With movies’ biggest stars on display at the Oscars, Alex and Bobby depart from their normal episode structure to try and determine the 30 “most famous” figures within the confines of the baseball world. Current players, retired players, managers, owners, media members, and more battle it out for the unbelievably arbitrary award of being Tipping Pitches’ #1 A-lister.
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Songs featured in this episode:
Daryl Hall & John Oates — “Kiss On My List” • 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, as listeners are well aware, you and I used to run a little newspaper together at New York University. You were the editor-in-chief, I was the managing editor. I thought of myself as more of the people, the people guy, you know, handled the staff, while you handled External, External Relations.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Keeping our reputation good on campus, which you did a phenomenal job at great, great work by you. Seven years, seven years ago. Part of running a newspaper is sometimes when you run columns, people write letters to you, in response to those columns. It’s part of the marketplace of ideas for you to share those responses to columns. So the San Diego Union Tribune ran a column about how baseball is very fun these days. And it got two responses that are more or less like 50 words each that it ran as a response to its opinion column. I’m going to read those responses to you. Regarding isn’t baseball fun from March 2. For me, baseball was fun when I was 12. To great excitement, Manny Machado gets a $350 million contract, a price almost equal to the total cost to build Petco Park. Given the problems in the world, the trickle down cost to fans. No, it isn’t about fun, only about money, greed, and grownups jumping and dancing. like they were still 12. I’ll not support this obscene salary. What a waste. That was the first response to the San Diego Union Tribune column about how baseball is fun and Manny Machado got a new contract. The second response, you might think maybe it’s in support of Manny Machado. Well, you might think from. Okay, someone has to be Negative Nelly. The football players were worth $31 million a year, such as Manny Machado. Why isn’t school teacher a Ms. Machado in second grade worth at least 10 million? Compare the impacts on people’s lives and futures and the importance of education. Vis-à-vis, a sporting event. I rest my case. What do you think? So we give Ms. Machado, this real person, $10 million?
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, this is real old man yells at cloud moment, right me, right here. Like, like this person in, in real time is, is learning about a lack of equal distribution of wealth–
BOBBY: Exactly!
ALEX: –throughout, throughout society. Like boy, if you think Manny Machado is the problem here, wait till you learn about how most of our society functions and who it rewards. Like Peter Seidler is maybe turning San Diego Padres fans into socialists, that what I’m hearing?
BOBBY: Well, that’s an amazing thought. But Peter Seidler is also worth 1000 times more than Manny Machado, like, what did we do in here? Also, he’s making more money on the Padres than Manny Machado was making from playing for the Padres. Also, maybe Ms. Machado should get good at hitting a fastball. I just why can’t they come up with a new argument? It’s always like why don’t we give teachers more? So do you support paying teachers more then?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Do you support taxing people more to pay teachers more?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Do you support–
ALEX: I assume teachers unions, probably, who–
BOBBY: Right, assume you’re out there on the picket line helping them out, you know. I sup- I, I assume that. I assume you support the radical redistribution of wealth to make sure that everybody can live a respectable life in this country.
ALEX: I just, this really just makes me think that we need far more like salary transparency across industry, like outside of sports. Like if we talked about how, how Warren Buffett just signed a, a 10-year extension with, with his hedge fund for $4 billion. Like would you have the same energy?
BOBBY: Maybe we should do that?
ALEX: Like–
BOBBY: I’ve long advocated that we should only express Major League Baseball salaries as a percentage of the revenue of each team. Now we don’t know the revenue of each team. But let’s say for argument’s sake, we took the revenue of the league and we divided it by 30 and then we express Major League Baseball players salaries as a percentage of that average revenue per team, people would be mind blown! They’d be mind blown!
ALEX: I have to at least appreciate that the authors of these two pieces at least tried to- like clearly he did not actually have.
BOBBY: [5:15] general, these are like sweet length responses [5:18], the column.
ALEX: Right, they were like, I’m writing a response, which means I’m doing it on an email, which means I have to pad it out a little bit. So I need to like throw some comparisons in there. Because you know that the thought in their head was these guys are getting paid too much. But that’s not going to get published.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: I mean, it might, but–
BOBBY: Well, yeah. San Diego Union Tribune, I don’t know. I appreciate how the second response, which by the way was named, was written by one Judith Winker, Judith Winker.
ALEX: No notes.
BOBBY: I appreciate that it was started out by saying, okay, someone has to be a Negative Nelly. Like no one else is being a Negative Nelly about baseball players salaries. Like Judith–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –Flanker is the last person–
ALEX: You’re–
BOBBY: –who’s gonna tell you the truth.
ALEX: –you’re the one.
BOBBY: Someone has to ask questions.
ALEX: The fish swimming upstream, you know.
BOBBY: Nobody else is going to bring this up. Thank you, Judith. We haven’t heard this one before, baseball players are over- no, no way! Really?! Thank you.
ALEX: That does seem to be a very similar strain across all these arguments is the people who make them are like hang on a second, something’s not adding up here. Have we really looked at these contracts? Like they think they they’re unveiling like the fucking Rosetta Stone, you know?
BOBBY: The first guy, Russ Stamin? Stuman? Stuman? I don’t really know. His second paragraph, given the problems in the world, the trickle down costs to fans. No, it isn’t about fun, only about money, greed, and grownups jumping and dancing like they were still 12. What do you think Russ thinks the problems in the world are that we can solve by Manny Machado not getting a new contract? If you like Russia wouldn’t have been, would not have invaded Ukraine if Manny Machado didn’t get this contract.
ALEX: Right. Like what are the, the trickle down effects that he’s really, really thinking about.
BOBBY: I don’t think we want to game plan that out too far.
ALEX: I don’t think we do either. You learn a couple words in your like, college freshman year econ class, and you’re like this applies to everything in life now.
BOBBY: Okay, I just thought it might be fun to start out with a couple letters to the editor. If you have any letters to the editor, for the Tipping Pitches podcast, please feel free to reach out to us at any and every time, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com. You can write your own regarding isn’t baseball fun to us. Or you can call on our voicemail, 785-422-5881. Today’s podcast is not going to be about how much Major League Baseball players get paid. Today’s podcast is going to be about famous people in the baseball world, Alex. It’s a special episode in honor of the Oscars, which at time of recording is happening in a few days. And at time of publishing will have happened last night. I don’t know who’s going to win Best Picture. Although it certainly seems like it’s going to be ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ a strange movie that is pretty good, I guess. Not great, pretty good, I guess. That’s my take.
ALEX: Wow. Wow!
BOBBY: So we decided to do a little podcast called The Baseball A-Listers. It list of the 30 most famous people according to the Tipping Pitches podcast within the baseball community. Not the wider world of celebrity, not the Hollywood, not people.
ALEX: Us Weekly.
BOBBY: Not Instagram followers, maybe a combination of some of those things. But we decided to make a list of the 30 most famous people, who would be most famous at a baseball like event. You’ll kind of see once we get with, once we get into the list and start talking about some of these people. Hope This is fun, hope this is something that we can, that we can do on a maybe annual or semi annual basis. Update this list, come back to it talk about who’s risen, who’s fallen. But we’re, we’re just gonna give it a shot. What do you say? Do you think this is going to be a good idea?
ALEX: I can say with my full chest that this is going to be the, the most number of baseball players we’ve ever talked about on a podcast. That’s, that, that I’m positive about.
BOBBY: After we do this pod, I’m just gonna post a podcast on the same day. That’s just me reading the active rosters of Major League Baseball players like take back that record like a Guinness Book–
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: –of World Record kind of thing.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Okay, well, we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna make a list, people are gonna get mad. But before we do that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[9:51]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: All right, before we get started, thank you to this week’s new patrons. At time of recording, there are three of you. Perhaps there were a couple more in between the time of recording and the time of the publishing. But we don’t know who you are yet. Thank you to those fictional people. But thank you to the very real, Andrew, Alex, and Benji, for signing up for the Tipping Pitches Patreon this week that is patreon.com/tippingpitches. Three tiers, the Thanking Pitches Tier for $5, the Mid Market Team Tier for $7. And of course, the Alex Rodriguez, who will be discussed on this podcast for certain VIP Club Tier, for $12 a month. All right, it’s time to do it.
ALEX: Roll out the red carpet, baby,
BOBBY: Do you want to talk a little bit about the criteria that you were using in your brain as we came up with this list before we start just listing off names of human beings?
ALEX: That’s probably a good idea to talk about the rationale. The way I envisioned it was a baseball event of some sort, with a Red Carpet, with the stars out in full force. Who are the people who you look around and say, yeah, that tracks that you’re here, right? You, you deserve to be out here with all of the stars. And it’s a little complicated, because it’s not just baseball players, right? We’re pulling from the world of baseball, right? So there are media members on here, there are owners on here. But who are the people who you know, at at some point or another, when they walk out onto that Red Carpet are going to get swarmed? People are going to want to take their picture, right? People are going to want to talk to them and ask them questions. That’s how my mind was thinking about it. What, what was your criteria going into this? Because I know we, we debated a little bit back and forth sort of how we were actually visualizing this, right? It’s not people, it’s not baseball people who are famous in the outside world, it’s, it’s level of stardom. within our relatively confined world of baseball.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I was thinking about it, like, if all of these people who we put on our long list, which was about like 100 names, if all of these people were in a room together, what is the permutation of people on the list who would walk up to other people on the list and be like, that person is famous, I want to go talk to them? So at the very bottom of the list, like if Corbin Burnes was in the room, would Corbin Burnes approach Alex Rodriguez? Or would Alex Rodriguez go up to Corbin Burnes and say, you’re more famous than me, I want to take a picture with you. Now it’s not perfect, because, you know, Alex Rodriguez is weird. And he actually might walk up to Corbin Burnes.
ALEX: He would absolutely do that, yeah.
BOBBY: Do you want to take a picture with me? But that is kind of like a general rule of thumb that I use. Now baked into this obviously is like accomplishments that these people had, in their respective careers that made them more famous. It’s kind of hard to not be extremely good at baseball and be on this list. Because otherwise, if you were just kind of like a bit player for a couple years, you’re clearly not going to be more famous. The reason that we kind of confined it into this more narrow baseball community perspective on the level of fame of these players is because most of these people on this list are not famous outside of the world of baseball. Would not be considered A or B or in a lot of cases, even C-list celebrities in the wider world of celebrity. And that’s like a problem that people know baseball has, and I don’t really care to litigate or talk about or wring our hands over during our conversation about this list of people.
ALEX: Right, there is some mass appeal among some of these people, and we will get to that. I’m gonna get it out. But for the most part, I’m not expecting Keith Law to, to walk into Times Square and immediately gets swarmed by, by throngs of, of fans. No shade to Keith, obviously.
BOBBY: It’s worth noting also that there’s like a whole class of celebrities who are fans of baseball, who are sometimes cited at baseball games, or frequently cited at baseball games. Who, I don’t know, I didn’t, we didn’t put them on this list because you could make an entire list of those celebrities or–
ALEX: Because all of these people are more famous than any of the ones were on actual list.
BOBBY: Way more famous. And by the criteria that we named probably would be. Like if they walked into a red carpet event more people would approach them just because they like saw them on Gossip Girl or whatever. But like, you know, Bill Murray, Jon Hamm, Kate Upton, who is probably the one who’s like on the line most because she is so closely associated with Justin Verlander and is always at games and is talking about baseball and tweeting about baseball all the time. But it felt sort of like cheating to put her on this list a little bit. JLo, Jerry Seinfeld, Emma Stone, who broke my heart last year by coming out as a Padres fan at Citi Field during the wildcard series against the Mets. That was really painful for me. Mindy Kaling, and B. J. Novak, Blake Lively, and Ryan Reynolds, Ben Affleck. All these people are sort of like super baseball fans who are often cited as celebrity fans. But kind of like doesn’t really fit the criteria. The, the completely arbitrary criteria that we made up for this list.
ALEX: Right, I mean, these are not people who have made contributions to the game of, of baseball. I mean, JLo had a shot there with A-Rod, right?
BOBBY: I know.
ALEX: Changing the face of the Mets franchise–
BOBBY: I mean–
ALEX: –in which case, she very well could have made our actual list.
BOBBY: I mean, I think that–
ALEX: If she–
BOBBY: –she’s become number one.
ALEX: –[15:30] baseball owner, she’s number one, right.
BOBBY: Like, by far, like far and away the most famous person in the world. I mean, I also want to say, before we start this, this list is 30 people, because of the nature of what the baseball world is like, and how male dominated it is. There is not a single woman on this list. And there is a glaring lack of female celebrities within the baseball world, like it’s felt it’s known, it’s obvious the reasons that it exists, but it is true.
ALEX: Well, and I think it’s worth noting that it’s not even so much about contributions to the baseball world, right? Because–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –certainly there have, there’s an incredibly long list of women who have, who have shaped the game, both in the past and the present, right? And they’re easily people who could be on this list, and frankly, probably shouldn’t be on this sort of list, but who have simply not, but who simply have not had the spotlight put on them and have their profile elevated to a place where I think they’ve been recognized for their contributions to the baseball world, right? And I think it’s also worth noting that there are a lot of people generally speaking, who have been left off, despite their contributions to the baseball world. Simply because, you know, that’s not the sort of recognition we get, right? Like we didn’t put on anyone who founded baseball prospectus, right? Despite the fact that like–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –has there, has there been a publication that has, you know, shaped the way that baseball fans and media members and front office’s think more than that publication over the last 20 years, right? So this is definitely a certain strand of baseball celebrity.
BOBBY: Yeah. And also, like, I’m hoping that it’s obvious to people that this is a level of, in, in, in some cases, vapid fame, that it’s not always deserved for the people on this list. But it’s true about the way that they are talked about and the level of celebrity and notoriety that these people have gotten. And all of the people in this list are living. Like, I think if we were talking about contributions to baseball history, or level of fame at time of living, I think that there would be people like Effa Manley on this list. Or people like Mary-Elizabeth Murphy on this list. But like, as it stands right now, I think you’re right to sort of like draw that distinction between meaningful contribution to the baseball world and how far it actually furthered your level of fame.
ALEX: Yeah, and, you know, I mean, maybe that’s a reason for us to revisit this, this idea in the form of biggest contributions to the game, regardless of level of fame, right, as a sort of corollary. Because I think there are plenty of worthy stories talking about there.
BOBBY: But in the, in the context of the Oscars yesterday.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: If we were having the Oscars for baseball, who would be the first 30 people that would get the invite list? It wouldn’t have anything to do with your contribution to the wider baseball world. Let’s be honest, it would have to do–
ALEX: Right. You don’t, I think the Oscars are usually a pretty good judge of character.
BOBBY: Character?
ALEX: When it comes, when it comes to lifting up–
BOBBY: Advancing the film [19:00].
ALEX: –the, the artists. A, oh, they’re usually they have their–
BOBBY: Breaking down barriers?
ALEX: –they know exactly where the culture stands, I think.
BOBBY: Exactly. Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah. Honestly, shout out to the Oscars, who I think have never, never made a misstep, frankly.
BOBBY: That’s what Oscars so white was about, is actually about how pure the Oscars are and how, how they are an unabashed good force for the world, like white hat in western films.
ALEX: I thought people were just being goofy when they said Oscars so right.
BOBBY: Okay, shall we get started? The list, number 30, Alex. Number 30 is a little guy called Steve Cohen. You heard of him?
ALEX: Regrettably.
BOBBY: It’s always fun to, to decide what you want to do for the 30th or for the, you know, mister irrelevant spot on a list, like this. You get to be a little cheeky with it. Steve Cohen, has obviously rapidly ascended within the last year. And I think that primarily when I think about, he’s the only owner on this list, by the way. Primarily, when I think about Steve Cohen, I think about the conversation about him changing the game and for, for better or for worse, whether you think that players should get paid more, or whether you’re writing letters into the San Diego Union Tribune about how players are getting paid too much. I think a lot of people are talking about Steve Cohen right now. I think a lot of people care about what he does, in a way that is not really true of other owners. I probably would have put George Steinbrenner on this list if we made it 25 years ago. And in lieu of that, I think Steve Cohen, is the only owner worthy of even being close to this list at all.
ALEX: Yeah, frankly, I am not even thinking about it in terms of contribution to the game, or how he is shaping the narrative. I think people just know he’s willing to talk. And I think he doesn’t have the, the sort of built in filter that a lot of other owners have cultivated in their, in their time in the ownership seat. And for that, I think he’s a really fascinating character for baseball fans and media members. And I think that’s reason enough to, to put him out there with the rest of the stars.
BOBBY: Everybody has an opinion on Steve Cohen. And that’s fame, if everybody in the baseball world has an opinion one way or the other and knows who you are. No, it’s not 100%, he’s not number one on this list. But most people have an opinion on what he’s doing.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: [21:28]
ALEX: [21:28] you know it–
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: –right?
BOBBY: Exactly. All headlines are good headlines. Even headlines about how you had to pay a $2 billion fine to the SEC. Even headlines about how your company is being sued for gender discrimination. Okay, number 29, you want to do number 29? This is your guy.
ALEX: This is our guy.
BOBBY: No, this is your guy. No, this is your guy.
ALEX: Long time- people are gonna think I’m about to say JJF, who’s not on here, regrettably. Who is on–
BOBBY: He be like number 18,000 on this list. How low would we have to get for him to be on this list?
ALEX: Just not even famous to, only famous two A’s fans within the last few years.
BOBBY: Barely. Yeah, barely.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He’s probably like the third most famous A’s owner of this century.
ALEX: We’re not talking about John J. Fisher, it is one, Jeffrey Passan.
BOBBY: That’s right. Media members were tricky. I had a hard time saying that Jeff Passan is famous, more famous than any of the retired players or current players that that were on our long list. But then when you think about it, and trying to sort of represent the wider world of baseball, the baseball readers, the baseball television watchers, the sports center consumers who are baseball fans. Jeff Passan, is kind of everywhere. He has over a million followers on Twitter, he breaks a lot of major baseball news. He’s part of baseball fans lives. He’s part of the wider baseball world community’s lives in a way that is–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –notable.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, there are certain times of the year when millions of degenerate baseball fans turn on tweet notifications for Jeff Passan, just to see what he’s going to say, right? And he’s probably him and maybe one other person on this list are the only people for whom you would do that, right? When you were like, I need to know what this man is hearing right now, right?
BOBBY: There’s like–
ALEX: And so it’s almost–
BOBBY: –there’s like two months of the year where he’s the only thing that people consume for baseball, you know.
ALEX: Right. Right. I mean, and he’s more of like a proxy than anything else, right? Like a conduit, but that’s important, right? He is one of those main pipelines of information. And so, for that, Jeff, we’re rolling out the red carpet for you.
BOBBY: Okay, number 28. Honestly, hilarious that this guy is right after Jeff Passan, just completely polar opposite as personalities, figures. Their contributions to the baseball world could not be more different. Number 28 is Mr. October Reggie Jackson. He was a tough one for me, because he hits really hard for me to have perspective on how famous he is in 2023 as we do this list. Which this is meant to be kind of like a sliver of fame now or cross section of baseball fame right now. Not how famous you’ve been at your peak. Because there are people on this list or there are people who are left off this list who would be way higher if it was peak fame. But we’re just talking about fame in the, in the exact moment that we’re doing this list. And Reggie Jackson is has like one of the most famous baseball legacies of any one ever. Is Mr. October performance in the playoffs doing it for the most famous franchise the New York Yankees. And also having like a whole career with the A’s before that where he was just sensational and Hall of Fame worthy already. Makes it such that he I think is an A-Lister and why he’s on this list. But to the like, longer tail of younger baseball fans, for example, I don’t know that he makes quite as much of an impact as some older players who are higher on this list. Which is wild, like more people should know about Reggie Jackson. He’s also one of the coolest people on this list, too.
ALEX: Right, I mean, at the peak of his playing career, he was the biggest baseball player in the media, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like he was the center of attention. And for really good reason, because as you said, he was a really cool dude and very, like really outspoken and wore his heart on his sleeve.
BOBBY: And it’s interesting, though, because like that persona that made him so famous at the time is probably the reason that he’s not more famous now. Like the powers that be in the baseball world where like, now that this guy doesn’t hit, you know, 400 in the playoffs, and isn’t one of the five best baseball players on the world. Let’s kind of push them off to the side.
ALEX: Right. Yeah. Which is unfair to Reggie Jackson, because he–
BOBBY: Of course!
ALEX: –literally one of the greatest baseball players of all time.
BOBBY: And I don’t, I’m not necessarily saying that he wants to be on TV like doing a studio show. But I think some of his more controversial, like, the baseball system is fucked kind of opinions are not well received when it comes to who we put on a pedestal to be famous in the baseball world. Okay, 27, maybe the most beloved man on this list?
ALEX: Right. And also maybe the least famous person on this list, Joey Votto.
BOBBY: I have no idea how he ended up here, Joey Votto, yes. He’s just not, yeah, he’s not famous. I don’t think–
ALEX: He’s not–
BOBBY: –this is total bias on our part.
ALEX: Right. But like, to baseball fans, to, to online baseball fans.
BOBBY: His fame, his fame runs so deep. It’s not wide, but it is deep, he is beloved.
ALEX: Yeah. It’s not even that he’s like, famous, he’s just everywhere.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You know, like he’s just always there. And, and having a good time, as we’ve, as we have discussed often on the show. Certainly, out of all the people on this list, the one who would have the fewest people walk up to him if he was walking down the street, right.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: Like with, without a doubt. And there are some pretty non famous people on this list.
BOBBY: He is probably the most I would say like cult of personality person on this list. Where his fame is driven by his sheer weirdness. And like the stuff that he chooses to do. It’s not necessarily that people are like, oh, I can name Joey Votto’s baseball reference. I know about all these moments throughout his career. It’s just that everybody is always kind of intermittently talking about Joey Votto for some reason. Because it was funny, or because it was weird, because you know, you don’t even know why, I don’t even know why everybody’s obsessed with Joey Votto all the time. I mean, I am too, but I don’t, I can’t articulate why.
ALEX: Right. He’s a little like the Kardashians in that sense of fame, where I’m just like–
BOBBY: He, he’s not like the Kardashians at all. There’s one person on this list, who is at least like the Kardashians, it’s Joey Votto, but I know what you’re talking about. Do you think he would have made this list without the MVP?
ALEX: I think so. I don’t, I don’t think that his fame is really linked too heavily with like his extravagant baseball successes. I mean, it’s certainly helpful. And I think it’s helpful that like, he’s such a unique on field baseball player. I think the longevity helps more than anything else, he’s been around.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And like he’s been weird that whole time, which, which helps his case, too.
BOBBY: And he’s been on one team the whole time. Which is not everything, but it’s something. All right, number 26. Very tempted to skip over this one. 26 is Michael Kay. The play by play announcer for the New York Yankees. That’s pretty much the only reason he’s on this list, honestly. Like he calls every big Yankees moment that happens. That means a ton of people know who he is. He also hosts one of the most listened to drivetime radio shows in the country. He’s super famous man. And like it’s kind of the only thing he is, in my mind. This isn’t because he’s great at being announcers, isn’t because he has good opinions. like, he’s just the voice of the New York Yankees. And that affords you a level of fame, that being the voice of any other baseball team. No matter how long you were doing, it does not afford you. Like I, I could put in a long list for media members. I could put Gary Cohen because he’s super famous to Mets fans. But nobody outside of Mets fandom knows who Gary Cohen is. I could put Bob Uecker because he is one of the most beloved revered figures in the history of baseball. But not a lot of people outside of Milwaukee really would recognize or walk up to Bob Uecker and be like, you’re famous sir, can I take a photo? You’d have to be a pretty big diehard for for, for this treatment of a team’s announcer to really apply to you. For anyone outside of I think Michael Kay.
ALEX: I think Kay also just has a really unique, identifiable sort of candor and tenor when he’s talking. Like he’s like I can very easily pick his voice out of a lineup where I think frankly, a lot of broadcasters have developed a very similar sort of tone. Kay, whether it’s how he’s saying things or frankly the things that he’s saying, I’m like, for better for worse, that’s the guy.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That’s him.
BOBBY: Do you think people are gonna be mad about this one? I don’t know, let’s move on. Number 25, Ken Rosenthal. You’re alluding to this–
ALEX: That really slightly more famous than Michael Kay.
BOBBY: You were alluding to this earlier when we’re talking about Passan, how the only other person who can provide that level of fame within the baseball media news breaking world is Ken Rosenthal. But Ken Rosenthal is he’s been doing this for longer. He’s universally regarded as the most respected baseball reporter. He’s on TV covering the World Series every year on the sideline. I just remembered that so is Tom Verducci, but there’s no way I was gonna allow Tom Verducci onto this list Ken Rosenthal instead. Why Rosenthal, so much higher than Passan? This is just a longevity thing?
ALEX: Yeah, I think it’s a longevity thing. I mean, you see Rosenthal on TV a lot more, I will say. He’s obviously, he’s on the field during World Series games. I feel like whenever I see Passan, he’s like, in a closet with like, a bunch of baseball books behind him, you know. He’s like, he’s like zooming in and I’m like, where are they keeping you locked up, man? Rosenthal gets to have fresh air every once in a while. But I do think it really is a longevity and disability thing.
BOBBY: The media members like Rosenthal, I feel like there’s the widest variance for where some people might put them. There’s definitely people who would completely leave Rosenthal and Pathan- Passan off this list. And then there’s people who’d be like, maybe they’re in the top 15, you know.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like millions of people, follow them on Twitter, and see them break news and talk about other players and superstars come and go. But you know, who’s always there talking to those superstars. And generally is like, well regarded by players within the league as Ken Rosenthal. Like other players like him too, and I think that that players, coaches, team executives, whatever, I think that that sort of recommends level of fame.
ALEX: Yeah, well, they have the benefit of not being tied to a single team, like a broadcaster or a player or manager, right? Like, as you mentioned, their appeal spans across basically every single fan base. And at one point or another, you are going to tune in and listen to what he has to say. So Ken Rosenthal, well- welcome!
BOBBY: Number 24. Julio Rodriguez–
ALEX: Only slightly more famous.
BOBBY: Julio Rodriguez, he was a really tough one for me, too. I mean, I know I keep saying that about all these sort of last 10 on this list, because Julio, especially, and the next person who we’re going to talk about shortly thereafter. Why don’t we just talk about them in conjunction, 23 is Juan Soto, 24 is Julio Rodriguez, 23 is Juan Soto. These two are here, because they are fucking famous to people who like baseball right now. But to people who have not tuned into baseball for the last five years, they know nothing about these guys. They would know nothing about these guys. And so the trajectory for these guys is that they could become as famous as any of the retired players in the top 10, pretty much. Based on how they performed for the rest of their careers, their longevity, what they decide to do in their post playing careers. But we just don’t know what those next 20 years are going to look like for these guys. But it’s undeniable right now that Julio and Juan Soto are the under 25 faces of Major League Baseball.
ALEX: Yeah, for sure, and I think that by virtue of that they deserve to, to be on this list. I feel like when putting this together for whatever reason, I really, my mind was gravitating towards established players or, or veterans or, you know, Hall of Famers guys who have been around the game a lot. And we know have had that level of visibility, both off the field as well as on the field. But you can’t argue that a guy like Soto does not belong on this list. And Soto, especially who has been almost picked up the, the Harper narrative mantle over on the Nationals, right? Like as the young phenom who the team would, would build around, right? Like really actually filling those footsteps quite well, I, I have to say.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: They’re famous. They’re not the most famous but like they deserve to be there, you know. Like, no one’s questioning why they’re on the red carpet. No one is wondering like, why Timothy [34:50] there, right?
BOBBY: When people see Juan Soto and Julio Rodriguez invited to this event, they’re not gonna be like, where’s Freddie Freeman? So I think they should be on this list. Okay, 22 and 21, I think are also a package deal. Do you wanna introduce these guys?
ALEX: Sure. It’s our only two managers on this list.
BOBBY: The honorary dad of the list.
ALEX: Exactly. That’s Buck Showalter at 22 and Dusty Baker at 21. Really just revered around the game. Like both by players and other coaches, fans. Like their, their longevity really helps, but I think their character really helps them as well, right? Like, the fact that they have been on the biggest stage at so many moments. Whether they have gotten that ring or not, right?
BOBBY: Ouch. [35:55] the Mets.
ALEX: They [35:55]- I don’t know if that’s Mets drive by that wasn’t really the Mets fault.
BOBBY: It was kind of the Mets fault, that was probably Bucks last, best chance last year. I mean, the Yankees I guess too.
ALEX: I don’t know, I think the O’s for a while really, really–
BOBBY: I don’t know, I never really felt like the Mets gonna–
ALEX: –[36:14] tickets.
BOBBY: –win the World Series. Buck has manage both New York teams. So he has–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –unbelievable level of fame in New York City right now. Which–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –not to be like all coastal lead on y’all, but it’s a huge city with a gigantic media market, that drives a lot of fame. And Dusty is like, I think winning the World Series last year was huge for people realizing how long Dusty has been around. And how many eras he has spanned. And how many just people he knows and who knows him within the baseball community
ALEX: Yeah, although I think that, I think I probably would have still put him on here before winning that World Series.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like I think just the amount of respect that he has garnered throughout the game. He’s the sort of elder statesman that I think probably a majority of the players on this list would probably go up and talk to someone like him if they were all on the red carpet together, right? Like Julio Rodriguez is not going up to Jeff Passan and saying, what’s up dude? How have you been?
BOBBY: You don’t know if they’re best friends, you don’t know that!
ALEX: I, you’re right, I don’t. Julio might also have his tweet notifications on for Jeff, which, you know, whom among us, right? But, I feel like Dusty–
BOBBY: Are any of the people hang up to Jeff Passan be like, what’s up, bro?
ALEX: No, not a single person. That’s not true, there might be one or two like online. Like, like, I don’t know, maybe Joey Votto is like, what’s up, dude? When neither of us here are really here for the right reasons.
BOBBY: Okay, number 20. Number 20, we cheated, ’cause this is our list and we can do whatever we want. Number 20 is the Detroit Tigers and New York Mets do a pitching duo of Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.
ALEX: Yeah, kind of really tough one to place, honestly. Like are they just, are they famous? Or are they just really–
BOBBY: Good at baseball? Yeah.
ALEX: Right? Like, and, and when we were talking about putting this list together, I was kind of giving the edge to Verlander. Because–
BOBBY: Then you are more than kind of giving [38:21] Verlander. You’re like, sure, there shouldn’t be on here in Berlin, there should be on. And I was like–
ALEX: Hey, hey, hey, hey, whoa, hey.
BOBBY: We don’t want to piss off Max, hey!
ALEX: Well, I think Scherzer has really like last few, like, six or seven years, his, his pedigree has risen dramatically, right?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: I mean, he got a really late start as a pitcher, as a pitcher, right? Really didn’t fully start to blossom until he was like, what 26? And ever since then has obviously I mean, not looked back, but Verlander, I mean, along with Clayton Kershaw, who slight spoiler but he’s not on this list anywhere, I just realized.
BOBBY: He never even crossed my mind, just now.
ALEX: Was, was maybe, was maybe- same! Is maybe like the, the pitcher of this generation, right? Or, or rather, the most recent generation, depending on where you’re drawing that line, right? Not to mention, she has the association with the aforementioned Kate Upton. Those two are very visible, I feel like both within baseball circles, but also in just like, general celebrity circles. Like Verlander is one of the only guys on this list, who could show up on an actual red carpet and it not be weird.
BOBBY: That’s true, but if he wasn’t next to Kate, Kate Upton, they’d be like, who’s this neck beard guy and why is he on my red carpet? Do you remember when we, I think it was for like our five year anniversary? Or maybe our 100th episode or something? We did like a which player won their year, you know, we did that episode? And we talked about like which player was the defining baseball player of every year of the 2010s more or less. And Kershaw was like, definitely on there, like definitely in the mix. And we were talking about him a lot there. But when it comes to like baseball fame, I do feel like Kershaw is fully in the great baseball player category. But not in the famous baseball player category enough. Scherzer is like right on the line, he’s, I think he’s more in the great baseball player category of this Venn diagram than the famous baseball player category. And Verlander is like right smack in the middle. The reason that I put Sherlyn- Scherzer on here with Verlander, I must have said Sherlander.
ALEX: Sherlander?
BOBBY: I thought we’re gonna call this spot the Sherlander spot. Sherlander sounds like a, like a new Apple TV+ sci fi show. Every Thursday night at eight, Sherlander. The reason that I included Scherzer on here is because there’s like not a single member of a Major League Baseball or Minor League Baseball roster right now, who is not like Scherzer is a dude. Like every single person thinks that about him.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And not just like a dude doesn’t he’s a good baseball player. But like dude, as in like, he’s a great clubhouse guy. He’s a leader of the Players Association. He set the record for the highest contract. he’s played on multiple marquee franchises. He was the first person in the door with the Mets turnaround. Like he in the last few years has really ascended in a way that doesn’t often happen for baseball players on the back nine of their career.
ALEX: Yeah, he’s definitely got that like Joey Votto esque quality. But with the Hall of Fame pedigree to boot, right? Like–
BOBBY: With three Cy Youngs and two World Series rings.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Three Cy Youngs and one World Series ring. I almost, I gave Max Scherzer an extra ring. I, now that you mentioned Clayton Kershaw and sort of like, should Clayton Kershaw be on this list?
ALEX: Should he be on this list?
BOBBY: Anyway, we powered through, number 19, totally normal name to throw in right after Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander. Number 19 is a little dude named Bob Costas. This is one of my favorite one on the list.
ALEX: I know, and I want to, will have listeners know that I, I fought for Bob, I have to fight for Bob.
BOBBY: Well, I was down with Bob, you know. I was okay with [42:27].
ALEX: You were, you were.
BOBBY: Dude, fucking iconic when he got pink eye, he covered the Olympics anyway. Like he’s, he’s called some of the greatest moments in baseball history. He is uber famous when it comes to media. And, and facial recognition because of how often he has been on TV. He is kind of toeing the line between like his contributions coming outside of baseball. But I think because he called so many iconic playoff games. I would consider him to be baseball famous as well. But you were more of the, you were on the side of Bob. So why don’t you talk a little bit about why you felt like he needed to be in the top 20 of most famous people in the baseball world right now.
ALEX: Well, it is, I mean, it does have more to do with his historical contribution than perhaps his like immediate fame right now, right? Like–
BOBBY: Yeah. We walk into the baseball red carpet, The Art of Baseball Oscars everybody is swarming Bob Costas. Justin Verlander walks straight by the group of people–
ALEX: Well I kind of–
BOBBY: –[43:27] Costas he just mobbed.
ALEX: Wow, you’re roasting Bob. What a 28 Emmy Award winner, Bob Costas. I mean, I kind of feel the same way about him as I do the next person on this list, who’s like, contributions are probably really big. But like, at this moment in time, are certainly not the most famous person in the baseball world. But like Costas was a, you know, a sort of pioneer of baseball broadcasting has been doing it for like, literally 40 years, I believe?
BOBBY: Yeah. I mean, in, in, in general world fame terms, it’d be like, how famous do you think Walter Cronkite is? That sort of the analog to the wider world and a Wal- Walter Cronkite not, not with us anymore. But if we were doing this, at a time when Walter Cronkite was still living, we were saying who are the 100 most famous people in the United States right now? I feel like he probably, he might have made that list, you know. And so the stately voice of the game throughout several decades, I feel like does deserve to be on this list. Maybe 19 a little high. Maybe, maybe we got a little carried away by his Olympic coverage, I don’t really know.
ALEX: That Olympic coverage is goated though.
BOBBY: It’s very important, you know. Number 18, former MLB commissioner and former Milwaukee Brewers owner, Alan Huber, Selig, Bud Selig, Alex. I mean, there’s no two ways about it, he’s just, he’s super famous in baseball. He was the commissioner through some of the most controversial moments in baseball history. 1984 strike, the 2000, late 90s-2000s steroid era, the rise out of the steroid era, a near MLB contraction. He’s just like the, he’s like a cowboy, you know. He’s like, I’m, I’m just gonna do it because I’m Bud Selig.
ALEX: I, I will say, out of all the people on this list, he’s probably one of the last, if I was on that red carpet, he’s probably one of the last people I would approach. Like whose opinions I’m least interested in hearing about. Like, I’m like, you actually literally, like fundamentally don’t matter. Like what you say, really has no sway or meaning on how I consume the game. That said, it’s impossible to leave him off, as you mentioned, right? Like he is relatively influential at one point in time.
BOBBY: Do you think there’s a, a baseball fan or a remote baseball fan who’s like 17 in Idaho, who knows who Bud Selig is, but doesn’t know who Max Scherzer is?
ALEX: You know, I think probably does exist.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I think there’s, there’s a kid who is like, studying sports economics, right? He’s like a business major. Who had to learn about, I don’t know, fucking labor strife in sports history. I’m like, coming up with a class that like, I’m kind of interested in you now, you know. Like–
BOBBY: Who I don’t know, has to talk about unions.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Financial viability of the game, how owners have changed markets.
ALEX: The way that baseball tends to reflect the broader labor landscape in the US, I don’t know.
BOBBY: Hypothetically speaking. I just, I’m having second thoughts about Costas and Selig, if we’re being really honest, this high, like they seems so high. It’s like no way, there’s no way Selig is more famous than fucking Julio Rodriguez. Like, that’s just not happening.
ALEX: Yeah. Frankly, there’s no way either of them are probably more famous than most of the other people on this list.
BOBBY: Shit. Maybe they should, maybe we should move them down to like 29 and 28. I do think Bud, Bud Selig is more famous than Steve Cohen. And same with Bob Costas.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: We reserve the right to move them down in any list that we put on any social media. Up next 17, you just can’t get around this guy, no matter how hard you try. No matter how much it sucks that he is this famous for you personally as a fan. Whether it’s because it’s when he was playing, whether it’s because of his playing days, or his announcing days. This guy is everywhere, everyone knows who he is, it is John Smoltz. Hall of Fame player, Hall of Fame broadcaster, I guess. Because of how long he’s done it the. How many roles series he’s called?
ALEX: I don’t know, that feels like a bit of a participation trophy for me. But you know, that’s a conversation for another.
BOBBY: Well, then he would turn it down, I guess. I don’t think there’s like not, there’s not like two Hall of Fames, you know. Like he’s not going to into the, he’s already Hall of Fame.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: So, John Smoltz–
ALEX: Really only on here ’cause he broadcasts World Series games.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Like the only reason, has nothing to do with his personality. His, even frankly, his outsize level of fame at the time of his playing career. Like he’s almost just on here by default because he checks the boxes of, of what he should have done, right? He was like, how do I maintain relevancy? Get in the booth, talk baseball. Once again, a bit of Steve Cohen thing where it’s like, love him or hate him, you know, John Smoltz.
BOBBY: That I mean, that’s exactly where I’m like trying to think of like an analogue for him in the wider world of celebrity. Where he’s like, not really well-liked.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But keeps getting opportunities, you know. Like, who, who is that? And he’s like, not that good at those opportunities, too. Like, there, there are plenty of actors who are very famous and who people think are assholes. But like are good at acting still.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And so they keep getting movie star parts that’s like most actors if we’re being honest. But Smoltz is like who’s
ALEX: Right, but who’s, who’s the actor that’s like, disliked and not good at their job keeps getting, gets millions and millions of dollars to act in. In like blockbuster films, right? In like on like, the biggest stage.
BOBBY: For honest, if we’re being honest, he’s more like a politician. You know, who you cannot get rid of. He’s like John McCain before the presidential run.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Right? Like he’s just there all the time. And he’s like, on center stage and nobody’s, everybody kind of respects what he did in the past, I suppose. But like, we don’t really know why–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –he’s still has such a vise grip on American culture.
ALEX: I feel like he’s more like, like John Kerry in that aspect, right?
BOBBY: Oh, wow.
ALEX: We’re like, he’s, he’s an–
BOBBY: The liberal [50:06].
ALEX: –ambassador, he’s in like ambassador level where like he doesn’t actually wield any power. Like, you don’t have to pay attention to a single fucking thing he says. Because whatever he does, actually doesn’t matter.
BOBBY: Oh, man, I felt like, I feel like we got there.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Maybe he’s like a former New York City Mayor, where people like still keep giving him opportunities to talk and run for president.
ALEX: He’s Rudy Giuliani.
BOBBY: Low key, he might be Rudy Giuliani. Okay.
ALEX: Probably the same politics. Number 16?
BOBBY: This is a man, number 16 is a man who started at number 9 and just fell precipitously as we started adding more names to this list. Number 16, is Mike Trout, the best baseball player alive. He’s just not that famous. I mean, I know we talked about this all the time, and he’s more famous than people give him credit for. People act like he can walk into any supermarket in America and no one will recognize him. That is just straight up, not true.
ALEX: Not true.
BOBBY: That’s insanely wrong. He has millions of followers on social media. He has major national endorsement deals. He is the best player in baseball, every baseball fan knows who he is because he is the best player in baseball. And he’s not like unfamous, but he’s not. He’s not a celebrity. And so because he is famous and known, he is like, smack in the middle of this list more or less. But he’s like not name up and shiny lights kind of guy.
ALEX: Right. Like, I feel like for a lot of the players who follow him on this list, he’s more likely to, to walk up to them and strike up a conversation than the other way around. Which is not to say that he just doesn’t exactly have a really commanding sort of personality, where it’s like, he walks in the room and you’re like, oh, shit, Mike Trout is here.
BOBBY: I mean, I would do that if he walked in the room rignt now–
ALEX: I mean, I mean, sure, I mean–
BOBBY: –but also I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be nervous to talk to him.
ALEX: Right. Well, I also think that like, if you’re, yes, if you, if he walks into the room right now, the empty hotel room you’re sitting in, you’d be like Mike Trout is here. But if he was in a room which–
BOBBY: I mean, if anybody walked in right now, you’d be like [52:13]–
ALEX: Like oh, shit.
BOBBY: But I’m trying to potty here, Mike Trout get the fuck out of here.
ALEX: But like, he feels like the person who like most like if I was in a room with all of these people, he would be the one who–
BOBBY: Who would go to last?
ALEX: –maybe not go to last, but I’d look around and be like, where’s Trout? And someone would be like, oh, he’s been here for like, half an hour. And I’d be like, ohhh, fuck, okay.
BOBBY: He’s on the phone, he’s on his phone watching the weather channel. Mike Trout is famous, like, let’s, let’s–
ALEX: Yeah, he’s, he’s–
BOBBY: –we can, we can stop with this whole like Mike Trout, is it anonymous? Nobody! Mike Trout is less recognizable than fucking Jared Carrabis or whatever people say like, let’s stop with this stuff. Like this is, it has–
ALEX: Really, really just spoiling our number 15 pick.
BOBBY: I really liked Mike Trout.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He’s like, I just want to hoop I just want to play ball. He’s like–
ALEX: He’s just like a big Eagles fan, you know?
BOBBY: Don’t you think that like, in my mind, him and Kevin Durant are not that different, as, as people and as figures in their respective sports. But the NBA makes stars in a way that baseball just doesn’t. And Kevin Durant has, like, authentically himself, even when himself is like a, a weird super online guy who is like amazing at Twitter and sometimes has burners, and sometimes goes to the Warriors, and sometimes goes to the Nets. Like he is authentically himself, but honestly, like not striving for celebrity and stardom. And I think that Mike Trout like be the exact same way. I just think that more people have a star making relationship with basketball than they do with baseball. So I don’t know why we talk about Mike Trout like he is just some farmer in Indiana. Like he’s famous! What are we talking about?
ALEX: I would appreciate if you could get better at Twitter. Like KD has some things to teach him 100%.
BOBBY: KD could teach you and me how to get better at Twitter.
ALEX: I know, I know.
BOBBY: Like he’s in the 1% of the 1%. Like it doesn’t get much better than that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: All right, we’re at the midway point of our list, Alex. So I want to take a slight detour here, is that okay with you?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We’re gonna detour to someone who we could not justify getting on the list, but just fucking felt like talking about anyway. Because he is and was directly in the baseball world. And you know what? He’s more famous than anybody on this list. His name is the former owner of the Texas Rangers, his name is George W. Bush.
ALEX: That’s right!
BOBBY: So the reason that he can’t be on this list is because in our hypothetical, Red Carpet Oscars Baseball, Baseball Oscars event, they would send him the invite, and he definitely would not come. So he’s not really in the baseball world anymore. But he is fuck- he was the fucking President of the United States, he own the Texas Rangers. So like he is a baseball guy. He’s in and around the game, still-ish.
ALEX: Right. As far as like famous fans go, like I slightly more famous than Emma Stone, no shade.
BOBBY: Only slightly.
ALEX: Certainly more famous than Myles [55:09].
BOBBY: Dfinitely more famous than Jerry Seinfeld. What does George W. Bush mean to you, personally, in or out of baseball? Do you wish he was more involved in, in, in baseball?
ALEX: You know, that’s, that’s tough, because I do think his contributions to the game were unparalleled, right? I mean, and do you remember the time he threw out the, the first pitch after 9/11–
BOBBY: I mean, how could I not?
ALEX: –Yankee stadium? I mean, like that was crazy.
BOBBY: Star making moment. He fired in the dark, bro.
ALEX: I was like, wow, this guy, this guys got the goods.
BOBBY: He’s got the goods. He could have been the one. Wow, they should have just made him Commissioner. Then he’d be like number 3 on this list. Because he probably still would be Commissioner, he would have had nothing–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –better to do with his life. That would have been like, okay, I’ve achieved a level of success that is acceptable to my family. I don’t need to go run for President.
ALEX: Once again, we keep coming up with these sort of butterfly effects on this podcast.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That somehow end up with like George Bush not being president. Like they usually hinge on with the Iraq war have happened. If his hypothetical that we’re talking about on our leftist baseball podcast came true.
BOBBY: I mean, if we’re being honest, isn’t, isn’t the president of our lifetimes who feels most tenuous and could have done something else and been replaced by any number of politicians, George Bush? Like that–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –he was the one who felt least one foot in one foot out of The Oval Office, like come on.
ALEX: Right. Yeah, if you’re acting like he was the one calling the shots, right? He’s like–
BOBBY: He was barely even [56:44]. He was just vibing, he was just vibing out doing his thing.
ALEX: He was just, yeah. I–
BOBBY: I can see it on your face, you’re trying so hard after bringing up the first for [56:55] and you’re trying so hard not to make a Bush 9/11 joke.
ALEX: No! I would never, that’s low hanging fruit for conspiracy theorists.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I think–
BOBBY: We’ve moved well beyond that.
ALEX: I think Bush did the balloons in the last few weeks.
BOBBY: He do. To what end? Like what do you think he was trying to accomplish?
ALEX: I think he’s just a big balloon guy in his little, his little group bunch of them that he was holding on to, like flew away–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you know?
BOBBY: They grew, they tripled in size. Trying to find a way to connect this back to him becoming the commissioner of baseball. Like maybe he’s trying to sow discord in the United States. And a,s as we see chaos unfold in our institutions die and one of those institutions being Major League Baseball and they asked Rob Manfred because he can’t handle the pressure of being commissioner of baseball with the balloon crisis, with the, with the aliens coming down to earth. But you know, who can? A man who has held higher office. A man who has studied a nation who needed studying. And that’s not Rudy Giuliani, Mayor of America, that’s George Bush, we’re going one level higher.
ALEX: He should have bounced it.
BOBBY: He should have bounced the pitch, try to induce chase. He doesn’t know about trying to induce chase. We weren’t talking about that early 2000s. Like he was grooving it, bro.
ALEX: Like wow, you can throw a 60-mile per hour fastball down the middle, that’s crazy!
BOBBY: We, we, we, we get the time machine and we don’t use it to go back to like stop any tragic activities in human history. We go, we use it to go back to sit in the front row at Yankee Stadium. We threw that pitch out like no rise on that one that one is getting punished. The vertical drop on that fastball, you’re cooked, bro.
ALEX: Like I’m sorry, I think we should demand more from our commanders-in-chief, yeah.
BOBBY: You ever heard about tunneling, George?
ALEX: Like you got the time, what else was he doing?
BOBBY: You should have been reading that Bill James. Wouldn’t have thrown that, we should out there. He throw it [58:53], bro. We gotta get some movement off that bad boy. That thing is straight as an arrow.
ALEX: Talk about the 15 more famous A-Listers in baseball.
BOBBY: I’m just gonna keep going until you stop me, so, yes. Number 15, Barry Bonds, he’s the home run king. Everybody knows who he is, Barry Bonds.
ALEX: Right. Just slightly more than George Bush.
BOBBY: No, George Bush is the only, he’s one of one people on this list in the astral plane. But he’s not on this list in this reality. So–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –he, he is both the most famous and not on this list at all. But 15 is Barry Bonds, he is very much on this list of that we construct it because he’s Barry Bonds. Probably would have been the greatest baseball player ever had his crew not been mired in controversy the entire time. Like universally accepted as the greatest baseball player ever. I still think he like–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –maybe is, but that’s a conversation–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –for a different podcast.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, that’s kind of when we were talking about it, right? It’s like, I mean, he holds the record of one of the more unbreakable records in Major League Baseball history.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And he did it like within our lifetimes, right? This is–
BOBBY: Right, like you can fire up YouTube right now, and you can watch everything he [1:00:03]–
ALEX: [1:00:03]
BOBBY: –career, and I think a lot of people still do.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Like I think he deserves to be on there, kind of just by virtue of that. Despite the fact that he’s also someone who was not a very good person.
BOBBY: Yeah, he sucks.
ALEX: And not particularly well-liked.
BOBBY: And like not really in the public eye anymore. Except for like–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –his relationship to being like a hitting coach for a little while. But like, in terms of celebrity, like you don’t–
ALEX: Not particularly good one.
BOBBY: Yeah, you don’t hear interviews with him all that often. He’s not on TV all that often. But I mean, let’s be honest, like you break the most iconic record in American sports history. You are on the list of the 30 most famous people on the [1:00:39]–
ALEX: He kind of disappear after that, you don’t have to do anything else.
BOBBY: Exactly. Like if Babe Ruth was alive, he’ll be on this list, spoiler alert.
ALEX: Right. Yeah, even if he was fucking selling cars–
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: –you know? Poster time.
BOBBY: And let’s be honest, he probably wouldn’t be selling cars if he had been alive in this era and then retired. Number 14, kind of in a similar- in a similar vein in terms of career accomplishments, longevity, absurd legacy as a player. But much more well liked and more recent, so more famous still, I think, and that’s Albert Pujols. Do we need to justify why Albert Pujols is in the top 15 of the most famous baseball player, the most famous baseball people alive?
ALEX: No, we absolutely don’t. And one of the ones who like sneaky is famous outside of baseball. Like not necessarily to non baseball fans, but like has a profile and could hold the cord among non baseball celebrities, right? Like he’s associated with Roc Nation, Jay-Z’ brand, right? Was like at the Super Bowl with the whole Roc Nation team. Like, as you mentioned, is really famous in that Barry Bonds vein of career accomplishments. But also has that sort of interest in glad handing and rubbing elbows with other famous people. Like has, has managed to kind of work his way into that lower to mid echelon of like, celebrities who just hang out with other celebrities.
BOBBY: If someone walked up–
ALEX: And he’s the Albert Pujols to fucking boot.
BOBBY: Right, exactly. He’s like, greatest right-handed hitter ever, I don’t know. Maybe there’s somebody better on him better than him on this list ahead of him that we will talk about soon. If someone walked up to me on the street, like Billy on the Street interview style and just yelled, who was the Elder Statesman of baseball? I think I would say Albert pools like pressured to just decide really quickly and not think too hard about it, I would say Albert Pujols. And that’s for a number of reasons, like up into this point on the list, the only Latin baseball players, the only Latino baseball players that we’ve talked about, are Julio and Juan Soto. Who are extremely young still and have had not, have not had the time to make the impact and rise their level of fame that Albert Pujols’ has had. And I think that’s like nothing that, I think has not to be ignored. He is like, not just the Elder Statesman of the United States baseball world, but kind of the Elder Statesman of the entire, of this hemispheres entire baseball world, do you know what I mean? And that means something to way more than just like how we conceptualize fame within the context of Major League Baseball.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, as you, you know, you mentioned the kind of international profile. And that really starts to play really heavily into some of these players as we get further and further to number one is like yes, they are, they are famous in Major League Baseball in the United States. But their fame extends far beyond that. And some of, and as you go outside the United States, some of these players are like, celebrities in their own right, like in their own country, right. Like–
BOBBY: Like real celebrities [1:03:50]
ALEX: –like, like actual, actual A-List celebrities in that context.
BOBBY: Number 13, Alex, I might have overrated him, I might have, I might have juice, juice the numbers a little bit here. Number 13 is Francisco Lindor. I don’t know, am I crazy? Like, isn’t he super famous, like wild famous?
ALEX: I mean, I mean I–
BOBBY: –he’s, because he’s the face of the New York Mets, who are an Ascended team in Major League Baseball. Even before he was with the New York Mets, he was kind of like a general face of baseball that we talked about a lot. Cleveland maybe did not make him the level of star that he made himself but like he was huge. When he was with Cleveland, he performed on in one of the most viewed world series of all time, the 2016 World Series. And now he’s like a, he’s kind of like a, a model. He’s like a fashion style icon. He is, he has brand endorsement deals with gigantic menswear brands, with New Balance. He’s the face of New Balance as a, as an athletic wear company. He’s one of the most followed athletes on social media or one of the most followed baseball players on social media. He has a lot of famous friends, too. I mean, we might have moved him a little too high just because I’ve really liked him. And he is like ascendant as opposed to some of these other people who are in this level, in this echelon of the list that we’re talking about here. And that might have juiced his numbers a little bit, too. But, I don’t know, I feel like he’s worthy of being in the top half of this list. Maybe he’s a little bit too high above Pujols and Bonds. But I don’t know, what do you think?
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, he feels one step beyond the guys like Soto and Rodriguez, right? Like the, the sort of one and future kings of the game, the rising faces of the sport. I do think there’s probably some bias on our end, because we just love Francisco Lindor, right? And he’s always a top draft picked in our, in our All-GIF Draft. He’s a positive force for the game. I feel like he is visible outside of baseball, but in these really sort of unique ways, right? Like he does like a David Yurman ad, right? Or like, he has a GQ spread, you know, like–
BOBBY: I got news for you, a lot of people–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –buy David Yurman, a lot of people read GQ.
ALEX: I know! I know- my, yes, I know. That’s, but that’s what I’m saying, right? It’s like he’s in these like unique spaces that are not related to baseball at all that do have a high level of consumption. But I do wonder like, like, how much crossover appeal does he have the space? Like are people who bought who already buy David Yurman, being like, oh, shit, Francisco Lindor endorses David Yurman? Like, go!
BOBBY: I don’t know, I think uhm, I think he’s kind of like David Beckham, you know. And I think that, I think he’s like the closest thing we have to David Beckham right now. He’s like legitimately great at his sport. He’s becoming somewhat of a style icon. He’s like, his face is splashed all over advertisements and magazines. And he lives in the media capital of the world. And, I don’t know, I think he’s just going to continue to get more and more famous. He’s going to be with the Mets for like, 10 more years, which by the way, is fucking awesome. So cool. So dope. So excited. He’s probably gonna play for the Mets when I have a kid, think about that. Think about that, put that thinking.
ALEX: I had I, frankly, rather not think about that. That’s a lot to think [1:07:25]–
BOBBY: Who’s gonna be playing for the A’s when you have a kid? Nobody on this roster. God willing.
ALEX: I mean, yeah, they’re, they’re not going to be an Oakland by that time.
BOBBY: That’s true.
ALEX: Hopefully, we won’t have to think about it. I feel good about this, maybe a little high. But I’m, I think he’s certainly one of the most recognizable active players right now, and that counts for something.
BOBBY: Yeah. Number 12, kind of like the polar opposite of what we just talked about with Lindor. Number 12 is Willie Mays. Who, we talked about Elder Statesman and legacy in the game, he’s like on baseball’s Mount Rushmore. He is one of the best players to ever play the game. And pretty universally beloved as being like, as taking the torch from the 20s and 30s story era of the game into the modern era. He’s like the first modern, he’s like one of the first modern superstar archetypes. And has it just had decades and decades and decades for more baseball fans to discover how unbelievable he was as a baseball player. And I think that that longevity and snowball effect means that he is high, high, high on this list.
ALEX: Yeah, as you mentioned, his, I think Mays has a really long sort of cultural tail, and legacy that he leaves. Again, he’s another player who, after his playing career, really kind of faded into the background, right? It was very content, working with baseball teams behind the scenes. But like, he is still one of the greatest living baseball players right now. Like without a doubt, like, it’s like maybe Bonds than him? Question mark?
BOBBY: Yeah. I mean, Willie Mays may vary on how highly you rate Bonds because of the steroids, but, yeah.
ALEX: Of course, yeah. But, but point being like, and I also do feel like he more than maybe some of the other players, more than some of the other retired players, we considered, actually still holds a little cultural cachet. You know, like he has the famous catch, right? He, I think still gets talked about. And like his, he still holds records to the point where people will compare current players to him, right? So his picture still pops up in MLB Network graphics and now that sort of thing. And so for accessing a younger generation using him as a sort of North Star of baseball greats, I think that’s still really important. I think it’s why he hasn’t really left the conversation quite yet.
BOBBY: I agree. 156 career WAR, for Willie Mays. 162 for Barry Bonds, only 117 for A-Rod. I mean, that’s, that’s a sizable gap between those–
ALEX: What’s, what’s, uh, what’s George Bush’s?
BOBBY: Off the charts, bro.
ALEX: Probably higher.
BOBBY: Off the charts. Okay, let’s move on. We gotta, we gotta speed through these last 10, which is funny, because these are the people we probably should have saved the most time for, but that’s okay. Number 11, Rob Manfred. Rob Manfred, is he the worst person at being famous on this list?
ALEX: Yeah, but that’s because I don’t think he has any interest in it, right? Like, it doesn’t really serve him any purpose to be famous. Like, I think the less visible he is, the better he’s doing his job.
BOBBY: Yeah, but like that, theoretically, should be the case with Bud Selig, too. But Bud Selig wanted to be famous, and Rob Manfred’s does not. And I think, you know, through the sheer force of Manfred being Commissioner at this current moment, everybody knows who the baseball commissioner is who is in the baseball community. And he’s always out there, he’s always saying something stupid. He’s always creating a controversy that wasn’t there. So that people are talking about let’s fire Rob Manfred’s, let’s pla- replace Rob Manfred. They’re making Rob Manfred the face of baseballs changes, mostly for worse. And I think that makes him incredibly famous and so funny.
ALEX: I mean–
BOBBY: That he’s on this list between the two people that he is, I can’t wait to talk about this next.
ALEX: It is funny, because he doesn’t really do anything to counteract his narrative, right? Which means, again, the only prevailing narratives out there, right, are the changes he wants to make to the game. The way he stonewalls the players, right? The fact where he calls the World Series trophy a chunk of metal, right?
BOBBY: The fact [1:12:05] sucks at interviews, like.
ALEX: Right, the fact that, he had to like go out and say, my shirt saying, I’m a really big fan of baseball is raising a lot of questions already answered by my shirt. You know, it’s like, I, I would get it tattooed on my forehead if I could, right? Like–
BOBBY: God! We [1:12:26]–
ALEX: [1:12:26] forgotten about? We really, really don’t, right? But again, it’s like, because there’s so many of these moments where–
BOBBY: I mean, don’t you think he, he could go get a tattoo on his forehead? That’s a bad quote. There’s nothing really preventing him from getting a tatoo on his forehead. Someone, whoever was talking to him at that moment should have been like, prove it, do it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You won’t, fucking baby.
ALEX: Yeah, what’s stopping you?
BOBBY: Do it, right now, Google nearest tattoo shop.
ALEX: Depending on the time of year, he may be the person that everyone wants to talk to at a given moment–
BOBBY: That’s true.
ALEX: –right? Like, are we holding a red carpet events in December 2021? He’s being sworn, right?
BOBBY: Okay, number 10. Right ahead of Rob Manfred is one Ichiro Suzuki. Ichiro is so famous, bro. And he’s someone that I didn’t think of immediately, because he has kind of receded from the public eye quite a bit. There was a great profile of him a couple of years ago, detailing what his life is like right now. And spoiler alert, it’s still him being incredibly routine oriented and loving the game of baseball and wanting to keep playing the game of baseball, as he was throughout his entire life and career, both in Japan and in Major League Baseball. He’s one of the coolest people on this list. he’s one of the most beloved highest approval rating people on this list. And he is more or less like a cultural god in his native country of Japan. And so I don’t see a way in which we make a list of internationally famous people in the baseball community and Ichiro is not in the top 10.
ALEX: He is so beloved within the game of baseball, like he feels like the Joey Votto feels like in a sense, like he’s Ichiro’s protege a little bit. This sort of unique style of baseball player that maybe is increasingly hard to find. And yet the thing that makes him stand out the most is usually the things that he’s talking about.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like Ichiro is an exceptionally funny dude. Like he is really just a funny guy. And will like play pranks on his teammates. Also has a litany of like, viral commercials or like TV spots–
BOBBY: Uh-huh, yeah.
ALEX: –that he’s done–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you know,
BOBBY: And the other thing about Ichiro is that he’s such a stylistically iconic player. The bat to ball skills coming over and being, like one of the most anticipated international prospects of all time, if not the most anticipated international prospect of all time. Maybe other than another guy who was on this list. And immediately delivering and becoming the best hitter in baseball for a long time. Like that made him such a powerful cultural force. And, I mean, I don’t I don’t feel like we need to convince anybody about Ichiro. I do feel like we might need to convince people about the next person on this list, because he seems a little high now after having talks about these other guys. Number 9 is Mookie Betts, who is insanely famous, insanely beloved, plays in Los Angeles. I think is the only Dodger or Dodgers associated person who we put on this list. But, but Mookie, number 9, is in the right spot?
ALEX: Upon reflection, he may be a little high. And this is kind of what I was saying to you before we started recording, right. Is that I feel like a lot of the contemporary players are really hard to place because it’s impossible to judge their legacy, right? And their, their fame is all so relative, that like, who’s more famous versus, you know, between Trout versus Betts versus Lindor, versus- you know, like, like, I feel like they all occupy the same space of baseball fans minds. And then it’s like, yes, they’re one of the best players right now. And also make very little waves outside the game of baseball.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But it would feel like an oversight to leave someone like Mookie Betts off, right? Who is still one of the most recognizable players right now has played in two of the biggest markets, right?
BOBBY: Boston media mafia coming out of you right there.
ALEX: That’s right, yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah, I don’t–
ALEX: I know John Henry [1:16:58] here.
BOBBY: I don’t know. I’m certainly, I’m second guessing this. I’m second guessing, both Lindor and The Mookie spots. And I’m wondering if they should be 15 and 14, and everyone else who we talked about, and since George Bush should just move up a spot. What do you think about that? List editing in real time. Like is Mookie Betts more famous than Rob Manfred? Maybe he is, I don’t know. Maybe we should do a poll in the listeners. Let’s just leave it as is, Mookie at 9. He’s not more famous than Ichiro, he’s just not.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Alright, let’s swap him in each row at least. Okay, Mookie Betts a 10, Rob Manfred. 11 Mookie Betts 10, Ichiro 9. We’re gonna get hate either way. Number 8, this is a guy who I feel pretty strongly about at number 8. And I feel good about where we have at Pedro Martinez. He’s on TV all the time, he’s probably the greatest right handed pitcher ever. He is a star and behaves like a star. He’s probably one of the first people that we’ve gotten to on this list, and everybody above him is going to be in the same boat. Where it’s like, you look at him, and you think that is the star who knows he’s a star and knows how to act like a star. And comports himself in every interaction like a star. And everybody treats him that way because of that. And that, that is how I feel about Pedro. And also, I love, I love Pedro, I love Pedro so much.
ALEX: I mean, he just has so many star caliber moments, right? Like, like the kind of moments that we wish baseball headboard have, right? That we look to basketball and say, why can’t we cultivate this sort of vibe? Like Martinez was bringing it. Like this is a guy who has a memorable game sectionals Wikipedia with like 15 different entries–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you know.
BOBBY: When we did our watch along with Sean Doolittle, the early days of the pandemic, when we were watching along old games on YouTube, we had settled that we wanted to do a Pedro game. But it like wasn’t obvious amongst seven different things that we could have done which Pedro game we were going to do. And then finally, Sean had to be like, why don’t we just do the relief game? That’s like the most unique out of all of his other performance. Like, every other performance is like yeah, he mowed down 20 dudes because he’s Pedro. But this relief game was weird at least so we could talk about it that way. Yeah, he’s, he’s fucking Pedro. He’s Pedro.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Alright, let’s do number 7.
ALEX: Number 7, distinction belongs to one, Bryce Aron Max Harper.
BOBBY: The fact that he has two middle names in there, Aron and Max, it just–
ALEX: I know, and Aron has one A.
BOBBY: Bryce Harper is a, is a star has been a star more or less his whole life. He’s a phenom, he delivered on that phenomenal talent. He’s like, I mean baseball is not basketball and so he’s not LeBron, but he’s like have followed the Lebron career trajectory. Now obviously, LeBron is way more famous and has done way more with his fame than someone like Bryce Harper.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But I do think that it’s, I do, I do feel pretty, certifiably confident that he is in the right spot.
ALEX: Oh, yeah, I think he’s one of the top 10 most famous baseball people right now, kind of no matter how you cut it. I mean, a few years ago, there’s probably a case for him being in like the top three. And I think maybe that has only changed by virtue of the narrative around him cooling a little bit and some other players kind of coming up and rising to that same level of fame. But like, as far as the person who has had the most consistent, ongoing narrative over the last like decade, Bryce is the, the one.
BOBBY: Number 6 is Ken Griffey Jr., who was like Bryce before Bryce, you know. At a time when you could get more famous as a baseball player, the, the ’90s was like the peak of baseball on TV and everybody had any accessibility to the game. But he obviously did it in a completely different way than Bryce Harper. Like he came in and he was like the cool laid back smooth dude with a lot of swagger that upset a lot of people. And that, I mean, that’s true of Bryce in some ways, like his ultra competitiveness and his backflips and his arguing with the umpires and his eye black. But Ken Griffey Jr. is like a cultural reset on baseball. And he is like one of the coolest people to ever play baseball, and he still remains in the game. He works in the front office, or he works in the commissioner’s office right now. He has never stopped being famous. And at the peak of his powers was, I mean, there’s not a lot of baseball players who have ever been better than him. But there are definitely are not a lot of baseball players who have ever been cooler than him. So he is unbelievably famous.
ALEX: Yeah, as you said it was a cultural reset. I mean, his, his impact is still being, I mean, he’s still being put on the cover of MLB: The Show–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –you know, like, a decade after he retired.
BOBBY: What are the things that you do in baseball? You throw it, you catch it, you hit it? Those three things. He is the one who you choose to show how you hit a baseball. His swing is the most iconic swing in baseball history. If you’re showing someone what it looks like for someone to have a beautiful swing, it’s Ken Griffey Jr. And I think that that is not to be underrated, as we talk about Ken Griffey Jr.
ALEX: He also I think, has the sort of mass appeal, right? Like he can appeal to the older generation of baseball fans who are like–
BOBBY: They don’t make them like that anymore.
ALEX: Exactly. Like hard nosed, you know, like–
BOBBY: Runs into the, runs through wall.
ALEX: –he didn’t, he didn’t want days off. He wasn’t a millionaire, who was asking to take a quarter of the season off, you know. He, he played and yet at the same time, those same people would–
BOBBY: What is he [1:22:58]
ALEX: –would get mad at him for saying not, not he doesn’t play the game the right way. So, but again, they’re thinking about him, right? He’s living rent free, no matter, no matter how.
BOBBY: One thing with Ken Griffey Jr, is that he fucking hated the Yankees. and he said he would never play for the Yankees.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And he carried that vendetta with him his whole career. Ironically, for this list, if he had said I’m gonna go play with the Yankees, he would be far and away number 1. Like it wouldn’t even be close with a boy he would be number 1.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But it makes him way cooler to be number 6 and hate the Yankees. So congratulations to Ken Griffey Jr. Number 5 is another person who hated the Yankees during his career, that is David Ortiz, Big Papi. That guy is on TV a lot. That guy is funny, that guy is charismatic.
ALEX: He’s around.
BOBBY: That guy had an iconic career, that guy played in a huge market. He’s talking about Elder Statesman father figure of Dominican baseball, Big Papi. He’s just, he’s huge. He’s, he’s, Big Papi. Like he is, uhm, I texted, I texted some consultants for this episode. I will reveal now and like almost two hours into this podcast recording. Clinton Yates, former guests of this podcast. And Jake Mintz, part of Cespedes Family BBQ, former guests of this podcast. Both of them immediately said Big Papi and two other people who are coming up on this list. So I think that that means that David Ortiz has to be in the top five.
ALEX: Yeah, no doubt. And he’s someone who sort of was able to skirt around the PED allegations that, that kind of arose at one point in his career. I think simply because of like, how beloved he kind of was–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you know. Like, for a lot of other players that might be a black mark on their career accomplishments. And I think for a lot of people, it’s like, yeah, but like he’s Big Papi, you know, like–
BOBBY: Yeah. [1:24:45]–
ALEX: –what are you gonna do? like, I don’t really, I don’t need to know the answer.
BOBBY: Let’s uhm, I want to talk about Big Papi, I mean, we need to move on, because we have the, the top four to talk about after this. And there will be some debate between number 3 and number 2 that I think will be healthy for us to have on this show to try to confront some of our biases. But really quickly on Papi, career wise, like him and Jim Thome are not that different. I mean, Papi had more big moments in playoffs, in the playoffs to like vault his stardom a little bit. Which just goes to show how much of a force of personality he is, as a human being. And how beloved he is, and what he has done for growing the game, through his charisma and through his palpable love for the sport. Like Jim told me, spoiler alert, did not come up in our conversation for making this list. But like, in terms of career accomplishment, and impact, like those are guys whose careers are relatively similar if Jim Thome’s might even be better than Big Papi is. And so like, I think that that speaks for me a little bit to why he is this, this high on this list in terms of fame. Okay, number 4, Aaron Judge, face the New York Yankees, 62 home runs last year. Clean cut beloved, the, the biggest Yankees since Jeter. I, I don’t really have a lot else to say about him. He’s not that interesting when it comes to fame, but he is objectively very famous,
ALEX: Famous. Yeah. He’s very well known. Again, it’s like if you, if he’s not playing in New York, he probably does not make this list.
BOBBY: He doesn’t even sniff this list if he’s not playing in New York, even if he hit 62 home runs. You know who’s not on this list? Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, like, but Aaron Judge is, I mean, obviously, part of that is because it’s in the moment, if we did this list in 1997, those guys would be on the list. But–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –nothing about his career specifically, or his media personality, or like anything he’s done in the public eye makes him famous, other than the fact that he’s super tall and hits tanks for the New York Yankees. Like that’s, that’s it, it’s [1:26:56].
ALEX: Right, and, and if we’re, if we’re making this list in like, 10 or 15 years, like there’s–
BOBBY: He’s not on the list.
ALEX: –a chance that he’s not on the list.
BOBBY: Like, unless he goes on to be the manager of the Yankees, it just seems unlikely–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –he’s not gonna be on the list. But right now he’s–
ALEX: 700 home runs, like.
BOBBY: [1:27:10] too old to do that. Aaron Judge sneaky like 30, like already.
ALEX: Yup, uh-huh. He’s gonna talk late.
BOBBY: He’s like four full seasons, he’s 30. Okay, we have come to what I think is the biggest toss up on the list. So much so that we wrote it in as a combined number 3 and number 2, so we’re just gonna talk about these guys together, as they have been linked for their entire careers. It is Derek Jeter, and the mascot of this podcast, Alex Rodriguez. Initial thoughts, what do you, what do you think? I have to kind of know who you’re leaning but I think I lean–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –the other way.
ALEX: I know, I think you do, too. I think at this moment in time, Alex Rodriguez is the more famous person. Like kind of without a doubt. Like Jeter in his prime kind of had the visibility of the New York media and probably beats out A-Rod for the list. Especially because, you know, he’s kind of the boy wonder, he’s the clean cut analog to, to A-Rod’s sort of little more villainous personality. But everything that has happened in the years since, I think kind of vaults A-Rod up that list.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right? I mean, so he has the, the, I will say, and I know this is not the entire consideration. He has far and away the biggest social media following of anyone on this list, of anyone on lists. He was almost twice as many followers as the next closest person.
BOBBY: Is that true, on, on the entire list? He has twice as many followers as anyone else on this list? That’s amazing.
ALEX: Yeah, if we’re going to Instagram.
BOBBY: Okay, sure, his preferred platform, clearly.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: That’s where he creates his best content than YouTube. Yeah, that’s very [1:28:58]–
ALEX: I just he has he, it does he has just wormed his way into so much visibili–
BOBBY: I know.
ALEX: –like we cannot escape him, right? To the point where he has infiltrated another sport, right? Like probably maybe owns the apartment I live in through some shell company–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you know Like, my life is inextricably linked to his.
BOBBY: The tabloid, JLo relationship is huge like–
ALEX: Exactly, yeah.
BOBBY: –uhhh, you’re right. In, in many ways, it feels like Alex Rodriguez his post playing career has been an intentional thought out plan to become more famous than Derek Jeter. And so when we talk about these two together, like it almost feels disrespectful to suggest that he has not put in the work to become more famous than Derek Jeter. But at the same time, I find it kind of funny to say that he’s still not more famous than Derek.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: If they were walking down the street together on opposite sides of the street. and there were 100 people in the middle of the street. How many people would go to Jeter and how many people would go to A-Rod?
ALEX: I mean, that spray tan would stand out from a mile away, you know, like–
BOBBY: I still kind of feel like 55 people might go talk to Jeter and 45 people might go talk to A-Rod. Now for certain we would go talk to A-Rod like I don’t think that–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –anything interesting that Jeter would say to you and I. But damn, it’s that close, you know, like
ALEX: This is that because 55 people like don’t know who A-Rod is or they know who he is–
BOBBY: And they don’t want to talk to him.
ALEX: –and have to avoiding him.
BOBBY: Great point, great! See? This is why we talk about it this, this is why we all get through. I think you’re right, I think Jeter number 3, who, who I feel so confident is more famous than Aaron Judge. Like that, that is just an–
ALEX: Without a doubt.
BOBBY: –easy call. Jeter number 3, A-Rod number 2. Are you sure you A-Rod not number 1? I don’t know. Number 1 is the wonder kid of the baseball world. The most famous baseball player currently playing baseball when we talk about an international scope. It’s Shohei Ohtani. And, you know, for all of the criteria that we’ve named so far, who would everybody approach on a red carpet? I mean, I think a ton of people would approach Ohtani, I think more people would go up to him than A-Rod and Jeter, I think that is true. Same thing for Aaron Judge, same thing for you know, even Lindor and all of these other players on this list, Bryce Harper. I do think the thing that is kind of like the final nail in the coffin for why Ohtani is more famous than all these other people is, if you put up any brand in the entire world, and you said choose one of the people on this list to do an endorsement deal for you, every single one of those people would choose Ohtani. I mean, they’re like select few brands that maybe like makes more sense for Jeter to endorse it or for whatever reason. But like, if they all had their druthers, it’s Ohtani. Because he is an international sensation. He is like boyband famous in all–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –of Asia. And that is like not something that you can say about anyone else on this list in any country, even in the United States. Like he just he clears, he clears them all, in my opinion.
ALEX: I completely agree. Like, I think if A-Rod and Ohtani are out there on a red carpet, the, a lot of the other celebrities might flock to a guy like A-Rod, and all of the fans are going to Ohtani.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like without a doubt, right? Like he has the mass appeal. Like A-Rod has worked really hard to like make himself an A-Lister, as you were saying. And so he knows the right people, right? He’s got Tom Brady’s contact info, fucking whatever. No one actually wants to have a meaningful conversation with him.
BOBBY: Except us.
ALEX: But I would like to sit down with Shohei Ohtani. Well, yes.
BOBBY: He want to have a meaningful conversation with him.
ALEX: We are not exactly representative of the, the average baseball fan–
BOBBY: I just think it’s really big of us–
ALEX: [1:32:43] stay confidently.
BOBBY: –it’s just really, it’s really big of us to put someone above A-Rod on this list.
ALEX: I know. Well, initially, initially I said A-Rod number 1, hands down. And, and we talked about it and I feel very confident that Ohtani is like, as you said, checks all the box. Like Ralph Lauren is not going to Alex Rodriguez and saying–
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: –can you, can you model this $2,000 jacket for us?
BOBBY: I mean, they might have been like 2004. But guess what, we’re doing this list in 2023. And so I think right now, Ohtoni clears A-Rod. And also like, there is a level of like smitheness with Ohtani that does not exist for anyone else on this list. Like I peop- I think people, he like makes people weak in the knees. Like not just because he is an extremely handsome, attractive, very successful, and soon to be extremely rich baseball player. But because he is like, mythological in what he does. He’s just like doing a different thing in terms of fame. And I, I don’t–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –think that it’s really comparable, honestly, for to the other people on this list.
ALEX: No, I agree, I mean, he’s in another world as it relates to current baseball players, absolutely, right? Because he’s just, the skills that he’s displaying are just something that are foreign to most baseball fans, like ever.
BOBBY: Yeah. Shohei Ohtani, congratulations, you’ve won the arbitrary title.
ALEX: You are A-Lister, let’s go!
BOBBY: The A-Lister for the Tipping Pitches podcast. We really don’t have any time for honorable mentions, but I’ll just read off this list of people who we discussed and determine. just didn’t quite make it. Rickey Henderson, CC Sabathia, Ronald Acuña Jr., Fernando Tatis Jr., Andrew McCutchen. I mentioned McGwire, and Canseco, and of course Marlins Man, you were advocating for him to be in the top five, Marlins Man, he’s everywhere.
ALEX: Right. I was number one. I was.
BOBBY: I really, I pushed really, really hard for my favorite member of baseball media, that’s Buster Olney. I just think–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –everybody flocked to Buster. I mean, fuck Shohei Ohtani–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like we’re going, we’re going to Buster.
ALEX: I mean, we, we decided that if you couldn’t have, if I couldn’t have Jomboy on there, you couldn’t have Buster on there.
BOBBY: I’m not going to say anything to that. Thank you to everybody for listening. Please do not inbox me. I mean, you can inbox me but please do not just like nitpick our list for an hour in our inbox. I’m, I’m open to good faith arguments for why some people should be higher or lower. But uhm, guess what? We made the list so that people would react to the list and have a fun time listening to us talk about the list, that’s a spoiler. Anything else to add, Alex?
ALEX: No, I don’t think so. If, if you’re too worried about DMing Bobby, your thoughts, you can DM them to, to me, which I don’t check very often as it is. So rest assure if you want to get your thoughts out there without worrying that anyone’s gonna see it.
BOBBY: No, you can call our voicemail if you really want everybody to hear your thoughts 785-422-5881. You can Slack us, if you’re in the Slack, you have to be a patron to do that. To become a patron, go to patreon.com/tippingpitches. That’s honestly the place that we’re most likely to see your thoughts about this list. So if you really are feeling strongly about getting them out, and having them received by the people who made this probably bad list in retrospect, and cursed list when thinking about George Bush being in the middle of it, please sign up for the Slack. Please sign up for the Patreon so that you can get access to the Slack. Unless you have anything else to add to this very, very long podcast. I will say thank you to everybody for listening, and we will be back next week.
[1:36:32]
[Music]
[1:36:48]
[Outro]
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello everybody, I’m Alex Rodriguez, Tipping Pitches, Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most, Tipping Pitches. So we’ll see you next week. See ya!
Transcriptionist: Vernon Bryann Casil
Editor: Krizia Marrie Casil
Tipping Pitches 
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