Alex and Bobby check in on Bob Nightengale’s latest exploits, then discuss how they ~feel~ about a Houston-Atlanta World Series, what makes these teams hard to root for, the complexity of the Dodgers’ exit, and more. They also take listener messages about rooting for the Astros as a Dodger fan, Kevin Millar the scab, and what a devoted Tipping Pitches listener is called. This week’s Three Up, Three Down features TBS’s love for singles and chops, and a dystopian commercial for a self-driving(?) truck.
Links:
Ryan Helsley & Rob Manfred on the tomahawk chop
Levi Weaver on the Rangers’ resistance to LGBTQ+ acceptance
Songs featured in this episode:
TOPS — “Way To Be Loved” • Souls of Mischief — “93 ‘Til Infinity” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Episode Transcript
[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.
BOBBY: Alex, it may only be October 25, but to me, it feels like December 25th. It feels like Christmas morning, you know why?
ALEX: Why is that Bobby?
BOBBY: Not because the world series is about to start.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: That certainly doesn’t feel like Christmas morning. It feels like Christmas morning because we get to start this week’s podcast with a bad take, dramatic reading, from none other than, Bob Nightengale. Are you ready to do this?
ALEX: I am ready to do this. It’s been quite a while since we’ve actually gotten to sit down and really bask in the the penmanship of some of our Nation’s finest Baseball Columnist. So it’s it’s nice to be getting back to basics here in October.
BOBBY: Yeah, it has been a while. I mean, maybe we’ve just been focused on other stuff, or we’ve just been doing a real podcast, but it’s time to just derail the entire show and read line by line from a terrible column written for USA Today.
ALEX: Yes, because that’s what we do best. Uhm–
BOBBY: Now, I have not read this yet. So this is basically from Alex’s from Bob’s pen through Alex’s mouth to my ears, unencumbered.
ALEX: Okay, so the headline is Sweet Revenge: Atlanta knocks off Los Angeles Dodgers to advance to World Series.
BOBBY: Yes, I saw this and I thought this is a bad take dramatic [1:59]. I don’t even have to read the column.
ALEX: Yaiks, mmm.
BOBBY: Sweet revenge?
ALEX: Right up top, before we even get into the article, we have a correction. Corrections and clarifications, a previous version of this story included an incorrect dateline, the game took place in Atlanta.
BOBBY: Well, can we do a correct issuing a correction to the correction, Alex?
ALEX: Of course.
BOBBY: The games that the Braves play don’t take place on–
ALEX: [2:25]
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s in Cobb County. So it’s correction and clarification to the correction and clarification. Okay, what ah– get started. What is the lead?
ALEX: Okay. Bobby, “Atlanta is still seething that Major League Baseball stripped the All-Star Game away from their beloved city this summer. Well, politics or not”–
BOBBY: Paragraph break. “Well, politics or not”–
ALEX: Every, every single one, it’s a sentence on each on each line. “Politics or not, there’s absolutely nothing MLB can do to stop Atlanta now.”
BOBBY: Boom, bang, wow, mic dropped all ready. Now he’s gonna pick the mic back up and continue the column.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Is there nothing that they can do to stop Atlanta? They could have rigged the NLCS why didn’t they do that?
ALEX: Yeah, they probably could have, I’m sure they could have slipped some obscure rules provisions. And it says, Oh, actually, players named Eddie Rosario aren’t allowed to have more than seven hits in a series.
BOBBY: His runs actually count for the other team now.
ALEX: Right. That’d be the first time anyone in MLB was interested in anything remotely close to wealth redistribution. So but you know, one step at a time.
BOBBY: Okay, let’s continue.
ALEX: “Atlanta will host the World Series for the first time since 1999.” Thi–this column goes back and forth between grasping at straws to like, make a compelling ahh column. And, like minute by minute, kind of like play by, you know, like further down in the article, which we’re not going to get to. She does like a, like a pitch by pitch of an at bat of an Eddie Rosario bat.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Which could make for good writing, I suppose.
BOBBY: I just support that he didn’t it like he’s working it all into the same column, you know, like he’s not. He’s like, I’m not I don’t have to write a gamer. I’m just gonna I don’t have to write a bad take. I’m just gonna do them all in one.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. yeah. So he continues. “It was sweet revenge, Southern style,” whatever that means. “With a sellout crowd of 43,060 at Truist Park loving every minute.” We we haven’t really heard what the revenge is yet.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I I suppose the revenge is that MLB moved to the All-Star Game. And this was the Braves getting back at them, showing them those suits at MLB by getting to the World Series, that last thing that the MLB wanted?
BOBBY: The best version of these columns are always built on this non sequitur that only the writer understands. And never, never does the work to really like flesh it out and and chase that idea down and unravel it and try to try to really get at the core of what that means. So like, All right, let’s take the 30,000 foot view of this column, Alex. So what he’s saying is the Braves got to the World Series because they were like, You know what, we don’t want people to vote.
ALEX: Yeah, they were fueled by Manfred’s overtly political decision to pull the All-Star Game out of Atlanta.
BOBBY: Bad beat–
ALEX: And that just lit fire in their ass,
BOBBY: Bad beat for Freddy Freeman being the photo like mid article here in the–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –USA Today story where Bern Nightengale’s being like, no one can stop the Braves from sticking to MLB for moving it because of the Georgia voting restrictions. And then Freddie Freeman just looks like super happy.
ALEX: I mean, someone was gonna do this, right? Someone was ultimately going to write an article that–
BOBBY: No, I thought–
ALEX: [6:04] together–
BOBBY: –it’s gonna be a tweet.
ALEX: That’s right. Well, the funny thing is that this uhh, this column is probably like 1000 words long, and he really stops referencing the the All-Star Game shenanigans after like, after the first couple 100 words like from then on. It’s just kind of a preview of the World Series, but I respect that he’s trying to hook people, you know. So uhm, so he says whoever wins the World Series, it promises to be quite the World Series trophy presentation.
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: If it’s Atlanta, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is going to be booed from Cobb County to Savannah from moving the All-Star Game to Denver in protest of Georgia’s voting laws. And if it’s Houston, Manfred will be booed from Minute Maid Park to the Alamo for exposing the Astros cheating scandal, which led to the firing of GM Jeff Luhnow and and Manager A.J. Hinch and National embarrassment.
BOBBY: What’s that dangling clause at the end? I love, I love the from Minute Maid Park to the, hmmm. What can, what else can I think of that’s in Texas?–
ALEX: [7:13]
BOBBY: –Let me spin a wheel. Uh, the Alamo? Uh-hmm. he’s gonna be booed from Minute Maid to the Alamo.
ALEX: Can we be very clear here, Rob Manfred is going to be booed during the trophy presentation–
BOBBY: By [7:27]–
ALEX: –no matter where is the game–
BOBBY: Yeah, no nobody likes Rob Manfred.
ALEX: Right. That’s you can project whatever rationale you would like on to that fan base. But I promise you you’re not going to have 40,000 Astros fans saying fuck you for exposing our cheating scandal like–
BOBBY: It’s a cheering [7:49] they have–
ALEX: –[7:49] Manfred [7:49] players got suspended–
BOBBY: –they still have the title.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That that’s a good point. You know, we should write a column that’s like the Braves fans are actually booing Rob Manfred because their secret socialists. They’re–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –like you’ve been keeping too much of the profits.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It’s time to pay, this is your tribunal Rob. I just want to say really quickly this USA Today website, great work by everybody, my page has already become unresponsive six times over the course of you reading this article. Just just not working–
ALEX: [8:18]
BOBBY: –just play videos, the page is unresponsive, it’s telling me to wait or kill. I just I can’t even read this.
ALEX: Well, uhh there is a there’s a box up top that says we’re always working to improve your experience let us know what you think so if your page unfreezes and you can uhh close the popup ads around it, maybe maybe give that a click.
BOBBY: I had to just close out of the page because I’m afraid that it’s gonna crash my whole recording right now and the Tipping Pitches listeners at home are not gonna be able to hear this great segment. Is there anything else in this article that you want me to heat, see or hear? Now that I don’t have an open?
ALEX: No there’s not, like I said there’s like 800 more words here. Uhm–
BOBBY: Sweet Revenge.
ALEX: Yep. Here’s here’s a little random line. “Rosario swung and missed at a 93-mile per hour cutter. Strike one.” That’s just pulled that out of the middle of the article. Here’s another one, “They escaped a two-out, bases-loaded jam in the sixth when Blake Treinen struck out Austin Riley.”
BOBBY: Oh, so now we’re talking about [9:16]–
ALEX: Remember [9:17]. Yeah, we’re oh, we’re could be, we’re bouncing back and forth. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
BOBBY: This is like a Christopher Nolan movie time is not a straight line.
ALEX: No, that’s that’s really it for this article, aside from equating uhh, aside from equating Marcel Ozuna’s absence with the the the injury losses of Ronald Acuña and Mike Soroka–
BOBBY: That’s just in vogue right now, because the TBS podcast–
ALEX: It is.
BOBBY: –doing that at every opportunity.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, it’s all the same. He’s not there, right?
BOBBY: Right, yeah, same effect, same reasoning, nothing else to interrogate there?
ALEX: No, the important part is he’s not with us.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So we hope he gets back whenever he can.
BOBBY: Uhm, okay. Well, this certainly feels like a certain version of just having opened my Christmas presents. Alex, we’re going to preview said nightmare World Series. Uhh, we are going to answer just a few quick voicemails, and then we will do “Three Up, Three Down” as always. But before we do all of that I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Spacely.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[10:22]
[Transition Music]
BOBBY: Alex, the World Series of the bad narrative is upon us. And it’s not just the narrative that the Braves are flipping the script on, on Rob Manfred for supporting voting rights–
ALEX: Voting rights?
BOBBY: –not just that narrative, just all types of bad narratives. Uhm you know, I think this was this is a nightmare scenario. We before the before the playoffs started, before we even knew the playoff picture for certain, we were talking about how the, the teams were shaping up to be just not a lot of not a lot of things that we could get behind, right? We remember we had that conversation for a couple weeks on the show. And I said to you, it’s really dicey man, like there’s not a lot of teams that I could really see myself rooting for outside of the White Sox and the Dodgers and sure enough, the White Sox and the Dodgers are eliminated. We are left with the Braves and the Astros, uhm but I don’t want to shortchange the actual Baseball of it because we got two pretty good series. I think that uhm it’s a lot more surprising that the Dodgers did not come back than it is that the Red Sox did not come back, but the Red Sox put up a pretty good fight. Uhm I guess we’re just kind of bad luck here. We brought Josh Gondelman last week to try to make his case for the Red Sox. Try to pull on those middle of the road, rust country, rust belt voters to come root for the Red Sox and then they proceeded to lose two straight games. And they get eliminated from the ALCS. And then, of course, I was rooting pretty hard for the Dodgers, almost embarrassingly hard for the Dodgers. Uhm I was ridiculed by my family of Mets fans for wearing Dodgers gear and supporting the Dodgers and going to a bar to root for the Dodgers. But they were not able to do it. So what is kind of your general takeaway as we get ready to watch game one of this World Series? We’re sitting here on Monday night recording this. Are you excited? Are you frustrated by the teams that have made it? Are you looking forward to the matchup? Uhm what’s been your takeaway so far?
ALEX: Well, you know, I’ve kind of gone through a cycle of emotions at this point, because I think when when the Astros had clinched it, and the Braves were up in their series, it felt like the the writing was on the wall, right? And it felt like myself and Baseball fans everywhere, were bracing themselves for the inevitable, right? Which is an Astros-Braves World Series, because by and large, it’s not hard to find something to detest about either of these teams, whether it’s ones a fan bases culture, or a a a team’s culture, right? And so I sat with that for a while recognizing that this was absolutely not the the World Series that MLB wants, right? This isn’t the one that’s gonna draw record breaking viewership, right? It’s not the World Series that that Fox wants. And as a result of that, I’ve kind of I think I’ve made peace with it, right? Because it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be weird. We’re going to get some weird stuff, we always do. Well, these two teams make it hard for fans to root for their organizations. You can pick out a lot of individual players and follow them and follow their storylines. And you and I’ve talked about this before, right? But that’s, in some cases, a more enjoyable way to watch Baseball, because you can really tune in on the intricacies of of what and how a guy is doing. And so is it what is it what I wanted is what you wanted? No, maybe not. I still have self feels about the Astros, you know I, we still have feelings about about the Braves and a certain chant their fan base does. But ultimately the World Series is going to happen and I’m gonna I’m gonna sit down and watch it and that’s that’s kind of where we’re at right now. It’s gonna be a time.
BOBBY: Look, I don’t love the matchup in any way. I don’t even I don’t love the Baseball matchup either. Because I I like for all everything about what the Braves have done so far this season, you know going and improving the team at the trade deadline rebuilding the ou–outfield. All of the the hot play in the playoffs of guys of of Eddie Rosario in particular but also like Freddie Freeman was really hot in the DS. Started off the CS very cold and then turned it around and got really hot again,. There are individual things that I like about that side of the bracket.
ALEX: Fine.
BOBBY: I think the Astros are much better. I still think the Dodgers were better, they lost the series though. So like they lost, fine. It’s very hard to win back to back World Series. It’s hard to win a World Series at all, but it’s even harder to win back to back. Uhm but, the matchup itself just does not really inspire me on a basic level–
ALEX: No, no.
BOBBY: –because it doesn’t feel like heavyweight versus heavyweight, but it also doesn’t really feel like heavyweight versus underdog because the Braves were very good last year. Like they almost went toe to toe with the Dodgers at a little bit more of a fuller strength version than they are now. And I don’t I don’t really know it’s just something about this team feels a little bit down and I mean, I guess the thing that I’m really missing is just Ronald Acuña Jr. Like I think if Ronald Acuña was on, was playing, and was able to showcase himself on the National stage. Say what you want about what the TV Executives would think, what what neutral observers, neutral fans would come think coming into the series if it would attract as many of them. I think for like the Baseball heads, it’d be really cool to watch Acuña go at 24 years old or however old he is go up against this Astros team that has kind of been like the the cream of the crop in Baseball for the last five years. This is their third World Series in five years. This is their, this was their fifth straight ALCS appearance like this has been all in all, the Astros have been the best Baseball team in Major League Baseball since we started doing this podcast. I think that that is fair to say.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, the the Dodgers are there too, but certainly in the AL.
BOBBY: Right. But just in terms of like actually winning it, get–you know, and they’re still they made it again this year, you know, I mean, like that there, you can make an argument either way. But I there are some things that I like about the Astros to like most of the players on this team. Were not even on the team during the cheating thing. But it’s like I said a couple of weeks ago, it’s just impossible to talk about this team divorced from the context of that. But organizationally, there are even worse things about them, like many of these front office members are still the same people that were involved or who signed off on the idea of trading for Roberto Osuna, and they’ve gotten rid of uhm Brandon Taubman, the guy who was harassing reporters about that AOuna trade. But culturally, it still doesn’t feel great in that organization? Uhm so yeah, that’s what that’s kind of what I was alluding to, at the idea of like, no narrative here is a good narrative here. Uhm in terms of like, at least in 2019 you could convince yourself that it was like, good guys versus bad guys win the Nationals won. Uhm yeah, it just doesn’t really feel like that this time around. I don’t know, maybe I’m just being a little bit too pessimistic about the actual onfield of it. And it’ll turn out to be a, an entertaining and weird series, like almost all World Series turned out to be. I will say, personally for me, this is being biased. It just cannot entertain a world where the Braves win the World Series, just–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –can’t, just can’t. I’m obviously a gigantic Mets fan. But this specific year, where the Mets were winning the division for two thirds of the year, and they just completely collapsed and laid down and allowed the Braves to rebuild their team at the trade deadline. Allowed them to keep to stay within striking distance and then eventually strike. Yaiks, that would be a hard pill for me to swallow. Very, very hard pill for me to swallow. Last thing on that, by the way. Good for the Braves for going for it at the trade deadline, fine. Alex Anthopoulos get a little too much credit. Well, too much credit. He traded nobody, basically nobody of consequence to the organization to just get a couple outfield bats. And those guys really stepped up and performed, those guys took it seriously, those guys saw on the field, we can do this. And I’d like to give them a ton of credit. But I kind of feel like Alex Anthopoulos is riding a little bit of a luck wave right now. I mean, to an extent, give Alex Anthopoulos truth serum, did he really think Eddie Rosario was gonna hit 550 in the NLCS?
ALEX: No, but you didn’t You also don’t need to think he’s gonna do that, right? To to still think that he’s a worthy addition. I mean, I think you’re right that like an–and it’s not limited to Anthopoulos either that any team that GM assembles there’s an element of luck in it actually coming together, right? You can say the same about the, you can say the same about the Giants entire run this year, right? And the you know, you and I kept thinking the rug was gonna get pulled out from under them. And it didn’t, those players just matched and they performed well together. So–
BOBBY: I just think he’s getting a lot of credit for not punting like him for not doing the thing that every other GM has made it seem like as normal, but like shouldn’t happen as often as it does.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Which is just giving up on the season. Now he took advantage of a couple other teams who were giving up on the season. And I think he deserves a small amount of credit, but I don’t think that we need to like, anoint him. He doesn’t need to be right there in the heavens, gazing down at us with Theo Epstein.
ALEX: Just Theo Epstein even deserve to be up there? It’s conversation for another pod.
BOBBY: That is, my tone is laden with sarcasm.
ALEX: Before we move off the Dodgers entirely. I think it makes sense that we give them their do their send off. Because this was a really, really good team that somehow ended up getting the short end of the stick every step of the way. Like they they they largely had the the deck stacked against them. And it’s somewhat impressive that they’d that they got as far as they did, when you think about the the injuries that they sustained. The fact that this was a a 100 win team that had to duke it out in a one game playoff against ahh a red hot Cardinals team, right? The fact that they didn’t get home field advantage against an 88 win. Atlanta Braves team, like losing Turner losing, Kershaw losing Monte, like I mean and injuries happen every team, right? It’s this is it’s the kind of thing that is bad luck of the draw. But I think that by and large we, I’ve seen a lot of different takes around the the Dodgers exit and sweeping declarations about, you know, the the fault, the the rise and fall of the starter and relief, or you know, the Dave Roberts playoff narrative. And I just think that the general Baseball fan literacy, myself included is not well equipped enough to talking about all the nuances that go into a an a season’s end like this, right? It’s a confluence of factors that I think all too often media members try to kind of boil down to like, well, what was the problem, right? What didn’t click at the end of the day? And it’s, well, they’ve they had a lot of injuries. And Dave Roberts in the front office maybe leans too hard on starters in relief, right? And ran Rios and Scherzer into the ground and their offense, forgot how to hit for like half of the playoff games. It’s kind of remarkable really. And yet still fought tooth and nail to the to the very end. So I do want to want to tip my hat to that Dodgers team. And I said it last week, right? But this is, this feels like and it remains to be seen whether it is but it feels like the end of an era. right? Coming into every season, it’s, you know, it’s pretty easy to to pencil in the Dodgers up in first place. Or at least pencil them into a playoff spot, right? You can throw 100 wins on there, they’ll probably get there. That doesn’t feel so certain next year, especially with the Giants resurgence this year. It feels all of a sudden the NL West’s power balance feels very shifted. I don’t know what do you think?
BOBBY: Yeah, I mean, I think depending on who the Dodgers resign, depending on who the Giants bring back. And depending on who the Padres hire and whether or not some of their guys can bounce back from injury. There’s like, this is way too premature to say. But there’s a reasonable case to be made that the Padres have a good shot at winning that division next year, even after they’re very disappointing. 2021. And I know we were saying that before this year that they were going to challenge the Dodgers, but you laid it out very nicely last week. A lot of these guys are free agents. A lot of these guys that have driven the consistency of the Dodgers, are free agents. Now they ha–they obviously have guys like Mookie Betts and Trae Turner coming back. Mookie Betts is going to be here until the cows come home. But Trae Turner that who they traded for at this trade deadline, he has another year. You know, Walker Buehler is not going anywhere the best of the best players are probably going to come back to but the thing that rounds out the rest of their team and makes them so good and is why you can pencil them in for an absurd 95 to 105 wins every year is just because like there are so many good players. And there are a lot of question marks about those guys coming back. So I agree. Uhm I think that they’ll find a way to get it done. I really hope I was thinking about this when there was a lot of like spending doesn’t win you World Series discourse on when the Dodgers got eliminated. Uhm which is just just hilarious. The notion that the Braves eliminated them because they spent less asinine, has nothing to do with it.
ALEX: Uhm, or people going I assume people will recant their statements when the fourth highest payroll in the league Astros win the World Series.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right?
BOBBY: Yeah, cognitive dissonance. Uhm I really hope that the Dodgers don’t use not just not not winning the World Series, but just like the timeline of these players all coming up for free agency at once. And many of them probably getting larger offers and the Dodgers are willing to give on the aggregate for each one of them individually as a group. If that makes sense? That’s kind of a confusing way to phrase it, but like, but like other teams are gonna come in and poach a few of them, they’re not gonna be able to bring back everybody. They just won’t, and they won’t choose to, because they know that the all of those guys will be getting older at the same time. And they know that they need some collection of older, middle aged Baseball wise and younger guys to make sure that this is the the level of sustainability that they’ve had over the last 10 years. So a lot of those guys will be wearing different uniforms. I personally just hope that they don’t use this as an opportunity to say, now it’s time to get and stay below the luxury tax. Because we know they can afford it to go way over, we know that they’ve spent fucking money in the past, even if it was on a guy that they shouldn’t have spent it on. We know that they’ve consistently shown that they’re willing to spend more than every other team and not worry about it if it means trying to compete, because that’s what the fans deserve. And I hope that now that they’ve won one, and a lot of these guys are coming up in about to be off the books. They don’t just Red Sox this, because that would be a really unfortunate thing for Baseball, if all three teams that we’ve seen spend the most amount of money. And I guess now if you want to throw the Mets in there now that they’re owned by Steve Cohen. But if the three teams that we’ve seen consistently spend at or above the luxury tax are just suddenly just like very afraid of that line. Those three teams being the Red Sox, who traded Mookie Betts to stay under it. The Yankees who religiously stay $1 million under it every single year, and now the Dodgers who are at a bit of a fork in the road. So we’ll see, we’ll see. Guggenheim’s Baseball Ownership group. Flash that cash bro.
ALEX: Yeah, well, and I mean, we will be–
BOBBY: [27:07] he got it–
ALEX: –right. I mean, we we would be remiss if we didn’t also say that, like, the CBA negotiations will impact all of us too, right? We have no real sense of what Baseball’s financial structure might look like come January, it’s not going to look very different. But it will impact the the way that teams look at what players are available and what they think they’ll be able to do come July and, you know, is it even still feasible to pay players to be to play Baseball and should we be moving towards unpaid internships? I think that that’s, I think that’s something they should start looking into.
BOBBY: Let’s do a couple of voicemails, a couple questions. That sound good?
ALEX: Yeah, let’s do it.
BOBBY: This first one is actually not a voicemail. I’ll read it really quickly, it is an email, comes from Anthony. Uhh Anthony says that, he’s a huge Dodger fan and has been for most of his life. There’s a point in the immediate fallout of the Astros cheating scandal where he convinced himself that he hated the Astros even more than the Giants have calmed down from those negative feelings. I still really hate the Astros for tainting that 2017 run, which I think featured my favorite Dodgers team of this generation. That being said, I think I have to root for them against the Braves. As much as they love October and some other Braves players, I don’t think it’s enough to absolve the Braves of their very real problems as an organization. The tomahawk chop and inviting TravisTtritt seemingly only because he’s politically relevant. Seemed like too much for me to get over. Maybe the Braves can win in seven but get blown out every game at home so they don’t do their stupid chant. So we are not the only people feel like conflicted Alex.
ALEX: Yeah, well, and this is especially hard for a self proclaimed Dodger fan.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right? Who was impacted very directly by the Astros cheating scandal back in 2017.
BOBBY: And just got bounced by the Braves this year.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Any advice? Who are you rooting for? Are you claiming Switzerland?
ALEX: I I guess the Astros if I feel like most–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –quote unquote “neutral observer”s are going to eventually side with the Astros.
BOBBY: Yeah, let’s go. Here’s why, I’m rooting for the Astros here’s why. Fuck the Braves eternally, forever and ever and ever and ever.
ALEX: And ever too, Dusty Baker.
BOBBY: Right. Dusty Baker deserves World Series. He is one of the greatest Managers in Baseball history. He is not the greatest Manager, please do not get it wrong. There’s very many reasons why he failed from time to time but he is so solid, so consistent. Such a great figure throughout Baseball history. And he’s like a living legend and if he gets this in what may be his final year by the way. He does not have a contract for next year. And he rides out on top Hall of Famer. Let’s get Dusty his ring.
ALEX: Yeah, has won one as a player but not as a Manager, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Well, I think you laid it out very well, that the case for the Astros as it were. To Anthony, I say take some solace in the fact that this is the the position of conflicting fandom that Emily wants you in right now. Rob Manfred’s very rationale for not punishing Astros players in the wake of the cheating scandal, was that fans would do it themselves, right? They, the fans will be the ones doling out the punishments because there’ll be booing José Altuve. And that’s a lot to put on fans, man to to have to not only take into account that there may be a rival on the other side of the field, or you think that your team is outmatched or whatever. But to also have this kind of moral high ground placed upon you, right? And and suggest that something that you can incorporate into your rooting interests. I think speaking for myself, I might feel better about siding with the Astros ah in the World Series. Had any sort of real punishment been handed down to the Astros. I’m not, this isn’t the time to re litigate this or go into what that punishment could ever should have been. But I think the reason why it still feels like an open wound for a lot of people is because we never got closer on it, Right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It kind of the story broke, a couple Executives got fired, and then we moved on. As a result, we still have fans who are wrestling with how to approach watching an Astros game. What are you supposed to feel? I don’t, what does Rob Manfred want me to feel? Does he want me to feel contempt, right? Does he want me to be torn between these these two teams?
BOBBY: I think that’s a hilarious question in general. What does Rob Manfred want me to feel?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t think he thinks that way, honestly. I don’t think he cares what you feel or think or do as long as you’re putting your purchasing power towards his products.
ALEX: Right, exactly. You can’t boo the Astros if your butts aren’t in the seats.
BOBBY: Uhm okay, let’s do a couple voicemails real quickly.
VOICEMAIL 1: Hey, Bobby and Alex. It’s Ben from Manhattan. Love the show love everything you guys do. Just have one quick question for you both. It just the worst vibe matchup in the World Series since the Red Sox and Cardinals in 2013. I mean, all the Astros discourse, the cheating stuff. TBS showing race and doing the chop every single possible moment acuity not being on the field. I can’t remember another World Series, I’ve wanted to watch less than this possible matchup, and we’d love to hear your guys’s thoughts. Uhm, yeah, fuck every, no billionaires and Baseball fuck every single Owner. Love you guys. Bye.
BOBBY: Vibes matchup, good question. Yeah, this is a terrible vibes matchup. This is just everything that we were just talking about, but uhm narratives and vibes, how different are they Alex?
ALEX: I think that–
BOBBY: I think th–this is the worst since 2013. Red Sox-Cardinals was tough. I don’t think that I was thinking about it on that level. But when I think back to it, ahh terrible vibes matchup. Ben brought up something Ben, this caller brought up something really quickly that I I didn’t put in my “Three Up, Three Down” because it’d be talked about it last week a little bit. But why is TBS obsessed with showing the chop?
ALEX: That’s a that’s a really good question, Bobby. Uhm this is TBS who’s owned by Turner. The the the cable network conglomerate?
BOBBY: Mmm, uh-hmm uh-hmm. Yeah.
ALEX: Right. The one who’s–
BOBBY: Turner, wherever I heard, where have I heard that name before?
ALEX: Yeah–
BOBBY: Turner–
ALEX: I don’t know. It is really I’m trying to put the pieces together–
BOBBY: Turner broadcast [34:12] Turner, Ted–Ted, Ted Turner, is that anything?
ALEX: Ahh I don’t know. He’s either as a subject of a true crime Netflix documentary, or or Yeah. Oh, yeah look at that. There he is, Ted Turner.
BOBBY: Interesting. Sure nothing’s going on–
ALEX: Former owner of the Braves.
BOBBY: Sure nothing’s going on there. Uhm do you agree, where it’s five matchups in 2013?
ALEX: Yeah, I think it’s I think that’s ahh, I think that’s a good assessment. I think that 2014 kind of comes close for me in part because I I am still bitter seven years later ahh about the the Royals, eliminating the A’s in pretty epic fashion–
BOBBY: Just the most garbage–
ALEX: –stunning [34:50]–
BOBBY: –big baseball game I’ve ever seen in my life.
ALEX: Really, really, really bad stuff. Ahh that was that was hard to swallow. And that was also the Giants team where I was like, “Really guys? We’re still doing In this even year shit”. So that one hurt, but uhh–
BOBBY: Yeah, they were really playing the hits by then.
ALEX: Yeah, they really were. But the ahh vibes are definitely bad all around here in 2021.
BOBBY: Ahh okay, next voicemail.
VOICEMAIL 2: Hey Bobby, Alex, first time all time. Uhh just calling in and there’s no [35:19] to if you guys knew that Kevin Millar originally got into Major League Baseball by being a scab during the ahh, during the strike. So I just thought that was really funny. I just want to know what you guys thought about that, you know, and being so big [35:36] network, there high heat ahh. Yeah [35:40] love what you guys are doing ahh, keep it up. Bye.
BOBBY: This is hilarious, because there’s no there’s not really, I mean, there is a question. It’s like, I want to know what you guys think. But it really is just like, I want to share this back with you.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Kevin Millar, [35:55]–
ALEX: Which, which I which I personally wasn’t familiar with, were you?
BOBBY: No no, I wasn’t either. Actually, you know what? Ahh, when Josh Gondelman brought up Kevin Millar. The the Red Sox, Kevin Millar, between 2003 and 2005. He Josh briefly mentioned that last week, and I was like, Oh, I didn’t associate Kevin Millar with being one of the most hated players. Like obviously, Johnny Damon caught a lot of flack. Uhm Clemens caught a lot of flack as a Red Sox. Uhh later, like in the 2007 era, Jonathan Papelbon was much hated. But Kevin Millar? I mean, he like wasn’t that relevant. And now I realize why Josh said that.
ALEX: This is far from surprising. And it’s also incredible that he means he he was he was barred from the MLBPA as a result, right? If you are a scavs, you’re a replacement player. You literally are not a part of our union, sorry.
BOBBY: Yep. Uhm there’s there’s no coming back from that. There’s pretty much nothing you can do to not be labeled a scab, that does my thoughts on this. Thank you for calling and uhh eliminating us. Last question.
VOICEMAIL 3: Hi guys, it’s Becca, I just have a question. Uhm what are Tipping Pitches fans called? I feel like there’s a Tipping Pitches highs and I think we deserve a name. Uhm I don’t have any ideas. I really hadn’t given this much thought before I called in, but I didn’t know if you guys have any ideas.
BOBBY: Uhh Becca, thank you for calling. Uhm Becca has mastered the art of the short call one question straight to the point. Uhh i–It’s very, it’s an impressive showing each and every time. Good question, I don’t have an answer to this question. I knew that we I was going to play it. But I want to leave it open for interpretation. I want to leave it open to suggestion unless, Alex, unless you have something in your head where you’re like, this is perfect. Let’s call Tipping Pitches fans this.
ALEX: No, you know, I can’t I can’t think of anything on the spot right now. Uhm the Tipping Pitchers?
BOBBY: Really? You, can think of something on the spot?
ALEX: Wow. Wow. It’s a Monday. It’s too early in the week for this smoke.
BOBBY: Yeah, the first 200 episodes, we were best friends. And we always agreed with each other and boosted each other up and supported each other’s points. The next 200 episodes. Button heads. Angry–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –yelling.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: [38:22]–
ALEX: That’s people wants.
BOBBY: –returning heel.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, there’s probably you could do something with like, you know, our shows initials are TP.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So–
BOBBY: TP High.
ALEX: It could be TP, TP High–
BOBBY: Unfortunately, TP, like, I think a lot of people associate that with toilet paper?
ALEX: The toilet paper. Exactly.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah. Because of all of our shootie takes.
ALEX: Oh Ha ha–
BOBBY: Haaa–
ALEX: –ha ha.
BOBBY: Uhm, I don’t know let’s let’s let people come up with suggestions. This will be a great thing to include with your question for the 200th episode mailbag, which is coming up in just a couple of weeks. Please continue to submit questions for that. We are going to take a quick break when we come back “Three Up, Three Down”.
[39:03]
[Transition Music]
BOBBY: Okay, Alex, “Three Up, Three Down”. Let’s start with Down this week. Would you like to start you want me to start?
ALEX: Uhh, why don’t you kick us off this week?
BOBBY: Okay. Uhh my first this week is, I already mentioned, of of a brief criticism of TBS. It’s very serious brief criticism of tbs. This is another brief criticism of TBS, a little more trivial. Alex, this is not just a TBS thing, actually, but it was happening a lot in the Braves-Dodger series. Why do announcers love weak contact? They just–
ALEX: Oh yeah, you were going off [39:51]–
BOBBY: –they [39:51] it up. They’re like, please hit the ball as soft as possible to the right to right field. Every time someone hits the ball too right field every time a single is hit, the announcers pretend like the guy made the decision ahead of time not to hit a homerun. He’s like, Thank God, he chose not to hit a home run there, thank God. It’s like, yeah, most of the time when a single happens, the guy still put a quote unquote “homerun swing on the ball, he just didn’t hit it. at the perfect time”. Guys don’t change their swing all that much. Unless they’re down heavily in the count. Like if you’re down 0-2 some hitters will still be like, “Okay, I’ll choke up more now and I’ll try to just kind of make as much contact as I can get on it”. Because you know, you’re probably going to get the pitchers best stuff, you know, you’re probably going to get their off speed, they’re put away pitch, whatever. But you do Chris Taylor hit two home runs in one game. way behind in the count. One of them he’s 0-2 one of them he was 1-2. Guys just, gu–guys just put their best swing on the ball and they do their best. Guys are better than ever at adjusting mid pitch than they were before because they have to. Because movement is so absurd these days. It’s just a fundamental misunderstanding of what the flyball revolution is, what the homerun three true outcomes revolution is. And announcers something seem particularly interested in interrogating that. They’re just like, every time a guy makes weak contact, and it sneaks through the infielder, like, that’s a great piece of hitting. Was the homerun also a great piece of hitting? Or or just like because, because it’s part of this larger narrative and trend Do you just like can’t appreciate it?
ALEX: Yeah, there’s a there’s a certain inability to think that Baseball players are capable of doing multiple things? Like having multiple skills. Like you said, a lot of guy, you know, if you’re a pull hitter, you often are are pulling the ball and sometimes it goes on the ground. And sometimes it goes in the outfield, and sometimes it goes over the fence. And then sometimes you get a pitch on the outer part of the plate. And you just poke your bat out there and take it the other way. That’s, I mean, that’s a good piece of hitting, right? That’s good to good defensive hitting, it’s also as good as any other piece of hittings.
BOBBY: Yes. Like, if you hit the ball on the ground at 110 miles an hour, it’s not because you weren’t swinging hard, you just happen the bat plane met the ball with the ball, whatever movement was on the ball at an angle that would produce a launch angle that was negative. And that is less than ideal, that is not better than if you hit a flyball in terms of expected runs created. So, God it’s just as another example of this false binary that limits the way that we can talk about Baseball. It like limits the conversation that we can have. It’s just it just was grinding my gears. If you follow us on Twitter, you probably saw that it was grinding my gears.
ALEX: Yeah, sure. Ever Tipping pitches drinking game, drink every time, Bobby makes a thread about something that TBS announcers are talking about during the World Series.
BOBBY: Man, it’s got to be more complex than that, because I’m making a lot of threads. It’s got to be more–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –rules to keep people’s attention.
ALEX: No, I agree with you. broadcasters appreciate the duality of man. Opposite field hitting and dingers, we can have them both, we really can.
BOBBY: Okay, what’s first Down for you?
ALEX: First Down for me is the the shot scene around the world. And I’m I’m not talking about anything that Chris Taylor did. I’m not talking about anything Eddie Rosario did. I’m talking of course, about Luke Jackson.
BOBBY: Hmmm.
ALEX: Hanging his head. After giving up three straight hits, against the Dodgers in game six. It’s the kind of image that will shake you to your core, the the kind of image that makes you wanna curl up in a ball. Give Luke Jackson a hug.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: This is this is coming off the heels of having given up four runs in a third of an inning earlier in the series. So this is just a guy who’s having a bad week at work in front of millions of people. And boy, are they seeing it? And boy, are they seeing how he responds to it. Because the shot of his head in his hands, just rubbing his face, you know, we’ve all been there where you’re just like, I cannot believe I just fucking did that. Oh, my God.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But you’re beating yourself up more than anyone else is. And it’s tough, it’s a tough spot to be in.
BOBBY: It was one of those things that you immediately knew was going to become like a lasting image. And it’s not going to be as lasting as if the Braves had blown that game and then ended up–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –writing the series. But it was one of those things that I I just kind of I was watching it at a bar and I saw it and I was just like, I didn’t see a bunch of people making jokes about it on Twitter or talking about it on Twitter and I was like, man that’s crushing, everybody’s gonna be talking about that. Like it was such a naked display of emotion. I think I said this last week and I don’t know if I was talking about Luke Jackson or not, I can’t remember. But, you know, the beauty of Baseball is that and what makes it different than other sports and what makes it in my opinion, ultimately better and more tense in October especially, is he’s just out there on an island. You–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –have to do what you do with no clock, nothing to bail you out. You just got to do it–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –and you got to perform and the guy that you’re going against has to do the same thing. And as frustrated as Luke Jackson was an as sad as he looked, man Mookie Betts striking out on three straight fastball down the middle, with runners on second. And third, this is Mookie Betts, MVP Mookie Betts. And it’s just as crushing to watch him fail, too. And I was rooting for the Dodgers, so maybe it’s a little slightly more crushing. But I still my heart sunk all the way to the floor seeing that happen to Luke Jackson.
ALEX: Yeah, well, I think you can swallow. I think it’s easier to swallow hitters failing, because the–
BOBBY: The expectations that they’re gonna fail.
ALEX: –the the expectations, wh–are that they’re going to fail and th–also that the responsibility is, is not necessarily just on the one person, right? But it’s spread out across the lineup, right? When there is a pitcher out there, who just doesn’t have it.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And it’s just him and every single batter is like, “Yes, I’m seeing you–
BOBBY: Yup.
ALEX: –you Luke Jackson. You’re the one I want”.
BOBBY: Well, yeah–
ALEX: That’s that hot–
BOBBY: –is very much like, okay, there’s chum in the water. Like–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –we’re all gonna come eat you up, and you’re just being circled. And, yeah, it’s really tough.
ALEX: But this is what you want it, this is what you want it for Luke Jackson. You got it, Bobby.
BOBBY: One of the toughest spots in sports, is to be a pitcher. Prob–like a reliever especially, because you control less of your destiny when you’re a believer. Just not hung out to dry because like Snitker, didn’t do anything wrong by bringing in Luke Jackson. But were in it, uhh It’s very hard spot to be. Okay, my next Down is chop a Jason. Uhm it’s about, there was a tweet earlier today that I quote tweeted, a bunch of people saw I was going around to this bad tweet. I’m not even going to read the name of the guy or read the tweet really. But at the at the basis of it was that, was that old argument that we’re so familiar with, Alex. That Cleveland used, that Atlanta has used, the places like Florida state of used, which is we’re not using this name, or this chant, in an offensive way. We’re using it because we love Native Americans, and we support Native Americans. And we donate all this money to indigenous people in this country. And we’ve built this strong relationship. It’s just that what a cynical way to defend yourself. What what a, what a bad faith, interpretation of what it means to have a relationship to this community, to any community to any indigenous community or to any underrepresented community, whatever. You thinking that it’s okay to do the chop because you do all this other stuff is deranged. Like, you should realize that, because you have this relationship, it should reinforce to you that you shouldn’t do the chop. Not that it’s okay to do it, it’s the exact opposite interpretation than the one that you’re choosing to do. It just acquits fans for doing shitty stuff. And the team for tacitly endorsing it. Because they’re like, “Oh, we donated, we we partnered to create a t shirt”. When in reality, like everybody who is all of the Native American chiefs who have ever gone on the record about the chop, or about Cleveland’s Chief Wahoo mascot, you know, 99.9% of them have been like, “Yes, this is racist. Yes. I wish they didn’t do this”.
ALEX: Well, and every defense of the chop, ends up not really being a defense of the chop itself. It’s more a, it’s more a defensive why it’s not something worth getting mad about, you know. Like, no one is really coming out and saying, Yeah, I don’t think the chop is racist. I mean, those people probably exist. But but the acknowledgement is, is often yeah, it’s a little problematic. But again, we’re doing these other things, right? We’re taking steps elsewhere. So [49:34] what if we do a little tomahawk chop, you know. Like, what’s it, What’s it too yeah? I can have a little bit as a tree, right? Like, yes, that’s a Braves fan survey, like they’re not that bad. And it’s like you are you are missing the point. A little over two years ago, Rob Manfred came out and said to the Washington Post, quote, “The Braves have taken steps to take out the tomahawk chop”, which indicates to me that the Braves and Major League Baseball are well aware that this is something they should get rid–
BOBBY: How could you not–
ALEX: RIght?
BOBBY: –be? How could you–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –not be–
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: –this and that society you realize that this is heinous.
ALEX: Right. But they’ve got they have gone on public record saying, “Yeah, we should probably like phase this out, like it’s probably time”. And the fact that again, two years on what so the organist has stopped playing along with it?
BOBBY: Wow, congratulations.
ALEX: Tss. I–
BOBBY: They still dim the lights, they still play the drum beat, they still put the hammer on the street and the Major.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, what the fuck are we talking about here? When have we ever proven that masses of baseball fans are going to do the correct thing to break a long standing tradition on their own. We need some sort of intervention, and this is not it. The the Braves having a page on mlb.com saying all of the cool stuff that they’ve done for the Cherokee tribe is not actually solving the problem. It’s just like–
ALEX: It’s like–
BOBBY: –it’s like, it’s a it’s an aside, it’s a footnote. That is a footnote, not that that’s not what we’re talking about here.
ALEX: It it’s it’s trying to create like a moral ahh like, ahh scale. Yeah, you know, and like on one side, we have fans who do a really uhh offensive chant. But on the other side, we have given money to people so that our fans can continue to do–
BOBBY: So ha–
ALEX: –this racist chants [51:34]–
BOBBY: –so the question then becomes, how much money does it cost to to be allowed to be racist?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: This is not like a carbon offset guys like this is these are real people whose lives are being affected by you doing this racist.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: These are real stereotypes that are being perpetuated, that have real effects on the general society’s opinion towards the standing of Native Americans in this country, which is fucking terrible, by the way.
ALEX: Yeah, well–
BOBBY: So you stopped paying attention since high school.
ALEX: I mean, and taking it back to 2019, right. In in when the Cardinals faced off against the Braves in the playoffs. You had pitcher Ryan Helsley, who uhh, who’s a member of the Cherokee Nation, coming out and saying, Yeah, I’m not of of, quote unquote, “offended” by the mascot or whatever. But it creates this misconception of us, the Native Americans, and it devalues us and how we’re perceived in that way or used as mascots, right? It’s a misrepresentation of of who we are. You had a player in Baseball come out and say, “Guys, this is offensive”. And if I recall correctly, It could be wrong, but the chop quieted down during that series. Fans were like, Okay, I get it. The team was like, yeah, no, you make a good point. And then what happened?
BOBBY: Ahhh. Maybe this will be an inflection point. Maybe this will get better from this point on. But, man, I guess we just got to start hitting the Braves in the bottom line for them to respond to this. I guess that’s the world that we live in. I guess–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –they can’t, they’re incapable of making the right call and sticking to it on their own. So I guess we got to start hitting Liberty Media in their pockets.
ALEX: Can we take the All-Star Game out of Georgia again? You think that’s possible?
BOBBY: No, it’ll just set up a redemption story, God. Okay, what’s next Down for you?
ALEX: Uhh, next Down for me is the slightly more trivial than that discussion. And that is the ahh the GMC commercial that is being showed at the beginning of every commercial.
BOBBY: Oh yeah, welcome to ad corner.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s right. This is our our media criticism–
BOBBY: All that–
ALEX: –power hour.
BOBBY: Can we really quickly list off all of the sponsors who will never sponsor the show based on just the last three episodes of this podcast? FTX, Loan Depot, GMC. Uhh, any others that are missing? I think we secured the bag from Good Sam. I think we were like Good–
ALEX: Right–
BOBBY: –Sam.–
ALEX: –yeah, we were we were caping for them.
BOBBY: Yeah. Give me a trailer. That won’t fit in my one parking spot in Los Angeles, that’s for sure.
ALEX: Yeah, I don’t think so. So this GMC commercial this self driving truck, I guess, r ight. It’s it’s the they don’t use the phrase self driving, I think because it’s not supposed to be a self driving truck but it has corrective steering or or whatever, right? Assisted steering. I really don’t know why grinds my gears so much. But you know, it’s just 30 seconds of people playing “We Will Rock You” on their laps while not driving their car. What is the what are you selling me here? Are you selling me to to go make a queen playlist on Spotify? Are are you selling me that I’m actually really good at air drums?
BOBBY: You are good at air drums.
ALEX: Thank you.
BOBBY: Listeners don’t know this about but it’s very convincing.
ALEX: Yeah, well, I’m doing it right now, you’ll never see.
BOBBY: He’s always doing air drums all [55:08] entire time. Every episode they’ve ever listened. I hope now you’ve corrected the picture in your head of Alex. He’s just air drumming.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. I don’t know, man. I don’t have much else on this. I just I see it–
BOBBY: This is hilarious.
ALEX: –and I, I like they even teed it up one time. You know, like, I don’t remember who the the the broadcaster was who said it, but it was like, and now for a sneak peek at GMC new truck. I just like really? Really.
BOBBY: I’m obsessed with you to the idea that you’re sitting there and yours. You had this beer bottle. Whe this commercial comes on, and you just like, shit. [55:43]–
ALEX: I do it at the wall. Every every playoffs there is like one or two commercials that you know you’re gonna look back on in like five or 10 years and be like, What the fu, what the fuck was that for? You know, after the GMC truck fizzles out and like year and a half. It’s gonna be tough. It’ll be it’ll be nice. It’ll be a trip down memory lane for us.
BOBBY: I’m gonna buy the truck as a bit.
ALEX: Yeah, just a bit.
BOBBY: To off ,in my heel era.
ALEX: ith all our ad money.
BOBBY: Yes. All of the ad money that we’re not getting from GMC.
ALEX: Yeah. All right. What is the last for you?
BOBBY: Speaking of money and things that cost money and things that are absurd. Uhh ticket prices, Alex, ticket prices. They’re bad all the time. Of course, they’re bad during the playoffs. But annual reminder as we sit here the night before game one of the World Series. Here’s what it will run you to attend a World Series game as one individual just for the price of admission, not what to cost to get there not what it cost to eat. Now what it costs after fees, just the listed ticket price in Houston. The cheapest tickets that I saw when I looked today were $425. That’s like, rent for a lot of people in the United States. That is one month’s rent for many people in the United States.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Groceries for the month, or–
BOBBY: Three hours of a Baseball game–
ALEX: –doing wholesale to of it.
BOBBY: That’s in Houston, in Atlanta, the cheapest ticket that you can find for games three and four, $925.
ALEX: If I could whistle, I would be doing it right now.
BOBBY: That’s rent for a lot of other people in the United States in more expensive cities. That’s groceries for three months. That’s, It’s so ridiculous, man. The MLB just like shrugs their hand. And it’s like when you look on mlb.com Or you look on like the Astros website. The tickets are very limited. All tickets have been sold. And then they actually have a link that links out to the secondary markets that you can click on from mlb.com that takes you to like SeatGeek or or uhm Ticketmaster or like whatever the their chosen ticket racketeering company is. I’m like, so you had the tickets and sold them to the secondary market? Because you’re sending me to the secondary market. Why couldn’t you just keep them gated at a low price? So that some real people could go to these games. Yes, I’m insinuating that people who want to pay $1,000 for tickets may not be real. It just, it boggles the mind. That that is–
ALEX: Is it–
BOBBY: –you wouldn’t want the same fans who can afford to go to game 107 in August. You wouldn’t want those same people to have the opportunity to show up for your team when they make it all the way, it’s just bullshit.
ALEX: Well, another reminder that Rob Manfred doesn’t actually care. But you think.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: His butts in seats.
BOBBY: Uhm that being said, I’ve I’ve spent $2,500 and uhh [59:00] tickets to go to game three. You want to go?
ALEX: Let’s do it. My boss will understand.
BOBBY: Okay, what’s your final Down this week?
ALEX: All right. My final Down this week is just a couple tweets. As it usually is. I will ahh I’ll set the scene real quick. The Spirit Day is a is a campaign, is a a a day and a campaign to stop bullying against LGBTQ+ youth. GLAD the the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, has stepped into this campaign and and tried to galvanize you know, I mean millions of people uhm in wearing purple on this day as a as a show of support, ahh as a show of solidarity in this campaign against bullying, LGBTQ youth. Major League Baseball partners with them for Spirit a Major League Baseball makes the choice to partner with glad for a Spirit Day, which is the campaign against bullying, LGBTQ+ youth. Right? This happens the third Thursday of every October.
BOBBY: Alex, why are you saying that so many times.
ALEX: All 30 teams sent out a tweet about it, saying today Spirit Day, right? This is we we do what we can to support LGBTQ youth or here’s a link to to GLAD or whatever their spin was, right? But it was in support of this overall message, except for a couple holdouts. Your Texas Rangers and ahh one Atlanta Braves.
BOBBY: I’ve heard of them.
ALEX: I’ve heard of them too. You know who they didn’t mention in their tweet? I’ll give I’ll give you one guess, who the there’s a certain community that went unmentioned.
BOBBY: Uhh, my recalls not great, but I’m remembering something about LGBTQ+ youth.
ALEX: Mmm, nothing, not not a word about it. Uhm Levi Weaver over at The Athletic who’s the is the the beat reporter for The Athletic covering the Rangers has a really good rundown of kind of how this unfolded and and the Rangers transgressions over the years. There notably a a team that that doesn’t hold the Pride Night. And we were actually asked uhm John Blake, who’s the Executive VP of Communications, why they didn’t mention LGBTQ youth in a tweet that is explicitly about supporting LGBTQ youth. And he says “Spirit Day is set aside for MLB clubs to take a stand against bullying”. Bullying, who you might ask, he leaves that unsaid. “Something the Rangers do in a number of ways throughout the year, most notably, is one of about a dozen teams to partner with MLB to implement the shred hate program”. So we’re just talking about a different campaign, now? He says, “Yes, I, I appreciate your question”. Let me direct your attention to some other things we do. Once again, I’m kind of seeing a common theme in MLB among MLB teams who say, “Well, yes, we may have moral failings in this one area”. But that is counterbalanced with these things we do in this other area? So really, they just cancel each other out, right?
BOBBY: Yeah, it’s so it’s so infuriating. And it’s not hard to see. Like this is this is not the same thing by any means. But it’s not hard to see why a team like the Braves would leave this part out. And also not do anything to stop the chop, right? It’s like it’s, do you want to do something that is politically difficult, based on your fan base or based on your your perceived [1:02:45], or based on what you think your fan base is or want your fan base to be. If you want to take a more aggressive and cynical reading of it. Or do you not? Do you want to follow your morals and tell your fans that this is what you stand for? Or do you just want to seem like a sanded down pristine organization? Because you think that it’s the politically correct thing to do. Because you don’t get to do both.
ALEX: No, you don’t. And I and I should say that the Braves did link to to GLAD they didn’t mention what the campaign was for. But they said if you’re interested in learning more, here’s the link. But like you said, it just speaks to this idea that that Baseball teams think that they can remove themselves from these conversations. And the fact that they even want to at all is frankly, frightening. Uhm the the conclusion that weaver comes to after texting with people in the organization who were similarly outraged by this. The conclusion he comes through is that someone high up in the organization had to have given some sort of directive to say, Please don’t mention them in our tweet.
BOBBY: Yep.
ALEX: Because there’s no other way this sort of thing unfolds, right? You don’t get the entire organization together and say so we all agree we uhh, we hate LGBTQ people. Yes? We’re good on? We’re aligned on that message? Okay, send tweet. This is very much like a, like an active choice that one or two people made. And I don’t know if they thought people wouldn’t notice when they thought people wouldn’t care–
BOBBY: But it’s the–
ALEX: –or this just or if it’s just that they didn’t they didn’t care if people care, which I think it’s the third one.
BOBBY: And it’s unfortunate because it reflects on the entire organization, as it should I mean, like, these are the people who just happen to have the most influence within the organization and how it puts itself out into the world. But it reflects on the whole organization and people who have less power and are compensated less well end up having to answer for it. Do you think the person that sent this tweet was really like I don’t want to include this part? No, but they still had to read all the mentions. Their work–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –phones still had to get flooded that day. They they’re suck that day. And to say nothing of the fact that the actually LGBTQ+ youth who are fans of these teams, it’s just a slap in the face. It’s like the rest of the league can do this, the rest of the league can get on the same page about this message. But here is my team, implicitly telling me that I don’t exist to them. Or I don’t exist, with enough relevance, that they’re willing to take flak from the old, conservative fans who don’t want to see that specificity included in the tweet. The–It’s like a political bargaining chip to these teams. What can I say? Just like I said about the chop, it’s not a political bargaining chip. These are real people who actually are like fans of your team, and support your team and have meaningful relationships with the players on your team that changed their lives and build them into who they are. So just treat them with humanity and respect.
ALEX: Yeah, well, you’d be surprised at the at the number of people for whom that’s a controversial statement.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So, uhh anyway, should we move on to our Ups this week?
BOBBY: I just feel I feel like going to Ups now. I just feel like in a great happy mood. Uhh, yeah, I’ll I’ll go first. Uhm my first Up this week is just something that I found funny during the ALCS, this was in the closeout game of Game Six, started by Astros rookie Luis Garcia, who has had a really solid rookie year. What happened in Game Six was some of the funniest stuff that I’ve seen from a fan base in a long time, where Garcia was throwing two miles an hour, two to three miles an hour faster than he had really been throwing all year. Now, Alex, I might look at you and say, “Hey, drenaline–adrenaline, coming back, off a short start and the previous time he’s feeling a lot better. He got some training, or he got some get some treatment from the training staff. He’s in front of his home crowd, this is a close out game. He’s throwing hard, he’s jacked up. That’s not what Red Sox fans thought. They were loosely insinuating that he maybe maybe took like PEDs. Maybe he was using–
ALEX: It’s kind of unclear what–
BOBBY: –and he was–
ALEX: –the what the the insinuation was–
BOBBY: –maybe he was using sticky stuff. Maybe they were giving him a different ball. I really don’t know what they were–
ALEX: Something isn’t on the up and up here–
BOBBY: –suggest because there’s no way to just cheat to add velocity that I’ve heard of yet. Maybe the Astros invented a proprietary method to add three miles per hour, but it’d be really weird for them to wait until now to use it.
ALEX: Yeah, with Luis Garcia.
BOBBY: Right, not like Zach Greinke, who’s lost like eight miles an hour on his fastball on the last three years. Like we’re not going to give him three miles an hour back, we’re going to give the guy who throws 94 just an extra–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –little juice. It was very–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –it was very [1:07:54]–
ALEX: –[1:07:54] are are broken.
BOBBY: Completely broken. It was so conspiratorial, it was really just like matrix stuff like they they tapped into the matrix with Luis Garcia. I suggested that maybe Red Sox fan thought that the balls that Garcia was throwing had little drone engines in them and they were just pressing a little accelerate at the end.
ALEX: Uh-hmm uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I don’t know man. This is all my Up because I just thought it was funny.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, this this course follows us everywhere, follows the Astros everywhere. But like I said, when we talked about this when they played the White Sox, organizationally, you kind a, it’s it’s, it’s it’s reaping reaping what you sow. And again, like I said, earlier in the episode, this is partially Manfred’s doing himself by putting the onus on fans to be the arbiters of truth and be the the the judge, jury and executioner.
BOBBY: Fans who know the least–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –that we we have the least knowledge in this equation. We know less than–
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: –players, we know less than coaches. We certainly know less than Executives. And we certainly know less than Rob Manfred.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So why would we be the people to decide who was right and who was wrong and how wrong they were? But that leads to stuff like this, you’re right. Okay, what’s your first Up?
ALEX: My first Up this week is just the, the love that Atlanta’s Latin American players have for each other. They so clearly are a tight knit group and you can see it in the way that they are gassing each other up after a big hit. The way that they’ve all been Eddie Rosario his biggest cheerleader and even pushed him out into a curtain call, I think physically pushed him onto the field to to do a curtain call. Uhh you know, these are guys like all B’s, but also their uhh, their bench players like Jorge Soler and Guillermo Heredia and Johan Camargo, and the you know, the list goes on and on, but I think there’s something really special about seeing a collection of players on the same team who understand each other culturally, so to speak, right, who actually come from similar backgrounds. I don’t know, I just think it’s really cool to see I really, I enjoy seeing players like show real love for each other.
BOBBY: Uhm a Baseball team seems like a fun place to hang out.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: My next Up Alex is also coming from the Braves-Dodgers series, where I don’t know what game this was in. I think it was in Game Five, where Travis Darnell was behind the play. Albert Pujols was up to bat. I don’t remember who was pitching, but they bounced a curveball, 58 foot curveball, and it bounced perfectly up over the plate to land right in Travis Darnell’s glove. And he caught it and he brought it back up. And he tried to hold it like he was framing it like you often do for a pitch that you want to be called a strike that you haven’t heard the Umpire say strike yet. And of course, it’s not a strike, it bounce. But Pujols happen to turn around, I don’t really know why. But he maybe just like looked back down at the plate and reset himself and he saw that Darnell was still holding the ball up and trying to frame it and he let his hand off the bat and he’s slapped Darnell’s glove, as if to say, what are you trying to pull on? You’re trying to get a strike call right there–
ALEX: Get that weak shit out of here.
BOBBY: –get that weak shit out of there. And it was a real funny moment in such a tense in such a tense game in such a tense, tense spot. I mean, it just goes to show you it’s like a it’s like an example of why everybody loves our pool so much is because he is like the first of all, like the like the current Godfather of Baseball still playing just talk about a living legend. That goes without saying, but why ingratiate himself with both teams at all times. It’s just he can have a moment of fun like that, because he’s done it all. And he’s had the World Series MVP run. He’s had the one of the greatest seasons of our lifetime. And he is he’s still still churning. We’re almost at the end of this podcast now. And we haven’t talked about Albert Pujols yet. But that could have been the last series and game we ever see him play. Uhm he says that he wants to come back and play next year. Not sure if there will be a contract out there for him. I’m sure if he really really does want to come back and play and he’s like committed to it, that a team will give him a 100 or 200 at bats next year, but it might be the last time we see him in a big spot in October. So it’s funny and it’s fitting that in one in one of those last episodes, he was cracking jokes with the opposing catcher.
ALEX: If Albert Pujols slaps your glove you say, thank you sir.
BOBBY: Can you please sign this for me after the game?
ALEX: Right, exactly. I’m sorry, my glove was in the way of your hand, Albert.
BOBBY: I’ll never do it again. Albert. Uhm iwa–it was funny and shout out to Travis d’Arnaud. Met’s legend. Uhh okay, what’s your next Up?
ALEX: My next Up is is watching players uhm accidentally spit into their beards. This happened, this happened multiple times across multiple games. And we’ve got some bearded dudes out there. Ian Anderson for one. And it it made me think about the I don’t I went weird places with this. But it made me think about like, the varying levels of consistency of Baseball players saliva, right? If if you’re on the mound, for example. And you’re–
BOBBY: Man–
ALEX: –out there grinding–
BOBBY: –your brain is a special place to be,
ALEX: Yeah it really is. You’re out there grinding, you’re probably a little dehydrated and stuff. Your your mouth is maybe a little dry, it’s very easy to spin–
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: Right? That’s and you you’ll see guys, I mean, if you guys do it all the time, because we get close ups of their face. They just you know you ball a little bit up and you you toss it out there. But when you’re just like chillin in the dugout and you’re like well hydrated and stuff. You’re you got a lot of you got a lot of juice in there–
BOBBY: Dude.
ALEX: And–
BOBBY: What’s going on?
ALEX: –I saw multiple, all I’m saying is I saw multiple players just having spit like dribble down–
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: –into their chin. Some who noticed and some who, who didn’t. Ian Anderson, to his credit, I believe noticed is it kind of like a like a nonchalant, uhh just ahh just rubbing my face here. You know, uhh just just given the old beard a little feel.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But all that to say, I’m looking forward to seeing more of that on on the national stage.
BOBBY: Spit cam activated.
ALEX: Spit cam, uh-hmm.
BOBBY: More like more like spitting pitches.
ALEX: There you go.
BOBBY: Uhh okay, you do your final one too because mine mine I want to close out the pod with. So what’s your final Up this week?
ALEX: All right. Well, my uhh, my final Up this week starts ahh around the same area that we started this podcast, which is with a with a reading from a column from a person who ostensibly wrote said column.
BOBBY: Have you seen Bob Nightengale in person? You ever seen him? You ever seen him in real life?
ALEX: No, I’ve never seen him. Uhm this is ahh by Bob Klapisch–
BOBBY: Klapisch, Klapisch bro.
ALEX: –from nj.com, who wrote a column about the Yankees and what they might have to do to shake things up in 2022. I I can’t actually read the column to you because it’s paywalled.
BOBBY: Mmm.
ALEX: But there’s some some some generous folks out there on Twitter who shared the screenshots. And there’s one in particular part of–
BOBBY: That’s practice.
ALEX: –that said, That’s practice and I’d I’d like to read you ahh. Bob’s not really doing it with the Bob’s this week. Bob’s uhm analysis of Joey Gallo and his futures to Yankees.
BOBBY: Okay great.
ALEX: “It’s not only Boone’s responsibility, Cashman has to fill the room with troops of the right pedigree. Take, for instance, Joey Gallo, who I’m told would lay out his uniform, piece by piece in front of his locker before dressing, then undress if the fit wasn’t right. Sometimes, this would happen more than once. Before the slugger was ready to take the field. He then goes on to talk about his batting average. And it’s telling to me that he didn’t even lead with that. He led with” hang on. I’m just making sure I’m reading this correctly, “the–the way Joey Gallo gets dressed before a game”. That’s–
BOBBY: That’s what work [1:17:05]–
ALEX: You got to make sure you, you got to make sure you fill the room of troops of the right pedigree and the guy who lays out his uniform before putting it on. I don’t know there’s something fishy there.
BOBBY: Do you do this? Do you put out your whole outfit like before you actually get dressed and see how it looks on the bed or no? You just kind–
ALEX: I sa–
BOBBY: –of stuff on?
ALEX: It it depends on the day, you know. It depends on how much of a rush I’m in if I’ve got the time, yeah, I’m gonna lay it out, you know. Does this shirt go with these pants?
BOBBY: Right, such a high degree–
ALEX: [1:17:33]
BOBBY: –of difficulty that you and I are trying to pull off your jeans and a T-shirt.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Maybe [1:17:38] crazy with–
ALEX: Do they go? A jacket?
BOBBY: Ohhh–
ALEX: Yeah that’s tough–
BOBBY: -a jacket, sneakers.
ALEX: I’m just begging colonists to come up with some more interesting stuff–
BOBBY: Just be just be–
ALEX: –talk about, [1:17:54] it gives us good content–
BOBBY: Just be normal, please be normal, please be normal. Uhh–
ALEX: Big Ask.
BOBBY: Okay, my final Up this week is the same as last week, Alex. it’s our 200th episode is coming up. And this week–
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: –I get to say that it’s also that people have written in for our 200th episode mailbag, AMA. We’ve gotten a good list, cooking up so far of questions. But we need more and we need slightly weirder questions.
ALEX: Mmm.
BOBBY: I have to say we need like, a little bit off the wall. We’ve had a few people ask us Baseball questions, that’s totally okay. You want to hear us talk about Baseball? I also want to talk about other stuff that’s not Baseball. It’s going to be after the World Series has ended. I will remind everybody that this is episode 198. The second episode of November will be episode 200. Our AMA, please write in for that, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com, you can call in for that. If you want us to play your voicemail out loud 7854225881, you can DM us on Twitter tipping_pitches and get wild with it. Ask Alex why he loves spit so much.
ALEX: Tipping Pitches out of context.
BOBBY: Ask me what my favorite outfit that I’ve ever seen, Alex throw together is. I’ll let you know.
ALEX: It’s you only got like five to choose from [1:19:15]–
BOBBY: I got I got answers he’s got, he’s got some really good T-shirts, okay?
ALEX: Big big graphic T fans over here Tipping Pitches.
BOBBY: True story, Alex and I were on vacation once and he wore a T-shirt that had a picture of Henry Kissinger’s face on it and the end had text underneath it that said “hell is patience”.
ALEX: All you need to know you, really?
BOBBY: Can’t deny it, anything about [1:19:38]–
ALEX: Brands and shirt?
BOBBY: Including it was very good. Ahh that does it for this week’s episode of Tipping Pitches. Thank you so much for listening. We will be back next week or mid World Series [1:19:49].
[1:19:51]
[Music]
[1:19:59]
[Outro]
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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