The Opener

1. There were a couple of mini dramas this week that are objectively spicy-lite and lend themselves to doing discourse but that I, personally, don’t have a particularly unique take on so I’m just going to link out to in-depth stories on both of them here.

   1. First up: the benches-clearing brawl between the Rockies and the Giants after Rafael Devers admired a first-inning home run a little too long by pitcher Kyle Freeland’s estimation. Why don’t I have a strong take? The inciting incident — Devers nonchalantly watching the ball fly out of the field of play — is utterly inoffensive. But the situation devolves into a melee so fast that it seems like multiple people are at fault and their “crime,” as it were, is resorting to violence while playing a game. Which is just sort of obviously bad for nothing-to-do-with baseball reasons.

   2. Astros starter — notably heading into free agency this offseason — Framber Valdez seemingly crossed up his catcher on purpose. This one is weird and definitely worth reading more about if you haven’t seen the whole story yet. The reason I don’t have much to add is that everyone involved — and not so involved, in the case of Valdez’s agent — is on the record denying malfeasance. It looked intentional, I can think it’s intentional, but if and until we can bring more reporting to bear on the situation, doesn’t really seem worth calling them all liars.

2. Roman Anthony, the 21-year-old who has been among Boston’s best hitter since getting called up, is likely out for the rest of the regular season with a left oblique strain. Manager Alex Cora was explicit about the hope that Anthony can return late in October if the Red Sox made a deep postseason run.

3. When Brandon Sproat pitches this Sunday, it will mark the third rookie pitcher debut in under a month for the Mets — who hold a Wild Card spot but have seen their starting rotation fully fall apart from injury and post-injury underperformance. Nolan McLean has given up just four runs across four starts for a 1.37 ERA, Jonah Tong threw five one-run innings in his debut after just two starts at Triple-A. And now we’ll see what Sproat can do for a team that could have multiple postseason starters that weren’t in the majors before mid-August. If Zach was here, I’d have him figure out just how rare this cluster of high-stakes debuts really is.

Speaking of: the best part of doing this newsletter as a duo is getting to bounce ideas off each other. The second best part is getting to spell each other when someone needs a break. Ostensibly, that’s what I’m doing for Zach this week. Except I’m finding myself in need of a little spell as well right now. The baby (who, at nearly 14 months, is becoming a charming, willful toddler) has been having a particularly rough sleep stretch. Last night I got home from doing TV at 12:30 am and the baby awoke at 3:20 am. The result: a shorter, later newsletter. And an open call for tips from more seasoned parents about how to handle a charming, willful toddler who doesn’t simply wake up between 3 and 4 am every night, but insists on remaining awake until 5 am when he reliably re-crashes.

The Bullpen

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I find cutesy uses of Artificial Intelligence to be kind of grotesque, almost like MAGA politicians who post social media memes mocking legitimate outrage over human rights infractions. It’s a cocky display of being above earnestness. Too cool for scold, or something. I’m far more willing to consider careful, rigorous considerations of useful AI applications than engage in the crass normalizing of treating powerful but dangerous technology like something between a toy and a god. Isn’t there a children’s Disney movie about the folly of feeling yourself a little too much just because you lucked into a genie in a lamp who can do magic tricks on command?

Anyway! I almost can’t think of a more literal encapsulation of how willful replacing of human endeavors with AI renders the entire project moot than sports. In a fully optimized world, we would simply pluck sports out entirely and eliminate them. They make nothing, go nowhere. They exist entirely to showcase humans and stretch the upward bounds of what humanity alone is capable of.

I’m getting close to just reiterating the analogy I made in an earlier anti-AI newsletter blurb so I’ll stop and simply say about the Oakland Ballers using AI to manage an upcoming game (on Fan Appreciation Day, no less!) that I hope the (human) manager was right when he said “Luckily it’s only game.”

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On July 18 I had this to say about Cam Schlittler: “Godspeed to all the broadcasters out there.”