In this episode, Bobby and Alex discuss recent developments around the #FairBall protest, and check in on the chances of a work stoppage this off-season. This week’s Three Up, Three Down features a eurostep-off, Kevin Kiermaier’s recovery of a Blue Jays scouting card, the Oakland A’s season ticket scam, the resurgence of Cardinal Devil Magic, and more.
Links:
The Rays will advertise the Montreal plan this postseason
Songs featured in this episode:
Blondie — “Dreaming” • Lindsey Buckingham — “Trouble” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Episode Transcript
BOBBY: This episode of Tipping Pitches is sponsored by Anchor. You like this show? And you wanna make your own? Let me tell you about Anchor really quickly. Alex, Anchor is a podcast hosting platform that is FREE to use. It’s what we use here at Tipping Pitches.
ALEX: What’s great about Anchor is they will handle the distribution entirely for you. So, if you pair it on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, etc., you don’t have to get your hands dirty with any of that.
BOBBY: They partner with advertisers to sell ads and make money on your podcast. It is everything that you need to make in one place. Download the free Anchor app at anchor.fm to get started.
[INTRO MUSIC]
Tell us a little bit about what you saw and and and being able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitching and kind of help out so he wasn’t Tipping his Pitches.
So Tipping Pitches, we hear about it all the time. People are home on the stand, what Tipping Pitches it’s all about. It’s amazing. That’s remarkable.
[INTRO MUSIC]
[1:19]
BOBBY: Alex, since we’re both wearing Oakland Athletics gear. As we logged on to this Zoom together, I thought that it might be appropriate for us to start the podcast this week by talking about the 10-year anniversary of one seminal film, Moneyball, featuring Brad Pitt, your Lord, and Savior, Billy Beane.
ALEX: Lord and Savior, yes is one way of putting it he is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all wrapped in one. Of losing in the first round of the playoffs
BOBBY: I, I don’t really have that much to say about it, other than I’d like to, I’d like to hear your feelings on Moneyball 10 years later. We went on a podcast called Big Screen Sports at some point in the pandemic. I don’t know, times all kind of blended together. And we talked for a very long time about Moneyball, about how wonderful of a film it is. About how it sort of erased a lot of anti-labor practices that have sprung up in baseball since then. But how do you feel about Moneyball 10 years later? You tuning in, you’re gonna watch it?
ALEX: I, so we’re just talking about Moneyball the movie, right? Moneyball–
BOBBY: We can talk about Moneyball–
ALEX: –cinematic experience.
BOBBY: We could talk about Moneyball the concept, we could talk about the PR that Moneyball did. Moneyball the movie did for Moneyball the concept.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Or we could talk about the fact that Billy Beane is apparently going to be the next Mets GM. And you can walk me through–
ALEX: Have fun–
BOBBY: –what’s gonna be like.
ALEX: –I’m excited to watch Moneyball 2.
BOBBY: Choose your adventure. How do you want to talk about Moneyball 10 years later?
ALEX: It’s a good movie, I’ll just, of throw that one, throw that one out there into the ether. I think especially as a [3:06] fan that captures a lot of kind of the aura, the magic of those years. I think that it is a fool’s errand to expect that the movie would ahh, would really do anything to address the more pernicious aspects of ahh, of what Moneyball and Sabermetrics actually meant, when they came into focus in the game. Because I I don’t think that would make for as compelling a compelling a movie, right? You know, if, if instead of driving around, listening to his kids’ CD, you know, songs you recorded.
BOBBY: In very high definition by the way–
ALEX: Very high–
BOBBY: –access to the nice recording studio–
ALEX: Incredible recording studio, I would like to–
BOBBY: For an 11-year-old.
ALEX: –who produced who mixed and mastered that–
BOBBY: With me, it was I did it.
ALEX: It’s probably, it’s probably less compelling if Billy Beane is, you know, on the phone with a, with a Minor League, with one of his Minor League Executives or whatever, and saying, “Well, this is why, this is why we have to keep the salaries the way that they are. This is why ahh, this is why we can’t do much housing.” I know that, I know that Billy Beane, is not really in charge of those, those things. And although I don’t expect that he would, he’d be too adamant about bringing them into the organization, even if he wasn’t charged with them.
BOBBY: Do you think that if Billy Beane and Bob Melvin, they can be part of the next movie. Do you think that if they come to Queens, and they win a World Series, or if they just come to Queens and turn it around and the Mets look like anything approaching a competent franchise since it seems counterintuitive for them to be that? Do you think that they’ll make Moneyball 2.0 set in New York? It’s right there dangling right in front of the Executives. Hollywood can’t say no to a comeback story, Alex that IP has been laid.
ALEX: Ahh yes, Billy Beane, current millionaire in need of a redemption story.
BOBBY: Also, like Dude, this, maybe his kid is a recording artist?
ALEX: They, hey go, maybe the kid–
BOBBY: Went to NYU. They snubbed us for an interview at this, at the newspaper.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Well, and as she, as she has gone to NYU, she has taken on a little more of some radical politics. And now is clashing heads with Billy Beane–
BOBBY: Wow. Turns against her father.
ALEX: Right, exactly. And it becomes a real story about fair–
BOBBY: –going outside Citi Field.
ALEX: Their relationship. Exactly. Yes. And Billy Beane, has to confront what matters most to him in his life. As it is his team or is it, is it his family?
BOBBY: What kind of music is she doing now? You got to keep going, you got the more specific the better the more likely the Hollywood script is to get picked up so it’s like she’s like a Maggie Rogers or like a Dua Lipa.
ALEX: I’m thinking like hyper pop you know–
BOBBY: Ohh.
ALEX: –in her, in her bedroom.
BOBBY: Nice.
ALEX: –like really likes 100 Ghacks and just wants to making music that kind of scratches at your ears a little bit but that also, that also bops.
BOBBY: Okay, I like it. We’ll see if we can get this one picked up. Um–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We–where… do we feature in this movie? As the main critics of Billy Beane out in the world even if not that many people hear us criticize him all the time. Can we get small parts?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Even it’s like, even if it’s like where the critical you know the critical voices on the radio is like–
ALEX: Yes, I was just thinking that–
BOBBY: –video, what if that’s us, playing out of the car.
ALEX: Just sitting there like at a pivotal moment in the movie and its wandering voices-
BOBBY: One star on iTunes. Saying look at this–schmucks that know we are talking about?
ALEX: –over Queens.
BOBBY: Ahh, I like it, I like the script. I like this idea. We’ll keep refining it if listeners have any ideas as to how we can better get this picked up by Hollywood.
ALEX: Yeah, Moneyball 2, 2 money 2 ball–
BOBBY: 2 money, 2 ball. Uhm, we are going to follow up on last week’s story about Minor Leaguers protesting wages by wearing #FairBall wristbands. Ahh, we are going to do Three Up Three Down but before we get to all of that I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening–
ALEX: To Tipping Pitches.
[TRANSITION MUSIC 6:36]
BOBBY: Alex, our old friend Bob Nightingale, USA Today. Reported this past week. Advocates for Minor Leaguers is investigating, quote, “…allegations by players in the Philadelphia Phillies organization they were reprimanded for wearing solidarity wristbands in their final minor-league game in support of increased pay and improved living conditions.” Now the story goes on to allege that Phillies executives or coaches sat them down and said this isn’t the way to do this. Uhm, and they were trying to sort of suppress that speech. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that this happened. Although I am a little bit surprised that they were so quick to respond to this because there’s such a big spotlight on this story right now, relatively big spotlight. But I’m surprised that they would open themselves up to this bad, this level of bad optics immediately after this protest. You know, they could have just waited a month or two months. And then bury this in the offseason when the story kind of died down a little bit. But for them to immediately tell these players knock it off. I don’t know, I guess, I guess I’m a little surprised that they don’t feel a little bit more worried about how that would look to the public, are you?
ALEX: Yeah, and it’s worth saying that we don’t really know what if anything happened right? The Phillies further apart, obviously denied all of this Dave Dombrowski I believe said that, you know, he wasn’t aware of any sort of reprimanding or you know retaliation that took place and–
BOBBY: Quote, “The wrist band topic came up but it was for knowledge sakes. No player got in trouble or was scolded for wearing them.’’ you know, just deposition we’re in the deposition phase we’re not in the–
ALEX: We’re in, we’re this is, this is discovery–
BOBBY: –I understand–
ALEX: –just want to make sure we’re all on the same page. But you’re right that, I suppose it would be surprising that they would kind of do this as more and more national outlets are kind of turning their eyes to what’s going on here. And you know, as I’m sure will mention that Major League Baseball players are coming out in support of this as well. And yet at the same time, I it doesn’t surprise me at all that a team would want to nip this in the bud as quickly as possible, right? Because what you, what you don’t want is for other players to then start talking right after this happens. And if management doesn’t retaliate, right? If management essentially you know, gives a de facto okay this sort of thing that gives players leverage and room to actually build off of this and so that the team would retaliate and in whatever, in whatever manner that they did make sense from their point of view because you don’t, you don’t want to give them any space to actually like, continue this work. You want it, you want let it be clear that this sort of thing is not you know, it’s not tolerated. We don’t, we don’t talk about this publicly. We, if you have problems, come talk to me, come talk to the boss. But, you know, don’t bring it out there on the field.
BOBBY: Right. Like the, the very nature of the system necessitates that they hold on to it very tightly. Because it’s, it’s obvious to all parties involved, that it’s an exploitative system and if you don’t defend your exploitative system, then you’re acknowledging the fact that it’s exploitative. And exploiters, don’t benefit from acknowledging that type of thing like they need to hold on and suppress and suppress. I just think I’m surprised a little bit in the manner with which they did it, knowing how many people were paying attention to it, and knowing that it was probably going to leak out and did eventually leak out to like a really large baseball reporter. Say what you want about Nightingale getting like many things wrong. Uhm, but a lot of people saw this and noticed that the Phillies retaliated. I mean, it should not this conversation should not go by without us saying that, like it’s, it’s bad enough that they are paying such low wages, paying poverty wages in many cases. But to then retaliate when, when players do something as small as like, say, not even say anything, but just like wear a wristband that says treat us fairly basically. It just goes to show like, they’ve already proved it themselves, that they know that this system is wrong because otherwise, you wouldn’t need to deny players from voicing their opinions about how wrong the system is. Does that make sense? Or am I talking to myself in circles?
ALEX: No, I think you’re spot on. I mean, the last thing you want to do is litigate this stuff in public. If you are the boss if you’re the manager. You don’t need the court of public opinion on the player side, which by and large, leans towards management. But on this issue, I think teams probably are aware that actually if, if the conditions were really fully exposed, and players were able to speak out about, you know, what they were facing, what they were being paid, etc. that a lot of people would not be too pleased about it and would probably fall down on the player side of things. And you know? So we had we’ve had two Major League players at this point, come out and wear the bands right? Andrew McCutchen of the Phillies was the first and then Trey Mancini of the Orioles wore one as well. These, these #FairBall [13:17] wristbands.
BOBBY: If anyone is listening who can connect us to Andrew McCutchen and/or Trey Mancini. And they would like to come on the show and talk about why they chose to wear those wristbands? The invite is open as it is for Bernie Sanders, as it is for many other folks. What do we say last week? Tatiana Machado.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Hell the invite to even open for man for it if he wants to come on and talk about anything.
ALEX: Always.
BOBBY: Billy Beane? But right now, specifically, Mancini and McCutchen, please come on Tipping Pitches.
ALEX: But this kind of thing is huge. I would say. As far as building solidarity and building momentum for this movement. Because it’s clearly not going away. And we’re at the point where Major League Baseball fe–Major League Baseball players feel comfortable, actually speaking out and showing their support for Minor Leaguers, which is frankly, not something we have seen a lot of over the last decade or so, right? You have individual players who maybe speak out on a case-by-case basis or will who will, who will acknowledge and passing that conditions in the Minor Leagues aren’t great. But never really have we seen active players stand up and say, “No, this is unacceptable. You need to be treating these guys better.”
BOBBY: Right. And I think that how quickly teams respond to try and shut this stuff down at the Minor League level just indicates how nervous they are about how quickly things can get away from them. Because once there is collectivity amongst Minor League players, once there is a union push, once there is solidarity across MLB and Minor League lines, it does really start to snowball and get away from them quickly because a it, if as an employer you are found retaliated against specific players because of union activity or because of attempting to form a union will suddenly you’re violating Federal Labor Laws. And I’m sure that a slightly more liberal, although not as leftist, we would like a slightly more liberal National Labor Relations Board would love to take a crack at the 30 billionaires who own baseball teams. They would love to make a big fight out of this. And then beyond that, I pointed this out on Twitter. But beyond that, if the minor leaguers did already have a union, this type of disciplinary meeting that happens after public acts of union support. This is the type of thing where you can send a union rep in there. And you–you can’t you don’t just have carte blanche to treat the players however you want and cut them for whatever anymore. And I think that MLB teams know that there’s a lot at stake there. They–they know that they are actively invested in the idea that they can cut people for anyth–anything anytime they want, including for supporting better conditions for Minor Leaguers. They know that legally they have the right to do that. And the further down the timeline of public support for better working conditions, the smaller their power becomes in the equation.
ALEX: Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of a lot at stake here. And while I certainly don’t think a Minor League union is on the horizon anytime soon, for plenty of reasons that I think Craig Calcaterra articulated pretty succinctly a couple episodes ago that doesn’t mean that meaningful change can’t happen outside of that. And I think players understand that and advocates for Minor Leaguers understand that and that really the first step in this is courting the public’s favor. Which is why you have, you know, a couple dozen players trotting out there onto the field with this message on their arm. And I really would encourage all the Major League Baseball players who listen to this show, which there are many–
BOBBY: So many. I mean, if Billy Beane is driving in his car listening to this show, you have to at least believe maybe the Aces players listened to this show.
ALEX: It’s possible, yes.
BOBBY: Thanks for listening metals and I know you appreciate the leftist stakes.
ALEX: They have a platform, they do. They can elevate this message to a much broader audience than some players can MCU, MCU park, right? Where games are not nationally televised where there are not always beat reporters tweeting out every everything that happens what you know whatever it looks like. Major League players have the platform that Minor Leaguers don’t. And for this battle to truly tip-in, in Minor League players favor, it needs that solidarity from the PA which we know why they you know, they haven’t stood behind them, right? Because they don’t have they don’t have much to gain as a union by throwing their support behind the behind Minor League players. But individual players do still have a ton of power. And, and that and that matters.
BOBBY: Okay, while we’re talking about the MLB pa really quickly before we go to Three Up Three Down. I did want to ask you, as we head into October, just about a month left of baseball, maybe six weeks left to baseball depending on how many games the World Series is. You think there’s gonna be a strike this offseason? We haven’t talked about it in a while I kind of forgot. With how closely I’ve been paying attention to actual baseball pennant races. This is exactly what the owners want. By the way. They want you to just focus on the baseball now worry about the labor stuff. Even I, Alex forgot that there’s almost certainly going to be some sort of work stoppage or some sort of pushing right up to the goal line of a work stoppage. So I asked you, just as a check-in on September 26, Alex Baisley on the record, will there be a strike and or lockout in the 2021-2022, Major League Baseball offseason?
ALEX: Yeah, I think the the owners are probably going to strike. Uhm, they don’t think they’re being treated fairly by fans. Probably not, they don’t feel like they’re being treated fairly by players either.
BOBBY: Strike against–
ALEX: and I suppo–
BOBBY: –banks? Who is above owners?
ALEX: Right?
BOBBY: Well, we’re striking–yeah, we’re striking against the government. They’re starting a sovereign state.
ALEX: In all seriousness, I have to imagine that there will be some sort of work stoppage. And it feels more likely to me that it may be a lockout, given that that’s effectively an automatic process that kicks in if they can’t come to an agreement. Once the CBA expires. I think neither side really wants to get to a point where the players are on strike. And, you know, the upshot of it is that they effectively have most of the offseason to hash this thing out even if the CBA does expire. And the players are effectively locked out. There’s still time before Spring trading where they can actually negotiate over these sorts of things without it impacting, you know, the schedule. Without it impacting actual baseball. I do think there is an interesting wrinkle to this conversation or, or another thread to pull out which is that. A Monday the day this episode comes out is the, the beginning of the grievance hearing between Major League Baseball and the MLBPA over the length of the 2020 Season. And the discussion about whether or not the, the league acted in good faith when negotiating the length. Right–
BOBBY: They did not.
ALEX: –do we, do we think it did?
BOBBY: We have like 18 podcast episodes from 2020 that I can’t remember recording. But definitely, we said they did not act in good faith.
ALEX: They were kind of they were contradicting things that were already part of the public record, you know, like Manfred was leaking stuff. And we would say, didn’t the thing you guys said three weeks ago, kind of make this point obsolete.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So there’s a lot of evidence out there. And I have to imagine, I, I’m not going to try and read the tea leaves on how this grievance process will actually go. Because I have–
BOBBY: No tea leaves.
ALEX: –no clue. There’s no tea leaves.
BOBBY: Water in the cup.
ALEX: Just, just guessing. Uhm, I do have to imagine that It puts a little extra pressure on the whole contract negotiations and proceedings. Because I imagine that the grievance will not just be a very dandy time for everyone, right? They’re already going to kind of be in a state of aggravation and acrimony. And you know, accusatory, give me another a a word that indicates fighting. Arguing, I suppose.
BOBBY: Argumentative?
ALEX: Argumentative. there you go. I think it will, it will set the tone. Let–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –me say that–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And and and back in somewhat, somewhat testy environment.
BOBBY: Legally speaking, one will not have any impact on the other, because one is being negotiated under the terms of a previous CBA. And the other one, the other. next CBA negotiations have to happen entirely separately. So one will not, like they will not, maybe they will drop the charges. Or maybe they will drop the grievance against MLB in exchange for something in the future CBA. But that’s unlikely they will–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –they will drop it in a handshake deal. It won’t be like across the table, they will drop that it would more be like–
ALEX: –to negotiate. Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: Right, It will not be written into a clause in the next collective bargaining agreement. But you’re right, and that it will add gasoline on the fire of the conflict that is happening that has been unfolding more and moreover the last couple of years between the PA and the owners. I don’t know, I I think that, number one, I’m curious, logistically speaking, how this offseason will go if the CBA expires on December 1. And the–then they’re just not going to do free agency after that. I mean, I know owners have decided not to do free agency from December 1 till February anyway, on their own accord, maybe the last couple of years have just been practicing for a lockout. But I’m curious how, how the actual business will operate in that time span, we’ll obviously have to do a crash course on that. Uhm, once that rolls around, potentially, I mean, what they could do is just extend the terms of the current CBA for two months, so that they can continue to conduct business, but I don’t know what free agent is signing under the terms of the old CBA not knowing what the next CBA is going to guarantee them. No big free agent is going to do that I will only affect very fringe guys. So yeah, I mean, the fact that we’re not hearing much, you could take it two ways, right? The fact that we’re not hearing much is probably good knowing what we’ve known about when labor relations have been at their worst, it’s when the owners decide to leak the most. So we hurt heard like a sort of batshit not gonna be a free agent till you’re 29 and a half. We heard a basically lowered salary cap proposal. But other than that, we haven’t heard that the players are being completely unreasonable byline, New York Post, you know, like, we haven’t gotten any of those yet. And maybe it just maybe they’ll start slinging that mud on November 4, the day after game seven of the World Series, but we’re yet to see I just wanted to check in with you. That’s it. So your vote is yes, my vote is also Yes.
ALEX: We strive for consensus, on this show. We’re both the exact same amount of pessimistic which is, which is good. That’s why this show still exists.
BOBBY: There will be no–
ALEX: If one of us was optimistic about Major League Baseball, the corporation I’m not sure we’d be able to get through a discussion.
BOBBY: Right, there will be no internal schism of our leftist collective here on Tipping Pitches, not today, not any day unless you keep talking really nice about St. Louis Cardinals. We are going to take a quick break and when we come back. We will do Three Up, Three Down.
[TRANSITION MUSIC 25:01]
THREE UP, THREE DOWN
BOBBY: The time is come to go Three Up and Three right back down, Alex. We’re starting with Down or are we starting with Up?
ALEX: Let’s start with up this week.
BOBBY: Okay, my first Up this week is the Euro-step off, Euro-step competition between Jazz Chisholm and Josh Rogers that occurred last week, Alex. Still remember that Jazz Chisholm is the rookie sensation for the Miami Marlins. I don’t know he’s having a really cool year, and he’s a really cool player. Unfortunately, the Marlins have been 20 games under 500 for like a few months, so not that many people are paying attention to him. Ahh, but jazz does something when he hits a home run. When he’s matched across home plate. He does a little Euro-step celebration as he steps on the plate. That’s cool, I like that. Uhm, Josh Rogers said that, “If Jazz is going to do that to us when he hits a homerun I should be able to do that right back to him.” So Josh Rogers struck Jazz out the next day after he did that to the nationals. Josh Rogers is a random pitcher for the nationals who is playing because–
ALEX: Wow, wow–
BOBBY: –the Nationals trade, traded all of their other players.
ALEX: –a random pitcher of Nationals.
BOBBY: Is it a prospects?
ALEX: I mean, no, I think he is a random pitcher, but you have to throw shade at him, him like that.
BOBBY: It is what it is. Okay, it is what it is. And ahh, he struck out Jazz Chisholm and he Euro-stepped off the mound. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like that a Euro-step off the mound. Pretty cool.
ALEX: Yes, it was good. Ahh, this is for, for what it’s worth. This was also my, my first Up this week–
BOBBY: I kind of expected that.
ALEX: I kind of expected that we may have some overlap this week, which is, which is fun. That’s good. That makes both of our lives easier. But the biggest up here is that after the game, Jazz was asked about this, and he was like, This is cool. I appreciate that. I might have to do a new celebration now just to mix things up because Josh Rogers did that back to me, so I might have to keep everybody fresh and on their toes. Very easy–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –to just be cool about stuff, and–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –then move on. Everybody had fun with it. We don’t need to make this a beanball war, because someone Euro-stepped off the mount. Jazz tweeted it at Rogers. “I love it” with three exclamation marks and Rogers responded, “Yes, sir my dog.”
BOBBY: My dog–
ALEX: 2, 2-1, 2-1, 1 100 emojis. And that was it and the conversation, we moved on. Everyone had fun.
BOBBY: Should we start interacting with each other like that on Twitter? When you make a good tweet, I’m going to quote tweet it and say “I love it 100 100”
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: And then you respond saying “Yes sir, my dog”.
ALEX: You got it, boss.
BOBBY: Ahh, so that means I have to go again? Because that’s also–
ALEX: I’m gonna toss it right back to you.
BOBBY: Okay, great. Ahh, my second Up this week is that the San Francisco Giants dressed up like they were manning a ship on the ocean. Brandon Belt wore a Sea Captain uniform and the rest of the Giants as they were walking off the plane, deplaning, as we say in the aviation business. The rest of them wore like sailor boy outfits? Ahh this, this comes because earlier in the season, I think we talked about it on the show, Brandon Belt, fastened himself a C on his jersey and pretended to be the Captain. And he did a whole press conference. You know in a facetiously baseball dude tone. And since then the Giants have been having a lot of fun with it. Why wouldn’t you be having fun? You’re a team that’s gonna win 110 games. Plenty of time for fun, you’re winning all the time. Ahh and so as the Sea Captain, Brandon Belt dressed up in the rest of the Giants dressed up along with him. I put this on my Up this week, this week, because not because I’m getting soft on the Giants. I still think they’re despicable baseball team is actually not that good. And I’m sticking to it, despite the fact that I am wrong. Not because I’m getting soft on the Giants. But mostly because this is just the kind of stuff that comes out of left field that just makes me laugh. It just gives you a good old chuckle because not every team is willing to do stupid stuff like this and dress up in silly costumes as they’re getting off the plane. And it’s delightfully weird. And I think that, you know baseball. And team chemistry at its best is when it’s just throwing you stuff that is delightfully weird. And just not really a downside to it. So Brandon Belt as a Sea Captain, congrats to you.
ALEX: Yeah, I totally agree. Uhm, there were a couple of costume pictures circulating this week. The Dodgers partook in the fun as well. And the, the one that got the most attention was there their starting rotation dressing up, like they were in a biker gang. You know, Max Scherzer looked like the only one who belonged there. The helmet looked a little big for Walker Buehler and he’s wearing Uggs so we could we could get a little more intimidating.
*photos taken from https://www.truebluela.com/2021/9/24/22691682/los-angeles-dodgers-mlb-news-costumes-halloween*
BOBBY: That’s my kind of biker gang.
ALEX: Uh-huh. But this was, the context that I, that seemed to be missing from this was that the whole team dressed up. This was a costume trip that they, that they took their on their last ahh, they were going on their last road series. And so for the flight everyone, everyone dressed up in, in a costumes and there were some much better ones in there then the quote “Most feared biker gang in the world.” See Joe Kelly was the Grinch. And like, like, like went for it? I Will Smith obviously went Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: What else is here? Kenley Jansen dressed up as Captain America which is just incredible. And in this photo, he’s also toting a what appears to be a guitar over his shoulder, and it’s maybe the most badass I’ve ever seen, Kenley Jansen. I’m just gonna put that up.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Max Muncy, he’s a state trooper.
BOBBY: Ohhh.
ALEX: Tough, tough luck. What [32:11] Blake Treinen?
BOBBY: Well, what if he dressed up as, he and, and Trea Turner and a third unidentified person that dressed up as Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
ALEX: They could have made a work but they dressed up as if they were from Top Gun.
BOBBY: Oh, damn it. I love Top Gun that’s–
ALEX: Yeah. Is Top Gun canceled now?
BOBBY: Top Gun has been canceled. I mean, Top Gun has been canceled and then brought back, you know? It’s like you only accepted as canceled literature.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. All this to say, it’s very enjoyable. I like seeing like seeing players just do stupid shit.
BOBBY: Can we come back to Max Muncy being a state trooper? Max, have you read the news lately? Maybe you just checked in news–
ALEX: I’ll–
BOBBY: –just, Just checking on the news.
BOBBY: Do we, do we think Max Muncy has read the news lately?–
ALEX: No–
BOBBY: –do you think most of these guys have.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Maybe we don’t want them to read the news because they wouldn’t read the right kind of news. Alright, we spent a lot of time on, on costumes. So what’s what’s second Up for you?
ALEX: Second Up for me was that I was able to attend an Oakland Athletics Baseball game this past week.
BOBBY: And you stayed in Billy Beane’s box sweet right?
ALEX: Right, right because he doesn’t watch the games.
BOBBY: You went down there and you did a little lat pulldown with him.
ALEX: Pump, pump some iron.
BOBBY: Hopped on the treadmill, during the Seventh Inning Stretch, you know working on that seven-minute mile.
ALEX: Yeah, flicks to the flicks the radio on then flick that off–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –cuz I didn’t like how it was going.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Ahh, I got to go to the Coliseum. And I, I cherish every visit there these days because I’m not sure which one will be the last one. But I went in celebration. My mother’s birthday with her. And my, my lovely girlfriend Gabriella. And we had a grand old time. You know, we were one of, I think 4500 people there–
BOBBY: Brutal.
ALEX: –and I’m like I’m not kidding.
BOBBY: No, I know the attendance numbers for the A’s are very, very bad.
ALEX: Yes, we, I know we were playing the Seattle Mariners. And it was the middle of the week. But guys, guys, in my down, I will have more to say about, about ahh, about why this might be.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But I will just say despite ahh ahh, attendance, and despite a loss, despite a rocky finish to the Oakland Athletics Season. It’s nice to like go out there and be around like, like minded people, you know?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Not feel, feel like the outlier. In cheering for your team.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Which I don’t know if you’ve ever gone to Yankee Stadium to root for the other team.
BOBBY: I have.
ALEX: It’s an experience.
BOBBY: I wear a Matt Harvey jersey.
ALEX: Uh-hmm yeah.
BOBBY: That was tough. Pretty much every time I’ve gone to Yankee Stadium has been to root for the other team just not so openly all the time.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. Sometimes you get like a like, Let’s go, Twins!
BOBBY: The other [35:15]–
ALEX: I went to see them earlier this season. I may think it may have said that. The security guard kind of wished me luck —
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: –going in.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: So that’s kind of the vibe you get.
BOBBY: I don’t think anybody would beat you up. You’re very nonthreatening. No offense. I mean,
ALEX: That’s fair.
BOBBY: Just relaxed guy, you know.
ALEX: Right, I mean, I do host a podcast so most people could probably take me.
BOBBY: Ohh. Wow, long look in the mirror. Alright, my Third Up this week is, well, first before we move on Happy Birthday to your mom. I’m glad you guys got to go to a game together at the Coliseum.
ALEX: Yeah, shout out pull it out for a shot Producer Lisa.
BOBBY: All right, my third Up this week is, Alex, Did you see the video of my beloved childhood best friend Rookie, the Bat Dog running onto the field in Buffalo made at bat during Cavan Biggio’s event. Did you see this video?
ALEX: I didn’t see this video.
BOBBY: Can I just play a little audio for the listeners and for you.
Commentator 1: 15 as Rookie the Bat Dog. Here at Sahlen Field tonight. Little over-anxious is now up by the Pitcher’s mound. Here for the final dog day of the season.
Commentator 2: Oh, Eastman’s got the ball. He wanted it, he want the baseball, easy there rookie–
BOBBY: I do think that Major League Baseball could benefit from just having more dogs run on the field. A longtime take of mind is that every commercial every ad should have a dog in it. Because dogs have the highest approval rating of anything in the United States of America. And I haven’t been challenged on this assertion yet, because every commercial that has a dog, everybody’s like, that’s good commercial. So I’m waiting for the bad commercial with a dog. And I’m waiting for how a dog could make a Major League Baseball game worse. It can’t. I’m just telling you, it can’t have more dogs, run on more fields and see what happens. We can even make this like [36:15] we can let the dogs play.
ALEX: I mean, some teams you might not even notice the difference. I I will say–
BOBBY: Can you guarantee that the Orioles would have lost more games if they had a dog manning one of the nine positions on the field? I can’t. They’ve lost 106 games already.
ALEX: Harsh harsh but fair. I’m curious to hear how every dog owner would hear about the proposal to have a dog on TV every commercial break.
BOBBY: What’s wrong with that?
ALEX: We think, we think all the dogs around America will, will respond appropriately to that. I’m sure whenever dogs see dogs on TV, they’re usually, they pay no attention. Right?–
BOBBY: –most my dog doesn’t really notice most dogs on TV unless they’re barking for an extended period of time. Dogs have a hard time seeing screens, they are not like humans.
ALEX: Well–
BOBBY: And better off–
ALEX: –around dogs who who who will say, for whom that is the only thing they see.
BOBBY: Really? Well, let’s just try it out for a year, can’t get worse.
ALEX: Right
BOBBY: The only thing that we see on this commercials now with more consistencies, old people holding hands after taking a medication that will extend their life for $300 a pill.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: No where to go but up.
ALEX: –as we, as we know this is also kind of how Major League Baseball approaches, product changes is they have an idea and then they say okay, let’s just do it and see what happens we’ll check back in a year. So I think we’re in good company.
BOBBY: The sneaky down part of this is that Cavan Biggio is in Triple-A? Man, I kind of thought he was pretty good for the Blue Jays for a while there but I guess it’s not.
ALEX: He’s not having a, not having a very good year.
BOBBY: It doesn’t help that they signed to Marcus Semien and he’s been the best second baseman in baseball, tough beat for Kevin Biggio.
ALEX: That’s hard.
BOBBY: Shout out to Rookie, the Bat Dog. Former Bat Dog of the trend Thunder by the way. Uhm, all right your up.
ALEX: My last up this week, if only as a counterbalance to some of the Baltimore Orioles slander in that in the last discussion is the season that Cedric Mullins is having this year which he’s playing in Baltimore. So I do not expect many people to have been watching many games in which Cedric Mullins was playing was, was performing. But perform he did, quite well in fact. Can I can I just read you a list of the only the only active players in the league to to have a 30-30 season that’s that’s 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases.
BOBBY: I’m ready, yeah. Let’s hear it.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s gonna be Mike Trout.
BOBBY: Okay. I know that guy–
ALEX: Mookie Betts
BOBBY: I know that guy as well.
ALEX: Yeah, I know him too. Christian Yelich, him I haven’t heard of in a while.
BOBBY: That’s weird. Do you think he was wearing more than wearing cleats he was gonna auction off and donate tomorrow [40:00] Baseball couple days ago?
ALEX: Stock feels down right now.
BOBBY: You know, some people known–
ALEX: Christian Yelich slander–
BOBBY: Some people with paper cleats worn by Christian Yelich just just because he’s a handsome guy, you know?
ALEX: I mean, he’s still a good baseball player. But the segment’s not about Christian Yelich is about Cedric Mullen.
BOBBY: Back to Ced.
ALEX: That, that list rounds out with ahh, with José Ramírez, Ronald Acuña, Jr. and of course, Cedric Mullins. Outfielder for the Baltimore Orioles, who has been a shining spot in an otherwise somewhat lackluster team, which is arguably the nicest thing I can say about the 2021 Baltimore Orioles.
BOBBY: If 110 losses is somewhat lackluster. I want you to be my boss.
ALEX: During the game where Mullins hit his 30th home run the the Orioles in the following Inning when they were headed out to play defense hung back in the dugout while Mullins took the field so that he could have a moment to let the fans appreciate him show their respect for him. And I don’t know it was kind of a goosebumps moment man it’s like it’s the things that like really put things in perspective and the Orioles may not have had many goosebumps moments this season. But it’s nice to like at least have some someone to pin your hopes upon. As, as a, as a fan of a team who’s seen many stars come and go and seen many good teams come and go with, with very little to show for it. I can appreciate those, those players who really actually give you something to dream on. And you really say I know this isn’t gonna happen forever. Cedric Mullins may not even be a part of the next good Baltimore Orioles team but I sure hope so, because he, he deserves it.
BOBBY: Hang that top-five MVP finish banner in Camden Yards, baby. sorry–
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: I had to bring it back down for the Orioles fans–
ALEX: Yeah, of course–
BOBBY: –and if this–
ALEX: –the Orioles, what are you gonna do?
BOBBY: Can’t let them think they were being too nice to them. Ahh, amazing season for Cedric Mullins. What an amazing player, he the growth that he has shown in the last couple of years I’m not gonna pretend like I’ve been following Cedric Mullins this career but this is like in arguably sustainable performance. Nobody else is locked into a season like this ever. Now, this might be his best career year. Sure, but like he is now a legitimately above-average MLB Starter, and turn yourself into that. While also on a team that sucks. It’s like, it’s really cool. It’s cool to watch.
ALEX: Yes. couldn’t have said it better. Ahh, alright, I think that that means we’re onto Down?
BOBBY: We are indeed onto Down. Why don’t we just get this one out of the way Alex since I know that we both have it on our list. Uhm, I think it’s being called, card-gate.
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: If you’re not aware, the Tampa Bay Rays, formerly known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and the Toronto Blue Jays had a little bit of dust-up this past week. Ahh, when Ray centerfielder Kevin Kiermaier was sliding into home plate and Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk dropped an index card, Alex, which had the Jays entire strategy for how to pitch to the Ray’s entire lineup on it. These index cards are very common in baseball now. They are sent from the Analytics Department out with different players. If you’re a centerfielder you might have one for defensive alignment if you are a catcher you might have one for pitching strategy against the players that are in the opposing team’s lineup. It’s very common, I think it’s kind of weird? There’s no other thing in the sport where it just tells you what to do like this the proliferation of these things is kind of strange. But if you’re gonna have them here’s what you can’t do, you can’t drop it. You can’t fumble that and give it to the other team and then what you can’t do after that is throw at the other team because they picked it up. You dropped it. My Down this week is that the Jays are a bunch of big babies for this, I’m sorry, I usually don’t get this take-y but this is a bunch of loser behavior from the Jays. A team that I am basically rooting for it to win the World Series because there’s nobody better and I love this team full of very fun players. And I like a Alejandro Kirk but you cannot drop this card. Even Charlie Montoyo who is the Jays Manager said that it was all water under the bridge.
ALEX: Actually, actually Bobby, he said it was all “agua under the bridge”, right? Under the bridge–
BOBBY: –“agua under the bridge’. After this happened and then the Jays players took it upon themselves to throw out Kevin Kiermaier anyway. it’s so broken and backwards. It makes me so angry that Ryan Borucki decided to throw it Kevin Kiermaier the next day or two days later or whatever. And a lot of Jays fans are like, this was cheating. No, it wasn’t, it wasn’t cheating. You dropped the card. You gave it to them. If you just yelled your signs out loud, it wouldn’t be cheating for the other team to hear the signs. Well, that’s basically what you did. You dropped your strategy.
ALEX: Right. This is of all the sign-stealing scandals we’ve had as of late, of which there have been many. This is by far the dumbest this is this is like if, when the Yankees were playing the Astros, they just instead of using any sort of trash cans, the Astros came across a hard drive that said “Secret. Do not Do not touch that had the password written on it.” Just just sitting out and the Astros took it. And–
BOBBY: I do–I think that the stakes got raised In a really weird way about this, because there was some writers. I forget who exactly tweeted this phrasing, but I saw multiple people share a similar sentiment that was like, “I can’t think of a card that I would want the opponent to have less.” Or like, “I can’t think of a worse situation for the Jays.” And I’m like–
ALEX: Security guard?
BOBBY: What are you talking–
ALEX: Credit card?
BOBBY: –about? Every team knows their own weaknesses. They’re all looking at the same data that you are, you don’t have some proprietary formula to get the raise out 100% of the time. So yes, this is a suggestion for the Catcher to use in conjunction with the Pitcher. But if you think that you cannot beat the Rays, because you dropped this card, you have bigger problems. So the stakes were really not that high. And then people made them that high right afterwards. They were higher than the Jays were ever even acting like they were people on Twitter were acting like they were higher than the Jays were acting. And then it became this whole thing where nobody can have a reasonable opinion about this, as many things tend to be in Baseball, including one John Heyman, who came in off the top rope completely unprompted. Nobody asked him for his fucking opinion, but he decided to tweet raise announcer keep saying that once Kirk dropped his scattering port on the field, it’s fair game for Kiermaier to take it. What if a $100 bill fell out of Kirk’s pocket? Would that be fair game for Kiermaier to take two? What if it was a family portrait? He gets that too? Electric writing–
ALEX: Many many many baseball players to carry family portrait in their back, in their back pocket.
BOBBY: You can’t make this shit up like I said to, I said to Ringer MLB Show host Michael Baumann that this is the funniest Baseball tweet since Ken Rosenthal’s read the article Mr. Sugar Penis.
ALEX: It’s so bad and there’s been a lot of bad faith reading about this whole situation and I think that Kevin Kiermaier himself has not done himself many favors because he very easily could have shut a lot of this down but has now given interviews over multiple days where he continues to to you know, claim that he did nothing wrong and he was you know, I didn’t I didn’t really look at the card but you know I just kind of picked it up and and again like I am I’m over it but like I don’t see why they should have a problem with it. And ahh and you know, we shouldn’t–I mean they they dropped the card and so as I said before, I picked it up and I didn’t really didn’t really read what was, you know, and I imagined the Blue Jays were half responding to him picking up the card and half responding to just him not shutting the fuck up.
BOBBY: And not pretend, yeah, him pretending like he didn’t read it or write–
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: –nobody in the race. I’d read it. Yeah, no, you’re right. But also in his defense, they threw a 94 mile an hour projectile at him afterwards.
ALEX: Uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah.
BOBBY: I will be pretty mad if I were Kevin Kiermaier, now the worst part of all of this. Now let me be salvage for a moment. The worst part of all this is that I had to, because my principals told me to Alex I had to get on Twitter.com and defend the Tampa Bay fuckin Rays. Nothing worse could come of this.
ALEX: Yeah, tough beat for all of us. Let’s uh, we really should make this “agua under the bridge” If I’m being honest here it.
BOBBY: Uhm, we can–can we come up with a better name and card gate beat? We don’t need to just add gate to the end of everything, spy gate with the Patriots that worked. But there are better ways to delineate that this was a scandal you know.
ALEX: Right. I’m, should we start making shirts that say Minorly Paygate?
BOBBY: That maybe that will get more attention.
ALEX: Ex exploiter, exploitation gate?
BOBBY: Collusion gate?
ALEX: Yeah, it doesn’t, doesn’t–
BOBBY: That’s a little bit redundant. All right, what is what do I have to go again now? Can you just go, What’s your ne–what’s your next Down.
ALEX: Okay, my next Down. Ahh, well, let’s let’s, let’s keep it in the family here. Since we’re talking about the Rays. The Tampa Bay Rays this postseason will be making the very curious decision to ahh flip the bird to fans who attended their game.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Do you recall the plan, Bobby, of Tampa Bay floated a little while back split their time between Tampa Bay and Montreal?
BOBBY: Calling it a plan is one way of saying it.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. It was–
BOBBY: I didn’t see much planning.
ALEX: –the same words. Yeah.
BOBBY: That went into that proposal. But yes, I recall that. Yeah.
ALEX: Well, they’re, they’re still beating that drum because they are going to be displaying a sign in Tropicana Field this offseason, to, to showcase this “plan” of a split future between Tampa Bay and Montreal.
BOBBY: Alex, why could be cheaper than one baseball stadium. I got something for you, two Baseball Stadiums.
ALEX: Two Baseball Stadiums.
BOBBY: Listen, if the taxpayers pay for both of them.
ALEX: Right, exactly. The cities are giving mo–giving them away. Tha–make it, make it four Baseball Stadiums.
BOBBY: Six, one for each month, put them in different countries.
ALEX: It’s like the Harlem Globetrotters. Like, they don’t even need to have their own place. They’ll just just hop around. I think I think that what we’re describing is just teams, teams traveling, you know, they’re just 30 Baseball Stadiums and they just ahh–
BOBBY: Nobody on–them.
ALEX: Nobody. Yeah.
BOBBY: If the book come out, like concert venues?
ALEX: Right. Maybe this is the the–
BOBBY: The Rays are playing Lollapalooza next weekend.
ALEX: So team president Matt Silverman revealed this in an interview last week, and he said that they wanted to unveil the sign the first playoff game, and I’m reading this from a story in the Tampa Bay Times. He said “We’re going to add a sign in the right-field foul territory with a very simple Tampa Bay, Montreal graphic.” Okay, sounds simple, “especially with the eyes of baseball on us this October. We want that visible symbol of our plan, and our excitement for it to plan. It will mark the effort suddenly and keep the focus on winning.”
BOBBY: It will mark it suddenly we’re building a sign that’s going to be on national television so subtle.
ALEX: “That we want to leave this city for half the year.”
BOBBY: I thought this was dead in the water. When when they floated this. And nobody seemed to think it was a reasonable proposal because it’s not. I thought that they just kind of backed off of that.
ALEX: Well, Ahh Silverman says that it still remains the best and possibly only chance to keep the team in the Tampa Bay area long term and talks have been progressing in the background. So I don’t know. Seems like he kind of disarmed an argument.
BOBBY: Broke, leaving a city woke. Leaving a city for half the year. I don’t understand.
ALEX: There still feels like there’s no way this actually happens. But I do think it’s incredibly funny and incredibly bleak. That the team would be so brazen as to kind of wave this in front of their fans faces. You know what, what makes me come back to Stadiums?
BOBBY: Yeah?
ALEX: My team having a sign saying “we’re leaving. Were leaving for half the year.”
BOBBY: That’s why you went–
ALEX: They don’t want to be here–
BOBBY: –to the coliseum–right?
ALEX: Ex–exactly, yes. Like, I get off on that.
BOBBY: I actually have an idea for the race. Are you ready?
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: This is the new market inefficiency. And I’m just gonna say it out loud on the podcast. All of our listeners are gonna get the first inside scoop to invest in this. Here it is. Instead of building a Stadium in Canada, instead of building a Stadium in Tampa Bay. Set a building a Stadium in any State. Instead of building a Stadium period. You play on a ship in international waters that way you don’t have to follow the CBA boom. Don’t pay your players anything. You move the Stadium. You just throw down a couple bases you know maybe a frisbee a second base on an airplane hangar in international waters. And you just get around all of the CBA you don’t have to follow any of the rules.
ALEX: Oh my god, can you think of all the crimes they’d be able to do?
BOBBY: Unbelievable amount of crimes. Matthew Silverman, if you’re listening.
ALEX: That spreadsheet would be popping off, let me just say.
BOBBY: We could get a sign-up in centerfield for this, during the ALCS.
ALEX: I like this idea. I think you’d probably be a better, a better use for our naval ships these days anyway,
BOBBY: Antitrust Exemption be damned. We even need the Antitrust Exemption. We don’t have US laws applying to us. CBA can’t get me in international waters, Alex.
ALEX: You know you’ve spoken this out loud. And this is gonna make its way to a Baseball team who says, “Huh–
BOBBY: Let’s go.
ALEX: –can we make this happen?”
BOBBY: Let’s go somebody is going to do it. At least I came up with the first this is my IP now. I get a cut of this. I’m pivoting–[54:49].
ALEX: I’m sure they’ll ahh, they’ll operate in good faith and ahh acknowledge that you came up with this idea.
BOBBY: This like Moneyball 2.0 is our IP. I’ll share it with you. You’re my business partner. We own a company together.
ALEX: Alright, going off the rails, but I think we each, you have you have two more Up–you have two more Down. I still have one. So I think I’ll toss it back to you.
BOBBY: Yes. My second Down this week is actually the thing pieces that come out about the Tampa Bay Rays front office.
ALEX: Nice, nice, nice.
BOBBY: We promised we didn’t–
ALEX: Tampa Bay Rays airtime–
BOBBY: I don’t even, I’m not even gonna spend a lot of time talking about this. But just it’s actually impossible to go a month without someone writing a think piece about what would happen if a different Rays executive ran a different team. It’s like, Chaim Bloom is the GM of the Red Sox. What if he was the GM of the Mets? That is an actual piece that was written last week, Alex. I understand that there’s not a lot of positive things to write about the Mets. I understand that they’re currently looking for so much to run their baseball operations since they’ve had to fired two different people in the last eight months who ran their Baseball operations. But it’s not interesting. It’s not compelling. It just reinforces all these same ideas that all of the teams should try to operate like the Rays. Which for, we’ve talked about a million times for a million reasons is not sustainable and or in the interest of fans. It’s not, guess what Chaim Bloom would have done if he ran the Mets. I want you to guess, because I know what would have happened I’ve looked into the crystal ball and I have seen that future.
ALEX: I don’t think we’d be staring down a friend [56:30] extension.
BOBBY: I’ll tell you what, we’re staring at Jacob deGrom pitching for the Dodgers.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Wow, bleak thought.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You just, you just put out there.
BOBBY: Ahh, I know but apparently if I pitched it in that way I could write this think piece for any number of outlets.
ALEX: If these outlets are so desperate for content, we are here.
BOBBY: No no, Nope, we don’t work for that. We don’t work we are to our, our writer is too long. If they would like to distribute the podcasts on their platform that’s fine. They can talk about that but complete and total and editorial and financial independence.
ALEX: I want think pieces about us next.
BOBBY: They’re coming, that’s the next evolution for the podcast. People writing think pieces about us, Jesus Christ, you know. Ahm, dirtbag left but for Baseball question mark. What’s your final down this week? Please, for the love of God.
ALEX: My final down this week is one that I’m a quite upset about. And I I could rant for a while about but I won’t, or i could.
BOBBY: It’s the race front office.
ALEX: It’s the race. No, it is Tampa Bay Rays west. Those darn Oakland Athletics.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: Who this past week, announced that ahh season tickets were back on sale, if fans were interested. Ahh, they were going to be approximately 40% higher than they were, the year prior. For some is low less, some was a little more. Season tickets usually go up a couple of percentage points every year. Because inflation, right? I mean, owners recognize that inflation exists when it benefits them. But–
BOBBY: That’s a good one, good one. You got me, I don’t know why I’m laughing so hard. Just letting people in the window into our friendship where sometimes you just say something they just get me–
ALEX: –get to, sometimes it gets you. Uhm, in certain places, season tickets will be more expensive than say the New York Yankees.
BOBBY: Uh-mm, similar product.
ALEX: Right. similar product. I don’t know if you’ve been following the ahh, whole situation with the Oakland A’s over the last ahm, I don’t know two decades or so?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: They tend to ahh, they tend to roll out a pretty middling payroll.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: And they, they as of late have not pulled great crowds. And despite putting out a decent team, every year, they, they haven’t been able to do much with it.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I’m looking forward to them using this money to I don’t know extend Starling Marte, because that’s the only reasonable thing I can think of that they would do with it.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: I mean, all all kidding aside, it feels like a real slap in the face to A’s fans, especially when the team is at a crossroads of whether or not they’re going to stay in Oakland and get this Stadium built and or continuing to push the slogan rooted in Oakland. While they tour sites in Las Vegas,
BOBBY: Dawg, they spent so much money on that PR campaign, they got to get all their money’s worth.
ALEX: They, I guess, by raising prices for season tickets, and I can’t speculate why this is. But I’m going to speculate, and I’m sure there are many reasons. But uhm I have to think that among them, is the fact that the A’s need as good of a case as they can get that Oakland is no longer a viable place to play Baseball.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And, and what better way to make that argument than by saying, well, the fans aren’t coming. They’re not buying season ticket packages. They’re not showing up to games. We can’t do it here anymore.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: They don’t want us.
BOBBY: Stack the deck.
ALEX: Yeah, torpedo your torpedo your relationship, and then there’s nowhere else to go.
BOBBY: Yeah, I mean, teams that have low attendance, continually making it more expensive to go games is proof of concept that MLB owners don’t need the money from tickets to run an operation–
ALEX: Correct.
BOBBY: –because they are willfully, intentionally, actively driving people away from coming to their games. Them, you know, raise ownership, whatever it might be like these teams that have the lowest in attendance in Baseball, year after year, magically their owners are not going broke. I wonder how? I wonder how John Fisher’s net worth keeps going up? I wonder how Stuart Sternberg who’s always out of money, according to all of the people who cover him. I wonder how he’s still running a profit year over year? How does this keep happening? Alex, I don’t understand. It’s so hard. Ticket prices don’t affect what the team does on the field. They just don’t. And so when a team chooses to raise ticket prices, when the team when the team, like the A’s, chooses to raise season ticket package prices by 40%, what they’re telling you is that they think they have you over a barrel if you want to come to the game. And they’re just going to extort you for all of that money. And if you won’t pay it, somebody else will. And it’s all gravy. It’s not actually their business model. Getting people to come to games, and putting the best product on the field for that amount of people who come to games is not the business model anymore. And if you don’t see that you’re just not paying attention. I mean, that’s just basic supply and demand, right?
ALEX: You supply the money that they demand. That’s kind of I don’t have much of a choice.
BOBBY: I didn’t take Macroeconomics, but that sounds different than what I was led to believe supply and demand.
ALEX: Hmm, I have, yeah it’s weird. I’m starting to think that maybe Baseball doesn’t operate exactly in a free market?
BOBBY: That’s not possible. How dare you? How dare you insinuate that these are free-market men at their core?
ALEX: Yeah–
BOBBY: That’s like saying the American businessmen. That’s like saying they don’t believe in the American dream, Alex.
ALEX: Yeah, the American dream that they’re allowing their Minor Leaguers to try and live to try and bootstrap every day.
BOBBY: And that and that and that antitrust exemption. They don’t even use it. They don’t even need it–
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: –if you get rid of it if you want. I mean, don’t get rid of it. But like, ahh they–lives, they don’t need they don’t need it. I don’t know why you would even insinuate that my final Down this week, St. Louis Cardinals on a W 15. Not sure if you’ve seen this, but they’re coming for the record. coming for your record your Moneyball 1.0 record.
ALEX: As of about 20 minutes ago, they’re on W 16.
BOBBY: Oh, wow. See, I have written right here my notes W 15. Let me add a little six there. W 16 Alex, and my Down other than the fact that I hate watching the Cardinals win my Down is it you did this? You did it? I’m looking you right in the eyes on the zoom. You did it.
ALEX: Yeah, I know–
BOBBY: And you know you did–
ALEX: –look into my eyes.
BOBBY: –you know did. You can’t look me in the eye. You can’t face the music. You’re assuming your correction on a previous post. That’s fine. But you did it. So you gotta own up to it right here on the podcast for all of our wonderful listeners who deserve better than you allowing the Cardinals to win 16 straight Baseball games.
ALEX: I’m only gonna dig my heels in. I’m gonna double down.
BOBBY: You’re leaving the podcast for the turning point USA Baseball show?
ALEX: Wow. Wow.
BOBBY: Are the Cardinals are the first and only team?
ALEX: Uh-huh. Right, Cardinals first. Ahh while–
BOBBY: One TP another TP. That’s right.
ALEX: While watching the Cardinals have regular-season success doesn’t bring me much in the way of of joy. I will reiterate what I said last week, which is that it will create some sort of catharsis one way or another in the postseason. The Giants and Dodgers historically have had some trouble with those with those pesky Redbirds. That devil magic seems to seems to get them good from time to time. And–
BOBBY: Do I need to reiterate again that I don’t want the Dodgers to be eliminated by the Cardinals? That is not catharsis.
ALEX: I feel fine about that.
BOBBY: Well, you didn’t have to watch Carlos Beltran take the curveball. That ended the Mets 2007 playoff run, 2006 playoff run. You didn’t have to watch that.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: What would be catharsis would be watching the Cardinals lose the wild card game on an Adam Wainwright curveball that he hangs that monkey bats hits over the fence.
ALEX: That would be, that’s fine–
BOBBY: –for me.
ALEX: There you go. And we are barreling towards that possibility.
BOBBY: Okay, fine to say whatever. Cardinals fan Alex is back.
ALEX: Let’s go. I’m on board that Harrison Bader bandwagon.
BOBBY: Wow. Ahm, Congrats to you and all of your fellow January six riders. Good luck in your trials. This has been–
ALEX: That that Arizona audit. I saw some questions–
BOBBY: Right–
ALEX: –questions–
BOBBY: –reasonable questions. Can you find those answers that getvaccineanswers.org or whatever?
ALEX: Yeah, well, I just want the people to know I’m doing my own research. Okay, I respect everyone else out there, but I’m doing my own research.
BOBBY: Peer viewed, I assume.
ALEX: Double-blind trials and all that, all that jazz.
BOBBY: Uhm, okay, that’ll do it for another episode of Tipping Pitches. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Ahh, I believe this is our final episode before the end of the regular season. So if your team is in the hunt, best of luck to you. Unless like Alex, you’re a Cardinals fan. Although they’re they’re pretty much in because they’ve won 16 games in a row. That’ll help your wildcard chances. Hold on I’m calculating playoff probability after you win 16 games in a row. Ahm, if you would like to get yourself a unionized The Miners t-shirt, like these folks who did and shared a photo of themselves. Sarah and AIlana, Rose and Drogyn, and Summer and you can go to tiny.cc/nationalize, where you can find all of our unionized the miners merch proceeds go to more than Baseball, as they organize funds for Minor Leaguers who need it for housing, food, supporting their families, equipment, all of that good stuff. Or you can also get a hat that says no billionaires in Baseball, or a t shirt that says “steel bases, not wages”. Those are cool, too. Uhm, Alex, is there anything else that you would like to let people know before we end this year episode?
ALEX: No, I think that’s it. If you want to drop us a line about how we trade you feel that I would, I would, I would root for processor blasphemous team. You can do it you can reach us @tipping_pitches on Twitter. You can email us tippingpitchespod@gmail.com. Or you can call us indirect voice your frustration, unfiltered at 785-422-5881 or you can just rant about shareholders were ahh pretty friendly to that sentiment as well. So please do it.
[Outro 1:07:40]
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello, everybody. I’m Alex Rodriguez, Tipping Pitches. Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most Tipping Pitches. So we’ll see you next week. See ya.
Transcriptionist: Vernon Bryann Casil
Editor: Krizia Marrie Casil
Tipping Pitches 
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