Outside the Confines: The most interesting man in baseball

Good morning. I hope everyone is in a better mood today. Be nice.

• The Twins postponed their Monday matinee game against the Red Sox out of respect after the death of Daunte Wright, who was shot by a Brooklyn Park, MN police officer, as well as safety concerns. The NBA’s Timberwolves and the NHL’s Wild did likewise later in the day.
• Bob Nightengale writes that the three Minnesota teams did the right thing to pay their respects for this senseless death.
• Yankees outfielder Aaron Hicks, who came up in the Twins organization, also sat out Monday’s game. His manager, Aaron Boone, supported Hicks’ decision to sit, saying that Hicks wasn’t mentally in a place where he could give his best effort and that he understood why.
• Shalise Manza Young talked about Hicks’ decision to sit and about how mentally exhausting being Black in America can be.
• Cleveland infielder Yu Chang made an error that cost his team the game on Monday. Chang shared a collection of racist comments thrown his way on social media after the game.
• Cleveland manager Terry Francona announced his support for Chang and condemned the racist comments thrown his way.
• Al wrote about the bad call in Sunday night’s Braves/Phillies game, and I don’t think there’s much point in going over that again. What I will mention is that Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson blasted the Atlanta fans who threw things on the field after the call. Swanson called the fans behavior as disrespectful, irresponsible and dangerous and that it can never happen again.
• Ken Rosenthal evaluates five possible changes to the instant replay rule. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Richard Justice writes about how the Astros are getting treated on the road with fans in the stands for the first time and it’s clear that people have not forgotten about the sign-stealing scandal. Also, please boo the Astros. That’s your right as a fan. Maybe it’s your duty. But throwing a real trash can full of trash onto the field like they did in Anaheim is completely out of bounds. That is not acceptable anywhere.
• As long as we were talking about Minnesota and the Twins, let’s get back to the games and the players. Thomas Harrigan argues that it looks like the long-awaited breakout season from outfielder Byron Buxton is finally here and he brings the advanced metrics to prove it.
• Mike Petriello explains how Brewers pitcher Corbin Burnes has been even more dominating in 2021 than he was in his breakout season last year.
• Reds first baseman Joey Votto homered into McCovey Cove on Monday, the first Reds player to ever achieve that in that ballpark. (Three Cubs have done it. Can you name them?) Anthony Castrovince writes that the splashdown homer is a sign that Votto is back on track after a poor start to 2021.
• Poor start or not, Joey Votto is the most interesting man in baseball and his teammates and opponents will tell you that. (The Athletic sub. req.) Or ask Jerry Seinfeld and David Letterman. Votto apparently loves to mop. I didn’t know that was a thing.
• David Schoenfield asks if the Yankees starting rotation behind Gerrit Cole is good enough to win the AL East.
• Dan Szymborski explains that hitting stats from April are meaningless, except they’re a little bit meaningful.
• Sam Dykstra has the ten hottest rookies so far this season. Somehow he didn’t include the Reds’ Jonathan India, who has been better so far than several players on this list.
• Will Leitch has the seven biggest moments of the MLB season so far.
• Diamondbacks outfielder Tim Locastro broke Tim Raines’s record for most stolen bases without getting caught to start a career. Raines had been a coach for Locastro in the Blue Jays system and Raines said that while Locastro was hard-working and attentive, “I didn’t have to teach him much.” (The Athletic sub. req.)
• David Schoenfield remembers that when he was a kid, he’d read books like “All-Pro Baseball Stars” with profiles of around 24 players. So he wondered, if such a book were published today, which 24 players would be included? (EPSN+ sub. req.)
• Time to pay the butcher’s bill. Mariners pitcher James Paxton will have season-ending elbow surgery. One would assume that means “Tommy John surgery” but the Mariners are not saying that.
• The Athletics have lost Trevor Rosenthal for the season after surgery to relieve thoracic outlet syndrome. Jay Jaffe notes that the track record of pitchers after such surgery is not good. A few have successfully returned, but many have not. Matt Harvey is the most recent example.
• In the public mind, there are probably no two baseball general managers with less in common that the A’s Billy Beane and the Yankees Brian Cashman, although both are among the most successful and influential executives in the game. But Ben Lindbergh has the story of the great friendship between the two men that has now lasted more than two decades.
• Rob Biertempfel looks at the history and current state of Pittsburgh’s PNC Park, one of the greatest ballparks in the game. (The Athletic sub. req.) There’s also a lot about how the team plans on keeping PNC among the best parks in baseball in the decades to come
• In softball news, North Texas pitcher Hope Trautwein pitched the ultimate perfect game: 21 batters and 21 strikeouts. It’s believed to be the first ever NCAA softball game to accomplish such a feat.
• In legal news, umpire Joe West was awarded $500,000 in a defamation suit filed against former player Paul Lo Duca. Lo Duca had claimed that West gave borderline strikes to pitchers who did favors for him.
• In more legal news, some members of Congress want to strip MLB of its antitrust exemption for moving the All-Star Game to Denver, which is a case of doing the right thing for the wrong reason. But Gabe Lacques explains what the antitrust exemption is and how it came about.
• And finally, Bob Nightengale has the story of the restoration of Hinchcliffe Stadium in Paterson, New Jersey. Hinchcliffe is one of the few stadiums left standing that hosted Negro League games and it was where Larry Doby got his start. Doby’s son is one of the people involved in the restoration.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.