppose it's nice that evidence of Trump's war crimes is so unequivocal now that if anyone wanted to do anything about it they could easily do so, but we also know that no one is going to do anything about it because of how corrupt, evil, and/or feckless anyone in a position to stop this is.

There's no cause or justification for this. It's naked, illegal aggression. The United States government is a violent crime syndicate and we can do basically nothing about it.

How about no

From the Columbus Dispatch:

Ohio Republicans want to name a highway after President Donald Trump. House Bill 638 would designate a section of Interstate 70 through downtown Columbus as the President Donald Trump Freedom Highway. The name would apply to a short stretch between mile markers 98 and 100, eastbound and westbound.

These jerks tried to do the same thing and name a state park after Trump in 2024 but that went nowhere. I predict that this will go nowhere too given that Trump is massively more unpopular now than he was before his reelection.

If they do manage to do this, however, and you are driving east-west through Columbus, just know that you can avoid that stretch by taking I-670, a portion of which is named after a guy who was the mayor from 1984-1992.

More Kennedy Center boycotts

From the New York Times:

A veteran jazz ensemble and a New York dance company have canceled events at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, intensifying the fallout at one of the nation’s pre-eminent arts centers after it was renamed to include President Trump.

The center had previously promoted two New Year’s Eve performances by the Cookers as an “all-star jazz septet that will ignite the Terrace Theater stage with fire and soul.” But those performances, like an annual Christmas Eve jazz concert hosted by Chuck Redd, are now canceled.

These artists are showing more bravery in confronting Trump than the Democratic congressional leadership has demonstrated in the past year.

You know these cancellations and boycotts are working, too, because a bunch of right-wing jerks are complaining about them on social media. They wouldn't be doing so if it didn't bug them. And I suspect that the reason it bugs them is because it's tangible, close-up evidence of how toxic the Trump brand is to people. Sure, the polls and stuff are already showing that, but that's abstract in ways that being told, right to your face, that notable people want nothing to do with you isn't.

"Heated Rivalry"

As of yesterday we were still dealing with the issue in which the newsletter was not being delivered to Yahoo and AOL email addresses. I think we're mostly past that now – most Yahoo people got yesterday's newsletter delivered to them mid-morning – but before things got sorted out my wife thought she had an idea about what the problem was:

It's probably no accident that within an hour of me telling her that I would, in fact, write about the show, people with Yahoo addresses began receiving the newsletter. The lesson: Allison is always right.

I can write about "Heated Rivalry" because, at Allison's extremely strong suggestion, I watched it with her this past weekend. I had heard a lot of good word-of-mouth about it already, but the fact that she had just finished watching it by herself the day before and was happy to rewatch it immediately thereafter was a pretty strong endorsement, so the binge was on.

For those who don't know anything about "Heated Rivalry," it's a TV show – produced by and airing on Crave in Canada and picked up in the U.S. on HBO – based on a series of romance novels by Rachel Reid called Game Changers. It tells the story of two professional hockey players: a Canadian named Shane Hollander, played by Hudson Williams, and a Russian named Ilya Rozanov, played by Connor Storrie. Hollander and Rozanov play for rival teams, both internationally and professionally, and are assumed by the media and the whole hockey world to be mortal enemies. What no one knows, however, is that they are secretly maintaining a passionate, years-long sexual relationship.

There's more to it, of course, but I don't wanna spoil anything. I will, however, offer a series of non-spoilery observations:

• The series covers roughly a decade of Shane and Ilya's lives, starting from the summer just before each of them are drafted and going on through when they are established, MVP-caliber stars, each of whom are captains of their teams and each of whom have won league championships. The creators deny this, but you could do way worse than imagining that Shane is supposed to be a young Sidney Crosby and Ilya is supposed to be a young Alex Ovechkin. Not in their personalities or the public stuff they do or anything, but just in their types, as the sports media tended to talk about them in their primes. The young pretty hotshot, the abrasive Russian, etc;
• The producers did not get the rights from the NHL to use their trademarks. So instead of the NHL it's the "MLH" or "Major League Hockey." Shane plays for the "Montreal Metros," who are very clearly supposed to be the Canadiens. Ilya plays for the "Boston Raiders," which are very clearly supposed to the be Boston Bruins. Most of the other teams they mention correspond to real NHL cities like Winnipeg, Columbus, etc., though they do throw in a random "we're playing San Francisco" once. At first I thought that that generic stuff would take me clear out of the show, but they handle it pretty well and you get used to it;
• What I didn't get used to was the janky-ass dollar store version of the Stanley Cup they use, which they call the "Champions Cup" or something like that. It looks like someone made it out of a punchbowl, some cheap composite wood, and a dozen or two perfect attendance plaques from someone'e elementary school days;
• To be fair, that cup was the only thing that was really dumb on the sports side of it. It's all pretty realistic otherwise, and they do a good job staging hockey scenes. Like, way better than other scripted shows or movies in a sports context. Probably because they went with less-is-more and kept things focused on face-offs and shots-on-goal rather than trying to be too elaborate;
• The actors and writers also do a good job capturing athlete personalities. It's so common for scripted shows in a sports setting to make the jocks deeper or more mature or more educated or whatever than actual athletes are, but Shane and Ilya are convincing as young professional hockey players. Their apartments and houses look like what a young star athlete with money but a lack of worldliness would buy. When they're at a loss for words or when they feel some unexpected emotion they don't monologue like a character in a novel. They say stuff like "fuck you" or "you're an asshole" to each other, and it rings really true. You 100% believe that these guys are actual pro athletes, not idealized versions of them written to stoke the drama or whatever;
• OK, let's talk about sex. As I said, there is a lot, and it's in every episode. With the exception of one really quick dick pic in a text message they don't ever show the dudes' wangs, of course, but they don't leave much else to the imagination as far as making out, foreplay, intercourse, you name it. Like, there is a lot of thrusting and cheek-clapping. If seeing two insanely attractive men going at it is something you can't handle for whatever reason, well, sorry, this is not the show for you. Just know that I completely understand why "Heated Rivalry" has become a phenomenon among women, gay folks, and anyone else who appreciates well-made smut involving buff dudes. I may not be its target audience, but on some level hot it is hot, man, so fix your hearts or die;
• One more thing about the sex: any other show or movie, whether it depicts gay or straight sex, is gonna have to up its game after this. On some level we've always known that erotic films or TV shows are kinda fake in a bunch of ways. The angles are all wrong, the positions are not natural, the participants' hair and makeup are too perfect, women leave their bras on, people wrap themselves in sheets when getting up to go to the kitchen, and no one acts like real people really act when they're having sex. That is decidedly not the case with "Heated Rivalry." That can cut both ways. Like, sometimes it's hot and sometimes you think things like "eww, I would NOT be doing THAT after eating a tuna melt like he just did." But the actors, the director, and the intimacy coordinators should probably win some new special prize for realism;
• More substantively, it's just a very good, very sweet love story. It's often very funny – there isn't much in the way of melodrama, thankfully – and at times it's truly affecting. It also eschews most cliches of the romance genre. It particularly eschews a lot of negative cliches you tend to see in gay love stories from mainstream outlets in which the characters are often cliches or types and the writers feel obligated to take viewers through every social and political battle LGBTQ+ people have gone through over the past 50+ years, punishing the characters in the process. In contrast, every plot twist and turn in "Heated Rivalry" feels natural to the characters and serves them and their relationship rather than some trope or some straight person agenda. Things happen that happen to real people and the characters behave like real people. It's pretty refreshing!

"Heated Rivalry" dropped at the end of November and quickly became something of a phenomenon. If you've only heard a little bit about it you've no doubt heard about the graphic sex, but to reduce it to that is to sell the show short. It's really well-written, well-cast, and well-acted. If you're reflexively dismissive of romance novels and adaptations of them, know that this has much more genuine depth than you might be expecting. Like I said above, I found it genuinely affecting.

I'm guessing the book series goes beyond what is covered in the TV show, as there is already talk of a second season. There are a lot of people who have become obsessed with "Heated Rivalry" – Allison and her friends have been sharing "Heated Rivalry" clips and screenshots and memes with each other pretty constantly for the past several days – and those people are experiencing a great sadness that they'll probably have to wait until 2027 to see more of it. Which, welcome to streaming in the 21st century.

All I can wonder now is if its runaway popularity is gonna lead to a baseball version. If so, I'm probably gonna have to dedicate a whole newsletter to it when it drops.

Have a happy new year, everyone. Talk to you again next week.