Tipping Pitches, a Waystar Royco Subsidiary

To pass time in what is the most dead week of the baseball calendar, Bobby asks Alex to name as many people playing in the Super Bowl as possible (spoiler alert: it doesn’t go well). Then, they’re joined by “Meddling Adults” and “The Newest Olympian” host Mike Schubert to discuss the emergence of Derek Jeter in the public eye, Aaron Judge returning to the Yankees, and whether or not Derek Jeter and Tom Brady are soulmates. Finally, they answer a handful of listener questions about “Succession,” American trophy culture, and more.

Links:

Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon

Tipping Pitches merchandise

Songs featured in this episode:

Pavement — “Summer “Babe • Sleater-Kinney — “Dig Me Out” • 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, it is Sunday, February 5. I gotta be honest, I feel like this is the low point for baseball news. Like the absolute, this is the bottom of the barrel that we are scraping right–

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  –here for the baseball calendar. Do you agree? Or is there a worst date?

ALEX:  No, I agree. I mean, we were, we were talking with our friends recently about, about favorite and least favorite months. And February routinely comes in at the bottom of our rankings for this exact reason. It’s kind of the eye of the storm when it comes to baseball news, right? You get, you get the flurry around December, around winter meetings.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  Things get really quiet in late January, early February. And then pitchers and catchers report and it all picks back up. But this like two three weeks stretch is, it’s a rough one.

BOBBY:  See, but yeah, but I think for the purpose of months, that makes January worse than February. Which is just a testament to the great content that we’ve been putting out for the last four weeks. You know, all of the very relevant discussions and dialogues that we’ve been starting here on the Tipping Pitches podcast. But because it’s so dead in the baseball world, and because we are now T minus seven days from the Super Bowl, I don’t know if you’ve heard of that. I actually want to know like, what is your relationship to the Super Bowl? Because obviously we care so much about baseball. And you know, you watch basketball too, you’re Warriors fan.

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  But does like just the Super Bowl just come and go for you or do you watch it? I guess I’m curious from like an anthropological perspective. Like are there people who the base- the, the World Series comes and goes for? I think that that is definitely true. But is the Super Bowl so big that even you will tune in?

ALEX:  I mean, I think yeah, like I, like I kind of want to this. Even though I, I resolutely reject football for 364 days of the year. it’s it has far broader implications, like culturally, right? And I think even like growing up, you know, it’s like, I’m gonna watch it because, because of the commercials, you know.

BOBBY:  That’s everybody’s favorite thing to say.

ALEX:  That’s everybody’s favorite thing to say, right.

BOBBY:  Commercials have fallen out, dawg.

ALEX:  Which [2:43] last few years have really fallen off. But I want to see, Rihanna.

BOBBY:  Hmm. Do you think any baseball players will make an appearance? I guess Mike Trout was almost guaranteed to be there, because of the Eagles.

ALEX:  Yeah. Do you think maybe Cole Tucker would be there? I saw Cole Tucker and Vanessa Hudgens. Mazel tov to them, they just got–

BOBBY:  Why would that–

ALEX:  –engaged.

BOBBY:  –mean Cole Tucker would be there?

ALEX:  Well, I don’t–

BOBBY:  Because Vanessa Hudgens is famous?

ALEX:  –because, because Vanessa Hudgens is famous and this is, this what famous people do, is just go to the, the big events.

BOBBY:  I think Cole Tucker might be at like the Met Gala, going forward.

ALEX:  Yeah. Uh-huh.

BOBBY:  Very funny text message from your significant other Gabriella saying who is this? About Cole Tucker, when that news came across, I don’t know like–

ALEX:  [3:23] question.

BOBBY:  –E News or whatever?

ALEX:  These days, whose Cole Tucker?

BOBBY:  [3:27] whose Cole Tucker? I just want to say I want more people to resist the urge to comment on how good or bad Cole Tucker is at baseball. I don’t know what that has anything to do with love. Sounds like she really likes him for his personality. Or maybe she just really loves Minor League Baseball.

ALEX:  Right, it really loves those curls. Hey, man, he’s got a very infectious smile.

BOBBY:  I don’t know why this would be the moment that you think that you need to give a Ad grade Scout report on Cole Tucker.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  Come on, this guy’s the happiest day of his life.

ALEX:  Yeah, yeah, who cares?

BOBBY:  So you will be watching the Super Bowl?

ALEX:  Probably, I think so.

BOBBY:  Can you name five players in the Super Bowl? Can you name the two teams in the Super Bowl first?

ALEX:  We are, we got Chiefs and Eagles.

BOBBY:  Okay, good. All Right.

ALEX:  They’re both really good.

BOBBY:  That’s what I hear.

ALEX:  Like they deserve to be here.

BOBBY:  I, I, I agree with that opinion. They earned it.

ALEX:  Yep. and, and Patrick Mahomes.

BOBBY:  There’s one.

ALEX:  Boy, I mean, this whole game–

BOBBY:  Should have been a baseball player, Pat Mahomes.

ALEX:  He, he absolutely should have.

BOBBY:  We should have been talking about him throwing a complete game shutout in the World Series this year.

ALEX:  I know, and he said he became a baseball owner, how sad is that?

BOBBY:  It’s so depressing.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  So Pat Mahomes is one, you have four more to go. We can’t start this pod until you name five players that are going to be on Super Bowl Sunday.

ALEX:  We’re gonna be here a while.

BOBBY:  Really? Wow. So This is, this is eye opening to me. You really just fully out on football. You haven’t swung back. We can’t do it Tipping pitches football spin-off pod.

ALEX:  I think we could, I think it’d be very entertaining.

BOBBY:  It always be too easy.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  Like the football owners, they don’t even try to pretend like they’re trying

ALEX:  Right, like the story is kind of, I feel like we’d get kind of bored after a while–

BOBBY:  That’s right.

ALEX:  –which triggers the same storyline.

BOBBY:  Dan Snyder’s done it again.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  This just in. Okay, so–

ALEX:  You’re this Jerry Jones guy?

BOBBY:  Okay, Pat Mahomes. He’s gonna be playing on Super Bowl Sunday. You heard it here first on–

ALEX:  Jalen Hurts.

BOBBY:  –Tipping Pitches. There’s two! Nice. There’s two brothers, one on each side.

ALEX:  Damn, that’s crazy. Good for, good for them.

BOBBY:  Okay, that’s enough football talk. We have a fun podcast in store for everybody. We are going to be joined by Tipping Pitches, Yankees fandom correspondent, Mike Schubert. To, to talk about the year in Derek Jeter. And the year in Aaron Judge and some other fun things. And then we are going to do some listener questions. But before we do all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.

ALEX:  I am Alex Bazeley.

BOBBY:  And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.

[6:09]

[Music Theme]

BOBBY:  Mike Schubert is here and when I say here, I mean here!

MIKE:  Hello! Hey!

BOBBY:  In the studio, in person, in the Tipping Pitches studio. Mike, first question, how does it feel to be the first and only guest to appear in person in the Tipping Pitches studio? I keep saying studio.

MIKE:  Yes.

BOBBY:  It’s just a bedroom.

MIKE:  No, hey–

BOBBY:  It’s just, there’s a sign and some microphones but it’s really just a bedroom.

ALEX:  That’s make a studio, right Brooklyn? For Brooklyn purposes?

MIKE:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  Yeah, that does make it a studio. How does it feel?

MIKE:  Feels pretty good. I mean, it makes sense to have a inky fan on for the only slash first guest on Tipping Pitches, Yankee podcast. Yeah. I think my first appearance since that Reign of Terror, what a time.

ALEX:  Wow, yeah, you’re right.

BOBBY:  In retrospect, just a, just a bad bet by me. I just made the wrong bet. I made the wrong bet.

MIKE:  Urgh. It was a fun week, it was a fun week. It was a good time. But no, I’m happy to be here. I’m very excited. Thank you for having me here in the lovely studio.

ALEX:  You’re, you’re currently bathed in the warm glow of our neon sign right now.

MIKE:  it’s really good.

ALEX:  It really, it, it works for chemistry, I think. Like I think it really kind of just boosts the vibe.

BOBBY:  I wanted to have a sort of like, you know, like Touchdown Jesus at Notre Dame where like, everybody has to kind of like pay respect to the–

MIKE:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  –to the statue at Notre Dame football. I want it to have kind of that feel to it. I want people to come here and have to pay respect to the neon sign.

MIKE:  Yeah, I like it.

BOBBY:  Take, take, take a selfie with it. We put them, put them up on a wall.

ALEX:  Sure. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do. But I think it’s nice just staring at it the entire time to be like, right, yeah.

BOBBY:  You’re redness–

MIKE:  Baseball for everybody.

BOBBY:  –are really not gonna thank you for this, at the end of this. Mike, you know, you’re here to hang out, but you’re also here, because we’re doing your podcasts in about 20 minutes. But we wanted to have you on Tipping Pitches first. Bit of a home in home situation here. My first question for you, it’s about the film 80 For Brady. And the question is, if they made an 80 For Derek, or 80 For Jeter, do you think that you would be in the demographic of people that would go see that film?

MIKE:  Well, here’s–

BOBBY:  Because 80 For Brady’s coming out and everybody’s like, what is this? Why are they making this? But I kind of feel like if they did that for Derek Jeter, people would go, you would go.

MIKE:  Well, here’s my question, and I intentionally didn’t search this because I couldn’t put Tom Brady into, even an incognito window and get conscious. What’s the 80? What, what is–

BOBBY:  I think that the women who are going to see him, I believe that they are turning 80. And for they, they are now 80 years old and so they’re going to see his performance in the Super Bowl as a celebration for their birthdays, right?

ALEX:  I think that’s, I think that’s correct.

MIKE:  Is that actually, I think that’s actually–

ALEX:  Yeah, yeah. That, that is actually–

BOBBY:  There’s four 80-year old women and they want to go see Tom because they’re big fans of him.

MIKE:  Oh, okay. I thought there was like a new movie about Tom Brady coming out.

BOBBY:  That, that is the movie.

ALEX:  That is the movie.

BOBBY:  If the, is the thought of the–

MIKE:  Ohh, ohh!

BOBBY:  –fictional film, 80 For Brady.

MIKE:  I thought it was like ’cause he just retired, right?

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  I thought it was some sort of like, his version of The Captain or Last Dance where it was 80 For Brady, okay.

BOBBY:  There’s Hollywood studio film.

MIKE:  Okay.

BOBBY:  80 For Brady.

MIKE:  It is a fictional film where 80-year old women go to the, the previous Super Bowl ’cause Tom Brady lost.

BOBBY:  Yes.

MIKE:  Which, I’m very happy about.

BOBBY:  Yes.

MIKE:  But okay, I don’t know, I mean–

BOBBY:  So they did this for Jeets, would you go?

MIKE:  Yes. I mean, any, any, any Yankee tangential thing, I would do it.

BOBBY:  See? The movie writes itself, then.

MIKE:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  Let’s do it.

MIKE:  Yeah.

ALEX:  I thought it was like an extension of his, you know, it’s like the TB 12 or whatever.

BOBBY:  Like the message?

ALEX:  Like his like rules for life. I thought this–

MIKE:  Yeah.

ALEX:  –was kind of like the lot, it’s like his retirement rules for life, you know. 80 For Brady, like, here’s what you do once you’re cashing those social security checks.

BOBBY:  I mean, Tom Brady has his own thing. And I actually think him and Derek Jeter are actually closer than, than people might imagine. Derek Jeter just has better social skills.

MIKE:  Okay.

BOBBY:  But they’re also, they’re like friends. Didn’t, didn’t Brady live in Derek Jeter’s mansion?

ALEX:  Yeah.

MIKE:  Yes.

BOBBY:  The famous mansion that we discussed on Tipping Pitches many times.

MIKE:  Oh, I don’t know about that. But, I, look I’m trying to be not, let’s see, I’m just trying to live in this new life where Derek Jeter is very publicly out there and stuff now. It’s a whole new completely different world where he’s like, ah, I didn’t get to just actually make any decisions in the Marlins. Let me rechange into celebrity Derek Jeter mode, and it’s fun!

BOBBY:  Well, that’s what, I think that’s what I’m so confused about though, is that he’s, a maybe a little bit overexposed now. But also just trying to be everywhere in business and media kind of like Alex Rodriguez?

MIKE:  Well, here’s the thing and here’s why I think it’s beautiful. And here’s I’m glad I’m on Tipping Pitches to discuss this. Is I think Derek Jeter in, how long has he been doing this? When The Captain come out, like six months ago? Like–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –in half a year–

BOBBY:  Kind of last year.

MIKE:  –he’s already gone past Alex Rodriguez. And what Alex–

BOBBY:  Gauntlet throne.

MIKE:  –I, no it’s no question. He’s on 2K or not 2K, The Show 23. He’s had, he had his a whole documentary series about him.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  He can hop on MLB Network whenever they want him to. He’s on Late Night With Fallon. Like he’s–

ALEX:  He’s like on the cover of GQ.

MIKE:  Right.

ALEX:  Like one of the best dressed athletes.

MIKE:  He’s getting on commercials, he’s becoming like, oh–

ALEX:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –commercial guy. Like he’s doing Jeep stuff. Like he, YES Network would let him get in the booth literally whenever he wanted.

BOBBY:  Yeah, he’s not gonna do that, but yeah.

MIKE:  He’s, I, I, I just feel like he’s already surpassing A. Rod. in terms of what he’s trying to do. Or at least he’s on a trajectory where it’s going to happen. And I just find it so funny because–

ALEX:  I think–

MIKE:  –A. Rod. is trying so hard and Jeter just decided, like, what if I wasn’t just a complete shut in? And, pweh! Skyrocket!

ALEX:  Yes, and he’s learning from A Rod’s mistakes, that’s all he’s doing.

BOBBY:  That’s kind of how he’s handled his whole career, you know.

MIKE:  I think it’s fantastic. And even look at A. Rod he buys the Timberwolves, they make a horrible trade, and now they’re only like just now becoming, okay at basketball. It’s, ohh–

BOBBY:  Do you think that this is setting, Derek is setting something else up? Because obviously, this is now we’re beyond promotion for The Captain. Like he made a Twitter account to–

MIKE:  Right, right.

BOBBY:  –promote the documentary. And he made a bunch of media appearances for the documentary too. But now it’s like, this has to be for something else. So what do you think that something else is?

MIKE:  I feel like he’s maybe trying to angle for, like MLB TV analysts, I think. But it just feels like he’s above that.

BOBBY:  Yes, it does.

MIKE:  Where it feels like he wouldn’t have to try to do that. like, all he would have to do is tell them, Hello, I’d like to do this, and they would say yes, and it wouldn’t be a question. I feel like he would, I don’t think he wants to own a team. I don’t know if he’s like trying to get in a position where he could be in some sort of front office. Like he seemed genuinely pissed by the Marlins thing, like the statement he–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –released, he was like, legitimately furious that the Marlins refused him from trying to put together a good baseball program. Like he seemed actually upset about that.

BOBBY:  I’m not really sure what he expected.

ALEX:  Right. I know.

BOBBY:  I should have seen that one coming.

MIKE:  Urgh! But I don’t, I don’t know, it feels like he’s angling for something.

ALEX:  Right, he’s like–

MIKE:  I just don’t know what.

ALEX:  –soft lawning like a digit business venture. So it’s like when, like, artists and like the early 2000s or whatever, like when they were dropping an album with like, start posting stuff on like, Instagram, you know. Or like make you go to a cryptic website.

MIKE:  Yeah.

ALEX:  You have to like fill out a code and figure out the clues. Like–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  –what is Jeter’s album reveal look like? You know, like–

BOBBY:  Buying the Knicks?

MIKE:  Ohh. I mean, don’t, don’t tempt me, I would love that so much. But Dolan made some same statement recently. He’s like, grumble, grumble, it’s a family business, we’re never selling.

BOBBY:  How do you feel about, selling your face to James Dolan?

MIKE:  Ohh!

BOBBY:  By going to Madison Square Garden.

MIKE:  Well, I haven’t gone to a game yet. And I can still act like that’s why I’m not going and it’s not money plus COVID. That’s not cool, I don’t like that at all. And I don’t like James Dolan, being on a press tour, that makes me very sad as a Knicks fan. It’s never fun to be like, James Dolan was on Fox News, oh, great, cool! Very fun. Love to hear that.

BOBBY:  What are the percentage chances that Derek Jeter runs for president?

MIKE:  I think two above or I don’t think he’s going like that.

ALEX:  Like under five?

MIKE:  I don’t think it’s a politician push. I don’t–

BOBBY:  Under 1%?

MIKE:  Yes.

BOBBY:  Like if we woke up tomorrow, and it was like Derek Jeter wants to get in there for the Republican nomination? The Democratic nomination?

ALEX:  He’s even like, he strikes me as like a career bureaucrat, you know. As like a guy who like, trusts the system and clocks in every day. And, you know, like, does he want to lead the country or does he just want to like, but he’s like–

BOBBY:  Like The Captain, though?

ALEX:  I–

BOBBY:  One of his other film.

ALEX:  –yeah, but he live, you lead by example, you know.

BOBBY:  It’s not what the President does?

ALEX:  Is it?

BOBBY:  Would you vote for Derek Jeter for President?

MIKE:  Oh, yeah.

BOBBY:  What if he ran as a Republican?

MIKE:  No.

BOBBY:  I liked this game we just, this, this new game that we just invented on Tipping Pitches called Test Mike’s Limits.

MIKE:  I don’t, I don’t know what he’s going for. It does feel like something, but I’m trying to figure out like in baseball what that even is? Because you–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –have it in basketball where players will go on TNT or something and then try to sound smart on the broadcast and then get a coaching job. Steve Kerr did it and it works. Stan Van Gundy did and it didn’t work.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  But I don’t know, he doesn’t seem like he wants to be a manager. It doesn’t seem like he wants to get back into the front office thing just because the Marlins stuff was so bad. So unless he’s trying to buy a team.

BOBBY:  I mean, he didn’t own part, he owned part of the Marlins.

MIKE:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  So there was much consternation about how much of the Marlins he actually owned. Like he, he said, repeatedly, I made a significant investment and then some people reported it as like 50 million. And that’s like not that’s for owning up shirt, you know, for owning a legitimate percentage of the, the baseball team. But, I mean, I could see him getting into sports ownership. Honestly, I think it’d be more likely that he would buy a, a different, buy a team in a different sport than baseball. Like I feel like his Marlins experience, he was too close to it in–

MIKE:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  –a way. Like he was too, he knows so much about baseball that he couldn’t detach himself from the fact that he wasn’t allowed to make all of the moves that he would want to make. So, you know, maybe he’s gonna buy like the fucking Eagles.

ALEX:  Hear me out XFL style competitor league–

MIKE:  Ohhh–

ALEX:  –to baseball.

BOBBY:  Well, as we know that is illegal. You’re not allowed, there’s an antitrust exemption.

MIKE:  Oh, man!

ALEX:  Which, which, which, which Federal Court just struck down the appeal by Major League Baseball to strike down.

BOBBY:  If Derek Jeter is the reason that they take away the antitrust exemption, we will regrettably on the Tipping Pitches podcast have to hand it him.

ALEX:  We will be a Yankees podcast for forever in perpetuity.

BOBBY:  I did not agree to that, but okay.

MIKE:  The only thing that it could be is maybe he’s just like, well, I’m not doing the Marlins thing. I don’t know what I’m doing next. Why don’t we just get the easiest money possible? Put me on the cover of MLB: The Show.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  Let me go on Fallon, let me do a bunch of commercials. Like it could just genuinely be very easy passive income Derek Jeter.

ALEX:  Right, exactly. He’s like, I’m just gonna get this back. I’m just, I’m, it’s the Shaq move, right? Let me just be in, in the public eye–

MIKE:  Yes.

ALEX:  –and have some checks.

BOBBY:  If Derek Jeter starts doing the General commercials we’ll know that that’s what it was.

MIKE:  Buys Domino’s like- look at Derek Jeter for Shaq beef could be incredibly compelling stuff.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  But, yeah.

BOBBY:  No, they’re put their powers together, man. Don’t make them enemies.

MIKE:  I, I will say what I think is very funny.

BOBBY:  Jeter and Shaq buddy comedy.

MIKE:  The timing of Jeter being on The Show 23 so funny because everyone was like oh, with MLB: The Show 22 like 2 2 Jeter it’s too perfect. And they did this whole thing where they were like announcing it on February 2, everyone’s like, oh, it’s gonna be Jeter, and then they were like Shohei Ohtani, you are on the cover. So him being on the next year after I think it’s so funny.

ALEX:  Yeah.

MIKE:  That would have been perfect, it’s like, oh, Jeter is here. And look, I told myself, I wasn’t gonna buy another one, ’cause I bought The Show 21, I was like, I’m not gonna buy another until Jeter is in the game, like ohhh, I buy that!

BOBBY:  I’m still, I’m still rockin The Show 19. I’m not afraid. I don’t need new shit. What do I need that for?

ALEX:  The players are the same. Same guys.

MIKE:  But now Jeter says, you could do the jump throw.

BOBBY:  The inefficient jump throw?

MIKE:  Look–

BOBBY:  Get the negative DRS jump throw?

MIKE:  Gets the results. it’s not the journey, it’s the destination, and the jump throw was cool.

BOBBY:  Do you think Derek Jeter would make a good Major League Baseball Commissioner?

MIKE:  Honestly, yes.

ALEX:  Yeah.

MIKE:  I think he would because he’s seen so much bullshit that the Yankees did. Like that was–

ALEX:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –my favorite part of The Captain is getting to hear Jeter just be like, Oh, they tried to screw me over like–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –Nashville was horrible to be like–

BOBBY:  Do you think that the owners could get behind that?

MIKE:  That’s the problem I think the–

ALEX:  No.

MIKE:  –players would be like–

ALEX:  I mean, because we’ve never, we’ve never had a player as a commissioner, right? Or like. like at least in–

BOBBY:  You don’t know what Rob was doing on the field.

ALEX:  I mean, I guess I don’t.

BOBBY:  High School, you know.

ALEX:  Right. Maybe, maybe there was a commissioner in like 1904 like played for the fucking federals or something, like I don’t know.

BOBBY:  What was the name? Come up with a name, come on, come on.

ALEX:  Mark Sinclair.

MIKE:  Would–

BOBBY:  Nice call back.

MIKE:  –do, what he want to do anything with like players union? Do you think he wants to get, like is he that passionate about?

BOBBY:  I don’t think so.

MIKE:  [18:41] that arbitration, all that kind of stuff goes down?

ALEX:  I don’t know, I like, I think it’d be interesting to have that perspective in the commissionership, right? Of like someone who’s actually been on the field. Like he would be miles better than a guy like Manfred. Like, I don’t know if that he’d be pro player. But he’d certainly be more antagonistic to the owners, I would have to think.

MIKE:  He would at least be like anti bullshit.

ALEX:  Right.

MIKE:  Like he would at least not want that.

ALEX:  Right, he’s like–

MIKE:  But then, non of the owners–

ALEX:  He’s the adult in the room, right? He’s like, I’m not left, I’m right, I’m, I’m forward.

BOBBY:  And also, the thing is, I don’t know if the owners would ever like hand over that amount of power to someone that popular. Because then if they tried to take it back, like, nobody would get mad if they fired Rob Manfred tomorrow.

MIKE:  Right.

BOBBY:  People would get mad if they fired Derek Jeter for whatever he would do as baseball commissioner. So I, it’s a pipe dream, I think it would be, I think it’d be a lot better than Rob. In terms of the players union, I mean, I think it would be a very valuable asset to them. He’s a, he’s a guy, you know, like he’s a titan of the baseball world, for whatever that means. He knows people people take his phone call, like all that cliche business bullshit, like actually–

MIKE:  Right.

BOBBY:  –is true of Derek Jeter inside baseball. I’m just that’s why I’m curious about what his next move is. Because you don’t just go 20 years, 30 years in the spotlight, completely avoiding any sort of unnecessary, you know, appearance or fame or whatever. And then all of a sudden change your mind overnight. Especially as–

MIKE:  Right.

BOBBY:  –as he’s like, he’s married with kids now.

MIKE:  Right.

BOBBY:  Like this is the part of your life where you’re supposed to recede from the spotlight.

MIKE:  Sure.

BOBBY:  Not lean into it.

MIKE:  Well, and he also already had the successful post career off shoot thing with The Players’ Tribune.

ALEX:  Right.

MIKE:  He did that right after he retired.

BOBBY:  Well–

MIKE:  I mean–

BOBBY:  –successfully we’re talking.

MIKE:  I don’t know, I don’t know the financials, but at least like there’s a lot of articles and people still write to and they’ve got a bunch of podcasts. I feel like every now and then–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –they see a clip from some new show hosted by athletes I don’t recognize, if they’re not–

ALEX:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –in baseball or basketball. I guess just like football and others, but like, you see the little apostrophe and you’re like, oh, another Players’ Tribune thing. So–

ALEX:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –like they’re at least still doing it.

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  He has that media empire, he can rest on those laurels and be like, I did the, I did the LeBron thing, I started–

MIKE:  Right.

ALEX:  –my own media company from players.

MIKE:  But it’s actually a legit one–

ALEX:  Right.

MIKE:  –as supposed to, like LeBron’s friends and Rich Paul.

BOBBY:  No shade at Spring Hill, if they would like to invest in the Tipping Pitches podcast. You got my name and number. We play the game at the beginning of this podcast called: How many players can you name in a Super Bowl? And Alex could name two.

MIKE:  Oh, I think–

BOBBY:  Do you think that you can add to that?

MIKE:  Mahomes, right?

BOBBY:  Yeah, that was one of the two that he named so that’s not even additional.

MIKE:  Yeah, I think that might be words. Oh, no, it’s the, you know, I know the teams is the Eagles and the Chiefs.

BOBBY:  So, so he’s matched you so far.

MIKE:  That’s about it. I know like, wasn’t, nope, no, nothing. I’m so happy, I’m so bad at this. This makes me really happy.

BOBBY:  Wow, guys.

MIKE:  I’m so proud of myself.

BOBBY:  We live in a divided America. If you’re on the coasts, we don’t watch football too violent.

MIKE:  It’s not coast, it’s just, it’s so boring. It is painfully boring.

BOBBY:  I love this take. Football–

ALEX:  I love that take too.

BOBBY:  –so boring. They stop all the time, it’s like, let’s wait 30 seconds.

MIKE:  Yes!

BOBBY:  Yeah, I know. For anything else to happen for four seconds, it’s like you want to talk about baseball not having enough action.

ALEX:  Yeah. I agree.

BOBBY:  Atleast there’s a pitch, you know.

MIKE:  Right.

BOBBY:  And admire the art. Football we’re just, all right, there’s another gain of one yard.

MIKE:  It’s so much more boring.

BOBBY:  Okay. From Derek Jeter to your current beloved, Aaron Judge. My first question for you about Aaron Judge, obviously, we won’t gonna talk about the contract and the fear of maybe potentially losing him. But my first question is, how far behind Derek Jeter is he in your mind? And if, if he is behind him still.

MIKE:  Yeah. He is.

BOBBY:  And what would he need to do to surpass DJ?

MIKE:  I feel like he’s gonna, he’s gonna have to at least get close in a World Series rings. Like–

BOBBY:  Oh wow. He’s doesn’t work hard that from.

MIKE:  It’s tough, but like no one–

BOBBY:  He’s gonna tell you right now, it’s not gonna happen.

MIKE:  The Yankees stink! Hoo, hoo, hoo, I don’t know when. The 62 was really cool, especially some of those Aaron [22:41] 62. The 62 was super cool.

BOBBY:  Wow, flex on.

ALEX:  He’s gotta flex.

MIKE:  Flex on me buying a bunch of tickets the freaking Alamodome or whatever the hell their stadium was called.

BOBBY:  Yeah, so wait, so you were in Texas just for, for Potterless purposes?

MIKE:  I was in–

BOBBY:  For Newest Olympian?

MIKE:  –I was in Houston with family because I was staying with my parents, and then I was gonna go to a wedding in Dallas. And this was part of me and my wife just like traveling. And I remember we were in Utah previously with my in laws, watching the games like seeing if you’d hit it. And then when we were in Houston, after that, that was that Orioles series, and I was like, Oh, he’s gonna hit it during the series, we watch every game. And then once he didn’t hit it during that game, my dad and I was a huge Yankees fan, we looked at each other and we’re like, I always buy tickets at the Dallas game. And he, it was a Monday for the first one. He had work at these meetings. He was gonna have to miss stuff. And I was like, well, dad I am going. Like if you want to go to but like I will be there.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  And my sister unfortunately lives in Dallas. So we went to that game. He didn’t hit it in the first one. My dad had to go but then I was just like, once his last at bat finished. I bought tickets for the next day, which was a doubleheader. I bought tickets for the first game from the outfield, like through SeatGeek, sponsor the pod please. And then I went to that game–

BOBBY:  Their not gonna be able to sponsor ’cause I’m gonna bleep it, because no free ads.

MIKE:  I went to that game fully like alright, I’ll go to this game and then if it doesn’t look like he’s gonna do it, I’ll buy it to the next one. And I’ll just like go to every single game. So–

ALEX:  You were on your Roger Maris Jr. type beat.

MIKE:  Yeah, look, it was just like if I’m gonna be here–

BOBBY:  Little did people know that Mike was just off camera to the right next to Roger Maris Jr. And he was talking about vaccines. He was talking about merch sales.

MIKE:  Oh no! Wait, is Maris Jr. antivax dude? I missed like of this.

BOBBY:  Wasn’t he, right? Or was he just like the woke mob is ruining the country guy?

ALEX:  Was, I thought he was, I thought it was more confined to baseball where he was more just like no taint of record.

BOBBY:  I’m just making that up.

ALEX:  Like [24:31]

BOBBY:  Oh yeah, oh, right. It was like yeah Barry Bonds does not count or something like that.

MIKE:  Which like–

ALEX:  I mean you get them a couple of drinks, you get them talking, who knows?

MIKE:  When he was going up for his like final at bat, I was like actively in between innings looking at the SeatGeek for the different seats of like how much I want to pay, where do I want to sit. And there was like one seat that was not an astronomical amount left with an okay view. And even though he had one more bat, I’m gonna buy this just in case. And then he didn’t hit a home run and it was last at bat. So then I just like hung around outside the park, I went to the Guy Fieri, taco place to get food, sat outside, read a bunch of Percy Jackson so that I could do like a work in between. And then went to the game. And then–

BOBBY:  That’s hard work right there, baby.

ALEX:  Yep.

BOBBY:  He’s got tune in to the YA novel, I’m sitting here.

MIKE:  And then you know, they led me back into the stadium because in between, got to the seat and then he hit it in that first bat and it was just, it was so cool. I just like sat in my seat and I just like kept following the trajectory of like where the ball was just to like burn it into my brain–

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –what it looked like. And it was really cool, and what was funny about it was, I was on the like down the third baseline upper-ish foul territory, to where where he actually hit in left field. I had a slightly obstructed view, so I couldn’t see that very leftmost part of the fence. So I didn’t see the guy fall in. And I didn’t see the ball actually go over. So just when he finally hit it, I’m just like screaming like [25:52] go! And like I had to wait, the ball went down behind the thing I couldn’t see and I did like just wait for like a second. And then you hear everyone erupt.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  And it honestly made it way cooler that I didn’t get to like legitimately see it over and I had to just like wait for the eruption of the crowd. It was awesome. I started crying. It was great.

ALEX:  How, how long do you think you would have kept going? Like if it didn’t, you know.

MIKE:  I would gone into literally every of the four, I would have gone to each of the four Dallas games.

ALEX:  Okay.

MIKE:  And then it was just one of those like, I’m already planning on being in Dallas next weekend. I can just go pull earlier. like, I got to do this. It would be one of those, it was honestly more so that if you did I wouldn’t regret it for the rest of my life. Like more so than that than actually [26:28]. Which just like deleting the future regret. And it was totally worth it, andwas super fun.

BOBBY:  So how did it feel to see a man get into seventh on the record?

MIKE:  Look–

BOBBY:  You know, it’s that really, really excited.

MIKE:  AL most, AL thing it’s so convenient that like all the steroid guys were in the AL so you can–

ALEX:  I know.

MIKE:  –just stay AL record and it’s really cool.

BOBBY:  Yeah, I know, I know.

MIKE:  For like–

BOBBY:  I’m just giving you a hard time.

MIKE:  But yeah, as far as the actual baseball team, I don’t know like he’s not gonna hit 62 again. It’s been it’s not looking great, since we didn’t really add anybody. We got Rodón, that’s cool, it’s very fun.

BOBBY:  Rodón is amazing and a total badass and you’re gonna love watching him pitch.

MIKE:  I’m excited.

BOBBY:  He’s like Nestor Cortez, but he throws 99.

MIKE:  I love that, that’s fine, that sounds good. I like it.

BOBBY:  He’s not quite as like fun of a person personality–

MIKE:  Yeah, yeah.

BOBBY:  –wise. Carlos is a very serious man, most of the time is a very dry [27:15].

MIKE:  Right. Him and Gerrit Cole woll get along and then Mr. Cortez can be–

BOBBY:  I don’t think him and Gerrit Cole are gonna get along, frankly.

ALEX:  Those are like two magnets.

BOBBY:  He’s like a serious in a different way than Gerrit Cole. He’s like, not serious about like, what wine he likes. He’s like serious —

MIKE:  Okay.

BOBBY:  –about hunting. But he’s a nice guy, he is a nice guy. You’re gonna like, you’re gonna love him.

MIKE:  I think it’s gonna be great.

BOBBY:  Did any part of you ever think that Aaron Judge was not going to be on the New York Yankees?

MIKE:  I was a little scared. I was a little worried.

BOBBY:  Okay.

MIKE:  And not in a way where I would fault him but more of just like if the Yankees don’t just like backup the truck after this season, then like–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –yeah, then leave. But we did backup the truck. Like I, I still think that contract we gave him before that season was like completely fair. Like when they leach that which leaking it was a best move.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  Tough scene.

MIKE:  I didn’t and I agree like that was stupid.

BOBBY:  That wasn’t even a leak though. You remember Brian Cashman just came out setting up a press conference.

MIKE:  Build it.

BOBBY:  It’s like, the deal.

MIKE:  But when I saw the actual terms of the deal was like okay, so we actually did offer him like a fair contract. I still think in a league without salary cap just like just go over more. But it’s not like we gave him an insulting offer. But after you have this season, like yeah, just give him whatever you want. And it’s just like, it’s so frustrating, and thankfully, I feel like Yankees subreddit was on board with this, Yankee Twitter is a mess. And I don’t stand by that except for when it’s Tipping Pitches come in Yankees podcast. But I feel like most people in the subreddit are like there’s no salary cap like very along the lines with you guys. Like just pay him the money, it doesn’t matter, nothing matters, it’s Aaron Judge. And all these people sometimes will be like, Oh, but like the contracts can age well, or Oh, the contracts not gonna age will like those later years painting whatever. Like, you’ll never get mad at the money you pay Aaron Judge, like even when Derek Jeter wasn’t super great the last couple years like you don’t give a damn about how much money! I’m furious at how much money we’re giving Aaron Hicks. But like Aaron Judge?! Who cares? We can be paying $100 million a year and you can be batting 112, I’ll be like, I don’t care, he hits 62 home runs. It doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter!

BOBBY:  This just in Mike Schubert out on Aaron Hicks.

MIKE:  Oh, Incredibly! Because I was so [29:09] last year I was like [29:10] I have a text message to my friend Josh was like, Yo, I actually think Aaron Hicks he’s gonna be like sneeky good this year. Totally. He was on the [29:17]–

BOBBY:  Never will you fear personally betrayed.

MIKE:  I was like, yeah!

BOBBY:  When he said 30/30 on the RTC to pod I was like, come on, dawg.

ALEX:  Yeah, that hurts.

BOBBY:  Come on, dawg.

MIKE:  He’s got the wrist injury —

BOBBY:  You know what you shouldn’t–

MIKE:  –it’s gonna be fine.

BOBBY:  –do? Predict that you’re gonna go 30/30. Like, you know who I would accept a prediction for 30/30 from?

ALEX:  Rickey Henderson?

BOBBY:  Ronald Acuña, maybe?

MIKE:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  Rickey Henderson, if you unretired I would accept a prediction for 30/30 from.

MIKE:  He at least get the 30, he’d find a way.

BOBBY:  Yeah, he, he get, he gets the 30. So you were, you were you were worried?

MIKE:  I was worried.

BOBBY:  He wasn’t gonna be there.

MIKE:  I was at worried–

BOBBY:   If Arson Judge you thought it was happening?

ALEX:  I, I was going to ask, so did you get to experience that as it happened? Or, because I don’t, because that was pretty early in the morning when all that, when all that went down.

MIKE:  Well, I was in Australia at the time so it was weird time. But it was also strange because I don’t have international data and Kelly has Sprint, my wife, and she’s got full free international stuff. So I just don’t ever do it, which is actually really nice for me international travel, I’m just like so detached from my phone.

BOBBY:  Right, but if you need something then Kelly can use it, yeah, yeah.

MIKE:  That, that, I mean, so like I, we’ve put my work email on her phone and that is it. So that if stuff came up we could get, make that okay.

BOBBY:  Wow, you heard it here on the podcast, if you need to get in touch with Mike when he’s abroad, you got to hit on Kelly.

MIKE:  But, that was like the one thing was like I wanted to keep checking it but also it was pointless so like weirdly because I couldn’t check. But yeah, I was, I was worried that he was going to go to the Giants, ‘cuz I thought the Giants were going to do the classic like we’ll just give all the money, we don’t actually care if we’re good. We’re just going to put all the money and if we pay him a ludicrous amount then so be it. And I was legit afraid that it was going to happen. Like it was I was still kind of like confident that he would but not enough where I was not worried. Like I still would have bet on him staying but if I found out that he left I wasn’t going to freak out. I am very glad that I had no data or service during the whole Arson Judge Giants fakely thing. Because then I would have–

ALEX:  Right.

MIKE:  –been, it would have been really rough situation. So thankfully I didn’t check until it all fell through and then it made Haman look even worse, which is someone who’s invested in not liking Heyman and made me really happy because he’s just the Cashman mouthpiece.

ALEX:  Right.

MIKE:  So for him to look really stupid. I was, urgh, I was delighted, That’s [31:23]–

BOBBY:  That’s his vibe. He’s just the ownership mouthpiece is the–

MIKE:  Yeah, exactly.

BOBBY:  Now he- but Heyman’s thing now is like, with the Mets at least, he’s like, really empath- sympathetic with like the parts of the Mets front office that are worried that Steve Cohen is spending too much money.

MIKE:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  You know, like the unnamed sources within the Mets front office who are worried about the process that the Mets are going through and throwing around all this money. I’m like, dawg, you need to take a long look in the mirror.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  If you’re the guy writing that piece. If you’re the guy writing the 15 billionaire is spending too much money on making Mets fans happy. Like go–

MIKE:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  –tell that to like an 8-year old Mets fan, it’s like eh, actually, the process wasn’t great on this one, sorry. Don’t wear your Max Scherzer jersey, like get the fuck out of here.

ALEX:  Well, I mean, like, just national reporters love to like, talk to one source, you know. Like a data entry guy in–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  –a front office and then be like, this reflects a large population of the league, this one person’s thoughts. And I love that and you can like see, you can see and like the tweet, when he’s kind of copy and pasted this statement. Because it’s like–

BOBBY:  Remember when Nightengale–

ALEX:  We–

BOBBY:  –got exposed for–

ALEX:  –we think–

BOBBY:  –literally copy and paste the Met PR sstatement.

ALEX:  –he Mets are spending too much money. It’s like, Oh, interesting, John, we, we think that?

MIKE:  So yeah, I was worried, I was worried, I was worried.

BOBBY:  I would accept, I would accept John Heyman on this podcast, though, so please.

MIKE:  Of course.

BOBBY:  Say some kind words about him. John, if you’re listening, you know, you’re a hard worker, you know.

MIKE:  A fun job–

BOBBY:  Carry a lot of water for a lot of different people.

ALEX:  Yeah, that backs got to hurt.

MIKE:  A fun John Heyman Yankees thing is for a long time back in his era when his Twitter Abby was a Bitmoji of him. Because all of his leaks and stuff or whatever–

BOBBY:  He puts just emoji, in Tipping Pitches.

MIKE:  Because during his era, when like, his stuff was so unreliable about the Yankees, on the Yankee subreddit, if you ever link a Heyman tweet, it inverts his picture, so it’s upside down. Just so that if you ever read something with an upside down Bitmoji be like, Oh, it’s just Heyman, it doesn’t matter. Like whatever this tweet says, take it with 5000 grains of salt.

ALEX:  Is like, is that like what they do with the flag when there’s like in distress, you know? Like my, my national baseball reporter is needs help SOS.

MIKE:  God, so, yeah, I’m glad I missed Arson Judge. I was worried, I was very worried. But I was relieved when the reports were out that it was like how it was just going to pay whatever, it’s like good. This is what we should do.

ALEX:  Yeah.

MIKE:  He hit 62 home runs, just give him a blank check, it doesn’t matter. You make so much money just from the licensing alone of Yankee hats. Like it does not matter, just give him whatever he wants.

BOBBY:  Right, like the sale, the Paris sales of Yankees hats, will cover that Aaron Judge’s contract.

MIKE:  The number of Yankee hats I saw in Australia, wild!

BOBBY:  It’s insane.

MIKE:  Wild!

BOBBY:  When you go to Europe, like everybody is wearing a fucking Yankees’ hat. I’m like, do they sell any other hats here? it’s ridiculous!

MIKE:  It was, it was and it was very funny, Kelly the day after the Judge signing happened, every time we would pass someone wearing when she was like you should ask them if they’re happy about the Aaron Judge signing.

BOBBY:  We’re not gonna know who that is.

MIKE:  Like hugging people in the streets. Yeah, there are so many people with Yankee hat.

BOBBY:  That’s a really funny bit by Kelly [34:30]–

MIKE:  Really good, yeah.

BOBBY:  Nice work, Kelly.

MIKE:  Yeah, just very funny, it was really good.

BOBBY:  Okay, Mike Schubert, thank you, sir. We appreciate you, every time you come on and speak for all Yankees fans who definitely feel 100% of the way that you feel 100% of the time. You’re the avatar, the voice of Yankee fandom. I mean, people can find you on various podcasts. Which of those podcasts would you like to talk about at this moment in the outro of your segment here?

MIKE:  Let’s talk about Meddling Adults in this case because you two are going to be on an episode. We’re doing a season 4, part A, part B switch things. So you guys are going to be on part B. So I think it’ll be in the fall of 2023.

BOBBY:  This guy is 1like Netflix, he does have seasons of podcasts. Like you have so many pods.

MIKE:  It’s a lot.

BOBBY:  Content machine churn.

MIKE:  And it’s one of those like I was sitting on episodes a while and then I was taking Meddling Adults independent and that was a process and that process was over. And I was like, alright, let’s get these out and then I’ll make the other episodes. But you two will be on it’ll be fun. We’re going to do some Encyclopedia Brown mysteries. The podcast is for charity. Basically, I recap mysteries from children’s mystery novels like Scooby Doo, and Encyclopedia Brown, American Girl dolls, mystery stuff like that. And then the guests compete to get the most right and whoever does earns money for a charity of their choosing. So that’s what we’re going to be doing it’ll be super fun. Bobby has been on before but–

BOBBY:  You’re gonna get washed, dawg. I’m a vet–

MIKE:  You did [35:41]–

BOBBY:  Come aboard, rook, let’s go!

MIKE:  –you did [35:44] before you’ll be doing Encyclopedia Brown one. So yeah, you can check that, search for Meddling Adults wherever you get your podcasts or go to meddlingadults.com. And then my stuff you can just, I’m on Twitter and Instagram @schubes17, s-c-h-u-b-e-s-1-7 and then my website is s-c-h-u-b-.-e-s.

BOBBY:  Truly one of the more unhinged Yankees Twitter participants. So if you want to get down and dirty in the insane Yankees Twitter have it all, tweet up Mike Schubert. Mike, thank you, sir.

MIKE:  It’s, it’s, it’s unhinged until the playoffs approach and then I’m the most superstitious person that I don’t- like you’ll notice I talk zero–

BOBBY:  Feel like LeBron, you got like Zero Dark Thirty-23–

MIKE:  I just, I just–

BOBBY:  –or whatever he called it in the playoffs.

MIKE:  –I just can’t, I’m, I’m such a superstitious person in general because I grew up–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –playing travel baseball.

BOBBY:  Right.

MIKE:  So I just, I can’t when it gets close in their stakes like I don’t tweet anything mean about like the Mets getting eliminated or the Yankees doing well. Like it’s nothing, I just tweet like nothing until like the World Series is over, and we’ve won, yey! Or we’re eliminated and then I’ll get a bunch of stuff. But I just–

BOBBY:  Your public Twitter is not that insane, it’s not that unhinged, but the stuff that you DM [36:44] our little group chat that we have with friend of the pod Kyle Bandujo and–

MIKE:  Yes.

BOBBY:  –then the three of us here. That’s where the real Mike comes out, so.

MIKE:  Yeah it’s so screenshots ever go which like you’re always [36:54]–

BOBBY:  Elon, bro, dropped the screenshot.

MIKE:  You can, you could drop the–

BOBBY:  Expose us!

MIKE:  –screenshot, feel free. But like yeah, that’s I, I always, I get too nervous because I just, I don’t want to jinx it. So I don’t like to flex on the Yankees when, when it gets–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –too close to the season, I just can’t.

ALEX:  You know, we need more support superstitions that are like being nice to other fans, right? Like I don’t, I, I want my team to do well, so I’m gonna be nice to Giants fan.

BOBBY:  Like I tried to accumulate as much–

MIKE:  Exaclty, yeah.

BOBBY:  –karma as possible.

MIKE:  I just, look I just can’t have the [37:21]. Because on the reverse like I’ve had, I do the other super petty thing or like once I was like, having a really back and forth with this guy, one of my buddies from high school like never tweets about the Astros until the playoffs come around. And then he’s the world’s biggest Astros fan. And he was doing all this stuff on the Yankees and Astros are playing against each other, one of the series. And then it was–

BOBBY:  What happened in that series, though?

MIKE:  I think, pfft! It was in 2017, so I have to get mad, like the actual cheating, it was just 2019, the implied cheating. But they, they beat us and then they lost the World Series to the Nationals that year, right?

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  Like that was only a loss or whatever and I just like went I didn’t, you know, we had our whole back and forth and then I’m like the minute after they lost the World Series I went to that guy’s Twitter and I liked every tweet, every single tweet he put about the–

BOBBY:  Oh, my God!

MIKE:  –Astros when the playoffs on. It just like scroll like like like like like like.

BOBBY:  It’s so funny.

MIKE:  Like and I don’t want someone to do that to me, I’d be crushed. That like I just–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

MIKE:  –get anything good about the Yankees and [38:12] anything else from like August on, it’s just like DEF CON. [38:16] can’t do it.

BOBBY:  I, that is really funny. Mike Schubert, thank you, sir, it’s always a pleasure.

MIKE:  Thank you so much for having me.

[38:25]

[Music Transition]

BOBBY:  All right, Alex, thank you Mike Schubert. Please go subscribe to the Meddling Adults podcast, a podcast for charity that out–

ALEX:  *sneeze*

BOBBY:  God dammit! It’s for charity, and you’re sneezing? I’m leaving all this in the podcast. A podcast for charity that Alex and I will be participating in the second half of this current season. Alex, we have maybe my favorite listener question ever. This comes from Nick T. in the Tipping Pitches Patreon only Slack channel. The question is, which teams would the main characters of Succession purchase–

ALEX:  Oh my God.

BOBBY:  –if they had to purchase a baseball team.

ALEX:  Wow.

BOBBY:  New season of Succession coming March 26. I just got to say that’s going to be a very important week for me. Succession, March 26, Majorly League Baseball opening day, March 30. My birthday and the new Boygenius album, March 31. March–

ALEX:  Wow!

BOBBY:  March–

ALEX:  March is coming through.

BOBBY:  –underrated month, underrated month. I feel like everybody’s like, oh, March, so rainy and still kind of cold. I’m like, nope, you know what? See here, it’s the month of my birthday. I don’t know what else to say. It’s when baseball is reborn as well.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  March is a great month.

ALEX:  March is a great month.

BOBBY:  Succession, children, and I guess Logan Roy, too.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  Who’s purchasing what team?

ALEX:  I mean, you get the easy one out of the way, right? Like Logan’s, Logan owns the Yankees, right? Like if we’re, if alternate universe. it’s got to be, right? Is there another obvious choice for him?

BOBBY:  See, I feel like the Yankees are too prestigious. Isn’t part of what makes Waystar Royco, Waystar Royco is that they’re not too snobby to stoop into the filth? Not to say that the Yankees are not mired in filth–

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  –because they are disgusting franchise that we just spent many minutes talking about with Mike Schubert. But that almost feels too obvious. I feel like he, well first of all, I feel like he would just own like three Irish football teams.

ALEX:  Well, well, yes. Yeah.

BOBBY:  But because we’re sticking to the question here. I almost feel like Logan would buy the Red Sox.

ALEX:  Okay.

BOBBY:  However, I feel like the Red Sox fit a different Roy child better.

ALEX:  Like you have a different Roy child in mind?

BOBBY:  I think Shiv would buy the Red Sox.

ALEX:  Oh, interesting. Why?

BOBBY:  Because I think that she wants to like stick it to New York. And I think that she wants to do something different. And Boston feels like close enough that she doesn’t actually have to fly to like Texas to see the Rangers play. You know, she doesn’t want to do that. She’s not gonna buy a flyover team.

ALEX:  No. Well–

BOBBY:  That’s for damn sure.

ALEX:  Well, I was thinking, you know, there’s a team in the mid Atlantic area that’s actually currently up for sale right now.

BOBBY:  Okay.

ALEX:  One Washington Nationals.

BOBBY:  So which, which child do you think is purchasing that team?

ALEX:  Well, so I think Shiv buys the National.

BOBBY:  Oh, it’s like extension of her DC lobbying arm.

ALEX:  Right, her DC sort of she’s like, here’s a team that would be really easy to get. And, you know, turn for a profit.

BOBBY:  Right.

ALEX:  She’s, she’s in the area already, as it is a lot. I feel like that’s kind of her, her way of breaking into that, like upper crust of DC elite.

BOBBY:  Okay, I like that. Washington Nationals, Shiv Roy. Let’s, let’s set the Yankees aside for a second. Let’s set–

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  –Logan aside for a second. Because I’m okay with that if that’s where we land, but I want to see what else you have set aside for the different characters.

ALEX:  Okay.

BOBBY:  And I want to preface this by saying, I feel like the actual answer is that Logan would own the Mets because of the dysfunction and chaos and, and downright absurdity of the New York Mets franchise. And I feel like all of the kids would just be fighting for the succession of the team. I believe that I’ve pitched this before.

ALEX:  It’s possible. Yeah.

BOBBY:  As a prestige TV version industry Succession style.

ALEX:  Right. Well, we’ve talked about a baseball front office–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  –as the perfect setting for that sort of place.

BOBBY:  Yeah, like Moneyball meets industry meets Succession meets, we can keep naming–

ALEX:  Hey, man, no free–

BOBBY:  –these TV shows–

ALEX:  –no free ideas here.

BOBBY:  Sopranos?

ALEX:  Meets the, The Wire.

BOBBY:  You nailed it.

ALEX:  Meets, meets Mad Men.

BOBBY:  Sold, keep going, see the price is going up.

ALEX:  I feel like Kendall Roy.

BOBBY:  This is who I’m most intrigued to hear who you have to say.

ALEX:  I think he buys the Miami Marlins.

BOBBY:  Okay.

ALEX:  I guess this is, this is maybe a, a technical question too, right. But, you know, I’m wondering, is it these kids wake up on February 5, 2023 and decide to buy these teams? Or is it more like what teams kind of spiritually resonate the most with each kid, right? Because I, because maybe Kendall doesn’t think that the Marlins are the, the place to be right now. But I feel like his history and that team’s history intertwine–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  –very well, sort of, you know, he, he loves to go down to Miam and party, you know.

BOBBY:  Yeah. I think that the way that I’m interpreting the question is like, okay, all 30 teams are up for sale. Which teams do these characters bid on first?

ALEX:  Right, yeah.

BOBBY:  I think that Kendall Roy tries to buy the Angels. You know, because he’s like, actually, the Angels are in a really big market and we could actually turn things around on there. And I actually like, you know, the roster that they have.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  And Orange County is a big growth potential for developing the, the outside area. He talks himself into that being a good team to actually own, somehow.

ALEX:  I feel like–

BOBBY:  And then he, and then he still comes out of it with like the worst fucking franchise–

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  –to own, you know?

ALEX:  Yeah. I do feel like, feel like post rehab Kendall could do that, right? Because he’s like–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  –I need to get away from it all a little bit. I’m gonna go out with all the retirees in Orange County and just become a real estate developer. The logical conclusion for every rich Nepo, baby.

BOBBY:  An interesting question is which one of these kids buys the Rockies?

ALEX:  Yeah, I was kind of struggling with that.

BOBBY:  I mean, I guess maybe it’s Roman. Who did you have set aside for Roman Roy?

ALEX:  So Roman, really one wants to buy a New York team.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  Right? Like he, because he wants to show he can run with, with the big guns. I think he can’t?

BOBBY:  Because he can’t afford it?

ALEX:  He can’t afford it or the owners are not interested in working with him.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  I think he’s boxed out and goes and buys like a Japanese baseball team or like multiple teams.

BOBBY:  Who is the most like fuckit we ball team? You know, like the no process, no plan. I guess that kind of is the Rockies.

ALEX:  Right, yeah.

BOBBY:  But they’re, they’re different though. They’re like a family organization who only hires like, farmers to run the front office.

ALEX:  Yeah. Like, like with Tom buy the, buy the Rockies?

BOBBY:  No, no, no, no, I think Tom would buy like the Orioles.

ALEX:  Yeah, I wa, I was just thinking the Royals too, you know, like a team that kind of lives in sort of perpetual mediocrity.

BOBBY:  I feel like actually, maybe Roman buys the Astros as like a big middle finger to everybody else. He’s like, no, I’m trying to–

ALEX:  Ohh.

BOBBY:  –get behind what they did.

ALEX:  Right, yeah.

BOBBY:  He’s like, I don’t care about the sign stealing, I actually like it.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  I like that.

ALEX:  He’s like the process works.

BOBBY:  Listen, you got a couple of skeletons in the closet, who cares? Who cares? Well, then the, the big outstanding question still is who does Connor buy?

ALEX:  I mean, this is the hardest one, I think, ’cause Connor, I think doesn’t care about baseball.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  Like, is he interested in buying the Diamondbacks?

BOBBY:  I thought Diamondbacks, too.

ALEX:  Right. Just so he can be out on his little desert retreat.

BOBBY:  Arizona is an important state for the presidency here, you know. You buy the Diamondbacks, you turn that franchise around, you flip that state, whatever color or whatever–

ALEX:  Pop, right now.

BOBBY:  –party he’s trying to win it for? I don’t know. I mean, he’s running as like a libertarian, right? So you flip it yellow?

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  How about that? Yeah.

ALEX:  Okay. Greg, what’s Greg buying?

BOBBY:  So, it’s unclear to me whether Nick wanted to know every single character or just the children.

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  Because clearly, Greg does not have enough money–

ALEX:  He’s not.

BOBBY:  –to purchase a baseball team.

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  I feel like he would be like, shouldn’t I buy the A’s, aren’t they?

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  They’re the cheapest team and also the team that’s like, you know, on the cutting edge, so to speak.

ALEX:  Right. He’s the kind of bargain bin.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  I feel like he probably, Greg probably has a decent amount of reverence for Elon Musk too. Like, I think he–

BOBBY:  Come on. Give, give my man Greg some credit. Okay, Nationals to Shiv. Angels or Marlins to Kendall. Diamondbacks to Connor, which I love. Roman is buying the Astros. And I guess, I guess Logan is buying the Yankees?

ALEX:  I, I see your point about him being sort of a John Henry figure, right? Which–

BOBBY:  It feels too positive. You know, like he’s, it’s not villainous enough to own the Yankees. Although I, I guess they are the evil empire.

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  But Yankees fans don’t have an antagonistic enough relationship with their owners. I mean, I know that they that a certain subset of Yankees fans are mad at the Steinbrenners. But I feel like the large majority of Yankees fans have a sort of quiet reverence towards the franchise. Because they’re 27 rings, bro, and they always win and they do it the right way in their class.

ALEX:  Yeah, but isn’t that the case with of like Waystar Roy, Roy goes like consumers? And they’re like–

BOBBY:  I guess.

ALEX:  –[48:22] viewers.

BOBBY:  So then what is Waystar Roy goes, Waystar Roy go Fox?

ALEX:  I mean–

BOBBY:  Like the Murdochs.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  Isn’t that, I mean, isn’t that kind of–

BOBBY:  I think that it’s kind of what it’s loosely based on but, I don’t know. I can’t get ove- maybe they just buy the Rays?

ALEX:  I mean, the real answer is they have a Shell company that has a bunch of individual Shell companies that has stakes and multiple teams.

BOBBY:  Yeah. They buy a pickleball team. Everybody’s doing it. Kendall would definitely, that might honestly be a plotline in the upcoming season, Kendall buying a pickleball, pickleball team.

ALEX:  Yeah. The pickleball marketers are working overtime these days, man.

BOBBY:  If I never have to hear about that dumbass for it ever again. I saw a video of it on Twitter a few weeks ago, it’s just not entertaining. It’s not fun to watch. They, they like it’s basically like tenni- like a combination between tennis and ping pong. Where, so it’s like you’re not getting, they’re not hitting it as hard as tennis. And they’re not on a small, as small of a surface as ping pong. So you’re not as amazed in either direction, just really, it’s like the worst of both of those sports.

ALEX:  Now big ping pong, really out here making you do some oppo work.

BOBBY:  Like I got the check, from big pong.

ALEX:  As long as it clears.

BOBBY:  Ping pong is entertaining. I mean, I’m not like firing it up on a Tuesday. The real question is why, why pickleball and not cornhole?

ALEX:  I know.

BOBBY:  Cornhole is right there, cheaper. You know, less elitist.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  Anybody can play Cornhole. You gotta beanbag?

ALEX:  Yeah, that says the–

BOBBY:  Get a plywood.

ALEX:  –support of the people.

BOBBY:  It is.

ALEX:  It is.

BOBBY:  It is. Just gonna keep saying it is until the listener actually believes it.

ALEX:  It’s fine, you know what? I don’t, I don’t need it to be spread to mainstream elites who will just destroy it.

MIKE:  Oh.

ALEX:  With their woke branding.

BOBBY:  Right. Protect the authenticity of the downhome American Corn, Cornhole player.

ALEX:  Yeah, exactly. We see, we saw what happened when MLB went away–

BOBBY:  Went woke.

ALEX:  –the BLM leftist.

BOBBY:  Woke mob. Yeah.

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  Yeah. And then they took the all star game away. What’s next, the Cornhole National Championships taking place on the White House lawn?

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  While Biden stands behind them and claps on for victory for the woke mob.

ALEX:  Yeah, I’m not going to watch a single Cornhole game in Portland, Oregon. Where there’s just violence left and right, come on.

BOBBY:  We could lose a Cornhole player to anarchy.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  And he might just get murdered during the Cornhole National Championship. Do you think that uhm, do you think that we could organize a Tipping Pitches Cornhole tournament? I think honestly, now that I’ve said Cornhole 38 times in the last three minutes, it’s just a branding problem, a naming problem. That’s not a good name.

ALEX:  Yeah, it’s not.

BOBBY:  It’s not a name that people want to say. A person does not want to walk up to another person and be like, hey, did you catch the Cornhole match last night? You don’t want another person overhearing that conversation.

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  It’s just bad branding, frankly, worse branding than pickleball somehow.

ALEX:  I don’t know who you’re hanging out with, but me and my buddies wouldn’t understand if, if you got a hole, you got a hole.

BOBBY:  These buddies that are definitely real that you have?

ALEX:  Right. These are not sitting six feet away from me right now.

BOBBY:  It’s a, it’s a invigorating television product. Cornhole.

ALEX:  It is, you and I have, have partaken many times.

BOBBY:  Right. And where were we? We’re going back to Logan Roy buying the Yankees. I’m fine with it, that’s fine. Who’s commissioner in this world?

ALEX:  Are we bound to picking characters who already exist in the Succession universe?

BOBBY:  No. Open up that third eye, It can be anybody. I mean, this Succession universe is kind of like real life.

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  Except just, just the characters that are in the show added into it’s like semi real. Eric Adams?

ALEX:  That idea in the world.

BOBBY:  Is he, would he be the worst baseball commissioner of anybody on planet Earth?

ALEX:  As in right now, if you put any person on planet Earth into the commissioner’s office for–

BOBBY:  Yes.

ALEX:  –like, 100 days, like would he do the worst job?

BOBBY:  Yes. Because he, the reason that he’s dangerously bad is because he would actually try to do stuff. If you put like, the first person that you saw on the street into the baseball commissioner role, they just wouldn’t do anything for–

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  –100 days.

ALEX:  They wouldn’t come to work and cash check and–

BOBBY:  And nothing would change.

ALEX:  Yeah. 

BOBBY:  Bt Eric Adams would be like, here’s the thing, we got to get rid of the ball. And be like, what?!

ALEX:  Yeah, I mean–

BOBBY:  But there’s the name.

ALEX:  –I mean, isn’t that different from what we’ve got right now?

BOBBY:  Yes, I think it is, I think it is. Eric Adams, at least Rob was a lawyer, you know. Like he understands process. He utilizes his understanding of process for evil purposes. But I don’t think that there’s any chance that 100 days from now, baseball doesn’t exist if Rob is Commissioner. But if Eric Adams is Commissioner, I do think that there is at least a 1% chance that Major League Baseball does not exist 100 days later. Be like once every six days, the Police Athletic League All-Stars gets to play the Yankees. Like what the fuck are you talking about?

ALEX:  See, like, I feel like he has too much like faux reverence for like, history. and like, you know, New York. I feel like you need to pick a, a mare. Or, or someone from that world who has like heavy ties to finance or, or like Garth said he would dismantle baseball.

BOBBY:  Don’t talk about my guy.

ALEX:  Yeah, that’s your boy.

BOBBY:  That’s my guy, me and him, we have dinner at the French Laundry, you know. We go to India together to be the ambassador.

ALEX:  Like I said he’s selling the league for parts at this point to, to investment interest overseas.

BOBBY:  Well, how’s that different from what’s happening now?

ALEX:  I mean, yeah, exactly!

BOBBY:  But that’s what I’m saying, at least Rob understands, you know, he understands the core business. I don’t know what Eric Adams understands about baseball. This is, he is a Mets fan, I know it.

ALEX:  Yeah, well we didn’t we determine that?

BOBBY:  Yes.

ALEX:  Like his because his son threw out the first pitch of the game–

BOBBY:  Right.

ALEX:  –or something like that.

BOBBY:  But I know that he really means it. Because the level of chaos and lack of common sense to that man just screams Mets.

ALEX:  No, you don’t say it with your chest that loudly unless you’re a Mets fan.

BOBBY:  All Right, take down that! Do you think Eric Adams will let me on the police escort of the Mets World Series parade when they win? If I like start being really nice to him on the pod and on Twitter and stuff, I’m like Eric Adams, that’s my guy. You know, I wear like a custom Eric Adams Mets jersey to games and stuff. I try to meet him and like, Mr. Mayor, I love what you’re doing for the city. First of all, the war on rats is amazing. Thank you for that. No money for schools, no money for healthcare, no money for homelessness. But I’m really glad that there are sometimes two police, two police officers standing at some of the subway platforms that I get off in some places and some neighborhoods.

ALEX:  Yeah, I mean, someone’s got to do the hard work. And I think he actually would listen because he, because he does listen to journalists.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  Like far more than he should.

BOBBY:  For lack of a better phrase, he reads the reply.

ALEX:  Yeah. Uh-huh. So yeah, if you start showing up at the press conferences, and like cheering him on from the back–

BOBBY:  He would let me on the float?

ALEX:  –like, I feel like he’d be a very easy politician to bribe.

BOBBY:  That’s parody. We’re not trying to bribe Eric Adams. How dare you suggest that Eric Adams would take a bribe throughout human history of law enforcement? And they’re kind have never done something like that. So why would this be the first time?

ALEX:  That’s I, I just Bill de Blasio hurt me so bad, you know.

BOBBY:  Yeah, BdB has been his reputation has been recovered.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  He was great in comparison. We didn’t know what we had, baby.

ALEX:  We’re not doing this. Do we have other listener question? What have we been talking about at this point?

BOBBY:  Yesterday, I had dinner with my cousin and his children. So my other cousins. I don’t know how that works in the whole family tree situation. They’re all my cousins.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  And my cousin who’s about my age, he’s a few years older than me. He said that if the Mets won the World Series, so he’s never seen them in the World Series in his lifetime either. He said if the Mets win the World Series, he will take the week off before the parade, during the parade, and after the parade. He will take three weeks off from work and you know what? He wasn’t doing a bit, he wasn’t making a joke, he meant it. Three weeks off of work. So that I say, I feel like the gauntlet has been thrown. I’ll take the whole damn month off. I’m saying it right here on the pod. One month off for the Mets winning the World Series. I feel like my co workers would understand. They don’t want to see me during that month, honestly, I’ll be ferrell.

ALEX:  So you’re taking the month of October off? Is that the plan?

BOBBY:  Well no, if they win the World Series then it would be probably November.

ALEX:  So it’s not necessarily giving yourself the time to watch and experience the playoff run it’s–

BOBBY:  I don’t need that much time with the games. I don’t need that much you know free time in my, in my brain, to think about the upcoming game. I need the month off for R&R, from all the stress that I will have experienced for the previous four weeks. So I’m taking November off. Yeah. Go to Europe do little Eat, Pray, Love but for the Mets yep, I can finally let it go, you know. For all the stress in my whole life, I can finally let it go. Okay, we do have other listener questions. The next three listener questions are all voicemails. I’m about to play the first.

VOICEMAIL 1:  Hey guys, so I’m sitting over here in Minnesota Twins Territory. I feel a little bit happy that we somehow managed to get Carlos Correa after that fiasco. But my question for you guys, how do we get people to stop glorifying the one big sign? Like everyone here in Twin Territory are is acting like this is what’s going to make the Twins playoff contenders. And they just completely ignoring that we don’t have a bullpen and we don’t have a starting rotation. And we have like six left-handers outfielders. What do we do? Anyway, I’ll take this off, off the air.

BOBBY:  So I mean, this is a good question, because an argument that you often find yourself needing to make is, or an argument that I often find myself needing to make, especially since Steve Cohen took over the Mets is more is actually more, you know? How, how can this be bad for me if the Mets keep signing all of the best players? Like you need to tell other people that it’s not their job to be the accountant for the baseball team. That is somebody’s job who was making probably five times as much as I make, you know. So my answer to this question is to ask whoever is making that argument to you use saying, oh, we got Carlos Correa, everything is fine. To ask of that person, what does complacency as a fan ever get you? When has it been like, when, when has there been a time in baseball history where a fan base was like, yeah, this is good, we’re good, we’re good here, everything’s fine. You don’t have to try or you don’t have to continue to try or continue to get better? And the team responded in kind. That just doesn’t happen and so you just have to be continuously more unreasonable. Yeah, you sign Carlos Correa. Okay. great. Who’s next? Shohei Ohtani, come to Minnesota. Come on down. Shoot for the moon on that way you can land in the stars. That is my advice.

ALEX:  I always think back to this one square from a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.

BOBBY:  Right on.

ALEX:  Where–

BOBBY:  You more of a Calvin, Calvin or Hobbes?

ALEX:  You know, I think I’m, I think I’m a Calvin, you know, I’m an idealist. But I’ve been burned by the world.

BOBBY:  You’re cynical idealist.

ALEX:  Exactly. Calvin’s–

BOBBY:  [1:00:34] that, repeating that back to you, you know. I’m just as the court reporter, it’s just my job to let you know what he said.

ALEX:  I, I, I have, I have two beings who are warring inside of me right now. Yeah.

BOBBY:  Don’t we all?

ALEX:  Calvin’s mom says him Calvin, things could be a lot worse. and Calvin responds, yeah, they could be a lot better too. And I think about that on an almost daily basis when it comes to baseball or just things in life in general.

BOBBY:  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

ALEX:  When thinking about the, the political party that says it, it represents me. And then, and then tells me to be happy with, with you know, the, the leftovers.

BOBBY:  Yeah. Yeah. Could things be worse when it comes to the political party? Like they’ve lost that end of the spectrum too. Like, their whole argument was things could be worse and uhh–

ALEX:  You make, getting worse.

BOBBY:  Well–

ALEX:  But I think it’s a salient point to keep in mind with teams too, right? Like you said–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  –why not go for more? What’s, where’s the harm in–

BOBBY:  What’s there to lose?

ALEX:  –in that. Like I, like I think that some people reflexively reject those sorts of hopes because they don’t want to be let down, right? They don’t want to say, well, maybe there is an outside chance of Shohei Ohtani coming to the Twins, and then you think about it for three or four months over the course of the offseason. And you’ve talked yourself into it when it’s not a reality. But like–

BOBBY:  But like, what is the, what is the opposite of that though? Like, are you going to be more disappointed by Ohtani not signing with the Twins as, as this was like your fantasy–

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  –then you are by like .500 at bats from a below replacement level player. That is the version of complacency of you saying that okay, now the Twins have done enough just by signing Carlos Correa? Particularly in baseball, where it’s such a big team. You know, like if you’re a Timberwolves fan, and they signed LeBron, maybe you probably shouldn’t be complaining. You’re probably good there, you know. LeBron might win you a championship. But Carlos Correia is not going to win this Twins team that didn’t even make the playoffs or World Series. So the answer is no, it’s not enough.

ALEX:  Well, and also, like, isn’t watching sports, about embodying like unearned confidence, and hope, right? You know, like fucking might as well sell yourself into thinking that your team can get Shohei Ohtani, right? What’s the harm?

BOBBY:  Then you experience a lot of pain. When your team lets you down.

ALEX:  As Calvin knows, it builds character.

BOBBY:  That’s true. Okay, next question. I hope we answered that question, I’m not sure if we did. Next question.

VOICEMAIL 2:  Hi, my name is Aaron. First time long time. I am a union organizer. And for work a couple of weeks ago, I was at a rally for the HarperCollins Union of all power to them on their ongoing strike congrats on their win on getting HarperCollins to the bargaining table. So the rally was at News Corp, who owns HarperCollins that they’re building in midtown Manhattan. And while I was there, I was sort of like seized by this image of a picket line outside the MLB headquarters, which is really nearby in Midtown. And so I was wondering, like what you guys think about whether there could be, you know, beyond the strikes that have happened, like, an actual picket or otherwise in person direct action from the MLBPA. And what that would look like and how possible that is? And I guess also, similarly, whether that could happen with other unions and baseball like I think, if I’m most familiar with it, but I think a bunch of the ballpark workers are UNITE HERE. So if that can happen with them and what you guys think that would look like if it is possible? Thanks so much for the podcasts. I love it and hope y’all have a good day.

BOBBY:  Okay, Aaron, thank you for your question. This is a good question. aAnd a thought, you know, the way that Aaron describes it, he was consumed by the thought of watching a picket line outside of MLB headquarters. That is a thought that I have had exactly that I believe that I’ve shared on this podcast, I was at a picket line for Gizmodo Media Group, which is part of the Writers Guild, which is my union. I was there to, to join and support their picket line as they were on strike for about a week. And it was literally looking at MLB headquarters. Like I was looking at that little MLB merch store that they have on the first level of the headquarters. And I was like, man, what if we just protested Rob right now. See, what if we just brought this energy right over, you know, we had our own, we had the blow up scabby. I was like, we, we could do this! We could do this, and this was during the lockout. But the real answer to your question is that the, the PA would never do this. Because–

ALEX:  They don’t have to.

BOBBY:  [1:05:25] yes, they don’t have to. They’re incredibly powerful as it is. Because they have a ton of money already. And that’s not to say that that’s what a picket line is about. Obviously, a picket line is about drawing attention, putting pressure, showing solidarity, showing vocal outward solidarity. Which is really important for making people feel like they’re a part of something and making people feel like they can have that cathartic experience of expressing the things that they’re mad of. But the MLBPA already has its own bully pulpit, they could just call a press conference, if they wanted to get these talking points out–

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  –there if they wanted to, you know, get their emotions out into the world. But the reason that they don’t do that, and the reason that they wouldn’t be more vocal in a picket line is because of all of the things that we talked about with the bad reputation that millionaire players have, among a certain subsets of fans, if they were out there picketing, Major League Baseball, a lot of people wrongfully a lot of people would be like, well, what do they have to complain about? A picket line? Well, that’s for like teachers and, you know, electrical workers and that sort of thing. Why do they need to pick it? They drove here in a Porsche.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  And it was just optically speaking, it would not be the same as the HarperCollins Union picketing or Gizmodo Media Group union picketing, like it’s just it’s, it’s not the same. It’s different levels to it.

ALEX:  Yeah. Kudos for them for recognizing that the optics on that would not be–

BOBBY:  I would, I would join!

ALEX:  I mean–

BOBBY:  I’d be there. I’d be like, you know what, Max Scherzer? I’m walking this picket line with you, dawg. That’d be sweet. I wish we lived in a world where that would be fine.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  But we don’t.

ALEX:  Well, and again, it’s also a very public facing thing to do, right? To actually go out there and put yourself front and center of a sort of labor dispute, right? And you know, I, I think about kind of the coming battle that minor leaguers have to wage. And you could certainly make a case that they might be more likely to pick it or something like that. But given how vulnerable they are. I think there’s no way that any of them are, are really interested in kind of waging that fight in public. Because they’re in a very precarious position.

BOBBY:  Well, I mean, I guess I’ll push back on that a little bit. There are no more precarious than like an average person who’s in a union who’s picketing against their employer, right? Like they are, it’s much more common for them to just be cut or fired, or whatever, than, than the average worker would be if they’re, you know, standing in a picket line solidarity with the rest of their company. But I can’t see a world in which they would, they would pick it. If it got, if it went on really long and they were trying to draw more attention to how terrible the negotiations were going. The part of the question that Aaron asks about, like other unions within the wider baseball world, you know, stadium workers who are part of a union like UNITE, UNITE HERE, they would pick it. I mean, if they went on strike, they would almost certainly pick it outside of games. Because that would be a huge story. It’d be a huge place to draw attention to the fans.

ALEX:  I mean we were days away from something like that actually happening.

BOBBY:  With the Dodgers.

ALEX:  And we have multiple points, yeah. And we had the–

BOBBY:  The Giants won aswell.

ALEX:  –Giants as well. Yeah.

BOBBY:  It’s just that, frankly, baseball owners know that they have more to lose and so they actually come back to the bargaining table when these unions vote to go on strike.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  I don’t know, it’s, it’s  a good question, though. I, I see your point, I’d like that. I wonder what the minor leaguers could convince themselves that they would accomplish by picketing Major League Baseball headquarters. Versus doing something else like, you know, wearing shirts at games or, you know, making collective statements on social media about how bargaining is going and what they’re trying to win and what they’re trying to fight for. Talking openly with the media about, you know, the conditions that they have now versus how they’re trying to improve it. But I don’t know, if they actually, if the minor leaguers didn’t get a contract and voted to go on strike, maybe they would just, maybe they would pick it if they tried to replace the minor leaguers at minor league games.

ALEX:  It’s crazy to even think about a world where that’s a, that’s a possibility. But, but I think you’re right, I mean, it’s they’re being introduced to the world of labor politics very, very quickly, right? Like they have just kind of been thrust–

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  –into this. So it’s going to be a fascinating landscape to, to watch in the coming months and years.

BOBBY:  It would be so, so funny if to get Rob Manfred into Major League Baseball headquarters on Seventh Avenue or wherever they are, Fifth Avenue, I’m not sure really what sure which avenue they are on. It’s like that scene from Sorry to Bother You, where there’s the strike outside and they have to bring like riot tops in just to get CEO in the power colors into the building.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  That was Rob. God, that would be so fun. Okay–

ALEX:  That would, that would top the photo of him practicing his like golf swing in the middle of the lockout.

BOBBY:  Let’s go to our final question.

VOICEMAIL 3:  Hi, Tipping Pitches, it’s Victoria from Twitter. Short time listener, first time caller. Recently, you’ve been like the last year of the podcast. So this question isn’t exactly timely, but it’s been bugging me. So here it goes. Uhm, it’s about the owners, obviously, and how they get to pick up the award at the end of the season? Is there like a reason for that? Oh, the like the capitalist overload so they are? And is it just like, do baseball teams not have captains? Do this happen in any other American sports? Is it looming over all of them? Like for instance, the World Cup, you can clearly see that my see the captain of the Argentinian team. He was like the honored one, and he was given the cup before he went in, took it to his team because he’s the captain. One would assume that the World Series is like the World Cup of baseball, right? So does this play every American sport or just baseball? And if it’s all of them, then like, why are you heist like this? What, what has led into this massive like, oh, yeah, don’t award the team, award the person behind it that does nothing. I mean, I know you guys thoughts on this. But is, is this like a nationwide problem is my question essentially. Anyways, love you guys off. Bye bye.

BOBBY:  Thank you for the question, Victoria. We very much appreciate it. I think first of all, to address the, the Lionel Messi example, he’s like the most famous person in the world. And it’s like, it’s slightly different, because it’s not a privately owned team. I actually don’t know what happens in like European soccer or South American soccer for club teams that win a trophy. Whether or not the owner is up there, and they get to hold the trophy first. My guess would be no, since that, since people seem so surprised that that does happen in American sports. I mean, the short answer the T- TL;DR. of this question is, in America, we only respect people who own things.

ALEX:  Right. Because, yeah, because they signed the checks.

BOBBY:  Yeah. And so then the people handing over the trophy, are employed by the people who signed the checks also.

ALEX:  Exactly. Yeah.

BOBBY:  So it’s not like, it’s not like it’s some independent body that gets to decide who gets to hold the trophy first. It’s like the owners, employee, the commissioner who is handing over the commissioner’s trophy to the team that won the World Series.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  Literally called the commissioner’s trophy.

ALEX:  But I, I definitely think it’s something we don’t talk enough about. Like, it’s something that it’s time for us to do away with this. Like as the owner of the baseball team–

BOBBY:  You shouldn’t run out to the field and tackle the owner next time there’s a World Series trophy ceremony, you know? You should be the change that you want to see in the world.

ALEX:  You know, some fans get feisty enough out there, you know.

BOBBY:  Yeah.

ALEX:  But like, you get to have this locked up in your display case, fuckin’ wherever for perpetuity, right? Like, you’ll probably be buried with this thing. Let the players–

BOBBY:  Really they’re burying owners with the trophy? That’s the story. It’s just another example in a long line of things in America, where we give credit to the person who did the least amount of work, you know?

ALEX:  Yes.

BOBBY:  Just because they happen to own it.

ALEX:  I mean, you it’s a participation trophy.

BOBBY:  It literally is.

ALEX:  What it is.

BOBBY:  Except not even, they didn’t even participate.

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  Here’s an unrelated thing about the trophy ceremony that really bothers me. So you know, like when they’re passing around the trophy to everybody and this is in all sports. It’s actually worst in football, because of the shape of the trophy and the way that it shines in the way that you can see it. It’s just, it’s just a little thing in my brain it’s like look at all those fingerprints on that nice pretty trophy, just really bothers me. They’re just touching the part of it and they’re putting their fingerprints all over him. Like someone’s gonna have to clean that. Everybody’s kissing it, you know, they’re getting their lips on it–

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  –the lip marks. It’s just a, that’s just a personal problem from, there’s nothing to do with the owner. But–

ALEX:  It makes you wonder why we now have a pandemic far sooner.

BOBBY:  Yeah. Get your grubby hands off my trophy, Mr. Crane?

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  It’s a horrible practice and this question I completely and wholeheartedly agree with I think it’s ridiculous that the owner gets to get the trophy first. But the reason that it hasn’t changed is because they own it, basically.

ALEX:  Yeah, right.

BOBBY:  And they’re never going to volunteer to not get the trophy first. That would be a cool thing for an owner to do.

ALEX:  That would be an amazing way to–

BOBBY:  To end the tradition?

ALEX:  –to end the–

BOBBY:  I’m done with this.

ALEX:  –or. Yeah, Right, just fly in the face of, of owners go in front and center. Like what you saying–

BOBBY:  I feel like, I feel like Steve Cohen would do it. I feel–

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  –like he would do it.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  But I also feel like, I feel like Rob wouldn’t hand it to a player.

ALEX:  Right.

BOBBY:  I was like Rob is not a talk to a player.

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  But Mr. Scherzer, sir, here’s the tri- he like drops it–

ALEX:  Right, yeah.

BOBBY:  –he’s like his body literally can’t handle it. He cannot hand it to a player at any cost. I trust Steve, I think he would do it.

ALEX:  I think so too. This is why, actually, this has nothing to do with what we’re really talking about. But I still think we should make owners–

BOBBY:  You do more fingerprint chat?

ALEX:  No more, no more fingerprint chat. I, I think we should make the owners play. Like if they want–

BOBBY:  Yes.

ALEX:  –a trophy–

BOBBY:  You have to take at least one at bat.

ALEX:  Right, like we should, there should, that should be a part of like All-Star Weekend is like the owners exhibitions.

BOBBY:  [1:15:57] competition.

ALEX:  Exactly.

BOBBY:  I like where you’re headed that, I like it. And you know what? To, to circle all the way back to our insane Eric Adams chat from 25 minutes ago. I feel like we could get EA on board With that. If we were like, this would be great for viewership. and for the every fan. He’d be like, you know what, you’re right–

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  –I like it. Steve Cohen get in there, 98 mile an hour heat.

ALEX:  Right. Will Ted Lerner up to the plate.

BOBBY:  The Angelos families are arguing about who actually gets to go up and hit.

ALEX:  Right. Yeah, exactly.

BOBBY:  Arte Moreno’s like don’t hurt me, have another fundraising event for One American News Network next week. I can’t possibly sustain any injuries. Great pod, you know, it’s just I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know half the stuff that we talked about. but another great podcast. Thank you to everybody for listening. Alex, is there any housekeeping that we should be doing right now? I know we’re getting towards the end of the offseason. We’re going to be doing a lot of fun season preview content. We will of course be doing the Tipping Pitches All-GIF Draft, the annual All-GIF Draft were we draft the players that are most likely to make the most sensational GIFs, g-i-f-s, GIFs of the 2023 baseball season that’s coming in March. I guess the only other piece of housekeeping that I have is that later this month, later in February, we will be talking to Evan Drellich about his book “Winning Fixes Everything”. Which is as insight as inside gets on the Astros, not just the Astros cheating scandal but the entire corporate process that led up to the Astros cheating scandal. Evan along with Ken Rosenthal was the person who broke the story, if you can think all the way back to when that happened in 2019. Evan was on our podcast a few months ago to talk about covering the lockout. His, his career and increasing interest in covering baseball as a business, baseball as a labor market. The fight between players and owners, that sort of thing. And he mentioned this book and, and we thought it sounded particularly interesting from this particular person. I mean, there’s a ton of Astros sign stealing scandal books. You got to be honest though, I trust the source on this one a lot more than others. So we will be talking to Evan in, in about a week but we’re gonna save the conversation so people have actually said gotten the book and had a chance to read it if they want to. So if you are one of those people and you were thinking about buying the book, I would suggest you do. And see you can listen to Evan talk about it in full, not that will like be spoiling the entire book or anything like that. But just something to consider as a listener, if you are already considering doing that. Anything else?

ALEX:  No, if you want to support the work that we do here, patreon.com/tippingpitches. Where we are currently fulfilling some, some obligations, some perk obligations for some of our patrons. But they’re being fulfilled.

BOBBY:  They, we’re fulfilling them so hard. The obligations are being fulfilled as, as fulfilling goes–

ALEX:  Yeah.

BOBBY:  –fulfilling is happening.

ALEX:  And corn and a hole.

BOBBY:  Please, I’m stopping the recording now. Thank you to everybody for listening, goodbye.

[1:06:14]

[Music]

[1:06:24]

[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