Alex and Bobby talk for far too long about Alex’s encounter with John Fisher at a recent A’s game, then probe Rob Manfred’s professed desire for expansion teams. Then they talk with Maria Hernandez and Laura Ortiz from UNITE HERE Local 11 about the strike authorization vote among concessions workers at Dodger Stadium and their struggles to negotiate a fair contract. Finally, they answer some listener questions about the grammar of team nicknames, Hall of Fame cases among young stars, and stats that track fans.
Links:
Dodger Stadium concession workers threaten to strike MLB All-Star Game
Rob Manfred doesn’t hate baseball, and other claims
Tipping Pitches on Patreon
Get Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
Amber Mark — Lose My Cool (Franc Moody Remix) • Shuggie Otis — Strawberry Letter 23 • 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? That’s amazing! That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, one of the core tenants of Tipping Pitches, the Tipping Pitches Podcast that we’re recording right now, that people are listening to right now. One of the core tenants of that podcast is giving the people what they want. Not trying to anticipate with some amorphous majority of Pete baseball fans out there want to talk about. We’re talking about niche things here. And so there’s no sense in me doing a cold open of dumb jokes about anything other than you taking a photograph, a literal photograph that can be shared far and wide with mysterious A’s owner, John Fisher, who very rarely makes public appearances anywhere. You the person sitting in this room with me, put your arm around John Fisher and took a photograph. After years, years of us making fun of how he’s some dark money billionaire who doesn’t show up anywhere. The one A’s game that you chose to go to for the last three years, John Fisher was also there. I don’t even know what else to say.
ALEX: That’s, yeah, you kind of said it all.
BOBBY: We have deliberately not talked about this.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah. You, you were uninterested in hearing about it until you could hear about it live on the podcast. So this is, this is Bobby unfiltered right here.
BOBBY: Every podcast is probobly unfiltered, unfortunately, I guess, I guess it’s good. I got to know everything. I just have to know everything, everything. Where were you that you saw him? How did you know that he was there? How did you know for sure it was him? How did you make the approach? Did you use Gabriella as a wing person, a wing woman for approaching A’s owner, John Fisher and ask him to take an ironic photograph with him? Did he see the shirt? Did he read the shirt? Did he understand what the shirt meant? Did he like you? Was he funny, that he smiled, that he laughed at any of your jokes? Like please tell me every single thing that you can remember right now, go!
ALEX: I feel like I’m doing like a, like a recollection for like the FBI. You know, when they’re like they’re trying–
BOBBY: Right. I’m like doing–
ALEX: –to put together like sketch.
BOBBY: –like sketch, yeah.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That is what’s happening.
ALEX: So I was at an Oakland A’s game. I was there with my, with my two parents, who I love very much. And we had, we had gotten the tickets through a family friend of ours who actually works in the A’s PR department. So–
BOBBY: Wow! So you’re in the pocket of big A’s already. Okay.
ALEX: I am, yes. I’m getting comps tickets. I’m getting, I’m getting photo opportunities with the A’s [3:16]. Like I’m, I’m flying a little close to the sun here.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And said the family friend had, had come down to talk with us for the first couple innings just we’ve not seen him in a while and, and so we were, we were catching up and he was he was regaling us with, with stories of life on the A’s PR side. Which I’m sure you, as you can imagine–
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: –is, is, is a ride.
BOBBY: Was he like, thanks for all your help with that. It’s like you’re really helping me do my job.
ALEX: Right, right. Exactly. And I, I think it was probably the in the second inning or so that he turns around. And he turns to me, and he says, hey, do you know what John Fisher looks like? And I turned around, and I said that? That is what he looks like.
BOBBY: Okay, wait, where were you sitting? Like field level box seats style.
ALEX: Like it was like field level, it was like field level behind the, the home dugout. So it was pretty close to the field. I was- here, let me put it this way. I had to turn around to see the A’s owner, right? So I was sitting closer to the field than this man.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: Which once again, I’m really, I’m really showing who I am, right now.
BOBBY: You’re being exposed on the podcast right now. But we’ll, that, that’s for later, we need to hear the rest of the story. We haven’t even gotten to the [4:43]
ALEX: Which is his physical description. I, I said yes, that’s–
BOBBY: [4:49] shoes.
ALEX: –that is, that–
BOBBY: Weird dude.
ALEX: –folks on Twitter had a lot to say about how this man was dressed.
BOBBY: Well, they’ve never seen how he’s dressed.
ALEX: I know, I know.
BOBBY: You’re the first person to have a photo with him. You, of all people!
ALEX: This is it’s like you’re describing a dream right now. You know, I’m like I’m not even really sure this happened.
BOBBY: If you’re not really sure it happened, imagine how I felt waking up to this.
ALEX: Right, ’cause you’re in London.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: You’re like, what? Eight, nine hours ahead of me?
BOBBY: I was sitting courtside, my comp tickets from Novak Djokovic, at Wimbledon, right.
ALEX: Naturally. I, so I our friend had to go and like do it’s, do his job. So he, so he departed. And so I spent about half an inning kind of plotting what to do.
BOBBY: How to make your move?
ALEX: Right. I was like, I didn’t bring a carton of eggs with me. So that I can rule that one out. I, I was wearing my Steal Bases Not Wages shirt.
BOBBY: Fea- features one Rickey Henderson.
ALEX: One Rickey Henderson famous, famously was on the Oakland A’s. So I’m plotting my approach, right? I, you know, and I was, I was mulling over like, do I go up in a cost to this man, you know? Do it like a, almost like a citizen’s arrest sort of thing. Where I pull out my phone and say–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Sir, sir, how do you, how do you answer for your crimes?
BOBBY: Yeah. And what made you not want to do that? You being you?
ALEX: I don’t know. I kind of wanted to see the game.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I, it was mostly, I didn’t even get hotdog yet. Like I was I was interested in, in and seeing that. But, but also, as my, as my dad rightly pointed out, like, this man is a billionaire likely cares very little about small little people like me who go to the games.
BOBBY: Right. Who work wage jobs.
ALEX: Who work wage jobs. And–
BOBBY: Who have to look at their checking account from time to time.
ALEX: Right. Like, if he goes on Twitter, he can see folks like myself just going in on him every single day, right? This is, the fact that he is–
BOBBY: So many followers, yeah.
ALEX: –disliked by, by a number of A’s fans, it’s probably not new to him. I mean, I suppose I could have tried to convince him of–
BOBBY: Imagine you go [7:11]–
ALEX: –to Oakland like–
BOBBY: Yeah. Oh, well, that’s true. But imagine you go up to him and you’re like, maybe don’t trade Frankie Montas. He’s like, who is this guy?
ALEX: Well, I mean, he would also be like, well, I’m not, I’m not the one making those decisions, right? He has like an easy out in a lot of this. Because he’s like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –oh, I just like own the team. I just signed the checks [7:31]–
BOBBY: [7:31]
ALEX: Yeah. I decided that the, the picture with him featuring the Steal Bases Not Wages slogan was, was maybe a little bit more subversive, ironic than, than perhaps just going up and trying to convince a man whose net worth is like more money than I can just fathom. It’s just like a number that I don’t think is real, you know. Trying to convince him to like, do something for, for me–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you know.
BOBBY: Yeah. Like you were gonna be the impassioned person to make the case to him that how he’s earning the A’s is incorrect.
ALEX: Right. He was gonna go home that night and take a long hard look in the mirror and say, I gotta go back to some teams. I’m, I’m not, not cut out for this.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I, and, okay, so he was sitting alone. He was there was–
BOBBY: I love the [8:22], by the way. Those, those are the jeans that I wear, wear Gap denim.
ALEX: Wow. Wow. Supporting John Fisher left and right, huh?
BOBBY: You were the one that was at the comped box seat tickets behind the stadium. Or behind the dugout.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s right. He didn’t get any money from me.
BOBBY: That’s true.
ALEX: So anyway–
BOBBY: He doesn’t need money all that water that you’re caring for him, come on!
ALEX: Hey, there we go. I, so he was sitting by himself. He, he was not in like a, like a suite or anything like that, right? He was just kind of in this, this sort of area between like a couple of the sections that are just, I, I, I guess their box, I don’t know what box seats actually, I don’t know what the definition of box seats are.
BOBBY: It’s fine, it’s not important.
ALEX: Right. So he was he was sitting by himself not in a, in a section with just with other lay people, right? And when in kind of one of the, the sectioned off areas that either VIPs sit in or–
BOBBY: Owners of the team.
ALEX: –owners of the team, yes exactly. And he was sitting by himself and there was no one there like guarding the box seat–
BOBBY: To protect him.
ALEX: –from, from fans interested in throwing tomatoes or taking ironic photos.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: So, a, in between innings I walked up with, with my my dad in tow, who I, who I gave ample instructions on how to take the photo. Which was just take many, just hold like hold down that, I want to get–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –every like shade of his face, you know?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And I, and I walked up to him between innings and like as soon as he saw me and like made eye contact to me, he like started to get up, you know, like to, to greet me. And my thinking is that he was really lonely. And he was kind of–
BOBBY: Oh, noh.
ALEX: –he was kind of excited that like, someone recognized, you know. That someone like, recognize–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –them enough to be like, Hey, you are the man who like, owns all this. Like collects these checks and is the reason for my joy and my heartbreak, you know. But like, he just looks like a, like a nobody, you know, he just looks.
BOBBY: Wow!
ALEX: He just looks like a, like a dude.
BOBBY: Uh-huh. You just went from humanizing him to putting him in a body bag in the span of like 30 seconds. Okay, I have important follow up questions.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Before we even get to the interaction, where words were spoken. Had you consumed alcohol? And if so, how much before approaching A’s owner, John Fisher?
ALEX: I think I had like half a beer.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: So very low.
BOBBY: So you weren’t like rolling up to him? Like–
ALEX: Like slurring words.
BOBBY: –nervously chugs, like five beers before doing it.
ALEX: Right, no.
BOBBY: Okay. That’s good to know.
ALEX: Needed to be on my A game.
BOBBY: Number two, did nobody else recognize like, literally nobody else approached him in the time that you noticed?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Okay. Continue. No further questions, your honor.
ALEX: And I, and I even later on in the game, I, I, I went to get a hot dog from one Hal the Hot Dog Guy.
BOBBY: Did you have to pay for that one? Or was that comp too? Booooo!
ALEX: It’s from Hal the Hot Dog Guy who’s a, who’s well-known an A’s Twitter. He’s a–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –he’s an environmental economist. And he also sells hotdogs at, at A’s games. And I pointed out to him, I was like, hey, have you, so have you sold the hotdog to John Fisher yet? And he like turned around and he’s like, hh, he actually is here. I was like, nice. He was like, I think that’s the second time this year. So–
BOBBY: Wow!
ALEX: –like, so like, no one–
BOBBY: No other chances.
ALEX: –again. He’s wearing this like camo hat, like a hoodie,–
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
ALEX: –jeans, boots.
BOBBY: No, there were sneakers. People were flaming the sneakers.
ALEX: Yeah, you’re right.
BOBBY: They look like Skechers. No shade the Skechers. Nope. Just, that’s an observation.
ALEX: So I, so I walked up to him. said hello, Mr. Fisher.
BOBBY: You call him Mr. Fisher?
ALEX: I pretty sure yeah.
BOBBY: Nice.
ALEX: I think I’m kind of–
BOBBY: [12:23] on.
ALEX: –I mean, I kind of did blackout like during most of this interaction.
BOBBY: Like when I met Keith Hernandez?
ALEX: Right, exactly. And so I, I stuck out my hand and I said, I said I’m a big fan of your work.
BOBBY: Oh my God! Yes!
ALEX: You know, your work.
BOBBY: Yes!
ALEX: The work you famously do.
BOBBY: Did he say which work?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: The like the sweatshop labor or like the moving the A’s out of Oakland?
ALEX: Like he wasn’t an environmental degradation.
BOBBY: He assumed that you were talking about the Oakland A’s, right? Because you’re at A’s game.
ALEX: Right, I’m at A’s game. I’m wearing an A’s hat.
BOBBY: No, no A’s jersey?
ALEX: No jersey, I had not brought, I had not brought a jersey with me on the trip.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: But I, I and, and as I walked up, he glanced at my shirt. And I noticed this and kind of just tried to like, turn my body just like a little bit. Because when I didn’t want–
BOBBY: Turn around be like, oh, Dad, what do you say? Walk approach him, backing up.
ALEX: I mean, I figured I, he was used probably listening to me and focusing on the interaction anyway. So he wasn’t going to sit there and try and like process what was going on in it.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But I also wasn’t interested in having him be like–
BOBBY: What’s on your shirt?
ALEX: –what’s on your shirt? Or, I mean, I actually, I probably wouldn’t have minded that. But you never know what this guy like the, like the direction that could go in is like, oh, what’s on your shirt? Huh, eye roll, oh, okay. Or like security.
BOBBY: Wow!
ALEX: Security!
BOBBY: Alex detained at an A’s game for wearing a shirt.
ALEX: That’d be, that’d be a story.
BOBBY: That would be, I, sort of wish that happened, to be honest. Like, I’m sort of mad he was cordial to you.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah. But he was very cordial. So I asked him, I said, do you mind if I grab a picture with you, with you? He was like, oh, yeah, of course.
BOBBY: This guy’s been [14:12]
ALEX: That’s my John, my John Fisher–
BOBBY: John Fisher and Alex Bazeley being dudes.
ALEX: This so we, so we took the picture, several photos.
BOBBY: I will be looking at all of this photos.
ALEX: Okay, sounds, I’ll AirDrop them to you.
BOBBY: You will.
ALEX: Right after this recording. And then he, you know, he said, hey, thanks for coming. And I said, you know, I have a podcast.
BOBBY: Oh, yes! Yes! Yes! This is my next question. I was on the edge of my seat.
ALEX: I said I have a podcast, I think, I believe I said it’s about the economics of baseball, which was like–
BOBBY: That’s funny.
ALEX: –like maybe the only way I’d be able to sell him on this sort of thing, right, is completely kind of obscure. The, the, the true intentions that we have here, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: We talk a lot about the economics of baseball, you cannot deny that.
BOBBY: You should just said it’s about our passion for baseball. And the way that that manifests.
ALEX: Right. It’s again, none of these are lies.
BOBBY: No, no.
ALEX: I said, we’d love to have you on, if you ever want. And he like paused for like, five seconds. Like trying to think it, like not that I was expecting this man to just be like, Okay, sure, yeah, here’s my email and send me a, you know, I’ll have my publicist set something up–
BOBBY: jfisher@thegapcom.
ALEX: Who’s on like one interview with media in like, four or five years.
BOBBY: Yeah. God damn it, it would be so funny if he said yes.
ALEX: I know. So he said, well, I, I think I might need a few drinks in me before I do that.
BOBBY: And you should have said I’m buying.
ALEX: I would, well, I said, Okay.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: We got Patreon money, buddy.
BOBBY: Yeah, dude. We’re rubbing elbows with John Fisher now.
ALEX: And I like started to walk away and again, like, maybe this is me reading too much into this.
BOBBY: You should have had a business card. We need a business card.
ALEX: That would have been a good idea. Well, someone, someone noted that I could have like, slapped like a No Billionaires in Baseball sticker on his back, you know. Those basically act as business cards, right?
BOBBY: I think that would have been a tough sell to get him on the pod–
ALEX: That true.
BOBBY: –by giving him that? But, yeah.
ALEX: Yeah, I guess all three of our, our non Unionize the Minors designs like kind of directly implicate him, right? It’s like an elephant standing on top of an owner.
BOBBY: An A’s the A’s elephant standing on.
ALEX: The A’s- yes, exactly. That–
BOBBY: Something that looks like the A’s elephant standing on top of it.
ALEX: Right. I think it was his cousin.
BOBBY: Right. Like, like in the same phylum animal kingdom? I don’t know.
ALEX: Family?
BOBBY: Sure. Genus.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Let’s keep going.
BOBBY: I don’t know anymore.
ALEX: All that to say, it, it almost looked like he kind of wanted to, like keep talking–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –you know?
BOBBY: We could have been his only friends.
ALEX: Least genuinely could have what a long con that would have been, you know.
BOBBY: I just want to say, if John Fisher has since seen this photo. Because it, it did in a weird way like kind of go viral.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: A photo of you and A’s owner John Fisher.
ALEX: Stupid.
BOBBY: Went all around A’s Twitter something that you’ve been a member of since you were like 14?
ALEX: Ridiculous. I, I did not enjoy it.
BOBBY: Multiple people were like, John Fisher, so tone deaf.
ALEX: Yeah. Also, multiple people were like, you know, he’s the bad guy, right? And I’m like–
BOBBY: Yeah. This is the thing that when we have a tweet that goes beyond like, the 100 people that interact with all of our tweets is that they don’t get it.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That’s the thing, that’s the problem. So those people I say, listen to the podcast. But despite all of that, despite who we are, John, if you’re listening, I’m willing to say, we will be friends with you. I will be your friend. Come on the podcast, let’s do, you do one little interview, you see if you’d like it.
ALEX: Wow, who’s in his pocket now?
BOBBY: No. You see if you’d like it–
ALEX: John Fisher, I will be your friend.
BOBBY: Alex! Please don’t ruin this opportunity for us to get our new friend John Fisher, whom we respect and admire.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –for his works–
ALEX: All of his hard work.
BOBBY: –in many industries. I mean, it’s very rare that you have a titan of multiple industries.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: Please don’t ruin the opportunity to get him on this podcast. Okay, that’d be our most listened to podcast episode forever, forever.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Literally getting an owner on the podcast. So does this put him at the top of the ranking of owners most likely to do our podcast? He is now the only owner that knows we have a podcast.
ALEX: That’s, that’s true. Yes. I didn’t tell him what it was. I, I didn’t see him write anything down. So I’m hoping his memory just as is real good.
BOBBY: I mean, you don’t get to the top without sharp mind.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: And a father who founded The Gap.
ALEX: I really hope he took it back to an assistant was like, ahh such a curiosity, look these guys up.
BOBBY: And they played like 30 seconds for him?
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s kind of actually a horrifying hypothetical. Now that I think too hard about it. Kind of don’t want any owners to ever listen to this podcast.
ALEX: Our photos are currently being plastered all over like–
BOBBY: Every Major League Baseball facility. Are you gonna get well, we did make it into the Mets game yesterday. So we’re not blacklisted from Major League Baseball, just yet.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But that’s Steve Cohen, he’s a, he’s a renegade. We, if we try to get to another stadium that will be the real tell.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s true.
BOBBY: Okay, is there anything else? Any final, did he give you like a pat on the back? How was his handshake?
ALEX: It was–
BOBBY: Medium firm?
ALEX: Pretty, pretty mid, I gotta say.
BOBBY: Mid?
ALEX: Yeah. He had soft hands.
BOBBY: Ohhh, man!
ALEX: Oh, he’s moisturizing up the wazoo.
BOBBY: Okay. Yeah.
ALEX: I would, you know–
BOBBY: Did he look pale? Just because he doesn’t get outside very often.
ALEX: Are you using color for your sketch? Like, no, he looked like he had drank plenty of blood lately. Like he was hydrated and everything. Yeah, I did his handshake like a, like a 6.5. Like–
BOBBY: Uhm. Like a 65 out of 100?
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Like 65, like the amount of wins that the A’s are gonna have this year.
ALEX: That’s very generous. Yeah, he’s gonna, he’s gonna work on it. I hope he hears this and it, it makes him just a little bit insecure about his handshake.
BOBBY: Uhm. I don’t, I don’t think he cares anymore.
ALEX: I don’t really think he does.
BOBBY: We live in a Zoom world, you know, he doesn’t need to shake hands anymore.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: Uhm, how are you–
ALEX: Also, also he’s a little billionaire. So like, fuck, whatever we think.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. How are you feeling? Like, how do you come away from the whole interaction feeling?
ALEX: I think my regret is not trying to get more out of the conversation. Again, like I said, I think like, going over and giving him peace of my mind as an A’s fan would really only serve to like, make me feel better. You know, I’m just like, oh, I can–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –I can give this owner a, a look into the worldview of an A’s, of a lowly A’s fan, you know. But like, it’s not like it was gonna move the needle for him–
BOBBY: No, you have to win his trust first before you can really make that.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Appeal to his better manhood.
ALEX: So that’s kind of really, I, I regret not doing something a little more–
BOBBY: Memorable?
ALEX: –memorable, outlandish.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That, you know, he goes home at night and says, honey, you’ll never believe what happened at the A’s game today. Because he certainly wasn’t like, a kid took a picture with me.
BOBBY: Yeah, a kid, you’re 26, 25 sorry. Don’t age you.
ALEX: But I just didn’t think that far ahead.
BOBBY: No, yeah.
ALEX: I was kind of–
BOBBY: How could you?
ALEX: –It’s kind of just like MLB owner–
BOBBY: Must talk.
ALEX: –crazy, picture?
BOBBY: Okay, my final question, because we’ve now been talking about this for 25 minutes.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But what else would we be talking about?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I was in London. Dude, I didn’t watch any baseball for the last two weeks.
ALEX: You weren’t at the, the Home Run Derby X?
BOBBY: I left the day before that.
ALEX: Well–
BOBBY: I left the day before it happened.
ALEX: Seems like you lucked out because a lot of people did not enjoy it.
BOBBY: My last question is, if you were at another A;s game, and you saw John Fisher again, one, would you approach him? And two, do you think you’d remember you?
ALEX: I think I definitely would approach him. At this point, I’m like–
BOBBY: Seasoned vet, right?
ALEX: I’m a seasoned vet, I know that he is open to someone like myself coming up to him. And, and asking for a photo or a conversation or–
BOBBY: I, 25 male. And wondering what the best way to approach my 65-year old baseball owner is. Advice? Ask Reddit.
ALEX: So I think yes, I would approach him. And, look, I’m not a very memorable person’s.
BOBBY: Up!
ALEX: But I feel like he would remember me again, because he doesn’t really go to A’s games.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So like, it’s not like he has that many fan engagement experiences to work off of?
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: Right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like, I think if I pointed out, I think if I pointed out that I invited him on our podcast, he would probably say, oh, yeah, that’s right.
BOBBY: Still waiting on those drinks.
ALEX: Security!
BOBBY: This guy is following me. Oh, my God. Well, this is just, I feel like we might have, we might have hit a little bit of a peak right here. This might be a peak for us.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I guess the only way to, to hit a higher peak than this is for me to meet Steve Cohen?
ALEX: Well, so this is what I was going to ask you is if you were in a similar situation, right. We were at the Mets game yesterday. You were wearing your Unionize the Minors t-shirt. That happens to be in–
BOBBY: Blue and orange.
ALEX: –blue and orange.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: So you had the attire. You also that you maybe had a one or two more drinks than I had had that moment.
BOBBY: Wow. Some shots being fired.
ALEX: What would, what would you do? If he was like right there section over from us?
BOBBY: Well, he would have been a real fan if he was in a section over us, that’s for sure. Because it was, we were baking in the sun in centerfield. Something tells me that when you’re worth $14 billion, you’re never hot. Like you don’t have to be hot.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, if you’re hot, you have someone, you pay someone to [25:13]
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Or carry you around,
ALEX: Honestly, and if you have $14 billion, and you own the New York Mets, you could probably just ask the people in the ballpark, and they do it for you, right? Brings the whole–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –meaning to the word fans.
BOBBY: Jesus. Nice joke, well-played, that was good. That was like really well-formulated, I appreciate that. You should look into stand up comedy. That’d be a good pivot for us to be wedded to stand up comedy, instead of doing a podcast? I would approach him, I think. Because now I may need a comparable amount of alcohol to the amount of alcohol that I had yesterday. Which to be clear was not the right amount of alcohol for a baseball game that I was gonna sit at the sun for. And was also at 1:40pm on a Sunday. But he seems very approachable.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I’ve never met him. I don’t think that I know anybody who has met him. However, from all of the interactions that people have with him, and then share them online. It just kind of seems like he’s just a weirdo fan. So I think that we’d have a lot to talk about.
ALEX: He can relate.
BOBBY: Not John Fisher. I think that we’d have a lot to talk about, probably.
ALEX: So are you, would you just like go up to him and talk with him about the Mets?
BOBBY: I’m pointing at him and I’d say this is the year. I don’t even know if I’ve made that joke on the podcast yet. So people might be very confused. But yeah, I pointed on him and I’d say this is the year.
ALEX: Like would you go for it?
BOBBY: No, I think I would be like, what’s Fred Wilpon like? You’re the only–
ALEX: [26:48]
BOBBY: –person who has the real true perspective on what Fred Wilpon is like.
ALEX: You’re doing like a, like an interview, but he doesn’t know it–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you know.
BOBBY: Yeah. He doesn’t know that I’m gonna subsequently talk about this on my podcast.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: That’s just freedom of speech–
ALEX: It’s freedom of speech.
BOBBY: –I don’t know what to tell you.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t know what to tell you. I do sort of feel like, like, I think he would still take the Unionize the Minors photo with me. Like I don’t think he–
ALEX: He like even if he noticed?
BOBBY: Yeah, I think he would.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He’s just a, he’s a fun guy like that, you know.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: He’s not afraid of the optics.
ALEX: Ain’t that the truth. Sometimes–
BOBBY: Sometimes–
ALEX: –detriment.
BOBBY: –sometimes that means taking a photo with a 26-year old kid wear the Unionize the Minors shirt. And sometimes–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –that means a $2 billion fine to the SEC.
ALEX: Yeah. Sometimes that means tweeting out that you, you see your draft picks’ like stocks.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right?
BOBBY: Sometimes that means a class action lawsuit for sexual harassment [27:43].
ALEX: Yikes!
BOBBY: I would do the photo, though, to answer, despite all the things we just said. But you’ve already saw on the like, ironic, owner, bumbling owner who doesn’t realize he’s taking a photo with a guy that wants to abolish him. So I think I’d have to put like my own little spin on it.
ALEX: Like maybe like, say, Steve, can you raise your fist with me? And then it really looks like he’s showing solidarity. Steve, this is the thing on Mets Twitter, I don’t know if you’ve heard about it before. But you raise your, your hand and save. You have only your, your chains to lose.
BOBBY: Steve, can you smile and say workers of the world unite?! Steve, can you wave this flag real quick? It’s like the hammer and sickle in Mets colors. I have to think about that. But if listeners have ideas for what I could do when I inevitably, I mean, I feel like you’ve set it into motion that like that domino–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –has fallen. So in this multiverse that we’re living in, I will meet Steve Cohen.
ALEX: Yeah, I think so.
BOBBY: [28:48] I will do it.
ALEX: Well, and I want to encourage our listeners, if you see an owner at a baseball game.
BOBBY: And if you’re wearing Tipping Pitches merch.
ALEX: Do your part!
BOBBY: Yeah, do your part. And also, specifically, if you see John Fisher, you should say there’s this podcast that I absolutely love. It really helps me connect to baseball, really helps me, you know, to, to stay within myself as an A’s fan when we have like a down here. And that host told a story about meeting you a couple of weeks ago, and I really think that you should go on that podcast. I really think that it would be just an awesome conversation. Please help us book John Fisher.
ALEX: This is how it starts right?
BOBBY: This actually about to start.
ALEX: I, are we’re now closer to getting John Fisher on the podcast than Bernie Sanders, who we’ve been joking about for like three years at this point.
BOBBY: I think we’re equally close.
ALEX: Yeah?
BOBBY: Equally close. Neither of us have met Bernie Sanders, but we’re equally close.
ALEX: It’s true. It feels like you might–
BOBBY: In that, we have a topic to talk about Bernie Sanders with.
ALEX: Right. Like there’s some common ground there.
BOBBY: If John Fisher’s publicist, provided that he has one of those, I really don’t know. If John Fisher’s fixer emails us and says, what do you guys want to talk about? What do you say? The Economics of baseball?
ALEX: Say what moisturizer do you use, sir? I’d–
BOBBY: The evolving world of baseball economics and finance. And the updated role of the owner within that world.
ALEX: See already right there. I think it’d be like, nope!
BOBBY: Fuck!
ALEX: Not interested.
BOBBY: Okay. But the trouble is, we don’t know if he wants to talk about baseball either.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So like, if you were like, yeah, I want to talk about the A’s return in the Matt Olson trade. He’d probably be like, okay, let me forward you. David forced this email.
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: Like, no, that wouldn’t work either. So, again, we need some listeners submissions on that. This is now officially the longest podcast intro ever.
ALEX: This is ridiculous.
BOBBY: And I have loved every second of it. I’m so happy that I didn’t ask you any of this stuff in advance.
ALEX: I know this was good.
BOBBY: Like, truly, this is not a podcast bit, I stopped people from talking about it yesterday at the men’s tailgate. We do have other things to talk about, thankfully. I mean, unless you want us to keep talking about this. In which case, ask us more about it in Slack, I don’t really know. We’re going to talk about and just, just a great Rob Manfred interview. Just a great journalism by ESPN. The expansion of Major League Baseball, the carrying of water for Rob. We are also going to have a wonderful interview with Maria Hernandez and Laura Ortiz. Maria is an organizer with UNITE HERE Local 11. Laura is a Dodger Stadium concessions worker. And we talked to them about the strike authorization vote that just happened amongst the Dodger Stadium, concession workers. Just less than a week ahead of the MLB All-Star game, which is happening at Dodger Stadium, if you don’t know. We talked to them about that strike vote. We talked to them about the bargaining process. The, the ever changing demands on workers, just how much has changed since their contract expired in 2019. A lot of stuff, a really great conversation. And you can read more about that on Twitter, we retweeted their statement about their strike authorization, and we’ll link to that in the bio. But of course, it’s better to hear it straight from the sources. And this conversation was really great. And we’re very thankful for them coming on. So all of that is coming up and then a couple listener questions at the end since we basically left us ourselves no time for that. But before we get to that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m John Fischer’s friend, Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you’re listening to Tipping Pitches.
[32:44]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Okay, Alex, let’s speed through the new zero topics. Before we get to our conversation with Laura and Maria. First one I wanted to talk to with you, talk with you about is, I guess the interview that Rob Manfred gave in ESPN, but not really the interview and not, not really any of the article. Because it was a whole lot of not interrogating statements that Rob was making. But one little tidbit from it, which was that Manfred said that they were interested in expanding to 32 teams, and they were interested in that expansion happening in a, on a pretty short timeline. And the reason I wanted to ask you and talk about this is because there are kind of two very divergent paths that this expansion can take. And both of those paths depend pretty directly on what happens to the MLB anti-trust exemption. And the reason that I say this is because as it currently stands, if MLB keeps their anti-trust exemption, as is, which it seems likely that they will keep it all the way up until when they expand. Unless the Supreme Court is going to overturn the anti-trust exemption expeditiously, which is, which I suppose is a possibility but doesn’t seem likely. If they keep it then they can just choose which two cities to expand to. Just with no process, they can just say award the bid to the Dave Dombroski group in Nashville and another city and any ownership group. At kind of at their behest, they don’t have to go through any sort of process. And if they lose their anti-trust exemption, they do have to field competitive offers from basically any city in the United States of America. And I think I’ll say for myself personally, obviously, I want the anti-trust exemption to go away. But filtered through the lens of MLB expansion. It will be so much more useful to the health of baseball for the expansion and process to be done in the ladder manner. For us to see cities put together reasonable bids to get an MLB team and have to make a case for why. And then for the wider media and the wider baseball world and, and fans to collectively interrogate what that would mean for the health of the league, and what that would mean for the future direction of the league. I just think it’s a little frustrating, that’s probably not going to happen. And it’s frustrating that MLB expansion is just gonna go like everything else goes in MLB, which is 32 people are gonna get together in a room and say what helps our bottom line the most. And it’s not actually going to be any kind of constructive, jumping off point. Any kind of constructive catapult for the future of Major League Baseball.
ALEX: Right. Well, and I think looming just as large and probably even larger, over this than the anti-trust exemption is the fact that the A’s and the Rays, are still undecided about what their futures are going to look like, right? Which Manfred has, has said repeatedly, he wants to get resolved before turning to expansion. Which means even if this is something that they want to do, relatively soon, because why not? Because that’s a couple billion dollars to the each ownership group, as a result of expansion. The snail’s pace at which the situations in both Oakland and Tampa Bay have moved leads me to think we’re maybe not going to get a serious conversation about this for a few years, at least, right? And I generally remain pretty skeptical that the anti-trust exemption is going to be completely overturned anytime soon.
BOBBY: Yeah. And I found that really quickly, which I forgot to mention.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We saw Harry Marino’s response to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s letter to Harry and Advocates for Minor Leaguers. Which we spent all of last week’s episode talking about Harry put together detailed response back to the Senate Judiciary Committee. And honestly, it seems like the thing that has momentum right now is a, as the committee tipped their hand at, the thing that has momentum right now, I guess, politically and process wise, is a Curt Flood Act style thing for minor leaguers. So they right we can prevent that mistreatment on a faster timeline, that outright repealing MLBs anti-trust exemption. Which would prevent the sort of monopolistic behavior with regards to geography and region and stadiums and that sort of thing.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So which is frustrating to be honest. Like, we don’t have time right now, because we spent 45 minutes talking about John Fisher’s soft hands. But that’s very frustrating to me.
ALEX: Yeah, it is. It also isn’t particularly surprising. I don’t think given–
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: –given the amount of money that flows into Congress from Major League Baseball and its respective owners, right?
BOBBY: They’re not going to, they’re not gonna stab them in the back and twist the knife at the same time. They might just like, you know, maybe give them a little slice.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Just a little nudge, you know, love tap?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I don’t know, I’m, I’m interested to see where this kind of goes, because there are some really interesting options out there for relocation targets. And this is also a really interesting opportunity to try and grow the game a little bit.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Expanding to markets that may have been devoid of, you know, Major League Baseball, up until this point there, you know, domestic options, like you mentioned, Nashville, being one. I know that in the pa- I mean, obviously, Las Vegas is clearly a somewhat viable option at the moment, although, until the situation the A’s gets resolved. It’s, it’s obviously not.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Portland has been talked about in the past as well. And then there are international options, right? There’s Montreal, there’s, I know people in the past have talked about Mexico City, as well.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Which are a couple of locations that I think would do wonders, just broadening the, the appeal and the visibility of the stars in the game right now, right? I remain skeptical despite Manfred’s, you know, professed desire to expand. I really remain kind of skeptical that this is going to happen anytime soon.
BOBBY: I know, when you were saying that Manfred made, had made clear on multiple occasions. In multiple interviews, including the one that we talked about a couple of weeks ago with The Athletics, Evan Drellich, that the A’s and Rays stadium situation takes precedent because honestly, like this is the subtext of this Rob Manfred would never frame it this way. But the subtext of it is that it’s probably really hard to bully four City Council’s at the same time, like–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –Rob Manfred is only one person.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, and, you know, I, whether there’s an anti-trust exemption in place or not, there are still going to be hoarding offers from cities, right? And–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –and, you know, someone’s–
BOBBY: There’s not going to choose the best one.
ALEX: –kidding them against each other. Right, exactly. But you’re still going to be kind of playing that game of going back, back and forth between Nashville and Montreal, and Portland and Las Vegas and saying–
BOBBY: [40:47]
ALEX: –what, what can you do for me now?
BOBBY: I will say, I don’t have anything against Las Vegas.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Oh, I do. It’s fine.
BOBBY: I don’t have anything against the people of Las Vegas, who–
ALEX: Fair.
BOBBY: –who, who like, seem to really like sports, you know–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –in their own little way. And, you know, the Las Vegas Golden Knights seemed the hockey team that expanded a few years ago. Seemed to be like a, a community fandom success story. I don’t know enough about hockey to say whether it’s like an equity success story seems unlikely. But adding a hockey team just a couple of weeks ago, or I guess just last week now. Adam Silver, the NBA Commissioner confirmed that there will be two expansion teams in the next five years. I don’t know if he actually put that timeframe on it. But it basically seems very likely to happen within the next five years. And that one of those teams will be going to Las Vegas, and will be owned or CO owned by LeBron James. Which I don’t know how that’s not the antitrust violations. But it’s a whole, it’s a whole thing. I don’t know that, I don’t think Adam Silver actually explicitly said that this is just the reporting and rumors swirling around this. It just feels a little bit corrupt for three professional sports teams to end up in Las Vegas in the span of 10 years. And I guess I don’t really care for my league to be part of that, you know.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s not even to make a value judgment on whether or not there should be a baseball team in Las Vegas. But it’s just to say, if Las Vegas gets a team, while they’re like making all of these concessions to get two other teams. Because they think that it’s going to be a financial boon for them. With the windfall of the legalization of sports betting happening all at the same time. Everything’s turning up Las Vegas. But I don’t even mentioned writer, so that this would be their fourth team, actually. But it just seems like can any other city exist? Can any other city have an equal chance to get a team? Or is it just rigged because the mayor of Las Vegas doesn’t seem to care about giving public money? The city council seems amendable to sweetening the deal anyway, they need to to get these teams to come here. Because they didn’t have any teams 15 years ago, and now they have three, maybe four. So I don’t know, I, it just, it just doesn’t seem like the thing that will grow the game the most. It ju- seems like the thing that will be the best financial option for Major League Baseball and its ownership partners. And I honestly don’t care about that at all.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I don’t, I don’t think it will be enough of a financial windfall to the owners no matter where they put the team. So you might as well just make the decision that is best for growing the game.
ALEX: You would think, Bobby.
BOBBY: Yeah, I would think. Okay, let’s, let’s go to our conversation with Laura and Maria from UNITE HERE Local 11.
[43:52]
[Music Transition]
BOBBY: Okay, we are now joined by two folks from UNITE HERE Local 11. The union that represents Dodger Stadium concession workers. We’re joined by Maria Hernandez from the union and Laura Ortiz, who is a Dodgers concessions worker. Hello, thank you both so much for joining the show. It’s great to have you.
MARIA: Hi, thank you for having us.
BOBBY: I want to start with like the bullet points of what is going on right now. Because I feel like a lot of people are just learning about this as we are very quickly. And that this that I’m referring to is the 99% authorized strike vote by Dodger Stadium concession workers. This strike can go in effect at any point at this, at this time. And it’s obviously comes at a very critical time for Dodger Stadium and for Major League Baseball with the All-Star game coming to Dodger Stadium in I guess less than a week’s time at this point. So I want to hear from your perspective, either of you, whoever wants to take this one first. What’s going on right now? Like what the bargaining process has been like where you are in those stages? And just more generally like, what the, what the conditions are like that are sort of necessitating this kind of labor confrontation, as we head into such an important moment for Dodge- Dodger Stadium.
MARIA: Yeah, I, I can help give some information for folks listening to what’s going on. So our union, we’re UNITE HERE Local 11. We genuinely represent over 32,000 workers in hospitality stadiums, event centers, right across Southern California and Arizona. Specifically at Dodger Stadium represent about 1,500 concessions workers. So that’s anybody that gives you a beer, that makes you your Dodger dog, right, from the premium suites to the stands, to the [45:52], even to the warehouse, right. So really anything that has to do with food, and beverage, those are, you know, your Local 11 numbers that you, you know, are interacting with. And so, to kind of go back a little bit, so in 2019, the contract right, with the workers with them, you know, basically expired. And so, to give a little bit more background as well, the workers that work at Dodger Stadium, the concessions workers are employed, or the contracted through Levy Restaurants, which is a subsidiary company with Compass Group, which is, I believe, the sixth largest company in the world, they’re really big. And, you know, they also have many other venues. But at Dodger Stadium, we represent about 1,500 of those workers. And, you know, 2019 came, you know, and, you know, contracts pretty much expired in 2020, there was no games, right? There were no people working. And so, you know, we all this time, the last couple of years, since 2018, we have been, we have been in discussions, right, about various things, you know, with the company. You know, in 2021, we were trying to figure out, how do we reopen, right, how do we reopen safely? You know, are there going to be fans in the stands, like, what is that going to look like for the workers, right? And so now, you know, in 2022, you know, folks, you know, like, Laura chose to take the step. Because, you know, as so many rents are coming to LA, right? This is just one, you have the Olympics in 2028, you have–
BOBBY: Right.
MARIA: –the FIBA, right? World Cup, as well. You have so many things. And the fact of the matter is, is as sports are back, baby, they’re back! But yet nobody is talking about the concessions workers, right. Well, how are they–
BOBBY: People are actually bringing them back, right?
MARIA: –people that are bringing you your dog, your dog, the people that are bringing your beer, the people that are throwing you the peanuts, right? How are they going to, how are they faring? How are they going to get through what for many of us has been one of the toughest couple years, right? We’ve all experienced a deadly pandemic together. And so, you know, workers are asking that now’s their time, right? They, they want the company to do better, they want Compass Group and Levy to do better because as a matter of fact, they can. You know, and I’ll let, I’ll let Laura share a little bit about what it’s like for her. You know, I think, I think she can do a really good job, by just sharing what she has to go through even just to like, keep her health care.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MARIA: Right? Because we know, you know, Dodgers are through seasons, right? It’s not all year. And so she’s having to sometimes at times go to 10 different venues to try to scrape enough hours to keep her health insurance for that month, right? And it’s, you know, she’s a single mom, it’s, it’s devastating, right? But, you know, I’ll let her talk a little bit about what that’s been like for her. Because that’s the other thing about this is that, you know, all you see as fans, right is you see your dog, your dog, you see your nachos, you see that beer, right? You go to have fun, and we all do right? But do you, do folks really know what how the people behind those stands are faring, right? And what they have to do to survive and to make ends meet. And so you know, I’ll let, I’ll Laura share a little bit about, you know, how hard it is, how hard it’s been for her.
BOBBY: Yeah, Laura. I mean, we’d love to hear just about you know, what kind of work you do as a concession workers at Dodgers stadium. I know I mentioned that up top but specifically what you do in your, in your role there and how long you’ve been working there and just like how you got into this work? And, and what makes you, I guess so passionate about defending the dignity of that work–
ALEX: Yeah, I–
BOBBY: –as you are being a member there.
ALEX: That’s really I, because what, what strikes me about a lot of this right is that you know, I mean, you’re, you’re not only willing to kind of participate in this sort of movement, but actually kind of go out there, right? And, and talk to people like us who have far less insight into this than folks like you do, right? Because it’s something you do feel passionate about, right? So like, like Bobby said, we’d love to, to hear from you about your background a little bit.
LAURA: Thank you so much. And I really appreciate that you guys get answers and, you know, in our, you know, environment, because it’s really, it’s, it’s more passionate, and it makes me to feel more passionate about all this. Because, you know, the hospitality industry, it’s, you know, the main service on Los Angeles, especially, because we it’s all about, you know, it’s all about people who’s coming to visit our place to go into, you know, enjoy the game, to go into the hotels, and it’s all hospitality, you know, you’re gonna find people from Local 11, everywhere, pretty much. I make the drinks, and then I’m in this business, since 2000, so it’s 22 years so far. And I really like it, because I like to be in touch with my, you know, with customers, I really like to people, when you know, you’re going somewhere and you enjoy it, you know eat your dinner or your game. And you’ll have fun people, you know, giving you your drinks, like, like, Maria said, you know, giving you a hotdog, you know. You can see when the people is happy when you’re working, you know. But sometimes the work conditions are not the best. They don’t have the equipment that we need, they don’t have, you know, they don’t give us enough time to, to set up, you know, even the parking is too far. So you have to struggle with those things, you know, even leaving your family and the holidays. Because, you know, who wants to be and you know, in a Christmas Day, and, and the Staples Center, you know, taking care of the customers for [51:39] them. That we somebody has to do it, right. And we’re passionate–
BOBBY: Yeah.
LAURA: –like, so we love to do all that job. But we thought that the company needs to recognize all that effort that we do, and they can do more for us. Because I don’t think that’s enough, we don’t have enough, enough money to, to have a decent life. We need to have a decent parking too, you know, where we can park close to the, to the venue. Because Los Angeles is crazy about parking, you know what, you know what I’m talking about? So we’re not able to pay, and we’re, we’re we’ve been an hour or hour and a half, in order to get there in another hour and a half to get off. So it’s too much, you know, it’s a long hours, it’s eight hour shifts. Again, we’re doing all this because we like what we’re doing. But at the same time, you know, we know that the company, you know, Levy and Compass can do better for the employees. And we have the perfect example with SoFi. So they have a great contract. So they give the money, they give the benefits that the employees need. Now, you’re gonna see that that’s the standard because Dodgers tenure used to be the standard for all the, for all the stadiums in Los Angeles. Because we used to have the best contract. And there’s now, it’s not there anymore. So that’s why we have this fight with them. This is not for from today or yesterday, this has been happening for a long, long time. So this is the time where they have to listen to us because they haven’t listened to us enough. You know, and again, we deserve a decent life, we deserve a decent income. Because we’ve been loyal with this company, most of the employees, you know, I am 22 years, you can see employees with 32 years of service, 35 years of service. You know, loyal to this company, loyal to this, you know, to the fans, because we love Dodgers, we love the fans. We want to make it happen, you know, we want to make them happy. But we need the company to back our, you know, our families and, you know, give us a better income too, you know, so we can have a decent life.
BOBBY: Yeah.
LAURA: And again, I’m sorry, I just one more thing about–
BOBBY: Ofcourse, yeah.
LAURA: –all the things that we have in Los Angeles, and they’re running from, you know, the same company. And when Dodgers are off a season I have to go to I’m gonna give you an example the Rose Bowl. So those hours is the same employees who are going from one place to another. Why my benefits have to change or my income had to get lower, even lower? When I’m going to Rose Bowl. If you want to work in hard, as you know, as Dodgers it’s pretty much the same employees. But we’re not able to keep our insurance because Rose Bowl have no benefits, have no insurance, have no good uhm, salary. So I think if they need to unit- you know, they need to unite every, every venue and have the same standard, have good standards and salaries and benefits for everyone. Not just because it is the same employees, we just go into one place to another. I had to work in like 7, 10 different venues in order to, to have my hours enough to get to keep my insurance, keep all my benefits. And that’s not fair.
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s crazy. I think one of the things that struck me about what both of you talked about is just Laura how long you’ve been working there. But then also Maria, you mentioned that the contract expired in 2019. And just how much has changed in that amount of time and how it’s, it’s, you know, pay and health care and things like that. The world has changed a lot aren’t around those and those policies need to be updated as well. And I don’t know, you don’t need to get super duper deep into like, what’s on the table? And what’s been going back and forth, because I know a lot of that will change before you come to an agreement. But I guess, you know Laura you mentioned SoFi stadium, what kind of is like the golden standard and things that you’re trying to fight for and things that I think that the public can also obviously sympathize and empathize with, and trying to fight for and earn in their own jobs?
MARIA: Yeah, if I can just add to that just quickly. So yeah, I mean, so assuming this is your first contract, they want a record setting contract, you know, they want incredible, obviously, incredible raises, right, incredible benefits. I believe, by the end of the contract, if you’re a worker that you’re probably making, like $30 an hour, right? Just like life changing for folks. But I think the biggest thing that, you know, folks were able to win in their contract, there was kind of something Laura as alluding to a little bit with having to go to like, even sometimes seven different places to try to keep up the hours to meet in her healthcare, is that you know, if you’re, you know, able to go, let’s say, whatever, you know, the company there, I believe it’s legends, right, at SoFi Stadium. They were able to win [56:11] says like work. No matter what venue you go to that, that hours, you will get your same standard, right? So you don’t have to be kind of scraping, oh, do I go to Rose Bowl today? But if I go there, it’s not going to count towards my health care, it’s not going to count towards my pension, right? Having a piecemeal together, honestly, because these basic protections, right? That every, every human should have. And that’s something Laura has been, has had to do for so many years, right? Having to go from one stadium or one venue to the other trying to piecemeal together, if I work here, am I going to be able to have enough hours for my health care this month? I don’t know, right? And so being able to, to win that standard, so that, you know, if she does have to go to a different venue, her, you know, benefits and things like that can, can count. You know, the hours that she works can count towards, toward her, towards her benefits, which right now, it’s just not the case. And it’s, it’s, it’s about time, right? Like the company, you know, Compass, like they know, they know what we’re asking for, they know what we want. And, you know, workers took the brave step to authorize a strike. It’s not easy, right? To, to want to do that. It’s, it’s not like you want to, to go on strike, right? But the necessity of folks like Laura, you know, folks are fed up. And they’re willing to do whatever it takes to, to get what they deserve, to get the respect, and the respectable wages, the respectable benefit, benefits that they honestly have earned, right? With so many years of service into this company, and, you know, we hope, we hope that they’ll do the right thing. You know, we sent the company a proposal about a week ago, we have not heard back, right? So–
BOBBY: I think you might hear back now, that’s my theory. But I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. But I think that this step might be a reason for them to respond back now, hopefully.
MARIA: We hope so.
ALEX: I, the, the timing of this especially is really, is really interesting to me, also, you know, obviously with the, with the All-Star game coming up at, at Dodger Stadium, right? This kind of marquee event for, for the sport at large, right? I, it definitely feels like a you know, the kind of, kind of thing that will loom large over the, the heads of not, not only the, you know, the larger kind of concessions, hospitality companies. But, but the the team itself, right? It wants to be able to kind of put on this, this show for fans, that obviously includes the hard, hard work of, of concessions workers. And I, you know, obviously this past baseball offseason was, was defined by the this lockout, right? This kind of impasse between the owners and the players. And it was, it was massive, right? I mean, it, it defined the, the better part of four or five months, right? And it was the, you know, the only thing that fans could, could talk about. I’m curious kind of what’s next for you guys, as far as kind of rallying support around this? Because obviously, you, you know, you do the work at the bargaining table, but it doesn’t end there, right? It’s, I think, yeah, I mean, I’d love to hear your guy’s perspective, but I imagine a lot of it is kind of rallying that, that public opinion. Because, because the fans have the possibility to, to, to sway things here as well. So I, if either one of you guys can speak to that.
MARIA: Yeah, I mean, first of all, I just we do want to give a great shout out to the MLBPA they’ve been incredible. They, you know, they earlier today they put out a statement and support of, of, you know, Dodger Stadium concessions workers. And, you know, we were, we stood behind them, right? Throughout the workout because we understand that it, it takes all of us, right? It takes anybody from the, you know, obviously the fans, right? But, you know, the persons are really your, your Dodger dogs, [1:00:21] your beer. To the person on the field hitting the home run, right? To provide that experience for the fans that they love so much. And so we do want to just give a shout out to, to them. They, they’ve been, you know, incredible and supportive. You know, as, as we’ve, as we’ve announced this, and I mean, I think, you know, to, to answer your question, I mean, we don’t, we don’t know what’s next, right? Like, we hope that the company will, will, you know, respond? We hope they do, obviously, you know, we’ll, we’ll be in touch with you all as things progress. But, you know, as of right now, you know, a strike could, could happen at, at any day.
ALEX: Before we, before we let you both go, I just want to ask, Laura, how is the, the kind of sentiment among the, the workers right now? What is that, is there a kind of, I mean, I imagine there’s a lot of solidarity that you all are, are feeling with each other right now. Is this, is this giving you, you know, kind of, I don’t know, a, a, a boost in the, in the work that you’re doing? Are you, is there, is there, has there been kind of a tonal shift, as you guys have, have communed both with each other? And, and fans, how are you, how are you all feeling about all of this?
LAURA: No, we actually got more united right now, because, again, we’re gonna send this strong message to our companya And we feel the support from, you know, from from you, especially, you know. Because you when you are introduced to her story that shows support, and we really appreciate that all the employees were a way, we don’t want to do this, you know, we because, again, we feel that we have to respect our fans. We’re going to respect, you know, the, you know, the, the baseball environment. But at the same time, you know, we had to do whatever we have to do in order to have a better–
BOBBY: Yeah.
LAURA: –a better life. So this is a strong message for, for this company. So they really care about, you know, the baseball, they really care about the band using and really care about the employees, they will answer to our petitions. And thank you again, so much for, for your time. And we’re gonna keep strong. We, were finally a little sad about this, but we had to keep strong, and we send in the message and we have to do a strike. We’ll ready for it. We’re ready for it.
BOBBY: Solidarity with all of you, your co workers and all the organizers at UNITE HERE Local 11. Laura, Maria, thank you so much for joining us.
LAURA: No, thank you so much, you guys.
MARIA: Thank you.
[1:02:53]
[Music Transition]
BOBBY: Okay, Alex, thank you to Maria and Laura. Much solidarity with UNITED HERE Local 11. We anxiously await to see how the businesses respond to workers asking for their dignity. And we support them in the meantime, and even after that. And of course, if there’s any, as Maria alluded to, if there’s anything else that listeners or us can do to help support them, they’re gonna let us know. And then we will in turn, let everybody else know. Do you want to end it, do you want to close out this week’s episode with a few listener questions?
ALEX: Yeah, let’s do it. Can I ask him this week?
BOBBY: Yes. I would love if, yes. Please be the avatar for our wonderful listeners whom I forgot to mention. The new patrons at the beginning of this episode, I was so distracted by our, our new big patron John Fisher. That I didn’t mention our actual patrons, Joey, Christina, and Aaron, thank you for signing up. In the past two weeks while we have been away. Okay, let’s do, let’s do a couple listener questions. And these are all from the Slack, if I’m not mistaken.
ALEX: This are all from the Slack. That Slack is popping off. If you want access to the Slack.
BOBBY: The Slack is insane, it’s insane.
ALEX: patreon.com/tippingpitches.
BOBBY: Insane in a good way, like it has, it’s a fucking hive mind.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah, it’s great. These are the conversations they had are just too out there for Twitter.
BOBBY: Anything happens in baseball, it’s discussed. Anything happens outside of baseball.
ALEX: Outside baseball.
BOBBY: Arguably awesome.
ALEX: Yeah. Okay. I got three questions for you, all right?
BOBBY: That would be great.
ALEX: Our first one comes fromm friend of the pod Jess. She wants to know, why can you say you’re going to a Yankee game, but you would never say you’re going to a Philly or Cardinal game? Real grammar hours–
BOBBY: Incredible–
ALEX: –out here.
BOBBY: –hits bong once goes to the Tipping Pitches Slack question. Thank you, Jess. Uhm, I think I’m might say that I’m going to the Cardinal game.
ALEX: Really?
BOBBY: You know, as I think about it, I think maybe I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t say that. But someone who might say I’m going to the Yankee game might say I’m going to the Cardinal game.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You can’t say I’m going to the Met game. That just sounds rediculous.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s ridiculous. I mean, I’m trying to think like–
BOBBY: It sounds like some kind of party that happens after the Met Gala.
ALEX: Yeah. I’m trying to think if I like what I say when I am going to a Yankees game. I’m fairly certain like keep it plural. But you know, like, grammar and like singular versus plural when it comes to team names is always so, is already like so far out there, right? You have, you have sports teams, who are named after like, in theory, like singular entities that are just put- you know, like the Jazz that’s, that’s not you can’t name your team after that. But here we are. The Avalanche, you know.
BOBBY: Wow, you’re already going outside the confines of Major League Baseball. You’re, you’re adding, you’re adding in more complication–
ALEX: Okay, okay, I’m sorry.
BOBBY: –but we need to do right now is go through all 30 teams and determine which ones you can singularize, singularize. And which ones you can pluralize Yankee game.
ALEX: Well, well because it–
BOBBY: Red Sock game.
ALEX: –I mean, you can, you can because you can–
BOBBY: Ray game.
ALEX: –you can singularize, that’s a word, right?
BOBBY: Yeah!
ALEX: It is?
BOBBY: Singularize?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You can pluralize something, why can’t you fucking singularize it?
ALEX: Well, I don’t know, why can you say Yankee game and not Cardinal game?
BOBBY: We are reaching absolute unhinged levels of Tipping Pitches talk.
ALEX: This is rudel. Yeah!
BOBBY: No, this is good.
ALEX: I, oh, it’s I mean, I love this. I mean, you can, ’cause you can singularize them when you’re talking–
BOBBY: The more you say it, the more I’m convinced it’s real. I think that’s real.
ALEX: –when you, when you’re talking about them, if it’s either a player, right? You would say oh, he’s a Met, right? He’s a Cardinal. He’s a Philly. That’s–
BOBBY: Yeah, because that’s saving you words. You otherwise you’d have to say he’s on the Mets.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Or he’s a member of the Mets.
ALEX: Right. So, but it’s interesting to me that the, the context in which you are using the noun determines whether or not it’s, it’s okay to, to use it as singular or–
BOBBY: Singularize it, yeah.
ALEX: –to singularize it.
BOBBY: I’m going into the Blue Jay game. No, you’re not.
ALEX: Blue Jay game, no.
BOBBY: Nope!
ALEX: Nope.
BOBBY: You’re not going to the Oriole game either. Although–
ALEX: Uhhh. I might go to the Oriole game.
BOBBY: Yeah, I think I might. Am I going to the Twin game? Of course not! Here’s an interesting one, am I going to the Guardian game? No.
ALEX: No, I don’t think I am.
BOBBY: White Sox? No. Tiger game? Sounds like the next Netflix hit. You thought I was joking when I said I was going to read all 30 teams.
ALEX: No, I really did. I would go, I’m going to the Tiger game? No, I’m not, no, nevermind.
BOBBY: Yeah, no.
ALEX: This is just the, the entire segment here. It’s just us saying I’m going to the blank game. And seeing whether or not it sounds good.
BOBBY: I’m not going to the Royal game. Sounds like something that happens in London. Not going to the Astro game, not going to the, I might go to the Mariner game.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
ALEX: I know, no words there but I’ll–
BOBBY: No reason why–
ALEX: [1:08:24]
BOBBY: –you might go to the Mariner game. Are you gonna go to the Ranger game? This is like that game that you played when you were a kid and you there’s like one dumb rule. And you like, you go around in the circle–
ALEX: And say figure out–
BOBBY: –can I bring grapes to the picnic? And everybody’s like, no, you can’t bring grapes to the picnic and the kids like fuck!
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Why can I bring grapes to the picnic?!
ALEX: How about cherry tomatoes?
BOBBY: Yeah, ofcourse, you can bring cherry tomatoes.
ALEX: I would go to the Ranger game.
BOBBY: Okay, I wouldn’t. But I’ll go to the Angel game.
ALEX: Yeah, me too.
BOBBY: You’re not gonna go to the Athletic game. That’s, that’s the one that you absolutely above all will not go–
ALEX: Absolutely. I’m not, I’m not going to the A game.
BOBBY: Okay, that’s the AL.
ALEX: Jesus!
BOBBY: Are there any others? Are there any others from the NL? Not gonna- no Met, Brave, Philly, Marlin, National? I’m going to the National game.
ALEX: I’m going to the National game.
BOBBY: Absolutely not! Brewer? Brewer.
ALEX: I’m going to the Brewer game.
BOBBY: I agree.
ALEX: Yeah, uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Cardinal, we already had that conversation. The Pirate game? Fuck, no!
ALEX: I would say the Cardinal game.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Oh, no.
BOBBY: I agreed. I said that. And you said no, not five minutes ago. You told me that you were not going to the Cardinal game.
ALEX: Well–
BOBBY: Now you’re changing the rules on.
ALEX: I don’t think I just said that, Jess in–
BOBBY: Jess is wrong.
ALEX: –in her–
BOBBY: Jess is wrong.
ALEX: I’m blast.
BOBBY: Cub game? I, we’re feel like yes.
ALEX: I kind of feel like, like no? Because you’ve, you’ve just cut off a quarter of the team name with that.
BOBBY: Great point, just a phenomenal point. I would go to the Red game, but not for baseball. Like the Red game where we overthrow start the revolution.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s good.
BOBBY: Dodger game, of course, yes.
ALEX: Yes. Yeah.
BOBBY: Padre game? No.
ALEX: Nope!
BOBBY: Giant game? No. Rocky game? No. Diamondback game? A resounding no. So that’s it. Dodger, Yankee.
ALEX: Cardinal.
BOBBY: Cardinal, Brewer.
ALEX: Ranger?
BOBBY: Ran–
ALEX: You said no to Ranger.
BOBBY: Right. Mariner was a yes for both of us. And that’s it.
ALEX: So, so we’ve successfully determined, we’ve put them into two categories. Is there–
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: –it just a feel thing?
BOBBY: It’s a feel thing.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: And honestly, like, if English is your second language, it’s a feel thing, is a pretty good rule for learning how to speak English.
ALEX: Right. Because English is a stupid ass language.
BOBBY: And it’s bad.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s bad.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Bad language to learn. And you know what? Knowing English as your first language, it makes it harder to learn other languages too. Because the rules here are not right. And therefore you can’t be like, oh, I know this in English. I’ll think about it in Italian. Because in Italian, they do it correctly.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And here we don’t.
ALEX: Yup!
BOBBY: So this has been linguistics with Alex and Bobby. Jess, thank–
ALEX: Alright.
BOBBY: –you for asking.
ALEX: Can we go to the next question now?
BOBBY: That’s a good question. See, we need questions like that. If you can think of questions like that, just drop them in the Slack.
ALEX: Okay, we’re going to do an about face now. And ask a baseball question, hardcore baseball. We went from linguistics to baseball, alright? Sorry, you got to turn that part of your brain back on. I know, you’ve turned it off.
BOBBY: For like 14 days.
ALEX: Yeah. Lizzie is curious. Three players with less than three years of service time that are going into the Hall of Fame. Just off top, off dome.
BOBBY: That’s so hard.
ALEX: It’s, it’s amazingly hard. The hardest part of this question for me was who has three years of service time.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I was. I was thinking about, I mean, I had the benefit of thinking about this as I was writing this question down. So I want to let you go first. Because I feel like there’s actually a, there are only a few like, great answers, I think. Like there are only four or five players that I think like most baseball fans would universally agree on like, yes. Like, keeps up his pace does his thing, Hall of Fame.
BOBBY: So does three count? Three on the dot? Though, doesn’t have to be less than three years. I know, I know. Lizzie phrased it as less than three years, but–
ALEX: I’ll make the executive decision that yes, three on the dot counts. But I don’t want any of this 3.001, right? I don’t want three years in one day. It’s three or under.
BOBBY: My first answer is Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Yeah, he’s going in the Hall.
ALEX: Yep! He’s ar- like arguably, without a doubt.
BOBBY: I mean, there’s always a doubt like there, he’s only by definitionally, he’s only played less than three years. So–
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: –anything could happen, but he’s currently at 2.157 years of service time. The first person I thought of for this was Fernando Tatis Jr. But I don’t know if he’s going in the Hall of Fame. Like I think he probably will be too hurt to, to put together–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –a resume to make the Hall of Fame at shortstop–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –which is hard.
ALEX: He has more than three years of service time.
BOBBY: It’s three on the dot. Because the, the Padres didn’t monkey with his service time. He started the year in 2019. And because he, because he was only on the injured list, and they never actually sent him back down for any of his injuries or injuries or anything like that.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It’s three exact on the dot.
ALEX: Gotcha!
BOBBY: 19, 20, and 21, he hasn’t played yet this year.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s sad to think about really.
BOBBY: I know. Do you have, do you have anyone else? Because like Ohtani has four.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Otherwise, he would be the fir- he’s the first person I thought of. He has exactly four.
ALEX: I mean, the other person that came to mind initially is Wander Franco. Again, with, with the grain of salt that like trying to say that any player who has been in the league for a year is going to be in the Hall of Fame. It’s just like a case you cannot make, right? There’s no reasonable case to say like, yes, you will be at that level. But just as in terms of like, the level of pure like athleticism and baseball IQ–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –at such a young age, it’s the kind of like, that’s the kind of player that ages very well and can adapt himself to the way the game changes. Which is why I would like to think that he has a good case for it.
BOBBY: He’s probably the next best bet.ecause, you know, like, there’s a whole subset of players in the hall who like maybe never peaked as high as guys like Ken Griffey Jr. but amassed so much WAR and now that we have like the statistical language to talk about that. It helps their case. It’s like Tim Raines is like one of those guys too. And I think that Wander would probably benefit from that. But if I had to bet my life on it, I would probably bet no for Wander, though I think he is probably one of the better candidates with less than three years.
ALEX: Do you think that he’s more of kind of like a, like a better, just like overall baseball player, with like, great tools, but not necessarily one that puts him above the rest of the pack?
BOBBY: I think he will be one of the best players in baseball for the next decade. But the, the, the criteria is so high to make it to the Hall of Fame.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like it’s crazy high. And I guess there’s like more big Hall people now than there used to be. But unless all the small Hall people are dying. Which some of them just repeat, you know? I don’t even know, do you think Adley Rutschman will make the Hall of Fame?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: No, he’s like 26 already.
ALEX: Yeah. It’s also just so hard to say with a player who hasn’t faced big league pitching yet or at least in like Adley case has faced minimal.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Big league pitching, because you really have nothing to go off of as to how his skills stand out.
BOBBY: I got one for you.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Julio Rodriguez.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah, I wrote that down.
BOBBY: I think he will make the Hall of Fame.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He’s so good.
ALEX: He’s incredibly good.
BOBBY: And he’s so damn young. That even if he has an eight year peak starting now, and then is worse for the rest of that. He will still be, you know, only 29.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So he’ll still be able to play for eight more years after that. God willing, even if it’s not at his peak value, I think he will make it. And I guess for my final one. I don’t know, it’s like, for me, it’s like a toss up between Wander and Bobby Witt Jr. I think Bobby Witt Jr. has Hall of Fame potential.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because when you hit for that much power at a middle infield position, you are extremely rare. Like that is why A. Rod. is one of the five best players ever. Because he is also one of the five greatest power hitters ever and played very good shortstop. You know what I mean? Like–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –that just allows you the ability to amass so much value for your team and to stand out from the pack from like the large, large, large majority of major league shortstops. That I think gives him for me like a potential that I don’t see Wander having.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: There might be people listening to this who are like saber people who are like, you’re an idiot. It’s like, obviously Wander he’s like the best prospect ever. And he’s, he, his tools project to age really well, but I don’t know. Something about it just doesn’t seem like it will happen to me. But I don’t know.
ALEX: I, here’s the thing is he plays for the Rays, so he’s going to be amazing for at least the next four years. Let’s just see what happens after that. Can I add one more name?
BOBBY: No, dude, he signed a 10-year extension. Don’t you remember that?
ALEX: No, I don’t.
BOBBY: Okay, one more name.
ALEX: I’m going to add one more name. And then we’re going to do one more question and get out of here.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: This might be controversial, Yordan Alvarez.
BOBBY: He has more than three years of service time.
ALEX: I don’t think he does. Because he, he has two years and 113 days.
BOBBY: Damn, okay. Well, I was just kind of writing him off because I thought it feels like he’s been around for longer than that.
ALEX: It really does.
BOBBY: It’s wild that he’s only 25.
ALEX: I–
BOBBY: Born a whole year after me. That’s–
ALEX: Like, here’s a man who, I mean, his rookie year was ridiculous, right? And, and–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –and the, arguably the biggest argument against him is the positional value, right? Largely being a DH or a left fielder occasionally, right? But like, in terms of WAR, defensive metrics, or anything like that, he’s not going to accrue very much value there, because he just doesn’t have that opportunity, right? But there is a lane I feel like for him to kind of carve out like the mold of the modern day DH, right? And like, injuries notwithstanding, which is the huge question mark, right. He’s on the IL as we speak. But there’s a, there’s a path for him to hit like .500 home runs.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah. There’s a path for him–
ALEX: Like, like a Willie McCovey kind of player.
BOBBY: Offensively to put up such a resume that it’s kind of impossible to leave him out, because there’s only going to be like 30 other players who have done what he’s done.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: The problem is, well, this is, this is not actually the problem. The, the thing that I think could actually count in his favor is there are now twice as many DHs, as there were for all of baseball history–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –since the DHs instituted. And so I think that there must be a softening of the anti-DH sentiment for the Hall of Fame. Otherwise, you’re just going to be leaving out so many good players.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like there are players who could play the field and there always have been but now there are twice as many players who could play the field, but they just don’t because their team understands that it’s better for them to DH.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, I don’t think Pete Alonzo was going to make the Hall of Fame. But if the reason that he didn’t make the Hall of Fame was because he didn’t amass as much value, because he DHed half the time. I would think that that was kind of a corny argument, because he could play first every day.
ALEX: Right. And he did it like it’s not, it’s not–
BOBBY: For the first 4 years of his career.
ALEX: –up to him, right? He’s, he’s going–
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: –out there and doing the best that he can, given the circumstances.
BOBBY: Exactly. So I think that there will be a sort of logical reason to start accepting more DH’s as we start to get more guys who are DH only because the DH has become universal now. That I think will help you out on in the long run. His health makes him sort of a tricky bet, though. Because like he just doesn’t have knees.
ALEX: Right. That’s–
BOBBY: Like a ligaments in his knee.
ALEX: –mostly, you mostly need those.
BOBBY: I mean, he doesn’t to be the best hitter in baseball–
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: –this year. But which, was what makes him so interesting. He’s freaking amazing to watch.
ALEX: Crazy.
BOBBY: Just like you just make your pitch and he just hits it out anyway.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So you’re just like, alright, I guess I just won’t come to the ballpark tomorrow. That would be better for me.
ALEX: Alright, definitely right in if we missed any.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Last question for you. And then we have to get out of this close to two hour podcast?
BOBBY: It’s fine, there’s a lot of you know, interruptions in the middle there.
ALEX: Dan wants to know, what would stats for fans look like? What’s that should I be tracking as I watch games in person versus on the stream, in the, in the thread, he floated some, some examples. Win-loss record, like personal win-loss record, right. So you might be 0-3 in–
BOBBY: Yeah, I’m 1-4 with the Mets this year.
ALEX: Nice.
BOBBY: They’re 20 games over 500, I’m fuckin’ 1-4.
ALEX: He’s had highest total one day cost.
BOBBY: Don’t want to know that.
ALEX: I want to know that.
BOBBY: Easily over $20.
ALEX: Or, or, or drinks per inning. He said he managed a 1.0 at the seventh inning game last year. Which I, I don’t even, I don’t even need that.
BOBBY: [1:22:08] John Fisher’s son like. How he afford that? Uhm, those are all great suggestions.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That you could, I mean, easily cheap yourself if you wanted to. Have this, like long running desire that I wish that somebody was keeping stats on my life, like in this way, you know? Like, not that I want to know them all.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But that if I had a question, there was some, you know, like–
ALEX: There was an official score [1:22:39]
BOBBY: God, like could tell me, you know, like how many hours did I spend watching the Mets?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I would like to know how like how, like the total amount of time that the team was winning while you’re watching versus while they were losing.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So like, like, what is your sort of–
ALEX: Joy to pain ratio.
BOBBY: Yeah. What is your, like how far in the red are you for your whole life with your baseball team?
ALEX: That’s a good one.
BOBBY: Uhm, yeah, that, that’s one for me. I think it would be cool to be able to confirm or deny, like, certain player’s performances while you’re watching them. Because I think that they we all have this sort of like internal feeling that, oh, some guys are Mets killers when I’m watching them, or some guys are A’s killers when I’m watching them. And that, that’s true, like, you can look up their numbers, their splits against your team. But it’s very hard to like filter it for when you’re actually there.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, you know how many times I watched Jason Werth, like personally crushed my hopes and dreams? I know he was a Met killer, but like, I was there for a lot of them. So I’d like to know that just to confirm that I’m not, that I’m not crazy. And I’m not like, you know, having selection bias with my memories, which is probably true also. But–
ALEX: Right, right.
BOBBY: How about you? What did you come up with?
ALEX: For me, I’m and this is maybe more of a personal one, but it’s one that you and I have talked about. And that’s counting A’s hats at other teams stadiums, right?
BOBBY: Everytime.
ALEX: Were, were neither where the A’s are not playing a game, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It’s kind of like my Immaculate inning, you know. I’m like, I see one and I’m like, ohhh, there it is!
BOBBY: No, they’re everywhere, dude.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s true.
BOBBY: Like, pretty much–
ALEX: These days. It’s my no-hitter. I’m like, alright, we got it.
BOBBY: Yeah, three quarters of games that I go to.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: A’s fans, they’re everywhere. Not all of them have the guts to walk up to John Fisher, though. That’s, that’s for damn sure. Uhm–
ALEX: Wait, you know what I want to know?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And now we’re like in the territory of like, things that cannot physically be calculated. Like Dan had, had great ones that would be very easy to just do in the Notes app on your phone. But I want to know about like, what’s my like jinx factor? Like how many, how many times have I, have I jinxed the game? This is–
BOBBY: I’ve jinxed every game that the Mets have ever lost in my mind.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like even including before I was bored.
ALEX: Right, naturally. Yeah. Like, did my rally cap work? You know, just want to know.
BOBBY: Ohhh, if I knew that it would make you even more neurotic as a baseball.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You, you know that I don’t need to know that.
ALEX: Right. That’s really on this something you, you don’t, you don’t want to know.
BOBBY: I’m just, now I’m just thinking about how unfortunate it is to watch a baseball game with me. It’s like not a fun person to be around when the Mets are in high leverage situations. So like over here right now, and Edwin Diaz is trying to save game one against Atlanta. Those are great. I would love to hear listener submissions on this one, though.
ALEX: Yeah, there were some, there were some other good suggestions in the Slack. But yeah, definitely right in y’all if, if there’s some other stats we missed. Because this is, this is good. This is the content we come here for.
BOBBY: tipping_pitches on Twitter, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com. 785-422-5881 if you would like to call into our voicemail, and answer any of the questions that we have discussed on this episode, or mentioned something that I didn’t ask Alex about John Fisher. It’s patreon.com\tippingpitches. If you’d like to sign up for our Patreon, it is three tiers, $5 a month, $7 a month, or $12 a month. You get to choose which one you would like to support, if you would like to support us. The Alex Rodriguez tier is our highest tier. The Alex Rodriguez VIP Club tier is our highest tier. And we shout out five of those members at the end of every episode. Because of their wonderful support for us. Those five members this week are Alexis, Jake, Craig, Ben, and Tristan. Thank you so much for listening, it’s very long podcast. We’ll be back next week.
[1:26:53]
[Music]
[1:27:10]
[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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