Cup of Coffee: October 22, 2026

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

Let's kill day number two of three without baseball, shall we?

The Daily Briefing

Jacob Misiorowski to get the Game One start

There was no baseball last night, there was no baseball the night before that, and there will be no baseball tonight. But Jacob Misiorowski has been named Milwaukee's Game One starter for tomorrow night, so the resumption of baseball feels a bit closer.

Misiorowski getting the ball in the opener is not surprising, and the extra rest – it will be his first start in 11 days – will likely do him good. But it's worth noting that he's had two starts in October, one in the NLDS and one in the NLCS, and he failed to complete five innings in either of them because of high pitch counts. Maybe the third time will be the charm.  

The Rays haven't made an official announcement yet, but given that he'll be on four days' rest you have to assume it will be their ace Drew Rasmussen.

The Brewers' "Timeless Tickets" promotion goes awry for the World Series

Back in 2015, the Brewers came up with a pretty fun promotion: Timeless Tickets. The idea was that, for $1,000, the buyer would get a 1-pound brass ticket featuring their name engraved on it, and that ticket could be presented for any future home game, with no limit on the circumstances. They explicitly said it would work for a World Series Game 7. Once presented, the owner would get "best available" seating and the right to purchase three more tickets at face value.

Now that the Brewers are in the postseason it's not working out as expected. While some of the 1,000 people who purchased Timeless Tickets in the past had already cashed them in on Opening Days and the like, several went to cash in their ticket on a World Series ticket. Fans are pissed, however, because they've reportedly only been offered seats in the fourth level or standing-room-only seats, which is hardly anyone's idea of "best available."

The Brewers are more or less acknowledging that they've messed up (read: sold all the actually good tickets to connected folks and VIPs and stuff) so they're going to let the Timeless Ticket people still attend the World Series on the club and hold on to their Timeless Ticket for use at another time. Basically "here's a free upper deck or SRO seat, sorry." I figure that will still make some folks pretty angry. And it should. "Don't offer fans something you can't deliver on" is pretty straightforward marketing advice.

Kurt Suzuki is out as Angels manager

The Angels have decided not to bring back Kurt Suzuki as their manager, declining the 2027 option on his deal. Suzuki was hired a year ago and led the team to a 62-100 record. It was the first 100-loss season in Angels history.

Not that Suzuki stood much of a chance. He was the seventh different person to manage the Angels over the last nine seasons. The club has posted losing records in each of the last 11 seasons and has been to the playoffs just once in the last 17 years. The club said that they'll offer him a spot to stay in the organization, so at least it's acknowledging that it wasn't really Suzuki's fault.

It's notable that, a month ago, general manager John Mozeliak said he would like to have Suzuki back, pending the input of the incoming ownership group led by Stan Kroenke. I view this move as Kroenke making his feelings known on the matter. Which, nothing personal to Suzuki, is probably a good sign as it suggests that the new ownership group is gonna try to clear out dead wood from the Arte Moreno years once it takes full control in the first quarter of 2027.

Brian Cashman agrees to a new deal with the Yankees

The Yankees and their general manager Brian Cashman have agreed to a new deal to keep him in the job he has held since 1998. Per Cashman, "we just have to bang out some minor stuff on the back end of it, but, yeah, we're locked and loaded."

Obviously this means that Hal Steinbrenner does not believe Cashman's team-building was the reason the Yankees failed to win the World Series for the 17th consecutive year. If that wasn't clear from the extension, however, Steinbrenner added during yesterday's end-of-season press conference that, "the bottom line is, the players didn't live up to their end of the bargain in the playoffs."

Obviously not having Aaron Judge available was a problem, but the Yankees' offensive problems go beyond him being gone and simple execution during the ALDS. The team has no offensive depth to speak of and way too many dudes who should not be getting significant playing time on a putative championship contender. One would think that building roster depth is Brian Cashman's responsibility, but I guess not? It's apparently on a lineup full of role players to be October heroes. Good to know!

Elsewhere . . .

• Shohei Ohtani will not require surgery this offseason to fix his borked biceps and whatever else he was dealing with in the second half the season. The Dodgers expect him to pitch in 2027;
• An Ohio bettor was permanently banned from all casinos and sportsbooks – offline and brick-and-mortar – after he called MLB's customer service line last October to make threats against Blue Jays manager John Schneider. The bettor was angry, it seemed, that Schneider said in interviews that he planned to walk Shohei Ohtani during the 2025 World Series but didn't. He accused the league of some sort of fix being in and said  "do I need to go to the game and on live TV and, you know, knock the dude's fuckin' head off right now on live TV so everyone can see that?"

What the hell is wrong with people, man?

A rebroadcast, retransmission, or dissemination update

Yesterday I answered a reader question about MLB's disclaimer which explains that "accounts and descriptions of this game may not be disseminated without express written consent of . . . " you know the deal.

Later in the day Louis Schiff, The Official Marlins Fan of Cup of Coffee, but also a retired judge who, along with his coauthor, literally wrote the book about Baseball and the Law, reminded of the case which established the disclaimer in the first place: Pittsburgh Athletic Co. v. KQV Broadcasting Co., 24 F. Supp. 490 (W.D. Pa. 1938).

In that case the Pirates, their sponsors, and NBC broadcast games on the radio. The rival station, KQV, but observers on nearby property outside Forbes Field to look inside and broadcast live play-by-play accounts of home games without authorization from the club. The court sided with the Pirates, ruling that a home team has a property interest to be defended here in that the home team creates the game and thus controls the commercial distribution and broadcast rights of its events.

Though it's just a district court ruling and though it's 88 years old, it's still the law with respect to this business and the basis for the reading of that disclaimer.

Oh, and check out this fresh hell

Also in response to the rebroadcast, retransmission, or dissemination item, someone hipped me to something called "The Infinite Baseball Radio Network."

What is it? Well . . .

The Infinite Baseball Radio Network is an AI-driven radio station that offers continuous, fictional baseball games generated in real-time by artificial intelligence. It delivers engaging play-by-play commentary and baseball narratives, blending classic Americana with cutting-edge technology. The broadcast is available online through its website, providing a unique listening experience for baseball fans and curious listeners alike.

So it's fake games, likely created by having AI models train on MLB broadcasts. Which I figure gives Major League Baseball the same right to sue them that authors have to sue AI companies for training on their books without permission.

Wonder if they know about it and, if they do, if they care?

Guest Post: David Hasbargen

Like lots of us, during long afternoons at work I look out the window and daydream. As a junior history buff in St. Paul, Minnesota, I'm lucky my view happens to overlook a pretty rich point of baseball interest.

For background, I'm a 38-year-old medical lab tech who works at a clinic in the Midway neighborhood of the Twin Cities. Our community was of course rocked by Operation Metro Surge and the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the neighborhood where I work and grew up is still going through a racist, authoritarian threat like our nation's nary ever seen. I am not heroically out there with walkie talkies guarding shops or schools (I have two young children), but as a privileged white dude I hope I'm doing my part for The Resistance by serving and showing care for the minorities coming to us for healthcare who are especially vulnerable right now, using the talents and experience I've honed in my career of 15 years. I'm … a microscope warrior? Maybe half our patients do not speak English, so for a pasty St. Paulite I know I'm in a good spot to make a gosh darn difference in this world.

Here at University Avenue and Lexington Parkway once sat Lexington Park, home of two earlier iterations of the St. Paul Saints baseball club. The eldest among us still have memories of that minor league ballpark, where the Saints played celebrated rivalry games against the Minneapolis Millers and more from 1901 to 1960 – right up until the Minnesota Twins arrived and finally transformed us into a Major League Baseball town. During these years several HOFers graced this plot of land, including Roy Campanella, a young Willie Mays as a crosstown rival Miller, and even Babe Ruth once appeared during a barnstorming event in 1926. The team's history would be neat enough for any guy like me to gaze out the window and ponder, but I've always been more enchanted by the squad that played here just prior to them.

Newspaper reports of baseball in the city of St. Paul go back to 1859, and the Saint Paul Saints moniker has been used by enough different versions of teams since the 1870's that it's difficult for amateurs like me to keep them all straight. Still the mid-1890's incarnation, featuring some possibly familiar names such as Jack Glasscock, Algie McBride, Tony Mullane, Frank Shugart and Noodles Hahn, met enough success playing in the Western League to score a big new stadium for the 1897 season: the aforementioned Lexington Park. Following a mediocre 1899 campaign, the ballclub was uprooted and moved to the City of Broad Shoulders by player, manager and owner Charles Comiskey. Yes, that Charles Comiskey. In March of 1900, Comiskey’s club officially joined his buddy Ban Johnson's new American League as the charter member we all know today as the Chicago White Sox.

Almost no one in Minnesota cares about this. Once I was on my morning break at the gas station where right field used to be, when I saw a fellow dressed head to toe in White Sox garb. I couldn't help myself, and I had to ask if he were aware of the 19th-century hallowed ground on which we were standing. Of course he had no clue, I felt like a weirdo, but that's alright because we baseball history nerds still gotta represent. Whenever I'm drawing the blood of patients who reveal any shred of interest in baseball, I do find it hard not to drop this unique historical detail on them. Dave Winfield starred for Central High School two blocks away, and Paul Molitor went to my same elementary school down the street from here. Toss in major neighborhood legends Joe Mauer and Jack Morris and St. Paul is positively peppered with baseball spice.

In conclusion, it’s fun to get lost on Wikipedia at work...but you’d never catch me doing that, nah.

Thanks David!

Other Stuff

Americans who regret becoming ex-pats

Wired ran a story the other day about Amerians who fled Trump's America for other countries and the ex-pat life who now have regrets.

It's pretty understandable that at least some people would be unhappy after making such a major life change. Any relocation comes with such risks and foreign relocations have to be exponentially more stressful and complicated. But based on the examples in the story, these were people who either didn't do their research or who had unrealistic expectations.

The first person mentioned, Annie, moved to the UK in late 2024 when her husband got a job offer "that would move them to a town just outside London." They didn't say which town, but that verbiage presents a pretty massive range, from a traditional suburb, to a town in the countryside, to a gritty, post-industrial kind of place. More significantly, Annie was pregnant when they moved and she had major complaints about the NHS:

She says she had negative experiences with the NHS maternal care, compared to the smooth experience of her private health insurance in the US, and didn’t expect it to cost her anything: “I pay huge amounts of taxes and an immigration surcharge to access the NHS services—so no, the health care is not free here.” 

If she didn't expect it to cost her anything she obviously didn't do the most basic bit of research before deciding on this move. Which would be weird given that, per the article, she was already pregnant when she decided to move, making the healthcare logistics pretty damn important.

If she had researched things she would've quickly learned that every visa-holder in the UK pays a national health surcharge. It's $1,035 a year, per person, which breaks down to $86/month or $172/month for a married couple. That, on its face, is much cheaper than private insurance in the U.S. and that's before one realizes that there are no deductibles or copays. You do pay for prescription drugs, but they're capped at $9.90 per prescription. It's still a pretty damn good deal! A much better deal than most U.S. insurance, and the costs go away if you apply to stay in the UK permanently. There are similar surcharges and taxes in almost any country that is a target for expats. There may be some impression that everything is free in country's with more socialism than the U.S. but it's not the case.

What's more, if you are concerned about quality of care, customer service, or the sorts of perks one is used to back home, it's not uncommon for ex-pats and citizens of other countries alike to buy supplemental private insurance policies which cost a fraction of what they do here but which can fill the gaps one might encounter if they were moving from a Cadillac policy back home and don't want anything to change. Whatever the case, none of this could possibly be a shock for someone who made a considered and informed choice to move to the UK.

Not that I think that Annie here was in a super realistic state-of-mind when she chose to move:

“I thought that ‘British politeness’ existed as it does in movies,” Annie says, “but unfortunately, the reality is that present-day British culture is very individualistic, as well as without the sense of charity and helpfulness that many parts of American culture value.”

There's a lot to unpack in that deluded passage, about both the UK and America, but a good rule of thumb is to avoid assuming that a place is going to be like it is in the movies. And that's before one appreciates that "British politeness," even in the movies, is a particularly thorny, and often passive-aggressive thing not unlike Minnesota Nice. There's an aversion to conflict and understatement is heavily used. If you're even moderately perceptive you pick up on it pretty quickly. And sure, it can come off as somewhat hostile. The thing to understand, I suppose, is that "polite" and "nice" are not synonyms and that watching "Notting Hill" and hoping for the best is not the best way to prepare to move across an ocean.

Beyond Annie, the article talks to Kate, who moved to the UK from the U.S., where she made a lot of money as an online influencer but couldn't find paying gigs doing that there. I don't know too much about the influencer racket, but it does strike me that being an influencer requires having a deep understanding of a place's culture, especially youth and consumer culture, and those are things that aren't immediately obvious to even the most perceptive ex-pat.

Then there's Nate who moved to Poland, "in part because of right-wing populism in the US." I'm by no means an expert on Poland but even I know that Poland is a pretty damn right-leaning place anyway and that going there to escape that sort of thing is a most curious choice. I think the "in part" is doing a lot of work there, actually, because the article notes that Nate's wife is Polish and would, presumably, have more insight into the madness of running to Poland to escape conservatism. It makes me think that Nate's unhappiness in Poland was tied up in a lot of stuff beyond politics.

I dunno. I talk a lot about moving to another country fairly often, and yes, a lot of it is kneejerk stuff based on me being fed up with this one. But if we were actually going to get the ball rolling on such a move you can bet your ass there would be action plans and spreadsheets and conversations with others who have done it because we understand just how major a decision such a move would be. Moving to another country is a huge and complex thing and if there are fewer than a dozen complicated pros and cons one has to hash out before doing so, one is probably leaving out a lot of pros and cons that they should be weighing.

And that's before one acknowledges that a place simply being "not-America" doesn't solve anyone's problems in and of itself. Everywhere has problems! Have you looked at British politics lately? Have you looked at Canada's politics lately? Have you looked at almost anyplace's politics lately? There is no progressive utopia waiting for you anywhere. That's sorta how utopia works. It's obviously defensible to jump from a horrible situation to a merely bad one if one is facing persecution or something. If one is moving by choice, simply in seek of better vibes, hey great. That's doable. But one has to manage one's expectations in that case and realize that people are people wherever you go.

A couple more questions

I have tons of mailbag questions leftover. I'll slow roll them out over time. Today:

Q: Do you have any strong feelings either way about wax museums? I ask because I had the occasion to visit Cooperstown last week, and it turns out that there is a baseball wax museum a block or so down from the Hall of Fame. It's... an interesting experience. Follow-up: how many wax figures of former president George W. Bush would you expect to encounter at a baseball-themed wax museum? – Tony Forbes

A: I've been to one wax museum in my life: the Las Vegas location of Madame Tussaud's in 2001. I thought it was kind of weird and borderline creepy. Wax museums might've been a neat idea back when photography wasn't widespread and people couldn't easily see what notable people looked like, but they're pretty pointless now. I honestly don't get the appeal. I can get high quality photos or video of every notable person on the planet in like four seconds. Why do I need to look at an inanimate figure that looks almost, but not entirely, unlike Bono or Princess Di or the cast of "Friends" or whoever? And why should I wait in line and pay money for the privilege?

Q: What is - objectively - the best sandwich, the most overrated sandwich, and the most underrated sandwich? – Aaron Cameron

A: While acknowledging that this is all subjective . . .

Best: Pastrami on rye with spicy brown mustard. Corned beef is an honorable mention. Sorry if you disagree, but I grew up eating Jewish deli and that's a thing that imprints on a guy.

Most overrated: The traditional club sandwich. They're pretty, and a well-made one tastes pretty good, but they're kind of a disaster to eat, especially if you're at the sort of place that thinks bigger is better and they stack 'em too high. Sandwiches were developed for their practicality and the ability to eat them on the go without utensils. That's the whole point! So you should never look at a sandwich and think "how am I going to eat this?" If you're facing that sort of dilemma with a sandwich, the sandwich maker has failed. And yes, that applies to pastrami on rye and corned beef on rye and other wonderful sandwiches that are made too big because the deli has become a tourist attraction.

Most underrated: The good Meal Deal sandwiches in the UK. Cheese and Onion, Brie, Bacon & Chili Jam, or Coronation Chicken are my favoties. M&S will get you the best sandwiches in terms of quality, but they don't do the true Meal Deal as they price the sandwiches, chips and drinks a la carte. If you want a non-bougie Meal Deal that gives you bang for your buck, Sainsbury's offerings are pretty dang good. But you'll get good ones at Tesco, Co-Op, and even the drugstore Boots, which actually invented the Meal Deal. The only bad one I've ever had was from the Whole Foods near Angel Station. Unimaginative sandwich choices and way too high a price point. Should've known better to trust an American company to mess that up. I should've gone to the Sainsbury's or Waitrose on Liverpool Road. It's a mistake I shan't make again if I'm hungry in Islington.

Whatever you choose, Meal Deal lunches are The Truth. Why they haven't become big here I have no idea. I assume, like so many other things, it's the fault of cars and poor land use choices.

Have a great day everyone.