Bobby and Alex discuss what to look for when scouting and developing your child, then discuss games one and two of the World Series, including the Phillies’ caffeine habits, the realization of J.T. Realmuto the star, the virtues of cranked-up umpire mics, and what to make of the various cheating accusations this postseason, then touch on Rob Manfred’s comments on the zombie runner and the A’s prospects in Oakland.
Links:
Baseball Bar-b-Cast Dave Dombrowski Interview
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
The Beatles — “Do You Want To Know A Secret?” • Charly Bliss — “DQ” • 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, the World Series is here. They have now played two games in the World Series. But I want to rewind a little bit to before the World Series started. I want to ask you a question, what was your media diet to prepare yourself for the Fall Classic this year?
ALEX: The usual, you know, listening to the Baseball Tonight Podcast, watching as many ESPN segments as I could get my hands on. I thought Joe West did a pretty good summary.
BOBBY: What did Joe have to say? Did he gets you prepared for Pat Hoberg.
ALEX: Yeah, he really did, yeah. I had, I had very little actual, like, preparation so to speak. My preparation is mostly like MLB Fit accounts, you know. Like how–
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: –are the respective teams rolling up. And I gotta say, Phillies, kind of, kind of wiping the floor with the Astros and [1:22]–
BOBBY: The Astros–
ALEX: –right now.
BOBBY: –don’t dress well.
ALEX: No, that’s [1:25]
BOBBY: Just don’t dress well.
ALEX: I mean, I suppose if you’re the Houston Astros you don’t really, really need to. You know the Phillies are really dressing like they want to make an impression.
BOBBY: [1:34] only time.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Hit to the World Series.
ALEX: The Astros are like we’ll be back next year, I can wear a graphic T, it’s fine.
BOBBY: So what you’re telling me is that you did not watch all 162 regular season games for both of these teams then, in the four days that we had off? What did we have those days off for if you weren’t going to watch all 324? That’s 162 times 2, little quick Math for you. What kind of analyst are you, bro?
ALEX: I know. I know, I’m sorry. It was partially wanting to come surprise myself, you know? I, I didn’t want to, to have expectations coming in, right? I–
BOBBY: Name every player on the Astros, go!
ALEX: Aledmys Diaz.
BOBBY: That’s a good one to, get the tough ones out of the way first.
ALEX: Right, exactly. No, you know, I kind of wanted to be surprised by the Phillies. I knew what to expect from the Astros, right? There like the, the model of consistency. I really had not tuned in much to the Phillies. Aside from going to a couple games with you, and kind of the, the discourse, the narrative that surrounded the team in the, the early months of the season.
BOBBY: Were you aware that Bryce Harper’s on the Phillies?
ALEX: No, that was the biggest shock to me of all.
BOBBY: So he’s not in the National anymore, what the fuck? Well, okay, here’s the reason that I asked, because part of my media diet was listening to a podcast from my friends, Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman. Now, this is not a plug. They don’t know that I’m doing this. It’s called the Baseball Bar-B-Cast. It’s their new pod, since leaving The Ringer, and doing a podcast that I produced. It’s a wonderful pod, they’re doing great. Very happy for them. They’re doing it with Sirius XM. They had access at World Series Media Day, which is like a whole thing where they bring in all of these media members and everybody from their respective teams kind of has their own little outpost where they answer questions about the World Series that’s about to start. And so Jake and Jordan got a bunch of really great guests on their World Series Media Day extravaganza episode. And one of those guests, Alex, was Dave Dombrowski. I’d like to play you a little bit of audio from Dave Dombroski’s answer to Jake Mintz’ question. What does your offseason look like? Like when do you get to take a vacation? Just, just listen in for a sec.
JAKE: Dave, when do you get to go on vacation? Like when in the general manager’s calendar do you get to spend three days on a beach?
DAVE: Well, that really what I’ve learned throughout the years, if you want to get away, there’s no 100% time–
JAKE: Right.
ALEX: –where you’re going to be away. But for me the best time and I have younger children that have developed, now they’re 22 and 24. What we always used to do always between Christmas and New Year’s.
BOBBY: Do you catch that Alex?
ALEX: The younger kids?
BOBBY: He developed, the younger children who have developed, they’re now 22 and 24. What the fuck on a GM brain speak is this? My children have developed, like their shortstop prospect.
ALEX: Right. I have my kid locked up through 18.
BOBBY: Really promising team-friendly deal on my 28-year old.
ALEX: Right, exactly. The, the 22-year old took a little bit longer to mature than we kind of thought. He, he had to kind of grow into his body a little.
BOBBY: Let me just play that again for the listeners in case they weren’t paying attention.
ALEX: For me the best time and I have younger children that have developed, now they’re 22 and 24. What we always used to do always between Christmas and New Year’s.
BOBBY: It’s just the disease. Running a front office just cannot be good for you taking the brand.
ALEX: I get it, man, you know, it’s hard to, hard to turn off.
BOBBY: This is why he’s the best at what he does. You know, he, he looks at everybody in his life and he sees their future, their prospects.
ALEX: Right. Does he compiled like scouting reports on his kids?
BOBBY: 80-grade communicator, 40 on homework?
ALEX: Yeah 20 on chores.
BOBBY: 20 on chores, geesh. How would you rate yourself on the kids scouting scale?
ALEX: What are, what are the categories?
BOBBY: It can be anything. What let’s make five tools right now, and rate ourselves on them. Now, I don’t know, the chores is one. How good were you at shores?
ALEX: So this is we’re talking like growing up?
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah. Not now, you’re already, you’ve already reached the, the scouting profiles irrelevant.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Past performance can indicate future performance for you now.
ALEX: Right. So we’re talking–
BOBBY: We don’t need scouting.
ALEX: –future value. Like when I was 12.
BOBBY: Right. Exactly. When you’re at perfect game for, for being a child?
ALEX: I, I probably give myself like a 60, I think.
BOBBY: 60 on chores?
ALEX: I was okay. Like I was pretty good.
BOBBY: 60 is better than okay.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: 60 is like, you’re gonna be like–
ALEX: It’s solid. You’re Major League–
BOBBY: Plus [6:11]–
ALEX: –average. Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, it might be a little, a little generous, you know. It probably depended on the day. And, you know, I think that my, my scouting review might be a little rosier than, say my parents scouting review.
BOBBY: I would say, so let’s break it down like this. I would say on like, actually doing chores. I was like a 45. But on like, you know, like how they do power, game power and raw power.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like my ability to do the chores is like 70. I’m like, I’m–
ALEX: [6:38]
BOBBY: –when I actually doing chores.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: When I actually remember to do them. But I would always forget to take the trash out. My dad would wake me up at like six in the morning before the trash truck came around. Be like, did you forget something? And I’d–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –be like, yeah, you’re right, I did, just like last week.
ALEX: Yup!
BOBBY: He’s so mad, it’d be like you couldn’t have just told me last night when he realized.
ALEX: But, but when you’re out there, right? Like you’re taking the best route to the curb, right?
BOBBY: Oh, I’m, I’m grabbing two, maybe three cans of time.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Sprouted extra hands. Like when I actually mow that lawn, oh my God, it’s gonna be a nice tight edge on that corner. Come on. Come on. Weed whacking?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s, it’s just, I, I take passion in my work.
ALEX: No, yeah, you’re spot in your pitches well.
BOBBY: Exactly. What about like mood? 20 to 80 on mood? Let’s be honest with ourselves here.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, it’s certainly changed, you know, it developed a little bit. I think middle school mood was like, it was like 35.
BOBBY: Ooh, yeah, yeah.
ALEX: It was not great.
BOBBY: Mine is like, maybe 20.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Some bad moods all the time.
ALEX: Tough, tough years. It bumped up to 60 in, in high school 65. And then probably came back down around senior year to maybe 50. Because I was like, alright, I’m ready to go, I’m ready to go. I’m, I’m done here, you know, it’s like–
BOBBY: I kept doing Double-A too long.
ALEX: I’ve hit, I’ve hit 300 at Double-A like two years in a row, and I was like, allright.
BOBBY: Come on, now, you’re just manipulating my service time. Are there any other, any other tools that we should scout ourselves on? Or do you think that’s encompassing? I guess just like schoolwork in general.
ALEX: Right, schoolwork. Uhm.
BOBBY: Yeah. I was probably like a 60 on schoolwork. I did most of my homework. I studied for tests when, when I felt like I needed to.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And then when I got into college. But I feel like it’s actually a benefit to not treat school like the end all be all. You know, like to actually learn how to be a normal person like before you have to go out into the world.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So what, what I’m saying is that we had nice feel for the school tool.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Good makeup.
ALEX: Yeah, I was sitting probably around 50, 55, ’cause like I did everything that I needed to do. Was I always doing–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –it maybe to the best of my–
BOBBY: Abilities?
ALEX: No, I don’t think so. It was, I was a bit of a free swinger–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –right? Like, I wasn’t always connecting, but when I did–
BOBBY: You were not working [8:56].
ALEX: My discipline was not great.
BOBBY: Hey, read another way. You’re kind of like Nick Castellanos in right field where he just doesn’t pay attention on defense in the regular season, because he doesn’t have the energy for it.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Then when it comes to a game saving play in the World Series, you’re gonna make it, you’re just gonna make the play.
ALEX: Right, you’re writing a B, maybe B+ all year–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –and then you turn in that A final paper.
BOBBY: You know, we used to say in college, we used to say C’s get degrees.
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: [9:24] MacGyver got to seeing the place. It’s okay.
ALEX: I did, so I, I can attest to that saying.
BOBBY: I think my lowest grade was my very first class in college. A B- Psychology 101, 8 am, Monday. Brutal.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Brutal, ten year professor, he didn’t give a fuck about us.
ALEX: Those are the best ones.
BOBBY: Yeah, I know, he was up there making animal noises all the time. It was, it was, it was an interesting time.
ALEX: Animal noises.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: He, I mean, so he’s, he was like the, the Joe Maddon?
BOBBY: Kind of, yeah.
ALEX: Or it was just kind of like, I don’t really know if what he’s doing work.
BOBBY: He was like the I’m gonna get fired Joe Maddon. He wasn’t like the nine equals one body in Tampa Bay Devil Rays Joe Maddon.
ALEX: Right. He’s Angels, Joe Maddon.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly.
ALEX: We’re just kind of coasting off it’s history.
BOBBY: And I was not Mike Trout in this analogy. I was like, I was like the [10:13]. Pretty promising, but not, definitely not the most naturally gifted.
ALEX: It was kind of like, how was he, how’s he doing that?
BOBBY: Yeah. This is the most train metaphors we’ve ever fit into a call.
ALEX: I know, it’s pretty good, though. I like it.
BOBBY: I’m impress, nice–
ALEX: I–
BOBBY: –nice bits.
ALEX: –I want to, I want to add one other tool.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Which which, you know, doesn’t apply to everyone. But I think sibling relationship is, is a big one as well.
BOBBY: Sure. No, you’re an older sibling.
ALEX: I’m an older sibling.
BOBBY: And I’m a younger sibling.
ALEX: Yeah. So that I think that perspective matters, right?
BOBBY: You think anyone could do like any kind of like, Freudian behavioral analysis on how we do the podcast? Versus based on the fact that I’m a younger sibling, and you’re an older sibling?
ALEX: Probably, yeah.
BOBBY: So there’s something to be read there, I just don’t know.
ALEX: [10:58]
BOBBY: I wasn’t paying attention in Psych 101. Just make an animal [11:01].
ALEX: I mean, in typical, in typical older brother fashion, I was like, I was like a 30.
BOBBY: So, just say more about that, like you were a 30, you just did you not have the drive? Did you not have the skills? What do you think was holding you back?
ALEX: Hmm. You know, I was toolsi, right?
BOBBY: Toolsi? Right.
ALEX: Like I could, but I was pretty raw.
BOBBY: Right, okay.
ALEX: Uhm, and so I wasn’t really always achieving where I, where I wanted to, right? And so–
BOBBY: I mean, Aaron Judge didn’t debut till he was like 28, you know, 25, whatever.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: However old he was.
ALEX: Right, exactly. And everyone’s like, look, he’s got power. But–
BOBBY: Hit 62 home runs, did you hear about that?
ALEX: No, I didn’t.
BOBBY: I’m gonna hit in the playoffs though.
ALEX: Yeah. It’s just like you and me right now.
BOBBY: Exactly, right. He could be the third co-host of this fucking podcast.
ALEX: Right. I think, I think I had the, the tools. But maybe not always the discipline to follow through on them, right? It was, it was good.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I was a little Starlin Castro like, you know, I’d kind of lose my, lose my head on the field a little bit.
BOBBY: Lastings Milledge.
ALEX: Right. Well, I mean, what about you? How do you how do you feel you performed in that department?
BOBBY: See, I had it much easier because I was a younger sibling. So my sister, she was like, the, the workhorse of the staff.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I was like the third starter, I used to just come in and be like, hey, if he hasn’t good out and good for us. If not, we’ll get them next time around.
ALEX: You’re the mop up guy. Like–
BOBBY: Right. Yeah. I’m the firemen.
ALEX: They’ll bring you in when they’re like, it doesn’t really matter what happened here.
BOBBY: No! No! No, no way I had that I was getting any high leverage in, no way, dawg! And my sister was a really good older sister, too. She was five years older than me. She still is five years older than me. She still has a good sister, but get older sister but you know, for the, for the purposes of this conversation, she was five years older than me. And she had like a really good friend group that was like, really nice to me too. And like, wasn’t embarrassed by me being around them. And I think like being a younger brother is better than being an older brother, frankly, because older brothers have this like weird protectiveness over their siblings. And younger brothers get to just be just however they want to be and their older sisters are more often much more accepting in that. So–
ALEX: Yeah. Right, I mean, you had, you had a veteran on your team that could like put you-
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –under their wing.
BOBBY: Right, exactly.
ALEX: And kind of, kind of cultivate, nurture your development.
BOBBY: Exactly. So I would say it’s like a 50.
ALEX: That’s good.
BOBBY: Maybe my sister would rate me higher, I don’t know. I don’t think she would rate me lower than a 50, it was a pretty good, you know. Don’t remember how we got on this. Oh, we’re talking about Dombroski–
ALEX: Dombroski, yeah.
BOBBY: –right. His kids have developed into 22 or 24. Okay, this is the energy that we’re going to try to keep for the rest of this podcast. When we talk about the World Series, Game 1 and Game 2. We’re gonna talk a little bit about a couple of things that Rob Manfred said, in his sort of World Series press day. We’ll answer a couple questions. And hopefully we’ll strain a few more metaphors. But before we do all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[14:12]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Alex, new patrons this week and part of last week. I apologize to folks for not shutting out the patrons last week. It truly was a rather hectic week, and a hectic recording for us. I think some people could probably tell and the delivery of that podcast. Maybe even in the editing of that podcast. Maybe even in the pre planning of that podcast, the fact that was half Taylor Swift. The new patient of this week are Izzy, Kate, Meredith, Simon, and, Justine, thank you to all of you very, very much. Shall we just get right into it? World Series?
ALEX: Yes. Let’s do it!
BOBBY: Game 1? I’d like to start by reading you a quote that I saw. Once again, shared by our friends at Céspedes Family BBQ. This quote is from Phillies’ rookie, Garrett Stubbs, who has not played in this, in this World Series. Don’t know if he’s even played at all in this postseason. However, he gave us something very important. Garrett Stubbs said, “We drink so much coffee bro, nobody is more beaned up than the Phils.” That is sick, I just talked about a team that’s trying to get me to like them. They’re trying really hard
ALEX: Again, they’re pandering off.
BOBBY: It’s so hard.
ALEX: Off the charts. And here’s the thing, it’s working.
BOBBY: Not on me.
ALEX: It’s working on me.
BOBBY: It’s not working on me.
ALEX: No?
BOBBY: You know, I wondered if when the series started, I would soften a little bit as I watched the Phillies go head to head against what honestly I think is the new evil empire in the Houston Astros. They are the new evil empire, it’s no longer the Yankees. Because it’s not like, like, if in empire strikes back, there was just like a second squad of dudes building a bigger Death Star. It’s like we can call the original Death Star the evil empire anymore. So I think the Astros are officially the evil empire now in Major League Baseball. So I wondered if I would soften over the course of this series? And nope, I still just love it when the Phillies lose. It feels really good to watch. Still rooting for the Astros and everybody seems really mad at me. And you know what? I don’t care. That sign can stop me because I can’t read. However–
ALEX: See, right there–
BOBBY: –every single person on the Phillies is so likable. They’re all incredibly likable, just–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –a remarkable collection. And I said on the podcast because like, Is this one of the most likable teams of the 21st century?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like I said, is this the most likable team of the 21st century?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And I wasn’t bullshitting. I really mean it, like most of these guys are extremely likable. And there’s, they just they have the vibes, for certain they have the vibes. And this Garrett Stubbs quote, I thought was a good example of that for our purposes.
ALEX: Yeah, you dislike them institutionally not like, on a personal level.
BOBBY: Yeah, I dislike them relationally.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: If that’s a word, it is now. I dislike them in relationship to me. And my childhood trauma. But the only thing that could have made this quote better was if Garrett Stubbs was like, Yeah, and this is the type of being that I use. And I have my espresso machine. And this is how we make it, you know, I love to pull ristretto shots and–
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: –and to all this different shit.
ALEX: Yeah, I really like, I like my roasts, medium to dark, I make sure to grind it really fine when I’m making the espresso or–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –a little coarser for like a cold brew, or a French press.
BOBBY: And ofcourse is possible for the–
ALEX: This ofcourse possible, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Make sure you’re grinding it as close as possible.
ALEX: This like, it just kind of feels like this, this team almost feels like they have less to lose. Like they’re–
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: –they’re just a group of dudes going out there and gonna do their best. And after the game, they’re going to, they’re going to down some buds and light–
BOBBY: But [17:52] two [17:53]–
ALEX: [17:53] cigarettes, like with their other cigarettes.
BOBBY: Amazing story about that.
ALEX: Amazing story.
BOBBY: I mean, yes, they feel, you know, you know what it is, they feel like the highest proportion. Like this is the, this is the baseball team that has made it to the World Series that has the highest proportion of just normal guys on it. Like these are just guys. They’re not like, they don’t have like an off putting superstar athlete persona around. Almost any of them and I mean, Bryce used to have that like when he was coming up, and he was a superstar prospect cover of Sports Illustrated when he was 16, with the I blacked down his face. And he was supposed to otter in this like, revolution amongst baseball stars. He was going to be the first online baseball star. And you know what he, not that he is online, but he’s like the first baseball star of the, the new internet era. And he was, he was everywhere. His face was everywhere. People hated him for it. Some people loved him for it. I always really liked Bryce. And I think he kind of got all that out of his system in Washington. And when he went to Philly, even though I don’t think he’s a normal guy, like I don’t think he just does normal stuff like you and I, he seems much more down to earth than the Bryce 1.0. And I don’t know if that’s maybe just me projecting that onto him. Because of all the pandering he’s done to like the greater Philadelphia area, which I have a lot of personal connections to. But this just seems, I see, I feel like I can have a conversation with every single guy on this team pretty much. And I don’t think I could have a conversation with like, Alex Bregman. You know, like, I don’t know what Kyle Tucker and I would talk about. Like, what like, you’re not I would be like, how are you?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: How do you? What is that?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: How are you doing that? You know what I mean? Like, whatever–
ALEX: They try to put my hand through him, you know.
BOBBY: Be like, yeah, whoa! Dude has no ACLs and yet he has so much power. Like how was that possible? And I don’t know, there, there’s something about this team. And you know, something else to that same point was Kyle Schwarber riding the bull at Xfinity Live! after they won the Championship Series. Which we didn’t even talk about because we didn’t see until the day that we put the pod out. Just a normal, just a normal thing for a normal guy to do. You know how many guys I saw fall off that bull? And then I saw Kyle Schwarber do it, like It’s and that’s Kyle Schwarber. He had a ball 488 feet and then he rode the bull at Xfinity Live!
ALEX: They just feel very unburdened–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you know. And, I mean, hey, if I was Bryce and I was unfree, and I was under the thumb of the Lerners for my career? I probably would be, too.
BOBBY: Play in front of a bunch of Senators.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Yeah, they’re, they’re just such an interesting collection of players. I don’t, I’ll never forget this team for the rest of my life. They also never play normal baseball games, which leads us to Game 1 of the World Series, which was not a normal baseball game. The Astros jumped out to a five nothing lead on two Kyle Tucker home runs. And a Martin Maldonado RBI single with an illegal bat, which we’re not even gonna talk about. Because it’s just not relevant really. And Justin Verlander was on the mound. 175 ERA. Of course, plenty of struggles throughout his career in the World Series. Started the World Series game in three different decades now has not gotten a win in a World Series game. In any of those eight starts. My first question for you, Alex, is Justin Verlander just an Oakland A’s merchant? Can he only, does this shit only work against the A’s in the playoffs?
ALEX: It is quite possible. Like can we start the narrative? Like Clayton Kershaw, I feel like has kind of put his narrative to rest. And someone else has to take up the mantle.
BOBBY: Should it have been his narrative the whole time? Because you know what? He made his first World Series start before Clayton Kershaw debut.
ALEX: Yeah. So it, it really does sort of confuse that, that whole idea of there being a playoff narrative, right? Where we just kind of–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –kind of cherry pick who are interested in focusing on. When really, it’s like, some guys just happen to have bad starts. And I mean, you know, granted, the Kershaw thing went on long enough that a part of me was kind of like–
BOBBY: Yeah, it was weird.
ALEX: –maybe, maybe he actually does in the playoffs, you know,
BOBBY: Not even just a part of you. I remember, I don’t know if it was, I think it was in 2017, after we had a couple bad starts against the Astros, which we now know that they were, they were cheating. But at the same time, I think he had a bad start at home. A couple bad starts at home in the playoffs that, that year, too. So it didn’t just make you question it, it made my, my colleague and, and effectively wild host Ben Lindbergh question whether or not he thought that Clayton Kershaw was bad in the playoffs. And he is not, he is much more empirical and much more data driven. He’s not the type to buy into a narrative. And he was like, yeah, it’s no longer a narrative.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like this is a big enough sample size that he’s demonstrably worse in the playoffs. And maybe it’s just a little worse in the playoffs, but also like, playoffs are hard, man.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I think Justin Verlander’s performance in Game 1. But, you know, in the World Series throughout his career, maybe he’s gotten more of passed because like, I don’t know that he’s been the reason that his team has ever lost the World Series. Like, there have been a couple times when a Kershaw start could have really swung a series for the Dodgers. But like, didn’t the Tigers get swept in his first appearance in the World Series in 2006? So it’s not like if he won that game, they would have magically made that a seven game series.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, it was, it was 4-1, they lost 4-1, they got, they got swept in the World Series against the Giants a few years later.
BOBBY: Ouch. So when the Giants just want about twice?
ALEX: Yeah, I know. That was, that was stupid, but–
BOBBY: [23:42]
ALEX: –it didn’t happen. But like, you’re right, that the game, the series was not necessarily hinging on his singular start.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And, I mean, I just think that so much attention is put on a team like the Dodgers, right? Given that they are–
BOBBY: Why are you gonna fly overstates me?
ALEX: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I’m gonna major–
BOBBY: Let’s go!
ALEX: –market you, bro. I mean, also a lot of the cursor stuff kind of bubbles up in the online internet age, right? Obviously, that, that first series with the Tigers 2006, we’re like, kind of in the nascent days of social media. 2011 or 2012 we’re online, but maybe we’re not super brain poisoned, yeah?
BOBBY: Right. I know he does sort of exist. Him and Scherzer both exist slightly pre, you have to have an opinion about everything at all times, culture–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –in media. I mean, obviously that existed on sports radio, maybe but it didn’t used to only matter what you did in October. Like you used to be able to be a good pitcher without having to be the best pitcher of your generation capital letter on all of those words, you know?
ALEX: Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t, I don’t have a more coalesced take about Justin Verlander being bad in, in the World Series.
BOBBY: You know, it was actually something that Jeff Passan said on Jake and Jordan’s preview pod that stuck with me. I think it was, I think it was Jeff Passan who said this, my apologies if it wasn’t. But even though the Astros are better than the Phillies, I think we can confidently say that. They won 19 more games than them in the regular season this year. They have been there repeatedly. They have made it to the CS, however many years in a row? And this is their fourth appearance in the World Series since this era of Houston baseball started. What the Phillies do have is a deep lineup that can hit great pitching. And they prove that in Game 1. It’s not like Verlander just melted down and started walking people or hitting people or he was missing his spots or whatever. He was great threw a few innings. And then once the lineup saw him one time, they started squaring them up. And honestly, I know we talk a lot about how, in this era of baseball, pitching owns hitting. And in order to be able to win a World Series, you have to be able to pitch you have to have a bullpen you have to have all these things. But like the I can’t square that with this year’s Phillies team. And last year is like last year’s Red Sox team or last year’s Braves team, where it’s just like, if you have quality hitters, who are tough to get out in like six of your nine spots. And who, it doesn’t matter who’s pitching to them. Like they can’t be overwhelmed by even the best pitchers in the game. You have a shot against anyone in any 5, 3, 5, or 7 game series, which the Phillies have proven. And they do have that and I think that is what play down game on.
ALEX: Yeah, there are a remarkably fun team. I mean, just the dynamic of this World Series is really, is really fun because there’s you know, there’s the element of chaos that the Phillies bring to the Astros well-oiled machine. And so you really don’t know what’s going to happen, right? And you know, we’ll get to Game 2 in a moment. But both those games started out in very similar fashion, right? And ended up in radically different places. And one was far more interesting to me than the other one. Not even necessarily because the Phillies won Game 1. But because Game 1 felt like it kind of defied the rules of like postseason baseball.
BOBBY: Right, it was unscripted in a way that Game 2 felt kind of scripted.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: You know what Game 1 felt like? It felt like the Phillies got all beaned up. It took a couple–
ALEX: Sure, really did.
BOBBY: –innings [27:40] to hit and then once it did, the game just went totally haywire.
ALEX: It’s fun to see J.T. Tealmuto get his do the national stage.
BOBBY: Is it that fun?
ALEX: Hottest Philly, yeah.
BOBBY: Whatever!
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Hottest Philly interesting take. I don’t think I agree.
ALEX: Who would you, who would you say?
BOBBY: Probably Bryce or Castellanos.
ALEX: Nah! Bryce is not attractive if being honest.
BOBBY: Wow, that’s a take. All right.
ALEX: Bro, J.T. rolled up to like gain–
BOBBY: You’re just not attracted to like traditionally attractive looking men.
ALEX: I feel like J.T. Realmuto is very traditionally.
BOBBY: Yeah, I guess you’re right.
ALEX: Like clean shave, but–
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s right.
ALEX: Yeah, I don’t know, there’s something about Bryce that just kind of, kind of rubs me the, the wrong way. Even putting aside his like personal beliefs and whatnot. I don’t know–
BOBBY: We should put aside JTs personal beliefs, too.
ALEX: Yeah. Whatever. Amen. J.T. rolled up in a, in an all like, powder blue suit with like a white T at that game.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like he was, he was stuntin out there.
BOBBY: Was it like a turtleneck underneath? Or was it just a t shirt?
ALEX: I think it was just a t shirt.
BOBBY: Yeah. He had kind of a soprano energy to the shirt. Yeah. The game was wild, the game–
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: –just really wild. One of the best, pne of the best playoff games I can remember in a really long time.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Sort of hit all of those like platonic ideal box, checked all of those platonic ideal boxes that I talked about a couple weeks on the pod, couple weeks on the pod. And I just, I can’t believe the Phillies won that game.
ALEX: They had no business doing that.
BOBBY: They, and there were so many different moments where the rally could have been killed.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I mean, it pains me to watch Realmuto on this team. Especially with all this new reporting that is sort of surfacing about how the offseason that he was a free agent after the Phillies had traded for him as a rental and they were trying to extend him. The Mets were the first team to approach him and then they just went radio silent for two months after that. And then they signed James McCann.
ALEX: Which like okay, man.
BOBBY: No, no, don’t even joke amd justify this.
ALEX: People, people, people were like–
BOBBY: I, I was like so mad.
ALEX: –people re- resurfacing like S and Y’s tweet where they compare the two, you know.
BOBBY: As they–
ALEX: They would stop playing–
BOBBY: –should, bro, like anybody who actually spent five minutes watching these two players could tell you which one is better.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Like it’s not, Realmuto is an alien.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I mean, like the throw that almost got Altuve out at the end of Game 1, and then go on opposite field to put them ahead. And also having an inside the park home run in this playoffs, leading the team in steals, being the first catcher to go 20-20 since, I don’t even know who. Like he is almost like mythical for like the modern casual position.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: He just does all of the stuff that no one ever even tries to do anymore. And he still does it at an elite level.
ALEX: Right. I mean, he has played roughly 200 more innings of baseball than any other catcher this year. He has played almost a month more of baseball than any other catcher in the sport, and is still the best catcher–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –by a country mile.
BOBBY: And maybe was concussed in Game 1. Like- not even a lot of people talking about that where he just wore a foul tip off the mask and fell back a little bit. Brace himself with his own hand. Thankfully, we got a very clear audio of the umpire telling them, stay right there!
ALEX: Like, just take a minute, take a minute.
BOBBY: Take a minute. Gosh, anything else on Game 1, before we talked about Game 2?
ALEX: You know, we, I mean, you mentioned the umpire being able to hit the umpire. And we have had our criticisms about the audio production of playoff games or are really a gist of national baseball games, right? Because this was true during the regular season.
BOBBY: But can they make a phone call to a regional cable network and ask them how they do it?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Just one phone call.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like every single regional broadcast sounds way better than every single national broadcast.
ALEX: I gotta say, it was all made up for when Aledmys Díaz leaned into a pitch and, and–
BOBBY: [31:34] Michael Conforto, huh?
ALEX: Exactly. And the umpire said, no way, timeout, timeout, stay here, stay you fucking leaned right into it.
BOBBY: Which Joe Davis and John Smoltz talked over on the English speaking broadcast. But the Spanish speaking announcers did not talk over it. So we got the clear audio on that broadcast. And that was where it was recirculated from. Amazing. Thank you. MLB Network, thank you. That’s the reason that they should have gotten a Spanish speaking broadcast this whole time. That’s the only reason I can think of why they should have Spanish speaking broadcasts for–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –a game that is played by more Spanish speaking people in the world than right–
ALEX: And this, and this–
BOBBY: –English speaking people.
ALEX: –and this call to the World Series.
BOBBY: Aledmys Díaz, what are you doing, baby? Come on. What are you doing?
ALEX: Hey, man, I guess–
BOBBY: Come on!
ALEX: –just try and get- I mean–
BOBBY: No, no, no, that was one of the most ridiculously dumb at bats I’ve ever watched. He gets ahead 3-0, almost getting hit by one of the curveballs.
ALEX: Well, he’s at, well, he’s–
BOBBY: He’s a head 2-0, sorry 2-0.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He’s head 2-0, he almost gets hit by a curveball in the second pitch. Then he leans in and gets hit by the curveball but it was a ball which amazing call that the umpire by the way.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: For him to still call it a ball but make him come back.
ALEX: Great! He–
BOBBY: Correct on all [32:51]–
ALEX: He new right away!
BOBBY: –umpires have been 10 out of 10 in the series so far. Which guarantees that they will fuck something up massively in the next couple games, because I said that. But he’s a head 3-0, and then he swings out a sinker that is below the zone.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: After trying to lean in and get his base.
ALEX: Yeah,
BOBBY: So that he could move the lineup along because he clearly did not want to go up there to actually hit as evidenced by the fact that he leaned into the curveball.
ALEX: Right. This is David Robertson on the mound, right?
BOBBY: Who had already thrown like 24 pitches so he was starting to tire a little bit.
ALEX: Yes. And clearly is not hitting his spots.
BOBBY: No. And, and yet swings at ball 4 then makes the funnel out of the game. Just baffling! And you know what? I can’t even blame him because I will probably do some dumb stuff like that up there too. If I was pinch hitting down one in the 10th inning of World Series Game 1.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Very stressful situation.
ALEX: Super stressful. The, the last thing I’ll say on, on Game 1, even though I said the last thing that I said would be the last thing that I would say.
BOBBY: And then I’ll have a last thing to say.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: And then you can have another last thing to say.
ALEX: It’s kind of fun watching like managers get weird with their bullpen and it kind of work–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you know.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like bringing in Ranger Suarez and him just–
BOBBY: Fuck it we ball, bro!
ALEX: –making Yordan Alvarez look goofy up there, hop on.
BOBBY: Ranger Suarez just can’t find a single thing to dislike about the guy.
ALEX: Nope, nope.
BOBBY: First of all, his name is Ranger. Also, Ranger Suarez, Spanish speaking, you know? Is there a chance that we’re just he’s just okay with us calling him Ranger but that’s not actually his name is how his name is pronounced. Because that G in Spanish would have you Ran-her. So there’s just a chance that he’s just like, Ranger sounds cooler in English let’s just, let’s just let it rock.
ALEX: Yeah, I don’t know, I mean, I do know that like teams do distribute like guides on how to pronounce each player’s name, right? So I have to assume at this–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –point in the season.
BOBBY: That was a whole thing with Mark Canha this year.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Like–
BOBBY: His wife tweeting, for the love of God, it’s Canha , it’s not Kenya. I know [34:45], like traditional [34:46]–
ALEX: Were people are saying Canha?
BOBBY: There was a whole thing on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball about how Mark Canha, Canha, K- C-a-n-h-a sounds last name is spelled.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It’s because he’s Portuguese, I believe on his father’s side, and that’s how they got the name Canha, it has been sort of Americanized, as his has his family has been in the United States for decades. So they choose to pronounce it Canha, but if they were going to pronounce it, the traditional way that you would say, that letter combination that consonant combination in Portuguese, it would be Kenya. And they talked about that on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball, I believe it was ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. And for like a few innings, they were just calling him Kenya because of that. And he–
ALEX: Like to try it out?
BOBBY: Because I think he had given a quote, like a couple days earlier about this exact thing. He was- and he had said something like, you know, if we were to pronounce it the traditional way, this is how it’d be said. And so then I think the ESPN people were like, oh, well, then we should pronounce–
ALEX: They–
BOBBY: –traditional way.
ALEX: –they were like, they were like, I mean, we got to be a little woke at least so like–
BOBBY: [35:49] trying to be woke. But, think they just thought they were pronouncing it the right way. So then his wife had to like issue clarification, ’cause he was playing in the game and didn’t know that his name was being announced, just incredibly stupid. My God, man should save that one for the dumbest things that happened in 2022–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –in baseball, was Batting Around that is coming in a few weeks. But anyway, your final thing that you’re gonna say about Game 1, I don’t even remember what it was.
ALEX: Oh, no, I said, I say–
BOBBY: Oh, Ranger Suárez.
ALEX: –Ranger Suarez, Rob Thomson, bullpen G.O.A.T.
BOBBY: Rob Thomson is so good.
ALEX: He is.
BOBBY: Such good manager. I’m gonna talk about an after we talked about the sort of Game 2 controversies. But Rob, Rob Thomson, just been the big winner of 2022 in the playoffs in my opinion. Still don’t really know what the Phillies plan is for Game 3. They use their Game 3 starter already.
ALEX: Well, you know who it is, right?
BOBBY: It’s Syndergaard, right? But, but then–
ALEX: Are they actually talking giving sixth inning.
BOBBY: No, like so then Suarez is gonna pitch like four innings after that? I have no idea. They’re really just in making it up as we go.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: This is like when you’re doing the AP test and you don’t know any of the answers. But you’re still trying to get credit for a couple of the like, for the work on some of it.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So you just like start from the middle? And you just like I think this would be how I would advance the answer to this problem. All right, Game 2, Alex. So I didn’t know anything about all the controversy, until today. We’re recording this on Sunday, the day off between Games 2, and 3. I didn’t know anything about the sticky stuff controversy with Framber Valdez. Didn’t know anything about him being asked about it after the game, Rob Thomson being asked about it after the game. People circulating videos of him going to his non-pitching hand, or him wiping his hand on his pants as he’s walking off the field. All of these things that they are alleging that Framber has some sort of substance that he is very obviously using in the middle of the game and like rubbing on the palm, rubbing on his hands, I don’t really know. So did you know about this stuff? As we were, as we were saying it sort of following the game, we were participating in New York City Halloween festivities. So I was watching the game on mute on my phone.
ALEX: Right. And I was like, kind of following it via Twitter and MLB At Bat and, and the like, but was not tuned in to every pitch. So no, I, I mean, I didn’t even see anyone talking about this at the time, really. And I’m sure people were. But yeah, but I really didn’t have an awareness of it until like you were tweeting about it this morning.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah. And I think most of those videos that I was like, seeing as I was catching up on some of this stuff, it reminded me of like the Mets-Padres Game 3, where it was like, ooh, this is suspicious. Oh, they should go check on this. And so the, the controversy was like sort of bubbling up on Twitter as the game was going. Because we have such immediate access to replays and screenshots and poorly taken videos from iPhones being tweeted out by sportsbooks. But I guess, so, I don’t mean to, I don’t mean to downplay the game at all. Because it was still a good baseball game. Probably not as good as Game 1 is fine. There are big moments and big performances from the guys you hope to see those from.
ALEX: Sure. I mean, it was like kind of how I think we expected Game 1 to go, which was like, not really close. Like it didn’t really feel like the Phillies had much of a fighting chance in this one.
BOBBY: No, they didn’t. But, but you had to give them that respect that they might have turned the Game 2 around the same way that they turned Game 1 around. And so I think that that made Framber in particular his performance. Very impressive because we just saw a first ballot Hall of Famer, one of the best pitchers of his generation, get jumped all over by this Phillies lineup. And then Framber goes out there the very next night and he’s like, man really care just gonna dominate them. I think Framber is definitely Houston’s ace. I think he’s definitely for me the most trustworthy pitcher to not have a blow up start in baseball right now. Because he basically hasn’t had a blow start all year. He’s on this insane quality start streak, which I know quality starts are not the most important stat in individual games. But anytime you can rip off an entire season of quality starts, you’ve probably given your team a chance to win, most of the time.
ALEX: Right it means you’re, you’re not having any significant blow ups at all.
BOBBY: Exactly. And as we saw, even the best of them have blow ups, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, these things do happen. But then I almost like, I almost wonder in an existential way, how we’re ever going to get past any of this stuff. We just ha- we’re working with too much information. But at the same time not employing that information with any sort of critical thinking skills. You see one guy go to his hand in a way that you think looks unnatural. And you accuse him of cheating, because you cut together a video that, you know, admittedly makes it look a little bit suspect the way that he’s touching his hand, touching his non pitching hand with his pitching hand. But we’re just working with such an incomplete picture. Like maybe that’s him, maybe most likely, that’s him grabbing sweat off of his other hand, because it’s been in his glove. And if that hand is getting sweatier so he’s combining the rosin, from his pitching hand from the bag that you’re legally allowed to use on the mound with a sweat from his other hand, or with a sweat from his hair or whatever it might be. But we just, there’s no way to prove that he was cheating or wasn’t cheating. Just like there was no way to definitively prove whether Joe Musgrove was cheating. When Buck went and asked DMs to do an extra check with him, I think they pretty definitively proved that he wasn’t cheating. And the way that like, official media, or like official partners of baseball, are just like throwing these accusations around in real time. I, I don’t know like how we enjoy these things unencumbered ever again, as long as we have Twitter, and Baseball Savant. Because people can just go and grab a screenshot from Baseball Savant and say, Oh, Framber has looked at these insane spin rates on, on Framber curveball, and it’s just that’s been like that his whole career. And he has his fastball spin is like 60th percentile. So if he was using Spider Tack, you would think his fastball spin would be up to because you can’t control when the Spider Tack is on your hand between pitches that, that specifically. Because that stuff is so sticky, you have to like wash it off your hands with like alcohol, rubbing alcohol. I just really am wondering in an existential way forever going to have a version of Major League Baseball, without cheating accusations. And I want to be like, I want to be fair to the people who have skepticism about these players, too. Because a bunch of people did cheat, including the Astros. And I think one of the things that we were most frustrated about with the Astros specifically was that they cast a shadow of doubt over, over baseball. Like that was one of the things I remember you and I talking about is that they did this so flagrantly and so blatantly, that I don’t know how you ever trust teams not to do stuff like this. Again, and how you can never prove you can never definitively prove that they’re not cheating anymore. And now we all have this huge doubt in our mind. And they’re a huge part of that huge doubt. But I just think that it’s just gone so, it’s just gone way beyond. Like we’re just any time, any players performing well, we’re just like, there has to be some other reason why they performing well.
ALEX: Yeah, well, and baseball players have cheated for the entirety of the game, right? And they’re cheating right now. They like I mean–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –it might depend on what your definition of cheating is. But it’s been rates, obviously significantly dropped off, you know, in the wake of the sticky stuff crack down, and then they’ve slowly kind of ticked back up in the time since, which is fine. I don’t, I don’t care. Like if, if pitchers are doing what they can to get a better grip on the ball, or even trying to gain an edge over the hitter. And it’s largely, you know, sort of an unspoken acceptance, that’s, that’s fine. Like, if, if, if the players are not seething about it, then I’m probably not really going to care that much either. But I, I also really don’t think that people want to know. You know, it’s kind of like don’t, don’t ask the questions you don’t really want to know the answers to. Because you’re gonna uncover a lot more than you were really bargaining for and it feels kind of part and parcel to this broader desire to codify and draw very distinct lines around certain types of the game of baseball, right? We want–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –we want an automated strike zone. We want the kind of, you know, replay review. So if the, if the player’s foot comes off the bag briefly, we can call them out, right? It’s like we’re trying to create a ba- a version of baseball, that’s like it’s pure. We just want the players to play baseball and the calls would be correct. And no one to have that edge.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But–
BOBBY: Baseball in a vacuum.
ALEX: Right, exactly. But first of all, that’s, that’s not how, that’s not how things work. [45:28]
BOBBY: Whether we were not how baseball was designed to work.
ALEX: Or designed to work- right, exactly. And if that was really the version of baseball, we were interested in, the sport would look different.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like it just what? So I, you know, I don’t know how to answer your question of like, will we ever kind of be out of this era? I mean, no, I think it comes in waves, right? I think for a few years it’s at the forefront of people’s minds. And then it starts to slip away because players get better at evading detection, or they stop doing it or they find another means of gaining an edge. And fans ignore it for a few years, right?
BOBBY: Yeah. Here’s the thing that really rubs me the wrong way, though. And I understand how fans slipped into this because for a hot minute there, I was like, man, it really would suck if Joe Musgrove actually was using something that was making him impossible to hit for this one game. This one elimination game, where the entire met season that I’ve just spent 1000s of hours watching will be decided on. It would really suck if he had been cheating in that moment. But to take all of that anguish, and frustration, and anger over the fact that there is cheating and baseball, to like, melt that all and cook it down into like one thing, and then hone that in on one player in individual games, just makes no sense. Like, it just makes no sense.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Framber would not be the only player this year who had used something to get a better grip on the ball. And I don’t even think he was cheating. Like, I don’t even think–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –he was using anything either. Like, it would, it would make no sense for him to do it so flagrantly, to take his glove off, off his non pitching hand and rub the ball up with it like that. Like that would be the dumb- like the Astros would cheat better than that, honestly, at this point, you know. Five years removed from their original cheating scandal, they would have learned how to cheat better than that if we’re being frank. And the Astros were one of the teams that was using Spider Tack. That was they’re, they’re the ones that taught Gary Cole how to use it. Like how do you think he got so much better from Pittsburgh to Houston. It wasn’t just that they told him to throw more fast balls up in the zone is that they gave him Spider Tack. And a lot of teams were doing it. So it’s not just that we like can’t enjoy baseball without this conversation around cheating. But it’s that we’re honing in on the wrong people, like the umpires are checking these guys when they come off the field. So if you still think they’re cheating, then why aren’t you mad at the umpires, and Rob and the league for instituting a better process and how they can, how they can really stamp this out? Because the reason that it became a problem in the first place is there’s always been the rule, it’s always been the rule that you’re not allowed to do this since the beginning of time. And so the reason that it became a problem in the first place, because the lack of enforcement. So why are we suddenly now mad at the players again, when two years ago when this was a problem, we were mad at the league for not enforcing it?
ALEX: Right. And two years prior to that we didn’t care.
BOBBY: It just like–
ALEX: Or do we have an awareness of it.
BOBBY: Like I don’t go out onto the street corner and wave my fist at everyone I see speeding.
ALEX: Oh, speak for yourself.
BOBBY: But your says what it feels like, like it just feels like you’re very much just mad at individuals for like, exploiting a system that is meant to be exploited. If these umpires are doing these half-assed hand checks as you’re walking off the field. And what does that tell you? That it’s not actually a rule that people care about. And I don’t even think the checks are that half-assed really.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I think you really would have to kind of, you really would be playing with fire to be using something like Spider Tack still.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And to think that you’re not going to get caught with that in a World Series game. Like that’d be a gigantic risk. And again, none of these players have been, have been busted by the, the enhanced rules that we all agreed are the way to stamp this out.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Not not two years ago. So I, I just don’t, I just don’t understand it.
ALEX: No, I mean, it just feels like a dangerous game too, you know, like, it’s a really slippery slope to all–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –of a sudden start accusing individual players of doing things outside the rules.
BOBBY: Yeah, because no, you’re cheating. No, you’re cheating. No, you’re cheating. Like, we’re all cheating then. Like then–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –then cheating doesn’t even matter.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, are we certain that no Phillies pitcher was doing something similar? We just didn’t notice it because the camera was on someone in the stands and said.
ALEX: Well, I do know that, that Zack Wheeler wasn’t cheating. I feel certain of that one.
BOBBY: Ahh!
ALEX: But no, I mean, especially when we were having, you know, broader conversations about the character of players and how we should memorialize them in the history of the sport, to then kind of flippantly throw cheating accusations toward players with no like foundation of evidence.
BOBBY: Other than the Hard Rock, Hard Rock Sportsbook tweeting out a video. I just, I can’t get over that.
ALEX: It’s, yeah, it’s not good.
BOBBY: Like if you want to be like Phillies fan 653 tweeting out that video, that’s one thing. But it’s not just fans tweeting out these videos. It’s like media machines. sportsbooks, betting partners of the league tweeting out this stuff. Like these are not irrelevant accusations. These are relevant accusations coming from people. Like–
ALEX: With like effective–
BOBBY: John Boyd–
ALEX: –financial interest.
BOBBY: –John Boyd didn’t just make an immediate umpire off discovering that the Astros were paying trashcans, they kept it going by accusing Jose Altuve of wearing a buzzer during 2019, which was honestly deranged and not provable at all. And they just kept doing videos about it. And they, they never apologized for it. They never retracted it. They just left that stuff out there. And like the more stuff that you just allow to just like ruminate on social media, to me like I do think this is a huge Manfred league problem. Like they, these playoffs have confirmed that for me that, that what they’ve done to like enhance sticky stuff checks, has not satiated the public’s and the fans desire to know that people are not using sticky stuff.
ALEX: Right. It’s just created more skepticism.
BOBBY: Yes. And like, honestly, fans think that like the league is in on it. Like what is happening?
ALEX: I’m like, just watch the baseball game, guys. It’s, it’s a fun game.
BOBBY: Yeah, just be the guy looking out the cliffside on the bus, you know.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Just fuckin’ watch the game. And here we are, we just talked about it–
ALEX: Right. Yeah, I know. Yeah.
BOBBY: But, you know, so maybe we’re the hypocrites. Listen, I know that Framber wasn’t cheating. You know, I know, because the umpire crew was perfect last night. Pat Hoberg? Perfect game behind the dish. The first of the season. Shout out to Pat.
ALEX: But not just the first of the season, the first since umpire scorecards started tracking this stuff back in 2015.
BOBBY: Can we just, so this is the time for umpire scorecards to go. We did it! Like it’s [52:35] there’s no way up. Congrats to your fine work umpires scorecards, you’ve done it. We’re inducting you into the niche social media Hall of Fame.
ALEX: I mean, you know, and, and not to drag us back into this conversation. But it does feel like, you know, we’re in the age of kind of the amateur sleuth, right? Where it’s like–
BOBBY: Super amateur–
ALEX: –with- super amateur, right?
BOBBY: [52:59], elementary, you could say.
ALEX: Yeah, or I mean, or even like umpire scorecards, I think does a really good job and like has done–
BOBBY: Oh, yeah, yeah, it is.
ALEX: –a really good job of like bringing about the sort of awareness of like, hey, there actually are good umpires and there are measurably bad umpires. And we can think about that. But everyone is trying to sort of tap into that where it’s like, I have a, I’ve got something that no one else has seen.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: On this game that’s being broadcast to millions of people around the country.
BOBBY: Yeah, they’re trying to dunk on people. They’re trying to win an argument that that no one else even knows that they’re having.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: If people are trying to use umpire scorecards on individual games throughout the season, saying that that’s the reason that their team loss like that is extremely not how–
ALEX: You’re using same correctly.
BOBBY: –anything works. Yeah, exactly. Really quickly I wanted to play for you a clip from the broadcast yesterday. About Pat Hoberg.
Announcer: Behind the play tonight is Pat Hoberg, 36 years old, he makes his World Series debut. He’s got all his friends and family here from Iowa. So live in his own dreams. See it’s called balls and strikes here in game.
BOBBY: World Series debut, brought all his friends and family in from Iowa and you know what? He saw those lights and he stepped the fuck up. He stepped up.
ALEX: He left it all on the field.
BOBBY: He’s not Justin Verlander. He doesn’t shrink in the World Series. He gets better. He’s Derek Jeter, bro. He’s the Derek Jeter of umpires.
ALEX: Yeah. No, we’ve had some good debuts. You know who else has been good? Joe Davis, talking–
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s right.
ALEX: –talking World Series debuts, great at his job. I, you know, I got to say earlier on in these playoffs, it pains me to say I started to soften on Smoltz a little bit. I was kind of like–
BOBBY: How dare you.
ALEX: –I, no, I know. Well, and I was–
BOBBY: Though, I have some, I have some choice quotes from John Smoltz [54:42]–
ALEX: I know, I know. I’ve written them down as well. Uhm, you know, there was a part of me that is kind of like maybe, maybe he’s not as bad as I thought he was, you know. Maybe years of being in the booth has kind of softened his edges a little bit. And, yeah, he’s not a good broadcaster but–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –but maybe he’s not the, maybe he’s not taking away from broadcasts like I might have thought a couple of years ago. This is my [55:10]. He’s really bad.
BOBBY: Yeah, he’s so bad.
ALEX: I, these past two games have confirmed that for me.
BOBBY: He’s, he doesn’t even have the energy to like, do his old man yells at Cloud rants anymore.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But he’s not even doing–
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: –he’s not giving–
ALEX: He’s mailing–
BOBBY: –people–
ALEX: –mailing them.
BOBBY: –what they want.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: He just mailing it in. He’s like, he’s like a conservative comedian who’s not even doing the canceled culture jokes anymore. Here’s a quote from John Smoltz, Game 1 of the World Series, Alex. What does it take to win a World Series? Here’s what it takes, quote. “Each team has strengths, who flexes it early, is going to win the championship.” So to win the championship, you need to flex your strength early as a team.
ALEX: Well, I mean–
BOBBY: Did you, you’ve watched a lot of World Series. Did you know that you have to flex your strengths earlier- early to win the, the game?
ALEX: Well, it didn’t, it didn’t occur to me that each team even did have strengths. Like I kind of figured–
BOBBY: Oh!
ALEX: –one–
BOBBY: Only one of the team has the strength to do it.
ALEX: Right. Or maybe they, maybe neither of them have strengths.
BOBBY: Or maybe–
ALEX: And that’s how they, it’s the race to the bottom, you know.
BOBBY: Right, or maybe the team that flexes them late surprises everyone, right? You just wait till the Game 7 to flex your strengths and you win it all.
ALEX: Yeah. So that was I appreciated him kind of clarifying the importance of going out there and trying to play baseball early on.
BOBBY: Uhm, here’s, here’s John Smoltz’ quote about when Luis Garcia who, if you remember, did give up the home run to J.T. Realmuto to lose the Astros Game 1 of the World Series. “Mind you, this is Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz breaking down a pitcher. The thing that makes his fastball special is that it doesn’t look like it’s 98. He just spins it.” What does that mean? He just meant he spins it? Does that make it look faster?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Is that what, is that make it look slower? What does it mean to spin it at 98?
ALEX: Also, like, in theory–
BOBBY: It doesn’t look 98.
ALEX: When–
BOBBY: Do you know? Have you stood in the box?
ALEX: When there’s more backspin on a fastball it, it–
BOBBY: It looks, it looks faster.
ALEX: –it tends to look faster because it stays up and there’s o- it’s got a little bit of rise to it–
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: –right?
BOBBY: It doesn’t look 98, he just spins it.
ALEX: He spins it.
BOBBY: He, I mean, certainly was spinning it up there.
ALEX: Also like, so, there wasn’t a compliment, right?
BOBBY: No, I think it was.
ALEX: Because–
BOBBY: That’s what I, that’s why I was so confused!
ALEX: Because he’s like, it doesn’t look 98, and I’m like–
BOBBY: So does it look 104?
ALEX: So that’s, or does it look 87?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like what is, are you saying it’s better or worse?
BOBBY: See, he just kind of lets it go either way.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And then Garcia gives us the home run. He’s like, just like I told you it didn’t look 98–
ALEX: Well, like–
BOBBY: –it look 89.
ALEX: –it’s kind of like poetry a little bi,t right? It’s up to the readers interpretation.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: You get out of it what you want.
BOBBY: So he’s like Ruby Carr.
ALEX: I would enjoy her calling a baseball game more.
BOBBY: The John Smoltz, I don’t know that I’ve ever actually heard her talk before.
ALEX: Yeah, I haven’t either.
BOBBY: Is she, is she an industry plant? What do you think?
ALEX: I feel–
BOBBY: One minute 64 of the pod.
ALEX: Talking about Ruby.
BOBBY: It takes out about poetry.
ALEX: I think industry plants tend to be better at the job.
BOBBY: Wow! Yeah, like Taylor Swift.
ALEX: Yeah. Exactly. Like Billy Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo.
BOBBY: Yeah. Wow. Hold on industry plants.
ALEX: [58:28]
BOBBY: Yeah, but then okay, okay. Jack Harlow, though. He’s bad at his job in industry plan. Come on. You everyone, so I get the exception that proves the rule. I don’t, can you name three more poets?
ALEX: Like contemporary?
BOBBY: Yeah, living [58:45]
ALEX: I have, I have a friend from college who does poetry.
BOBBY: That counts, before we, before we move on. And wrap it up and talk about Rob’s press conference. We goona take a break before that. But really quickly, I wanted to share with you my idea for off days during the World Series. I think it’s a bummer that they’re off days during the World Series and there’s no baseball. I think it was a big bummer, there were four days off between the championship series. In the World Series. I almost forgot that we were having a World Series, it was so long. And I just think that October should be baseball 100% of the time, which have no days with no baseball in October. This is our month, this is our time to shine. This is our time to neglect our responsibilities to our friends and family. On account of baseball.
ALEX: How do you envision that happening?
BOBBY: Here’s how I envisioned it happening. Thank you for asking.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Glad you ask. Obviously, the World Series teams need, need days off the new travel days to be able to play their best baseball. So on the days that there are no World Series games, we have the anti World Series, where the two worst teams in baseball play a seven game series for the first overall pick. So like if you finish second worst, you can still get the first pick by beating the worst team in a seven game series. So while we’re having the real baseball playoffs, we sort of have a bizarro world baseball playoffs where like the Pirates play the Nats. But there are stakes still.
ALEX: Do you think that those stakes are big enough? Because I feel like–
BOBBY: Maybe not.
ALEX: Teams like teams, teams like evaluations player to player, team to team–
BOBBY: I know.
ALEX: –tend to, tend to have a good amount of variance. And–
BOBBY: So it worked better in basketball.
ALEX: Right. Like there’s, there’s actually a like a market difference.
BOBBY: So if it’s not just for the World Series, and what did we do it for all of October. Were all of the teams that didn’t make the playoffs play in their own tournament for the first time.
ALEX: Right, so so we have a consolation round.
BOBBY: Right. You could have like a loser’s bracket, capital L, loser’s bracket. A bunch of losers, you’re playing for the first overall pick losers. And that at least makes tanking less beneficial. We have a race, you basically have a instead of trying to, to, to fix it through Collective Bargaining, we just set up a fun, entertaining little October tournament, where we get to watch some of the worst teams in baseball, go at it, on off days.
ALEX: So if you think that you–
BOBBY: You could be like the you can be like the 14th worst team in baseball and get the first pick.
ALEX: Well, I was just about to say, so does that incentivize those middle of the road teams to–
BOBBY: Miss the playoffs?
ALEX: –miss the playoffs?
BOBBY: Glad you asked. I think those teams don’t really care about making the playoffs already.
ALEX: I think it doesn’t matter.
BOBBY: It doen’t really matter, so. I mean, I’m, I’m open to workshopping it, but I think that the scaffolding of the idea is there, honestly.
ALEX: So does this mean that the field for the loser’s bracket is going to be bigger than the than the winner’s bracket?
BOBBY: Yeah, probably. Or, or we could do it like 10 teams like it could only be the 10 worst teams. Like it doesn’t, you could, there could be a little happy medium there, where you don’t make it into either tournament. And you still have to go to Cancun. For the teams that don’t make either we just make them walk through the streets of their respective cities and we shame them, shame, shame, shame. It’s not even bias for me to say that because for a long time they would have been the Mets.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Who isn’t then at 79 wins.
ALEX: Yep. I mean, that’s kind of the A’s MO.
BOBBY: And the four Angels. Mike Trout having to walk through the streets of Anaheim, where there are no sidewalks.
ALEX: I mean–
BOBBY: Just being boed from other people driving in their cars.
ALEX: The good thing is that he wouldn’t be recognized anyway, right? Do you have any other thoughts on Game 2? Or, or even more broadly, kind of how the series has played out so far?
BOBBY: Uhm, no, I mean, I’m, I was obviously surprised that the Astros blew Game 1. But I think outside of those couple of Verlander innings, everyone has performed more or less how I expected them to. You know, we haven’t gotten like the Yordan game where he just blows it up. But, man, the Astros, speaking of flexing your strengths early, their bullpen is.
ALEX: Woo! Woo!
BOBBY: Plus the 2014 and 15 Royals bullpen shame, honestly.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Which is saying something because that team literally rode that bullpen to two straight World Series and one one of them. So, I mean, they are just an impressive collection of guys. Dudes, you could say. I forgot to play this question earlier when we were talking about, about Framber. But this, this is a voicemail that we got earlier today about sort of the idea of, of cheating in baseball.
VOICEMAIL 1: Hi, Bobby and Alex, this is Jesse. My World Series question is, are we ever going to get through postseason, without accusations and or attempts at cheating? Does it fucking matter? And does anybody know the rules of baseball? Because at this point seems a little unclear. Okay. Thanks, bye!
BOBBY: So obviously, we hit on a lot of these things already in our conversation. But I do think the last part of that question is interesting. Does anybody actually know the rules of baseball? Because baseball does feel sort of uniquely situated to allow people to theorize about their conspiracies, because there’s like so much downtime. Like if you’re watching hockey, you watch like playoff hockey, for example. And you’re just like, even if someone was cheating, I don’t even have time to think about how?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It’s like we’re just on to the next thing. But baseball like for fans who don’t know what they’re talking about, they have like take multiple minutes between pitches sometimes to just wax poetic about their dumb, dumb thoughts about what is going on.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I honestly, I, I do kind of think that that’s part of it. Like that there’s so much downtime and there’s so much, there’s so much that is unknowable about baseball about what, why it happens, there’s so much randomness. That it just like, it just almost begs the mind to think in this way. And so to, I mean, to answer Jesse’s question, we already kind of did, but I don’t know, I don’t think we’re ever gonna get another postseason, where it’s not like this. You know, Field of Dreams was made in the 1980s. And it was about the 1919 Black Sox. So like, we were still thinking about things 70 years later, cheating scandal 70 years later. So, you know, maybe we’re gonna get a Kevin Costner’s grandson starring in a Jose Altuve image rehabilitation film.
ALEX: Right Field of Cans.
BOBBY: God, damn it. Field of Cans. We’ll have to work out the title.
ALEX: Yeah, we’ll work on it a little bit. Your, I mean, I think you’re right. Because baseball, almost more than any other sport is so, it’s very, like navel gazy, you know.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: In its like, obsession with integrity and playing the game the right way. And like the purity of the sport. And so those moments really do have an outsize kind of impact on how we view the game broadly speaking.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: It also happens to be one of the sports who has more rules than normal, that are just kind of left up to interpretation–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –right? Like the idea of swing.
BOBBY: Swing is just unbelievable. It’s just, it’s like you feel it in your gut.
ALEX: Yeah. I–
BOBBY: Like, you’re just like your, your parents trying to explain to you how you’re gonna know you’re in love.
ALEX: I also–
BOBBY: If you look at the swing, and something to your stomach kind of follows up a little bit, it’s a swing.
ALEX: I have to, I really have to appreciate how broadcasts never really give you an angle that actually definitively–
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: –shows. Like they have cameras all over and then they’ll show you one where like, it’s not even directly perpendicular to home plate. It’s like kind of back a little bit. So everything looks like a swing or, or–
BOBBY: And it’s always like the pitcher in the booth always thinks it’s a swing. And the hitter in the booth is always like definitely a check.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Oh, fantastic job, the, the forearm strength to check that swing there? And it says a Keith is always saying, Man, Ron has always like Ron, Keith that’s swing.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And then Gary’s just like, man, he delivers the 3-1. I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s just ridiculous. Baseball, here’s what I, here’s my theory, my working theory on why people just can’t let you go and baseball, the idea of cheating and integrity. It’s already so hard. It’s just already so hard to succeed. Even if you were playing fair, that it just seems like overkill. It just seems like bad natured to cheat beyond that. And I think that people, even if they don’t know that they share that, that they have that opinion, I think that’s part of what informs this. Like, you’re telling me that I’m supposed to hit 98 with movement. And I have to hit 98 with movement with unnatural spin. Like, that’s just doesn’t seem right. It just doesn’t seem fair. And so there’s this feeling of impossibility to beating a team that is cheating, because it already feels impossible to do anything in baseball.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Feels impossible to get a hit to begin with.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So and so like for the Astros when they cheated in 2017. This lineup was so damn good. I think what people were so offended by was that it wasn’t like they were just a mediocre team in the regular season. Squeezing five extra wins out of it and missing the playoffs. It was like they were also the best team and also cheating, or also one of the two best teams and cheating. And so it’s like, at that point, it’s like, we don’t stand a chance. It’s just, it’s just ridiculous. Like, there’s no, there’s no way we could win this. And so, I mean, I think that’s what it felt like in Game 3 against Joe Musgrove, too. Because I was like, he’s already a great pitcher. He’s the exact kind of pitcher that the Mets have a really hard time hitting against. And so if he was also cheating in his spin rate, it was up like, then I’m just like, alright, I just guess I’ll just go fuck myself then. And I think that’s how a lot of fans honestly think that they’re approaching this. But it just feels like off the rails a little bit. It just does. We’ve lost control of the narrative.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, we’re missing the, the forest for the trees–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –in a sense. And it’s just, it’s also just not a super enjoyable way to like, take in a baseball game.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like I, I’m fine. suspending disbelief for a little bit. And just watching dudes do superhuman things.
BOBBY: Right. We need to be more like a Men’s Health magazine when they ask actors, how they put on 25 pounds of muscle before playing a superhero?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: The answer is HGH. But, people are still reading these, people are still reading these articles, even though the answer is HGH.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: How does Framber rip off a 3200 RPM curveball? If the answer is Spider Tack, I don’t care. It was still a cool pitch.
ALEX: Right. You’re like no Kumail Nanjiani probably just work–
BOBBY: Nah, he was clean, bro. He was natural.
ALEX: –really, really hard [1:10:10].
BOBBY: Come on, come on. Don’t slander Kumail.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: Don’t slander Kumail, bro.
ALEX: He was, he’s like the most obvious example of steroids, right?
BOBBY: No, dude.
ALEX: No?
BOBBY: It was obvious, obvious example of steroids. Take this to the grave. Brad Pitt once upon a time in Hollywood, you can not look like that at that age. It’s just not possible. I’m just telling you the truth. Like you can still enjoy the performance, you can still enjoy him taking off his shirt on the roof, you can still ogle and you can still raise your expectations for what the human male body can look like. But you just have to stop lying to yourself and stop acting like he didn’t take HGH for that.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s fine. Normalize HGH.
BOBBY: No one knows. You know what? Actually, for him to have that face and take HGH.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s not really fair.
BOBBY: Yeah. You know what? It feels like you’re cool using Spider Tack.
ALEX: Little bit.
BOBBY: Like you throw 99. This pod is drained. So let’s take a quick break and come back, we’ll do a very, very quick analysis of Rob Manfred’s Media Day.
[1:11:12]
[Music Transition]
BOBBY: Alright, Alex, what do you think about Rob Manfred Media Day that I wanted to talk about? The first thing is, he claims that the zombie runner is well like. Let me read you the quote. Rob Manfred tells Mad Dog unleashed. This a Bob Nightengale tweet. By the way, I’m reading you for 80 minutes and I’m reading you Bob Nightengale tweet. “Rob Manfred tells @MadDogUnleashed the ghost runner-“, it’s not a ghost runner, it’s zombie runner. “-the extra inning rule will likely stay. Quote, ‘The club’s like it, the players like it-“. I believe that, I think players would like to go home faster. I think teams would like to go home faster. Especially during the innings that they’re not still selling beer and ripping people off. Continuing the quote here. “And I think overall, the fans like it. I think it does bring sort of a focus to the end of the baseball game in a way that has been positively received.” Dawg, what, what echo chamber has Rob Manfred living in?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Come down from our Ivory Tower on Fifth Avenue, Rob.
ALEX: Yeah, burst–
BOBBY: Come talk real fans, brother. Nobody likes this. None of the fans like it.
ALEX: No, we need a New York–
BOBBY: [1:12:27]
ALEX: –excursion to a diner in the Midwest.
BOBBY: Right. To talk about the zombie runner.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m not even bullshiting.
ALEX: I honestly, someone take up this mantle and do it.
BOBBY: Even if it’s not the New York Times. It’s a Wall Street Journal, Lindsey Adler, you got to do it. You just have to do it. You just have to fly to Iowa. And you have to ask 20 people that you see their, their thoughts on Rob Manfred the zombie runner.
ALEX: Right, exactly. I mean, that’s [1:12:47]–
BOBBY: Giving away [1:12:57]–
ALEX: –Midterms this November.
BOBBY: Because the second thing is more, how do we say this, tailored to your interests? To which Rob Manfred tells @MadDogUnleashed that he’s no longer optimistic. The hashtag A’s will remain in Oakland. I love when they hashtag the team names.
ALEX: Wait, so it was–
BOBBY: Somebody–
ALEX: –a hashtag, not a tag?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: It was a hashtag, summer bars hashtag the team names. Because they think that it makes it more searchable.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Their like working on Twitter 1.0.
ALEX: Right. Marlins shows up whether you hashtag it or not when you search it.
BOBBY: He’s no longer optimistic, the A’s will remain an Oakland quote, “It just doesn’t look like it’s going to happen”. And likely will move to Las Vegas. He believes the Rays will stay put with a new ballpark in Tampa Bay. Scale of 1 to 10, how much stock do you put in that?
ALEX: I mean, I suppose I put as much stock in to it as everything else you said over the last three or four years. So but at the same time, I feel like–
BOBBY: Which is to say no stock, right?
ALEX: Which is, which is to say no stock or very little stock. And at the same time, it also feels like, at the same time, it also feels like this is kind of what we were headed towards, you know. Like him saying he’s no longer optimistic about the A’s thing in Oakland suggests that there was a point where he was optimistic about the A’s staying in Oakland. And I think that like–
BOBBY: Just no evidence of that.
ALEX: –there’s no evi- evidence of that. And, and on, you know, on the part of him and John Fisher, I think they were looking for an exit strategy.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So I suppose in a sense, maybe I put a little more stock into this because at least he’s being candid about it. Like there’s no real reason that he would try and keep expectations low, you know. Only to come in at the 11th hour and–
BOBBY: And save it?
ALEX: –and like save it. Unless he’s trying to make himself kind of look like the savior where you set that up and say the A’s are leaving.
BOBBY: I just think that he’s just trying to use his bully pulpit. Like to me I read this as like he’s trying to manufacture panic in Oakland, because Chaos is a ladder or whatever. And they can get squeeze a few more million dollars out of the Oakland City Council if there’s a true real perception that Rob Manfred is telling people that he doesn’t think it’s going to happen. And I mean, I think that these two sides are just playing chicken with each other and both of them or have their eyes closed.
ALEX: Yeah. But like, who’s actually buying into it at this point is my question, right? Because they’ve been doing this for years.
BOBBY: No one has ever buying into anything he’s saying. I think he just thinks that he’s better at manipulating the media than he is.
ALEX: I guess, but I do think there was a period of time, you know, in the last year or two, when people were kind of, you know, there were, there were gears that were turning in the open City Council, right? And–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you had Dave Kaval, coming out and making bold, brash statements, you know, whatever. I haven’t thought about that man in months, and–
BOBBY: Those are dope pods, and we just, made a Dave Kaval for an hour.
ALEX: But like, I think there was a period of time when fans, A’s fans specifically, were a little bit tuned in. Or at least were like, here’s another piece of evidence that I can use to uphold my side of the argument of whether the A’s should stay or not. And it does feel like we’ve kind of passed, we’re past that point. You know, now where Rob Manfred can really sway public opinion, any one way. Like, I think most A’s fans at this point are like, okay–
BOBBY: Just–
ALEX: –whatever. Just make this a–
BOBBY: One way or another.
ALEX: –he care like–
BOBBY: It’s literally–
ALEX: –stop playing game.
BOBBY: It’s like he’s standing behind you just knife ready to stab you in the back. But he’s, he’s like, just narrating it. Because like, the knife is getting closer. I’m gon- no, I’m really gonna stab you this time. It’s, it’s coming. Here it comes, get ready for the knife. I’m no longer optimistic that I’m not gonna stab you. Like that’s this whole- so this whole saga feels like.
ALEX: That is, that is a metaphor. Just pointing that out.
BOBBY: This is all parody. Nothing that we said on this podcast is true or real or our real opinions. It’s all for the sake in the service of comedy. Anyway, back to the knife. I still think they’re gonna stay in Oakland. I’m just choosing to believe that.
ALEX: I, like I don’t really know, I’d–
BOBBY: Like why move a team out of a market that likes baseball, right? Before you’re thinking of maybe expanding. Because then you’ve, then you’ve both–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –taken away the new location, and also made it make no sense for the old location at the same time.
ALEX: Right. You mean, it’s just–
BOBBY: And it’s much easier than you’re knocking off to locations out of your potential expansion teams, whether that happens five or 10 or 12 years from now or whatever.
ALEX: Right. You’ve spent a ton of political capital in Oakland, you spent a lot of real capital, right? You’ve spent millions of dollars putting together–
BOBBY: Those renderings are not going to fuckin’ draw themselves.
ALEX: They actually aren’t like, you know, they went to one talked Architecture for–
BOBBY: They spend like [1:17:51] country’s GDP for fucking renderings, and that’s all they have.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Like that that is, that is Major League Baseball. That don’t actually make products.
ALEX: And they’ve spent like a lot of Manfred’s political capital, I think as well, right? Like, I don’t think–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –anyone would really be able to take five more years of his posturing over the same issue. Like we’re kind of reaching the end point on that. But honestly, at this point, yeah.
BOBBY: [1:18:15] knife.
ALEX: At this point, I don’t care. I’m like stab me or don’t.
BOBBY: If touching your jacket, you can’t feel yet, but it is touching your jacket.
ALEX: He’s like, tickling you a little bit on the side.
BOBBY: He’s like, which side of it is, which side of your back, because I know you can’t even tell.
ALEX: Is this, is this dull knife or this, or is this the dull side or the sharp side?
BOBBY: Which hand am I holding the knife with? You can’t even tell.
ALEX: Yeah, at this point, I want to walk backwards into it. Backoff!
BOBBY: You’re like take the knife and stab yourself with it. Okay, that does it for this week’s episode of Tipping Pitches. Thank you to the Alex Rodriguez VIP Club tier, special shout out to all of you. We will name five people at the end of this pod like we do every week, except last week when I forgot to write those names down. Those five people this week are Kyle, Shakur, Mike, RC, and Alexis. Speaking of the Patreon and speaking of the World Series, we will be doing a watch along for Game 5 of the World Series. Live on Playback. We’ve done this now two times. Last time we did it was actually a Blue Jays-Phillies game, in which the Blue Jays won a downright ridiculous game, just an absurd game. So hopefully–
ALEX: We should have known what was coming with this World Series.
BOBBY: [1:19:29] Hopefully we get something equally as entertaining. If you’re a patron, look out for that link in your inbox or in a Patreon post or in Slack. If you’re not a patron, we’re also gonna open it up to everybody because it’s the World Series so we’ll be tweeting out that link. Probably like 20 minutes before Game 5 on Wednesday night. Any other things to mention for folks, Alex?
ALEX: We also a couple months ago asked, asked our, our patrons to make their voices heard on what they’d like to see in new Tipping Pitches merch.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And y’all responded. And we heard you. And we want to make that a reality. So keep an eye out in the next week or two.
BOBBY: Days turn to weeks–
ALEX: Days turn to weeks turn to months.
BOBBY: –turn to months. I feel confident that these shirts will be available within the next year. I feel confident that you will be able to buy these shirts before the Mets win the World Series. That I can say with 100% certainty.
ALEX: Yes, they may even be here before the World Series ends, although I–
BOBBY: Don’t hold your breath.
ALEX: –I wouldn’t bet on it.
BOBBY: I also feel confident that they will be here before the Phillies win the World Series. Because that’s not happening this year.
ALEX: If that’s everything, we didn’t even mention mentioned Taylor this week, which I think is probably, probably good. I think we kind of exhausted that.
BOBBY: We played–
ALEX: Last week–
BOBBY: –we played that card for the year.
ALEX: Yeah. I’m, I’m wearing my Taylor shirt right now.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: To kind of supplement that lack of dialogue.
BOBBY: Hmm, silent protest.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Against the people who didn’t want us to talk about Taylor Swift on the pod.
ALEX: It’s fine. It’ll be back eventually, eventually. Just like this podcast, Tipping Pitches, we’ll be back eventually.
BOBBY: Yes. Next podcast whenever the World Series ends. So whenever that is, we don’t know what day, ’cause it seems like these teams, however and probably are evenly matched. So we’ll see you then.
[1:21:37]
[Music]
[1:21:54]
[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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