Cup of Coffee: May 28, 2026

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

First, some housekeeping:

As of yesterday Ghost has rolled out dislikes/thumbs-down buttons for comments. I don't know why. Whenever they introduce new features they always say "so many of you were asking for this!" but I've never met anyone who actually asked for that. Whatever. I generally don't feel like I need to moderate or police anything here because of how great and positive and constructive all of you all are in the comments, so this will likely not matter a bit, but allow me to say, at least once: "be nice, people."

With that out of the way, let's go.

And That Happened

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Yankees 7, Royals 0: Garrett Cole has been doing a John Wick-style, "yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back" kind of thing so far. In his second outing since 2024 he pitched shutout ball into the seventh, striking out ten. That goes with the six scoreless innings in his first outing last Friday. Ben Rice tripled in a run and singled in two while Ryan McMahon hit a late two-run homer.

Dodgers 4, Rockies 1: Another day, another reminder that there hasn't been a player like Shohei Ohtani for over 100 years, if ever. The winner of three strait MVP Awards struck out the first batter he faced while pitching in the top of the first and then led off the bottom of the first with a long homer to dead center. He'd end up holding Colorado hitless for six innings, allowing a run due to a walk, a hit batsmen, and a couple of groundouts, while striking out seven. The Rockies didn't get a hit at all until there were two outs in the eighth, in fact, when Tyler Freeman singled off of Tanner Scott. It'd be the only hit of the night for them.

Still, Ohtani was unhappy after the game:

"Of course you want to avoid the hits, but the result of that was a lot of walks today. That's something that I just don't really want to do."

Perfectionism often serves as a survival or coping mechanism that comes as the byproduct of a demanding or sometimes even traumatic childhood. It can lead to endless striving, leaving contentment ever-elusive. Talk to your therapist, Shohei. They can give you the tools to accept the fact that sometimes you walk or plunk a guy. I love you man, but you also have to love yourself, flaws and all.

Freddie Freeman and Andy Pages added homers of their own to fill out the box score. The Dodgers have won five in a row.

Orioles 11, Rays 2: A total ass-kicking here, as Blaze Alexander hit a two-run homer, a two-run double, and a two-run single for a six-RBI night and Gunnar Henderson homered twice. Also: subscriber Jeff Freedman messaged me to tell me that (a) it was Camden Yards' "Bark in the Park Night" last night and that the game's home plate umpire was . . . Lance Barksdale. Somebody fire the writers.

Phillies 3, Padres 0: Cristopher Sánchez continued his run of dominance yesterday afternoon, tossing seven shutout innings while striking out nine. That brings Sánchez up to 44.2 consecutive scoreless innings, which sets a new Phillies franchise record. The old record holder? Grover frickin' Cleveland frickin' Alexander back in 19-dickety-11. Sánchez has not allowed a run since the first inning of the first game of Philly's April 30 doubleheader against the Giants. He still has fourteen and a third innings to go to match Orel Hershiser, but if he gets through just one-third more of an inning unscathed he'll be in a four-way tie for eighth all-time with Cy Young, Sal Maglie, and Doc White. Philly got two in the sixth on a Kyle Schwarber single and a Trea Turner groundout. Turner homered in the ninth.

Cubs 10, Pirates 4: The losing streak is over. Woo! Ian Happ hit a tie-breaking three-run home run in the seventh and drove in five on the night so drinks were on anyone but him. After his dinger Michael Conforto hit a two-run pinch-hit homer. At the end of the AP gamer it said, "Wednesday marked the 2,000th regular-season game played at PNC Park, which opened in 2001. The Pirates have a 1,003-996-1 record there." I would not have initially guessed that the Pirates were over .500 at home in that time, but I suppose those good 3-4 years they had under Clint Hurdle in the teens salvaged things.

Brewers 2, Cardinals 1: St. Louis starter Dustin May took a no-hitter into the bottom of the eighth inning but lost it when he gave up a leadoff double to Garrett Mitchell. Then he lost the shutout and the potential win when Luis Rengifo reached on a bunt single, Christian Yelich singled in Mitchell, and then scored on an error which put the Brewers in front 2-1. Nice try, though, Dustin. You were 21 outs closer to a no-hitter than any of us have ever been, but no one beats Brewers Devil Magic these days. Not even the Cardinals, who invented Devil Magic. Brewers complete the three-game sweep.

Guardians 3, Nationals 2: Cleveland starter Gavin Williams was sharp in this one, allowing just one run on three hits over seven. He got all three of his supporting runs in the fifth when José Ramírez hit sacrifice fly, Chase DeLauter singled in a run, and Angel Martínez singled in DeLauter. My friend texted me after this one to tell me that the Cleveland Plain Dealer's headline on this game was "Guardians’ Travis Kelce Era begins with a 3-2 win against the Nationals." So we have that stuff to listen to for a while. Cleveland avoids a three-game sweep.

Blue Jays 2, Marlins 1: Kevin Gausman gave up a first-inning run but then he held Miami scoreless for the next four and four Jays relievers held them scoreless for the final four. Blue Jays pitchers did allow 11 hits – I'm legally obligated to say they were "scattered" in this situation – but Miami hitters couldn't deliver with runners in scoring position. The Jays got their two runs via a Nathan Lukes double and a solo homer from Kazuma Okamoto. Toronto takes two of three.

Mariners 9, Athletics 1: Logan Gilbert pitched six scoreless innings while Rob Refsnyder and Julio Rodríguez each hit three-run home runs. Colt Emerson had a two-run triple. The M's complete the three-game sweep and move into first place in the AL West.

Diamondbacks 3, Giants 2: Mike Soroka allowed two runs over six innings and Arizona took the lead in the middle innings thanks to an RBI single from Adrian Del Castillo, a sac fly from Ildemaro Vargas, and a sac fly from Geraldo Perdomo in the seventh. The Dbacks sweep the Giants and have won 10 of 11.

Tigers 4, Angels 0: Even a rare win wasn't all that enjoyable for the Tigers as they lost both starter Casey Mize and closer Kenley Jansen to injuries in this one. Mize left after four shutout innings with right groin tightness and Jansen slipped on the mound with two outs in the ninth, issued a walk, and then called to the dugout with what is also looking like a groin thing. The Tigers already have 14 players on the injured list, including nine pitchers, and I'd guess they're about to have two more. Injuries have absolutely wrecked Detroit this year.

Red Sox 8, Atlanta 0: Connelly Early, grandson of famed late-70s Cincinnati DJ Heavy Early, tossed seven shutout innings and Ryan Watson handled the final two frames of the five-hitter. The Sox scored six in the fourth inning thanks to Masataka Yoshida scoring on a throwing error, Isiah Kiner-Falefa hitting an RBI single, and  Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu each hitting two-run singles. Later Marcelo Mayer had an RBI single and Jarren Duran homered. Duran went 4--for-5. Rafaela went 3-of-5 with those two RBI, and scored a run. Boston snaps a four-game skid.

Mets 4, Reds 2: A bullpen game was just what the doctor ordered as a bunch of Mets pitchers combined to allow just two runs, only one of which was earned. Juan Soto and Eric Wagaman homered while Carson Benge had two RBI singles. New York snaps a five-game skid.

White Sox 15, Twins 2: Chase Meidroth hit a grand slam, Munetaka Murakami went 2-for-4 and hit his 20th homer of the year, Sam Antonacci went 3-for-4 with three RBI, Randal Grichuk had three hits and drove in two, and Colson Montgomery and Tristan Peters each added two hits.

Astros 4, Rangers 3:  Yordan Alvarez homered twice for the second consecutive game, including a tie-breaking solo shot in the eighth of this one, so let's just call him the Man of the Match and be done with it. His second dinger tied him with Murakami at 20 on the year. Joc Pederson also had two solo homers for the Rangers but his team lost so no Man of the Match honors for him.

The Daily Briefing

What the owners really want

Even Drellich of The Athletic has a good, thorough summary of where things stand in baseball labor as the owners and the players get ready to get into negotiations in earnest. The key takeaway: the owners care about one thing and one thing only, and it's not competitive balance. To them it's all about the appreciation of franchise values:

Why, at a time when MLB has otherwise built positive momentum, would the league pursue such an acrimonious change, and risk alienating fans with a work stoppage? Many issues are at play, but none supersede the long game owners are playing. Their mission is to maximize the worth of their teams.

Baseball has always been a business, yes — but not like this. Private equity has flowed into the sport for the better part of a decade, and someday, those investors will want a return. And even though every team continues to grow in value, many owners believe that their clubs should command still-higher prices . . . As an expected lockout in December approaches, few questions will be more relevant than these: what is the state of baseball franchise values today? How has private equity’s entry into ownership groups affected those values, and how will franchise values affect the potential work stoppage?

Baseball owners and their friends in private equity are making a lot of money these days, and as the sale of the Padres has shown, franchise values are going up pretty damn steadily. Except they're not going up as much as NFL and NBA franchise values are, and there's nothing that billionaires and their bankers hate more than seeing someone else doing better than them, even if they have more money than they could spend in a thousand lifetimes. It's all about making the line graph go up more steeply than it already is for its own sake because, for people like that, money is about keeping score and no one wants to "lose."

There are, however, practical limits to how hard the owners can go in order to impose a salary cap that, they believe anyway, will make the franchise values line graph go up more steeply. As I've mentioned in the past, one limiting factor is that most of these guys bought their teams with hefty amounts of debt and they have bills to pay. If you force an extended work stoppage – and making the imposition of a salary cap an essential part of a new CBA will absolutely force an extended work stoppage – the cash won't flow and debt payments will be missed.

Perhaps even more significantly given the owners' apparent priorities is that an extended work stoppage will harm baseball's reputation pretty severely which, in turn, will actually serve to depress those franchise values they wanna see go up so sharply. We've seen this several times throughout baseball history. It's just part of the way in which baseball is treated differently by the public than the other sports leagues are when there are business challenges and labor strife. For football and basketball, everyone just understands that it's about dollars and cents and that even if there are hiccups everything will be fine. When baseball has labor mishegas, however, it's treated like it has broken some sacred trust with America and gets judged far, far more harshly for it, often for years.

The owners are already way ahead of the house just by the nature of the business they're in, but it seems as if they're willing to take a pretty big gamble to get ahead even more. Which means that a work stoppage would largely be on them and their appetites, even if it's highly unlikely that it'll ever be reported that way by the time the labor negotiations begin being covered by the general sporting press later this year. To the non-baseball-specific press, it'll be the same old "players greedy . . . players bad . . . salary cap essential" rebop. But we all know better.

The Players' first demands

Against that backdrop, the MLBPA made its first set of proposals yesterday. The union historically has not talked about this stuff in the press, but I suppose with Tony Clark out there's a new sheriff in town, so the major points, were released to the press. Here they are, as communicated to and by Jeff Passan and then, later, reported by Even Drellich of The Athletic:

• A "competitive-integrity tax" for any team that does not spend $150 million;
• An increase in the minimum salary from $780,000 to $1.5 million;
• An increase in base Competitive Balance Tax threshold from $244 million to $300 million;
• Changes to the revenue-sharing system that would distribute more money from local television revenue but decrease the amount distributed from in-stadium revenue, thereby incentivizing teams that draw larger crowds, which is usually a function of winning;
• Free agency for players who are 30 years-old and at have five+ years of service time instead of six years, shaving off a year for guys who got a later start;
• If teams do not spend the revenue-sharing dollars they receive on payroll they cannot collect future revenue sharing dollars, while teams that receive revenue sharing and win more games will receive bonuses;
• Increasing the pre-arb bonus pool that was set up in the current CBA from $50 million to $180 million;
• Make the minimum tender in arbitration $3 million; and
• Double the number of players who become eligible for arbitration as "Super Twos" from 22% of players to 44%.

There's obviously a lot going on there, but we can see some general aims and strategies. Several of these points flow with the union's efforts to get more money to players earlier in their careers rather than waiting for free agency for their first big payday. Several others aim to go after the teams who don't spend much on payroll and seek ways to incentivize winning.

The "Competitive Integrity Tax" is a novel way of approaching that, I suppose, but the owners would counter by saying "well, that's a salary floor and you can't have that without a cap." The players, of course, would say that having a Competitive Balance Tax is a functional cap without a floor, so what's good for the goose, etc.

If I had to guess I'd say that that item was put in there as a means of highlighting the owners' incoherence when it comes to salary cap demands, but who knows. Maybe the union is willing to move in new and unexpected directions as long as the nomenclature changes. I mean, I doubt that, but every new CBA negotiation leads to new and previously unanticipated stuff and I'm always surprised by something.

Here is the statement from interim MLBPA Executive Director Bruce Meyer:

“Our goal is to preserve and improve baseball’s market system, rewarding competition on and off the field. The players’ proposals provide increased revenue sharing initially guaranteeing every small market club a minimum of $240 million in revenue every season. This enhanced revenue sharing includes added protections to ensure clubs prioritize winning over profiteering. Ultimately, our proposals are designed to build upon the incredible momentum and popularity of our sport world-wide.”

MLB's statement, from MLB spokesperson Glen Caplin:

"We understand their proposals are designed to benefit players. Unfortunately, they do not address and in fact exacerbate the competitive balance problem our fans are telling us we must accept."

It's so cute that they're keeping up with the "we mostly care about competitive balance" charade given what we learned earlier in the day, but spokesmen are gonna spokesman.

Whatever. Don't get too hung up on any of this. We have a long, long way to go until the CBA is up in December and the sides generally don't get down to brass tacks until right before – or sometimes even after – that deadline.

Andrew McCutchen DFA'd

Texas Rangers designated hitter was designated for assignment yesterday. That would be Andrew McCutchen, who hit just .192 (14-for-73) with one homer and five RBI over 37 games this year.

Cutch is 39 now, he has little to no defensive value, and his only plausible offensive use is as the right-handed hitting sign of a DH platoon, so it's not like his market is wide. Of course I thought Craig Kimbrel was done too, so maybe someone will give the 2013 NL MVP a look.

Travis Kelce buys a stake in the Guardians

Passan of also reported yesterday that Travis Kelce is buying in to the Cleveland Guardians' ownership group as a minority investor. Kelce is from Ohio, most folks likely know, and he's been a Cleveland baseball fan his whole life.

Kelce's NFL teammate Patrick Mahomes became a minority owner of the Kansas City Royals several years ago. I'd say something like "I bet they'll have some friendly locker room wagers on their baseball teams" but owners aren't allowed to bet on their own teams so maybe forget that part.

In other news, I am glad I don't work for an ad-driven media company anymore for about 50 reasons, but the fact that I don't need to write up this item with a big, SEO-optimized headline while mentioning Taylor Swift's name 50 times because, "hey, traffic pays the bills," is certainly one of them.

MLB's Semiquincentennial plans

I mostly just like to say "Semiquincentennial." It's a quality word.

Major League Baseball sent out a press release announcing all of the stuff they're doing to commemorate (i.e. exploit) America's 250th birthday. Much of it is what you might expect:

• A national marketing campaign characterizing baseball as "For the People." Which holds in theory, I suppose, even if most of "the People" are priced out of going to ballgames anymore;
• Some partnership with Booking dot com which highlights something fun and basebally in each of the 50 states. I'd make a joke here but I once did a tour of baseball stuff in southern West Virginia and created content out of it for the Southern West Virginia Convention and Visitor's Bureau so I can tell you that, yes, there is fun baseball crap basically everywhere if you look hard enough. So kudos on this one even if it's a function of some sort of commercial partnership;
• Some "explore all 30 ballparks" platform with T-mobile that I don't really understand and I'm not sure how it relates to the Semiquincentennial. Either way, it's bound to be the most effective T-Mobile/MLB team-up since that time back in the teens when T-Mobile tried to make the bullpen phones sponsored wireless products, the tech didn't work, and they just scrapped the whole deal;
• Some partnership with Ford which names Ford "The Official Automotive Partner of MLB." Again, I'm not sure what that has to do with the Semiquincentennial apart from some vague "Ford IS America!" thing, but they said that back when Chevy was their partner too so I'm not sure what the fuss is. Also: does this mean that the All-Star Game MVP no longer wins a Camaro? Yes, I know they don't make Camaros anymore, but it'd be better if they still ran this promotion and gave the MVP an old one;
• "During all MLB games on the Fourth of July, teams will sport newly designed Nike jerseys with stars and stripes-themed numbers, as well as red, white and blue New Era caps and Stance socks to visually represent and pay tribute to the nation’s founding." I'm not sure how that is any different from the multiple times a year teams already do stuff like that, but this time there will be MAXIMUM AMERICANING, I'm sure. Except for the Blue Jays I hope.

There's a bunch of other stuff too, which you can read about here. The best thing, however, is this, which is attached to that whole "For the People" campaign:

Airing across broadcast, cable, digital, social and streaming, this first spot will feature a new, unreleased mix from the original multi-track tapes of the iconic song “American Girl” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers — commemorating the 50^th anniversary of its recording, originally recorded on July 4, 1976 — with a Hi-Res / Dolby Atmos release of the track set to debut in June.

That's a good song and all, but I think "Don't Come Around Here No More" or maybe "Breakdown" better captures the current state of America. Also, while it was recorded in late 1975, "Afternoon Delight" by the Starland Vocal Band hit #1 in America just six days after the Bicentennial and it'd be awesome if that was the Song of the Summer for the Semiquincentennial, but you do you, MLB.

Other Stuff

How to spend a weekend in Columbus

A lot of people coming to Columbus, Ohio for work stuff or university stuff or conventions or whatever ask me about what to do and where to eat here. This, from Midwestern Living, isn't a bad article along those lines, even if it skews a tad high-end with its restaurant recommendations.

Several of the places mentioned, including Agni, the restaurant which leads the story, the vegan place, Commune, The Book Loft, the bath products/candle place at 3rd and Sycamore, Fox in the Snow, Schmidt’s Fudge Haus, and the pastry place Pistacia Vera are walking distance from my house and I've patronized them often. Indeed, we're actually regulars at Agni, I know just about everyone who works there, and I cannot recommend that place highly enough. The characterizations for the rest of the places mentioned in the article all tend to track pretty accurately, so consider it a trustworthy source, even if you're not into the fancy foods/fancy hotels scene, and even if there are a lot of good and in some cases better places not mentioned here.

Columbus is a pretty nice city with a lot more cool places to go than people might expect. Yeah, I complain a good bit and I talk a lot about wanting to move all the damn time, but that's not a substantive critique of Columbus' offerings. It's more about me just being restless after spending 35 years in the same place and wanting something different. But it's a pleasant place to live and, while it's not exactly a tourism destination, there are a lot of good ways to spend some time if life brings you here for some reason. If we even pretended to have decent transit it'd be exceptional, actually, but that's never gonna happen so never mind.

Tech CEO: TechCEOs have AI psychosis

Building on yesterday's discussion, from TechCrunch:

There is a certain wildness in the tech industry these days that both mimics previous eras of large changes, like cloud computing (runaway costs in the early days), and is like nothing we’ve ever seen before (record revenues accompanied by mass layoffs).

One possible explanation: tech executives, especially CEOs, are collectively suffering from delusions of AI grandeur. And at least one tech CEO has said as much out loud: Box founder Aaron Levie.

“CEOs are uniquely prone to AI psychosis because they’re sufficiently distant from the last mile of work that still has to happen to generate most value with AI,” Levie wrote on X.

CEOs “play with AI,” develop a prototype, or generate a contract, to use Levie’s examples, and then make the leap to believing agents can do the work.

I haven't had a real job with a boss and stuff for many years, so it's mostly invisible to me, but from what I can tell it's this sort of thing that has led to the greatest amount of AI anger and resentment among everyday people. Bosses saying "just use AI to do it" in cases where AI either can't do it, can't do it alone, or where it stands as an active impediment to doing it.

On some level this is a very old story about how managers are detached from the work being done by the folks down on the factory floor, as it were. It's the sort of thing that "Dilbert" ably handled back in the 90s before Scott Adams lost his mind. Hell, it's the sort of thing that gets referenced in comedy films set in offices in the 1940s or 1950s. Like, I can't say for sure that there's a scene with a clueless boss making nonsensical demands in "Desk Set" because I haven't seen it for about ten years, but there's probably a scene like that in "Desk Set."

The difference now is that the detached-from-reality push from above is fueled by extraordinarily strong pressure from the C-Suite and Wall Street, which has gone all-in on faddish new tech in ways that the Curly-Haired Boss could only barely fathom. And that disconnect between how the bosses would like things to be done, for reasons, and the tech's inability to actually do it drives a huge amount of employee and, ultimately, customer unhappiness.

This should go well

From The Guardian:

Donald Trump indicated on Wednesday that he plans to attend this year’s NBA finals after the New York Knicks clinched their place in the championship series earlier this week.

Trump, a New York native, has counted James Dolan, who owns the Knicks, the NHL’s Rangers and Madison Square Garden, as a friend and a campaign donor in recent years. The president said he had been invited to the finals by Dolan and “numerous” others.

While I'm sure James Dolan will be happy to see him and while I figure many of the people who can afford the super expensive Madison Square Garden seats either voted for him or secretly love what he's been doing because that's how the ultra-rich tend to roll, I wonder how Trump feels he'll be received by the majority of everyday Knicks fans. Like, how does he imagine the reception will go when his big gross mug is put up on the big GardenVision screen?

Hell, it may actually make me tune in to an NBA Finals game for the first time in several years.

Freedom 250 has a sub-county fair entertainment lineup

MLB's Semiquincentennial programming, discussed above, seems like bleeding edge stuff compared to what the Trump administration has planned for this summer. Their celebration, branded as "Freedom 250," will be on the National Mall in July, and you gotta check out the entertainment slate they announced yesterday:

Country music star Martina McBride, rappers Flo Rida and Vanilla Ice, “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” singers C+C Music Factory and rocker Bret Michaels are among the artists slated to perform at the Great American State Fair, organizers announced Wednesday . . . Other performers include “Brick House” funk band the Commodores, rapper Young MC, pop duo Milli Vanilli and R&B group Morris Day and the Time, with additional artists to be announced.

Based on that slate, branding this "The Great American State Fair" is a bit ambitious, as state fairs get way more vital acts than Young MC and Bret Michaels. This is, at best, county fair stuff. But not for one of the good counties.

[Update: Morris Day has denied all involvement! So, no, not Jerome. Phew!]

I think the best part of this is that the only people who are gonna love it are the flag-wavers who somehow think that Bad Bunny is "un-American" despite the fact that he's from Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, the half of Milli Vanilli who is still alive, Fab Morvan, is French and lives in The Netherlands and Young M.C., while long ago naturalized, was actually born in London to Jamaican immigrant parents. But God Bless the USA all the same.

Shit, that's still a jam. But I'm not goin' to DC to hear it.

Have a great day everyone.