With the added perspective three days of a CBA has brought, Alex and Bobby gather to discuss the true culprit behind MLB’s lockout: that’s right, it’s you, the fan. They also discuss MLB’s latest cash grab at the expense of baseball’s accessibility, before answering a slew of listener questions about the CBA and Taylor Swift.
Songs featured in this episode:
Olivia Rodrigo — “jealousy, jealousy”, “brutal”• 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 don’t think anybody can deny that we got a lot of important news in the last week. But for our purposes, your purposes, my purposes, the purposes of the Tipping Pitches Podcast, undoubtedly the most important of that news. More important than the news that caused us to do our first ever Emergency Podcast was that noted, investor, businessman, Baseball luminary. Alex Rodriguez, is funding a stock market for human beings. And so I thought that we would gather here, four days removed from the signing of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. And instead of answering listener questions, instead of talking about the fallout from the CBA, we would talk about how Alex Rodriguez plans to make money off OBP.
ALEX: Mojo baby! I’m extremely excited for this. I mean, this is kind of the moment I think we’ve been waiting for right is, you know, we we talk a lot about how players athletes are often just kind of flattened into numbers–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –on a spreadsheet, right? This is what Moneyball–
BOBBY: Right, exactly.
ALEX: –the revolution is kind of brought to us. And this just feels like the logical conclusion of that right, stripped them of all humanity as possible. And literally make them little arrows pointing up, up or down.
BOBBY: Can you read the the tweet that rocked our world?
ALEX: Of course, this is from Kim Bhasin over at Bloomberg News.
BOBBY: Where I get all of my important baseball news for this podcast.
ALEX: Absolutely.
BOBBY: Anytime we need to prep I go straight to Bloomberg.
ALEX: A-Rod and Marc Lore are co founders in a new company, aiming to be a stock market for pro-athletes. Allowing fans to buy and sell players whose values rise and fall based on their performances on the field. It’s called Mojo.
BOBBY: Anytime you find yourself writing the sentence, buy and sell players? Or buy and sell people buy and sell really anything living.
ALEX: Uhm.
BOBBY: You just need a mirror, you need to take a long look into it. And you need to ask yourself, how did we get here? Not 10 years ago, you and I were going to see this man hit home runs in Yankee Stadium. And now he is the owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves and somehow starting a stock market to buy and sell players. Which to me might seem like a conflict of interest. But I guess we’re kind of we’re we’re post conflict of interest as a society.
ALEX: It’s a conflict of interest, conflict of morals too, right? On–
BOBBY: What’s, what’s the conflict? It’s just immoral.
ALEX: Right. Well, I guess there you go. I actually it aligns very perfectly with, with where A-Rod is at. Mark Lore said, said in an email to Bloomberg. I’ve always thought the idea of a sports stock market was the Holy Grail. The vision could transform sports and fandom as a whole for years–
BOBBY: What is. what is always? What is always? How old were you when you thought that does that we, the idea of a sport stock market was the quote unquote, “Holy Grail”?
ALEX: For the concept to truly work you need underlying principles like intrinsic value, and instant liquidity. You know, things I’ve always associated with other people. How can I get instant liquidity? With you Bobby Wagner [4:23]–
BOBBY: Which one of us [4:24]–
ALEX: –from me.
BOBBY: –liquidity here. I think it’s you, I think it’s you.
ALEX: Yeah, I feel like I’m more intrinsic value.
BOBBY: Oh, so your your assets are kind of tied up elsewhere?
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: And I just have cash under my mattress?
ALEX: Right, exactly. Like what like what you see is what you get, it’s right there.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Me, I’m gonna have to move some things around for me to really get anything valuable to it.
BOBBY: The metaphor is so far gone. I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore. We should get to the actual Tipping Pitches Podcast unless you have more to say about Alex Rodriguez? Literally buying and selling human beings.
ALEX: I don’t, all I want to say is, I don’t have anything more to say. But all I want to say is that while this is pretty morally reprehensible, I think.
BOBBY: It’s a gray area.
ALEX: It does not strike me as incredibly far off from the the direction we were headed anyway with sports betting and fantasy sports. Which is to basically create a commodity out of putting $1 amount on how a certain person is performing at their job. And you can argue that Alex Rodriguez is a grifter and this is his ultimate grift.
BOBBY: Period. That’s the end of, that’s the argument [5:41]–
ALEX: [5:41] you can argue that.
BOBBY: You should argue that, probably?
ALEX: But, you know what? Kudos for him, for for taking the plunge that no one else was brave enough to do.
BOBBY: This is the logical conclusion of like, 15 different things–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –in our society, what you said fantasy sports, commoditizing athletes, Moneyball. But it’s also the logical conclusion of Alex Rodriguez, individual human man. The logical conclusion of like, web three, even, you know, he’s going to be using, like, non-fungible token technology–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –for this human stock market. But also just the logical conclusion of the stock market in general, you just get bored with companies, why not ported over to sports? So I guess I’ll I’ll say I wasn’t surprised. But it it never really, you’re never really ready to wake up to that tweet. Like 8:30am, Eastern time. You’re never ready for that.
ALEX: No, you really aren’t. You’re never ready, really to read the article and see that Joshua Kushner, brother of one Jared Kushner and husband of one Karlie Kloss. That’s, that’s NYU alum, Karlie Kloss, I don’t know, is she an alum? Did she graduate?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I don’t have to tell.
BOBBY: TBD, I don’t know. A lot of people go to NYU. How many people finish?
ALEX: Can relate. Always good–
BOBBY: I know you finished you sat next to me. I saw you go across that stage.
ALEX: I don’t remember it, but I’ll believe you. Always good when your business partner has a section on his Wikipedia page.
BOBBY: Oh, I thought you were going to talk about me, your business partners.
ALEX: Well, do you have a section on your Wikipedia page that reads 2017 Saudi Arabia trip and ethics concerns? Because if you do, we might have to reevaluate this.
BOBBY: We both know that I don’t have a Wikipedia page. And I never will because the bobby Wagner Wikipedia page goes to the NFL linebacker, who by the way–
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: –was cut from the Seattle Seahawks last week. And I’d like to say to all the people sending nice messages to that Bobby Wagner, you’re attacking the wrong guy. I’ve gotten hundreds of messages on Twitter, being like they did you dirty. They’ve wronged you, you were the heart and soul of this team. And I just don’t, I don’t want to respond to any of them. Because I’d like them to just think that the real Bobby Wagner seeing them somewhere in the world.
ALEX: We all need a little hope these days.
BOBBY: Exactly. Uhm, we are going to talk about baseball being back. We’re going to talk about having a couple of days of perspective on the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. And we’re going to spend a ton of time at the end of the pod answering all of your questions about said CBA. And some other topics as well. But before we do that, I am maybe someday will be the third most famous Bobby Wagner?
ALEX: And I’m the one and only not famous and never will be, Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you’re listening to Tipping Pitches.
[8:39]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: So I believe that you are going to take the reins here, Alex, from what I understand. You’ve been doing a lot of prep and research for this. And you’ve acquired a column to be read dramatically bad take traumatic reading.
ALEX: Well–
BOBBY: Take it away, my friend.
ALEX: –I will leave it to you in the listeners to determine whether or not this is a bad take.
BOBBY: Oh, an ambiguous take dramatic reading.
ALEX: Well, let’s see. This was a, this was being circulated around baseball Twitter, really in. This was a day or two before the lockout was officially over. So while it’s newsworthiness has maybe past, I think its relevance has been on.
BOBBY: A take, a take is evergreen.
ALEX: It is evergreen.
BOBBY: It’s not tied to the moment.
ALEX: Just like this take in the Canadian based Globe and Mail. Titled baseball fans are mostly–
BOBBY: [9:47] has a Globe and Mail. I thought that that was just the UK.
ALEX: I feel fairly certain that there are only three news properties, three news names.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Baseball fans, you may be aware of this being a baseball fan, are mostly to blame for the MLB lockdown.
BOBBY: Oh, yes, I saw this tape going around. And I hoped that you might have interest in reading it. But I didn’t read it myself to keep my ears pure, like some listeners at home.
ALEX: Well, I am going to read some of this to you. And I would like you to determine whether or not the case is actually made effectively. Because maybe there is a case to be made that fans are to blame for the lockout.
BOBBY: My heart is–
ALEX: Maybe!
BOBBY: Yeah. I don’t think fans get enough blame for enough things.
ALEX: I agree.
BOBBY: Everybody’s doing like what’s in the best interest of the fans? And I’m like, nah, some fans don’t need our best interests in mind.
ALEX: The author of this is Cathal Kelly. He writes, “My the leads are always the best part of these”, you know.
BOBBY: I know. Because also the thing about a bad take or a take dramatic reading, if we’re gonna leave it ambiguous. The thing is, there is no other part of it. It’s like four leads, and then the argument and then five kickers.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They never write like a nut grow. They never do any of the other stuff that you’re supposed to put in an article. It’s just four different leads that they couldn’t settle on which one was the best?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. “It starts between all the rhetorical sparks emanating from the greedy owners and the greedy players.”
BOBBY: Well, that to the stories.com get a byline on this one too?
ALEX: “It’s difficult to spot the side that’s most to blame for Major League Baseball’s current lockout.”
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: “The fans”, good we’re, so we’re setting the scene here.
BOBBY: It’s difficult to spot the side. And then the side is the fans. So this writer, though it was difficult, they’ve already identified it.
ALEX: Right, which I mean, they’re doing the heavy lifting for us. “Though no one will blame them. The other two sides understand that all of this is only possible because of the fans. They didn’t just allow it to happen. They encouraged it.” Which is fair.
BOBBY: I have lost the pronoun,s who is they? Who, who who allowed it to happen and who encouraged it? The fans?
ALEX: The other two sides, the players and the owners understand that the fans are at fault.
BOBBY: Okay. And the fans didn’t just allow it to happen, they encouraged it.
ALEX: The fans get talked about a lot as though they are some monolithic victim and all of this.
BOBBY: This is true. So far, so good.
ALEX: It is true, yeah.
BOBBY: That is true.
ALEX: Commissioner Rob Manfred wrote them a whole letter a few days ago, and he quotes Manfred and saying that the clubs and our owners fully understand just how important it is to our millions of fans that we get the game on the field as soon as possible. He says, it’s hard to grasp how one can fully understand something that isn’t true. Unless Manfred believes the how important level here is not very. So baseball fans–
BOBBY: Word salad just don’t understand anything that’s happening.
ALEX: So the, I think the premise here is the baseball fans actually aren’t that interested in baseball. And Rob Manred kind of gets this maybe?
BOBBY: So because fans are not as ravenous as other sports. The two sides are not as worried about offending them because they’re not they don’t love the sport as much. Is that the, is that the high wire act we’re we’re listening to here?
ALEX: Well, we’re just getting into it. So so he says, that along with the owners and player,s Manfred does understand one thing about the fans that they are suckers.
BOBBY: Wow!
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Now we’re resorting to name calling.
ALEX: He goes on to list a number of of things that are wrong with the sport, right? That games are lasting longer than ever. That money and numbers he says are, quote, “coring the soul of baseball”. Which, sure, yeah, but the worse the team is the more cost to see.
BOBBY: Maybe, maybe not true there, just, I don’t know if he did the homework on that one.
ALEX: It’s that all of these things are done in the fans keep coming back.
BOBBY: Ohhh..
ALEX: The fans actually–
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: –a too ravenous–
BOBBY: All right, I see what he’s saying now–
ALEX: –showing the sport, right. They are rewarding [14:22]–
BOBBY: The fans are [14:23] and–
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: –they’re allowing themselves to be that way.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: The fan, we’ve lost the alpha male baseball fan is the take here.
ALEX: Right. So so–
BOBBY: That’s pretty good. I, like of all the things that you could think to to to say, after the lockout right before the lockout is gonna end. All the takes that you could get out there and have wanting so badly to be, right? I actually kind of admire that this is the take that this person came up.
ALEX: Right, the fans are letting MLB walk all over them. And frankly, it’s time for them to take the wheel back. He goes on to quote a interaction that he thinks somebody up a an interaction that he has construed that he thinks sums up this is dynamic, right? So the owners the league says, hey, we don’t feel like paying these guys if the stadiums are empty rented to COVID 2020. So we’re gonna bust the season down to a third of its usual length.
BOBBY: That cool with you?
ALEX: And the fans say sorry, what? And the league says no regular season all playoffs we good? The fans say yeah, okay, whatever, which I remember being very cool with how the 2020 season shook out.
BOBBY: Yeah, right. Everybody fans were actually very pleased. They’re like this is how very harmonious the way that we got back to the field. Everything seems really saved the whole time. Everybody loved it.
ALEX: What do you do with an audience that undemanding? You start working them over a lot harder. And that’s what’s happening here.
BOBBY: Power vacuum, there’s a power vacuum and fans have not taken enough.
ALEX: If you’re one of the involved parties, what’s the lesson you’ve been taught by fans? That crime in parentheses against the national pastime pays. Which once again, I–
BOBBY: That’s kind of a bar.
ALEX: It kind of is a bar.
BOBBY: Should we, should we steal that?
ALEX: Crime against the national pastime pays.
BOBBY: Put that on the fucking t shirt.
ALEX: That what I, what I respect about this column is that he acknowledges that the owners are kind of petty and craven he applies similar logic to the players. Which I may not agree with as as wholeheartedly as he does.
BOBBY: Isn’t he really said much about the players?
ALEX: No. So he he goes on to outline what he thinks is the tactics of the league, right? You you pretend to negotiate but you don’t negotiate or pretend too hard. Let them hate you all you want and then you chisel the players until they turn on each other. So far they haven’t done that which it turns out they didn’t end up doing so one of his theses points is down.
BOBBY: Well, it depends. That’s how much you want to read into the Executive Subcommittee who is in the room negotiating voting Aido against the deal everybody else voting yes.
ALEX: Read all you want.
BOBBY: Uhm, I actually can’t read it I don’t I don’t know how and don’t want to.
ALEX: If your labor it’s once again time to complain about making millions without sounding like you’re complaining. No one has figured out how to do that. But the players keep trying.
BOBBY: Wow, safety’s off with this guy.
ALEX: He, this is we’re getting in some weird territory. Even the style of dress changes in times of lockout. No more flash.
BOBBY: What?!
ALEX: Take Max Scherzer one of the union’s pointman. He loves a golf shirt. We we quote Jimmy Hoffa down here or allude–
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: –Jimmy Hoffa.
BOBBY: Yes. Wow, this column has insane cocaine energy.
ALEX: Uhh, that Faberge egg. He’s been thinking about forgetting his wife for Veterans Day, I genuinely don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about anymore.
BOBBY: Wow! So, I mean, you could probably keep calling for for another 10 minutes–
ALEX: This really goes on.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I’m–
BOBBY: I’m actually sort of impressed. I think it’s good trolling.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Ultimately, I think that’s where I come out. I don’t know that it’s a a bad take. Because I don’t think he believes it.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, there’s nobody in their right mind, who really would get their fingers cracking to write a column that was like, the lockout is the fans fault.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Because they like baseball too much. If they liked baseball less, then there would be no lockout.
ALEX: If they really just held owners and players feet to the fire–
BOBBY: Is what he’s calling for a general boycott of baseball. And then that way, they would have to hammer out the CBA. Because they would be so worried about fans not coming back because they’re boycotting sport.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And then neither sides pockets would be getting fat. Is that, is that what he thinks?
ALEX: That that seems to be the case, which which tracks, you know, given what we know about levels of fan engagement with the sport, and how it’s tied to profits in the sport.
BOBBY: Yeah
ALEX: Right? You know, as long as folks who come into the games, you’re gonna get rich if they leave, what are you going to do?
BOBBY: Thank you for, thank you for bringing that to my attention.
ALEX: Of co- well, I want to give you the counterpoint to this, okay?
BOBBY: Okay. So you read another column? Like under, under a pen nam?
ALEX: As you may know, I’ve been very intrigued by the the National Fans Union.
BOBBY: Oh, okay. All right. So this was all just a long con for you to get on your soapbox–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –to tell me how I should join the National Fans Union. They Gotcha.
ALEX: They did.
BOBBY: They gotcha.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You join the email list and two weeks later, you’re using valuable real estate in the first 30 minutes of the podcast to tell me that I need to join the email list?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Is that what this is?
ALEX: Well, well, I give you a nugget to maybe convince you to come over to our side, right?
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: The fans may have–
BOBBY: Pause–
ALEX: –free, one free hit, the fa- the fans may have caused the lockout. But–
BOBBY: Did they also end it?
ALEX: –we also ended it.
BOBBY: Yeah, baby. Let’s go!
ALEX: We saved baseball, guys says the email, we won’t take all the credit for facilitating the MLB-MLBPA deal that ends the lockout.
BOBBY: Oh my God, yes, keep going.
ALEX: But we consider it a win. We’re happy for the players, the owners and most importantly–
BOBBY: We’re happy for the owners.
ALEX: –the fans.
BOBBY: We’re happy for the owners.
ALEX: We are–
BOBBY: We’re happy for the, I’m happy for the owners.
ALEX: This work stoppage inspired and [20:34]–
BOBBY: [20:34] would we have enough funds to run anti-abortion candidates all across this great land.
ALEX: They are an important part of the political process here. Whether the owners were paying attention or not, right? Whether, whether the owners were really paying attention to the fan outpouring of support or not.
BOBBY: Right, so whether we caused it or not, we caused it.
ALEX: We believe the convergence of fan, anger and emotion was one positive outcome of this otherwise unpleasant chapter in Major League Baseball history. Because as you know, this isn’t over. And that’s about it as to the rationale for how we ended the lockout.
BOBBY: This is a textbook case of of correlation–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –not causation, not causation. This is why people should pay attention in seventh-grade science. They think that because the lockout ended, two weeks after they took out a full page ad in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that they caused the lockout to end the owner got spooked. And yet, no body has heard of them, except fucking you bringing them to this podcast to all of our listeners.
ALEX: Well, you know what, because I think this is the way that we get real traction going. You know, like, you may not have realized–
BOBBY: It was–
ALEX: –impact you had–
BOBBY: –it did start in the newspapers and the pamphlets, just like the Russian Revolution.
ALEX: Seriously, we were going door to door saying, Excuse me, sir, have you heard the the good word of of Rob Manfred?
BOBBY: Here’s the thing. Let me tell you one better.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: That MLB fans union isn’t even the real MLB fans union.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: The real MLB fans union is the friends we made along the way. No, I’m just kidding. The real MLB fans union is our friendship, no just kidding. The real MLB fans union is the Facebook page that I was invited to–
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: –from two guys that I–
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: –went High School with that I think they started in like 2015. I’m pretty sure I brought it up on the podcast at the time. And it’s like, borderline, like Reddit troll conservative level discourse. Mostly centered around the fact that Rob Manfred is a, is a literal clown. They put a lot of pictures of Rob Manfred with clown makeup and a clown nose on there, which I can’t, I can’t hate on that. And now it has like 1000s of members. When when I was invited in when I interned joined as like a sociological study and invited you. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think there was like less than 50 people in it then.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Let me go see how many people are in there right now. 885 members, that’s pretty good, dawg. Like, you know how long it took us to get 885 followers on Twitter? Less than six years at this is that was a lower number than I was expecting.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: That’s gonna be like 10,000. But that’s the real MLB fans union right there.
ALEX: In all seriousness, as serious as you can get about this. I, the most generous reading you can give of this is that I don’t think it’s an awful idea for fans to realize their collective power.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: What is that power? I think maybe remains to be seen. And at this point, I don’t think there’s a way to actually organize or have a quote unquote, “seat at the table”. When it comes to bargaining issues like this.
BOBBY: See that’s the table is the funniest thing.
ALEX: It really is.
BOBBY: It’s another example of the difference between ba- a bad faith person and negotiating in bad faith.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: There’s a difference between saying I want to see that the table like in a metaphorical cosmic sense. I want to see that the baseball table that happens in the sky, versus like a seat at the literal bargaining table. Like, you know, in between Max Scherzer and Rob Manfred.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That’s what you were asking for–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –in the copy [24:32]–
ALEX: Fans should be referenced in the CBA.
BOBBY: My head is gonna explode. The notion of having to take into consideration fans of The Ringer and The Ringer CBA it’s really like, breaking my brain.
ALEX: It’s a little scary to think about it–
BOBBY: It’s being fucking terrifying to think about. Like we can’t, no, no, don’t start that precedent. Even for my fellow baseball fans, it’s not worth it.
ALEX: All I can say is I I hope that you walk away from this conversation feeling more emboldened about your power–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –to influence when Robert D Manfred.
BOBBY: Right, you came to this podcast trying to change hearts and minds?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And it’s, it’s yet to be seen if you have, we’ll have to hear from the listeners. Okay, should we talk about Major League Baseball in a more serious way now?
ALEX: If you say so.
BOBBY: Couple things that I wanted to talk to you about with a couple days, we’re now 3 days removed from when they signed the CBA. We obviously went into as much detail as we possibly could. And on that pod, we talked about being able to read the Collective Bargaining Agreement and go even further into detail on this podcast. Unfortunately, it has not the full document has not come out, at least to the best of our knowledge. So far, and and perhaps we will still do that at some point. We’re trying to get some guests who can help us go further into the weeds of how the negotiations went in the final days, but TBD on that front. For now, I wanted to talk to you about all of the loose ends that we didn’t really have the time to tie up on our emergency podcast on Thursday. One of those loose ends being well, actually, you know what, before we even get into that, Alex, let me ask you, has 3 days of hindsight, cleared up your vision at all? Do you feel the same way that you felt 3 days ago? Do you feel like maybe we were a little bit rosy on Thursday night? Because we were just excited that this was all over? And that we got to finally do the emergency CBA pod is over? Or are you even more excited about the CBA? Maybe you’re like, actually the CBA fuckin rules, dude.
ALEX: Not enough sanctions on John Fisher in the Oakland A’s. The Oakland A’s who actually put–
BOBBY: MLB fans union do anything about that? You know, like if you carry in a favor with those guys, according to them, you could just get them out of there.
ALEX: Right. Well, you know what we’re having some I can’t actually divulge that much on the podcast.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Because we have some backroom conversations [27:12]–
BOBBY: [27:12] going on.
ALEX: –reading. Exactly. But what I can say–
BOBBY: With, with big seat at the table comes big responsibility.
ALEX: So I don’t know if you saw this, but the A’s are actually going to be phased back into the, into revenue sharing in the CBA. A contingent on them finding a ballpark in Oakland or anywhere else. So Oakland–
BOBBY: [27:34] is a small market, but San Francisco is not
ALEX: Correct.
BOBBY: Gotcha. Okay, cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. That definitely is right. And true.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And moral.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And definitely doesn’t say anything about how owners view different markets correct based on the breakdown of the type of person that lives there.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. I don’t want to like I’m not going to talk about Chris Bassett for 20 minutes because you will need to steal the mic from me.
BOBBY: Chris Bassett.
ALEX: You, Starling Marte, Chris Bassett, Mark Kanna.
BOBBY: Yeah, but you have Jed Lowrie. Do you even have–
ALEX: [28:07] still?
BOBBY: –it anymore? [28:07] you had.
ALEX: Probably not.
BOBBY: You had him. All right, you got one over on us with Jed Lowry, but we just are going to get everybody else. You you joke to me in a text message that we should just go all the way and get champion, Matt Olson.
ALEX: I mean, I’m it would make rooting for the Mets even easier, I’m so serious.
BOBBY: It would be kind of like how we just became one person. Like our teams just became one team and–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –in the location that we live.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Kind of a sign.
ALEX: It is kind of a sign, right? To answer your original question like 10 minutes ago.
BOBBY: If people haven’t noticed now that we’re in the same place, this podcast has become, like 40%, more unhinged.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Just pure chaos embodied. No, I don’t think my perspective on it has changed much. Because I tried to temper my expectations about it from the outset. I still have a lot of questions about some key issues in there regarding the international draft and its implementation, right? Which, which is something that’s still very up in the air, about, say the money that will be distributed to pre-arb players, which I know some of these things will address later on in the podcast with some listener questions.
BOBBY: Well, well at least try.
ALEX: Aside from those outstanding details, it strikes me as being pretty hard to actually get a full understanding of the implications of this. Without both seeing the tax but also without some time to actually see, like we talked about in the last episode, how owners will actually use and–
BOBBY: Abuse.
ALEX: –exploit this?
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, I agree. I and I liked what Max Scherzer said about this when he did his first media availability from–
ALEX: Did he said the first thing he did after getting assigned was drank a lot, me too.
BOBBY: Yeah, you drink a lot of cough syrup and then went to bed, bro.
ALEX: That’s yeah.
BOBBY: And I was drinking coffee, riding hard off the the vibe that was MLB getting a new CBA. You’re not a real one?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: You’re not a real one? Uhm, no, I liked what he said in that. He just spent a ton of time thinking about this. He likes just focus on baseball.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And I actually think that’s right. Like, obviously, we shouldn’t forget about the the labor dynamic between capital and workers here. And we of course, won’t. But how much constructive can we really learned by continuing to talk about this document? Not that much. I think that we should talk about stuff that is not in this document. We should talk about the continued minor league exploitation that none of this fixes. We should talk about, what we’re going to talk about in five minutes when we talk about the streaming deals that MLB is signing, that will allow owners to continue on the trend of monetizing the sport, while not actually reinvesting in the sport. Just monetizing it based off the external structures and factors of modern digital capitalism, you know. And I think that in two years, we should look back and we should say, or maybe even in one year, we should look back and say, how did that PR bonus pool work? But I think for now, I actually think there is something cathartic and healthy restorative, about saying, we just signed this document, it is going to govern our working relationship for the next 5 years, right? 5? 6?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. 5.
BOBBY: 5 years. years are made up. 5 years from now what are we going to be do? 5 years from now, come on. It’s going to govern our working relationship for the next 5 years. And we don’t have to think about that. Like, we don’t have to worry about that for at least another 3. Now, we should be organizing in the meantime. But we don’t need to worry about how we change this document for at least another three years. Like I’ll say for myself, like the the things that were in the document that we signed, that were going to have an immediate impact. I was like, that’s great. I want to talk about those things right now. But everything else that we need to see how it plays out over the next couple years, I’m actually relieved that we don’t have to talk about that stuff anymore. Because the whole reason that you organize and you form a union is so that you can get it in writing. And so that you can actually go on living your life as a worker, or in this case, as a player. And no longer, you don’t have to worry about that stuff anymore. So I like to a Max said, and we’ll talk about it more when we get the full document, of course. But I think–
ALEX: We we won’t, I think that’s what you’re saying, right? Isn’t it, we don’t have to think about it for 3 years.
BOBBY: We will talk about it when we get the full document because there will be more stuff that we didn’t have the details for in our emergency reaction pod. But I actually think from like a programming perspective, this podcast will become much less about the clauses of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And much more about the health of the sport, as it pertains to its trends in socie- in the larger society. You know what I mean?
ALEX: Yeah, certainly, the labor battles of the sport, neither began nor end with the CBA. But there’s a lot that that doesn’t touch, or that we can’t necessarily glean from reading the fine print about the pre-arb players, or about the size of the bases. Like, like not to be like it’s just kind of a feel thing, bro. But–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –it’s just kind of a feel thing, you know.
BOBBY: Organizing happens well outside of the CBA.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: All that being said, let’s talk about how evil owners are.
ALEX: Oh, yeah. Bread and butter.
BOBBY: The streaming deals.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Which had been reported before the CBA was signed. We knew about this on Thursday. We just didn’t have time, space, energy, desire to talk about it on Thursday’s podcast. But I think it’s worth discussing because it is another in a long line line of examples. A laundry list of ways that the owners have found a way to monetize the sport without actually making it healthier. And the streaming deals that I’m referring to, of course, are the ones that came out with Apple TV+, and NBC Sports. What’s their official streamer name now?
ALEX: Peacock.
BOBBY: Peacock?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Which were broken during an Apple product announcement, which is it’s really funny. It’s very Major League Baseball. You can’t make this stuff up. I think some people look at moves like this. And they say look at MLB making smart business decisions. This is what the league is supposed to do. They are supposed to monetize their products. And probably guys like you and I look at this, and we say, why are they putting more of their product behind a paywall? And why are they making it harder for people who subscribe to MLB TV to watch their product? And why are they not thinking about the long term health of the sport? Is this more like, like are, am I going too far by saying all of that stuff? Or is this just another one of those examples of, like, are these two games really going to matter to people? Or is it actually worth it to get this streaming money in the short term?
ALEX: I don’t think it’s going too far to to say that, but I do think it’s, it’s kind of an inte- it comes at an interesting crossroads for MLB, right? As it and I guess, not just MLB. But for sports in general, right, as they feel like the last piece of television entertainment, that have yet to really figure out what their future looks like, right? TV and cable TV, and movies have successfully one might say made the shift to streaming, right? I’ve–
BOBBY: Successfully based on–
ALEX: On on who, right? Yes.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But like it’s here to re stay and for the most part, streaming companies have been able to make that pivot, right? And sports, live sports are really the the kind of last bastion to figure out what that future looks like for them, right? And it obviously has led to the rise of these regional sports networks over the last few years, which has seen varied results, I suppose you could say. And I think that–
BOBBY: Wow! Was about to do five on Valley Sports as a failure.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Their bankrupcy.
ALEX: Let’s do it. Uhm, Major League Baseball, and other sports leagues, I think we’re kind of reckoning with what that future looks like. Which I think is probably not in these are essence. These deals with Apple TV, sorry, Apple TV+.
BOBBY: Yeah, like I said, give them their +, they are into that.
ALEX: And NBC Sports–
BOBBY: They’re a trillion dollar company, Alex, show them some respect.
ALEX: I know, right? That’s like calling “the MLB”. They’re worth about–
BOBBY: The Ohio State.
ALEX: They’re worth about $115 million annually combined.
BOBBY: So that’s like [37:38]–
ALEX: That’s like roughly 4–
BOBBY: Two games a week.
ALEX: –4 million, a little under 4 million a year–
BOBBY: Per team.
ALEX: –per team.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Teams are raking in, you know, around $60 million a year on national TV deals alone.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And while I think that it’s probably not a good thing for MLB to paywall more of its product, I think this is we’re gonna see some growing pains with how access to the sport is created or or not traded over the next few years, right? Because–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –this, this jump is going to happen eventually. And it means it’s going to lock people out of the sport who aren’t already paying for a product. And is also inevitable, so I’m somewhat interested to see what this ends up looking like on an actual like we tweak level. Like you were saying, are we going to miss these two games? Is it going to be any different from the game being broadcast on ESPN on Sunday? Which you may not have access to unless you’re paying for a cable subscription, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So like, and the production rights are, I assume going to go to Apple or go to NBC. So are they going to bring in new crews?
BOBBY: Well actually, they’ll be produced by Major League Baseball. So it’ll be like the MLB Network producing the games and like outsourcing them to Apple TV+, which is what I read.
ALEX: Love that.
BOBBY: So, I know, I love those guys. They, love what they do. Great work. Big fan. I think you’re right. Like I don’t know how much outrage we can really sustain. Because like if we’re mad about two games going to Apple TV+ on a Friday night, which you’re right, like we we should be mad about that. We we should be mad about the game being unavailable, especially the thing that I think is the easiest thing to be mad about is if you have Major League Baseball, television, MLB TV.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That you pay 130 bucks a year for,t hat’s fucked up that you can’t watch these games that you can’t watch your team. It’s already messed up that you can’t watch your team if you live in that mark out market because of blackout restrictions.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And now you’re saying even if you don’t live in that market, it’s They’re going to be blacked out because it’s going to be on Apple TV+, I think that’s ridiculous. I think it’s craving. And I think it’s a cash grab. But you’re right, this is where it’s going. And I think like, streaming, TV streaming movies have been, ultimately more expensive for people. Like, we’re definitely paying more for streaming than we ever were, when you and I had cable when we lived together so that we could watch SNY and not have to deal with finding a stream or whatever. Like putting a VPN on our MLB TV on our PlayStation so that we could watch MLB TV, right? But we’re definitely paying more now. But we’re also getting more. Like, let’s be honest, we have way more options. When it comes to TV and movies. We have way more services that have catalogs that we can log on to and watch whatever we want. So ultimately, if MLB continues to go down this road, for streaming, accessibility for people who want to go get it, who want to pay for it, you are going to have way more access than you ever had, when you needed linear television, on in your home, or on in your bar, or on in your restaurant, or wherever else you were planning on watching the game. That is true. I think where it’s fair to criticize MLB and ask whether they’re considering this is are you properly balancing how many diehard people are going to pay all your streaming fees, to watch your games religiously? To keep funding your habit of hoarding all of the revenue of baseball? Are you balancing those people with the people who are casual fans, but could become ravenous. Because those people still need to be able to find the game. And if eventually it’s never on linear television, it’s never on cable, it’s not on YouTube for free. It’s not on Twitter, it’s not streaming on Twitch. It’s not in any of these places that people already are. You’re just going to continue to shrink the sport for the sake of your short term profits. And it’s obviously they’ve given us so much reason to believe that that’s all they care about. That we don’t have all that information right now. But we can presume that that is their plan. And I think that that’s why you can be mad about this. But also, it it’s like a fool’s errand to think that it’s just gonna be on cable all of the time for all of eternity, if that’s not how it’s gonna work. Nor nor should it maybe, because right now, baseball exists to make owners and RSN Executives rich. Which like, I don’t want to make either of those parties rich. And I don’t want to make Tim Cook rich either. But at least Tim Cook, you know, like, at least with streaming services, like, in theory, younger people could be accessing your product from that, you know, it’s not actually it’s no longer pay walled behind a cable subscription. It’s at least paywall behind something that I could go on http://www.appletvplus.com and get or whatever the fuck–
ALEX: Right, it might be something you’re already paying for. Or this might be the the, the kind of final push that you need to pay for it. Which again, is not to say that I think that Apple TV+ is the the–
BOBBY: Too much Apple TV+ talk.
ALEX: Is like, you know, the Holy Grail of live streaming.
BOBBY: I think that they should have just like if I had my druthers, I feel like I I’m maybe slightly defending this decision too much. I still hate it. Like, let’s be honest, I still hate it. I still entered it by saying it’s MLB owners being greedy again. But if I had my druthers, it would just be on YouTube. Like you remember how much we clown the YouTube game of the day or the game of the week or whatever the hell it was called.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Kind of a good idea. You know who’s on YouTube? People under the age of 30.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, who watches stuff for long periods of time on YouTube? People under the age of 30.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And I don’t understand when I saw this Apple TV+, when I saw this Peacock streaming deal. I don’t know the person, the consumer who is supported by that decision. I certainly know that the owners are supported by it. I saw that they’re getting $150 million per year. But what fan is like now it’s better for me? The person who wants to watch Ted Lasso? The person who wants to watch that terrible news drama with Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell that I can’t think of the name right now.
ALEX: Shade of The Morning Show.
BOBBY: The Morning Show? What Morning Show hi- what member of The Morning Show hive is like it’s time to watch A’s-Mariners at 10:15pm.
ALEX: Damn! All right!
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Answer the question. Who wants to watch that? Who’s already watching Apple TV+? Nobody, but nobody is going to go get Apple TV+, for this purpose.
ALEX: I think the interesting twist here is what pressure this puts on RSN? Especially when it comes to changing the blackout restrictions that exist currently. Because RSNs have a real monopoly over the distribution of baseball games, obviously. And they’re at a point where they are going to have to adjust their business model or risk losing it to these kind of, quote unquote, “new age streaming services.”
BOBBY: What boggles my mind is that we don’t have a streaming service, where you can watch every single Major League Baseball game. Even if you’re paying more to add your own market in, for example, YES Network has an app, but you have to also have cable to use it. And like, what person who’s getting MLB TV, nowadays, through their laptop, or through their PlayStation 5 or whatever. Through–
ALEX: PlayStation 5, how rich do you think our listeners are? [46:12]
BOBBY: But, you and I are rockin with PS4s. It’s somebody when you tweeted out the Phoebe Bridgers middle reliever which I have so many questions about by the way.
ALEX: This is the first time I’ve ever gonna say, speak to my manager, bro. I I don’t make the rules.
BOBBY: So true. Yeah, you you, they wouldn’t put you in the closer role. I just didn’t trust you yet. When you tweeted out that screenshot somebody said MLB The Show 19. I’m like What do you think this is? You think we’re fucking gamers here? Like–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –we’re just doing it to shut our brains off guys.
ALEX: So the same same sport year in year out?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I want to tell you.
BOBBY: Exactly. America’s pastime, for bases? Exactly the same.
ALEX: I need–
BOBBY: 60 feet six inches,? Like what are we talking about here? Doing it while I’m listening to pods. I’m just not sure if MLB is fully ready to commit to breaking those ties breaking that monopoly up for–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –the sake of the consumer. And maybe this is where we should bring in the heavies from your fans from your your MLB fans union. We should started–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –pushing cars and rivers and throwing Molotov cocktails through windows.
ALEX: It’s direct action.
BOBBY: It literally is.
ALEX: I need more access to my sport.
BOBBY: Okay, uhm, anything else on the streaming deals? Do you have Apple TV+? Would you like to drop your username and password on the podcast so that the Tipping Pitches, this is direct action.
ALEX: This is direct–
BOBBY: So this is stealing money from corporation, you sharing your password on the podcast.
ALEX: Well, I I suppose I will reveal my level of generational wealth. In saying that I’m actually on a family play.
BOBBY: Alex is a Vanderbilt.
ALEX: I do not pay for my own Apple TV+.
BOBBY: Alex’s cousin is Anderson Cooper. It goes Hal Steinbrenner inheriting the Yankees. And then Alex getting a family plan of Apple TV+.
ALEX: [48:06] I don’t have to tell you. The last thing I will say on this is that this deal may be bad for you the fan. It might be bad for cable Executives. And frankly, maybe bad for MLB itself. But anything that takes away MLBs ability to stream its own games with its terrible platform. Frankly, is a win for me in the long term.
BOBBY: Wow. You know, it just occurred to me?
ALEX: Uhm.
BOBBY: MLB TV, haven’t been thinking about that much for the last 105 days.
ALEX: You re upped your subscription? You encouraged many of our fans to to cancel it.
BOBBY: That was direct action, MLB fans Union could never. Actually, you know what? If MLB fans union wants to take credit for ending the lockout? Actually, no, I did it. I did it by tweeting out that people should cancel their MLB TV subscription.
ALEX: You, famously the only person to do that.
BOBBY: Yeah, I definitely didn’t do that. Because Craig Calcaterra reminded me to do that and his wonderful Cup of Coffee newsletter, that definitely wasn’t the reason. Let’s take a quick break. And when we come back, we’re gonna answer a bunch of listener questions.
[49:17]
[Transition Music]
BOBBY: All right. I want to say a big thank you to everybody who sent in listener questions because we’ve got a lot of them. So thanks to everybody. We won’t have time to get to every single one that we got. But we will be trickling them out over the next couple podcasts. But more than that, I want to say thank you to everybody who listened during the course of the lockout. And all the support that we heard from people for the emergency pod, for the CBA ABC’s. For just all of the “coverage” quote unquote, it’s weird to think of us as doing coverage. But I guess that kind of is what we do from a very specific perspective of the lockout and the labor situation over the last few months. It’s really, it’s been overwhelming, it’s been motivating to continue to try to put a good pot out into the world. So a big thank you to all of the TP listeners out there. Alex, do you want to say anything nice, or do you just want to sit there staring at me while I?
ALEX: I, no, I’ll play the bad cop. Frankly, y’all, it’s been a bit much!
BOBBY: Uhm, it’s your fault. You–
ALEX: Wow! [50:38]–
BOBBY: You hate MLB so much.
ALEX: –I don’t want you.
BOBBY: Yeah, you hate MLB so much they just didn’t care about bringing the sport back. Alex has been completely co opted by the MLB Fans Union?
ALEX: Should we, should we answer some of those questions?
BOBBY: Let’s let’s please answer some of those questions. We’re gonna start with a couple voicemails.
VOICEMAIL 1: Hey, guys, Nick here. I am curious to hear your thoughts on this. When once the deal was done, and it was signed, and baseball was officially back, I saw a lot of folks on Twitter sharing their excitement that baseball is back and they were you know, open to players it’s time to do and I, I didn’t, I was excited that baseball is back. But I was also trying to balance the emotions, of knowing that the deal of the players time wasn’t what they originally set out to achieve. And I know that there are some wins in there. And you’ll have discussed that already. But the owners did, unfortunately, a successful job of changing the narrative, to get a lot of fans to kind of change their view of the Players Association and what they were advocating for and trying to get the union to sign a deal quicker to save the season with all their state deadlines, everything they were doing. And so I’m curious how you all are balancing the feeling of being excited that baseball is back. But also the feeling of knowing that this deal is a player’s time isn’t the best deal that they could have gotten. Because the Executive Committee said no way, I think and so we know that there are still some things that the Executive Committee felt weren’t a part of it. For for that they didn’t want, so I’m curious to hear your thoughts and opinions on this. Thanks.
ALEX: I think that we kind of were I tried my my best to convey my feelings on this in our, in our emergency reaction podcast, even though I don’t really remember what I said.
BOBBY: Come on, bro, you don’t go back and listen to the pod?
ALEX: I’m not, I’m not one of our listeners. Uhm–
BOBBY: That’s all right. Your mom listens, I think your dad listens from time to time.
ALEX: Right. And people will, will reply back and I respond. I mostly use context clues to figure out what it is that we talked about.
BOBBY: To remember what you said on your own podcasts?
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, that’s like, this is one of the hard things about negotiating and about bargaining, right? Is, is recognizing that you probably didn’t achieve all of the things that you initially set out to do. And there obviously were specific places where it was unfortunate that the PA felt okay to give a little bit in some areas. In order to get the owners to give a bit in others. It’s unfortunate, and also kind of expected. Like, I think this is probably how I would have expected the deal to end up.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Is–
BOBBY: Maybe not exactly on this path. But–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –we got to the place.
ALEX: We got to the place. And I don’t think, you know, anyone was really expecting the the Players Association to completely roll back a lot of the economic changes that were made in the CBA over the last couple rounds of negotiating.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like that was just, frankly, the owners got their hooks in to a certain slice of the pie. And they weren’t really going to let that go. And some of the provisions that they ultimately settled on maybe didn’t go far enough to address things like competitive balance to address things like [54:35]. I think the PA probably did what they could.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Given what they were working with. And given the fact that I think a lot of their players, a lot of their members really wanted to get back and and play. Like I think there was probably a a large constituency that said, Hey, maybe I don’t want to blow this whole thing up right now. Maybe this isn’t the time things aren’t that dire. Which like I, you know, we’re not in the room, I get, I get that.
BOBBY: And I don’t even think you have to do too much reading into it to see that. The Executive Subcommittee, as Nick outlined, voted 8-0 against this deal. And as we talked about, on Thursday’s pod, the 30, representatives from the teams voted 26 to 4 in favor of this deal. And so I think it’s pretty obvious to see that the will of the unit, as we say, in bargaining, the will of the unit was they wanted to get back on the field and play. And there’s only so much you can do when you’re the person in the room when your union thinks it’s a good deal, like that, that it’s a good deal. Or it’s the deal that you’re going to get this time around. It would be irresponsible to then turn on your own union members who are voting yes for this. Because they have their own considerations as to why they wanted to vote yes, for this and get back to work. And many of those considerations we discussed on Thursday. Like they raised the minimum salary, the younger players are getting compensated much better than they were in the previous deal. And so, I don’t know, how do you square this? You just go back to watching baseball, I guess. And you hope that the next time around, they can get behind a couple more proposals that they feel really strongly about the way that they got behind the pre-arbitration bonus pool proposal. And that they can continue to make improvements to the game and make it more sustainable. But but at the end of the day, like you you can’t really live in the frustration that it should have gone farther. Because, because as you said, like, bargaining is not a one stop shop. One round of bargaining is not a one stop shop for fixing every single problem. Like it’s the, it truly is the cliche, where they say like, a compromise is where, what both sides go home feeling unhappy. And that’s how you know it’s the right deal to sign. Unfortunately, it’s my opinion that the owners are not unhappy about this deal. But I don’t know, man, I don’t know. It’s not my right to say it’s not I’m not in the room.
ALEX: All I can say is we the National Fans Union will push harder in the next round of bargaining.
BOBBY: And this was fans fault, as we learned at the beginning this podcast.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So fans–
ALEX: So we really should be, rather than rather than listening–
BOBBY: This was your fault.
ALEX: –rather than looking outward. How about look inward, right? What could I have done?
BOBBY: Ask not what MLB can do for you. But what you can do for MLB. Next question.
VOICEMAIL 2: Hey, guys, this is Dave. Love the pod, obsesses with the pod. Telling all my friends about the pod. Had a question about the pre-arb bonus pool. Seems like a really huge and important and impactful get for the players union. But I also, the more I hear about it, and get the fine grained details kind of underwhelmed at the same time. I know it’s important to make steps toward but this one, having trouble pinning down how important it is. Hoping you guys can help. I’m thinking specifically about an example, a couple of examples that I heard from Mark Feinsand on another podcast that I’m less of less obsessed with, where he said, If the bonus pool was in place as constituted in the new CBA last season, Corbin Burnes, for winning the Cy Young would have gotten four and a half million are in that ballpark. Vladi Jr. instead of you know, 660k, he would have gotten, three and a half million again, somewhere in that range. Great for those extremely, you know, high performing players. But yeah, there’s a bunch of other pre-arb guys who aren’t, you know, second AL MVP voting or or first in Cy Young voting that probably deserve a raise too. How does it impact the guys who aren’t Vladi Jr. and Corbin Burnes. All right, looking forward to hearing what you guys have to say. Thanks.
BOBBY: I think an important thing to understand about the Major League Baseball Players Association, and the economic structure of Major League Baseball is that it rewards outliers. And as much as we can sit here and say that we wish socialism came to baseball and greater society that I don’t think either side is interested in that. Like, yeah, Vladi Jr. is going to get taken care of. But the nature of the players union has always been do not cap what an individual person can make. That’s why there’s no salary cap. That’s why they will never agree to a salary cap and they think that that benefits the larger group of players in a long run. Because that was a decision that they made, along with Marvin Miller and the other founding members of the Players Association. And so we can look at it from the outside and we can say, maybe it would be better if that pool was spread out more evenly. But I don’t know that that’s what they wanted. And if that’s not that, that’s not what they wanted, then that’s not what’s gonna happen. And I I actually think that’s reasonable. Like, I think Dave, is probably right, we should have a baseball economic structure where there is not as much stratification. But I believe that, because I believe that about the entire world. And as we talked about a couple podcasts ago, not really sure if individual members of the Major League Baseball Players Association, really believe that, I think that they would probably tell you, they should be compensated for their individual ability, and that they kind of bootstrap their way to that place. Some of them don’t think that, for sure. But I think at least a simple majority of them think that most likely.
ALEX: Right. And even if all of them believed that, I don’t think you would have very much success approaching the owners and saying we believe every player should be paid X amount, regardless of their ability. We want to bump every player’s pay $3 million, no matter who they are, right? The owners are not going to get on board with that, which doesn’t mean that’s like something you shouldn’t necessarily fight for. But I think they probably recognized that the easiest case to make was one that said, you should at least start paying your stars, regardless of where they are kind of in service time in their major league career. You should start paying them a little bit closer to the output that they are creating for you. Which again, is not something maybe that you or I or Dave, or any other baseball fan maybe agrees with. It’s probably one of the many fans also do agree with.
BOBBY: Yeah. And it’s bad, it’s bad. But guess what? It is the argument that carries the most weight under capitalism. It carries weight on both sides of the table, to be honest. Are you valuable? What is valuable mean? Should you be financially compensated for being valuable?
ALEX: Yeah. What have you, what have you brought to the table?
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: What value have you brought?
BOBBY: And it’s honestly the argument that gets the furthest at the table. as messed up as that is. It’s the argument that doesn’t work at the table is these are all human beings. They should all be making an equal share of the pie.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Because if that was the argument, that worked well at the table, we wouldn’t need the table, bro. All right, this next question comes in the form of a DM it comes from Ron. Ron says, “As an Orioles fan, I may be biased. But I feel that teams that cut payroll but seem to have a plan to actually compete in the near future. Like the Orioles, the Astros, the Cubs, get misplaced criticism when criticizing teams who are quote ‘cheap’. Don’t you think teams like the Rockies and Pirates who literally seem to float and do nothing while collecting Competitive Balance Tax money are worse than teams who cut unusable contracts while revamping the minor league pipeline with future stars and then spend when those players are ready.” I think this is a fair question.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Because obviously, when we talk about these things, when we talk about trends, when we talk about tanking, we flatten these conversations, and we direct our ire towards a lot of the same offenders. I think the problem with the Orioles to address Ron’s example is when does that end? Like how long do you really need to tear down to get the minor league players?
ALEX: Right. Bold to say the Orioles, the Astros and the Cubs.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: [1:03:54] saying.
BOBBY: Like the Astros and the Cubs. I’ll give them credit for a very finite period. Guess what, the Astros were in the World Series last year, Alex. Do you remember that? Do you remember when the Astros were in the World Series last year?
ALEX: Do you remember when they won the World Series?
BOBBY: A couple of years ago? Yes, I remember. And same with the Cubs. The problem is there’s no defensible argument where it needs to be this bad. Do you need to run a $40 million payroll? Do you need to put a product out, that is offensive to a an insignificant, a not insignificant portion of your fans? No, you don’t. You don’t need to do that to turn it around. And just look at any number of teams who have become competitive without doing full tear downs like that. Look at the Brewers. Did the Brewers ever completely tank for 5 years and say this is the only way for us to get good players? No. They hired people who could go out and do the advanced scouting and understand that trading for Christian Yelich was a good idea. You know what I mean? And especially in the current market of baseball teams, it doesn’t take that much effort to get good again. And so I think there’s no world in which this isn’t primarily a financial, financially incentivized thing that the Orioles are doing. I think that you could probably say, it’s definitely better than what the Rockies and Pirates are doing. But is that really the position you want to put yourself in? Where you’re saying at least we’re better than the Rockies and the Pirates like no, that’s not, that’s not treating yourself well enough as a fan of the team.
ALEX: Yeah, I I think it’s fair to say that teams go through cycles of building and tearing down and, and being competitive and not being competitive. Like that’s true across all sports. So sure, there are levels to it. But I think it’s all undergirded with the realization that you will profit from this, no matter what. And in many cases that is extended, as far as it can possibly go, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: So do–
BOBBY: For people literally call for you to get moved out of [1:06:24].
ALEX: Right, So, so is it reasonable to say the Orioles are in more of a rebuilding phase than in a all in phase? Sure. Do they really have to be hitting like the the rockiest of bottoms that we’ve seen in the last few years?
BOBBY: No pun intended.
ALEX: I, I don’t know.
BOBBY: It’s just, you’re right. You’re right to say they’re going to be financially rewarded either way. Because it is profitable, even now, when they’re not winning. But if it wasn’t profitable now, way fewer teams would be trying it.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That’s absolutely certain–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –because you would have to know that it was gonna work. And guess what? I don’t see the Phillies competing for the World Series. They tore it down. I don’t see the Marlins competing for a World Series, when they tore it down and traded Yellich, Ozuna, and Stanton. I just, it doesn’t always work. It doesn’t even work most of the time. And so guess what? I’d rather see a team that wins 75 games and is at least pretty entertaining. Than a team that wins under 60 games, and is truly embarrassing for 5 years.
ALEX: Him. All right. Want come to be an A’s fan? Shits great over here, bro.
BOBBY: But, but look, listen though, the A’s have made the Playoffs so many times in your lifetime. Like 10 times more times than the Mets have made it. And I’m not even trying to be like–
ALEX: Same things to show for it though.
BOBBY: Yes, but but look, I’m not even trying to say like, look at me–
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: –poor Mets fan.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because I think that the Mets fans are, I think Mets fans are like, truly unwell and how they talk about the success or failure of the team. But like, at least they were decent enough to have enough good baseball players for you to be sad when they traded them away. Like who is what Orioles fan other than Jake Mintz from Cespedes Family BBQ is hurting right now. Because Hanser Alberto signed somewhere else. Absolutely nobody.
ALEX: Good signing, by the way.
BOBBY: Yeah, it was a good signing. But you you you understand my point?
ALEX: Yes, I do. I think the the problem is that the profit motives have become so muddied with the idea of competitiveness that you genuinely cannot tell the difference. And that is the real problem. Not necessarily the Rockies in a vacuum, or the Pirates in a vacuum. Or–
BOBBY: Though, although they are large problems.
ALEX: They are massive problems, but they’re a product of a system that is rewarding this, right? So are the Orioles worth or the Rockies worse? It doesn’t really matter. They’re both successful. They’re both in the black at the end of the day.
BOBBY: Yeah. All right. Next question. This comes from John, we’ll do this one very quickly. Because we already kind of answered it. John wants to know, is noted how the Subcommittee went 8-0 against the Collective Bargaining Agreement and the team reps went 26-4 in favor of it. I didn’t hear these kind of detailed numbers, when the many many declined deals were announced. Where the 30 team reps always giving their yey or nay on these proposals. Or did they bring them in this time? Or did they bring them in this time because the Subcommittee felt this deal was more serious? So I’ll say the only time it goes to a wide vote is when you’ve completed the agreement. So what I mean by that is when one side gives a proposal, and the other side whoever is directly involved in bargaining. So in this case, it probably was the Executive Subcommittee. It probably was only those 8 people. And if they felt like a deal was close enough That’s when they would start consulting the other 30 team reps. But you wouldn’t go back to your constituency and say, do you support this deal? If it was an ownership proposal that was still very far away from what you had proposed? So my guess would be, they did not start involving those individual 30 team reps until last week.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, do you think that was the case entirely? Like, it wouldn’t surprise me if some of those players were going back and having informal conversations.
BOBBY: Right, and–
ALEX: They say–
BOBBY: –involved is [1:10:34]–
ALEX: –the wrong [1:10:34] is.
BOBBY: They wouldn’t have formally went to a vote process and–
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: [1:10:38]
ALEX: You’re not gonna vote on every single proposal.
BOBBY: Because nobody thought it was even close. Nobody thought it was anywhere nearer. Like the for a long time, the Players Association was still at 275 million. And when you put a proposal across the table, what you are saying, what you are promising is that that proposal is at the behest of the rest of your union. And so if, because they’ve elected you, they’ve put their trust in you to bargain their contract on behalf of them. Because not all 1000 players can be in the room. And so if the Executive Subcommittee along with Bruce Meyer thinks that 275 million for the Competitive Balance Tax is the number to put across, by electing the Executive Subcommittee, the rest of the union is saying, we agree 275 million is the number that we should put across. And that’s just the way these things work. Because not all 1000 people can be in the room. So the answer to John’s question is, it was never close enough to involve all 30 people. There is kind of like a logical end point when you’re in the room for these things. Where each side kind of thinks this is a deal proposal. This is not just me answering your proposals on these individual things, and saying we need to hammer this out. Like this is a full package proposal, take this or leave this. And we saw this language for Major League Baseball. And that’s how it gets once you get close enough on the main key economic issues. The next question, it’s not really a question. It’s more of a follow up from Kenny that I wanted to very quickly address. Because I think that I was slightly mistaken in talking about game length a couple weeks ago, when we had this discussion. And I phrased it as commercials are the primary reason why games have gotten so long commercial length. And Kenny was right to point out an article from Grant Brisbee in 2017, which we actually talked about, at the time that the article was released. Kenny was right to point that out that, that if you were to institute some of these rule changes are about a pitch clock, you could actually save as much as, as much as 30 minutes in a game. Which, obviously, you couldn’t really save that much time from trimming down commercial breaks. Because most of the commercial breaks that happened in Major League Baseball or wall sides are switching. And you actually need enough time to get out there and for the pitcher to warm up. So Kenny was right to point that out. I still think my I still think our conversation about the pitch clock kind of stands in that it will all depend on how they actually enforce it. And whether or not it goes to the letter of the law in terms of the game sound or not. And Kenny was right to point out. He’s, he’s been at games that were two and a half hours that felt like four hours because there was no action. And he’s been at games that were four hours. That felt like two and a half hours. And so I think that that is a big problem of this. But I think a lot of people believe including Austin Zimmerman, who’s a friend of the podcast. Who’s been on the podcast, I think a lot of people believe that a pitch clock could help with that problem. So even if the game does go long, even if there are a lot of long at bats, and hits and walks and whatever, if at least you’re seeing a pitch at a quicker cadence, it doesn’t quite feel like attracts as much. I’m kind of unconvinced if we don’t fix the problem with how we’ve incentivize certain types of playing the game. But I figured it was worth at least kind of reconciling that I was slightly unfactual in that claim.
ALEX: The most modest admission of fault. No, you’re right on that.
BOBBY: This next question comes from Cam. I’m gonna let you take it Alex. Cam asks, “So Bob Castellini owns 20%, which is a plurality of the Cincinnati Reds. And the rest is split between 17 other people with the Pitman family collectively owning more than Bob. Should I be yelling at Bob? The Pitmans? All 19 of them? Should I be begging on Twitter.com random crypto billionaires to buy the Reds? Or are we just doomed?” I love this question.
ALEX: I think you direct your ire at all of them, but mostly Bob Castellini because he’s the funny one to direct your ire towards. I don’t know, why have you gotten so much?
BOBBY: I know Bob–
ALEX: So much mileage out of him owning a fruits and vegetables for sale
BOBBY: God chase [1:15:12], time to buy some more carrots.
ALEX: You do really like that bit. Uhm–
BOBBY: It’s so funny. How do you become worth $400 million by selling carrots? Like it’s such an indictment of society that Bob Castellini became rich enough to buy a Major League Baseball team by selling fruits and vegetables. That’s why we’ve gotten so much mileage out of it.
ALEX: Yeah, frankly. I, you know, again, I, I hate them all. I actually know very little about the Pitman family. Which is why I say directed at Bob Castellini. But hey, man, the Pitmans sound like they probably deserve it too. I, do you know, do any? Do you know anything about the Pitman family?
BOBBY: I don’t know who they are at all? Nope. Can’t name a single one of them.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: The Pitman families, the friends [1:16:02]. I I mean, anybody who is part of the ownership, this is, I actually think this is a perfect example of why ownership groups like large ownership groups are probably not in the best interest of Major League Baseball teams in the long run. Where one person owns 20%, just a small parality of the team. And a bunch of other people have shared interests. Because they’re looking around the room at their fellow rich people, investors, and they’re looking at the big market owners. And they’re saying, they’re seeing, or or even they’re looking at like the Paul Dolan types, small market owners who [1:16:45] huge returns on their small market teams. No, like, why aren’t I getting that much money? It’s like, well, because you don’t own as much of the team, dude. Like you don’t get as big of a percentage of the dividend at the end of the year. But they think they’re entitled to it. Because they’ve been told by everybody else, that baseball should make them a lot of money. And so they push for cost saving mechanisms, so that they can make as much as their friends in baseball. I think that that is my take on this. So you should be mad at all of them is the long winded. My long winded way of saying that.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, the fact that a lot of ownership groups are obscured from actually knowing how they operate or who they are composed of, is a problem probably in and of itself. Like you should be able to go to mlb.com and have a little, little owner’s link that says, here’s who owns your team and their–
BOBBY: Phone number.
ALEX: –residences.
BOBBY: Residences.
ALEX: Plural, probably.
BOBBY: Yeah, probably. Uhm, all right, we have a couple more questions. So let’s go back to the voicemail box.
VOICEMAIL 3: Hey, fellas, Josh here. Two questions. What is the best Taylor Swift album? Why is it Folklore? And if there’s one Taylor Swift song to perfectly describe our good friend, Rob, Manfred’s tenure as Commissioner, what would it be? Thanks. Can’t wait for the next episode.
BOBBY: Please allow me to put my Captain Obvious hat on Alex. And give the people what they want and say the best Taylor Swift album is Red. And the Taylor Swift song that best describes Rob Mafred’s tenure, which I cannot take personal credit for. I must give credit to Phoebe, my partner, is This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things. It’s right there, all new title.
ALEX: Josh, I want to turn the tables on you. You offered up an answer to your first question but not your second. I’d love to know what you think the the best song is to describe the tenure of Rob Manfred as Commissioner of baseball.
BOBBY: Well, do you want to engage with the Folklore of it? Do you want to engage with the fact that with the Josh thinks that Folklore is Taylor Swift best album?
ALEX: Uhm. No, ‘coz it’s probably true if we’re being honest.
BOBBY: Oh, from like a musicality perspective?
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: All right.
ALEX: What is, like what’s my–
BOBBY: Wow!
ALEX: –favorite?
BOBBY: where can I read your work on pitchforks?
ALEX: Wow!
BOBBY: Show some emotion, dawg.
ALEX: Uhm, my favorite is Reputation.
BOBBY: I love this about you.
ALEX: I’m so not kidding.
BOBBY: I know you’re not, that’s why I love it about you.
ALEX: It’s it’s a, it is arguably–
BOBBY: It’s one of the bo- it’s one of the bolder albums made in our lifetime.
ALEX: It’s five–
BOBBY: Tie up a mainstream pop artists.
ALEX: It is maybe the most important album for her creatively when you look at where she was in her career. What she was writing about and just in terms of, you know, it’s kind of the sort of thing where you have to blow it all up to be able to like build it, you know, like she had to go to-
BOBBY: So you’re in favor of tanking? This was like her tanking album.
ALEX: This is her tanking album that she won the World Series, right? Like she did it all. And like what sure where–
BOBBY: Wow!.
ALEX: –there’s some where there’s some misses?
BOBBY: Which song is Carlos Correa? I just love that you looked at Taylor Swift.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And you were like, you know what I need more Ed Sheeran.
ALEX: Uhm, I mean, that album features the only good Ed Sheeran feature and even that is questionable. So–
BOBBY: It’s not, I always, I can’t decide whether he works on that song or doesn’t work on that song. Or whether it would be improved or made worse by taking him off. Because just Taylor Swift in future on a song doesn’t seem right either.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: He almost feels like the perfect midway point between those two artists to make it seem normal that they were in the studio together. Even though future definitely recorded that in a separate studio and just sent them that file.
ALEX: I mean, that song slaps.
BOBBY: It’s fun.
ALEX: If it’s, it’s, it’s a good song. My–
BOBBY: I think Folklore is a definitely defensible best Taylor Swift album.
ALEX: It’s the one–
BOBBY: But it depends on what you’re there for.
ALEX: Right. I mean, it’s the one that I’ve come back to obviously, in the most in the last couple years, both because of recency bias. But also I think it’s just the most musically like, varied of hers, right? Like it doesn’t have a style where it’s like, this is the the pop Taylor. Or this is this is the country Taylor, right? I mean, you could say this is like, indie Taylor. But indie doesn’t mean a single fucking thing in 2022. So–
BOBBY: I think that Red has gotten so much shine because of All Too Well and the 10-minute version. And–
ALEX: Are we talking Red or Red Taylor’s version?
BOBBY: I don’t think that it makes too much of a difference to [1:21:54]
ALEX: Wow! It doesn’t make a difference.
BOBBY: Well, I think that the Red bonus tracks have been the best of the bonus, the best collection of the bonus tracks.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like I think, I bet you think about me is definitely the best song from the vault so far. Like that’s a song that I have–
ALEX: Shade the Mr. Perfectly Fine.
BOBBY: –I have, Mr. Perfectly Fine’s really good too, actually that that’s fair, that’s one A and one B. I have put that song on more playlists on any playlist, actually. I haven’t put any other songs from the vault on that playlist. So you know what I mean. So I guess from that perspective, Taylor’s version is important. But the thing about Red is that it’s the album that is most improved by listening to as an album. Folklore, individual tracks are all really good and the album is good. Individual tracks on Red, there’s more misses when you listen to them out of order.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But me being a listen straight through to the album, kind of person. I think our generation kind of the last generation that actually did that, because of CDs. I like Red. I think it’s the best album.
ALEX: I love that. I love that for you. I respect that take.
BOBBY: I don’t think that it would have the highest percentage of good Taylor Swift songs though.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Because there’s a looooot of stuff on there that I’m like, this probably didn’t need to be on that.
ALEX: This is just the kind of thing where it’s like you need just needed an editor, you know? This, this essay didn’t need to be 10,000 words long. My my, the last–
BOBBY: But some authors, you just need to let them have those 10,000 words to find themselves.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And I think that she’s one of those people.
ALEX: Right. Some people. You mean like a reputation?
BOBBY: Different strokes for different folks? Like, like Olivia Rodrigo’s album is 11 songs long. Can you imagine Taylor Swift putting out an 11 song record? Absolutely not!
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Unless all of the songs are like 15-minutes long.
ALEX: I don’t want to get into my take. Olivia Rodrigo’s- rigo’s album, is too long. Uhm–
BOBBY: What is happening right now?
ALEX: I’m gonna, I’m gonna go, I I–
BOBBY: It’s like 39 minutes.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We’ve been answering this question longer than Olivia Rodrigo’s album.
ALEX: Yeah. I just–
BOBBY: The gall, the gall from this man.
ALEX: That, this wasn’t the question.
BOBBY: Wow!
ALEX: I–
BOBBY: Somebody please call it and ask a question about that so that we can hear Alex’s full thoughts.
ALEX: I knew you were trouble feels like the the the kind of easy answer to the question. And–
BOBBY: That’s really good. That’s really good.
ALEX: –and the deeper Cohen is my tears ricochet, you know? It’s like, dude, come on! What? I thought we were gonna have something here.
BOBBY: Okay. Wow. Time for one last question.
VOICEMAIL 4: Hello, this is Kara. First time long time. I wanted to ask you guys about the international draft. I know. That was one of the big issues that were kind of tabled in order for them to finally agree to see the CBA. I wanted to see what you guys thought the issues would be there. I know. July is their deadline to agree to something. How is that going to work in the middle of the season? What are the major talking points there? Yeah, I’m just curious and look forward to hearing your answer.
BOBBY: I’ll say we also got this question from Joseph, specifically about the international draft. And what are the benefits and one of the problems with it? I mean, there are a million problems with the International draft. First and foremost, a draft is anti labor. It takes away your agency and choosing where you go. Which means it limits your ability to capitalize on your talent, if there is a team that wants you more, and is willing to pay more for you. I think that the reason some people are slightly optimistic about the concept of an international draft is because it would do some of the work of cleaning up the corruption with what goes on in international signings. As far as Kara’s question of the deadline of the middle of the season, I’m I’m pretty pessimistic about them being able to come to an agreement before then. Because there are so many different parties to take into consideration when it comes to the international draft. I just don’t know how you really balanced that in any kind of equitable way that the Players Association is willing to sign off on. Because we’ve already seen a lot of honestly like power broker type figures, as players come out against this. Tatis is against this. David Ortiz is against this. Like these people have already come out. And full throatedly said, this won’t work.
ALEX: Although, although Ortiz said it with a bit of he hedged on it a bit and said, I don’t like it in the format right now. There’s a way to do it.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But it can’t have such a short runway, etc.
BOBBY: Right. All that being said, we are going to go into further detail on this on a future episode. Because because it is still open for bargaining purposes. And because Alex and I are certainly not the experts when it comes to international signings.
ALEX: Yeah. And ultimately, this is another case of the players bargaining away the rights of others who are not protected by their union, because they have the ability to do so.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Which like, psh!!! Fucking sucks!
BOBBY: That actually, it’s a good opportunity for me to say we got a few different questions about how the CBA, how this recent lockout truly affects minor leaguers? The answer? It doesn’t. They’re still being treated like absolute shit. There’s nothing that the CBA does to help them in any way, shape, or form. And the Players Association did very little to support minor leaguers in this round of bargaining. Not to say that they should have not to say that it was easy to even do that. But I think I mentioned this on a previous podcast, but Alex and I are going to do it a whole episode about what it would take to unionize the minor league. So look out if you asked a question about that. I apologize. We’re clearly running very long here. But look out for more of that discussion. Again in the near future.
ALEX: Yeah. What you said, should we get out of here?
BOBBY: I think we should. Must you have more Major League Baseball fans union propaganda to read to the people at the end of the podcast?
ALEX: No, man, so So here’s the thing about Olivia Rodrigo, you know? No, I kid.
BOBBY: Two songs that you would cut from the album. Go!
ALEX: I don’t know, bro.
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s right.
ALEX: Hope ur okay?
BOBBY: All right.
ALEX: I–
BOBBY: Fair. That’s one.
ALEX: Favorite crime? Like, I don’t know, I just I mostly just feel like, oh, they they kind of tread over a lot of the same themes, both like lyrically and musically. Which again–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –is I I would she is allowed to feel all the fields.
BOBBY: So what I’m hearing from you is you want to invalidate a young woman’s feelings.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And how she puts them into her music? Right, of course.
ALEX: Wow. I can’t even respond to this. You know, like there’s nothing I can say here. If, can you hear me the shovel over there in the corner?
BOBBY: Just keep digging, brother, keep digging. Thanks to everybody for listening to this comically long podcast. If you want to call in ask more questions, which we will continue to answer over the coming weeks. The number is 785-422-5881. You can write us at tippingpitchespod@gmail.com. You can DM us tipping_pitches on Twitter. You know what else you can do, Alex? You can leave a review of us on iTunes.
ALEX: Uhm.
BOBBY: You can tell a friend about the podcast.
ALEX: You two stars for the bad sour takes.
BOBBY: Please, I’m willing to eat those two star reviews in support of sour. Which took 4 of the 5 most listened to spots on my Spotify wrapped in 2021. Anything else?
ALEX: It was supposed to be an EP. It was only expanded because of good for you and the success for that. That’s all say.
BOBBY: It was a lot of success. It was a lot of success. Thanks for listening everyone.
[1:29:58]
[Music]
[1:30:23]
[Outro]
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello everybody, I’m Alex Rodriguez, Tipping Pitches, Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most Tipping Pitches. So we’ll see you next week. See ya.
Transcriptionist: Vernon Bryann Casil
Editor: Krizia Marrie Casil
Tipping Pitches 
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