Sunday Morning Coffee — August 25, 2024 — Sunday Morning Scramble

It’s been a while since we Scrambled, with a vacation in Europe and a cruise across the Atlantic getting in the way. So this morning we’ll get right to it with notes about all sorts of things—tongue-in-cheek politics, the Olympics, sports with a baseball emphasis, Stanford University excellence and some music trivia. We’ll even end it with a political miracle.

In our ‘win or you’re a bum’ society, it was so refreshing during the Olympics to see the pure joy of athletes who ‘only’ won silver and bronze medals.

I’m a baseball guy as most of you who read SMC regularly know. For the past 62 of my 72 years the worst team in the history of Major League Baseball has been the 1962 New York Mets. I was 10 in 1962 when the Mets were born as an expansion team bringing back National League baseball to New York five years after the Dodgers and Giants left for California. The Mets played their first two seasons at the Polo Grounds in the Washington Heights section of Upper Manhattan where I was born. When the National League expanded in ‘62 it added the Mets and the Houston Colt 45s, who became the Astros three years later. Free agency was still a decade away so both teams got the crumbs left unprotected by the other eight franchises. Players with such catchy names like Vinegar Bend Mizell, Choo Choo Coleman, Hot Rod Kanehl, Marvelous Marv Throneberry and Gus ‘Ding Dong’ Bell became Mets. They had two pitchers with the same name- Bob Miller- which created chaos when there was a call to the bullpen. Their pitching ace was 32-year-old Roger Craig who posted a won-loss record of 10-24. Casey Stengel, 72, fired by the Yankees two years earlier was their field manager well into the twilight of his career. He had trouble remembering his players’ names but his rants and monologues to the media made things fun. The Mets were bad, really bad, but loveable. They lost 120 games that season which, as of today, makes them the worst team in baseball’s modern era. The Mets finished 60 games behind San Francisco. Houston was comparably respectable only losing 96. However, that 62-year-old Mets’ mark will probably only stand for the next month or less. The 2024 Chicago White Sox are abysmal. Through last night they are 31-99, with 32 games to play. When the curtain comes down on this season, barring something unexpected like a winning streak, they will surpass the ‘62 Mets in infamy. Stuart Mann, 85, is a Vegas golf colleague and friend. He has religiously followed the Sox since 1946 at age seven. And for some reason he still does to this day. He has never seen it this horrible. “When your entire lifetime is spent supporting something and they fail miserably, and you can do nothing about it, it hurts right down to your soul,” Mann, the retired dean of the hospitality program at  Penn State and UNLV said and added, “that’s the emotion I feel now. I laugh about it as they move toward the all-time loss record, but it’s a thin mask for the real tears it hides.” The Mets in ‘62 were fun to watch lose. Stengel and his over-the-hill roster made it that way. The Sox in ‘24, younger but no more skilled, are just pathetic.

The end of the baseball season can’t come quick enough for both the White Sox and my over/under total win wagers. I’m in the crapper. A wise guy at the gym liked the Red Sox under 79.5 wins as the best bet of the season. I loaded up. With 34 games to play Boston has won 67 and will easily cruise over 80. Same guy loved Colorado under 61. I played it. The Rockies have won 48 with 32 to go. The one I touted on my own was the Yankees over 93.5. What seemed to be a lock in the spring will go deep into September for a resolve. The Yankees have won 76 with 32 remaining so they better get busy needing 18 wins. It certainly didn’t help things when Colorado beat the Yankees on Saturday. That’s a double whammy for me. The good news though, unlike Stuart Mann, I stayed away from the White Sox over 63.5.

Music trivia quiz: What do 60s rock ‘n rollers Tommy Roe, the Chiffons, Jackie DeShannon, the Righteous Brothers, the Ronettes and the Cyrkle have in common? Answer a bit later.

The Wall Street Journal reports going to a Donald Trump rally has gone the route of alternative rock bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish and their cult followers. Trump attendees now compare notes on how many events they’ve been to like the Dead and Phish followers do. Last week in Pennsylvania one MAGA bragged it was his 70th rally.

I then made the mistake of asking my son Scott how many Phish concerts he’s seen. Little did I know there is an app that tracks this kind of stuff. I really wasn’t prepared for the answer: 183 shows, two countries, 20 states, 36 cities, 45 different venues, seven different days of the week, 11 months and he’s heard 3,899 songs over the past 20 years. And that ain’t fake news. Oy.

I hate to hear about common people struggling financially. Candidate Trump told a rally in North Carolina that he doesn’t order bacon anymore because it’s gotten too expensive.

And speaking of too expensive, that wasn’t the case for the bidder who paid $2.9 million at a Sotheby’s auction for the locker that the late Kobe Bryant used from 2003 through 2016 as a Laker. In today’s dollars that’s a lot of bacon.

So what do Tommy Roe, the Chiffons, Jackie DeShannon, the Righteous Brothers, the Ronettes and Cyrkle have in common? In 1964 all of those 60s musical artists at one time or another, at one place or another, opened for the Beatles during their initial American tour.

Cheryl and her two nuts.

I am a fan of actress Cheryl Hines, but I had no idea she is a squirrel attracted to nuts. Of course I knew she played Larry David’s wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm but I had no inkling for the last 10 years she was married to another nut — she’s the real life spouse of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

And speaking of RFK, what a windfall for the Republicans when he dropped from the presidential race on Friday and encouraged all 126 of his supporters to vote for Trump.

The cream does rise to the top — the two best at their trade, tennis’ Novak Djokovic and golf’s Scottie Scheffler, both won Olympic gold.

Incredibly, 100 American colleges and universities produced at least one medalist in the Paris games. Stanford University athletes led the parade with 39 medals, twelve of which were gold. Also chalking up double digit honors were students from Texas, Cal, Virginia, Penn State, Southern Cal, Washington, Notre Dame, UCLA, Kentucky, Florida and Harvard. Yes, Harvard. The Crimson thrived in fencing, rowing, triathlon, track and cycling. They scored 13 medals. Per capita however the honors belong to Davidson College in North Carolina. The school only has 2,000 students and won two medals— a bronze in canoe slalom and a gold in basketball by a guy named Stephen Curry.

Illustrating Stanford’s excellence, if they were a country, they would have finished eighth overall in the medal count behind the United States, China, Great Britain, France, Australia, Japan and Italy, who at 40 total medals, was only one ahead of the Cardinal athletes.

Loved Presumed Innocent and Defending Jacob on Apple TV. And if you like Stallone, Tulsa King is a compelling must-watch.

MLB history will be made on Monday when Toronto and Boston complete their game suspended on June 26 in the second inning during a storm. Danny Jansen caught the first inning for Toronto. A month later he was traded to the Red Sox. Tomorrow he will be Boston’s catcher marking the first time in baseballs long history that one player will appear in the same game for both teams.

Of absolutely no significance at all but curious as to what the baseball loyalty might be for the residents of Wethersfield, Connecticut? More Mets fans than Red Sox or the reverse? The burg of 28,000 along the Connecticut River is exactly 101.3 miles from Fenway Park and 101.3 miles from Citi Field. Or you can go 2.1 miles further and be at Yankee Stadium.

Happy 99th birthday to former Buffalo Bills head man Marv Levy; 89th to 1950/60s Yankees great Bobby Richardson and 73rd to Dennis the Menace, Jay North.

The aforementioned world’s number one golfer Scottie Scheffler has bogeyed 9.2% of the holes he has played this season. That is the lowest ever. The runner-up to that mark is also Scheffler who last season bogeyed 9.5% of holes. The previous low in a season was Tiger’s 9.8%.

A baseball oddity last Wednesday night when every team in the St. Louis Cardinals organization— the big league club, AAA Memphis, AA Springfield and class A Peoria all won by a walk-off.

July 27 was a 108 degrees in the desert and a little too toasty for the golf course. There was a boxing program at Mandalay Bay that started at 2 pm. Perfect. I love that stuff. The main event was something I’ve never heard of and I’m no boxing novice. It was billed as the “interim” welterweight championship of the world. I have no idea what that meant. Were these two guys just fighting until a real champion showed up? Realistically, isn’t every championship belt potentially interim until the next fight anyway?

Before going into the boxing arena for the “interim” battle I got to Mandalay early to watch the USA-France gold medal men’s Olympic basketball game in their sportsbook. It was as different an atmosphere as I’ve ever experienced in a book — everyone was rooting for the same side. It was actually pretty cool.

He’s not over the hill just yet. Baseball fans no doubt remember former major leaguer Robinson Cano who played for the Yankees, Mariners and Mets for most of his 17-year career. Cano was suspended twice by MLB for performance enhancing drug violations . He was an eight-time All-Star when his big league days ended in 2022. Despite earning over $260 million, Cano decided he still wanted to play ball. This season he’s the second baseman for the Diablos Rojos in the Mexican League. At age 41 he still has it batting .431 and leading the Rojos to a 71-19 record.

And finally, miracles do happen. On July 20 Kamala Harris went to sleep as Dan Quayle and wakes up the next morning as Winston Churchill.