Bobby and Alex are back with a very special episode this week. They’ve invited on their friends Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman of Céspedes Family BBQ to do the unthinkable: draft the owners who they would actually want — or wouldn’t hate — to have running their team. Some of the choices may surprise you and some may not, but the episode reveals the colorful history of some of baseball’s lesser known owners and is sure to give you a better understanding of the billionaires who run the sport we love to hate and hate to love.
Follow Céspedes Family BBQ on Twitter at @CespedesBBQ.
Songs featured in this episode:
H.E.R. — “Do To Me” • 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, in honor of Major League Baseball, and the Major League Baseball Players Association, returning to labor talks this week. I wanted to invite you to tell me and our wonderful listeners at home. When was the last time that you put something off six weeks that was basically due?
ALEX: Well, Bobby, um, first, hello.
BOBBY: Hi.
ALEX: It’s good, it’s good to talk with you, very excited for our episode today. Uhm, I would say the most recent example, is the current project we’re working on about Baseball and climate change. Which we’ve been talking about for two to two to three months, at least. And, and really got the ball rolling, I’d say in the New Year?
BOBBY: If you want to even push that timeline further, in the past, we’ve been talking about doing this episode since March 12th, 2020. Now I’ll give us like a year cushion because of the whole pandemic thing that happened, we were talking about a lot of other important stuff. But in many ways, that was probably the best time to work on this, we should have just got right to work on it. But more on the climate project later in the future. Of the climate, the unannounced climate project that is now being announced. But I also announced it in the section of the podcast that you’re about to hear with Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman Céspedes Family Barbecue. Today’s episode is about MLB Owners, Alex, and if you read the title of this episode, you’ll know that it’s about the least terrible amongst them. Now, don’t go booing Tipping Pitches, we still shade and roast the Owners accordingly. But this is a really fun one.
ALEX: Yeah, we’re grading them on a curve here.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. That’s how I would want to be judged by them. Before we bring Jake and Jordan in to do that, and they were so generous with their time, which is why we’re going to keep this top of show brief. We should, we should probably talk a little bit about the finer details of the proposal that Major League Baseball returned to the union. Do you want to share those with me? Because I basically didn’t pay attention to them because they were all garbage.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, I can break down a couple of the key ones. And obviously, all of this stuff kind of comes secondhand, via reports in, in the media, and whatnot. So there was among other things, there have been kind of proposals to tweak the draft to offer to basically treat a lottery system for the top three picks. In the amateur draft, the players want a lottery system for the top eight picks, they’re so far apart on that. But that’s something that’s kind of on the table that they’re discussing right now. Major League Baseball also kind of proposed to do away with the mechanism through which super two players are, are paid, right? How their salary is determined, right? Right, these are the, the players with two-plus years of service time who are in the top 22% of that group. Major League Baseball wants to kind of pay these players on, you know, through a formula rather this kind of arbitrary cut-off, which is supposed to, in theory, kind of mitigate the, the opportunity for service time manipulation. Now, the the players are are not super interested in this because they like the fact that players actually get a say, in their salary, which I agree with. That’s the that’s kind of the whole point of the arbitration process is giving the players a chance to speak up for themselves, too. So these are a couple of the tweaks that are that are on the table, among some other things. Were there other ones that, that stood out to you?
BOBBY: Yeah, on a strictly numbers basis. MLB proposed raising the luxury ta–tax threshold by a whopping $4 million. The Union sees historical precedent as irrelevant and once a threshold of $245 million. I’m not reading from the Washington Post article right up by Chelsea Janes. To me, to me, that’s like not that big of a red flag honestly, like numbers in these negotiations, they just get played with and it’s just a way that you can pass the ball back and forth. You just like barely move it at all. And it shows that you don’t really want to change anything. That doesn’t worry me that much. I mean, the thing that really bothered me the most about what we learned last week is the idea of awarding draft picks to teams who don’t manipulate service time. Like you and I have talked so much about MLB creating a problem, and MLB, solving it in a way that helps MLB clubs. And that this is like the most distilled example of that, that we’ve gotten in a little while. It’s like, we won’t call these guys up. Unless we can also get compensated for calling these guys up, even though we already agreed to call these guys up when they’re ready. It’s just so it’s just like such galaxy brain, corporate management style solutions to problems that are easily… call the good players up. I mean, like, we already know who the good players are. And, and it’s further evidence of the fact that we’ve lost all elements of the social contract of Baseball. And I don’t mean to be like haughty about it necessarily, but the fact that you’re introducing another rule to fix a rule when the original rule was supposed to be in the spirit of rewarding players who are ready, and also putting the best product on the field for the fans who are actually funding the game. Do you know what I mean?
ALEX: Yeah, definitely. I mean, it’s real bars on the ground hours right now.
BOBBY: It’s Rob–
ALEX: –you know–
BOBBY: –Manfred–
ALEX: –like–
BOBBY: technocrat hour–
ALEX: –being, being rewarded for not breaking a rule. When, like, at that point, what’s, what’s really the purpose of the rule in this if you need to incentivize someone to follow it? I- It seems like you have some problems with your, with your CBA, if that’s the case. Right, and this is, this is something that appeared in their previous proposal as well. These are, these are very kind of small tweaks to the luxury tax system. They are interested in increasing the penalties for going over the luxury tax, proposing a 50% tax on surpassing the first threshold. Which is kind of defeating the purpose of this whole argument over the, the luxury tax, the competitive balance tax threshold. Which is we need to create more room for teams to spend more money, like isn’t that kind of the, the conversation that’s being had here? The issue is not, how do we keep teams from spending over the luxury tax, right? Unless this is their kind of, you know, slow march towards a salary cap.
BOBBY: Well, that’s what I was gonna get–that’s what I was getting ready to say is this just it strikes me as appeasement. You know, like, if the, if the secret MLB line is this is a salary cap, then this is the way that you trickle that thought out into the public so that it’s more acceptable. Because if the penalties just become more and more strict, then you can, you can see that bending the brains of fans and analysts and stuff to be like, well, then they actually shouldn’t go over it, you know, what I’m saying? And it, it’s sort of a, it’s a quantitative solution to a qualitative decision that they’ve made. And I think in that, in that way, this is how this is why they’re so savvy at bargaining. Like they understand the long game in every CBA that they’re sending. They understand three CBA from now, this is just going to look legally like a salary cap. So there, there’s not going to be that much of a philosophical difference between the salary cap and what is actually happening. So they don’t even care that MLBPA has this philosophical difference about a salary cap because it’s just functioning like it is. And you’re, you know, you’ve been saying, till you’re blue in the face on this podcast, this is already a salary cap, like we’ve been talking about this since 2018, basically. And I think that that is a really, a really big challenge in the CBA is not kind of letting it continue to slide down the hill.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Is there anything–
ALEX: [inaudible]
BOBBY: –else that you want–is there anything else that you want to say about these labor negotiations before we get to our conversation with Jake and Jordan? Because I think that there is enough Owner hate catharsis going on in the rest of this episode that I don’t want to belabor this too much, because–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –it’s not real news yet.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, the biggest thing, two of the key points that the players see as a must which changes in the time it takes to reach free agency and revenue sharing how that money is split. No moving on there, no new proposals, that’s MLB has come out and said that they’re uninterested in making changes to how that works. The players have come out and said, well, these are kind of the most important things for us right now. And the most important thing when it comes to overall competition in the game, so it remains to be seen kind of how that, how that pans out.
BOBBY: I think that the MLBPA missed an opportunity to, to more effectively publicly message, why aren’t the Owners giving us a response? Like it was their turn, and they let 62 days go by? That is a huge win for public will. That is a huge win for public perception for the Union. Like they weren’t even responding for 62 days and we’ve heard nothing from you. I mean, it’s just weird to me. But we will obviously be talking about this more over the coming weeks, as it starts to threaten spring training, we need to get to our conversation about these terrible Owners. Because it is phenomenal, it goes a million different places we talk about every single ownership group. So no matter what fan base, you are a part of. Your feelings will be represented. But before we do all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[Transition Music]
BOBBY: Alright, we are once again joined by the Céspedes Family Barbecue boys. It’s been a long time since we talked to you guys, I think the last time you were on the pod was for the All-GIF Draft at the beginning of the 2021 season, which feels about 15 seasons ago. Jake, Jordan, hello, thank you for joining us.
JORDAN: Happy to be here. As always, Bobby, I hope we get to do a GIF draft again at the same time this year, but not too optimistic.
BOBBY: We’re not here to talk about that–
JORDAN: No way, we’re not.
BOBBY: –as we typically are on Tipping Pitches. We’re here to do something much more important, much more harebrained an idea that we came up with in jest and thought actually, that might be a good idea to do on Tipping Pitches. We are here to draft the least terrible owners. So–
JAKE: The best.
BOBBY: I wouldn’t use that word. Jake can use that word, Alex, I probably would not use that word. So let’s say you–
JAKE: I’m here, I’m here to be pro owner. My character, my bit–
JORDAN: Yes. We’re balancing this out, Bobby, because–
BOBBY: You, you’re here to cut completely against the grain?
JAKE: Yeah, give me nothing. I’m not in first.
JORDAN: Obviously, obviously, anyone that listens to the show, knows that they cannot bring themselves to say, best owner! But Bobby, we did sort of come up with this idea together by accident.
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: But it is important that you define the parameters, right? Because, this–
BOBBY: Well, first of all–
JORDAN: [inaudible] every direction–
BOBBY: –here’s how I imagined this when we first thought of this idea.
JORDAN: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: So imagine you’re like Castaway, and you get put on that island for like 30 years. And you don’t know who owns any of the Baseball teams. You come back, you get a list of all 30 Owners. This is the Owner that you are the least upset that you were given that the hand that you were dealt.
JAKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: That is how I imagined this game.
ALEX: This is the terrible plot to Castaway, by the way. They you come back from being from being on an island for 30 years and they hand you a sheet of Baseball Owners?
BOBBY: Yeah. And you’re, you’re a Cubs fan. You’re like, they broke the curse while I was gone. And also I’m still stuck with the Ricketts?
JAKE: Hey, as long as it’s not another Marvel movie, I’ll watch it.
JORDAN: But also to be clear, we, we have the knowledge of, of these Owners, things and about. You know like just thinking blind like we’re going back and we do know who they are. And–
BOBBY: We’re not thinking are based off like the most handsome Owner, which–
JAKE: Exactly.
JORDAN: Exactly.
BOBBY: –is it’s not really close it’s Stu–Stuart Sternberg. He’s like the only guy who who doesn’t look like but he came from underground in a coffin.
ALEX: Yeah, because most of yeah, most of these guys are are like 80 plus.
BOBBY: Yeah. So are there any parameters? Jordan you mentioned that you, that you wanted to name specifically that you kind of looked at when you were parsing this list of 30 Owners, and obviously, there are multiple Owners to all of these teams. We are talking primarily about the control person of the team, or if it’s a publicly-traded company, let’s say, the CEO of that company, or if it’s a telecom Corporation in Canada, the person who is really making the Baseball decisions.
JORDAN: I think the, the main thing I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page about is, because, you know, when we first had this conversation, I think, you know, we were really leaning into something that is often talked about as justice like, right. Like, leaning into the billionaires are bad, right. Like, and like be like, oh my God, these are not people that we like, or represent us and us as baseball fans, whatever, right? But it is important that you have established that we are baseball fans, and if this person is going to own our team, we want them to know how to at least produce good baseballs to some capacity, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: So balancing that as Jake and I, you know, put together a big board and we did you know, nice the war room was buzzard–
BOBBY: McShaying that shit.
JAKE: And will, will call this for buying their term. The Angelos, Charles Johnson conundrum. Charles Johnson–
BOBBY: Exactly.
JAKE: –Giants Owner, you know, clearly knows how to run a baseball team, right? Say whatever, say whatever you want about, you know, the everything else, which is bad, but he knows to run a baseball team. Whereas Angelos has shown a lack of a desire to invest in the team. But if we’re gonna rank people morally, like he was a Labor Lawyer before he became an Owner, which, you know, pretty pretty, pretty hot.
ALEX: As far as MLB Owners goes.
JAKE: Yeah, that’s crazy!
JORDAN: But but we had so we had to balance it and we, it was a push-pull we had to consider and you know, we can talk about the cross offs, maybe after we draft our, our guys, but I just wanted to say and, and the other thing too, is in cases, this is just a tough exercise because you’re gonna run into some, some issues. Even some of your topics and that’s okay. That’s okay, we’re gonna work, we’re going [inaudible]–
BOBBY: I texted Alex last night and I was like the hardest part about this is the whole thing, the entire exercise.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like it’s not really and that’s why it’s fun. And that’s why we chose not to do worst Owner draft. Because–
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: –worst Owner draft the same five people that Alex and I crack our jokes about week in and week–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –out Tipping Pitches listeners, thank you so much for listening to the same jokes about the Ricketts. The same jokes about John Fisher deforesting Northern California. I’ve said that just 16 times, we don’t want to do that on this pod, we want to do–
JAKE: We got to rearrange the draft board. We’ve–oops.
BOBBY: We want to talk about the guys who, I didn’t know they existed. There are a couple Owners on here. I feel like I’m in the 99th percentile of tracking Baseball ownership. Now I was like, man, I might have read that name once. But I did not know that that was the name–
JAKE: Ray Davis?
BOBBY: –of the person who owns the Twins?
JAKE: Usua–right, Poh–usually a good sign, right?
JORDAN: All right, we’ll, we’ll get to that.
BOBBY: Usually that sign.
ALEX: Right. That’s what I was gonna say is like, if you’re, if you’re not making headlines, you’re probably doing an okay, an okay job. If you’re–
JAKE: That’s true.
ALEX: –staying out of the limelight.
JAKE: That’s what we thought until we clicked on one guy’s page. And we’ll get there. I think Bobby may have had the same experience.
JORDAN: All right, we’ll see, we’ll see. Okay, so I think we determined, Bobby, that you and oh, by the way, Jake, and I think are drafting as a team. You and Alex are drafting as a team? Is that Is that correct? So–
BOBBY: Yes, that’s–
JORDAN: –were–
BOBBY: –correct. So there were–
JORDAN: –were each choose–
BOBBY: –two separate teams here.
JORDAN: –five owners each. So 10 owners will be drafted. And you get to have the first pick.
JAKE: Who analysis this draft? Like this has existed. It like Manfred does the draft. But who would do this draft?
BOBBY: I like Manfred like ranking his bosses basically. Like he has to come out here and he has to be like, Listen, Mr. Nutting, I’m sorry that you were the Mr. Irrelevant of the least terrible Owners draft. One thing that I want to say, I don’t know who announces it. We’ll have to think about that. Maybe the listeners can can chime in and say who they would want to walk up to the podium for this. The Ghost of Marvin Miller. Ahh, really quickly on the state of Baseball Ownership in general. And like who these guys are? You know because we think of them as comparatively to other sports. Maybe not with the NFL, but we think of them as more like old world billionaires, old money guys, these are like the, I have $6 billion because my dad had $3 billion and it gained a lot of interest kind of guys. There’s not like a lot of Steve Cohen’s 16 billionaire, new tech money, new Wall Street money guys in here. There’s mostly like the 3 to 7 billion net worth guys who enjoy a relative amount of anonymity, if not for the fact that they own a sports team. And I gotta say when I was going through this and I, I was putting together a list of how most of these guys made their money? It’s either like an extremely old world thing, like they sell propane or like they they made a logistics company whatever the hell that means–
JAKE: Or or–
BOBBY: –like, like they have–
JAKE: –the Middle–the Middleton’s like had a cigar shop in 1558–
BOBBY: Cigarette company, yes. Then he sold that, I mean, John Middleton does look like he’s sold his family cigarette company. Like if you look a picture of that guy, he looks like he played himself in madman.
JAKE: White and mild.
BOBBY: But I will say I was surprised at how many guys in here like stock hedge fund or finance guys. It’s more than I thought. It’s–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –like why don’t you look at it holistically there’s like five or six guys who made their money just from moving money into another money account.
ALEX: It’s remarkable how unremarkable most of these guys are, not all of them, right? There you have a couple oil barons you have a couple guys using democracy as an investment vehicle. You know, the usual suspects. But a lot of them are just like plain old American Capitalists–
BOBBY: Only one fast fashion guy, only one fast fashion guy. Kind of disappointed, I mean fast–
JAKE: Who’s that?
BOBBY: –[inaudible]. That’s John Fisher.
JAKE: Really?
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: We didn’t even bother looking into Fisher–
JAKE: He didn’t even click on Fisher–
JORDAN: –like absolutely not cross off a wall–
BOBBY: Fisher–
JORDAN: –talking about that–
BOBBY: Fisher, he was the chosen son of his parents who founded Gap Incorporated, the pregnant pause falls over the Zoom.
JAKE: I’ve noticed.
ALEX: As I, as I was doing this, I was trying to figure out–
JAKE: I’m a Zara guy, okay?
JORDAN: Also, then Gap just came out with NFT so we know they’re doing well.
ALEX: Ohh, good for them.
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: Do you think Fisher orchestrated that? Because of MLB’s big NFT push.
JORDAN: I don’t want to talk about that anymore. I just don’t want to so, we’re gonna we’re gonna, we’re gonna go back to to the original exercise here before we say that I regret saying about NFT on the podcast. I apologize.
BOBBY: Alex, anything else to say about the state of Major League Baseball ownership before we start drafting?
ALEX: I don’t think so, and my biggest takeaways–
BOBBY: Does anyone of you gentlemen warm your heart? Which with any of their feel good stories.
JAKE: I think it should be noted that they’re all gentlemen. Which is like–
BOBBY: I know.
ALEX: No girl bosses, where are all the girl bosses is out here.
BOBBY: So true.
JORDAN: Yeah.
ALEX: Uh-hmm, Yeah, I the Ricketts came off is very like Roy family to me, you know, like having the, the failed son. Who is the face of this new company? You have the the ha–the the Democratic hack daughter who’s going into politics. One of them’s the fucking a Governor of Wisconsin–
BOBBY: Yup.
ALEX: –right? Sure. Go for it, dude. Like I don’t, I don’t even it’s remarkable how much of a parody of themselves they actually are.
BOBBY: The biggest Girlboss in this entire collective of human beings in this circle of MLB ownership is actually Ted Lerner’s wife. They’re still together. Ted Lerner’s wife gave him a $250 loan to start a real estate company in 1952 when he was 26. And you know, like the good bootstrapper that he is, he turned it into a net worth of $4.9 billion. Now he owns Chelsea Piers.
JORDAN: Hey, we will–
JAKE: We need to make an announcement, yeah, that’s crazy. We need to make an announcement regarding the Lerners. Before we begin–
BOBBY: Please do not put in the papers that I said the Lerners are good.
JORDAN: No, no no, here’s like quite the opposite.
JAKE: So, Jake, and Jordan, members of the DC Jewish Community, okay? And no one, the the Lerners are the DC Jewish Community, like from a financial perspective, right? Like they built our synagogue that Jordan and I met at? Okay, like–
BOBBY: So close personal friends of yours.
JAKE: I have never met them, I don’t think. But I have seen them in the synagogue. They, they don’t come often. I mean, they–
JORDAN: They’re high whole–
ALEX: Really?
JORDAN: –holidays only–
JAKE: –they high whole holidays only.
JORDAN: Yeah.
JAKE: But it should, there is a bias here. I just want to lay that out that like–
JORDAN: Yeah, we’ll see if we end up taking them or not. But the point is–
JAKE: Yeah.
JORDAN: –is like we just need to be very clear. We are stating–
JAKE: We’re divesting.
JORDAN: Yeah, we’re stating our conflict of interest from the jump.
ALEX: Alex, do you have any conflicts of interest with any of these guys other than John J. Fisher?
JAKE: I mean, these guys build your synagogue.
ALEX: I- I mean, I have, I have personal conflicts relating to my interests with all of them–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –honestly. But–
BOBBY: I actually have Steve Cohen on speakerphone right now. He’s gonna chime in when his right gets brought forward to that segment. Yeah.
ALEX: Steve Cohen, in an interesting place where, where you and I kind of diverged a little bit.
JORDAN: Well, this is I was wondering, I was wondering, so what’s–
JAKE: Do you have, do you have Steve Cohen [inaudible] next week, Bobby?
JORDAN: Oh yeah, I cannot wait to see the great example, Alex. Like, I’m excited to see who you know, wears the pants in this draft room over there for you guys. Because Jake and I were really on the same page for a lot of this. But let’s, let’s get started. We want to hear your number one pick. You guys are picking first. This is Steve Cohen? What are we doing?
BOBBY: Alex, I’ll let you do the honors for our number one pick. I think we were aligned up until the up until number three. So on a big board.
ALEX: I I cannot believe that we’re saying this, right. Once again, no good Owners here but least terrible Owners.
BOBBY: Okay wait, playing it safe–
JAKE: My favorite owner?
BOBBY: We don’t have to say it anymore.
JORDAN: Don’t say that, we understand. Yeah. We don’t say every time. We’re picking Owners. [inaudible] First pick, first pick go.
ALEX: Hal Steinbrenner–
JORDAN: Wooo.
JAKE: Woooah.
ALEX: –New York Yankees.
JAKE: Yeah.
JORDAN: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: For, for a long time we have flirted on this podcast with, with the idea that are, are they pro-labor? Because–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –they spend on their team?
BOBBY: Yeah. [inaudible] Yankees [inaudible]
ALEX: Right, yeah. I don’t think we can say that. But if you look at like sheer investment in the team, if you look at track record on the field. If you look at how they’ve made their money, which is not like ethically repulsive.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: All and all, they actually kind of come out looking, looking pretty good in this from in this regard.
JORDAN: Totally agree. We had been very high on our board. Not at the top, but definitely very high. And, and again, it’s so easy for us because we’re not Yankees fans. So it’s so weird, It’s so easy to while they’re there, you know, bitch and moan and every year that so it’s not good enough, woah, whatever. It’s been 50,000–
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: –years since we won a World Series like, like, oh, your net, you’re never bad ever. And you’re spending $20 million. Like, that’s great, that’s I don’t got to literally do anything else.
BOBBY: How the fan base feels about the Owner? I think is in the pie chart of how you should rank these Owners, I think. But it’s not the biggest piece by any means–
JAKE: Right.
BOBBY: –because no–
JAKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: –fan base is reasonable about their Owner, even the Mets fan base is too positive about our Owner. Like–
JAKE: Owners and closers.
BOBBY: You can’t trust the fan base to give you an unbiased opinion. But like Yankees fans, what how they feel about the Steinbrenner? Basically no way with me. Like it’s, it’s almost less important than how the outside baseball world feels about the Steinbrenner because Yankees fans are not reasonable people.
ALEX: Yeah, well, the Steinbrenner have owned the team since like the 70s, which is the longest tenure right now–
JAKE: He bought the team park–
ALEX: –and that makes a huge difference–
JAKE: –8.7 million!
BOBBY: Yeah,
JAKE: That’s absurd to think about. That’s like a year of Jed Lowrie.
BOBBY: I think that if the boss is still alive, George Steinbrenner, the god–
JAKE: Are you talking about Bruce Springsteen?
BOBBY: Is kind of goated for this, honestly, he’s kind of goated for his whole Yankees tenure. But I think if the boss was still alive, and it it’s not Hal or whatever the fuck his name Hank. Is Hank right? It’s the guy–
JORDAN: Maybe it is Hank, I don’t know what Hal…
BOBBY: If it was not the son running the team, I think this would be like a LeBron James level number one overall pick. Like it would be so easy, there now because the son is like swept up in like, Ray’s inferiority complex and like trying to get under the tax all the time. There’s–
JAKE: Right.
BOBBY: –complications this number one overall pick and it’s more like a it’s more like a Deandre Ayton versus Luka Dončić. Like we’re talking like much closer in terms of obvious number one picks, but I still think that they are at the top choice.
JORDAN: Totally fair.
JAKE: I like that, I like that, if I had to ask you, why is Hal Steinbrenner rich. He’s the only person for whom the answer would be because of Baseball.
BOBBY: Right
JAKE: Right?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: Everybody else is something else and they bought a Baseball team. Like George Steinbrenner bought a team for $8.7 million, and turned it into like $6 billion.
BOBBY: He, I actually had to do the most research and most research into Steinbrenner to figure out where he got the seed capital to even buy that team. He started a Marine Transit Company in 1957. That did shipping in the Great Lakes that his great grandfather Henry had purchased in 1908, it’s like, it’s like real. This guy was like he owned trains for like, a couple years and then bought the Yankees.
JORDAN: We just like to clarify that. There is both Hal and Hank, Hank passed away recently. Hal is short for Harold.
BOBBY: Okay.
JORDAN: So there we go. Just want to make clear–
BOBBY: That was the source of the confusion
ALEX: Why, why is that short for Harold?
JAKE: Should it be Har?
BOBBY: I don’t feel like I have any room to talk because Bobby is not really Robert. You know, those are different things. But–
JORDAN: So I’m just gonna say, great pick.
BOBBY: Thank you.
JORDAN: We had him in the top three. And honestly, the more you talk about it, we probably also should have had him at least in the top one, but we’d have to make that decision. So I’m glad that you took him. You glue, you took the Steinbrenner and anything else? Or can we can we go to our–
BOBBY: No–
JORDAN: –first pick.
BOBBY: –you’re on the clock.
ALEX: Take it away.
JORDAN: All right, Jake. Want to go ahead? Do the honors.
JAKE: So, one thing that we really liked about our number one pick is that he doesn’t look rich.
BOBBY: Okay.
JAKE: He is definitively a schlub. And our first pick is Mark Attanasio–
ALEX: Ohhh.
JAKE: –of the Milwaukee Brewers. He, Jordan did a little research ahead of time. Looking at what percentage of Owners’ net worth are they investing in their team in payroll? Now, It’s very crude–
ALEX: We, we have the same on our, on our board over here.
JAKE: Okay, great, yeah, it’s a very crude calculation. But if you take a look at that Atanasio ranks second in Baseball behind Castellini who owns the Reds and that organization is a mess. And so Attanasio gives you both competency and he’s pouring money into the team at a rate that above what you would expect relatively. And he’s from the Bronx. And he’s a schlub.
JORDAN: And he has the like, he is around. Like you see Mark Attanasio at Brewers games like he’s just on the field. He’s not, you know, rolling with a huge posse. He’s just again, like wearing dad jeans, standing by the dugout during batting practice. And it’s like, oh, that guy’s the owner? Like, in in kind of in the way that like, again, obviously very different personalities and very different things. But like, that’s something that for me, I I like about Mark Cuban honestly. Like, it’s kind of crazy. But like the fact that he goes to every game, and is like, clearly a fan of the team. Like I dig that, right? And that’s a very, very small number of these guys, is the guys that are around. And, and yeah, and I think the fact that he has, he’s certainly not one of the wealthiest Owners. But he has invested he has put together a totally reasonable payroll for that, for that market. And he’s built a good franchise. And that was another thing that we wanted to consider is like, who is seems to be good at picking reasonable baseball people. And he clearly qualifies in that category, too. So he checked all the boxes for us. He was number one on our board and we’re happy to have.
BOBBY: I like that, I like these from Brooklyn. I like that he’s got an Italian last name. I don’t know if he’s actually Italian, but it sounds close enough that it could be Italian.
JAKE: It’s from the Bronx.
BOBBY: Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to borrowed shame. I like these from New York in general and has an Italian last name either way. Here’s how Mark Attanasio made his money. He co-founded the Los Angeles Investment Firm Crescent Capital in 1991, which was later bought by Trust Company of the West in 1995. So he’s our first finance bro. And–
JORDAN: That’s fine, that’s fine. Like, again, like [inaudible]–
BOBBY: His generational wealth has not had that much time to multiply, so he is only worth $700 million. He’s in the first–
JAKE: He is just push–
BOBBY: –place in the broke boy band of MLB–
JORDAN: Exactly.
JAKE: And the, for the quick skim of the political donations sheet which I have in front of me as well.
BOBBY: We have that as well.
JAKE: Nothing–
BOBBY: It’s incredible how similarly we prepared.
JAKE: [inaudible] for Mark Attanasio. Do you have the 538 article up as well?
ALEX: That’s where I got this source [inaudible]–
JAKE: Okay, thank you very much. Yeah. S–
BOBBY: $15,200 of bipartisan giving whatever the fuck that means. $7,400 of debt–
JAKE: No, see, I have open secrets up. So–
JORDAN: Bobby, to your to your point, though, about the broke boys Owners Club, right? You know, millionaires versus billionaires. No, no, not not a billionaire, this guy is a down to earth hundreds of millions on air, okay?
JAKE: You could argue less money than A Rod.
BOBBY: I think you’d be right, yeah.
JORDAN: That might be right.
ALEX: Probably. Yeah.
JORDAN: That might be right.
ALEX: I do. I I have to kind of commend some of the the less wealthy Owners who still manage to invest a a good sum in their team. You were mentioning, he’s among the the top owners who have invested their own personal wealth into the team as far as payroll goes. And it’s and it’s worked to a certain extent. I mean, since he bought the team in like, 2005. The Brewers have been good. They’ve they have a record of above .500, they’ve been to the playoffs, like six times, like they’re, they’re doing well. They’re doing well.
JORDAN: Yeah. Now, how well is the Christian Yelich contract [inaudible], that’s fine! You know what?! I don’t care. I’m happy that he did it. I’m happy for Christian Yelich, I’m happy for Mark. And you know, everything is good. So that’s our number one pick.
JAKE: Okay, so I hit 17, 17% of his wealth is in the payroll, okay?
BOBBY: See, are you looking at real time net worth or are you looking at like some, some old–
JAKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: –data because we have 14%. There’s some discrepancy here–
JAKE: Okay.
BOBBY: –I think–
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: Bobby, Bobby what do you own that’s 14% of your wealth?
JORDAN: All right, moving on.
BOBBY: Wow. Put me on blast. Okay. Moving on to us. I will say the payroll percentage of net worth is an imperfect and crude measure. Because as we know, these guys don’t spend any of their own money. That’s an important caveat–
JORDAN: I know.
BOBBY: –for that is that nobody–
JORDAN: I know, I know, I know.
BOBBY: –with the exception of maybe Steve Cohen is going to be spending any of his own dollars in.
JORDAN: I know, I know.
ALEX: Well, actually, the fascinating thing is there are there are two or three Owners including Cohen, for whom they don’t have like a shell company set up to buy the team. They just–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –like when–
JAKE: bought it–
ALEX: –[inaudible] like I’m just gonna buy it like put it on my–
JAKE: Straight cash.
BOBBY: Like the way that you buy a breakfast sandwich from the bodega Steve Cohen bought the Mets.
JAKE: If you just tapped his card. Well, you on the square?
JORDAN: Does he get cashback? Is like–
JAKE: Mad mad credit card point.
BOBBY: How unlimited is the AMEX unlimited card?
ALEX: That [inaudible] test.
JAKE: Baseball team eat my AMEX.
JORDAN: Oh. Okay, okay.
JAKE: So–
JORDAN: Go go pick number two–
BOBBY: We’re back on the clock. Uhm, there’s there’s another who we had the number two. So you know, you want [inaudible] Attanasio that’s where your heart lies. I know that you guys are big Brewers–
JAKE: Was he on your board?
BOBBY: –guys. He was definitely on–
ALEX: Yes he was. He was, he was top five.
BOBBY: Yeah, he was top five for sure. I don’t know if I could get the past the fact that he’s one more pandemic away from going completely bankrupt. Don’t know about that.
JORDAN: That’s well, that’s where Cincinnati appears to be at right.
JAKE: Brewers were gonna be the Packers.
BOBBY: Okay. We’re not using Castellini. But because you brought Cincinnati up, the Owner of the Reds is a guy named Robert Castellini, don’t call him Bob. He owns, he owns the Reds. And he owns a wholesale fruit and vegetables company which–
JAKE: He’s the fruit ninja guy.
BOBBY: –the pandemic really hit this man hard and that’s why they’re non tendering all of their good players.
JORDAN: And get a trade Sonny Gray–
ALEX: I meant, net, net worth of 400 million is like kind of unheard of in–
JORDAN: Yeah.
ALEX: –like professional–
JORDAN: Yeah.
ALEX: –sports.
JORDAN: Like that’s why they–
BOBBY: Mike Trout contract is more than that.
JORDAN: Again, to be very clear, do not–
JAKE: Just buy the Columbus Blue Jackets?
JORDAN: No, but like do not feel bad. But like they did go all in, they actually were like we’re spending–
JAKE: Yeah.
JORDAN: –and then COVID. Like it was the worst time free agents spending spree in Baseball history. Again, don’t feel bad. Not a problem. But you can at least sort of see as the what appears to be the least wealthy Owner in Baseball. how there could be some some trouble there.
BOBBY: Yes. Okay. So we are going to make our selection. I don’t even know how to say this. I guess it’s, I guess we will qualify as the Owner. The control person is Mark Walter, but the Owner is really the Guggenheim Baseball Management Group.
JAKE: Wowww!!!
JORDAN: Okay.
BOBBY: Who are we going to select because I don’t know if you guys realize this, but the the Los Angeles Dodgers. It’s the baseball team that plays in the city that I still live in for the next 14 days. They have made the playoffs 90% of the years that Guggenheim Baseball Management has owned their team. That’s kind of the whole argument right there for choosing them in the top three. I mean, they put a good Baseball team on the field. Now, they have like a whole because it’s a group of people. And they they they they do like Asset Management. This is not the second finance bro group that has been chosen after Attanasio. They have their hands in like a lot of shit, that is really shady, I’m sure. They made their money from Mark Walters, the CEO of the Guggenheim Partners, which manages over $310 billion in assets, that’s a lot, a lot of assets to manage.
JAKE: That dead asset though.
BOBBY: But they spent everyone under the table for the last decade. And if you’re listening to Tipping Pitches, you know, put the money onto the field.
JORDAN: Totally, totally true. I will say that they for me ended up being we we’re looking at, okay, who’s putting the most money into Baseball? You know, then we’ll go yeah, we’re hopeful we’ll probably get to Steve Cohen at some point. And for me, I thought that the whole Trevor Bauer thing, then going so far out of their way to give him that much money, because they could was like, just piss me off–
JAKE: And–
JORDAN: –though at the time, too–
JAKE: It it wasn’t Walter, but Stan Kasten had comments. Remember, when he made he tried to make it funny after Bauer got suspended?
JORDAN: Right. Bad. Now again, I I get it, because that was in general, they have stayed and stayed away from controversy, I would say. But just like how they handled that whole thing, and Walter is like, credited with the one who was like, hell yeah, make him the richest player in Baseball. Not great. But again, that’s personal preference, totally fair. We consider them but if we’re taking the dudes that are just spending insane amounts.–
BOBBY: It’s absolutely true. I think there are obviously gradations. I think that probably like 26 Owners would have done the exact same thing if they had that much payroll.
JORDAN: Totally fair–
JAKE: Yeah.
JORDAN: –they could, right. Yeah.
BOBBY: Alex, anything else to say about Guggenheim?
JORDAN: Do you?
ALEX: It’s it’s really tough, because they’re, this ownership group is comprised of so many people.
JORDAN: Yeah.
ALEX: You know, like their interests going in every direction, right? I’m talking about Magic Johnson, right? Or, or Billie Jean King, like the lit, the roster of people who have some sort of controlling interest is so deep that I feel like we would need like an hour dedicated just to like, who even owns the Dodgers really? Like who’s calling the shots? Which maybe I kind of I kind of like that, you know, a lot of voices in the room, you have greater consensus, maybe.
JORDAN: We also had like 10 GMs at some point, so it’s kind of fits.
BOBBY: One thing that I found when I was doing some research for this is that there are so many companies worth billions of dollars that I could not tell you even what sector they’re in. Like I’m looking at Guggenheim Partners controlling interests and investments on their Wikipedia page. And like–
JAKE: They already see him.
BOBBY: The first three things listed are Transparent Value LLC, Wellmark, FBL Financial Group, Industrial Alliance, and Sun Life Financial. What do any of those things do? They were $300 billion in assets, mainly from those things. They also own Dick Clark Productions, which is very funny, and Prometheus Global Media. I don’t know what any of those things are. They’re probably insurance companies to be honest because that is the way to make the most money in this country if you don’t just like own Shell Corporation but this whole it’s just companies are wild.
ALEX: They are it does look like they’re investing in Bitcoin which Bobby we may need we may need to go back after this and reevaluate our picks a little bit. But–
BOBBY: I mean, that’s what all the finance pros are doing now though.
ALEX: It’s true, right ahead of the curve.
BOBBY: It’s now on you as Alex is now when you reveal that you’ve actually been an early investor of Bitcoin you’re gonna be leaving the podcast at the end of this year because you are independently wealthy and retired–
JORDAN: Yeah, go Alex.
ALEX: You know, I did buy, I bu–I hope my mom does not listen to this. But I did buy Bitcoin, once–
BOBBY: You’re mom’s definitely, I’ll bet you $1,000–
ALEX: –like, 6 years ago.
BOBBY: –your mom is listening right now.
ALEX: I needed to get a fake ID and it was one of those things where they were like, send us Bitcoin. Do like a manual drop off of this to the bank. I was like, I don’t know what I’m doing, I am 19, but okay, let’s do it. Should held, should have held–
JORDAN: To the moon.
BOBBY Yeah, you should know–
JORDAN: [inaudible] the moon [inaudible] say–
BOBBY: Okay, uhh, so we selected Guggenheim.
JORDAN: Okay, back to us.
JAKE: So you cannot–
BOBBY: [inaudible] management.
JAKE: –you cannot draft ghosts in this draft.
BOBBY: No.
JORDAN: We’re gonna try.
JAKE: We’re gonna try.
BOBBY: Okay.
JAKE: We are going to take Chris Ilitch, Owner of the Detroit Tigers with our second overall pick. My ghost comment was referring to one Mr. Mike Ilitch who passed away at 87 back in 2017, who was the longtime Owner of the Detroit Tigers, and made his money. Little Caesars Pizza, baby.
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s right.
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: Pizza Pizza..
JAKE: Pizza Pizza, Little Caesars underrated pizza. You if you get a–
BOBBY: [inaudible] probably.
JAKE: –press pass, if you go to the press box at Comerica they will give you the pass out free Caesars Pizza, press passes–
ALEX: Why don’t you disclose this upfront? This is huge.
JAKE: I was bribed. I was bribed, I was bribed.
BOBBY: Wow.
JAKE: My last thing, I’ll kick it to Jordan for the real explanation but who do you think Mike Ilitch bought the team from? If if this was a like a comedy show, if this was a joke. Who would the Owner of Little Caesars have bought the team from? The answer is the Owner of Domino’s actually, that is true, that is a fact. Okay?
BOBBY: Ohh, wow. The pizza wars.
ALEX: This is like the Yankees-Red Sox trade of the baseball pizza world.
JAKE: He the Owner of Little Caesars bought the Tigers from the the founder of Domino’s Pizza. Incredible.
BOBBY: That’s almost, reality is stranger than fiction in many ways. Pizza Pizza has a slogan guys, I gotta say. It’s it’s really like the drunk Don Draper meme come to life, where he’s just like, we’ll just say Pizza Pizza, the end of the commercial. It’ll sell like hotcakes.
ALEX: You were just, you were just lamenting the fact that you don’t know what someone like Guggenheim Partners does. I bet you know a little you know, a Little Caesars Pizza does?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
JAKE: That’s a pizza twice.
BOBBY: Shitty sauce on shitty bread with cheap supermarket cheese. And they sell it to you for $5 when you’re drunk. And guess what?
BOBBY: That’s not the worst [inaudible]–
JAKE: –in LA.
BOBBY: –No, it’s really a got good pizza. Not like New York, but not the ubiquity. But there are some good spots.
JORDAN: Do you know about, do you know about Pizza Pizza in Toronto? Sorry for the crazy tangent here. But there’s a pizza place in Toronto called Pizza Pizza. And they advertise cleanly similar vibe to Little Caesars. But it’s not. It’s like the actual name of the place. And their tagline is hot and fresh. It’s very weird. I don’t know if they’re related. But I was in Toronto, and it may be confused anyway. We’re taking Ilitch because Ilitch family was not Mike anymore. And I feel really good about this pick, especially now, after the spending spree that they’ve already given us this winter. Because it seemed like, once Mike out of the away–
BOBBY: They spent a lot of money this winter.
JORDAN: Once Mike passed away, it seemed like Chris, sort of the same with Steinbrenner, right? Seemed like, oh, maybe he’s not going to be like his dad. Maybe he’s going to take kind of rein it back in and to keep it more of himself. But to see what they went in and went out and spent and maybe there’s still, you know, some more spending in there. You know, go and go and give it, give [inaudible]. And hobby buys a bunch of money makes me feel like they’re going right back to it and saying, hell yeah, we’re the frickin Tigers Owners. This we are an important, you know, historic franchise, we are going to try to win. Now they have, you know, it’s been, unlike Milwaukee, it’s been a much rocky road in terms of success. They’ve been kind of terrible at times throughout the ownership, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: So that’s kind of tough, but in terms of like, I trust that when it’s time to spend, they’re gonna spend it seems that they’re doing that. And as far as the other, you know, extracurricular sizzle, call them. It seems pretty safe to take the Ilitch.
BOBBY Yeah. I and I think they’ve shown a penchant for competitiveness when the team demands it, you know. Like they went all in, in the late 2000s, early 2010s. And they got pretty damn close.
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: The, the Tigers are officially owned by one of the Shell Companies that Alex joked about earlier, Ilitch Holdings Incorporated, which was established in 1999. To provide all the companies owned by Marian Ilitch with professional and technical services. Its privately owned businesses include Little Caesars Pizza. So they’re really made. It’s like the meta, you know, like they had Little Caesars, and they put meta overtop of it. But we all know that it’s Little Caesars. We all know that its face of–
JAKE: Marian Ilitch holds no official holdings in the Tigers because there’s a rule with a Major League Baseball. You cannot own holdings in a casino and Major League Baseball team and so she technically holds none of them. Because she owns the Motor City casino in Detroit, which is one of the bigger thing it’s like the biggest one in Detroit. You can’t, I was there last week. You can’t miss it.
ALEX: You can’t get in trouble for owning a baseball team and a casino if you just make your Baseball team the casino. Before, before we, before we move on, I just want to I want to circle back to Jordan. I was I was curious about your, your, your anecdote about Pizza Pizza.
JORDAN: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: As it turns out, Little Caesars is forbidden from using the Pizza Pizza slogan in Canada due to the trademark and so they are forced to use other combinations like two pizzas. hot hot and ready, which once again–
JORDAN: On [inaudible] that’s a card. That’s a [inaudible], I mean, come on now.
ALEX: Delivery delivery, for quality, quality.
JORDAN: Tigers Baseball quality, quality.
JAKE: [inaudible] twice.
BOBBY: This is like in Goodfellas Jimmy two times, that’s like their whole business model. Like every slogan, you just say it twice. That’s all that what this is like the greatest PR coup of all time, the head of PR doesn’t actually have to think of anything.
JORDAN: So we but it sounds like it’s very clearly not the same thing. Like it is like–
ALEX: Comes correct.
JORDAN: Yeah. Which is so weird and confusing, because especially considering the proximity to Detroit. But whatever, just wanted to read to that, because I didn’t know when else this was ever going to come up in my life. And you know, when else you know, kind of got to take take a shot here. All right, back to you for your third pick, Bobby, unless you have any other Ilitch thoughts.
BOBBY: Uhm, no, I don’t have any other Ilitch thoughts. Alex and I a little torn, I’m gonna. Jordan, you asked who wears the pants in this draft? I think we’re kind of going back and forth, pick by pick. So Alex, I’m gonna let you kind of make the final call. We’re going back and forth between a couple different guys. I feel fine either way. I said to Alex, before you guys got on. The team that you end up with doesn’t really matter. Like we’re not keeping score here.
JORDAN: Please do not. Please do not keep score. I don’t even know how we’re keeping score. But no, it’s fine. It’s fine.
ALEX: Interestingly, Bobby, I would I would probably go with neither–
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: –of the two choices that you just sent me. So we’re very far apart maybe and in our discussions.
BOBBY: And who says that there’s no ideological differences on the left.
JORDAN: Jake, Jake it sounds like their their draft room is in disarray. Just incoherent state like the cannot–
BOBBY: Kevin Costner in the right–
ALEX: Who is calling the shots?
JAKE: Alex, this is how you end up with Austin Beck.
BOBBY: You can call, if you call him straight.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: You could call him trade for the Steinbrenners right now.
JAKE: Just give us a coupon right up.
JORDAN: Oh no, this is Baseball. You can’t trade up or down. This is not come on now. Make a pick, dammit. We have our boards locked and loaded.
ALEX: I here’s here’s what I’ll do. I’ll I’ll meet you in the middle, Bobby.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Let’s go, let’s go, Peter Seidler the San Diego Padres. Kind of a kind of a late bloomer.
BOBBY: That’s a good compromise.
ALEX: Really, only only a only–
BOBBY College Pitcher showed a lot of good accuracy. As–
ALEX: You know, purchase team in 2012. Recently has been investing a lot of money. Obviously, the Padres have been very not good for for a decent amount of time. And that has kind of extended under his tenure. But they’ve they’ve shown a willingness to open the open up the checkbook recently, right? And that, and that has to count for something, right?
JORDAN: It does, it does. I I have cyber thoughts. But Bobby, how do you feel about your own pitch?
BOBBY: So I I actually like Peter Seidler, I was advocating for him to be pretty high on our big board for for a couple reasons. The the first reason is that he spent a lot of money on the team. He did the right thing by calling up his prospect or he allowed the right thing to be done by his GM by calling up his prospects. He extended Tatís. He made it so that he signed Machado. He made it so that Tatís will likely play almost his entire career with the Padres, if not the, if not his whole career with the Padres. And that’s the thing that we’re looking for from Baseball ownership is like responding to fan engagement and Padres fans are giving it to them. And they’re taking it and it seems like a symbiotic relationship right now. Like obviously that fell through last year. And a lot of the excitement that blog boys like us got, you know, up in a in a tizzy about didn’t really come to fruition. But I think that Seidler has done a good job in investing in the team. Now, three years from now, he might not he might be on the cross offs list. Because he might tear it down and sell it for parts because he’s like, Oh, actually, it didn’t work out and I wasn’t actually interested in building sustainably. It’s it’s really interesting, his net worth is about $3 billion. But like Forbes doesn’t know much of anything about him. It’s almost like it’s either a red flag or it’s kind of cool. You know, it’s either he he’s not like leaking and manipulating money media, or he’s like, super off the grid in a semi scary undercover way. He founded the private equity firm, Seidler Equity Partners in Marina del Rey, California. And he is the managing partner, the firm’s net worth has been estimated estimated to be 3 billion. So I think that people generally think that he’s worth $3 billion from that from that firm. Fun fact about Seidler, do you know, he’s the he’s the grandson of Walter O’Malley? Who was the Dodgers owner from 1950 to 1979. You wonder where good old Peter got the seed money for his capital firm. Probably probably a nine to five right? He was probably working a Little Caesars to save up enough money to start his own mom and pop shop. You guys think so?
JORDAN: I think you’re onto something there. I think that had to been working probably more than 95, I thought he was working bonus time.
BOBBY: Catch an extra 6.
JORDAN: Maybe 15–
BOBBY: He was working he was he was to timing for Domino’s in the night shift.
JORDAN: No for Pizza Pizza actually he was literally [inaudible] he was driving across the border. The I have some thoughts about the amount of pain but go ahead.
BOBBY: Well I would be remiss if I did not do one little side note about just Padres ownership in general. Shout out to the fucking God if we could, if we could choose Owners from all of Baseball history number one overall choice, Joan Kroc, who tried to sell the Padres to San Diego, the city. And MLB the other 29 Owners blocked it unanimously because they were like Joan Joan, the widow of Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s. Who owned the Pa–who owned the Padres before Seidler–
JORDAN: That’s like decades ago.
BOBBY: Joan Kroc, shout out to a fucking legend. Rip, she would be the number one overall pick in the least terrible owners draft.
JORDAN: So I like, I love the silent pick. We had him pretty high on our board, we kind of moved them up and down a few times. I left, because I think the fact that he’s the grandson of Walter O’Malley and I am currently trudging my way through Lords of the Realm. It is an incredible read. And there is so much Walter O’Malley stuff in there because he was just running shit for not just the daughters of the whole league. Of course he’s the guy that moves them to Los Angeles from Brooklyn. He’s also one of those–
BOBBY: [inaudible] at all.
JORDAN: –guys. No, yeah not at all. He’s also a got–one of the main guys you know, you know about Andy Messersmith. And how that leads to free agency. He was the dude that was like, fuck no, we’re not paying this guy, like absolutely not. And so down to have his grandson just stolen out, just a hundreds of millions of dollars to players, both free agents and their own players is fantastic. So–
ALEX: Rolling in his grave.
JORDAN: Great one. Back to us.
BOBBY: Yep.
JORDAN: Anything else on silent?
BOBBY: No, I think that’s it.
JORDAN: All right.
BOBBY: He’s got his time in the sun. We were almost like two complimentary of sideways.
JORDAN: Jake has announced our third pick via Zoom background. Jake, would you like to clue the listeners in since they cannot see–
BOBBY: Truly a horrifying, I will tweet out the screenshot of this.
JAKE: John Middleton, Jordan’s wearing the Phillies, Phillies shirt. All right. John Middleton, Phillies Owner is our is our third pick. Jordans [inaudible]–
BOBBY: This is a surprise. This is a surprise to me.
JORDAN: Yeah. Okay. So here’s why. Here’s our thinking with Middleton. We, again, now not that’s not necessarily you know, history of Baseball, family and ownership, whatever. But while the Phillies have inexplicably continued to be not good over the last decade, since they, you know, we’ve got back back World Series and they go in the tank, they rebuild, they’re terrible. They somehow can’t get over .500 and even this year, they’re only one game over .500. They have spent the money. He, John Middleton has done the part that is that that we want, right? It’s like, okay, it’s time to be good. Go give good players, 100 million dollars. He did it with Bryce Harper. He did it with Zack Wheeler. They both been awesome. Now you can dig him for the fact and I mean, he’s only been in charge since what? 2016, Jake? Oh, wow, nicely done there with picking his nose and his new background. Now, you can still say that, well, they they’re still somehow a mess and not good under his leadership, that’s super fair. But I still think that this is, and then to go and hire Dave Dombrowski. Give Dave Dombrowski, $20 million or whatever. Not that he needs the money. But I just think that that is enough to put in pretty high on our list. And wow, you know, the winning [inaudible]–
BOBBY: [inaudible] your choosing him because he gave Dave Dombrowski. $20 million.
JORDAN: Yeah. Kind of yes. Because that that is a move that is throwing your money around to win to win baseball games. Now it’s maybe not smart. But you, smart, fuck smart. He’s over paying Dave Dombrowski because he wants to win a World Series. That was the thinking, it’s not that’s why he did it. So I actually, so yes, Bobby, that is exactly. I actually think you’re making me more convict convict convicted in this in this pick.
BOBBY: Okay.
JAKE: Now how did he make his money, Bobby?
BOBBY: Oh, good all, good all [inaudible]–
JAKE: This is, this is oldest money–
BOBBY: 20th century American. Yeah.
JAKE: No, Bobby. He’s a 19th century American.
BOBBY: Yeah.
JAKE: Tobacco.
BOBBY: John Middleton made his fortune selling his family’s story tobacco business. This is from forbes.com, my favorite outlet that I wake up and read every word of every morning. He made his fortune selling his family’s story tobacco business to Philip Morris’ parent, Altria in 2007 for $2.9 billion in cash, straight cash homie.
JORDAN: Straight cash again, like we said, and this is before credit cards, way before credit cards. Yeah, it’s old, it’s the oldest billionaire and he sure looks it. How old is John Middleton? Because he, I mean, is is he [inaudible]? Do we know? We don’t even have an age. Do we have a public age for John Middleton?
JAKE: No.
JORDAN: It’s not [inaudible]–
JAKE: It’s like, he’s like Satchel, he’s like Satchel Paige.
JORDAN: He could be 67, he could be 87.
BOBBY: Forbes says, 66. Forbes says, 66.
JORDAN: Dude. Wow! Man, that’s wew!
BOBBY: Yeah, he’s like a 66 but like 66 cigarettes a day for like the first 50 years of his life kind of 66.
JORDAN: It’s an old 66.
JAKE: 66 cigarettes, he was eating a day like, he got him for free. The other, when I think about quotes from Middleton the one that comes to my mind, Bobby. Is–
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: –the one that came out when we were together recording an episode of Baseball Barbecue in the parking lot of–
BOBBY: Right.
JAKE: –the Phillies stadium. When–
BOBBY: Baseball BBQ?
JORDAN: It’s a [inaudible] there.
JAKE: Were, there were rumors about Zack Wheeler being traded right after they signed him and he said that he wouldn’t trade Zack Wheeler for Babe Ruth. And I just thought that was a great quote, and exactly, like should have won the Cy Young.
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: Now we got FanGraphs headlines that’s like, “Zack Wheeler is basically becoming Jacob deGrom.” And I’m like rolling, rolling over doubling over in pain like it’s just hurts. It hurts so bad, yes.
JORDAN: I think John Middleton wrote that, so makes sense.
BOBBY: Okay, well–
ALEX: Middleton good, Middleton is a good pick. I just–
JORDAN: Yeah. I feel really–
ALEX: –ust to say like, like, yeah, throw throws this money around in a in a in a arguably very reckless way. And like not capital P-problematic, right? I mean, I mean, you know–
JORDAN: Again, I’m–
ALEX: –as far as a tobacco salesman.
JORDAN: I’m not that’s the thing. I’m not gonna go too far to be like this guy’s awesome. But we’re it’s all relative. Okay, that’s our third pick.
JAKE: If I if I needed to buy weed from any Owner, I feel like he has an institutional hookup.
BOBBY: Maybe, I I kind of feel like Dick Monfort might be your guy to buy weed from.
JORDAN: Oh, should I make my Monfort, well, can I, since he’s not going to come up again. Can I just make a Dick Monfort point?
BOBBY: Yes, sure.
ALEX: Yeah.
JORDAN: When I first thought it was going to be the least, least terrible like people, right? If we–
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
JORDAN: –were just doing straight like I was going to pick him. Because he seems like a totally it like just a gene–like very bumbling dummy. Like but I don’t want him running my team clearly, right? Clearly not, I do not want to run it, I will not be happy. But–
ALEX: He’s proving your point.
JORDAN: –is just people who I would like again like have a beer with who is does not seem like the most you know, completely evil people. He’s probably on my top, but anyways–
JAKE: [inaudible] cattle —
ALEX: Cattle buyer.
JORDAN: Yeah.
JAKE: I heard it from Jordan, Dick Monfort can can date his children. [inaudible] Dick Monfort.
JORDAN: I’m sorry, whatever. I’m just okay… Back to–
BOBBY: See, okay back–
JORDAN: –back to you–
BOBBY: –it’s back to us. For our fourth overall pick. On Middleton, I don’t even feel like I can make a value judgment until I literally call Michael Bellman and just share what he has to say. So I don’t know how I feel. We we can ask him offline and report back next week. So I let Alex drive the ship on the last one. I’m taking the reins. I’m taking them in, I’m picking up the phone call from Rob Manfred. I’m telling, I’m telling them who we’re drafting. And we’re drafting motherfucking hedge fund King, uncle Steve Cohen.
JAKE: There he is, there he is.
JORDAN: We thought, we thought, we were gonna, I I fall to pick four for us? Like, come on now. All right, Bobby, you, you did it. We, I figured this would happen. We thought we were gonna get lucky, but go ahead.
BOBBY: I know this wrongly against–
JAKE: We have–
BOBBY: –Steve Cohen.
JAKE: –we have the same top of the board.
BOBBY: Interesting.
JAKE: Except for the Dodgers. Like you, our top six is gone now.
BOBBY: Yep. That’s how it’s supposed to be this is getting very it’s getting very heated. I know I said that there’s no way to win this. But there definitely is a way to win this. Steve Cohen, I mean, what can I say about him that I haven’t already said on multiple different podcasts–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –about me wrestling with his benefits versus his potential drawbacks. Like the guy made his money and one of the more heinous ways that you could possibly make your money in the United States in the 21st century. Which is like just straight hedge fund managing other people’s money being like the cutthroat fucking Bobby Axelrod style Hedge Fund Manager. And like he has discrimination lawsuits against him at point 70–like all of these different, truly terrible things, but if you–
ALEX: But serve as our first poster Owner, right?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: He’s got a, he’s got a true posters heart.
BOBBY: He makes me laugh. He has a nice smile.
JORDAN: That’s the first [inaudible]–
BOBBY: He’s a family man. If I brought him home, my parents would be proud. No, I–
JORDAN: It’d be like, damn, can I get some of that?
BOBBY: If you surveyed the Owner, if you surveyed the fans of all–
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: –29 other teams that are not Mets fans, and you ask them to name one Owner who they wish owned their team. I think probably most people would say Steve Cohen right now. Because he is spending, just he’s just maybe going to spend more money than any Baseball Owner ever. And it goes back to our point about the Steinbrenners. It goes back to our point about the Dodgers. What do we value here as Baseball fans? Because it’s very hard to morally judge how you made your money. Everybody knows how Steve Cohen made his money. He’s buying like replica sharks for $14 million on like Sundays just for fun. But do you put the money that you have in that you are making from the team back onto the field? So that I can watch Max Scherzer pitch on a Tuesday after Jacob deGrom pitch on a Monday?
JORDAN: Totally.
BOBBY: That’s pretty cool. I think–
JORDAN: You’re totally right–
BOBBY: –he drafted.
JORDAN: You’re totally right. You’re totally right. And he would have been our next pick. My only quibble, all right. The [inaudible] should a financial standpoint, right? Is that Steve Cohen is one of the 100 richest people in the world.
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: Okay. And so while he is going to run a 250 million, maybe 300, who frickin knows? It is still a fraction of what he probably can. And you should or you could argue that you should we have a $500 million payroll. And when you compare it to like, again, like we made the argument right? Attanasio is like, he is going to actually be thinking like he’s really like, I’m doing this and this is what I’m. Steve Cohen’s throwing it around because he came right? And it’s good, not saying it’s not because you’re right, it’s still better to have the guy that has nice payroll. But I still think relative to being the rich, he’s I mean, he’s so far ahead of everybody else, right? We’re talking about–
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: –these guys, you mentioned, Alex, earlier, it’s all like three to seven. Steve Cohen’s in double-digit billionaire, okay? So that’s where I think–
ALEX: Steve Cohen were to invest in the team, like Attanasio or some of these other guys, he wouldn’t be running a, a $2.4 billion payroll.
JORDAN: Right.
ALEX: Which, I mean, why not? Right? You’ve got the money.
BOBBY: There is there is, there is an upper limit of how much money you can actually spend on payroll though. Like, and he is reaching it, though. He’s closing in on a million dollars. Like–
JORDAN: That’s probably–
BOBBY: –how much did he outbid the rest of the league for Scherzer. He’s kind of doing what you’re describing. But there’s just like the rest of the league is dragging–
JORDAN: Yup.
BOBBY: –him.
JORDAN: That’s true–
BOBBY: I think that’s–
JORDAN: –that’s fair.
BOBBY: –I think that there will be a course correction on his spending. I don’t see him running this kind of payroll for five consecutive years, the way that Steinbrenner did when he first took over the Yankees–
JORDAN: Because the league won’t allow it. Not because he–
BOBBY: Because the league won’t allow it but because there is a dominant philosophy that and he will be weighed on by other Owners being like, why are you running your team like this? There is a dominant philosophy in Baseball right now that you only put the revenue in, that you make from the team. Like you, that you’re not going to be using your outside money to enrich your team. That you’re not going to be making all of these other Owners look cheap, every single offseason. And they will just fucking blackball him, like they will collude against him. The way that they collude against free agents to not to keep those salaries down. Like they will not let him keep allowing the maxters of the world, big union guys to reset the market for different players and establish different precedent and be Scott Boras’ monopoly bank. Like that, that’s not going to keep happening. Although, if there was a guy in the world who would do it it would be him. Because he’s a sicko.
JORDAN: All fair.
ALEX: Yeah, he’s he’s zagging, he’s zagging where the rest of the league ziggs.
JORDAN: Alex, sorry. It seems like you’re not super thrilled with this pick. But I mean, you understand, so–
ALEX: I absolutely, I mean my my biggest qualms with with him I think are are really you know, can he get out of his own way enough to like let the baseball people run the team?
BOBBY: That’s a great point.
ALEX: If you’re, if you’re an uber-rich person who has has all the time in the world to just like tweet about, about your Baseball team. I mean, hey, I I would too–
BOBBY: He’s tweeting out OBS numbers.
ALEX: Yes, I know literally. Like I I would like him to to just hand the, the checkbook over to the Mets Front Office and let them do with it what they will.
BOBBY: But it seems like he they are a little bit, like he he hired ‘yes man’. But also if you’re spending money on on players that are obviously good to the rest of the league, and you’re spending more money to get those players like sometimes ‘yes man’ are the right men. It’s better than, it’s better than like operating like the Rays where they’re like, actually no, we have to create these fictional restrictions because we’re playing a board game, not a baseball team.
JAKE: The Kumar Rocker tweet turned me off to Steve Cohen.
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: Yeah, that was pretty bad. So–
BOBBY: Guy who made $16 billion trading stocks thinks of person and stock–
JORDAN: But also–
BOBBY: –breaking news.
JORDAN: –you know what, Bobby? Like you you are you are living with this already. So it’s easy for you to pick them in the [inaudible]. Because you you’re already competitive. So–
BOBBY: [inaudible] jump my morals down the drain several–
JORDAN: Exactly
BOBBY: –exams over. Give me that Scherzer jersey for Christmas next year, baby.
JAKE: Hey, Jordan.
JORDAN: Yeah.
JAKE: I’m looking to use my gas grill outside.
JORDAN: Yes, yeah.
JAKE: Yeah, like I’m gonna make some make–
JORDAN: Hot [inaudible]
JAKE: I’m doing a full fish.
JORDAN: Okay.
JAKE: I’m I’m gonna grill a whole fish, put some lemon grass. some scallions in there. Really bring the flavor out but I have everything I need except I’m out of propane.
JORDAN: Well, you are in luck, my friend.
JAKE: Yeah.
JORDAN: You are in luck, because–
JAKE: Yeah?
JORDAN: –let me tell you my friend John Sherman.
JAKE: Ohh.
JORDAN: The owner of the Kansas City Royals and our fourth overall pick. He’s got hella propane.
JAKE: Really?
JORDAN: Whatever you need. Whatever you need, my boy. He’s–
JAKE: More like, more like pro comfort.
JORDAN: John Sherman, who very recently bought the Kansas City Royals, will be our fourth selection. Now, John Sherman who founded Inergy, let’s be very clear about what’s–
JAKE: It’s an “I”.
JORDAN: –Inergy.
JAKE: Ahh, yeah, he’s got great inner is got outstanding Inergy.
JORDAN: American supplier of propane-based in Kansas City, Missouri. Claims to be the fourth largest propane retailer in the United States. The humble fourth, we are not–
JAKE: Adding on a podium.
JORDAN: This is not, we are just doing our good, you know, hard-earned American business on the side. We’re not like controlling everything, okay? We’re for–
ALEX: 40 runs of Royals too, right?
JORDAN: On the board, okay? And, and John Sherman, and when he’s not going out probate tax to 28 states across the country. Is, is, you know, presiding over this next era of Royals Baseball. He’s signing Salvador Pérez to extension. I love that. I love that.
JAKE: That he didn’t need to.
JORDAN: He didn’t need to, but he brings me joy. Love Sal Pérez. And yeah, I mean, as far as where the money comes from the dude is is, he’s Kansas City like he he is from, he is from there.
JAKE: Hashtag. He’s rooted. He’s rooted in Kansas City.
JORDAN: He’s a Kansas man.
BOBBY: Wow. Your like–
BOBBY: –[inaudible]Alex’s core right now.
JAKE: Now–
ALEX: All right.
JAKE: –we have not seen to what extent John Sherman will put money into the team. Because he only bought it a couple years ago. And even Steve Cohen would not have invested in the 2019 Royals. But we the one column I have is that the track record here is that he was a minority owner of the Cleveland team. And at the I doubt he was putting too much came–
JORDAN: Okay, but–
JAKE: –to that enterprise.
JORDAN: –I’m going to, I’m going to take the optimistic route here. And I’m going to say that the fact that he was in Cleveland and Minority Owner and spending clearly nothing. Perhaps he was like, I’m, I’m a billionaire. I’m just gonna go by my own team and I’m gonna I’m gonna do show I’m gonna actually do something, I’m gonna make it happen.
BOBBY: Propane had a good year and he was like [inaudible]–
JORDAN: Exactly, so I’m I’m–
JAKE: All those, all those, all those space heaters.
JORDAN: So yeah, so–
JAKE: Outdoor outdoor dining, huge for Bobby with.
JORDAN: Again, again, we’re now into slim picking territory for a lot of a lot of reasons. But I feel pretty good about this one. And a lot of this too, as we mentioned earlier, is you know, the less we know the better. And so far we don’t have any reason to hate John Sherman. And that’s a win.
ALEX: Yeah, the 2021 Kansas City end of the year from, from the Kansas City–
JAKE: My homie, Rob.
JORDAN: Are you not entertained? Are you not impressed? Bobby, are you jealous that we got John Sherman? After your evil bajillionaire, Steve Cohen.
BOBBY: Yeah, John Sherman definite family man.
ALEX: You guys are fighting for the for the little guy over there, right?
JORDAN: We have some small markets by the way.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You guys you guys are just fly overstate kings. You know you’re just choosing the guys you’re just representing the small markets, you know we’re over here choosing guys on the coasts–
JAKE: We’re–
BOBBY: –big money.
JAKE: –put the heart in Heartland.
JORDAN: There’s our fourth pick, Bobby [inaudible]. Do you have Sherman thoughts or or your pick?
BOBBY: Not really honestly. The fact that there are two guys with the last name Sherman who own baseball teams right now. And it’s just like, and no women. It’s just no girl bosses is hilarious. Uhm, I think for our last pick, I’m going to stab my Mets fan. My Mets fandom, right in the heart. Just stab it repeatedly, right in the heart and I think for our fifth and final pick, we are going to select one William Orville DeWitt Jr.
JORDAN: Wow!!! Wow!
JAKE: Wow!
JORDAN: Ohh–kay.
BOBBY: While Owner of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1979. Along with Mercer Reynolds he founded the investment firm Reynolds DeWitt & Co. He is the son of William Orval DeWitt Sr.
JAKE: Who is Mercer Reynolds, Bobby? Do you want to tell people what Mercer, Mercer Reynolds did for a living? Do you know?
BOBBY: I I don’t know.
JAKE: You should, you should check that out. I’m sure, that was a little Google piece.
JORDAN: What did Mercer Reynolds do?
ALEX: Oh nice. I saw that. I had a little auto-fill here.
BOBBY: Yeah, he was The Finance Chair of US President George W. Bush’s presidentially.
JAKE: At Least he wasn’t the Iraq chair. I think, you know, that’s a plus for you guys, I guess.
BOBBY: I think you fund a little presidential campaign. So [inaudible] come on, I mean, come on.
ALEX: I like, it’s always good when you type in someone’s name in the, in the first autofill, is plantation, Mercer Reynolds’ plantation?
BOBBY: So, one of the more odious individual human beings on this list, of course, they’re all odious in their own ways. But you got to you got to hand it to him how he’s run the Cardinals. I mean, that is in a class A franchise.
JORDAN: Cardinal way.
BOBBY: hey put money into the team. They seriously develop it at all levels. They keep pulling guys out of their asses. They hire the right people with player development, they always seem to have the right Manager for the right team. They respect the fan base, even though the fan base has a lot of tendencies that I don’t particularly appreciate. We’ll leave it at that. And, you know, his life on baseball man, his dad was a was a GM himself. So you know that he at least likes Baseball? He’s seen a baseball game, which is maybe not the case for every single person on this list verified.
JORDAN: I’m not convinced Ray Davis, seen a baseball game. But he did just —
ALEX: [inaudible] Vince Ray Davis, like [inaudible]–
BOBBY: Never seen them. And I thought it was Roy Davis. I wrote that wrong.
JAKE: Talk about we’re gonna talk about Ray Davis later. But Bobby, are you forgetting that, I would say Bill DeWitt was the owner of the like the like the razzie Owner of the year. Like he was, he had the quote last year, we said that baseball was, quote, “Not very profitable”, and then bought a longer his house for 8 million in the same week. Are you forgetting this?
BOBBY: That’s noise, you’re talking about noise? Do the Cardinals–
JAKE: Noise?
BOBBY: –win or not? Do the, do the Cardinals win or not?
JORDAN: The Cardinals don’t lose, that’s for sure.
JAKE: Exact–where’s Charles Johnson on your list? That huh?
JORDAN: Yeah, see–
JAKE: How many, how many–
BOBBY: Media cross off? This is?
ALEX: Oh, yeah, we’re getting into territory of like, you know, political activities. So there’s like a section on the person’s Wikipedia page. Never, never a good sign.
JAKE: I–
BOBBY: 2006-2011, that’s all I gotta say. He’s made the playoffs 59% of the time that he’s own the team.
JORDAN: Yeah, I mean, right. That is the, that is the argument. That’s what you’re going with. Is that I will have someone that is keeping me that, again, not quite Yankees level, but like, around and not doing it.
BOBBY: So you’re bringing up a lot of good points, Jake, and I respect that. But as we get into the 9, 10 range here.
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: There’s gonna be some downsides on the player report cards. I don’t know what to tell you how. Not–
JORDAN: Yeah, totally fair.
BOBBY: –everybody’s gonna throw in 99 with a hammer slider in the middle of the fucking second round equivalent. So yes, does he have some some problems? Of course, but also his his organization, one of the organizations that I feel most confident in all of the league in terms of like respectability and competence. Absolutely yes. The other thing about Bill DeWitt is like he’s hateable in a noble way, you know, like, he’s just like a shitty, like political–
JORDAN: He is–
BOBBY: –figure, you know, like he’s–
JORDAN: He’s also around right? He’s a classic base–like he is a Baseball Owner like you said, like this dude is into baseball, right?
BOBBY: One of the things about him that was actually maybe playing more into it than it should for me in terms of not wanting to draft him at all is like he’s a really scary looking guy.
JORDAN: Yes.
BOBBY: It’s unsettling to–
JAKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: –see what the man looks like.
JORDAN: Yeah, I agree with that.
JAKE: I hope no one ever says that about me. Uhm, with our last pick, are are you down do it?
BOBBY: Alex, anything else you want to say about DeWitt? We were, we were weighing a couple other guys, but I don’t want to scoop anything–
JORDAN: [inaudible] you might choose.
BOBBY: Alex anything that you want to say that really pushed it forward?
ALEX: Anytime you have a chance to, to draft the the owner of Arby’s on your on your roster of Baseball Owners that’s I feel like it’s pretty good.
JAKE: Eating good in the neighborhood, right?
ALEX: I know that I’ve ever actually eaten, eaten at Arby’s.
BOBBY: What? Wow!
ALEX: I’m blind there.
BOBBY: We should do that together for the first time. I’d love to see you–
ALEX: [inaudible] speaking.
JAKE: I had never been to an Arby’s before and Jordan took me to my first Arby’s. Jordan, you remember where it was?
JORDAN: I do, which is not a fair representation of Arby’s, but I still stand by Arby’s, I do like Arby’s.
JAKE: Breezewood Pennsylvania.
JORDAN: Oh, Breezewood.
BOBBY: Was this on your trip?
JORDAN: [inaudible] Breezewood–
JAKE: I don’t know where we’re going now.
BOBBY: Uhm, Jake has sent me receipts from Twitter, where I tweeted some slanderous things against Bill DeWitt, Jr. None of that is important. You can find that for almost everyone right here, Jake. Come on.
ALEX: Bobby.
JAKE: This is like when Dave, this like when Dave Cameron wrote all this things about Eric Cosma and then get hired by Congress.
ALEX: That’s exactly what this is like.
JORDAN: Bobby, it’s okay. I I understand the allure of like–
BOBBY: Tipping Pitches–
JORDAN: –Baseball team’s gonna be good.
BOBBY: October 28, 2020. Gear up for a very fun offseason and subsequent labor negotiations everyone. I’m sure Cardinals fans are happy that Bill DeWitt net worth 4 billion won’t go bankrupt trying to afford Kolten Wong’s 12 and a half million dollar contract.
JORDAN: Bobby’s like, sign me up. Okay.
BOBBY: That’s my guy.
JORDAN: It’s okay. Bobby, again, you’re gonna run into some issues with our last pick. Jake, are you in agreement on are last pick?
JAKE: Okay, Jordan, take me on.
JORDAN: Okay. Though we have stated our conflict of interest, we will happily take the Lerners with our fifth and final selection. Now this is–
BOBBY: Controversial choice.
JORDAN: –by the way, let’s let’s get the–
BOBBY: Controversial choice.
JORDAN: Contro–what [inaudible]–
JAKE: Minor Leagues stuff from last summer was bad.
JORDAN: Here’s my argument for that. Ready? This is, I’m now I’m spinning like crazy–
JAKE: Oh, my gosh.
JORDAN: –okay?
BOBBY: Oh my God.
JORDAN: Ready?
BOBBY: Are you about [inaudible]–
JAKE: Give us a [inaudible]–
JORDAN: Here’s my spin for this. And I only like 5% believe this, but it doesn’t matter because I have more good things to say about [inaudible]–
JAKE: You’re calling the best things publicly [inaudible] 5%.
JORDAN: If if basically what we’re referring to is that they were one of the teams that very early on in 2020. We’re like, we’re not paying our Minor Leaguers at all, because they ain’t playing, sorry.
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: And they cha–
BOBBY: –these work days pay.
JORDAN: –they change their mind, they got crushed for that and change their mind like 12 hours later. Which to me, tells me that they were just like, well, of course we’re big bad rich Baseball Owners. It’s like they you know, doing some little collusion chat and they were like, yo, we’re not paying [inaudible], right? Yeah, of course, will not. [inaudible] that came out about the Nats first. Then they’re like, oh, you no no no, nevermind, nevermind. No, we’re not, we’re not doing that. Like we’re not actually terrible people. We’re just doing what most Baseball Owners do. Either way, here’s the real case. They spent like crazy. Once they finally got the Strasburg-Harper thing. They’re handing out crazy amounts of Jason Werth there the they’d before the Mets were doing they were given Max Scherzer all the money in the world. And while this is sort of contingent on them giving–
BOBBY: For starter Patrick Corbin, here’s $200 million.
JORDAN: Hey, they got a World Series, now so hearable contract, whatever. That’s fine. It worked. It worked. Patrick Corbin was good for them in 2019. Now is this sort of contingent on them? Giving Juan Soto $500 million? Yeah. But they have spent and they have been good till last few years, for the last decade. And I feel good about it. So–
JAKE: I also like how they handled be–okay. Being the owner of the team in DC during the Trump administration is a PR minefield, right?
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
JAKE: And I thought that they tiptoed through that jungle in about as decent way as they possibly could have done. Having Jose Andres, who was very publicly I I don’t like Trump guy, threw out the first pitch the night that Trump was there. I don’t and the World Series. I don’t know if that was like Ted Lerner’s call, but that’s the type of thing [inaudible]–
ALEX: [inaudible] make it happen.
JAKE: But that feels like the type of stuff that that would go up to ownership–
BOBBY: Yeah.
JAKE: –almost. And like I thought that there there are other Owners who would not have handled that in that way, right? That that was a unique way to handle a weird situation. And not in in the most immoral way to do it. Again, last pick in the draft. Oh, that’s why we went there.
JORDAN: I have one more Lerner point.
BOBBY: Okay.
JORDAN: Actually, Bobby, do you have anything else? Because I want to I want to finish.
BOBBY: No, I mean, we aren’t we already talked about how he’s a self-made, self-made man.
JORDAN: Oh, yeah.
BOBBY: Cool, 250 [inaudible].
ALEX: We have a good, a good bootstraps landlord.
BOBBY: I wait, I wait for the second paragraph of the article where he like has an uncle that loaned him $100 million, or something like that, that he paid back with no interest. But–
ALEX: He he publicly identifies his father is coming from Palestine, which I don’t know. Small amounts kudos there?
JAKE: Okay, you’re you’re you’re you’re missing that, everything before 1948 was just Palestine.
JORDAN: Yeah, and and and which which gets me–
JAKE: –that’s like a woke, that’s like a woke move.
JORDAN: Which gets me to my final point.
JAKE: He’s from the Palestine mandate under [inaudible]–
ALEX: Right, exactly.
JORDAN: Wait, Bobby, Bobby–
BOBBY: Well, I’ll just say as someone who just spent, you know, probably like eight hours a day, looking for an apartment. It’s very hard to choose a landlord, you know, and that’s basically how he made all his money. He just owns a bunch of real estate like a diversified real estate portfolio.
JORDAN: But it’s okay.
BOBBY: You know, he owns Chelsea Piers, which means he owns the place where some of my fondest memories and New York University are going to Hockey games and getting drunk in the stands. Didn’t know it at the time, but Ted Lerner was putting me on so–
JORDAN: Well said.
JAKE: Oh, he owns White Flint, Jordan. Oh, dude I, White Flint is like where we went after Middle School to like, have awkward dates at the movies.
JORDAN: No, yeah yeah, shots very dead White Flint, a lot don’t know what they’re what they’re building there. Okay, here’s my last point which is sort of related to the thing, Alex brought up. Ted Lerner and forgive me if I’m going Betty White this here, okay? I hope he’s in good health, Ted Lerner is 96.
JAKE: [inaudible] crazy verb.
JORDAN: Ted Lerner is 96. This dude is frickin crazy old and if, and I anyone that gets to 95 I respect the hell out of I don’t care what okay what you have going on.
JAKE: It’s like catching for 15 years in the big league.
JORDAN: Dude is still and I know Mark, right. We know Mark run the team now and that’s good, right? And I wish the best for Lerners, of course, we want to see him, we want to see him and you know Yom Kippur services and everything, right? But this dude has been around for a long time. And if you are still here at age 96, you got my vote.
BOBBY: Okay, I can see it I mean, I think that aside from like six or seven Owners that we’re about to talk about. Basically you could choose anyone at the 10th Pick and convince me of it for the most part. Alex, anything to say about the Lerners?
ALEX: Not that hasn’t been covered, which is kind of like I mean that says it all, right? It’ll like again you can cherry-pick whatever piece of of data whichever data point you want in in favor or against.
BOBBY: I would personally cherry-pick just the whole Bryce Harper contract negotiation situation. As a reason why wouldn’t want the Lerners to own my team and when when Juan Soto is hitting fuckin 337 In Citi Field in five years.
JORDAN: Okay, so again, like I said–
JAKE: That’s the thing–
JORDAN: –it’s a they got to get that done, they really got to get that–
JAKE: This pick is contingent on them extending Soto, because, I think–
BOBBY: It’s like a first-round draft pick with protections in the NBA. Like dealing it but like if they finished over .500 it moves to a second-round pick.
JAKE: Like let me say this, who would you rather have over the next five, eh next 10 years?Juan Soto or Bryce Harper?
BOBBY: Yeah, Juan Soto, obviously, it’s not either or my guy.
JAKE: Do they’ve got if they gotten both of them.
JORDAN: Yeah, of course, right.
JAKE: If that’s Chelsea Peirs money. But the ones–
BOBBY: [inaudible] sell it.
JAKE: I will say this, [inaudible], I am worried, Jordan [inaudible]. He made it, he survived until he won, right? And it’s like, the same thing that was driving Ilitch to spend–
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
JAKE: –crazy money before he passed away. Like he wanted to get a ring before he went, like Lerner has the ring now. So is he going to spend–
BOBBY: Oh okay. I thought you were gonna say, is he gonna die? Because [inaudible]–
JORDAN: [inaudible] questions too. No, yeah, no, that’s honestly, Jake, fair point. But again, contingent–
JAKE: Out of the belly.
JORDAN: –where we are, they have a good track record. I’m my again, like, I don’t think they’re gonna be that bad at [inaudible], but that it’s fine. We’re not talking about that Nationals anymore.
BOBBY: I think employing Mike Rizzo and giving him a lot of leeway. To like build a roster and win a championship is like a point, you know, strongly–
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: –in the Lerners favor. Like–
JORDAN: Right.
BOBBY: Mike Rizzo seems like uh, as far as management goes, he seems like on the better end of the spectrum in terms of GMs in 2022, you know,
JORDAN: I agree. I agree.
BOBBY: Okay.
JORDAN: All right–
BOBBY: That does it. Okay, here are the teams we selected first, we have the Steinbrenner family. The Guggenheim Baseball Management, CEO Mark Walter. We have Peter Seidler, Owner of the San Diego Padres. We have hedge fund King Steve Cohen, Owner of the New York Mets. And we have Bill DeWitt Jr., the Owner of St. Louis Cardinals. You guys selected second and you chose Mark Attanasio, Owner of the Milwaukee Brewers. The Ilitch family ghost of Mike Ilitch, Ilitch Holdings Incorporated, the Owners of the Detroit Tigers and the Pizza pizza empire. John Middleton, the Owner of the Philadelphia Phillies. John Sherman, two John’s back to back, there you go. The Owner of the Kansas City Royals, and Ted Lerner and the Lerner family, the Owner of the Washington National, there you go. You’re top third of MLB Owners.
JORDAN: I feel good–
ALEX: Like I’m like a mixed bag of like success with, with a lot of these teams.
BOBBY: Younger, older kind of different worlds of money, you know.
JORDAN: I gonna be honest, it seems like, Bobby, I think you pivoted to DeWitt kind of recklessly. Because you saw that there was a run on Midwestern teams and you were like, oh shit, I gotta grab one.
BOBBY: Well, this is actually a good opportunity to talk about this and, and we’ll do kind of guys that were on the fringes that we didn’t select. And then also, you know, maybe five Owners that we immediately crossed off as you guys so hilariously said. The medical scratches from the failed medicals from the–
JORDAN: The doctors say you can’t pick this guy, I’m sorry.
BOBBY: We want him but the Michael Porter Jr.–
JORDAN: You can’t give this guy [inaudible]–
BOBBY: –[inaudible] surgery that’s coming. He just can’t give him the extension. Uhm, yes–
JAKE: I think the number one guy who, our next pick would have been and I think you’re maybe the same the Pohlads, the Twins Owners are right there.
JORDAN: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Yeah. Because honestly appointed in their favor. I didn’t really know who own the Twins before this. I mean, I don’t watch a lot of Twins because–
JORDAN: Why would you?
BOBBY: Yes, exactly that that is one of the least interesting divisions if you’re not a fan of one of the teams in that division. But, you know, the way that they made their money seems like not the worst, they did inherit it from their self-made billionaire grandfather or father, whatever, Carl Pohlad. They don’t spend a ton on the team though, really. Like they they’re kind of like in that lower middle class of of payroll every year. And I I know that we said that we don’t really value what fans say all the time. But I feel like fans are a little bit cold on them. And the way that they run that team, and the way, the only way that they like, make big signings are like team friendly extensions, like the Byron Buxton thing, which is complicated because of the injuries, but they don’t like splash–
JAKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: –very frequently. And that’s if you’re going to draft an Owner, that you are happy about, you probably want someone who splashes the other guy, who Alex and I were debating, will I will say–
JAKE: Well, let me say quickly, let me just say quickly.
BOBBY: Yeah, go ahead.
JAKE: if you go to the Pohlad Family Foundation, there is a tab for racial justice. Which, and they donated $25 million to racial justice things in the Twin Cities area. Which like, again, it’s probably not that much money. But I want you to just imagine Steve Cohen doing that, like imagine Steve Cohen, doing that press release, right? It’s, they’re probably like 10 to 15 hours with it’s an inconceivable press release.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, the Pohlads is one of the few Owners who haven’t given to Republican candidates, like at least in this last election like that.
JAKE: Yeah yeah.
BOBBY: If you look up the Pohlads on Forbes list of the richest families in America, which is a fucking hilarious list, by the way. You look it up the the header photo is one of the Pohlads son, don’t know which one, don’t really care. It’s actually impossible to overstate how much this guy is trying to look like Jon Bon Jovi. Which I don’t, that your mileage may vary, if that’s a point in their favor or a point against the Pohlads in this draft, but it’s shocking. It’s shocking, and I encourage–
JAKE: Bobby.
BOBBY: –everyone listening to do that.
JORDAN: Wow, you’re so right. Oh, my God.
JAKE: It’s his life, it’s–
JORDAN: Oh, man,
BOBBY: Another guy who we were debating–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –for this final pick.
ALEX: Give him, give him a shine.
BOBBY: Is a man of much controversy in the last three years, particularly, which is why I have a terrible bitter taste in my mouth when Alex brought up his name before you guys got on the Zoom. And that is when John Henry–
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: –the Owner of the Boston–
JORDAN: Same–
BOBBY: –Red Sox.
JORDAN: –we had the same discussion.
ALEX: I was really in his corner.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Because–
JAKE: If you take the amount of six–
ALEX: Yeah.
JAKE: –out of it, it’s a different thing. Yeah.
ALEX: It is a completely different thing. Yeah, we’re having this conversation two or three years ago. It’s I mean, because if you look at his track record, since he took over the team, in in what? 2002? I mean, they’d have just one and one and one. And he spent right. I mean, he came in, he made it his mission to to break the curse of the Bambino. And then–
BOBBY: Did it…
ALEX: –did.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And then they won again, you know, a few years later, and then. Like sustained success, I think counts for counts for a lot. They’ve been to the playoffs 11 times under him.
JORDAN: Yeah.
ALEX: Just like half, half the years he’s under the team. It’s, it’s, I don’t know–
JORDAN: I would, I gotta say this Bobby, not to keep harping on it, I’d take him before DeWitt. That’s… But, but it’s true that the Mookie thing as far as ownership ga–like public like kissing, again, we talked about what are the fans care. That is easily, you know? One of the most insulting, ridiculous things that we’ve had in last, you know, three years. So–
BOBBY: I think that it just depends on how you look at it philosophically, right? So do you look at it like, is it a body of work thing? Like how, like you are the fan of that own that team, and that Owner now and you get to like internalize all of the prior experience. Or that person, you just wake up that day, and that person is now your Owner for the future. Because I don’t think he has a fuck about Baseball anymore. Like, I think it’s going in the opposite direction. He’s investing in Liverpool.
JORDAN: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: He’s running the Red Sox like it’s a hedge fund and they did like move money around. Like you’re trying to pay off bills at the end of the month. Like it’s very weird how they run that team. And I think, given my predilection, and my interest in Baseball, I would just go crazy rooting for the guy who’s like, we have to be $2 million over the luxury tax, and then we have to reset it. And then we have to be $4 million over and then we have to reset it. And it doesn’t matter if we lose, the base, the the team’s most generational star in 100 years to do it. Like that is just, that drives me crazy. Like with the amount of assets they have that they would actually do that. And I don’t know, maybe you’re right. or maybe it was just a run on Midwest guys. And I didn’t want to coastal he is.
JAKE: Jordan, I had a colleague at one point, who was both a Red Sox and a Liverpool fan. Like, like legit both. And he would always joke like, oh, we sign JD Martinez is like, now we can’t get Virgil van Dijk, right? And like, that’s not how it works, obviously. But it also kind of is at the same time and like that they’re a great tweet. Like I remember when the when the Red Sox signed JD Martinez, Liverpool fans who don’t know anything about the Red Sox for like responding to the tweet, being like oh a cat full of [inaudible] collectively spending this ball now on. You know, like we need we need a winner, who’s JD Martinez? You know like shit like that.
BOBBY: I uhm–
JAKE: Who else was on our board?
BOBBY: Well really quick on really quickly on, on Henry is that a point in his favor actually is that he’s done a great job of hiring. Like hiring Theo and then hiring Dombrowski, like and now hiring Chaim. Like it it seems like–
JORDAN: Yo give Cherington is [inaudible] my God–
BOBBY: Sorry, I’m sorry to Cherington.
JAKE: With no no Cherington, no [inaudible], no sale, no title, baby.
JORDAN: One no nothing.
BOBBY: One day he will get to have sex with Billy Beane, but today is not that day.
ALEX: You know the la–the last thing I want to say on John Henry is like this is a guy I think I probably would have hung out with as as a kid. I mean, first of all, he got to start trading Soybean futures which like I don’t even know what the fuck that. I’m but like he you know, he went to UC Irvine and UCLA, Majored in Philosophy but dropped out because he was touring in a couple bands. Like he actually sounded like a good hang at one point in his life. Maybe not the guy you want to smoke weed with today. But you know, 40 years ago? 50 years ago?
BOBBY: Are there any honorable mention–
JAKE: Soybean, Soybean future. Soybean future God impossible Henry. Beyond John. I–
BOBBY: We’re running low on time here. So any other honorable mentions very quickly and then just list off the guys that you immediately cross off.
JAKE: Okay, so the only other guy that I brought up as an Orioles fan was Angelo’s, and it was John Angelo’s not Peter angelos, the son of Peter Angelos. If we’re talking morality, I actually think Peter Angelos is pretty clearly your first pick. Uhm, and it’s, it’s, it’s really not a conversation, and I went through John Angelos’ political donations and like, its extensive, like, extensive list of of things vaguely in the right direction. Uhm, that being said, the Orielles, Jordan said, If you passed out and you woke up, and it was like, you still have engine buses running next to you, would you be happy? And I was like, yeah, you’re right. Like, when I’m staring, when I’m staring his 47 wins. I’m not like, ooh, good. he’s like woo [inaudible] a good guy.
JAKE: oe Biden $5,000. Like, you know, that’s not–
JORDAN: And also, we already took two other John’s so we can’t refer to too crazy.
BOBBY: For those of you who don’t know, Angelos made his money by representing some 18 or 8700 steel workers, shipyard workers and manufacturers, employees and a consolidated action, asbestos poisoning suit that was partially settled in 1992. His take from that litigation alone has been estimated at $330 million. Though the city tried to take some of that back and lower his commission, he eventually settled for $150 million. But this was way back when he bought the team after that his net worth now is $2 billion. And yeah, they’re winning 40 games a year and and I’m not sure what–
JAKE: Let’s go, baby!
ALEX: He also, he also like sued sued like Tobacco Companies, right? on behalf of like smokers who were getting lung cancer. Which is like–
BOBBY: Lightweight.
ALEX: –weird territory. Yeah. lightweight legend, but like, he’s also like, you know, making making money out–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –of the sick, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like, he’s like, hh, yes, you want to go take on the the big tobacco company over here? I’ll do it for a fee.
JAKE: Hey, did you watch Better Call Saul?
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: No.
JAKE: Did you, do are we honest? Saul Goodman faces, very Saul Goodman energy. And for [inaudible]
BOBBY: Whatever you–
JAKE: I–
BOBBY: –to call yourself.
JAKE: –goes.
JORDAN: Yeah, goes. So that’s Angelos was gonna one, but I think we explained why it was not in number one.
JAKE: The, the one, the one that we did consider before doing a little bit of research. And now we can talk about cross-offs, was Ray Davis at the Texas Rangers. So we saw Ray Davis and we said, we were like, oh, Ray Davis, they just spent half, they just spent half a billion dollars on like, six war between Corey Seager and Marcus Semien, okay? That’s pretty good. Whatever. Let’s click on Ray Davis. Okay, Ray Davis, what does he do? CEO for Energy Transfer Partners. What do they do? Oh, they own 36% of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
ALEX: Yep.
JAKE: And that was that.
BOBBY: Yeah, immediate cross off. Like if you’re listening this late in the pod. I- I feel compelled now that the Dakota Access Pipeline has been brought up. I feel compelled to let Tipping pitches listeners know about a little project we’re working on about Baseball and climate change. Is going to be a two-part podcast series. And you know, if you care about Owners and their relationships to the fossil fuel industry, just look out for that one in the coming future. We don’t have a release date yet, but Alex and I are deep in the weeds of the reporting stage of that. So keep your–
JAKE: Climate climate what? What’s the climate up to?
BOBBY: All right.
JORDAN: That is a yes.
JAKE: Bobby, it’s so cold outside.
JORDAN: Bobby again, like, like I think you said the beginning. We don’t have to belabor these because it’s like–
BOBBY: That’s very honest.
JORDAN: –we do this all the time.
BOBBY: Here were the cross-offs that I wrote down immediately before even writing down a big board cross-off Bob Nutting.
JORDAN: Yeah, so yeah, yep yep.
ALEX: Go Ricketts.
JAKE: No, no, no, nothing November.
JORDAN: Yep.
BOBBY: John Fisher and Charles Johnson. Those were the four that first came to mind as immediate–
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: –cross for me. Alex, were there any others for you from our side?
ALEX: Okay, Reinsdorf.
BOBBY: Yeah, dude, one.
ALEX: Guys, I mean, like, biggest, biggest anti-union Owner like has owned the team for decades, and they’ve never really been, been good underhand. I’m like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
JAKE: Dolan–
ALEX: –were you?
JAKE: Dolan?
ALEX: Dolan?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Dolan.
JORDAN: Okay [inaudible]–
BOBBY: Dolan is bigger fail son, next to one of the biggest fail sons in sports history. And he’s just getting to chill in Cleveland, because there’s not like bing bong fans yelling at him outside the stadium.
JORDAN: While you have to give him credit for running of an extremely amazing Baseball team. Still Stu Sternberg, just because like we got to keep anyone who’s running payroll that roll alone with Pittsburgh right okay, so even though the recent credit.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah.
JORDAN: And then come on people, Arte Moreno, which I know to some people–
BOBBY: Oh, good one.
JORDAN: –will say oh, but Arte Moreno, [inaudible] is gonna give the good players $300 million, great! It’s like, dude, that’s not that’s it’s not working. Whatever he’s doing. It’s not working.
BOBBY: Arte Moreno initial fortune came from billboard advertising company, outdoor systems. Which he sold to Infinity Broadcasting in 1999 for take a deep breath, $8.7 billion for a billboard AD company. Can you imagine?
JAKE: I think Arte Moreno bottom three, if I woke up in this like, they’re already my team.
BOBBY: Yeah.
JAKE: Because he is so, the the Angels are so incompetent that it’s like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
JAKE: –I I could not stomach that. I honestly, if I made my own list or number, I think be on my list. Because as someone who has seen so little success for my team, I would–
JORDAN: Yeah.
JAKE: –make a deal with the devil–
ALEX: [inaudible] at anything.
JORDAN: Right like for man, by the way, the other ones category, it’s like–
JAKE: Wait wait, let me say, your, if Stu Sternberg was running the Orioles right now, they’d be better than they were if it was [inaudible]. Like that’s just a right, it it doesn’t mean it would be a more moral operation or better for Baseball. But like I would be able to swallow that poison pill for a period of time. So I can see an orange and black banner hang before I you know croak.
JORDAN: Yeah, I think and then there’s other category like we were talking about, like the Charles Johnson’s where it’s like, not so great human, but they’re, they’re good is like Jim Crane.
BOBBY: Yep.
JORDAN: You know, he’s probably also near the top of the list so anyway, I think we’ve covered it we’ve named basically all of them. Basically every owner, I think.
JAKE: Bruce Sherman, not sure what your deal is.
JORDAN: The only and I just want to say I’m very proud because the only I think the on–oh the other, the other automatic cross-office just the corporations in Atlanta in Toronto.
ALEX: Right.
JORDAN: Because that’s just really–
BOBBY: Those are the only one, I think those are the only two that have not come up at all have not even been mentioned other than–
JORDAN: Two more, two more that have not been mentioned at all.
BOBBY: Ken Kendrick has not been mentioned.
JORDAN: Ken Kendrick not mentioned–
BOBBY: My favorite fan fact about Ken Kendrick is he was, he was a Banking Industry Executive in Texas after developing Datatel, Inc, a Software Development Company. I don’t see how those two things are related, but Banking Industry Executives they like Baseball just like us.
JORDAN: And then [inaudible] Stanton of the Seattle Mariners has never mentioned at all. Again, like they’re they he’s not he seems like a totally normal rich guy.
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: He’s lovely and offensive, but–
BOBBY: Lowkey he was the CEO of every single wireless telecom company and like the mid–
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: –2000s, so he was just getting around.
JORDAN: Yeah, but he’s also presided over obvious dysfunction, like crazy, even as the team is sort of returned to somewhat competent.
JAKE: That he once at a Columbia baseball game went to go catch a game and someone’s like, that’s the Mariners Owner, that was it. I don’t really meet him, I saw him. That’s different.
JORDAN: Yeah, so John, Stan, there you go. I think we’ve mentioned every owner now, we did it.
BOBBY: That’s our list. Ahh Jake Mintz, Jordan Shusterman, Céspedes Family Barbecue–
JORDAN: Fun guys–
BOBBY: –you probably–
JAKE: What did we learn today?
BOBBY: –follow them on Twitter already.
JAKE: What did we learn today? Bobby?
BOBBY: No conscious consumerism under capitalism?
JAKE: Yes. Oh, one last thing. I just want to ask this, Mark Cuban. I just want to bring up Mark Cuban, quick.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Yeah, why not.
JAKE: Because where would you put theoretical Mark Cuban on your board? Because to me, Mark Cuban is the Sports Owner in my head. Like he is the guy who owns a sports team, he’s there all the time. On your board, if you woke up and you’re like, oh Mark Cuban owns this tea–my team, is in your top five?
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: Yes, absolutely. I would also say two Mark Cuban things. One, I mean, is it safe to assume if there was no salary cap in the NBA? That he would basically be doing what Steve Cohen’s doing? Probably?
BOBBY: I don’t think so. Like–
JORDAN: I don’t know what the NBA.
BOBBY: I I mean, I think that he would be spending a lot. I think the analog in the NBA is Steve Ballmer.
JORDAN: Okay.
BOBBY: The Clippers and is like, actually one of the 10 richest people.
JORDAN: Okay, but that’s the other thing right? As rich as Cuban is. Farmers literally like top whatever. The only thing I would say about Cuban is that, buy the Pirates, please. He is also he’s not going to–
BOBBY: He didn’t, he has overseen one of the most dysfunctional organizations from a workplace culture perspective.
JORDAN: Oh, really?
BOBBY: Yeah, the, the Mavericks are like it’s a whole mass they have, they have a culture problem with like sexual harassment and like burying–
JAKE: No, we not know that.
JORDAN: That’s true. I’m just saying and he tried to buy the Cubs actually, like 20 years ago. So I don’t even know how much like Pittsburgh Pirates look you know, interest or fandom leads instantly on baseball guy really? But still for Pirates fans that would be–
BOBBY: Obsessed with PNC Park watching games like city sitting right on play like Marlins, man.
JORDAN: I just like–
JAKE: He’s wearing a Bryan Reynolds.
JORDAN: I would just like the Pirates–
BOBBY: [inaudible] Hernandez for calling an outside pitcher strike like he’s just fucking going at it.
JORDAN: Yeah, I’m just that’s just like a very, very basic level. Like, would be fun if he, you know, it’s like, I would just love the notion of Mark Cuban buying the Pirates and just like Pirates going from like $30 million payroll to like 200. Like, [inaudible] are you spending buddy? Like it’s not–
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah yeah.
JORDAN: I mean, you know, it’s not the same–
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: –transformation.
ALEX: Try to imagine him in a boardroom with all these other 80-year old Owners who like–
JORDAN: He would never get approved. But anyway, all right, that’s my last mark.
BOBBY: Jake has Ken Kendrick as his background Zoom screen and it’s giving strikingly similar vibe to Emperor Palpatine. So that means we got to wrap this, Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman Céspedes Family Barbecue, check their writing out and their videos out on Fox. Love you guys. Thank you for doing this.
JAKE: Bye. Thank you.
[Transition Music]
BOBBY: Okay, thank you, Jake Mintz, thank you to Jordan Shusterman of Céspedes Family Barbecue. Not like they need it, but go follow them on Twitter. Alex, do you have any regrets about our draft board? Anything that you wish you could take back?
ALEX: I mean, I think the biggest thing missing for me, obviously, was the, the catharsis of being able to dunk on our our favorite Owners, right? The Ricketts of the world, the, the Fishers of the world. That was glaringly absent because that was not the point of this exercise. But it’s kind of hard to to log on and talk about Owners and not talk about the ones that keep you up at night, ou know,.
BOBBY: But I thought it was fun, anyway. Like, I liked learning how some of these guys made their money. You know–
ALEX: Oh, absolutely.
BOBBY: –some of it is some real like old world, 18th century, 19th century kind of stuff. If you found that a railroad and shipping logistics empire in 1910, you know, and you’re still only a Major League Baseball team. I don’t know what am I gonna say about that?
ALEX: But I mean, if you, if you founded that in 1910, and you’re still alive, I definitely must hit my cap-cap to you.
BOBBY: I guess it’s less of a cap tip for the for the guys who inherited their great grandfather’s railroad empire.
ALEX: Right. Like, that’s what I love learning about is like, which kids kind of failed upwards into–
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: –owning a $4 billion enterprise.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. You know, I said to you before we started recording this podcast that really like just doing this little amount of surface-level research into these guys kind of made me want to do like a 30-part podcast series about each Owner and just kind of how they made their money. Whether or not they move in silence, like whether they have a forbes.com footprint are not. Like the Peter Seidler thing, really got me thinking, why doesn’t Forbes know anything about this guy? It’s just a fascinating, endless rabbit hole for us. So we’re very thankful that people were willing to come along the journey of this draft.
ALEX: I love that like four plus years into this labor podcast, we like, finally started looking up who the Owners are, and we’re like, hang on a second. These guys are up to some high jinx.
BOBBY: Well, we knew they were the high jinx, did know how to define the high jinx and [1:44:42]
ALEX: Yeah, all that to say I am moving away from crypto and towards corn and soybean futures. That’s I think the path is set out there.
BOBBY: As long as you’re not selling wholesale fruits and vegetables like Robert Castellini.
ALEX: That’s a, that’s a tough, it’s a tough business. Much as I love brussel sprouts.
BOBBY: He’s struggling at the moment. Thank you for listening to this episode of Tipping Pitches. We will be back next week.
[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 
Leave a comment