Alex and Bobby bid adieu to Cowboy Joe West’s time as an umpire, which thankfully means more time for him in the recording studio. Then they dive into the latest news on the bargaining front, including why owners want a mediator and why players rightfully rejected it, what this maneuver says about the state of negotiations, how the owners underestimated players coming into the offseason, the players’ united front on social media, and much more. Then they shift their attention to Brian Flores’s lawsuit against the NFL for discriminatory hiring practices, and reflect on baseball’s own problems when it comes to diversity in managerial positions. Finally, a few listener questions on junk food, finding an apartment, what’s been on the TV for Alex and Bobby lately, and the prospect of a Tipping Pitches live show.
Links:
Shakeia Taylor on addressing MLB’s pipeline for managers of color
Rhiannon Walker on the state of the Black manager in MLB
Songs featured in this episode:
Diddy — “Diddy (feat. the Neptunes)” • Sturgill Simpson — “Life of Sin” • 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, I have to say, we started this podcast, when we used to joke with each other about how we would just agree all the time. 100% of the time, no matter what anybody said, we would agree. And over the years, the distance of 1000s of miles between us staring at each other on Zoom screens. I feel like we’ve grown divided. You know, there are some topics that we’ve never been able to come to an agreement on, we’re at a stalemate. And so I didn’t tell you this ahead of time, just kind of drop it in on you live in the public sphere. So that everybody else can react to it, in a bad faith way. I actually invited a Federal Mediator to be part of the podcast today, just to maybe, you know, ease the tension between us. So the Federal Mediators in the waiting room. And if it’s okay with you, I’m gonna, I’m just gonna let him in. Is that all right?
ALEX: Do I have to agree to this? I think that as the other party here, I have to give my informed consent to this. So can I, can I know who the, who the mediator is? What is, this background is? Maybe his net worth?
BOBBY: Net Worth? Is open secrets donation record?
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: I know the Federal, the Federal Mediator is Bob Nightengale.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: You don’t know which way he’s gonna land. He’s a loose cannon.
ALEX: He he really is.
BOBBY: Actually no, Bob Nightengale very busy these days. He’s just writing columns, he’s writing so many columns. I don’t know how or why, he just writes columns. He doesn’t anything else, just columns. Half of them are wrong. But he writes the column.
ALEX: I guess when you churn out so many, you’re bound to get some right just by, you know, by chance.
BOBBY: Oh–
ALEX: I need to know he’s trying–
BOBBY: –to say is bound to get some wrong by chance. That you’re going to take the more generous interpretation of it. [2:18] about to get some right by chance. I thought you were going for the, he’s the Monta Ellis of USA Today. Wow.
ALEX: Damn, rip.
BOBBY: Young Alex was like, trade Steph Curry not Monta Ellis. That’s that’s definitely true.
ALEX: That absolutely is true. Yeah.
BOBBY: Uhm, no, you know, who’s got a lot of free time to be the federal mediator between us. Cowboy Joe West. That’s–
ALEX: Hmmm, that’s true. A Hall of Fame? Joe West, Hall of Fame? What do you think?
BOBBY: Are they’re like, are they’re like first ballot Hall of Famers for umpire? Like, because they’re the–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –amount of time that you’re not allowed to be on the ballot when you’re an ump. Or is He, is he potentially already in the Hall of Fame? Like he’s just not–because with Managers, you can be actively in the Hall of Fame, right? You don’t have to be, I guess, if you were recognized for your playing career and then became a Manager after.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Which is not what happened with Joe West. He’s going to be in the the Nashville Country Music Hall of Fame, that’s for sure.
ALEX: That is for sure. You know, I I just want to say as when I heard the news that he retired, I was, you know, obviously taking a trip down memory lane and exploring some of his musical exploits over the years.
BOBBY: Right. I know you had a flight. So did you just download all of his spoken word albums and paste–
ALEX: I–
BOBBY: –them straight through.
ALEX: I did, I did, yes. I’m currently trying to write a dissertation, a piece of music criticism on what’s a very–
BOBBY: Nuanced.
ALEX: –nuanced. Yes, exactly. Yeah.
BOBBY: 10 out of 10.
ALEX: –work.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah. No, I’m I’m I’m leaning 7.8. Because, you know, while it’s got its flaws. You know, I’m an optimist at heart. And I think that I think that he’s worthy of, of considered criticism. He’s a part of the cultural zeitgeist. So what are you going to do just say that his voice is invalid?
BOBBY: Yeah, he’s talking about things that are in the culture right now. Like supporting the men in blue, and the founding fathers–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –and baseball history?
ALEX: All this to say, I I have been unable to find his album from like, 20 or 30 years ago, blue cowboy.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I can, I am, I I, we found, I found diamond James.
BOBBY: It’s on Spotify.
ALEX: I hope he owns music, you know, or is–
BOBBY: He had a masters.
ALEX: –like, oh, like a little cowboy Joe’s version.
BOBBY: It could use a re record. It sounds like it was recorded on like a USB microphone.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: Well, no, like live in a empty room.
ALEX: Cowboy Joe, if you need audio tips, this this man, sitting sitting across from me, he’s your guy.
BOBBY: That would be, the thing that I would be most proud of professionally. Is if I was the mixing and mastering engineer [5:08]–
ALEX: Imagine getting cowboy [5:09] credits.
BOBBY: Oh my god. Let’s go. I’ll quit the podcast for that. I I played with the idea of yesterday when we were, I was kind of unhinged tweeting about Rob Manfred. I played with the idea of being like, a following up to one of those tweets and being like, I’ll quit the podcast if Rob or any of the 30 Baseball owners are willing to come on. Like, that’ll be our final show. They come on podcast over–
ALEX: Headache.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Done.
BOBBY: But I don’t even, that’s not true. I’m not quitting the podcast over that, I’m not leaving. Rob can’t silence me in any way.
ALEX: It depends on how successful the conversation is, I think, you know.
BOBBY: I kind of think we would get bodied by most of them. Like, they’re like 70. They’ve been asked tough questions before, especially Rob.
ALEX: Well, I I I think that Rob and the owners are probably different characters. Rob would absolutely body us.
BOBBY: Yeah, we don’t stand a chance against Rob. This guy’s like, he’s like the Commissioner of Baseball. He’s he’s had tougher moments than coming on Tipping Pitches, that’s for sure. We’re not exactly like investigative journalists here.
ALEX: Right, yeah. Yeah, I think if we had Dick Monfort on, it might be a bit of a different story. Some of these guys–
BOBBY: I think we could get along.
ALEX: I think so too.
BOBBY: Maybe that’s the healing moment American needs.
ALEX: That’s reaching across the aisle.
BOBBY: We can make peace with baseball owners?
ALEX: [6:31] God, we’re well on our way to getting canceled.
BOBBY: Uhm, okay, we are going to talk about the federal mediator in a serious way. We’re going to talk about the last week plus, basically two weeks at this point, Alex, in collective bargaining. Since last week, we we ran an episode with Rob Mans, which I think is still informative, if you had not heard that episode yet. Still informative for how the baseball economic landscape has been shaped leading up to this point. But I was on my trip back to the east coast. So we have not been able to discuss any of the news on CBA in last two weeks, and then a couple of listener questions at the end. Before we do all of that. I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[7:14]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Alex, you and I have not spoken for the purposes of the Tipping Pitches Podcast since January 25th. And we put out a new episode on January 27th. It is February 7th, which is really coming up on when spring training typically starts. And in that time, which I drove through the entirety of the great United States of America.
ALEX: A heartland.
BOBBY: In a car, MLB and MLBPA have a limit one time, one time they met once, on Tuesday, February 1st. The players returned the proposal to the owners at that time.
ALEX: Was, was this like. was this the 90-minute meeting? The heated 90-minute meeting?
BOBBY: Yeah, that the heated 90-minute meeting. The every reporter is obligated to say, it was a heated discussion for 90 minutes.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Would love to be in that room, I don’t really understand how it they typically 90 minutes. You don’t really meet across the table for 90 whole minutes. Like you meet for 5 minutes, and then leave and then come back for 5 minutes and then leave and then come back for 5 minutes.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So this is just 90 minutes of players being like, hey, what the hell? Because they’re so, I would have loved to see it.
ALEX: I hope so.
BOBBY: I would have loved to see it.
ALEX: That’s it, that’s a shorter amount of time that it usually takes us to record one of these episodes.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I just for context.
BOBBY: But this is a heated 90-minutes. That’s how [8:45]–
ALEX: It is, it is heated, it’s true.
BOBBY: The upshot of that meeting is that players made a few legitimate concessions. They went down from $100 million, changing the revenue sharing by $100 million to only change it by $30 million. They went down on their WAR bonus pool for zero through three pre arbitration players. A few other things as well, but owners coming out of that meeting, the heated 90-minute meeting that it was. They promised to return a proposal within, I probably they said two days at maximum.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That was now seven days ago, six days ago. Instead, two days later, they requested help from a federal mediator. When the owners requested help from the federal mediator. Take, take me through you Alex Bazeley’s response to that. You’re logging on you’re like is a federal, US Federal employee going to fix this?
ALEX: Here’s the thing is that like lifelong bureaucrats are often relatively decent at at their jobs. Like uh, you know, I’m far be it for me to disparage someone who’s, who’s given their life for, for this country metaphorically speaking. You know, that [10:00], but the–
BOBBY: You’re only willing to discourse–
ALEX: [10:03]
BOBBY: –once you’ve given that life literally.
ALEX: Oh, wow. Yeah, I’m gonna, I’m not gonna address that one. Uhm, it’s kind of like spending like 10 minutes on, on a crossword puzzle. And already, like going up to the, to the like hints corner, you know. Saying, all right, I need, give me, give me a few letters.
BOBBY: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, find a new hobby at that point.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Like you’re clearly not very good at this or at least interested in investing the time it would take to deliver a reasonable outcome.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So why are you really doing it at all? And they think that, perhaps the same thought could be applied to said MLB owners. Who throughout this entire process, it seems, have not been so interested in taking this very seriously. Or, or at least negotiating in a way that would lead you to believe they actually expect that they would get this far.
BOBBY: Yes. So we, we talk, when we talk about CBA negotiations. We talk a lot about numerical differences. And those are actually the better of the two. It can seem like MLBPA says 110 million, and MLB says 5 million, and they’re never going to find a deal, right? It’s not really true. Like the things that blow up deals are philosophical differences.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: The problem is, most ownership, most management, most business owners in America have a philosophical disagreement with the notion with the idea of collective bargaining to begin with. And often, when you’re observing a collective bargaining negotiation, that that there’s a point at which that becomes apparent. And this is that point in Major–
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: –League Baseball, they’re like, we don’t want to do this. We don’t want to do the work. We don’t want to come to the table with our proposals. It took them 48 days or whatever it took them after the lockout started, to even send back a proposal. They promised they would send one back in 48 hours, we’re now six days removed, and a bogus Federal Mediation request. And I should say it’s bogus, because the players were never going to agree to this, the owners did this for PR. I think there’s reasonable cases and times where Federal Mediation can actually help in collective bargaining negotiations. But not when one side is not even giving back proposals. And that’s what the players all came out and collectively said. The statement from the ML–MLB Players Association, started out with two months after implementing their lockout, and just two days after committing to players that a counter proposal would be made. The owners, the owners refused to make a counter and instead requested mediation. So it’s like, it’s not that we’re both, both sides are doing our work. And we’re not seeing eye to eye it’s that one side is not doing their job.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So which should not be surprising to people who listen to this podcast, the owners are not doing their job. Because they don’t actually have jobs most of the time. They have to complete tasks for, also worth giving context that Donald fear the former Executive Director of the Players Association said, a very similar thing happened in 1994-1995, where Bill Clinton appointed a federal mediator. And the federal mediator made a CBA recommendation, which fear and the player said was totally bogus and completely delayed and strung out the process and made them look like bad guys for turning it down. And they did not want, goes without saying that they did not want a similar situation to that. Because there are still replay guys on Twitter being like, fans remember 94. And we hate players still, because of it. It’s like, well, you’re still a fan 30 years later. And these are not the same players. And it’s not the same owners even. But all that to say, usually an ownership group that doesn’t actually want a CBA deal, or doesn’t want anything to change from their previous CBA deal will act exactly like MLB owners are acting right now.
ALEX: Which is funny, given that with, can you refresh my memory on who called the lockout again? Because they thought it might lead to a speedy negotiation process.
BOBBY: I, am, and a lot has happened since then.
ALEX: Was it Scherzer who popped on Twitter and was like, yeah–
BOBBY: Lockout activated, yeah.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I think, yeah, he asked Scott Boras to put out a statement from. But, but yeah, that was.
ALEX: Yeah, okay. It was Scherzer, okay.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I you know, real quick, because, because we value accountability here on Tipping Pitches. I want to, I want to apologize because at the start of this at the start of this lockout, you you know, you asked me we prognosticated so to speak. On on how long we found–
BOBBY: On anyone and everyone is my–
ALEX: –podcast.
BOBBY: –not even just stars.
ALEX: Right. It was it was all over the place. And and I predicted–
BOBBY: On how, on how long, right? On how–
ALEX: –right. On on how long this would this would drag out? Would we miss any games or anything like that. And I, perhaps naively said that I thought that it certainly would drag out until January or February. But I I didn’t really think we were at risk of losing many games, if any at all. Because the the owners had too much at stake. Which I I still think is true, they still have plenty at stake. But I somehow managed to underestimate how stubborn a group of 30 billionaires really are. I, because it’s very clear, they are uninterested in actually meeting the players halfway on on any of these.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And I think that’s because the owners underestimated the players in how frustrated they actually were. I think they expected them to roll over long before we actually got to this point, right? With the threat of missed paychecks from canceled games. They thought that would probably be enough, right? And I think that owners were maybe not prepared for the unified front that the players are really putting out right now. And how much the players were actually willing to sacrifice the current moment for, effectively, what is the future of baseball, right? What is the future of the sport? Because the players, it seems, are prepared to say, yes, we might miss some paychecks here. But there are issues at stake right now that loom much larger over the the present and future of baseball. That it is in our best interest, to not just give you exactly what you want. Which is maybe what the players have done in the past. I think the owners were really unprepared for this. And that’s what this Federal Mediation bit of news seems to indicate, right? Is it’s a bit of a Hail Mary on the owners part. Because they kind of thought they’d just be getting what they wanted at this point.
BOBBY: See, I think it’s just holding the ball out and running the clock out. Like in basketball, if, if there’s no shot clock, it’s just it’s your version of giving the ball to the point guard and just turning his back to the basket for–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –about 15 seconds just to run the clock down before they finally bring the trap over. Like, to me that’s really strain as many of these other other sports metaphors as we can. You want to throw a hockey one in? Maybe Olympics to be on topic to be time in.
ALEX: Yeah, this is, this is the, this is trying to pull off a quad axle. And and and landing too early. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t really know how figure skating works.
BOBBY: This is like not pushing the curling stone hard enough and then really having to scrub it to get it to go faster, right at the end.
ALEX: Sure. Yeah. Nails good.
BOBBY: Uhm, no, because now we’ve made so many metaphors. I don’t even remember what I was gonna say. It’s–
ALEX: Not scrubbing enough, not scrubbing enough.
BOBBY: Right. That’s not scrub enough, that that jogs my memory. I think you’re right, that it’s, it’s a testament to how stubborn 30 billionaires can be. But I think an important nuance to that is it’s it’s a testament to how stubborn 30 billionaires who already have what they want.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And that’s why we talked about, it’s so hard to get your first Collective Bargaining Agreement after union has formed. Because what you’re doing is you’re changing the fundamental relationship of workers and management. You’re saying, now there are these things that govern our working relationship. That’s why the PA, when it was first formed, was like one of the most successful unions in American history. Because baseball was this gigantic industry. And it was a wild wild west for owners versus players. They were screwing players up so many thing,s like unbelievable amounts of money. Which is why now, players make so much money because they were able to take some of those things back. And every time you have a successive CBA, the the players are identifying problems with the past CBA and trying to correct for them. Problems with the past CBA is a subjective statement from my perspective. I’m saying problems that are jeopardizing the future health of the game and players ability to want to participate in it. But also like, existential threats to the financial elements of the game, too. But owners don’t see this as problems, man. Like, that’s what we’ve been talking about for the last three years. Owners like everything is pretty good. Even if we’re not really colluding with each other. We’re effectively colluding with each other. There’s this stat from from Evan Altman on Twitter, that I just recently shared. Average MLB salary in 2020 was 4.17 million, down 6.4% from 2017. Median salary, 1.15 million, down 30% from 2015. So why would the owners want to change anything? Why the the salary is going down, revenues are going up? Our friend Grant Grant Frisbee made that very clear by tweeting that graph, repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly. So when we’re talking about who’s stalling, or whose fault it is? Probably the side that wants to keep things exactly the same and doesn’t benefit at all from coming to the table. And is proving it over and over again, by pulling sounds like the federal mediator.
ALEX: Here’s the thing is they could have kept it exactly the same, right? They could have kept the CBA exactly what it is, they did not need to call a lockout, they could have just kept playing out and and negotiating over the course of the offseason. If you, if you don’t come to an agreement, you will just continue to play under the rules of the last CBA until you come to a new one, right? And the the only reason you don’t do that is, is if you’re worried that the players might strike, right? You don’t want to leave open that possibility. And that’s why you call the lockout is to basically preempt that strike. And the only reason you get worried if the players are going to strike, is if you maybe have an inkling of a thought that you might be the one who’s not negotiating in the best faith. If you think, hmm, we might not be putting forth a very good deal. And the players might not be too happy about that. So like there is a bit of self-awareness, I think that the owners have of like, we know how stubborn we’re being. And we don’t want to give the players an opportunity to seize on that. But now we’re at this point where they’ve kind of run out of ideas, like the players, to a certain extent, seem to have the upper hand right now in negotiating. Because I still think that owners really don’t want to lose money–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –guys, they really don’t. And they start losing money as soon as spring training starts. Which notably players don’t, they’re still don’t get paid for spring training. So it really feels like a last ditch effort to me to try and whip some sense into players, which obviously they they’re not taking the bait for, right? They are recognizing that the owners have not actually come to the table and there is no actual formal impasse, right? And impasse exists when the two sides agree, hey, we are negotiating in good faith on these issues. But we still have differences in like you were saying the numbers, we think this number should be 10 million. And and you think it should be 50 million. And we’re both steadfast in that. And we need someone to come in and just give their third party opinion, right? And that’s just not the case here.
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: That’s not what’s going on.
BOBBY: This is why it was so confusing. When over the weekend, we saw a report, not really a report, just a tweet from Jeff Jones, who writes for, who’s [22:50] Cardinals beat writer for Belleville news. Who wa,s who had, I believe had attended some kind of Cardinals fan event or something like that, that Adam Wainwright was at. And apparently Wainwright said, If owners proposed the exact same deal we have right now we’d probably go play baseball, to be honest with you.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That’s just not happening. Not even close to be honest with you. It’s a very confusing quote to see come out because it doesn’t sound like that’s what the players actually think it sounds like that’s what Adam Wainwright thinks. And if the owners propose those deal, that deal and Adam Wainwright and a cohort of other players who feel similarly to Adam Wainwright, he’s definitely not the only person who feels that way. Like, let’s let’s be honest, this is a this is a union made up of over 1000 people, I’m sure there are among that group of people. Dudes who are like, I don’t want to go to bat to take revenue sharing down.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Because I just want to get back on the field. There those that’s one of the challenges of being the MLBPA. But it’s not going to get passed. It’s not going to get ratified if they put the exact same CBA after all this?
ALEX: Right, yeah. At this point.
BOBBY: And guess what? It’s the owners fault. It’s the owners fault that the players feel this way. It’s exactly what you said, the owners underestimated how frustrated the players are. Because guess what, everybody who’s playing an MLB now, for the most part, has been a zero through three guy who got offered the league minimum. Has been a guy who’s been taken to arbitration or been forced to accept the deal that he didn’t think was up to his value, because he didn’t feel like going to arbitration before his season was gonna start. All of these mechanisms that have made the CBA good for the owners, that have allowed them to exploit certain things about the baseball labor, labor economic landscape. They’ve exploited those things against the players that they are now bargaining against. Which makes it very hard to bargain without frustration. And this is the existence, this is why baseball has this problem, even more so than other sports. Because owners have had the upper hand for a very long time. And the nature of the sport, different societal factors have not trended in the baseball players direction. And so we find ourselves at this impasse every single time we talk about baseball labor. And the only thing that could possibly get us over this hump is both sides coming together and actually getting a good deal. You know what I mean? Like, the only thing that can put this in the rear view is them doing their job, both sides doing their job. And there is only one side doing their job right now. Because you know, MLBPA is doing their job, because Max Scherzer is literally tweeting out what’s in their proposals. That’s how, you know, just have like a a modicum of media literacy to be able to tell which side wants you to know what’s going on. And which side doesn’t. And what that means for what’s actually happening in the room.
ALEX: Well, and and the owners have let it get to this point, right, where the players are kind of controlling the narrative right now, right? They are the ones who have their platform on on Twitter, wherever it might be. Cardinals fan conferences, I don’t know. Where they can actually engage directly as fans you say, hey–
BOBBY: I just say, like it’s not like any other reporters said anything about that quote. But it doesn’t seem like anybody said that he didn’t say that yet. So if something comes–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –out of Adam Wainwright comes out and is like, this is completely fake news. I never said this. Sorry, to Adam Wainwright, who seems like a great guy.
ALEX: Yeah, agree. I mean, I think it it seems like a a reasonable thought, right? That a play a veteran player like him would would probably have. But players are actually able to, like engage with fans on these issues, right? Who dropped their mentions and say, hey, I don’t, I don’t really get it. I, Max Scherzer, what is it, that you are trying to get out of this whole thing? Because I still see millionaires versus billionaires. And I don’t really understand what this is about. And Max Scherzer can hop on Twitter and say, let me tell you, and if you go ask a dozen other players, they will all tell you the same thing. And it’s very clear and reasonably laid out. And when you actually look at like those three or four, quote unquote, “core economics” of the sport that are being negotiated over, right? With regards to, with regards to a competitive balance tax and, and salary arbitration, and like general competitiveness in the league. You you can take an objective look at that, and say that actually seems reasonable. Or at least those seem like reasonable things to be negotiating over. And I don’t really know what the owner’s response to that can be. Aside from calling for help from the federal government, I guess, maybe.
BOBBY: Let me just read the Max Scherzer tweet, which kind of opened the floodgates a little bit for a bunch of other players to start really venting their feelings on Twitter about how negotiations are going. And that’s players who are in the room. That’s players who are not in the room. That was a lot from Jameson Taillon. We heard from Alex Wood. We heard from Marcus Stroman in a slightly different way.
ALEX: But NFT God.
BOBBY: Here’s a Max Scherzer tweeted, mac–by the way, Max, if you’re listening, brother, please update your Twitter photo to indicate that you’re a member of the New York Mets and your Twitter bio. Just please. You’re a pitcher for the New York Mets. That’s all I’m asking. He says, “We want a system where threshold and penalties don’t function as caps, allows younger players to realize more of their market value, make service time manipulation a thing of the past, and eliminates tanking as a winning strategy.” Man, that sounds pretty reasonable. Now how we get there is what they’re bargaining over. But if we can agree on those things, which obviously owners don’t agree. Because the part that they don’t want you to know, is that those things, make them more money. Then, then that’s how we get to the point that we’re at. I thought it was interesting, the tanking as a winning strategy thing. Because that worked for the Cubs and the Astros. You have a lot of fans being like, well, why can’t you do that? That is just following the rules and that’s what’s incentivized. And like, yeah, that’s the problem guys. Not trying to win is both incentivized from a competitive standpoint in the far future. Which doesn’t help players in the present or fans in the present while we’re at it. But also not trying to win forever incentivizes the owners. Just look at Bob Nutting, the most hated owner in Baseball. Why is he the most hated owner in Baseball? Because he doesn’t try to win, ever. And the benefits financially, directly financially from not trying to win. That’s all I have to say about this round of CBA negotiations. 40 straight minutes of yelling.
ALEX: Right. Nothing actually happened in the last two weeks. We got 40 minutes out of it, which is pretty good, honestly.
BOBBY: Alex, we just spent a ton of time talking about how, it’s very hard to force owners to do something that they don’t really want to do. I think you can make a a similar case, that that is at the root of basically, every problem facing baseball or facing sports. Is, owners don’t want to go the extra step, do the extra work that it takes to actually fix some of these problems that fins, players, coaches, outside observers, mediators have identified in their sport. And one of those problems came up in a big way in the NFL last week, when Brian Flores, the former recently fired coach of the Miami Dolphins, sued the NFL, and alleged that he was discriminated against for being black. And he was incentivized to lose and then fired when he didn’t lose. He is taking a class action lawsuit against the NFL for their handling of hiring black coaches. And when I read about this, or when I saw this, or when I heard a million different podcasts about this. I have to say one of the first things that I thought of was me being me MLB and their current state of hiring for Managers. Because the Selig Rule, which is the precursor to the NFL Rooney Rule. Which requires that you interview at least one candidate from a traditionally underrepresented background before filling a head coaching position. Or in baseball’s case, before filling a managerial spot or hitting coach spot, or basically any spot that works directly with a Major League Baseball team. You have to interview at least one candidate from a traditionally underrepresented background, which includes women. It doesn’t seem that hard to do. But that’s a different conversation. And it just got me thinking of, it just got me thinking about the current state of coaching and executive pipelines in MLB. And how we talk about them, and how the Selig Rule, which is, I think, weird that it’s named that. But that’s just me, it’s self aggrandizing that that was that he named it after himself. How the Selig Rule, and the NFL is equivalent, the Rooney Rule. They are designed within the system that is the problem. And it’s just very apparent in baseball. Every time there’s a managerial vacancy, or a coaching vacancy, as our friend Shakeia Taylor laid out in a piece that she wrote for global sport matters. Which will link to in the description. This is very apparent in baseball, like Flores is alleging in football, like a lot of other people are supporting him on that it just becomes a box to check. Because a rule that is designed to interview only one person for a job, and have that be the vehicle with which you try to increase diversity in your sport. It seems like it’s defeated before it ever even has a, has a chance. Because it’s not addressing the system wide problem, which is that the people in the hiring positions, know which candidates they think are qualified and which are not. Because otherwise you wouldn’t need to tell them to interview someone who is not a straight cishet male.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, it certainly requires those people in the hiring position to actually want to engage with this. Or or actually requires them to see this as a problem that is worth addressing. And something like the Selig Rule is like probably one of the, the only reasonable attempts that the league can make to actually address this issue from an executive manner. Because you can’t dictate who teams should necessarily hire. You can nec–necessitate a pipeline that at least opens up these opportunities. But obviously, that doesn’t go nearly far enough. Because as I said, you you and and as you said, you have to actually want to address this problem. Which you, there’s no, there’s no rule that Bud Selig or Rob Manfred can hand down that says, 30 owners have to acknowledge structural and institutional racism throughout the game for the last century. And must now address that in your hiring pipeline. I mean, they could say that although one Rob Manfred could come up with that, that statement right now, and I would, I would give him a rare round of applause. I don’t think he’ll do that. And I if he did, I don’t think owners would do jack shit about it. And even the Selig Rule is like–
BOBBY: [34:48] treat it like the Senate, you know, it’d be–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –in there Rob, Robert, solemn with a solemn tone, look at them and say it’s time to address structural racism.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: And the owners would in unison raise he’s a hand in the air and they would say I addressed structural, I acknowledge structural racism.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And then–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –it’d be finished, it be over, it’s done. Structural racism is finished, doesn’t stand a chance now.
ALEX: It, yeah, they’ve shown no, no actual interested in really addressing this, in part because the Selig Rule is barely even enforced, right? Like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –if a, if a team goes out of their way to somehow not hire a a, quote unquote, “diverse candidate”. Which like, what does it you know, what does that even mean? You’re just, but like the Marlins, for example, who committed this back in the early 2000s. And were fined an undisclosed amount. And then were not required to pay said undisclosed–you know, it’s like a, it’s really all for show at this point. There was a quote, I saw from a and anonymous, NFL Executive owner, whatever, who basically came out and said, you know, what, if black people want to see black coaches so much, well, they should just go and buy their own team, which, that’s, that’s one way of acknowledging this issue.
BOBBY: Yeah. I I think that there’s this tendency, for sanitization of the problem in media within fan circles within people who don’t have to experience these unconscious or conscious biases, all the time in their lives. Where they’re like, it’s not that they don’t want to hire black people. It’s just that they came to a different candidate. And they saw that that candidate filled the qualifications for the role, right? It’s not that they actively were thinking, I don’t want to hire a black person, or I don’t want to hire a woman. But when you hear quote like that, it kind of does seem like they actively don’t want to hire any underrepresented candidates, period. You compare it to baseball, they intentionally decimated the black teams. Like they, took the all the players from the Negro Leagues, and none of the coaches, none of the managers. They didn’t take a team full stop, as we discussed, when, when Clint needs and when Andrea Williams were on the podcast. How much different Baseball would look like today? What a coaching tree would look like if those teams had not been completely put out of business? And I think for a lot of people who have experienced this problem in their day to day lives. This conversation, this that Brian Flores, sparked by suing the NFL for this problem, is particular particularly resonant. Because sports is such a distilled version of what happens in all hiring at all, in all companies across the United States. In sports, you identify the candidate before you have the role open. And it’s over from that point on, like you have already undercut the possibility that you’re going to hire someone you didn’t expect to. Because you’re going into it with a preconceived notion of who you want for that role. And even if that person says no, say that you want to hire Theo Epstein, even if Theo Epstein says no, your idea for that role is now Theo Epstein. And so you’re going to fit, you’re going to hire the person that fits most closely with Theo Epstein. You’re never going to go a complete 180 and hire someone who has a completely different path than Theo Epstein had. And that’s how we get the homogeneity that we have in baseball right now. And that’s what Shakeia lays out incredibly well, in her article. Talking to candidates who have experienced these preconceived notions in baseball while trying to get baseball jobs.
ALEX: Yeah, there was an an interesting nugget from an article that ran and Walker of the undefeated wrote back in 2018, which was kind of looking taking a statistical dive into this exact issue of black representation among managers and coaches in baseball. And and it’s looking at the the last few decades of hiring and and it says of the of the 27 times when a black manager has been hired only 2 involved an organization with a winning record. But among the 15 white managers with no previous coaching experience at any level who were hired, 5 of them were handed the reins to an above .500 team. That’s what, that that means, you or I stand as as good of a chance of–
BOBBY: On paper, yeah.
ALEX: –getting hired as what Ron Washington? There are two black managers in MLB right now, right? Dusty Baker and Dave Roberts. Guys who are not exactly spring chickens, right? Like had to take decades to–
BOBBY: Dusty old pretty spring to me, still.
ALEX: I, honestly, honestly, he really does. I think he could probably take me down in a fight. But right like these guys had to take decades to really build up their resume.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: To fit these roles and even still, you know, we saw Dusty Baker get hired by the Astros, like purely as a PR move, right? Simply–
BOBBY: And if not–
ALEX: –because–
BOBBY: –purely then that was at least like forward in the hiring.
ALEX: I just, I mean, I what Shakeia’s article points out is that like, obviously, as the pool of black players contracts, as it has been over the last few decades. So then will the the pool of former black players who could potentially be managers down the road, right? And so it is a, it’s the snake eating its own tail. Because this is a problem that’s going to continue to perpetuate until either baseball makes a concerted effort to actually engage with black youth in America.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Before it gets comfortable with hiring black managers who don’t have playing experience. Which I stranger things have happened, I guess. But we saw Dan Jennings with zero, zero managerial or coaching experience, get chosen by the Marlins to to move from the role of GM to manager, right? We’re just, we’re just picking guys, we already know. Just going through our contact list and saying, oops, who could do it.
BOBBY: I don’t have to remember another phone number of my manager. I don’t have to put someone new on the payroll. I don’t have to run through HR. Uhm, you’re right. It, there’s there’s two things that you said in there that I want to respond to quickly. And then we can get to listener questions, a couple listener questions that we have at the end here. Number one, it’s a holistic problem. And as we’ve seen, with every systemic problem that MLB has holistic problems, take holistic solutions. Systemic problems, take systemic solutions. And you know what owners don’t want? Systemic change. What you said what Shakeia puts in her article, dwindling interest among black youth in baseball. Because of the accessibility point of the sport. These are all problems that contribute 20 years later, to a quote unquote, “pipeline problem”. Even, even think that there is a pipeline problem, which there isn’t as much as has been reflected in the hiring itself. And to that point, the hiring itself needs to be changed. The Selig Rule needs to be updated. It’s not just interviewing one candidate. Like how about this is something that we were really proud to get in our diversity requirements in our collective bargaining agreement? How about 50% of candidates who make it to the second interview, or who make it to the interview stage of a job application are from underrepresented backgrounds? Now, you’re increasing the likelihood that you find a candidate that fits your vision of the role. Rather than just only interviewing three people, one of them who you know you’re going to hire already. And one of them who’s checking off the box for the Selig Rule, or the Rooney Rule. It’s not perfect, but it’s better. Because you’re looking at it. And you’re saying, this is at least addressing something that is systemic, not just asking the hiring manager, in this case, the general manager of a baseball team. Or the owner of a baseball team. Pick these three resumes, which one do you like best?
ALEX: Yeah. And as you said, I mean, it’s it’s not a perfect solution, because people in charge have to recognize that there’s a problem.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And when they don’t, and then when they don’t do that, that’s, you know, you don’t you don’t get anywhere. And I mean, I just want to say before we move on from this, that this velocity by Brian Flores is stunningly courageous. Given that it likely means that he’s never going to coach a football game in the NFL again. We saw what happened with Colin Kaepernick. The same thing is is bound to happen by a league that’s notorious for for blackballing people who speak out against this practices.
BOBBY: And I don’t even think that’s unique to the NFL. I think if anybody did this in any sport, they would be blackballed. Because when it comes to keeping things under wraps, I think all owners are aligned.
ALEX: Yes, yeah, absolutely. I I think the same thing would happen if if this happened in baseball. And and which is not to say that no one has spoken out about it either. For example, Dave Stewart, who was formerly the Diamondbacks General, General Manager. Has spoken out about this quite a few times.
BOBBY: As as Frank Robinson, who–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Exactly. As as did one Jackie Robinson 50–50 years ago this October, who said he’d love to see actual representation for for black people among baseball managers, right? 50 years ago, this was a problem that baseball’s, baseball’s a shining example of diversity, right? The one guy who proves they’re not racist, baseball’s one black friend, nine days before, before he passed away, pointed out that this was an issue.
BOBBY: They can’t hear that over the sound of them patting themselves on the back so loud.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That it rounds out, Jackie’s actual thoughts on the problem. Okay, Alex, let’s, let’s take a quick break. And then when we come back a couple questions [45:32].
[45:33]
[Transition Music]
BOBBY: This first question is voicemail, which we haven’t played with on the podcast in a while. So this is exciting. A reminder, if you’re listening to this right now, you can call into our voicemail 785-422-5881 and have your question played on the podcast. We don’t need to specifically call for them, in order for you to call in and leave a voicemail, you can leave one whenever you’d like. And if we happen to check it, we will play it on the podcast.
VOICEMAIL 1: Hi, Bobby. Hi, Alex. This is Micah, I have two things that I want to ask. One is Baseball related one is not. So the first is what is your go to gas station snack or grocery store snack? Just that one thing that you can’t help but get craving for whenever you stop. And then second thing I wanted to bring up is a few weeks ago, I my internship I was working with a Minor League Baseball player. And I kind of probed them a little bit about the life of a minor leaguer and everything. Unfortunately, I didn’t ask him anything like that, like the cool parts of being a baseball player. Only the more darker and labor side of things. And one of the things I asked was about getting caught up since players never really know when that’s gonna happen. And he said when he got called up to double A, that he could ask them how or like how long he had to like find a place to stay? And he said he had three nights paid and a hotel by his team. And that was it, he had to find somewhere to stay before that was over or just you know, pay themselves some minor leaguers make so much money. I just kind of wanted to ask you guys, when you were finding a place to live, did it take you three days? Or did it take a little bit longer than three days to find a lease design? And to move all your stuff? Yeah. Oh, zero topical question. Just wanted to put that out there as missing information that I found out. So yeah, thank you guys.
BOBBY: Micah thanks for asking. It just took me six weeks to find one apartment in New York City. Which supposedly is a place that has a lot of apartments, unlike a lot of double A towns where there aren’t very many apartments. I know your question was rhetorical, but I decided to answer it. Anyway, uhm, I think that this is pretty standard. Like this is three nights in a hotel or five nights in a hotel. I think that this is a huge part of the problem. Not just that they’re not being that minor league players are not being paid enough to afford their own housing, but that they’re so transient that they’re often having to find two leases or break leases and ruin their credit by doing so. Like these are real world problems that real people have to face being pasted on to this very unusual experience of being a Minor League Baseball player, which is not like any other kind of work. And I think that that is the primary what you laid out there, Micah, is the primary reason why advocates for minor leaguers chose to organize around this exact problem. And to try to pressure MLB teams into agreeing to provide housing for their minor leaguers and successfully so. But it’s because they’ve talked to minor leaguers who had that exact experience that you had having that person tell you. This was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do is find an apartment and three nights, while also worrying that I was gonna suck when I get called up the double A.
ALEX: Flaming Hotline Cheetos.
BOBBY: Wow, you’ve updated bro.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, you know, it depends. Actually, I haven’t really found those out here on the East Coast.
BOBBY: Oh, they’re everywhere in LA, everywhere. Like I would have to keep my dog from eating them off the street because I lived around the corner from high school and the high school kids. That’s all they eat, bro. They just walk around. They just chuck them out. They just dump them out on the ground. Stevie loves Flaming Hotline Cheetos once tell you.
ALEX: Girl after my own heart. Yeah, Micah, thank you for calling him these questions. I guarantee you that any players we do get on in the future and frankly, any ones that we’ve we’ve had on in the past. We won’t ask any cool questions, either. It’s all, it’s all boring, la–labor ass stuff with the exception of like maybe a Star Wars question or two peppered in.
BOBBY: I thought it was cool when you ask Fernando Perez, what people talk about at first base?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That was pretty cool.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: And we were also in his basement weird vibe. Podcasts changed–
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: –a lot since then.
ALEX: It really, it really [50:09]
BOBBY: AlJazero was just playing Z out loud in the background of that podcast.
ALEX: Yeah, yup. And and it’s–
BOBBY: Frankly, like more like–
ALEX: [50:20] Wild, wild times. Yeah. I mean, I mean, you know, this was a rhetorical question, but this gets to the core of the issue, right? And as you said, That’s why there was a massively organized campaign and and a pretty decent amount of public outrage over the exposition of some of the housing conditions that minor leaguers live in.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And and it’s why there’s been such movement on it. Because once you actually learn about the conditions that these players are are forced to kind of make these important life decisions under? It’s impossible not to have some amount of empathy.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: For their for their situation–
BOBBY: It’s pretty nakedly like one of the biggest and easily most easily fixable problems in the entire baseball world.
ALEX: Yes, yeah.
BOBBY: But not the biggest problem, as the Dodgers face. Charges of international crimes for human trafficking. My gas station snack, I’m kind of boring, but [51:23]?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Those are–
ALEX: You can, you can say that now, now that the strikes over.
BOBBY: It’s kind of, like a lot of places have been on strike recently. I just haven’t been snacking, you know?
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Just pure Target brand, Beef jerky. That’s all I’ve been eating.
ALEX: Jesus. [51:44] gather–
BOBBY: [51:44] beef jerky, it depends. If I’m going for like a salty chip kind of snack, which I actually usually prefer. I’m not that big of a candy person. But if I do, if I am in the mood for candy, I usually go with like fruit snacks or high choose, Welch’s fruit snacks.
ALEX: Oh my God, the amount of, the amount of fruit snacks in our shared college apartment.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah. Yeah, there go to bro.
ALEX: Next level.
BOBBY: I that was like, sometimes that was breakfast. Sometimes that was sinner.
ALEX: I mean–
BOBBY: Sometimes even lunch–
ALEX: –they are made, they are, they are made–
BOBBY: –and sometimes [52:18]–
ALEX: –real fruit.
BOBBY: Real fruit. Uhm, yeah. I I think of you as a big snacker. Listeners don’t know, but your snack game, it’s on 100.
ALEX: It, yeah. It’s I I would argue, I I snack for meals more than I have actual meals.
BOBBY: That’s something we got to figure out. Breakfast is a very important meal. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you eat breakfast. Like a full–
ALEX: Actually that’s–
BOBBY: –sit down. Alex is like, I’m gonna start my day with breakfast that wasn’t organized ahead–
ALEX: Wow!
BOBBY: –of time. Wow. You’re just like running through. You’re like, I’ll just get this from Starbucks on the way to class. I’m already 15 minutes late.
ALEX: I do, I do a bagel these days. I’m a big–
BOBBY: Okay, okay. But then what’s for lunch?
ALEX: Nothing.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly.
ALEX: I have a bagel at noon.
BOBBY: Cheetos.
ALEX: That’s yeah.
BOBBY: Bagel at noon. That’s, two two birds with one stone. I mean, come on.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: So that’s what I do.
ALEX: Thank you.
BOBBY: That’s what I did yesterday. And then you snack your way to dinner and then you eat a big dinner. Uhm, none of that excuses us eating popcorn for dinner, like three nights a week for a year and a half.
ALEX: I don’t think that needs an excuse. I think that’s perfectly acceptable.
BOBBY: We’re all just trying to do our best. My ask one more question. Call back and ask a follow up question, which is, have you ever thought about doing a live episode of this podcast? We’ve joked about it. And we’ve joked about how hard it would be because we like to take our time and go on and digressions and take pauses and all of that good stuff run to the bathroom in the middle of the podcast. We have been invited to do a live podcast at some point later this spring. So some more on that in the future. But the answer to that question is yes, we’ve thought about it. It terrifies us.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Next and final question comes from Alex, not Alex Bazeley, Alex on Twitter. What are your favorite TV shows and movies of the past few months with a delayed season likely? Which are you looking forward to watching in the Spring? Alex, what you’ve been, what you’ve been throwing on?
ALEX: I I have the syndrome that I think many millennials have, which is that I guess after watching a TV show I I tend to forget that I watched them or anything that happens in them.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah, I have, I have object permanence issues with, with like pieces of pop culture.
BOBBY: This people dedicate their whole lives to making these TV shows, the craft, the artistry of it and Alex is like watch for two minutes shut off, forget.
ALEX: I’m watching Yellowstone.
BOBBY: Oh, hell yeah. I really want to watch that. I don’t have Paramount plus.
ALEX: It’s a, peacock. If I think the first two seasons are on Peacock.
BOBBY: I don’t have that either. Those are the only two that I don’t have. I was like NBC.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Staunch anti-NBC stance. No, I just didn’t I chose. Those were like the last few that came around for whatever reason. And I was like, I’m not going to pay $200 a month in streaming, just not.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s fine.
BOBBY: I have everything else does. So do you want to exchange some passwords after we get off the pod? I know you don’t–
ALEX: You use your own Peacock.
BOBBY: I know you don’t, I know you don’t. You must be using your mom’s or something.
ALEX: Actually, I think that’s the only one I do–
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: –own. I think that’s the only one I’m actually paying.
BOBBY: Alex says the Peacock plug.
ALEX: Yeah, hit me up. Slide in my DMs. If anyone wants the password.
BOBBY: [55:48] don’t have. Middle America King, Alex Bazeley.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. The succession of the heartland, baby.
BOBBY: My parents love Yellowstone. Mom, my mom’s a big Costner head.
ALEX: It’s good. It’s like corny as hell, sometimes, honestly.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: But as, but you know, it’s, it’s someone who has an appreciation for the, for the flyover states–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you know. Who tries to spurn my coastal elite status from time to time. I–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –I have, I have a lot of respect for it. I’m–
BOBBY: Where does that take place, again? Wyoming?
ALEX: Montana.
BOBBY: Montana.
ALEX: Montana, Wyoming, kind of it’s–
BOBBY: It’s across state lines–
ALEX: –across to each other, so you know.
BOBBY: That was good, flyover people really like when you just say that their states are the same state.
ALEX: As I say [56:31]–
BOBBY: [56:31] point–
ALEX: –I have a much respect. Uhm, I I don’t, I actually watch more movies and I watch TV shows as of late. I just do not have the attention span to dedicate like, weeks of time.
BOBBY: Yeah, I’m with you. Movies are the perfect medium. Even so they’re too long most of the time now.
ALEX: Yes, exactly [56:51]–
BOBBY: Movies should not be more than a 100–
ALEX: –90 minute movie.
BOBBY: –a 100 minutes max.
ALEX: It’s ridiculous.
BOBBY: I love the take that movie should be 90 minutes or 4 hours, nothing in between. Unlike podcasts, which should all be 45 minutes, according to everybody on the internet.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Who writes about podcasts.
ALEX: I mean, at least [57:09]–
BOBBY: And choose like 10 shows for their best 10 podcasts of the year list.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Only 45 minutes though. 45 minutes of dead air put it at number seven.
ALEX: That’s the only reason why we haven’t been put on any of these lists.
BOBBY: We should be on one of these lists. Like–
ALEX: Right, exactly [57:27]–
BOBBY: –these are getting [57:27]–That we should be on there, top 10 leftist podcasts about baseball. Boom! Us! Probably like number three.
ALEX: Probably. That’s the thing about like, two hour like two and a half hour movies. Is it like they’re usually just slightly too long for me to watch. I’m like okay, I have a couple hours to watch a movie. But I want to make some popcorn real quick. And I know I have to do bathroom break.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Because I’ve the bladder of a small child.
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
ALEX: What, you know, I can’t, then two and a half hours becomes like a, like a three hour thing and then all of a sudden it’s like I I need to go to bed.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Or or more likely my significant other needs to go to bed. Which to means I do as well, like–
BOBBY: So what movies of the last year have you been really into? I I was super into The Power of the Dog. Saw that with–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –friend of the–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –podcast, former guest of the podcast, former roommate, Zack Martin. When saw that and a great flick, well theater in Glendale, low power the De Faria. Little Benedict Cumberbatch, love that guy.
ALEX: Yup, power power the D.
BOBBY: [58:37] seriousness though, it’s funny that that that film has been named to death. Because Jane Campion is like truly one of the great cinema artists of our lifetimes. And now people are just like doing beams on Twitter about–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –Bronco Henry.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Which I think–
ALEX: About the movie that [58:52]–
BOBBY: –[58:52] perfect of culture.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah, definitely gonna win Best Picture.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Love Dune, I really enjoyed King Richard. Those are probably the three movies that jumped to mind definitely forgetting some probably like our speeds. I mean, I saw that as well. I don’t know if you saw that if you tuned into that one yet.
ALEX: I know that you’ve been–
BOBBY: Really on the vanguard of the discourse about that with all of your burners.
ALEX: I, because it has not hit streaming of any sort or been released sometimes in online in some capacity. I’m unable to–
BOBBY: You live in New York or no excuse you could have seen it.
ALEX: Yeah, I know, I just, I don’t–
BOBBY: I I understand.
ALEX: –lazy.
BOBBY: Understand. Movie tickets. It’s it’s not that comfortable to go to the movie theater yet still, pandemic related, for pandemic related reasons. Still a little bit, still a little bit says. I just watched the first season of True Detective. I’d never seen it. I’ll tell you what. That’s the season the TV right there. It’s fucked up, deeply fucked up.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But very good. I was tweeting True Detective memes from the Tipping Pitches account. I skin them off.
ALEX: God, what years it?
BOBBY: Honestly though, it’s a good bit, watching stuff five years late, and not knowing what anybody else that you like thinks about it.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And then just tweeting about it like it’s in the present moment. There’s anything that streaming has given us it’s that.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, it’s like, eternally, eternally ubiquity of pop culture. It’s great. This is you and I discover the internet for the first time.
BOBBY: And we show for it on our podcast. Anything that you’re looking forward to coming up? Watching in the spring, Alex asks. I’m really looking forward the Killers of the Flower Moon, which is Martin Scorsese movie. Which is about a book that I finally finished reading. As I was reading when we were on–
ALEX: Took a few years.
BOBBY: –vacation together, took a few years. It actually only took like a, like, a few weeks after I started reading it, but–
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: It’s very good book. I don’t think that’s coming out in the Spring now. So I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna watch. Shout out to a friend of the podcast. Jen Mack Ramos, who is doing a rewatch of How I Met Your Mother. I’m doing the same thing, because Phoebe loves that show. So we decided to dive in. It’s pretty funny, holds up better than you think it would be. Way better than like Friends.
ALEX: Oh, God.
BOBBY: And I’ve never seen Seinfeld. So I can’t comment on that.
ALEX: Seinfeld is one of those shows that like, it just comedy has changed so much in the last like 25–
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: –years.
BOBBY: We’re not talking about comedy and how it’s changed.
ALEX: I love saying is like the things that we thought were funny, like 25 years ago, you’re like, oh, this just the jokes just aren’t all that all that great. Which–
BOBBY: I think, I just, now that we’re at the end of the podcast, I’d like to get my take out about how comedians are the real, the real squires of our time.
ALEX: Oh, they’re the tweets tellers.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. The cultural critics. They lead society in the direction that it needs to go.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I just thought I would, I would like to say that at the end of this podcast.
ALEX: Thank you for, thanks for putting that up there and in the universe.
BOBBY: I’d like to thank them for what they do for society. It goes, it goes–
ALEX: It’s not an easy job.
BOBBY: Nurses, teachers, firefighters, comedians, just on the heels, you know. They’re running into the burning building of discourse and takes. And I thank them for that.
ALEX: The true first responders.
BOBBY: First repliers.
ALEX: I I just want to say real quick, I I watched C’mon C’mon. With with–
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: Joaquin Phoenix. Goat, great, great flick, great flick. And, and I watched Marie Antoinette, which I’d never seen before. That’s another great flick. Kirsten Dunst. Impeccable, impeccable work.
BOBBY: Yeah. She’s from–
ALEX: Young, young Sofia Coppola, just going off.
BOBBY: She’s, Sofia Coppola’s very talented. Thank you for her contributions to cinema history.
ALEX: Thank you for her contributions to this podcast, which I don’t know. I don’t know–
BOBBY: Talking about [1:03:00]–
ALEX: How I [1:03:00] come up on Tipping Pitches, but here we are. I think that’s an indication that the episode is over.
BOBBY: See, Alex, thank you for asking that question. Alex. Bazeley, thank you for hosting this podcast with me. Please call in and ask good questions like these, 785-4225881. You can write in, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com. You can DM us tipping_pitches on Twitter. And we will talk to you next week.
[1:03:25]
[Music]
[1:03:34]
[Outro]
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello everybody, I’m Alex Rodriguez, Tipping Pitches, Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most Tipping Pitches. So we’ll see you next week. See ya.
Transcriptionist: Vernon Bryann Casil
Editor: Krizia Marrie Casil
Tipping Pitches 
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