Sunday Morning Coffee — February 2, 2025 — Sunday Morning Scramble

By Roy Berger in Maui

Aloha. Our coffee this morning is in Maui wrapping up a six-day holiday. Maui is our tropical island of choice not because of the sun (or lack of it this trip), or the locally sourced food or the oceanside resorts or the golf or the magnificent whale watching or even a good dose of long forgotten humidity. It’s our favorite because where else can you fly six hours and still be on the Verizon domestic plan?

So, before we head to the airport coded OGG to get back to Vegas let’s Scramble:

Our SMC of two weeks ago, Groundhog Week, about baseball fantasy camp foibles, resulted in the largest readership of Sunday Morning Coffee since we’ve been writing the title for almost 11 years. Combined with subscription-friendly Substack, our new media platform, it produced almost three times the previous best. If that’s going to be the result maybe my baseball playing days aren’t over after all.

A century ago, the American pastime was baseball. Football then moved into the forefront. Lately, it may be politics. And politics does plays a key role in our daily lives, but the thing we are really experts at, and obsessed with, is complaining. About everything. As a society we are professional whiners. However, maybe no sector gets more of our complaints than the airlines. The Wall Street Journal on January 23, 2025, published their 17th annual list of what they call ‘The Best and Worst Airlines’ for 2024. In other words, those airlines that had the least amount of complaints and the most. The Journal ranks nine major U.S. airlines on seven equally rated operation metrics: on-time arrivals, flight cancellations, delays of 45 minutes or more, baggage handling, tarmac delays, involuntary passenger bumping and our specialty — passenger complaints. The worst? Frontier Airlines. Following up the ladder from bad to best is Spirit, American, JetBlue (last in 2023), United, Allegiant and Alaska. Southwest finished second by one point to the champion— Delta. It was Delta’s fourth consecutive year flying highest in the clouds and their seventh win in eight years. They have no complaints about that.

One more interesting survey from the WSJ. Ohio State is not only the College Football Playoffs champion, but they are theoretically also the most valuable program in the sport. An analysis by Ryan Brewer, associate professor of finance at Indiana University, takes into account a program’s finances, sustainability, television viewership, enrollment trends and then estimates a mythical value should the program be able to be sold on the open market. Brewer determined Ohio State’s worth as $1.96 billion, a few pennies ahead of Texas at $1.9 billion. Rounding out the top five are Michigan-$1.7 billion; Georgia at $1.35 billion and Notre Dame’s $1.3 billion. Alabama fell from the elite and probably won’t emerge again until Nick Saban comes out of retirement.

Landman on Paramount+ is really good. Anything with Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Hamm and Demi Moore would be really good, wouldn’t it?

The word ‘great’ and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones doesn’t get thrown around too often in the same sentence these days. Jones has proven to be an out-of-touch, meddling NFL owner. However, in the season finale of Landman, Jones had a really impressive five minute cameo that critics have called ‘great.’

For a guy who doesn’t like soaps, sappy shows or anything on Hallmark, why am I so hooked on Netflix’s Virgin River?

There will be more people visiting Las Vegas for the Super Bowl next weekend than in the host city of New Orleans.

If you just have to have your Dunkin’ Donuts before a ballgame here’s something you need to know: the closest major league ballpark to a Dunkin’ is the Red Sox Fenway Park just over a tenth of a mile from a Boston Kreme. However, if you are a donut lover and live in Seattle, well that’s problematic. The closest Dunkin’ to Mariners T-Mobile Park is 577 miles away.

Are businesses that still pass out next year’s calendars at year end so yesterday?

Who knew there was such an organization? Starbucks’ decision to restrict its restroom usage to paying customers has provoked the American Restroom Association, a public toilet advocacy group charged with overseeing rules about restrooms that vary by city, state and county into action.

What a guy. When Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was fined by the NFL (in this case truly the No Fun League) $14,069 for dunking the ball over a crossbar celebrating his 77th touchdown catch which broke Tony Gonzalez’s all-time KC record, Gonzalez, in appreciation of Kelce’s accomplishment, offered to pay the fine.

National Hockey League legend Marc-Andre Fleury, 40, will retire at season’s end. The Minnesota Wild goaltender has been in the league since 2003, winning three Stanley Cups for Pittsburgh, and is almost single-handedly responsible for the overwhelming success of hockey in Las Vegas when was a Golden Knight from 2017-21. On Thursday, in his native Quebec, Fleury shut out the opposing Montreal Canadiens 4-0. He became the first goalie ever in the NHL to record a shutout as a teenager and as a 40-year-old. Plus he is a fantastic guy.

It wasn’t quite the fall O.J. or Cosby endured, but if you remember Anita Bryant back in the day, it was plenty steep. Ms. Bryant died on December 16 at age 84. In the early 1960s she had three top 20 hits: Till There Was You, Paper Roses and My Little Corner of the World. Ms. Bryant was flying high as a popular stage act, late night television guest and among the celebrity entertainers on Bob Hope’s USO tours for military personnel. She also sang at the White House. Many remember her as the spokesperson in the mid-70s for Florida orange juice. A few years later she led a successful campaign in Miami to repeal an ordinance that would have prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation that was supported by Rev. Jerry Falwell. She continued to oppose gay rights across the country and fell out of public favor. She then became a punchline for Johnny Carson. Even the Florida Citrus Commission took away her orange juice sponsorship. She filed for bankruptcy twice. The last anyone heard of her was today in Sunday Morning Coffee.

And speaking of Mr. Carson, I just finished the long awaited and highly credentialed new release, CARSON The Magnificent, written by the late Bill Zehme with Mike Thomas. Johnny, who died in 2005 at 79, was indeed magnificent under the spotlight but once the lights dimmed he struggled mightily in his relationships with his mom, three sons, four wives and friendships. He never was truly able to embrace and enjoy his own celebrity.

The two NFL teams I give a damn about both made coaching hires in the past 10 days. The Jets brought back former first round draft choice Aaron Glenn, who played eight seasons as a defensive back for the good guys in the 90s. The first name Aaron hasn’t been too good to us the past couple of years. Glenn had been the defensive coordinator for the Lions, which didn’t play much defense in the playoffs against Washington a couple of weeks ago. This Aaron now becomes another first time head coach for the Jets. Three of our last four head coaches have been first timers. The other was Adam Gase. Enough said. None lasted very long. Let’s hope this time is different but if I was Glenn, I’d be renting, not buying. The hometown Raiders hired Pete Carroll to be their head coach. He brings much needed maturity, professionalism and enthusiasm to a franchise that quickly has become moribund. The not-so-good news is that on next season’s opening day Carroll, at age 74, becomes the oldest head coach in NFL history. To complicate Carroll’s life right now he doesn’t have a quarterback. Russell Wilson, Justin Fields or Sam Darnold would enjoy living in Vegas. Somebody. Anybody, as long as they are not named Gardner Minshew or Aidan O’Connell.

By no means am I a fan of presidential pardons, but the pre-emptive pardon makes me laugh. It is the ultimate get-out-of-jail free card. It’s probably not something Parker Brothers had in mind with the first spin of Monopoly in 1935.

And then there’s Pam Hemphill of Boise, Idaho, who wants no part of pardons, present or future. President Donald Trump issued Ms. Hemphill a pardon on January 21 for her role in the January 6, 2021, surge on the Capitol. She is fighting to have the pardon overturned, not a standard request. Hemphill, 71, plead guilty in 2022 of riotous behavior on J6 and was sentenced by federal court to two months in jail, three years of probation and a $500 fine. She doesn’t want to be excused and is citing the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of 1833 that a recipient has the power to turn down a presidential pardon. According to Ms. Hemphill, “Accepting the pardon would be an insult to the Capitol Police officers, to the rule of law, to our nation. The pardon is a slap in their face.” Good for her.

This is what happens when you have more money than you know what to do with. The ball that the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman hit for the 2024 walk-off grand slam World Series Game 1 winner against the Yankees, originally caught by a ten-year old kid, was sold at auction for $1.56 million. Price aside, I can actually understand someone wanting the ball. What I can’t fathom though is paying $43,510, also during an auction, for the baseball that Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge dropped during the disastrous fifth inning of Game 5 when the Dodgers rallied for five runs and turned the Series around. I have no idea how the ball was identified and how it got to auction. Truly caveat emptor. Judge dropping the fly ball and shortstop Anthony Volpe’s throwing error indirectly led to the big inning. It would have all been forgotten if Yankee pitcher Garrit Cole covered first base on a routine ground ball like they practice on the first day of spring training. However, the Judge ball is far from the most valuable World Series miscue ball. That distinction belongs to the one that rolled through Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner’s legs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series against the New York Mets. It sold for over $418,000.

And finally, what goes around, comes around. Back in the mid-1960s through the early 70s, the Vietnam years, by and large our generation did everything that could be done to avoid serving in the armed forces. Today, those that did serve have become our national heroes. I love that.

Mahalo.

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I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger