Cup of Coffee: May 1, 2025

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

Well, let's get going. We have so much time and so little to do.

Wait. Strike that, reverse it.

Let's go.

And That Happened

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Pirates 4, Cubs 3: Pittsburgh blew an early 2-0 lead thanks to a three-run Cubs fifth, but Andrew McCutchen smacked a two-run double to put the Buccos back on top for good. There was, however, a very scary moment in this one. Right after McCutchen's double a fan fell from the stands down in the right field corner and onto the warning track. Based on video of the incident the fan fell more than 20 feet. He was seriously injured and remained motionless before being taken off the field on a cart and transported to the hospital. There were reports late last night that the man was in critical condition.

Cardinals 6, Reds 0; Cardinals 9, Reds 1: I know the first game was a makeup from Tuesday night's rainout, but that was still no excuse for the Reds to sleep in and miss it. Miles Mikolas held Cincinnati scoreless into the sixth and the bullpen finished the three-hit shutout. Masyn Winn hit two solo homers and Victor Scott II and Lars Nootbaar hit dingers as well. In the nightcap St. Louis batters battered Chase Petty for nine runs through the first three innings and then everyone seemed like they wanted to get back home or to the hotel to catch up on the latest "Andor" episodes. I assume they, like me, sorta like that they're dropping three of those a week but it definitely ratchets up the pressure to avoid spoilers.

Tigers 7, Astros 4: Javier Báez hit a grand slam in the third to turn a close game into a not so close game. Colt Keith hit a two-run shot. Detroit avoids the three-game sweep.

Rockies 2, Atlanta 1: You can beat the Rockies once, you can beat the Rockies twice, you can beat the Rockies thrice, you can beat the Rockies four times, you can beat the Rockies five times, you can beat the Rockies six times, you can beat the Rockies seven times, you can beat the Rockies eight times, but, brother, you are NOT beating them nine times in a row. That's the Colorado Rockies guarantee.™

Dodgers 12, Marlins 7: Tony Gonsolin made his first start since 2023 – that Tommy John is a hideous bitch goddess – and was decent enough over six innings. Not that he needed to be sharp as the Dodgers rattled off 17 hits and plated a dozen. Mookie Betts drove in four. Freddie Freeman hit a two-run homer. Max Muncy finally hit his first homer of the season. He tripled too. He hadn't done that since 2023. Kyle Stowers hit two homers in a losing cause for the Fish. 

Mariners 9, Angels 3: J.P. Crawford hit a tie-breaking two-run single in a six-run seventh inning which broke things wide open. The Mariners have won four in a row, they are 15-3 in their last 18 games, and they've taken seven straight series to remain atop the AL West. Mike Trout left the game early with a sore knee. You hate to see that, but you likewise hate to see him hitting .179. I hope he has a Johnny Mize phase to the later part of his career where he suits up for a winner and rakes as a gun-for-hire en route to a World Series win, because seeing him limp off the field in meaningless games for a lost franchise really sucks.

Padres 5, Giants 3: Michael King gave up one run and struck out six while pitching into the sixth. Elias Díaz homered – it looked like fan interference from a kid but the umps ruled otherwise – and Fernando Tatis Jr. had three hits.

Guardians 4, Twins 2: Luis Ortiz blanked the Twins into the seventh but got a no-decision because Cleveland was similarly blanked until after he ceased being the pitcher of record. Not long after he left, however, Bo Naylor hit a three-run homer in the Guardians' four-run seventh. I feel like wins should just be a judgment call. "The scorers awarded Ortiz the win," they'd say, because in this case he deserved it.

Phillies 7, Nationals 2: A three-run homer in the first from Kyle Schwarber staked Philly to a lead they'd never relinquish. Max Kepler and J.T. Realmuto later went deep as well. That's three wins in a row for Philadelphia.

Royals 3, Rays 0: Noah Cameron allowed just one hit into the seventh and three relievers finished the four-hit shutout. Vinnie Pasquantino hit a two-run homer in the first and Bobby Witt Jr. singled home a run in the fifth. The Royals go for the sweep this afternoon.

Orioles 5, Yankees 4: Ryan Mountcastle and Ramon Urías homered for Baltimore. While Aaron Judge got his – going 3-for-3 with a homer and three RBI – The O's got enough from their seven pitchers to hold off the Yankees and to take the series two games to one. There was some brief fun in the fourth inning when benches and bullpens cleared after Baltimore's Heston Kjerstad stole second. Second baseman Pablo Reyes had to leap to catch the throw and came down around Kjerstad's head and neck area in a rather hard manner. It was obviously not intentional – Reyes had no other way to handle that play – but Kjerstad jawed and jawed at him for a minute and everyone converged on second. I imagine Kjerstad was still a bit miffed about being hit in the head by a Clay Holmes pitch last year, but jeez, Holmes ain't even on the Yankees anymore. Whatever the case, order was pretty quickly restored. There wasn't even any shovin'.

Blue Jays 7, Red Sox 6: Boston took a 6-0 lead by the sixth inning but that's when Daulton Varsho and Alejandro Kirk went back-to-back against Lucas Giolito, who was making his first start since 2023. Anthony Santander hit a three-run homer the following inning which tied things up and sent it to extras. That's when Kirk struck again, hitting a bases-loaded walkoff single to give it to Toronto.

Diamondbacks 4, Mets 3: Pinch-hitter Geraldo Perdomo hit a two-run single in the seventh and Corbin Burnes pitched six solid innings and picked up his first win with Arizona. The Mets had a chance late. They scored twice in the ninth to make it a one-run game and then loaded the bases. Unfortunately for them Francisco Alvarez grounded out and that was that.

Brewers 6, White Sox 4: It was tied at three going into the eighth when Milwaukee loaded the bases on two walks and an infield single. Then Jake Bauers ripped a double into the gap which plated two. The Brewers would add one more on a sac fly and held Chicago off.

Athletics 7, Rangers 1: This one was tied at one entering the ninth when the A's busted things wide open when Brent Rooker hit a two-run homer and, a single and two walks later, Lawrence Butler hit a grand slam. The Athletics have won six of eight. The Rangers have lost eight of 12.

The Daily Briefing

Mariano Rivera and his wife named defendants in sexual abuse suit

Back in January a church founded by Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera and his wife Clara, and for which they serve as pastors, was named in a serious sexual abuse lawsuit. The allegations: failure to act on/report sexual abuse of a minor, negligent retention and supervision of a church employee who sexually abused a minor, and premises liability. I wrote about the details in a previous newsletter, but the short version is that a girl and her mother alleged that, in 2018, the girl was sexually abused by an older child at events put on by the church and that no one in a position of authority did anything to stop it.

At the time the suit was filed the Riveras were not named as defendants in their personal capacity. Rather, they were accused of acts and omissions as agents of the church and the LLC they operate in connection with the church. That has now changed, however, as the complaint has been amended and the Riveras have been added as named defendants.

In response to the amended complaint the Riveras, through their attorney, reiterated their previous statement that any allegations that they knew about or failed to act on reports of child abuse "are completely false." It's a long way until trial of this matter, but expect to hear more about this as discovery gets going.

Lance McCullers to be activated this weekend

Astros pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. has been announced as Sunday's starter against the Chicago White Sox. It will be his first major league appearance since Game 3 of the 2022 World Series in Philadelphia.

The extended layoff was initially due to McCullers injuring his flexor tendon in a bullpen session in February 2023. He was not expected to miss a substantial portion of the 2023 season as a result of that injury but he suffered a setback following another bullpen session that May and that necessitated season-ending surgery that June. The hope was that McCullers would be ready to return in mid-2024 but further setbacks shelved him for the rest of last season as well.

While McCullers last appeared in a game during the 2022 World Series, it's not like he was super active leading up to that either. Indeed, he made only made eight starts in the 2022 regular season, having spent most of the year recovering from a right flexor tendon strain he sustained during the 2021 postseason. He was excellent in those eight starts, posting a 2.27 ERA (171 ERA+), but that seems like a million years ago now. He previously underwent Tommy John surgery in 2018 and missed the entire 2019 season recovering from that.

Which is to say: it’s been a rough several years for the guy. A guy who, somehow, is still only 31 years-old.

Dane Dunning designated for assignment

The Texas Rangers designated Dane Dunning for assignment yesterday. This just two days after adding him to the 40-man. He pitched one time, allowed two runs over three innings, and that was that.

Some people may want to denigrate Dunning as a player because of his inability to stick, but I'm impressed with his range. I mean, he's nailing the part of the Texas version of Jesse Chavez despite the fact that he's 11 years younger. You can't teach that. It takes presence.

Seriously, though: it's sorta comical how several teams are acquiring and then DFA'ing certain guys without minor league options. Chavez in Atlanta and Adam Ottavino in New York have been added and DFA'd multiple times already this year. The Dane, I suspect, will be up and down between Round Rock and Arlington several more times in 2025 in the same fashion. Any team could claim these guys on waivers after they've been DFA'd but they don't, and I bet it's because there's a wink-wink agreement among front offices not to claim other teams' "flex" guys. It's all a big workaround the MLB crackdown on phantom injured list assignments, I suspect. All so teams can cycle through a bunch of arms rather than, you know, rostering a true swingman or long reliever.

Great Moments in the Texas League

Athletics pitcher J.T. Ginn spent parts of the 2022, 2023, and 2024 season playing for the Midland RockHounds of the Texas League. He only made 22 appearances during his time in Midland, but if this Reddit post – since deleted by moderators as "low quality" – is any indication, he certainly made a mark:

None of that is any of my business, obviously, so I'm not gonna say anything substantively let alone encourage this guy's anger. I mean, I'm sorry this happened to you bro, but all you can do is sign the papers, walk away, and restart your life.

But I'm not gonna lie, I was a bit surprised by the Snapchat reference. I've never really used Snapchat, but my kids did at one point. They don't anymore, though, and I get the distinct sense that it was passé by like 2018 or thereabouts. So I convened a conclave, shared that Reddit post with them, and asked for their insight:

It was a useful exchange. If for no other reason than I now know what a "boof cart" is. Sorta wish I didn't learn about that from my 19 year-old son, but the youths know a lot more about a lot of things than we do, so whatever.

The Marlins City Connects are awful

The other day the White Sox released some City Connect uniforms I liked a lot. Yesterday the Marlins released some godawful ones:

The "305" on the cap is for the Miami area code, but from a slight distance it reads like "SOS" which is appropriate.

Overall thus is just an uninspired hot-pinkening up of what they currently wear. To the point where it looks like knockoff gear you might find at a street stand someplace. Compare that to the great-looking Havana Sugar Kings-inspired City Connects they debuted in 2021 which they are now mothballing:

I sure as hell think those look better, don't you?

Other Stuff

The greatest abuse of power in presidential history

On Tuesday President Trump said that he does, indeed, have the ability to bring back Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who the government admits was wrongfully arrested and sent off to a prison in El Salvador. Other administration officials, including lawyers in open court, have said that Trump does not have the power to bring him back. But nope, by his own admission he does. He is simply not willing to do so. All in violation of a Supreme Court order.

This, in and of itself, is the most serious abuse of presidential power in the 249-year history of the nation. It comes after him doing dozens of other things which are all more serious abuses of power than Watergate. Trump, however, remains in zero danger of impeachment and is immune from criminal prosecution.

The Constitution, as I've said previously, is quite literally a dead letter. It simply does not exist on a functional level any longer. It's been broken by a tyrant and a larger political system which has allowed him to do it.

And he's tanking the economy too

There have been a lot of societies which have submitted to authoritarianism in exchange for what they hoped would be economic prosperity, but Trump's failing there too. Yesterday it was reported that the U.S. economy shrank by 0.3% in first quarter of 2025. That's the first drop in quarterly GDP in three years. It's 100% a function of Trump simply choosing to drive the economy off a cliff by launching an ill-advised and incompetently-mounted trade war.

Predictably, the markets reacted negatively to this, at least in the morning. Also predictably, Trump refuses to take any responsibility. Here was a post he made yesterday morning when the markets were all still underwater for the day:

Compare that to a post he made in January 2024, when the markets were going great:

Not that his dumb comments are limited to social media. Yesterday he said this in response to a reporter asking him about the possibility of shortages and price spikes due to his tariffs gambit:

"[China] made a trillion dollars with Biden selling us stuff. Much of it we don't need. Somebody said, 'oh, the shelves are gonna be open.' Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more."

Either no one around Trump is brave enough to tell him "your kids don't need as many toys" is bad political messaging or else they're all so firmly ensconced in the right wing discourse bubble that no one in the White House appreciates how poorly calls for deprivation and sacrifice play in a country that was so unwilling to go without jalapeño poppers for a few weeks in the spring of 2020 that they went on violent rampages.

Oh well, just another day of America being rent asunder by the stupidest and objectively worst public figure it has produced in the past 80 years.

Putting a hat on a hat

Yesterday Trump held a cabinet meeting in which everyone showed up and spent the next hour saying outlandish things aimed specifically a kissing his butt. I'd say "it was very North Korea" but I feel like we've passed North Korea as far as embarrassing, narcissistic and megalomaniac rulers go so it's probably a tad unfair to North Korea to make such a comp.

Another part of that meeting was that every cabinet member was given a red MAGA hat that said "Gulf of America" on it. It's sorta weird that that's the slogan given that the whole Gulf of America thing was a a couple of months ago and, outside of the White House and the MAGA media bubble, it didn't take at all. But it is about the only "accomplishment" this administration has thus far that hasn't literally killed anyone, so let 'em have their hats.

Elon Musk was there and he got one too. But because, as some suspect, he's been trying to hide the effects of some embarrassingly bad hair transplant surgery, he never takes his usual DOGE hat off. So he just put the new hat on the old hat, and brother, he thought he raised hell by doing so:

At the outset, let me observe that comedians use the phrase "put a hat on a hat" to describe it when someone is trying too hard or adding too much to a joke or a bit that it ceases to be funny. Which, given what we know about Elon Musk's sense of humor is pretty damn apt.

But mostly I shared this because it immediately put me in mind of what is, arguably, the best "I Think You Should Leave" sketch in existence and which I can watch 100 times in a row and continue to laugh every damn time:

Anyway, our government is an embarrassment and I want to cry and rage about it every day.

The Catch

By Jon Weisman

Hi folks. Let’s center this thinly disguised effort to sell my novel, The Catch, by talking about the difference between a fantasy and a dream.

The way I see it, a fantasy is pie-in-the-sky thinking, such as “I’d like to see a pie in the sky.” It’s something that you don’t remotely think will happen, but it’s sure fun to think about.

A dream is grounded in some narrow thread of reality. (It also might be a lie if it don’t come true, but that’s another story.) For example, I can fantasize about hitting an inside-the-park home run in a World Series game. I can dream about hiding an inside-the-park homer at age 57 in a softball game in my local park.

When I began writing The Catch back in 2018, I could dream about the satisfaction of finishing it, even dream about it being any good. The idea that it would get published and sell copies? Pure fantasy.

Three juggling-a-job years later, I finished the book. The Catch was exactly the novel I wanted to write. It’s as fulfilling to me as I could have hoped for. For my part, the dreams came true. Once that happened, I let my fantasy about selling copies – heck, of it being a New York Times bestseller – slip into the dream world. There were precise, tangible moments from agents and publishers that made me believe it could really happen. The pie was heading for the sky . . .

And then it crashed.   

In the face of rejection, I kept pushing The Catch on the literary world, feeling like this was an injustice that needed to be rectified, pushing until it was hard for me to even look at the damn book, which had come to represent some kind of failure for me.

Finally, one day, I had enough. Publication was not the dream. Writing a book was the dream. So why not lean back into the dream and self-publish? Leave the fantasy to be the fantasy.

Immediately, once I reclaimed ownership of The Catch, I could love it again. Which I do, to this day. I self-published, and predictably, it barely sold outside my immediate circle of friends and family. Doesn’t matter. That book resonates for me in ways that will last the rest of my life.

So as you find me here today at Cup of Coffee, I can dream that someone will take the leap and buy The Catch. But if not, I’ll still sleep at night. I remain really, unequivocally good at sleep. 

P.S.: Don’t think I forgot the actual sales pitch. Here’s the story of The Catch:

What happens when three old friends in crisis fall into an unexpected love triangle? In The Catch, Maya, Harry and Daniel embark upon an emotional journey that forces them to confront unresolved pain, present-day traumas and powerful desires, leading them to question the very meaning of love and fulfillment. The Catch tells a tale of ordinary people seeking the extraordinary – or, if that's asking too much, some damn peace of mind.

And here’s a blurb from someone some of you might know, Cardboard Gods’ very own Josh Wilker.

“What do you reach for, and what do you miss? You can feel the pulse of these questions in every great story, and so it’s no surprise that they’re at the aching heart of The Catch, Jon Weisman’s moving exploration of love, loss, mistakes, and healing. But the true measure of achievement of The Catch is that it manages, with wisdom, humor, lyricism, and empathy, to pull us along to an even deeper realm of questioning: How do you keep reaching? How do you hold on? You’ll find yourself racing through its pages to pursue answers to these questions for the wonderfully three-dimensional characters Weisman has created, and you’ll come away from the story, as with every great story, with a powerful reminder that the questions are at the center of your own aching heart.”

Thanks, folks. And thanks to Craig for sharing his valuable space with a crass capitalist.

And thank you, Jon!

Have a great day everyone.