Coming up on the end of 2021, Alex and Bobby take a moment to reflect on the past year and dig into why it feels harder than ever to separate baseball as a business from baseball as a form of entertainment. Of course, they then go on to break down — surprise — the recent lawsuit over MLB’s anti-trust exemption. Finally, they dig into the mailbag for some listener questions about publicly supporting your team during the lockout, the current sports media landscape, most & least important fights at the CBA table, what a dream future for baseball looks like, and much more.
Links:
Former minor league teams sue MLB over antitrust exemption
The differences in youth development in soccer and baseball, feat. Ryan O’Hanlon
Songs featured in this episode:
Strange Ranger — “Needing You” • Mustafa — “Air Forces” • 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 is the final Tipping Pitches of 2021. Can you believe it?
ALEX: No, I can’t as, as we were preparing for this. I was scrolling through the, the episodes that we done this year 2021. And definitely one of those years where we’re decades happens, you know?
BOBBY: Uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah. A lot happened this year. Although I find it hard to tell the difference between what happened this year. And what happened last year. I, I like about a week ago, I sort of questioned my own reality about whether there was a full baseball season this year, or whether this past–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –year was the one that was shortened to 60 games. Like who won the World Series? I don’t even remember.
ALEX: This is good, the Baseball Podcast that you, you all are listening to right now is struggling to figure out what happened in Baseball in 2021.
BOBBY: Well, it’s been, it’s been less than a month since the lockout went into effect. But that feels like at least six months.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Given how much we’ve talked about it here, and how much we’ve talked about it in other places. Which I think actually at this point is longer than we’ve talked about it on our own show in the month of December. So I sort of feel like bad talking about the lockout. But I’m realizing also that Tipping Pitches listeners haven’t really heard us talk about it that much.
ALEX: That’s good, because there’s been little to nothing to actually talk about. I mean that the trade off of us not talking about it a ton here on the podcast in the last month is that we have talked about it on and off basically throughout the last year plus last two years. So you know, y’all got the groundwork.
BOBBY: We reco–we’re sitting here recording this on December 26. We are going to do a mailbag later in this episode. We’re also going to talk a little bit about the news of MLB being sued. MLB is Anti-Trust Exemption being challenged in a lawsuit over their handling of Minor League Baseball. And we’ll do a bit more year in review discussion, Alex, but I wanted to spoil one of the questions from our mailbag as an as a chance to talk to you about your experience on Christmas and, and how you spent that day. Our list–our listener, Jack asked, “How did Bobby get to eat lasagna for Christmas dinner?” I don’t really I don’t understand the premise of–
ALEX: [2:45]
BOBBY: –the question. I made it. It’s like, is it something that I’m not permitted to eat on Christmas?
ALEX: Right. Like, how did how did Bobby get the necessary clearance to have lasagna?
BOBBY: I already–
ALEX: [2:55] request.
BOBBY: –this is Bobby requesting a flyby. Uhm, I made it, it was delicious. But what I want to know what you what you did for Christmas, what do you eat? How was it had everything turned out?
ALEX: It was, it was lovely. There’s a lot of people in the house. It’s arguably, arguably too many people in the house. But I think that’s what the holidays are for is being a little uncomfortable with once again, how many people are in your house. We ate tamales for–
BOBBY: Ohh.
ALEX: –Christmas dinner?
BOBBY: Is that a tradition of yours?
ALEX: It has become one yes. In recent years. It’s been it’s something that we’ve done for a little while now. So it turned out great.
BOBBY: Did you have a hand in in preparing these tamales? Or were you just kind of sitting on the sidelines? I know you’re an accomplished chef yourself.
ALEX: Right, yes. So the preparation for these tamales was placing an order with the taqueria that we get the tamales from.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But I didn’t even help go pick them up. So I really I really–
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: –was sidelined here.
BOBBY: Nailing it in, nailing it in. The lasagna is a Christmas tradition of mine as well. I don’t I can’t remember doing anything different ever. Maybe when I was very young, we did like ham or something like that. But lasagna, my dad has been making lasagna and Christmas for as long as I can remember. And I spent Christmas in Los Angeles this year, so I decided to make one myself. Using the same recipe as his didn’t turn out quite as well as his but–
ALEX: Never does.
BOBBY: –I got it decades to practice.
ALEX: Yeah, so this is your first foray into the Christmas lasagna?
BOBBY: Yeah, I did a trial run two months ago because I was afraid that I would screw it up on Christmas Day and ruin the entire holiday. The trial run was even worse. So I’m progressing in the right direction right now.
ALEX: That you are.
BOBBY: Much like a baseball player working his way up through the Minor Leagues. I’m getting there, I’m getting, I’m getting ready for the show. We’re gonna talk about the Minor Leagues. Like I said, we’ll do all of the listener questions that were submitted, including some voicemails, and I want to talk to you about the weirdness of 2021 but before we do all of that. I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[5:05]
[Theme Music]
BOBBY: Okay, Alex, we’re gonna talk a little bit about the last year, the last 365 days. But before we do, I wanted to hit on a quick bit of news. We haven’t had very much news that’s relevant to the interests of Tipping Pitches in the last three weeks or so. But we did this past week, right after we put out our last episode with Adam Johnson, which we had recorded ahead of time. We did find out that there is a lawsuit that has been filed challenging MLBs Antitrust Exemption. This lawsuit was spawned from MLB’s handling of the Minor Leagues, where they did a complete takeover of the Minor Leagues. And as we discussed, a lot went happened, they cut 40 teams from 160 down to 120. There have been a couple times throughout Baseball history where MLB Antitrust Exemption has been challenged most recently in 2012 when it was settled, but it was a class-action lawsuit from fan bases over the packaging of cable rights, and the exclusivity and blackouts and everything like that. There’s a lot of really good information from this in a write-up from recent Tipping Pitches guest, Maury Brown, which we will link to in description. But I feel like we should probably talk about MLB getting sued for Antitrust Violation because of Minor League Baseball. What do you think?
ALEX: It does seem to speak to some issues we’ve discussed in the past.
BOBBY: So without knowing too much about the actual case that that has been filed, and without being a lawyer, increasingly on this podcast, I feel like I have to pretend like I have a law degree.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: But that’s okay. The plaintiffs in the case, according to Maury’s write-up the Staten Island Yankees, the Tri-City ValleyCats, the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, and then Norwich Sea Unicorns, all four clubs, are the Minor League affiliation with Major League Baseball removed under contraction. The defendant in this case, that listed defendant in this case, Alex, is one man. And that man is Rob Manfred, tough scene.
ALEX: That’s tough scene for him.
BOBBY: No one has commented on the pending litigation. And of course, it’s relatively new. So we don’t know that much about who will hear it which direction it will go. If the case is gaining momentum, we will, we will, of course, cover that as it unfolds. But this is sort of a factor and and found out kind of moment for Major League Baseball. At the time, in real-time, we were like, men, a lot of people are not going to be happy with this decision to unilaterally just cut these 40 teams, and not even really give any kind of runway for the teams that are being cut. Let alone what this will do to the communities and the future of Baseball and the trust between fans and Major League Baseball the entity. But now it actually seems like it might lead to some, some hot water on the legal front.
ALEX: Yeah, possibly I find it kind of hard to believe that a suit like this has much in the way of legs to stand on. If only because if it was this easy, it probably would have already been done, you know? I think the courts in the past have largely shied away from overturning that Antitrust Exemption and saying that they would rather leave it to something like Congress to make the decision on that. You know, I think that the Supreme Court is generally wary of wading into interests of business, especially billion-dollar ones.
BOBBY: Yeah. And interests of like state rights versus federal rights like they’re–
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: That’s where their power starts to fall apart a little bit, historically speaking.
ALEX: But it is just another case where things are being laid out on the table, in a bit more obvious fashion than in years past and in decades past. There’s probably a good argument here that the purpose of this is as much to just kind of shine a light on Major League Baseball’s practices as it is, you know, an attempt to actually bring about any change when it comes to the Antitrust Exemption. Because that kind of is the first step is showing your hands to the the court of public opinion, right? I think most baseball fans probably don’t even know that the Antitrust Exemption exists or, or what that means for the sport. But if you can actually start to draw a line between that rule that exception and–
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: –a lot of the more unsavory parts of Baseball. Then all of a sudden, you know, you start to get people on your side and you say, hey, maybe the sport would be better if they didn’t get to operate unilaterally?
BOBBY: Well, I mean, it’s hard to say because like, here’s the thing with cases like this, it actually doesn’t follow any logic at all.
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: It just follows whatever the court or individual justices on the court feel like purporting in that year or that case. I mean, maybe this is like sacrilege for me to say, but it’s not really like the legal cases in this always end. You know, it’s not really like the, the development of the legal cases actually end up dictating these things, like so much is going on behind the scenes as to whether these things get heard and how they get adjudicated. But like, there have been growing indications from the Supreme Court, whether that be the recent decision for the NCAA with like, then them letting the name and name image and likeness agreements go through. They like kind of went out of their way. And we talked about this at the time the supreme court went out of their way. I think it was Brett Kavanaugh, which is like, Wow, talk talk about worst person, you know, making a good point. Uhm, I think he they went out of their way to kind of say that they don’t understand why this Antitrust Exemption still exists than that if–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –someone wanted to lob a challenge at it. You know, they’re all ears. And this seems like that that challenge. And, you know, they’ve said in the past that the Antitrust Exemption, they’ve rolled it back, slightly, like there have been cases that have modified their interpretation of the Antitrust Exemption. And though Major League Baseball still has it, it doesn’t let them do anything that they want to do. And when this case in 2012, was settled, what was interesting to me about that was that at the time, they basically said, the Supreme Court, I forget which justice wrote this, but it basically said like, the Antitrust Exempt–Antitrust exemption, as it was written in 1922 only applies really to the exhibition of baseball games. So like, the physical game that’s happening, and other stuff like TV rights. And to me, in my mind, other stuff, like the handling of Minor League Baseball, doesn’t really fall under that category. Because that’s not the exhibition of Major League Baseball games being played in a stadium between two Major League Baseball teams like that, that’s suddenly very different. Because if you’re a Major League team, and your Minor League team is in a different state, and you’re conducting business between you’re calling guys up and sending guys back down, that is interstate commerce, that is not a Major League Baseball game. You know what I mean? Like they’re def–that’s definitely a pretty sound logical case, in my mind. That if the Supreme Court is like, yeah, we want to get rid of this exemption because like, because the woke MLB is ruining our country or whatever the fuck they decide is the reason they want to actually listen to this, this time around. I mean, it’s it seems like tenuous for Major League Baseball. I’m not a legal scholar, maybe we should talk to somebody who can actually speak to some of the legal aspects of this. But I don’t think that this is nothing.
ALEX: No, I don’t think so. either. I think it, I see it more as kind of another domino to potentially fall, and it may fall–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –for or against, basically baseball, you know, this may be another scenario where it’s largely left intact. But you see bits and pieces of it rolled back or at least in an acknowledgement that the exemption does seem to stand on shaky ground and once was considered 50 or 60 years ago. So no, I don’t think that it’s that it’s nothing for sure. Again, I find it a little hard to believe that the court would completely strike down this exemption.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Especially given Major League Baseball’s political ties, and their you know, the the amount of energy and money they spend lobbying. One would think they would not simply leave this up to a third party–
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: –to to decide.
BOBBY: I mean, I think that that 2012 settlement is kind of like a decent test case for what might–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –happen here. Where it’s like–
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: –you get legitimate concessions about what they can and can’t do. And that did kind of change how regional cable networks were allowed to, like provide stuff, whatever. I do–I don’t really remember the details of that as well. Maury links out to a different like a Hollywood Reporter article that has more details on that if you want. Okay, well, more to come on the Antitrust Exemption, I am sure here on Tipping Pitches. Let’s let’s talk about 2021 in review in the past, you know we’ve done kind of a our favorite segments of this past year, but I don’t know this this last year, we had so many good ones and so many amazing guests that it’s just, it’s just becomes harder and harder to do that episode every year. And I if you want, just go back and check it out those episodes out in full. That is my recommendation to you, the listener. But I wanted to talk to you kind of about, is there one thing that stands out to you from this past year, above all else that just felt like it was present on your mind more than any of the other things? Because of course, there were like ups and downs during the Baseball season, there was like stuff that really came and went like the sticky stuff controversy. But is you’re just shaking your head, like you didn’t remember that that happened, which is–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –typical. But is there one thing that really stands out as a cut above the rest?
ALEX: That’s hard to say. I mean, I think one thing that has stuck with me, and it’s not necessarily a positive or a negative thing. But this really felt like a year where more than ever, I had to kind of separate the art from the artist when it comes to Baseball. And that’s not just referring to CBA negotiations, although that was obviously taking place, that was kind of a through line of the the entire season. But it just felt like there were a lot of instances that seemed to expose a lot of the inequities in the system of Baseball, economic wise, culture wise. There were some harrowing stories about individual players that I think really kind of put a damper on a lot of baseball fans ability to watch and enjoy the sport. And so I think like as a baseball fan, you had to do a little bit of like, compartmentalizing this year, as you were either–
BOBBY: Exactly–
ALEX: –you were watching the game–
BOBBY: [16:53] or like the word of the year.
ALEX: Yeah. But I don’t know, I’m still processing, right? I may feel different weeks or months from now. But what about what about you?
BOBBY: No, I think you’re right. I mean, I, I think that like the sensation of this blending in from last year is a really powerful one still, for me like, these last two years feel inseparable. Because they said they so much inform each other both on both with what we talked about weekend and week out about like labor stuff with, you know, the entire tenor of this, the labor discussions completely changed with the return to play at the beginning of 2020. And then, of course, that is like the thing that characterizes the attitude between those two sides that we’ve talked about throughout this whole year. And as we continue to see throughout the month of December, with reports from Evan Drellich, and Jeff Passan, who were very plugged into these things that the two sides are not even discussing core economics until January. So why why should we? These last few years just feel blurred together off the field almost as much as on the field and it becomes it’s just become harder than ever to kind of like singular eyes, individual baseball seasons. Without thinking of everything in the lead up and everything in the aftermath.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: If that makes sense.
ALEX: Yeah, it definitely doesn’t feel like the season begins on April 1st and ends on November 1st, or or whatever it is, right? There’s so much kind of around the margins that you need to include to really tell a full story to really get the full picture of the Baseball season, a lot of that stuff does happen off the field, oftentimes behind closed doors. But when I think of the 2021 Baseball season or the 2020 Baseball season or whatever, it’s definitely my first thought is not the the year that the Braves won the World Series.
BOBBY: No, absolutely not.
ALEX: Like it actually took me a second there to remind myself who won the World Series? Was like Dod–Dodgers?
BOBBY: Does it only feel that way? Because we’re talking about the off the field stuff so often like, I mean, we talk about compartmentalization. But I guess like, is there something that stands out to you this year, that is like, a a positive that is like trending in the correct direction? Because I do feel like, you know, as little as things change, or as slowly as things change in Major League Baseball, I was looking back at some of our episodes from earlier in this year. And just like all of the conversations that we were, like lucky enough to have with people, and all of the ideas that they have, and all of the like intelligent ways that people think and talk about the game. You know, like when we did our if such and such was commissioner episodes and like those guests were talking so intelligently about direct change that could be made in Baseball and there’s a part of me that just feels like even if Major League Baseball is not in a good place. There’s at least a community of people sprouting up around that aired opinion that is in a good place and is trending things in the correct direction.
ALEX: Yeah, I do really feel that that community that we’re a part of progressive minded baseball fans who like want to see a a good sport and a better sport in the future. I do think that that community has continued to kind of build solidarity and have a little bit more of a nuanced, unified response to some of the stuff that we see happening in baseball, and that really is a positive. You know, you were asking about positive things that happened in 2021. And I’m sure there were many. And there were a lot of individual stories that really fascinated me and brought me joy. But one thing I was thinking of is, you know, we launched these T shirts and bringing that up is a little self indulgent. But it was a, I think that was an area where we were really blown away by the reception and largely spoke to. I think people’s willingness to engage with a lot of these ideas that maybe weren’t even on the table three or four years ago. You know, that you and I maybe weren’t even discussing. And so to see that really kind of calcify into this broader coalition of fans has been promising and I think, sets us up for a future where we don’t just uncritically kind of accepted the sport that’s given to us. But you know, actually try and fight for something better if that’s something we can do.
BOBBY: Yeah, I I completely agree. Like I think, you know, a year ago, maybe not a year ago, maybe more like two years ago, pre pandemic. I think that when you and I like brought up all of this stuff with owners, and we brought up all of these things with the problems facing Baseball and accessibility issues and everything like that, it was so like, and maybe this was the fault of our own. Like maybe this is our personal growth happening in real time right now on this podcast as we discussed this, but it’s like, I felt like we were so much more fatalistic than we are now. It’s all I’m sure it’s a matter of perspective, but it doesn’t feel like the rest of the Baseball world is as fatalistic as it used to be about some of these things.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We’ve gotten to this place of this community being like, no matter what, I’m not leaving Baseball, so we might as well change it while we’re here. You know, like, I used to think that we were all on a progression towards just quitting Baseball, because it was so bad. And now I don’t feel that way. I think we’re all on a progression towards being like decoupling the idea of Major League Baseball, and lowercase b, baseball in a way that, you know, our friend and former guest of this podcast, Ruth Butcher, was huge in in my understanding of you know, that’s something that we talked about on our become the Commissioner series, so to speak. This idea of just like, there are actually two separate buckets that we’re talking about here. There is like baseball, the thing that you love things that you love the most about it and Major League Baseball, which there there’s a large section in the middle of that Venn diagram, but the middle is not the whole thing. And that’s something that we just spent a lot of time discussing on another episode of Working People a bonus episode, which we mentioned, we are beyond. And if you haven’t checked out our our kind of shorter episode with on the Working People Podcast, go check that out with Maximillian Alvarez and our friend Jessica Raine was also on this bonus episode. But just like Maximillian, I thought did a really smart thing and asked us what do you love about Baseball? And how did you come to love Baseball? Before we ever even started talking about the conceit of the reason that we were back there for a bonus episode was all of the ways that capitalism has ruined Baseball. And that paradigm shift, I feel like is much more present than it used to be. It’s like we’re coming to it from a place of love first, and then a place of anger as opposed to just being angry as soon as we get on the podcast every week.
ALEX: Yeah, there’s certainly a bit more levity that I think we can approach a lot of these discussions with, right? If you if you acknowledge that you’re in the bad place, that’s, you know, you’re already starting kind of from a place where you can’t take more losses.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like demoralize you more, you know, if it sets you up for success down down the road, but it’s not to just say like, well keep your low expectations in case, things get better. And it’s a nice surprise. But there kind of is a little bit of that with watching baseball with watching any sport really have kind of acknowledging that maybe this ultimately isn’t for you. At the end of the day, you are not the the number one stakeholder to a lot of the people who own the teams and if you can acknowledge that, I think a lot of stuff becomes a lot clearer and easier to understand the workings of.
BOBBY: One more thing I want to highlight from our last year specifically, Alex is, and I’ll I’ll let you give a shout out to any specific episode that stuck with you. But I think that like doing the CBA ABCs for the last few weeks prior to our episode last week with Adam Johnson, I, it’s hard for me to imagine being able to do that.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like, a year ago, or two years ago, not that like we couldn’t have read the CBA. And like, given it our best shot, but just like, from from a, from a listener community perspective, like people receiving that so warmly, and being like, this is so helpful. You know, thank you guys for doing this. These guests were really informative, and they were all of the guests that we had for those CBA ABCs were phenomenal. But just like being receptive to a thing like that, from from us where we’re just like, sometimes cracking jokes, sometimes talking in legalese. Is it just just, it’s just amazing. It’s just thank you to everybody who listened to this and to is now giving our podcast a shot because they found those and that was the first time that they listened.
ALEX: Yeah, I I appreciate everyone who listened and engaged with us, while we were at our most granular at our at our most opaque at times. As well as goofy you know, I I feel like there might be to two kinds of Tipping Pitches listeners, like you’re here for like the nitty gritty like newsy stuff and we start ranting about you know, New Era hats and and–
BOBBY: You’re out.
ALEX: –and and you’re out and, and then the listeners who come for that, who come for Taylor Swift and say, seriously, we’re doing CBA again? Well whichever kind you are, we we appreciate you all being here. It’s, we’ve had a lot of fun this year, I think my favorite thing that we could talk about was the All-Star game. Just-
BOBBY: The gift that keeps on giving.
ALEX: –it really really was. yeah.
BOBBY: I’m gonna miss that next year.
ALEX: I was gonna say I’m sad that we’re gonna have to leave that behind.
BOBBY: I think they came up on our dumbest things of 2021 episode with Batting Around, which was one of my favorites to do. I think there’s a third type of Tipping Pitches listener Alex the one that comes for both of those things.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Those people are very sweet. Many of them wrote in questions for our end of year mailbag, which we’re going to get to right after this break.
[27:25]
[Transition Music]
BOBBY: All right. It’s been a while since we had some voicemails I think. I don’t think we’ve done any voicemails since the 200th episode, have we?
ALEX: No, we haven’t.
BOBBY: All right, well, I started off with a voicemail then.
VOICEMAIL 1: Sup fellas, I love your podcast, you guys are fantastic. And I I’m a new baseball fan. I got into baseball like this year, actually. And one of the things that got me into it was you guys podcast, I have a couple of friends, I’m in college right now. And I have a couple friends that uh, you know, are are on the lefty side. And and they showed me this podcast that one baseball fan and I know he got me in you guys. And and you guys got me to Baseball and I I appreciate that. You know, I don’t I don’t know anyone in Football media that is as insightful, you know, funny and and has as many things to say that matters that you guys do. And that has drawn me away from sport that I always feel bad about watching because it kills its players. And I I thank you for that. It makes me feel better as a person. And it makes me feel better as a fan because the sport that I watch now is fun. But yeah, you know, I just I have one question for you guys. And it’s uh you know, I guess it has a lot to do with you know [28:57] the future. I want to know how many more people will be likely in the future and in will pick up the game of Baseball? I read a lot about you know, how Baseball you know, the the endless discourse of like, is Baseball dying? Is I’m sure exhausting, especially for you guys when you talk about Baseball all the time. But I’d like to know what you think about you know, is is this ever going to how is anyone going to know Shohei Ohtani is? In in like, I don’t know 30 years well well, is is that is that like saying like a cricket tear name in in 30 years, like it is now. [29:33], yes, sorry that I was rambling. But I love you guys dearly. I will be sure to buy a shirt and I will be sure to start a Baseball League and name it something to pitchers related. Because my school does not have Intramural Baseball. So, goodbye and happy holidays.
BOBBY: Alex my first piece of advice for this listener is don’t get put out of business by Major League Baseball for breaking their Antitrust Exemption by starting your own Baseball League. The second thing I’d like to say this listener is, thank you so much. This is just one of the nicest voicemails we’ve ever received. And I’m so happy that you were able to get into the sport of Baseball because it is very rewarding, even if sometimes it is very challenging. Which I think if you’re a listener to be pitches, you know that. It’s it’s kind of mind blowing to me that people would pick up the sport of Baseball, America’s pastime, by listening to us talk about it in silly ways. But I I’m flattered beyond belief. Alex, to the question of is anybody going to be new baseball or be a new baseball fan and 30 years? Tough one, it’s a complicated question. Do you have thoughts on that?
ALEX: Well, the the sport, the fan base of the sport, will certainly look different in 30 years, and I don’t think it will have grown smaller necessarily. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that a a good swath of current baseball fans may, their time may have come in in 30 years. So just by the nature of how life works, we will there is a generation of baseball fans that maybe won’t be dictating things as they are right now. I–
BOBBY: We’re just talking about census data right now.
ALEX: Yeah, literally.
BOBBY: Breaking it down to the basics, human biology.
ALEX: I I find it hard to believe that a multi-billion dollar sports industry is going to just slowly vanish as as its fans do. I I do think right now, as we talked about MLB is kind of facing this reckoning with its future. And right now it has the chance to kind of reach out and, and take its future that’s sitting right there in front of him with its personality, with the uniqueness of a lot of their players right now, the the youth and their diversity. Right, now they have a chance to take it, but in 30 years, it will be forced upon them and it will be forced to adapt. And I don’t think it will be as easy for it to make that sort of pivot as it is right now, where things are still kind of in a more fluid place. Does that make sense?
BOBBY: Yeah, it would have been easier 15 years ago, but of course–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Basil is never gonna be the first to do anything, not anymore at least. I think that, well, first, the first thing I’ll say is that nothing this big ever goes away. You know, like nothing that is as big as Baseball as now was as big as Baseball was at its peak will ever really just go away entirely. Like even Boxing pay per view, has huge events still, you know what I mean? Like there are people, there are less people who care about it than they used to. But that’s because everybody’s attention is a lot more divided than it used to be. I think that like we’re in this cultural moment of punting on being general interest and really honing in on on like exciting, the fans that you already have more and more and more. And I think you’ve seen Baseball, try to do that a little bit, but not in the way not in a tasteful way that we would have hoped, or that we would hope for in the future. Like they’ve doubled down on stuff like the television audience, you know, and like keeping the streaming, keeping the television audience at the at the expense of people who want to like stream all 30 teams in the team in their market with blackout restrictions. And they’ve, they’ve brought in all of these sports, gambling, partnerships, you know, for the sake of money and for revenue and stuff. But you know, there are people who are like really into sports betting, who are like I like Baseball more now because I get to bet on it. Like they’re extracting as much as possible from the fans that they have. I think the thing that we lament most frequently is that that means they’re also extracting our money at the same time. I think that there could be a better balance with the way that Baseball handles keeping its core fans engaged. Because I think that like they haven’t really had that full realization that they’re not going to be the biggest sport in the world anymore, or the biggest sport in this country anymore. And they’re not making decisions based on keeping their new fans happy and attracting more of fans. Like they’re making decisions based on logic from 30 years ago. And I think you can pin a lot of that on Rob Manfred. I think you can pin a lot of that on the Owners. But it’s hard to assign blame on whose fault that really is. You know, I would be remiss if we did not mention that one of the fastest growing demographics of baseball fans is younger women. That’s despite all of the terrible decisions and climate towards women fans in Baseball. So if they were ever to actually get their shit together and start making decisions with a different, you know, single ideal with more than just one single ideal fan being a 60-year old white guy who has like expendable cash and wants to teach his son about the designated hitter. Like if they were ever able to make decisions with with more than just that guy in mind, I think that there’s just huge potential. And, you know, this caller mentioned Shohei Ohtani, it’s like right there in front of their faces like how to do that once they make that decision. And once they have that mindset shift, because if we have guys like Ohtani, we have guys like Vlad Guerrero Jr. We have guys like Fernando Tatís. And Baseball could become internationally sensational, in a way that they just like, they just have never been able to quite figure out. Because it just doesn’t need to be like 50 million people watching it on Sunday, like the NFL or the Super Bowl. It doesn’t need to be like that to be thriving, and successful and sustainable. Because like, how many people watch stuff on Netflix? Like millions, but not like 100 million? You know, it’s not like how many people are watching I Love Lucy. But Netflix is like incredibly successful. And you’re never you’re never like Netflix is dying, streaming is dying. Like we’re just in a world where you don’t need to be that mass appeal anymore, but Baseball still pretending like they’re going to be or that they are still even though that we know they’re not.
ALEX: Yeah, it definitely seems like they are kind of playing catch up and trying to adapt their sport to a rapidly changing, I guess attention economy and they spend a lot of time trying to tweak the game, tweak the rules, so that maybe it seems you know, 3% more appealing to younger fans who have shorter attention spans. When in reality, that’s the difference that makes is going to be negligible at the end of the day. Because you shave a 10 minutes off the time of a baseball game is not going to bring you an influx of millions of young fans. I think if anything, I think if anything, they really should be kind of leaning, leaning into the individuality of the sport in that sense, right? The cadence of the game is so different from other sports. And I think for much of the game’s history that was considered a virtue of it, right? And so I think it’s kind of on Major League Baseball to lean into that a little bit. And to a certain extent the fans as well, right? There’s we’ve talked ad nauseam about the kind of internal culture wars in Baseball. And I think that if MLB the institution and kind of you know, the average conservative fan can ease up on the reins a little bit. Like the sport is actually moving in–
BOBBY: Less culture war.
ALEX: –good direction. I mean, honestly, it’s like–
BOBBY: Famously people who care a lot about the culture wars respond well, to you telling them the culture wars are irrelevant.
ALEX: Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: That’s gone so well, for the wider political world. I hear you and I agree, I think that what they just can’t admit is that people weren’t paying that close attention ever. And now they have data to prove it. And they’re, like, freaking out about it. But-
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –I don’t know, man. Like when when 19 in 1963 was every kid just running around keeping the score? I don’t think so they were probably just there hanging out. You know, they were there to eat hotdogs and stuff. Like, when Baseball accepts that it can be secondary to entertain secondary entertainment to some and primary primary entertainment to others. And they’re able to, like energize the people whose primary entertainment it is, but also be welcoming to the people who want to use it as secondary entertainment. That that is the fence that they need to delicately balance on. Because that is that is the future of sports consumption. So it’s not just people sitting there staring at it not doing anything else. It’s people doing a lot of other shit. Which, if you’re not the type of person who likes that, then fine, you don’t have to be. But they need to accept that most people like to do a lot of stuff at the same time now. Just because of the proliferation of technology and how much stuff has changed.
ALEX: Yeah, and like, you know, like it or not, but sports betting is a way that I think they’re trying to tap into that, right? I mean, I–
BOBBY: Yeah, I don’t like it. I think it [39:36]
ALEX: –it turns out in the you know, I mean, it’s, it results in the bastardization of the sport and I think the leads to a lot of–
BOBBY: Stabbing [39:46]–
ALEX: –real issues of inches down the road.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But at least feels in tune with kind of how the average sports fan is interested in watching sports these days, which is I think, something you can not say for a lot of other decisions, Major League Baseball makes right now. So–
BOBBY: So did we just talk ourselves into saying that sports betting is actually good for the progressive of Baseball? Okay, well, we spent we we better start, we better move on to the next question. Next question comes from Josh in an email. Josh says, “It seems like the problem of small market Owners pocketing that money has an easy solution. This is in response to our CBA ABCs. Couldn’t the commissioner enforce a rule that the owners have to put the money back into the baseball team? Second question, When can I expect the Kansas City Royals theme to unionize the minor short release? I need to sport one in Kansas City and add their games for their triple A club. Omaha Storm Chasers. Ahh second question first. I don’t know man, I can’t answer any when can you expect a Unionized the Minors from this team from team X? Because the way that we make decisions on the Unionized the Minors designs is we’re like it’s been a while since we put out a new shirt. Alex, what do you think would be a good next design? And then you say, I like the Diamond Backs, colors? And then I say that–
ALEX: Right, colors.
BOBBY: –yeah, I would. I say that would be sick man. And then you design it. There’s no other grand plan. Like there’s no, we’re not trying to gain anything. We’re not trying to like, these shirts are being donated. Like we’re not trying to take over the world with them. Everybody’s like, do a med cert, it’ll be huge. And I’m like, everybody’s chill.
ALEX: We’re not doing any team themed shirts anyway, just to be clear, but these are–
BOBBY: They’re based on color schemes.
ALEX: They are based on color schemes, they might be an an ode to a franchise.
BOBBY: Creative interpretation, because that’s your specialty.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: First question, now, couldn’t the Commissioner enforce a rule that the owners have to put the money back into the Baseball to you? No, no. I mean, that that rule could exist. But you’d have to get all of the owners to agree to it. And they have it.
ALEX: Right, yes. Right, that’s that’s really the the cut of it like yes, Rob Manfred could in theory enforce a rule to do a lot of stuff that would address the very things we talked about week in and week out. But he he needs to get the owners buy in otherwise, he’s going to be out of the job real quickly, right? And I think the owners have very little interest in requiring that. You know, if Rob Manfred walked up to them and said, “Hey, I’d like to volunteer us to all make our books available to the public.” I have a feeling the Owners might not be like, “You know what, that’s fair, that’s fair, people should see how we’re spending our money.”
BOBBY: Well, this question, with regards to Revenue Sharing, it needs to be in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Because as we talked about, on the Revenue Sharing episode, Revenue Sharing has a material impact on player wages. So therefore, it must be collectively bargained over. And a rule saying that, the Owners have to put the money back into the baseball team would need to be explicitly put in the CBA, the way that it is in other sports leagues. So like in Basketball, this is literally all they argue about basically, in every CBA, unless the people who run the players union are willing to just roll over like they have been in the past decade. But is Basketball related income, which is sort of what Josh is talking about here, you’d have to like, say, this much of Baseball related income needs to be put back into the team. But that is the thing that the union wants. That’s that Rob Manfred has no interest in arguing for that. Because if the money is put back into the team, that means more salaries for players. And the Owners would never agree to that, not even the big market Owners, but really want that. I don’t think a a rule that says you have to put this much money back into a thing is a slippery slope to start talking about. It’s a slippery slope towards telling Owners what they can and can’t do with a revenue, which is not what they want.
ALEX: Well, and to a certain degree, they are required to reinvest the money that they get into, you know, the well being of their teams, right? Investing–
BOBBY: They can’t like pack into personal debts.
ALEX: Right, exactly. But, you know–
BOBBY: The funds made a compelling argument that they can.
ALEX: Where you get into hairy territory is, you know, what do you define as Baseball related revenue? Can you spend that money on scouting? Can you spend it on the stadium? Can you spend it on X line item that maybe indirectly benefits the team down the road? You know, like–
BOBBY: Yeah, you could spend it on anything and say that it’s better for the year. Like you could spend on something that you say is an investment towards increasing the franchise value in the future, which every other Owner would be like? Yes, I sign off on that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: As long as franchise values are going up, and it’s always worth owning a team.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah. So it’s really a question of enforcement, which, as we said that Rob Manfred has no interested in doing probably because he likes having a job.
BOBBY: Okay, let’s, let’s pivot back to the voicemails.
VOICEMAIL 2: Hi, this is Christina, I tweeted at you a couple of times. But first time caller, I was from Seattle moved to the East Bay. And I have gone to quite a few games at the Coliseum this past season. But then this past weekend, my significant others holiday party was hosted at the Coliseum. And I went and I have conflicting feelings about it. Especially being a Tipping Pitches listener of you know, supporting the organization through hosting, going to a private event hosted there in the offseason. So yeah, just wanted to call and get some help, kind of figuring out how I should compartmentalize all of that. So, thanks. Thanks for thought you guys are great. All right, talk to you later. Bye.
ALEX: Season of hum part mentalizing.
BOBBY: Strikes again. This was all you man. This is like I could hear, I could see you having this discussion with me over text if this would if you lived in a space though.
ALEX: I don’t know, I don’t have a good answer for this. It’s, I get that it feels really kind icky. To be participating in that ecosystem that’s not directly related to Baseball, right? Like the Azar getting your business for something that has absolutely nothing to do with their actual business, but the products that they you know, present. But also if they’re not soliciting, you know, this company’s holiday party business for to be held at the Coliseum, then it’s going to be another company. You know, like, at the end of the day, they’re going to fill these spots really no matter what. So I don’t know maybe the best thing you can do is go to the holiday party and smack a Unionized the Minor sticker–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –Coliseum while you’re there.
BOBBY: That’s right, that’s what I was getting ready to say you could wear. Maybe this is not holiday party appropriate. But you could wear your [47:27] minor shirt. Or even better smack sticker like you said, I think that this is just a no conscious consumerism under capitalism kind of situation. They will just do this holiday party with like Raytheon, or Deloitte or any of these other companies like and also it wasn’t your company. It’s your significant other and I think this is totally fine. I know–
ALEX: It’s you’re, it’s your significant other who should be having the moral reckoning right now.
BOBBY: Uh, personally, I think this sounds kind of cool, like a cool place for a holiday party. The A’s get money in much worse ways than you are getting to look at the baseball field during–
ALEX: Right [48:04]–
BOBBY: [48:04] now there’s holiday party I think is [48:06]–
ALEX: Like the very least you get to like be at the Coliseum. And–
BOBBY: Yeah, maybe–
ALEX: –like when no one else is there.
BOBBY: If they want to, they’re gonna move the A’s out of Oakland, whether or not you boycott the holiday party. So I think that is a sort of a cool use for a stadium. You know, that is required public funding, you might as well get to use it for a holiday party if the A’s aren’t going to use it for Baseball.
ALEX: It’s so true.
BOBBY: I’m being serious. I hope that you had a great time at the holiday party and apologies for not getting to answer this voicemail before set holiday party.
VOICEMAIL 3: Hey, guys, it’s me, Jamie, longtime listener, many time caller. Just walking around my neighborhood right now thought I’d give you guys a call and post most recent episode to call in to you guys. I’ve been thinking a lot this week about sports media, and previously a field that I really wanted to get into. But I think the nature with the with the MLB lockout, I’ve been focusing a little bit more on other sports and kind of realizing like, this industry is kind of the worst. Like most industries, industry is pretty bad in general. But a sports media specifically. So I would kind of just ask you guys like, how do you kind of grapple with that? I know you get a lot of questions like, how do I even be a fan of this? But like this one’s a little bit different because the media landscape is what it is. So thank you guys. Reach out as always.
BOBBY: This is an interesting question. Jamie, thank you for calling. Because we used to talk about this a lot more often. Like at the beginning of this show. We we talked about bigger sports media stories before we were like let’s just hone this thing and to be much more closely aligned with just Baseball and baseball labor and the wider baseball economy. But I don’t know that this is a very hard question because on one hand, I think that Jamie’s conceit is correct that sports media is like a kind of fucked industry. Where there’s like, a lot of overhauling that needs to be done and a lot of like, undoing of past mindsets and the way that power functions in sports media and the way that the stratification of what the biggest stars make versus like what most of the workers in sports media are able to earn. But I also think like, even since we started doing this show, like there are more and more independent sports media, or just media generally success stories that are kind of encouraging. And that’s not even just to say, like, somebody started a podcast, and it blows up for whatever reason, and they make money off Patreon. But there are like more worker owned things like, we’ve made friends with people who run podcast collectives, like Multitude. There’s defector which like, broke off its whole own whole story, which like we could spend an hour talking about, but broke off from a kind of evil Sports Media Corporation, and this now worker owned and fan supported, and they seem to be doing really well. So like, I think that the industry has changed a lot. And if there’s things that there are things that you identify about the sports media world that you don’t like, then create something that goes against that. Like, that’s kind of what we’ve tried to do here, you and I, where it’s like, we could have gotten really good at giving like radio takes. We could have gotten really good at X’s and O’s analysis, or like play by play or something, you know.
ALEX: I don’t know that I could have [51:57] things–
BOBBY: I don’t know either, but we could have tried, right? But that’s not what we do. And it’s not what we wanted to do. And it’s not what we are personally interested in doing. Even though I have a lot of respect for people who do that stuff in a in a responsible way. And so we were just able to create something different than that. And like there are a whole host of people who are nice enough to listen to that. And that sort of accessibility, I think has improved sports media, a lot.
ALEX: There are definitely more avenues to enter the world of sports media than there were 10 or 15 years ago. And that decentralization has broken down a lot of the barriers to access that existed for the longest time among so many legacy media operations, and at the same time, has created an economy that that, as you said, kind of has led to this stratification, right? Of a small number of well paid well regarded sports media figures.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And an entire class of largely young folks who are interested in writing and talking about the sport in usually really unique and different ways that will do it for cheaper, free, right. I mean, like, I feel like sports–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –media in particular is kind of facing that, that whole notion of, well, there’s someone out there who’s willing to do it for less than you, you know. And I think that’s been very ingrained into kind of like the journalistic mind. That it’s hard to break free from that idea. So like, sports media will certainly always be around in some fashion. And it’s kind of on the, yeah, the the workers to seize back a little bit of that control. But I do think that we live at a really fascinating time in sports media, because there are so many different forms of consumption, and ways of getting your ideas, your opinions, your voice out into the world. That I don’t know, I it kind of feels like we’re in the tunnel right now, where things are–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –rapidly changing. And it’s hard to say what it’ll look like 10, 15, 20 years out.
BOBBY: But it also feels like there are different exits out of the tunnel for different people. You know, like, you know, you don’t work in sports media, like we do this podcast. This is the extent of your engagement with sports media. You work for a nonprofit, and that’s totally fine. You can do this part time. I do work in spring media. But or we can make this a full time job, maybe one day. I do work in sports media, but I also work at a place where my coworkers and I unionized and that is a lot more popular in the last 5 to 10 years than it ever was 20, 30 years ago. Obviously, newsrooms are unionized. But like digital media unionization has been a huge trend in this industry. A lot of that comes from that idea, that sentiment that you’re sharing where in sports media, you’re told that you’re replaceable a lot, which is just not true. If you were replaceable, they’d replace you a lot more frequently than they do. You know what I mean? Like, if you’re somebody who’s working a job where you’re being told that you’re replaceable, what would happen if everybody who was told that they were replaceable, left at the same time and the company had to replace you, just just think about that. You just have to hit it on multiple fronts, like, we just have to change, there’s no one silver bullet that is going to just like revolutionize sports media, and make it a much more equitable place. I think that there are smaller revolutions that need to happen within it. And one of those things that, like you’re talking about the decentralization, but even within that, like we do have to fight other forces of stratification, like just letting all of the ad revenue money or whatever money is being pumped into sports media, letting that go to all the people at the top, like, we just have to. There needs to be other mechanisms that fight against that. And I think that like, you know, things like Patreon, or like things like user based ad networks and stuff like that, in sports media, are in a in a in imperfect way, doing some of that work. I guess there’s not a perfect answer for whether or not sports media is a good industry to go into. But I think it’s a it’s a personal choice.
ALEX: Yep. Well said.
BOBBY: All right. Next question comes from fbeauty_ast. It’s a question about the collective bargaining negotiations right now. If you were the union, what’s the one must have provision? And what’s the one provision you’d be willing to concede? So two-parter. They say that they would need to have earlier free agency. And they’d be willing to give up the no salary cap stance to get it. I’ll say for me, this is a hard question to answer without. Not to be not to be too literal. But like without being on the MLB Executive Committee. You know like MLBPA Executive Committee, because as a union representative, it is your obligation to give the best deal to your members and fight for what they want to fight for. Because you are only as powerful as what as the membership, you’re only as powerful as the ideas that the membership is willing to get behind. So if you’re having conversations with people, and they’re like, No, we never want to have a salary cap, like you can’t say, but it’s best for you in the long run. If we agree to a salary cap like that is you are not representing your membership in a lot like in a legal way, really. Like you have a legal obligation to fight on their behalf as a union leader. So but in a in a vacuum, I think the thing that you must have is, I I agree that that thing that you must have earlier, free agency. Because that is the largest area of salary exploitation, currently facing MLB. And there are two ways that you can attack that there, you can get a year of service time back. But you would have to give up a lot for that. Or you’d have to go on strike for a very long time for that. Or you can try your darndest to increase the minimum salary so that it’s like a million. And those guys are not being quite as exploited, even if they are even if their their total value to the franchise is still being exploited. We’re currently just under a system where players value is exploited so that Owners can make a larger portion of the pie.
ALEX: Yeah, I don’t know what the single provision would necessarily be that they would look for. But certainly, I think you have to address the growing discrepancy between the amount of value that young players are bringing, and the amount that they are getting compensated for that. And whether that is raising the minimum salary, or doing away with arbitration completely, or completely overhauling the notion of service time, right? And bringing under your wing rookie players whose service time is being manipulated or for a players who are kind of bouncing back and forth between the Majors and the Minors. That to me feels like maybe not an existential threat to the sport, but certainly the most, certainly the place that has received the least amount of attention–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –from the players union over the last two decades.
BOBBY: I think that if we were going to name a must have provision that would help with that the most it would be the uniform player contract, including a provision that that service time is as soon as you sign a professional contract, right? Not once you get called up because that would basically kill service time manipulation, like whether it’s 10 years or whether it’s 8 years or whatever, you could actually negotiate the shorter better from whenever you sign your professional contract, you hit free agency, including the time spent in the Minor Leagues. Not just after you’ve been called up, because then that would shift that clock back earlier for most guys, because they’re just ready earlier, and there’s no reason for clubs to hold them down and try to gain that extra service time. And then that’s like a domino effect. You’re not hitting free agency when you’re 31. And seeing all these teams being unwilling to give you the big money, you’re maybe hitting him when you’re 25 if you’re that good. Or if you’re Juan Soto, you’re hitting it when–this this creates a problem for the ones that is the world where the teams like, he’s 16, but he’s ready for Major League pitching.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: What are the ethics of child labor in Major League Baseball?
ALEX: Right. Yeah, but ultimately, like, I think that the the players union doesn’t have to worry so much about the Juan Soto’s of the world, right? And shouldn’t and shouldn’t be, at least not for these specific reasons, right? There are other broader ethical considerations in the case of players like Juan Soto.
BOBBY: What would you be willing to give up? Because the obvious answer is expanded playoffs because that’s what we think that the union is going to give up.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But I don’t know how willing I am to give that up. And this is not posturing on behalf of the Union. This is fear mongering on behalf of the fans. I think that expanded playoffs is going to hurt to watch, it’s going to be hard to adjust to for the first few years because there are going to be some pretty bad teams getting in.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I don’t know if that that will increase competition, or if it’ll just continue to just put pretty bad teams in. Like in the NFL, bad teams make the playoffs in the NFL 16 of 32 teams make the playoffs in that league. And that is league with much more parody. But it’s pretty evident sometimes when the teams that suck make it in.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And in the NBA–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –and the NBA, that’s a problem too. And where 16 of 30 teams make it in. And you’re you have teams that are under 500 and are hopeless. And I don’t want a team like that accidentally eliminating the Dodgers because Max Scherzer got a dead arm. You know, like that’s just not–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –good for Baseball.
ALEX: Yeah, Baseball–
BOBBY: [1:02:07]
ALEX: –has the randomness, the randomness element to it. That heightens that possibility. Yeah, I don’t think you can give up expanded playoffs in a vacuum without attaching to it provisions that would create a more equitable, competitive environment. Right, like I don’t think you could just give that up point blank without extracting concessions elsewhere. Like I think a place to the to this listeners point, I think a place where you may be willing to have a little more flexibility. Isn’t that something like a salary cap, because that already exists to some extent.
BOBBY: Yeah,
ALEX: Like I, again, in a vacuum, you’re not going to just tell the Owners that they can that they only have to pay so much money, right? You want that to somehow be tied to raising revenues. But I think if you can guarantee a more equitable distribution of money across the league across players. As long as you know that Owners are not getting an increasing share of the pie, I think that’s something that I’d be willing to, to concede.
BOBBY: Duck underneath that lightning bolt that Marvin Miller is sending down from the heavens.
ALEX: I know, I know.
BOBBY: Strike you down. Be careful next time you walk outside. Okay, next question.
VOICEMAIL 4: Hey, guys, this is Ken Ball. first time caller, big fan of the pod. Love everything you guys do. I’m also into my third decade as a dues paying union member and I wanted to get your thoughts on rocking MLB gear. At this time of great labor strife. I feel like I am crossing a picket line by wearing that Harmon Killebrew logo on here I already own I’m definitely not buying anything new right now from MLB and I know there’s no actual picket line again, it’s a management lockout. The players haven’t called a strike there’s no actual ticket line. But MLBPA made his position pretty clear as has been outlined on the pod that you know, they’re not going to be digging their heels in pretty firmly and so the lockout plus you know, taking away like post surgical PT and and in mental health treatment it’s pretty in among other things, pretty big shot across the bow by my Manager. So wanted to get you guys thought, I I I you know, like I don’t I don’t drink tours, for example. Because P Corps is a neo Nazi Union buster and and I don’t consume Stella D’oro because of the Union shenanigans there I’m kind of cherry picking nobody’s perfect. No such thing as ethical consent consumption under capitalism, of course. But yeah, on this particular issue, one of you guys is wearing MLB gear during the lockout, akin to crossing the picket line. Thanks, love your guys’s work every time. Take care.
BOBBY: This is a fascinating question. And and one that I’ve found myself grappling with in different with different companies like, you know, this listener mentioned scores and they mentioned Stella like, it’s a, it’s actually a really hard thing to internally debate with yourself. Like, should I buy Oreos like a week after the strike is over, or, you know what I mean? Like, that just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. The way that they handled it, but also at the same time, if that union is not asking you to boycott the product, then you actually might be doing more harm to them in the long run than good by taking this personal stance. Because if nobody buys it, then their revenues will go in the tank, and they’ll just fire all the union members anywhere, they’ll just lay them all off anyway. But this specific question, I just, I’m not gonna be wearing MLB here anyway, most likely, although I’ll wear my Mets hat around like I’m not making a point of it to not wear it. If the union was like, put a piece of tape over your MLB logo until the lockout is over, like I would do that. But other than that, I don’t think that it’s really akin to crossing the picket line for me. Unless they said don’t wear this. Like I wouldn’t buy new stuff either. But I also–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –think if you wanted to buy new stuff, though, presumably once the CBA is agreed to that money will also still get distributed in the way equally to the players in the way that it was before in terms of licensing with the MLBPA. So I I didn’t even think either way you’re hurting the union’s efforts by you know, partaking in wearing your MLB merchandise. But if you’re really wrestling with it, just buy some Tipping Pitches merch instead. Get get some money to the Minor Leaguers. Forget the Major League union right now.
ALEX: Yeah, I have to agree with that. That feels more like a personal decision than a political choice.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I I don’t necessarily know that. It’s a it’s a question of morality, but more just kind of your comfort level. As someone who engages with the sport regularly, I almost feel like it’d be it’d be dishonest to tuck away my hat right now. You know, now like, No, this is I’m digging my heels in. This is the sport I have bound my life to. And you know, maybe it’s, it opens up opportunities to talk to other people about this sort of thing, right? To point your hat–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –and, and they say, Hey, you’re an A’s fan. And you say, well–
BOBBY: It was greedy [1:07:48]–
ALEX: No [1:07:47]–
BOBBY: –those greedy players are ruining the sport. And you say, actually [1:07:52]–
ALEX: [1:07:52]
BOBBY: That’s right I think, I think it’s a more of a personal decision than really a decision that affects the integrity of the Union stance during this lockout.
ALEX: Yeah, but I don’t begrudge anyone for taking that stance either.
BOBBY: I think if the owners were like, keeping it going for a year, and you’re still wearing like, the A’s logo, you know, or you’re just like buying a new A’s hat, I think that would be probably pretty weird. I think at that point, you should be turned off from MLB merchandise like, if the sport is blown up, then–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –we can have that conversation again. But for now, I think it’s I think it’s okay, one more voicemail. And then one final question that we got from Twitter, Alex.
VOICEMAIL 5: Hey, guys, my name is Matt. I was talking to my friend who’s a Soccer fan last week about the Baseball strike. And we came to the conclusion after two Google searches that his favorite team, Chelsea Football Club, one of the best teams in the English League, the winner of last year’s European Champions League, they run a similar pay payroll to my favorite team, the Giants, which was a little little strange considering the global audience that Soccer has to find out that one of the top biggest spending teams whether payrolls smaller than that of the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, Angels threat, especially when the TV rights to the United States alone to some around $3 billion, which to buy by 20 English League teams would be like $135 million a year. So it’s strange to see that they’re running such a small payroll. I guess my question is how to get this bad? How are Owners so good at taking control the conversation and convincing fans? Tonight a thing, that sort of thing? Because my friends like the relative table race between MLB and the Soccer team. Anyway, think about it for him in question why Baseball teams actually this Baseball teams can run bigger payrolls on the best Soccer teams in Europe, which have a global audience. So I guess my question is, like, How’s it possible? How’s it this bad? Anyway, thanks. Good job.
BOBBY: This is a fascinating question. And one that you don’t often think to ask yourself, like, where is MLB? We I mean, we frequently talk about where’s MLB in regards to the other American sports leagues. But, you know, the world is an increasingly global place. Sports are an increasingly global industry. It’s fun to kind of check in with other sports leagues. That’s why we wanted to talk to Ryan O’Hanlon about youth development in Soccer earlier this year, which is a fun and revelatory conversation, for us, I think. The the first thing that stands out is that, well, a couple things that stand out is very, as very different between MLB and the Premier League specifically. Number one being that Premier League clubs have a lot of expenses that MLB punts on, like they actually have to invest in their youth development, or they actually choose to invest in their youth development. So all of the costs that MLB saves on the Minor Leagues, Chelsea Football Club has to actually spend real money there. Developing their academy so that they can develop good young players in a semi ethical way. There are problems with youth academies, in Soccer, just as there are problems with like youth academies in Baseball, and you know, the Dominican Republic and places like that. But they are actually paying for the expenses of these people to live there and develop in soccer. And if you want to hear more about that, you should like I said, go back and listen to our conversation with Ryan O’Hanlon. So that is one reason why the actual professional club doesn’t have as much money to go towards payrolls because there’s they’re legitimately spending in other places that MLB clubs are not. I would guess another reason is that MLB clubs save a lot of money on like, extorting cities into building stadiums for them. And these, I don’t think that the Premier League clubs get as much municipal money just based on knowing Europe’s attitude towards putting public funding towards private things. They don’t do that as often they’re. The last reason is the sort of more complicated one, which is that those there is a European Soccer Players Union, but they don’t like negotiate CBAs basically. Like with these, with these clubs, so there’s not really as robust of a set of rules that dictates how much the younger, less influential players make. So while the Messi’s, and the Ronaldo’s of the world, make millions and millions and millions of dollars, similar to how Baseball players make huge contracts at the top end. The guys on the lower end, it’s much more of a hawkish free market towards them, where their wages are not going to be as high. So it’s not going to push the total team expenditure, the total team payroll up higher than like this, the New York Mets or the New York Yankees. Because they don’t have to spend as much on the lower end or the middle class even as Baseball. So they have a big problem with that. It’s basically like the Baseball free market on steroids over there, the way that they handle player contracts and negotiations.
ALEX: I’m glad you had a response to that question. knowing nothing about the Economics of Soccer, beyond the fact that there’s a lot of money and yeah, that’s, that is the extent of my knowledge. Um–
BOBBY: What’s even more stratified, though, like–
ALEX: Right, yes.
BOBBY: But that ultimately, in a weird way, ends up saving the owners money in the aggregate because they’re just like, well, you’re not Lionel Messi. So I’m not gonna pay you any money at all. You know what I mean? Like, not nothing, but like, I’m not gonna pay you. There’s no like $15 million a year like reliever equivalent, really.
ALEX: That’s a shame, really. [1:13:55]–
BOBBY: [1:13:55] Kimbrel to the Premier League. All right, are you ready for this last question?
ALEX: Yeah, let’s let’s do it.
BOBBY: Okay, Jeff asks, “What is the ideal leftist MLB future?” Big one here. Big one here, Alex. says, “I know y’all have mentioned municipal ownership. But how can other leftist ideals combined with pro Baseball and a realistic or semi realistic future? Or even a hypothetical future such as a moneyless society?
ALEX: This is a great question.
BOBBY: Yeah. A question that I first started to consider most seriously when we did our episode about could Ven own a team?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Because we actually kind of played out these hypotheticals in a real life way. And then pushing beyond that, it’s a little bit more of a question mark.
ALEX: I mean, there’s so many different directions that this could go in. Is the ideal future one where it’s still a billion dollar industry? But a vast majority of that revenue gets redirected back into the communities in which in which teams are based? Is it no longer a billion dollar industry, because it doesn’t really need to be? I certainly think that like, option one is more realistic, because there’s always going to be money in this sort of thing in entertainment. And until again, as as Jeff mentioned, there is a more radical shift in how we think about money.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I think that teams that were owned by municipalities are owned by cities, is a decently ideal outcome.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: If only because it means maybe a little bit more public accountability. Beyond that, I think it’s really hard to say, I don’t know what is what comes to mind for you?
BOBBY: It kind of like breaks my brain to try to imagine any industry with no money. You know–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –like, I know that we’re bordering on like, an actual, just like leftist podcast discussion about, like, what is arguing about the different ways of the comp. Like the different ways that communist society can go like–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –anarchism versus coming, like, I don’t want to have that discussion. But I think for now, like what you laid out, like the municipalities, taking in that revenue, and being able to like redistribute it in a way that actually improves the rest of that municipality. Like, you basically just remove the Owner from the equation, and what you put in there is like, is this collective group of people who live in that city, or like people who live in that state or whatever, whoever actually ends up owning these teams. Because it’s kind of impossible, like in the current political landscape, it’s impossible to imagine an industry that you know of that is not like a multi billion dollar industry. You know, like, small industries are not really a thing in America anymore. It’s just gone, all of it has gone to like conglomeration, and if we’re gonna have that, we might as well utilize some of those funds in real world ways that help real people. And I think that that is like a, it’s a really interesting arc for Baseball, to go from this thing is thought of as part of the cultural fabric of America to have that idea completely bastardized, completely privatized, co opted, and then to take that back and realize that cultural identity in a way that is more meaningful than it ever was even when it started. I think that sounds pretty ideal to me, or as ideal as we’re ever going to get to in our lifetimes.
ALEX: Yeah, I think that, you know, and I, an ideal world sees, at the same time that Baseball is changing, like, just a general realignment of the rest of our cultural climate, political climate, right? That I think Baseball can do a lot as a vehicle for unity, and as an example of what collective power really looks like. And I think that that can continue to be the case where sports Baseball can be a leader in that arena, so to speak, and, and be a vehicle for international solidarity and support as well. You know, I think an ideal leftist Baseball future involves the kind of democratization of sports not only in the US, but worldwide, right? I mean, and I guess this gets to the question of like, are we talking about, you know, what is the ideal future for Major League Baseball? Or the future of Baseball, the sport in general, which I think are radically different things, right? We can hope for the the up ending of Major League Baseball’s economic system that actually feeds the money that it is creating back into its communities. Or we can hope for something that’s even more distilled and broken down–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –in that something that incentivizes civic pride that incentivizes like global solidarity and–
BOBBY: Touchstones of human existence.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Yeah. And but I mean, that’s like a completely different question to though. And an interesting one at that and like that, so interesting that this is almost like its own full episode that you don’t be could like spend a whole hour and a half and talk to a bunch of other people about. But like, the idea that in the ideal leftist world like there, there are things that government and society provide to you that are both not up for debate human needs. but also human wants. And baseball being one of those things where it’s like, you should be provided the opportunity to do a thing that is not essential, but also is like, enriching to your life. And you’re currently not provided that opportunity with any sport, in most places, really. But especially America. I mean, America is like, No, you have to pay to do literally anything here. And I think that those two tracks run parallel to each other, but are slightly different conversations. But interestingly enough, like, it’s I find it interesting that you thought of that at the same time as this, and I only thought of like Major League Baseball teams, and appending their economic structure.
ALEX: Yeah–
BOBBY: Because I don’t think you can’t really get one without the other. Like, we’re–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –gonna blow up the idea of private ownership of Major League Baseball teams. Might as well do it all at once, like we might as well be like, and at the same time, every kid plays baseball for free here.
ALEX: Right, yeah. I mean, I you think of it, you have to think of it at the top and the bottom, right? Of like, how do we both remove the strongholds that 30 billionaires have on the sport? And also increase the accessibility of the sport in the smallest towns across the country, right? Whether that’s bringing more Minor League teams, or making games, much cheaper or free to attend, right? Like there are plenty of ways to–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –actually engender like, support for the the sport that goes beyond, you know, just, I want all the teams to be better.
BOBBY: I’ve been kind of thinking about this, man. I know, we’re going really long here. But one last thing, one last thought on this question. I don’t know why it seems like there’s such a big gap between turning Baseball into like National Parks, you know, like, I guess because of the 30 billionaires and all their political influence in the way but and it’s not even like National Parks are being run perfectly or or getting all of the funding that they need. But I think that like one of the things that is unabashedly kind of amazing about the United States still is like how many beautiful up kept National Parks are here and how you can just like go there, and maybe pay a little bit to pay for the upkeep. But also, it’s like, a place that you can go and is like, still available to the public.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It just seems like that is like the last domino that’s gonna fall before I completely quit on the idea of anything being cool here. And a a version of that, where like, the Baseball team is like Central Park. You know, the Baseball team is like the public park for the city.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I don’t think that we’re that far from that. I think that we could get there and I lifetimes like it would take a lot of change. And it would basically take the Baseball economic structure as it functions now bottoming out. But it’s not like there’s nothing in society that we could point to and be like, Why can’t Baseball be like that?
ALEX: Yeah, definitely. I think we’d have to stop chipping away at the National Park Service and public–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –public land first, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It’s like [1:23:04]–
BOBBY: We’re still currently going in the wrong turn [1:23:06]–
ALEX: [1:23:06] far the other side of the–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But I I agree with that sentiment, and I don’t think it’s like a I mean, it is a pipe dream because like we’re never gonna get there. But like what is you know, why not? Wha–why fight for anything if you can’t, you know, dream a little bit about what you’re fighting for?
BOBBY: What a wonderful place to end, Alex. That does it on 2021. that doesn’t on this episode of Tipping Pitches. Please remember that you can acquire your own Tipping Pitches merch, Unionized the Minors, Steel Bases Not Wages, the wonderful design of an elephant standing on a billionaire baseball owner, stickers, the whole nine over @tiny.cc\nationalize. And if you’ve enjoyed an episode of Tipping Pitches this year, please share it with someone else who you think might enjoy it, whether it’s this one or one from the past. Or if you have a favorite episode that you really enjoyed and you just want to let us know we would love to hear from you. I look forward to a lot of the stuff that we have planned for January.
ALEX: Yeah, I do too. Thank you everyone for tuning in this year. For your continuing support, we look forward to getting back after it in the new year.
[1:24:18]
[Music]
[1:24:23]
[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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