Alex and Bobby discuss Michael Kay’s reflexive nihilism in response to being mildly criticized, then revive Three Up, Three Down to talk about some of the happenings around the league this week, including MLB loosening beer cutoffs due to shorter game times, Rob Manfred’s streaming pitch to fans, a possum haunting the Oakland broadcast booth, Jim Bowden’s misguided perspective on contract opt-outs, and more.
Links:
Michael Kay has some words for his critics
Evan Drellich on the possibility of an MLB streaming service ($)
Jim Bowden’s column on opt-outs in baseball ($)
Matt Strahm responds to MLB’s relaxed beer policies
A possum at the A’s stadium displaced the Mets broadcast team
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
Microwave — “Dull” • 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.
ALEX: Bobby, I’d like to begin this week’s episode by sharing with you some musings about the state of the world, from someone who’s very near and dear to our hearts. Is that alright with you?
BOBBY: Yeah, of course. Of course that’s alright with me. We hold the main figures, the main characters, so to speak of this podcast near and dear to our hearts. So if one of them is making noise, it’s our, it’s our duty, our obligation to the listeners of this show to platform them.
ALEX: Exactly, I totally agree. “This is really an awful time. It’s an awful time. It’s an awful time in our history as a planet. It really is and as a human race.-
BOBBY: This sounds like a tale of two cities.
ALEX: -Everybody sucks, I’m telling you. They really do. To dig into something like that and say attack someone. I didn’t attack anybody.” Bobby, these are words from the 26th most famous person in baseball, one Yankees broadcaster, Michael Kay. In response to his critics, claiming that he went in a little too hard on the bat boy on a recent Yankees broadcast. Your thoughts right away, Bobby, does everyone suck?
BOBBY: Does everybody suck? Yes. Do we as a podcast wear our mistakes on our sleeve? Yes. We’re not shying away from the fact that we put Michael Kay in the top 30 of the most famous people in the baseball world.
ALEX: Oh, you’re already calling it a mistake?
BOBBY: Doesn’t it kind of feel like that? I mean, look at what we’re talking about here. So okay, can you- I don’t know what happened here.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: Can you fill me in on the context. I saw a screenshot of a bat boy going around. Now you’re telling me that Michael Kay is doing, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times for 2023. I need to know what happened in between.
ALEX: So the Yankees traveled to Cleveland this past week to play the Guardians and–
BOBBY: They got wallopped.
ALEX: Yeah, they did. And the home team Guardians, because the home team provides the, the bat boys for the series.
BOBBY: Is that always true? So like the home team just dresses up one of the bat boys in the away team’s jerseys.
ALEX: I think so.
BOBBY: Does the away team have to provide the jersey? Does the home team have one of every 30 jerseys?
ALEX: I bet, I feel like you’d run into some sizing issues with, with that.
BOBBY: Sizing issues? Also like what jersey you actually decide to wear because there’s alternate away jerseys?
ALEX: Right, is that why you want the bat boy matching the rest of the aesthetic on the field.
BOBBY: Well, that was that’s just a necessity. Like you couldn’t have. The bat boy cannot be wearing the gray Yankees jersey if the Yankees were wearing the blue one or whatever.
ALEX: Yeah. So the, the young man whom the Guardians, whom the Guardians assigned to be the bat boy for the series, or at least some of these games, happens to–
BOBBY: Your mission if you choose to accept it, right young bat boy?
ALEX: –is to pick up the bats for the fucking Yankees. Declined laptop closed. He had a little scruff, little facial hair, and some, some pretty luscious locks that were down past his shoulders.
BOBBY: That’s the first mistake.
ALEX: But well–
BOBBY: How dare you?
ALEX: And he was also wearing red cleats, right? The Guardians, that is one of their colors. And the Guardians also don’t have stupid rules about your fucking hair. So, this man woke up in the morning in the clear and on the broadcast when the camera cut to him, Michael Kay said, “Hey, if the players aren’t allowed, I don’t know if the bat boys should be allowed. There were rules. Rules are rules. He’s disobeying two of them. I think there’s facial hair and obviously, the hair is below the collar.
BOBBY: Those feel like the same rule.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: He’s disobeying two of them? Like what? That’s like, if you’re, that’s like, if you’re going 20 miles an hour over the speed limit, then you’re not disobeying two rules by going five miles over and 10 miles over. You’re just going 10 miles over, you know, like, same rule!
ALEX: Right, I mean, he was trying to find more stuff to kind of get upset about, I think.
BOBBY: His rap sheet. Michael Kay, prosecutor of the baseball world.
ALEX: So it turns out this young man is the son of the Guardians’ radio broadcaster.
BOBBY: Wow! Plot twist. Plot twist.
ALEX: I have a feeling Michael Kay probably didn’t know this, also?
BOBBY: It’d be better if he did, though.
ALEX: Right, and still stuck to his guns?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And was like, sorry, rules are rules.
BOBBY: I mean, Michael Kay is 26th, I’m gonna see the rad– Guardians’ radio broadcasters are on our third most famous list of people in baseball. It’s just thrown around as authority.
ALEX: You’re very right about that. So predictably, there was a bit of pushback, because anytime Michael Kay does, just about anything, he’s bound to ruffle a few feathers. And some people said, hey, this is a bit unnecessary to put this bat boy on blast in front of everyone. He’s not even like your bat boy. Like he doesn’t even, he isn’t even employed by your team.
BOBBY: Do we think that Michael Kay knew that?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: I think he did–
BOBBY: Otherwise, this would make no sense.
ALEX: Right?
BOBBY: Why would the Guardians’ bat boys have to follow the rules of the New York Yankees especially not even in New York? Right? I don’t–
ALEX: But it led to this, this outburst that I, that I shared with you at the top of this episode. He was on his on The Michael Kay Show. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it?
BOBBY: It remains. It’s a mistake that he has that.
ALEX: I mean, it’s second in my rotation behind the fifty wa– no shit! 51–
BOBBY: 5641. I thought.
ALEX: 5640?
BOBBY: 50– yeah. I don’t know.
ALEX: He, he not only dug in, right into his position, but, but lashed out at the haters. Right? He called the folks over awful announcing who reported on this clowns and ass wipes?
BOBBY: Clowns. He said ass wipes on the radio?
ALEX: Actually, I guess he said a wipes.
BOBBY: A wipes.
ALEX: What just–
BOBBY: Don’t say it. That’s just bad radio.
ALEX: Come up with something different. It was just, just–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Okay, continued. “…This is the, this is truly the bottom line. People suck. Everyone’s out for someone’s throat. The world sucks. I’m sorry. I feel guilty sometimes about bringing children into this.–
BOBBY: What?
ALEX: –This place sucks. They do, they absolutely do to get clicks or they’ll sell their soul to get ratings. People sell their soul. I can’t live like that.”
BOBBY: A man says on his drive time radio show?
ALEX: It sounds like you should retire.
BOBBY: Yeah. He said, “I feel guilty for bringing kids into this world?” What the fuck is he talking about?
ALEX: This is a man who’s never received an ounce of pushback on anything he’s ever done in his life.
BOBBY: It’s like he just watched First Reformed or something.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Except actually what happened was that he made fun of someone on a fucking bite- baseball broadcast that’s being broadcast of millions of people.
ALEX: Right. There was like, he’s like, first they came for the announcers and I did, I said nothing because I wasn’t an announcer but you know what? They’re gonna come for you.
BOBBY: The opposite of that coin is, first they came for the bat boys’ hair and I said nothing.
ALEX: That’s real. That’s real.
BOBBY: Well, thanks Michael Kay, Yankees fans have to follow the Yankees hair policy? What the fuck is going on? Wow. He’s such a snowflake, dawg. I hate using this word but he is such a snowflake.
ALEX: Yeah, very thin-skinned.
BOBBY: I just, I want to meet the person who was like, “Michael Kay gets broadcasting Yankees’ games for three hours every day.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: What if we put in another microphone in front of his face for three more–
ALEX: For three more hours.
BOBBY: –hours every day.
ALEX: That only good things could come from that, right?
BOBBY: We’re an a wipe. Alex, we had a fun episode queued up for everybody today. We are bringing back the segments: Three Up, Three Down, which longtime listeners will remember as a segment that we used to do weekly to talk about the odds and ends of the Major League Baseball, the wider baseball world, tthe stories that we maybe didn’t have enough time to cover during the main segment of the show, but still wanted to talk about and so wanted to mention. So Three Up, Three Down is three things that are adding to our joy in the baseball world this week and three things that are taking away from our joy in the baseball world. We will both share three, we will both share six things each. We’re going to make a whole episode out of it this week, because we don’t do this segment every week anymore, but we still love doing it. So we’re going to be rolling it out from time to time this year. Maybe not for every single episode because the show has taken on a wider scope since we used this to fill time every week on the podcast. But we’ll bring it back from time to time because it’s a lot of fun and it gives us a chance to talk about stuff that maybe doesn’t fit neatly into the box that is Tipping Pitches, but that stuff that we still find ourselves interested in talking about. So this week is going to be all Three Up, Three Down. Last week it was a Mailbag. This week, this week is Three Up, Three Down. You can tell we’re just trying to cycle through that early season news, you know. We’re just trying to get in and out with as much stuff as we possibly can cover. But before we do that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[9:44]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Alex, one new patron this week an A-Rod VIP tier member. I love it when it’s one from one an A-Rod tier. That’s a real highlight on the person that signed up this week. Thank you, Jordan, for signing up. Can I tell you something before we go to Three Up, Three Down?
ALEX: Please.
BOBBY: So over the last like 10 days or so the, the backspace key, the delete key on my computer has started to go. Which is really annoying for typing things, typing emails, typing Slack messages.
ALEX: That is a useful key.
BOBBY: And I made an appointment at the Apple store to get it fixed. But prior to that, I just had to like press it like three or four times and there was a, there was a point on Wednesday where I was like, uh-oh this isn’t working at all. And I was like, wow, I better be really judicious with my words. But in podcast editing, Alex, the delete key is, is cut. It’s like, it’s get rid of everything that you’ve highlighted cut, which I use a lot. You can probably tell why I, the delete key was not working on my computer, which is that I’m cutting a lot of stuff out of episodes, whatever. And before I knew that I was gonna be able to get an Apple Store appointment, before doing the show today, I was like, what if the delete key is just dunzo? Should we try and do a podcast with no edits? Should we take a negative? Should we take a flaw in–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –the system? And should we foreground it and just do the uncut pod? Alex and Bobby uncut. Well, thankfully, for, for you and me and for the listeners, I was able to go to the Downtown Brooklyn Apple Store yesterday and get my key fixed in a matter of 15 minutes. Thank you to the kind souls in Downtown Brooklyn Apple Store who own my entire life because what would I do with that all of my Apple products functioning, perfectly? So my question for you is, is that a good idea? Should we do that one day? Like knowing that we’re going to do that going into it, you know. Like, obviously, if I just didn’t edit a podcast one week, it would sound absurd. It would just sound like, like people’s phones were broken and–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –there was just dead silence for long periods of time where we gather our thoughts sometimes. But knowing it going into it, pretending like it was a radio show being broadcast live or something. Is that a fun idea that we should do? Maybe like a midweek happy hour, one hour, we got to fill in no dead air, see what happens.
ALEX: I think we could do it. I’m a little worried I would get to Michael Kay’s place really quickly, just like kind of musing on, on like, philosophically how I feel about–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –kind of, the energy.
BOBBY: How can we criticize him before having to put ourselves through that?
ALEX: Exactly. I don’t know what it’s like in that room. You know, I will give him credit, I think he was including himself in that, right? He’s saying, we as humans, you know, there needs to be more, more generosity, right? More love in this world.
BOBBY: That’s what you took from that?
ALEX: Yeah, he’s about peace and love. That’s what I get, right? Is he just thinks there’s too much negativity, right now.
BOBBY: Uncut pod, when? Is the uncut pod the same as the two hours pod?
ALEX: It is the same as the two-hour pod.
BOBBY: –or is two things?
ALEX: Right?
BOBBY: Just by saying this, you know that there’s a certain subsection of listeners who are going to be like you have to do this?
ALEX: Scares me a little bit.
BOBBY: Well, we keep trickling stuff out there that people want, you know, putting it off for longer and longer.
ALEX: We’re never getting that Topeka, Kansas radio station. Until we show them we can actually hang for a couple hours.
BOBBY: Yeah, but how will they know that we didn’t edit it? How will they know that there were no–? Actually, they’ll know. They’ll be able to tell. Okay, that was what I wanted to share with you before starting Three Up Three Down. Do you have anything else before we get going?
ALEX: No, Bobby, let’s get started. Let’s talk about baseball.
BOBBY: Let’s talk about baseball. I’ll kick us off this week.
ALEX: Please.
BOBBY: Do you want to start with up or down? I never, I guess think we kind of went back and forth on this.
ALEX: Yeah. I think it depended how down the downs were, you know?
BOBBY: I want to start with up this week.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Because my up is baseball related. And my up is–
ALEX: That’s good. That’s a great start.
BOBBY: My up is on field player baseball related and it is recent news. Brett Baty coming up to the Major Leagues.
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: That is the first on my up this week. By the way, I want you to title this podcast episode 2023 Up 2023 Down. You know?
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Think about that earlier. Yeah, like, the first three up three down of 2023. Three p, three down. 2023 up 2023 down, you get it? Does that make sense?
ALEX: Is this like our jitter read too packed? You know?
BOBBY: Nobody ever said that out loud before it went into like the commercial. Like nobody tried to pronounce that. Like it’d be fine. It looks good. Brett Baty come up to the majors. He was in the majors last year in like August.–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –and he was okay. And then he was pretty bad on defense, and then he got hurt. And then it became an open question as to whether he would start the season with the Mets. And it became pretty clear that they were fucking around with him. I don’t know necessarily if they were fucking around with his service time. Like I don’t, since he spent some time in the majors last year, it wasn’t quite the same as if he was calling some, as if he was being called up on the exact day to gain back an extra year of service time. I don’t think that that’s the case. But I’m, I’m really happy for him to come up because he’s been absolutely tearing it up in the minors. And at some point, when you’re hitting 400 at AAA, you just have to, like, get called up and see what happens. Otherwise, like, it’s an investment in a player that you’re never going to actually see whether it’s worthwhile. That’s kind of like where the Mets are out with Ronny Mauricio. Right now too he’s just hitting homeruns like every three nights in AAA, but nobody really knows if he can actually adjust to big league pitching and they just are not giving him the chance to do that. Yeah.
ALEX: Well, I mean, that’s a little harder too because like where will you put him–
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. But I’m glad that you say that because, you know, Baty is not really blocked because his the the person who’s in front of him on the major league roster this year is Eduardo Escobar, who’s not having the greatest year at the dish so far. I mean, he’s like a fine defender, whatnot, whatever he’s like, sure handed, he’s reliable. He’s a longtime bet. He’s a great clubhouse presence. He just hasn’t been hitting so far this year. He’s been very inconsistent and he was very inconsistent last year too. He had, the, he was the best hitter in baseball in September, randomly, which was awesome to watch. And that is actually part of my up this week is that when they called Baty up, and they asked Escobar about it, he was nothing but complimentary to him. He’s like, he’s done more than enough to earn it. He deserves to be here. I’m really happy for him. I’m really proud of him. I’m I’m excited for him to come up here. And I just love when there’s like, that steady veteran presence in the clubhouse who is so good for the sport of baseball by like, just creating that kind of environment like for young players to develop relationships with the fan base, like not standing in someone’s way just because you’re like worried about what it’s going to mean for your career personally. I just find Eduardo Escobar to be like, so cool and humble and I just like, even though he has not torn it up on the field as a Met, he’s been a great Met. And it’s important to like create space on the podcast, in your fandom for players like that, who maybe don’t perform up to their own expectations, or the fanbase’s expectations or the contract’s expectations or GM’s expectations or whatever, but are still, like good for the fan experience. And I think that this call up dynamic Eduardo Escobar being on the other side of that has highlighted that for me.
ALEX: Yeah, I think a lot of great baseball teams, that’s a really key element to it, right? Is having that sort of veteran presence who can be a sort of spokesperson for the clubhouse who can act as a mentor and, and who’s like, been there before to a degree, right? Which is not to say–
BOBBY: 11 years of service time.
ALEX: I mean, yeah, honestly. So I think you’re absolutely right. Eduardo Escobar is a gem.
BOBBY: He’s so funny.
ALEX: He’s really funny. Just a cute guy.
BOBBY: He’s the always, the best interview, in like the Mets’ Tiktok presence, social media presence, Instagram Stories presence.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like when they do the thing where they ask everybody on the, on the team as they’re coming out for warmups, like the same question and that cut together everybody’s responses. He’s always the funniest. All the videos of him being afraid of cats, they brought a cat into the dugout or into the clubhouse to chase him around with it. It’s like a real fear that he has. Anytime that he gets asked about fears, he always says cats. He’s just a very, he’s a, he’s a funny guy. He’s a cool guy. And he’s the type of like personality that I think should get as much spotlight as anything. What’s first up for you this week?
ALEX: First up for me this week is a, a team that came up last week.
BOBBY: The Oakland Athletics? Stop. Dude, they’re so bad.
ALEX: Are we doing our downs first.
BOBBY: I don’t want to step on your downs if they’re in there.
ALEX: You know who I’m enjoying watching so far? Because it’s not the Oakland Athletics. And that’s the Baltimore Orioles.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: I know that we, we spoke last week and you said you could never– and I think we agreed that we could never in good faith encourage someone to sign up for really any baseball fan. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t wish this upon anyone. But right now the Orioles are in dire straits, at least in the front office have been for the last few years. But all that to say, this is a really fun, really fun baseball team. I’m just gonna say it. They got a lot of, they got a lot of players who can hit the ball really far and took and run really fast. Cedric Mullins is electric and I think he has sort of filled the void that Manny Machado left. They’ve obviously got this young core of players like Adley and Gunnar Henderson and Grayson Rodriguez who are, who are coming up as well and not all of them are, are there yet.
BOBBY: The Austin Hays disrespect.
ALEX: Hey, I love Austin Hays I mean, he’s he’s, he’s hanging, you know?
BOBBY: The Ryan Mountcastle disrespect.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s true. Well and I, and I, I should note also, you get to watch Mets legend’s James McCann. Should get ABs too.
BOBBY: Go over five–
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: –for a different team. Did you see how beat up hit the helmet that he was wearing was yesterday?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: It looked like it was from World War II. Like it was an–
ALEX: Like the batting helmet?
BOBBY: Yeah, you couldn’t even see the Orioles logo on it. It was like all scratched up and like covered in dirt and pine tar and yeah, it was wild. It was wild. maybe is just trying out anything to get the mojo back.
ALEX: Right. He’d be no helmet next. Just stay on the pins.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: No bat. Um, I also have to shout out their celebrations which are so fucking weird.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I, it’s just, it’s what happens when you get together–
BOBBY: And they’re like spilling the water out you’re talking about?
ALEX: –you know they do the, it was explained by one Kyle Gibson who’s in their starting rotation. Who–
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: –who- you want to, you want to talk of roller coaster? Is the Orioles starting rotation?
BOBBY: Well, that’s like, that’s what I was gonna say is that that’s why they’re so fun to watch. It’s because they they they bob.
ALEX: Yep. I mean, they’re always trying to come back.
BOBBY: They have no pitchers. I mean, they made the A’s lineup look legit. Those games were like 12 to 10–
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: –Eight to six, you know?
ALEX: Exactly. You never know what you’re gonna get. But when they, when they do a, when they do a single they, they have a turn the water faucet celebration on. When they do a double, there’s a, they do a sprinkler. This was I think seen by many people this past week where–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –where the, the batter on second does the little sprinkler motion with your hips and all the players just spit water out onto the field–
BOBBY: Shirt.
ALEX: –fucking why not? And then, when they hit a homerun they have what Kyle Gibson was sure to clarify is known as a homer hose. It is not a dong bong. So they have a homer hose that they drink out of. That just looks eerily like–
BOBBY: Dong bong.
ALEX: –something you and I may have come across in our time at NYU.
BOBBY: Like a beer bong?
ALEX: I mean–
BOBBY: I don’t think I ever saw beer bong in NYU.
ALEX: Really? The journalism parties that we were going to? Those were huge.
BOBBY: I just don’t understand the appeal of the beer bong.
ALEX: I mean, I don’t either.
BOBBY: Just chug. If you’re gonna, if you’re gonna drink that much liquid, alcoholic liquid, just chug. Like, I don’t need somebody force feeding it to me with a prop.
ALEX: I mean, isn’t that, isn’t that like most drinking games? Right? It’s like, okay, we’re gonna make you drink but we’re going to make the experience a little bit more unpleasant. And like that’s it?
BOBBY: No, no, no, because a lot of drinking games are fun. I have a question. Should you do a power hour for tipping pitches episode. You know what Power Hour is? When you take a shot of beer every minute for an hour straight.
ALEX: That– did you just come up? I know no one’s ever done that. That’s–
BOBBY: What are you talking about?
ALEX: Oh, a shot of beer.
BOBBY: Shot of beer.
ALEX: Sorry. Sorry.
BOBBY: You are like–
ALEX: I was like, Du– no, I don’t want to die.
BOBBY: Well, that’s not the way to go. Live potting, taking shots of whatever, vodka. Should we do that? Maybe that can be our no edit pod.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because you can’t edit that.
ALEX: You can’t.
BOBBY: We’re really cover, we’re–
ALEX: To create a juice–
BOBBY: –together our masterpiece right now.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s not gonna happen today but it is going to happen someday. We’re laying the groundwork.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Michelangelo didn’t paint–
BOBBY: The Sistine Chapel?
ALEX: –Sistine Chapel overnight. Right? He had to think about it.
BOBBY: I actually don’t know how long it took him to do it.
ALEX: I don’t know either.
BOBBY: You know he did it while laying on his back? You ever heard that before? Sistine Chapel? Kind of overrated.
ALEX: Wow. I don’t even know how to quantify something like that.
BOBBY: Like, first of all, it is nice. It’s nice. It’s nice. It sort of looks like, like the people nowadays who have like a bunch of really small tattoos over their bodies that like don’t have anything to do with each other–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –which like, doesn’t look bad. And all of the tattoos can look beautiful individually. But then you look at it by itself and it’s like a Where’s Wally book a little bit.
ALEX: Like thematically, it’s not really speaking to me.
BOBBY: Right. A lot of angels. A lot of fruits. I don’t know. It’s just I was expecting a little more to be honest.
ALEX: From Michaelangelo.
BOBBY: Yeah, I was.
ALEX: The Sistine chapel.
BOBBY: I was, you know, if you if you went and saw Randy Johnson and his peak, and he gave up like three runs, Right? You’d be like, he’s still great but I was expecting little more. You know who else is overrated?
ALEX: Who?
BOBBY: Da Vinci, bro. Da Vinci is overrated. Does not spark joy for me, personally. I get it. I get what he was going for. I mean, it’s very moody. very impressive.
ALEX: Here’s my beef with a lot of artists from that era. Why is, why is the painting so small?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Really? it was like on a 4×6 note card. The Mona Lisa? You know, like I could have stolen it in my pocket.
BOBBY: It’s because they were broke dude. Like the big paintings were all commissioned by like kings–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –and stuff. And so if they were just in their studio, in the workshop, getting shots up, they didn’t have like a big canvas to work with. They didn’t have that much paint.
ALEX: Sounds like, sounds like he wasn’t very creative.
BOBBY: Wow, broke boy–
ALEX: What if the world is your canvas.
BOBBY: All I’m saying is, if I could only look at one Renaissance painter, Italian Renaissance painter’s paintings for the rest of my life, it certainly would not be Michelangelo or Da Vinci. It would be, it would be Botticelli in a landslide. That’s all I’m saying.
ALEX: I don’t know how we get on this.
BOBBY: Don’t remember. Honestly, don’t remember. Shall we move on?
ALEX: Yes. So is Botticelli your second up?
BOBBY: Yeah. He’s always up for me, dawg. Birth of Venus? Primavera? Come on, get in there. I know. I know. My art heads are hype right now. Listen to this chat. So how do we do this? We go to a down now I feel like we do. I don’t remember.
ALEX: I don’t remember either.
BOBBY: I think we alternate.
ALEX: I think you’re right.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I think we do alternate.
BOBBY: Otherwise, we just do all the downs at the end of the day.
ALEX: This is not a literal downer.
BOBBY: Okay, my first Down this week. In my notes here I’ve written I’m just gonna read it verbatim. Rob Manfred MLB TV gaslighting tour. Do you know what I’m referring to?
ALEX: Yes, I do.
BOBBY: Rob Manfred for the last six months or so, ever since, and, and really in the last like two months. Ever since it became clear that Bally Diamond Sports Group, the company that is distributing original sports broadcasts via, via the Bally brand Bally Sports. Was not going to survive long term financially. And they were going to file for bankruptcy or they were going to have to restructure their company or whatever they were going to have to do. They ended up filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Rob Manfred has been talking to anyone and everyone who will listen and I’m referring specifically to an article that Evan Drellich wrote, which obviously, I’m not critiquing Evan here. I’m critiquing the thing that Rob was talking about, that Evan was reading an article in response to. Which is that Rob’s talking about how like, we need to have an all 30 team MLB’s streaming service here. I’m going to read these quotes. Quote, “Here’s a scary number for you, Commissioner Rob Manfred told the room in late March, St. Louis, great baseball market. You know what percentage of homes in St. Louis have access to baseball right now? Anybody want to guess?” And then somebody in attendance, this was a luncheon, by the Paley Media account.
ALEX: Why do these things always happen at lunch–
BOBBY: Dude.
ALEX: –by the way, what?
BOBBY: When are we going to get invited to the luncheon?
ALEX: Right?
BOBBY: What do we have to do to get invited to the luncheon?
ALEX: We’re doing Rotary Club invite.
BOBBY: Exactly. I’m doing five minutes on Botticelli, bro. I’m cultured. Yes. Bring me to the luncheon. Yeah. 15 is the answer. Manfred’s said 15. it’s because of cord cutting. and the fact that operators like diamond Have not even gotten full distribution within the traditional cable bundle. So all of a sudden, Rob Manfred realized that people can’t watch baseball. That’s what you’re telling me, Rob, you just realize that people can actually see the games. I wonder who determined that. I wonder who was running baseball when this was becoming a problem?
ALEX: Like, I know that we’re all trying to find out. Find the guy who did this meme is kind of overdone, but like,
BOBBY: Rob, like this, this is why I wrote down gaslighting tour because like, no shit, Rob, like no shit. We know that we haven’t been able to watch the baseball games. You know why? Because we’ve been the people trying to watch the baseball games. I’m sorry that you just realized that baseball was a sport three years ago.
ALEX: Yeah, uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like that you weren’t just like, that your job previously was not just like sifting through numbers on Spreadsheets, your job was actually like relating to something that was happening in millions of real people’s lives. Like, I’m sorry that that epiphany just happened for you. But for the rest of us, we’ve actually been trying to watch all 30 baseball teams on a streaming service that, that we pay $135 a year for. So I thank you for seeing the light, I guess. But I don’t know what you’ve been doing for the last six years as commissioner.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And that, it’s just it’s I feel like I’m going a little crazy, honestly. I am being like, my goal all along has been to have as I’m, I’m fascinated by the possibility of having a streaming service with all 30 teams. It’s like, you and everybody else, dude, we’ve all been asking for this for literally forever.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. And I think you can attribute part of it to the fact that this is really the first time in the, the era of digital, digitally stream sports that this I think has seemed like a possibility, Rright? I mean, three, four years ago, they were still stuck in these really, even at that point in 2018, 2019, right? When–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –when Bally acquired the RSNs. They, they were locked into contracts that were like not in a great spot, right? And–
BOBBY: Dude, I guess.
ALEX: –I mean, I–
BOBBY: Yes, I know, I know what you’re saying, it’s, it’s the first time it seemed likely, given the circumstances that MLB owners prioritize money over literally everything else.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Right? But it’s not the first time it’s impossible. Like they could have easily leverage their position to get out of any of these deals, if that’s really what they wanted above all else. And they were really concerned about the growth of the game. What are the cable networks going to do? Arrest them? Like they don’t have any power here.
ALEX: I mean, they could sue them, I think.
BOBBY: Well, threatening, taking action that will get them sued has never stopped MLB from doing what they wanted before.
ALEX: I know, yeah.
BOBBY: So not paying minor leaguers got them sued too, but they still did that. Sorry, I didn’t mean to derail you. I just–
ALEX: No, I, I totally hear you. And, you know, I think that the reason that Rob never talked about this before is because what was his incentive to do that, right? It was never, it never seemed like he was gonna be able to force the RSN executives to the table unless something like bankruptcy forced their hand, right?
BOBBY: This boogey man RSN executive–
ALEX: I know, I know, I know.
BOBBY: –this guy is like they’re gonna put a hit on Rob Manfred if he wants to distributors. Well, their rights on all 30 streaming servers. I just don’t understand it, I just don’t believe it.
ALEX: I mean, can I say, it’s pretty funny- so there have been some developments in the last couple of weeks, right? Major League Baseball filed a and like emergency motion to end the RSN deals. Because of these kinds of the–
BOBBY: Missed payments?
ALEX: –missed payments and that sort of thing. Just a couple, just a few days ago, Diamond Sports group came out and said, yeah, we’re thinking we’re not going to actually pay the rights fees to three teams right now. They said, they said quote, “They, they’re not disputing that they have the money to pay the rights fees to the Diamondbacks, Guardians, and Twins. But because when the contracts were signed, it was like a better environment for them. So they think that these contracts have aged poorly, and therefore, that should free them from having to participate in them.
BOBBY: I like that. My career outlooks looked better when I signed up to get those student loans. And so now that my career is sort of on the rocks, I don’t think I want to pay them back.
ALEX: Literally, yes.
BOBBY: People just make stuff up all the time. Look, all I’m saying is, I know that like, as the Commissioner of a sports league, your job is to not be honest and forthcoming, your job is to be disingenuous.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But with this one specifically, it just seems like a way to drive fans crazy to pretend like this all 30 teams streaming service is something that you invented three weeks ago. It’s like we, we already have it. You literally have all 30 teams on MLB. TV, you just click it, and then it doesn’t play.
ALEX: Right. Like there’s a line of code in there that kind of just turns this into the streaming service that you’re talking about.
BOBBY: That looks straight up, like straight up, they’re line of code.
ALEX: They’re like we’re gonna create a new service that is going to effectively broadcast our product to millions of US households. I’m like, what is different? Are you gonna copy paste?
BOBBY: Yeah, he’s just acting like the all, the all 30 teams streaming service. Like–
ALEX: I mean, I guess–
BOBBY: –[33:34] the one that we have, if you use a VPN.
ALEX: I guess the, the, the difference is like–
BOBBY: So the one that you give to team employees?
ALEX: Right. I mean, the difference is like they would in theory be producing some of these broadcasts, right. So they’re not, not just like plugging their own stream in. So like–
BOBBY: Don’t care.
ALEX: –I don’t care either. Like, however you guys want to do it.
BOBBY: Just don’t care. like, is it possible? Yes. Short answer, yes. It’s also possible for you to not black out the game of the day.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: The free game of the day, just because it happens to be in some people’s markets. If it’s the free game of the day, it’s free. You’re not calling it the partially free game of the day.
ALEX: I’m so glad we got to Bobby rant on this one.
BOBBY: Dawg,I guess I’m just kind of fired up today. Alright–
ALEX: What action are we, before we move on–
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: –you, you missed my my favorite quote in that article? Rob Manfred’s. I Have to hand it to him. You do I really do. He loves the like pithy sort of one liner.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Or like talking about how much a word resonates with him. He said–
BOBBY: I know what you gonna, I know what you gonna say.
ALEX: He says, we’re gonna put the word reach right over the entrance to the commissioner’s office. It’s kind of our number one thing. So baseball–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –baseball is tattooed on his forehead, right?
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s true.
ALEX: Reach is over his office.
BOBBY: It’s like watch his TED last or once.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: We’re gonna put the word reach right over the entrance to the commissioner’s office. I’m gonna, I’m gonna check in on that. I’m gonna check in on that.
ALEX: I’d love it if there was like–
BOBBY: Talk to some people that work at MLB, see if there he actually puts the word reach above the commissioner’s office.
ALEX: Yeah, put your money where your mouth is. I really would like for the, for the doorframe to just be slightly taller than Manfred. So it’s like kind of a double meeting, it’s like reach but also rob. Reach, bud.
BOBBY: He’s gonna start putting those like motivational posters all around the commissioner’s office.
ALEX: Right like the cat–
BOBBY: Like shoot for the moon, because if you miss you’re gonna land in the stars.
ALEX: Right, it’s it’s hump day. it’s almost the weekend, kiddo.
BOBBY: It’s like a bit like one this is like perseverance. And it’s like–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –an animal looking tired. Trying to get to some water to drink, you know? Like, that was such a cottage industry for a while there.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We’re gonna put the word reach right over the title of this podcast. Alright, what’s your first Down?
ALEX: My first Down, is the news that we lost one of our All-GIF Draft picks to an injury.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That’s one Oneil Cruz–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –who’s gonna be out 10 to 12 weeks because he broke his ankle?
BOBBY: Yeah, I have this too, not, not Oneil Cruz specifically, but the all of the early season injuries.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t like I’m sure that there’s not more injuries than usual. it’s just that every year when the season starts, you don’t–
ALEX: I’m just like–
BOBBY: –that member is gonna happen.
ALEX: –they can get hurt. And that this is why I don’t like build too much joy up because–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –I know it’s gonna get [36:37]
BOBBY: And then a not insignificant chunk of players are just out for several months. So I know I’m getting ahead of myself reading my second down here, but yeah, I have this too. Early season injuries–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –Yoán Moncada and Tim Anderson can’t stay on the field. Hoskins tore his ACL, he’s out for the year.
ALEX: Well–
BOBBY: Cruz, yeah.
ALEX: So this is why I’m saying like, why are we having the players even play in this, right? Like, it’s not an important part of the year, I want to see them in the playoffs. So why are we having them even play the first part of the season?
BOBBY: That’s true.
ALEX: If players are gonna get hurt, what’s the point?
BOBBY: Yeah, this was a bummer. The Oneil Cruz play was so awkward.
ALEX: So, like such a freak, awkward play.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Again, it was slide at the play, there was no one who was in the ra- again, there’s like a reflexive instinct, right? To be if someone gets injured on a play. We saw this with the, with the White Sox and the Twins this week too, where there was like an awkward collision at second base. And it’s like, that’s because baseball was an awkward game.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: A lot of the time.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And humans happen to be kind of awkward sometimes.
BOBBY: Do you want to roll straight into your second Down? Since I gave my second Down since it was also injuries?
ALEX: Yeah, sure.
BOBBY: Everybody got to keep up.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: This one’s not gonna be easy to follow.
ALEX: Nope.
BOBBY: This is a high level of difficulty. High risk, high reward podcast right here,
ALEX: Right. Yeah, big boom, bust potential. My second Down is something that I alluded to on our Twitter account this week. And it’s been bugging me for weeks, and there’s really no eloquent way to put it. So I’m just going to come out and say that the MLB At Bat App sucks now. It’s just bad to say just–
BOBBY: I think you more did more than alluded to it on Twitter, you said–
ALEX: I said that–
BOBBY: –that MLB At Bat as much from being good to bad.
ALEX: It really did. It wasn’t like they made active improvements on how you navigate. In fact, you could argue they made it harder to navigate. I feel like they do this every offseason, where they like add one or two new tabs at the bottom–
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: –you know, and then they change the interface a little bit. But what has really thrown me is on the game day aspect itself, they’ve moved around where all of the information is. And I, I am no, I’m no engineer. I’m no software developer.
BOBBY: But you could be.
ALEX: But I–
BOBBY: If you reach.
ALEX: -got some thoughts, if I reach.
BOBBY: You could become a software developer.
ALEX: Okay, it doesn’t feel like good practice to make your customers have to relearn this, these muscles over and over.
BOBBY: Here’s the thing that listeners don’t know about Alex, you are a user experience connoisseur. If you are not enjoying the user experience of a product, you will download, get the free trial, test out every other product that is that product’s competitor.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And you will formulate a hardend fast opinion of what products is the best.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: That’s who you are. So when you criticize the MLB At Bat App, listeners just know–
ALEX: Don’t take it lightly.
BOBBY: –take it to heart.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: This man is an expert.
ALEX: It’s hours of sleepless nights.
BOBBY: Have you ever considered going to work for Wirecutter? They could use your services.
ALEX: They could, I feel like my, my field of focus might be a little narrow for them. Hey guys, so I’ve been trying out the new baseball app.
BOBBY: No, but you have that kind of brain.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: If they sent you a bunch of fucking, I don’t know what are they, what do they use on the Wirecut? What are they, what do they test out? Airfryer?
ALEX: Everything, yeah.
BOBBY: Come on, dude.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, you’d know which one is the best.
ALEX: Pillow.
BOBBY: Yeah, pillow, fucking neon sign.
ALEX: I mean this is–
BOBBY: Computer, external hard drive, whatever they’re doing over there Wirecutter, you can do it.
ALEX: You, you and–
BOBBY: Renaissance painting?
ALEX: –our friends know, this is when I, I spent weeks trying to find the right weather app. I downloaded like all 10, that were, that were on–
BOBBY: Dude, you dropped like 10 bucks on a weather app.
ALEX: Uh-huh, and then they fucking shut it down, and then they shut it down. That’s, that’s brutal.
BOBBY: That’s bad corporate practice.
ALEX: That is bad.
BOBBY: Not doing what’s best for the investors. All that to say I trust your opinions.
ALEX: Thank you.
BOBBY: That’s why we’re doing this together.
ALEX: I appreciate that.
BOBBY: Trust your opinions on user experience.
ALEX: My actually, my biggest issue, can I just–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –like it–
BOBBY: Cook, cook–
ALEX: –all so petty, but–
BOBBY: –I’m gonna let you cook.
ALEX: –you used to, you know, when you open up a game, when you want to follow a game on that MLB At Bat App, which is–
BOBBY: [41:03]
ALEX: –designed to do. Sometimes you will click into the game, and usually it shows you how the game is proceeding. And in years past, what you’ve been able to do is from that screen, click over to videos and, and start watching the game. If you’re, if you’re signed up for MLB TV, you can do that.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: You now actually can’t watch the game from the game day stream, it’s just on a separate tab.
BOBBY: Yup.
ALEX: Also like the two people, they don’t speak to each other.
BOBBY: Nope. You know, you know what, it’s really annoying actually about the MLB streaming, like the TV section of the MLB At Bat App?
ALEX: What?
BOBBY: When you mirror it to a TV for whatever reason. AirPlay thinks that your screen recording. And so you can’t screen record the app.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And so it won’t appear when you mirrored. Or if it does appear for whatever you’d like if you’re able to get it to think that you’re not screen recording for a hot second. When it goes to commercial because the commercials are dynamically inserted, it resets the whole–
ALEX: Yup!
BOBBY: –process and thinks your screen recording again and shuts it off. So it’s like I’ve been trying to help my mom figure out how she can use her free MLB TV to watch it on the TV and not just the iPad. So I was like trying to mirror it. So when we were there for Easter, I was just like mirroring a game and it just kept shutting off and I was like, honestly, it’s just not worth it, it’s just not. Because they have a TV and there’s no MLB TV App on TVs anymore.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, I use like the PlayStation One. But my mom doesn’t have a PlayStation–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –newsflash, people over the age of 50 PlayStation. So I don’t know what they’re supposed to do.
ALEX: Some reach Rob.
BOBBY: Some reach. He needs to hang reach a little lower so you can actually reach it. Okay, so I got an extra, wait, do you have more of the At Bat App?
ALEX: No, I just don’t know who, who’s up now. I guess–
BOBBY: It’s me and we’re doing Up.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Because we did to straight Down.
ALEX: Cool, cool, cool, cool.
BOBBY: Because that was the natural flow of the podcast episode. My, my second Up this week, Kevin Durant, go into a Diamondbacks game, wearing a Corbin Carroll jersey. I just think KD would be a fun guy to hang out with at a baseball game.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He likes baseball, he’s talked about it a lot. He has said that, he likes to try and follow baseball and learn more about the statistics of the game. Because he’s clearly, KD is a very well read and knowledgeable historian of the game of basketball. He has followed the many eras and has his favorite players in those areas. And he’s talked about them at length and what he’s taken and synthesized into his own game. And you can see that in the way he plays basketball. And so knowing his mind about how he approaches sports in that way, seeing him sitting wearing a Corbin Carroll jersey, a guy who is a rookie, who not every baseball fan or casual baseball fan would know who that is. Especially since KD just got traded to the Suns earlier this year. It’s not like he’s had a long time to familiarize himself with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the team that has not made the playoffs and like God only knows how long. And he was there, showing out, showing respect to top prospect Corbin Carroll. And I think that’s cool.
ALEX: That is cool.
BOBBY: That made me smile and laugh. I would have liked to have been there with him.
ALEX: It’s cool when athletes from other sports engage with baseball beyond the sort of like superficial level, right? It’s not like–
BOBBY: Yeah. Beyond saying like I liked Ken Griffey Jr. when I was younger.
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: I really like Ken Griffey Jr. when I were young.
ALEX: Right. Or like when you’ll see like, you know, like Steph Curry will like, he’ll like go and take batting practice with the A’s and then dip and go to the Giants game because he’s a fucking Giants fan.
BOBBY: Let’s go, get ’em. Hey, Steph Curry maybe if you stuck it out as an A’s fan, you would have won against Sacramento Kings last night. I don’t know how those two things are related. But–
ALEX: No, but you know, just Bay Area general vibes.
BOBBY: Exactly. Steph Curry washed alert. It would be so much easier to do a basketball podcast. You could just make it up all the time.
ALEX: All the time.
BOBBY: Basketball discourse is just like you just shoot from the hip. So much is provable about basketball. You’re just like, I, I don’t think Steph Curry has the grit–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –this year.
ALEX: I just don’t know his playoff build.
BOBBY: He had it before, but he doesn’t have the grit anymore. Draymond Green has lost the edge.
ALEX: Yeah, I just don’t know the Klay wants it enough.
BOBBY: Andrew Wiggins looks a little too rusty for them to go all the way this year. Like that’s, that is like that’s passable, serviceable basketball analysis.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Basketball pivot finally coming six years into this podcast. Okay, what’s your second Up?
ALEX: My second Up is a quote in response to a news item that broke this week. My, I would like to clarify that my Up is not the news item, it is the response to the news item. So I’ll share the news item first.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: And that’s that some baseball teams are toying with the idea of extending beas- beer sales into the eighth inning, Because games are shorter, and they didn’t realize that means they’re now making less money off of beer.
BOBBY: Like a fifth grader who told you that that was gonna happen. Like it was just like basic math. I just, I don’t know.
ALEX: I don’t know, man. Anyway–
BOBBY: How many NBAs does it take to realize that you’re not going to sell as many beers in less time?
ALEX: Right. Hey, we sell products during this event. If the event is shorter, do you think we’ll sell the same amount of products?
BOBBY: The divine amount of beer sales that we will have in every baseball game, no matter how long it is.
ALEX: So teams like the Brewers–
BOBBY: Well, maybe they need to hire McKinsey and figure this out.
ALEX: I actually think they do, yeah. Teams like the Brewers, Rangers, and Diamondbacks have, I think already altered their policy. And it’s worth noting that, at least in name, this policy is meant to be for the safety of fans, right? For those who are driving home after the game, you want to give them enough time to sober up. And so they’re, you know, so we’re on the road. Now, you could argue whether or not two innings of baseball is enough time for some fans–
BOBBY: Pretty specious policy to be over up.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I think it was, I don’t know, I think it’s more putting on a good face than it is really anything that I think is actionable. I think MLB wants to give that sort of appearance, right? Of we want our fans to be safe while also selling them as much shit as we’d like possibly can.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right? My Up this week is the response to that which came courtesy of one Matt Strahm who’s a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies.
BOBBY: Very important pitcher for them now. Is in their starting rotation all of a sudden.
ALEX: Seriously. He appeared on the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast this past week. And had some choice words about these new policies.
MATT: The reason we stopped at the sevens before was to give our fans time to sober up and drive home safe, correct?
ROB: Correct, yes.
MATT: So now with a faster pace game, and me just being a man of common sense. If the game is gonna finish quicker, why would we not move the beer sales back to the sixth inning to give our fans time sober up and drive home.
ROB: Instead of going the other way?
MATT: Instead, we’re going to the A’s, and now you’re putting our fans and our family at risk driving home with people who have just drank beers 22 minutes ago.
ROB: I’m not surprised, Matt, but you’re–
MATT: Yeah, I’m not surprised either. When you mess with billionaires dollars, they find a way to make their dollars back.
ROB: Yeah.
ALEX: I feel really lucky to kind of live in a time where Major League Baseball players are emboldened to speak out in this sort of manner, especially when it comes to something like safety of fan. And not just fans at the stadium, right? But everyone else on the road–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –with every baseball fan leaving the game. I don’t know I think voices like this are so important to have and I just have to give like the most kudos to him for speaking up about it. Because clearly all, you know, all the team presidents and everything we’re like, yes, fans, safety is the most important thing. But you know, also gotta get that Bud, right? So like, I don’t know.
BOBBY: I, when this was like being passed around, I saw a lot of people being like, I don’t understand what like one extra inning is going to do for people if like people want to drive drunk, they’re going to drive drunk. Like whether you stop selling beer in the seventh inning, or you stop selling beer in the eighth inning. And I’m like, yes, that is true, but also at the same time we live in a world where like, there is very little structure placed around public safety as it is. And so if MLB’s sole commitment to public safety is this policy–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –then they’ve basically knocked their public safety policy down by 50%. You know what I mean? Like MLB’s ser- some teams, you know, encourage people to take mass transit, but obviously mass transit in this country is a sham in most cities. Now, like going to Yankees In Mets games, mass transit is very easy to use. But for a lot of other stadiums that I have been to, for a lot of other places in this country, it’s not quite as easy, and it’s just not going to serve us enough people to the point where you’re, where that is actually the deterrent to driving drunk after a baseball game. And when you also factor in that MLB teams, rake in money on the parking for to encourage people to drive to these games. Like, they really are not incentivized to do anything except maximize their dollar value at the implied risk of their fans and public safety. And like, I think it’s incumbent on players like when they feel that way, and they feel comfortable about it speaking out about that sort of thing. And I just don’t know that like, whether you think this policy is actually going to be more harmful or not. It is undoubtedly a step in the wrong direction for teams caring about the safety of their fans, and the people around ballparks after games.
ALEX: Right. And, and not only are games shorter overall, right? Which we can’t say too much more about. And so they’re pushing back this, the cut off, right?
BOBBY: We’re doing a podcast about the extinction of the dinosaurs, but we’re not going to talk about the meteor. We’re like they’re all gone, we don’t know how that happens.
ALEX: But now each inning is shorter too, right? Like, so now you’re not waiting, the final two innings, which could be you know, 40, 45 minutes. If you’re selling beer through the eighth inning, you may be leaving in like 15 minutes. If the home team is winning, and they get the three outs pretty quickly, which a lot of teams know how to do. Like you, you may not even be finished with your drink by the time the game is over. And that just, I just–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –who are you looking out for here?
BOBBY: It also just like who were you looking out for before, too?
ALEX: I mean, yeah.
BOBBY: You know, like it was bad before, and it just went to slightly worse. And there’s nothing wrong with calling that out.
ALEX: I mean, I this is also not a particularly comforting blueprint for sort of how gambling continues to make its way into its sport. As similarly sort of odious, insidious activity, that teams are nevertheless encouraging, right? They’re encouraging you to do it. and they’re also encouraging you to be safe about it, right? Gamble, but not if you think you’re gambling too much.
BOBBY: Only the exact right amount. Not so little that you don’t make us a lot of money.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Not so much that you don’t have a roof over your head. Just somewhere right in the middle there.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. We can’t really tell you where but–
BOBBY: Yeah, we can’t say what that middle is. We can’t tell you to spend this exact amount of money. It’s just different for every person, you guys figure it out. You guys figure it out. The other part of this, the other part of the beer thing is that like I guess there are other options, right? There other option was to raise the price of beer, because you’re not selling as many.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And they looked at that, they looked at that and they were like my buddy max this one out, you know.
ALEX: Yup, uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We might not, we, that actually might deter, that actually might lower our sales if we raise the price.
ALEX: I don’t think it will go up to $27.
BOBBY: So yeah, dude, we’re all, we’re living in a monopoly game for these people. Like, obviously.
ALEX: Sick, sick! Sick.
BOBBY: We’re collateral damage for Budweiser. Okay, my final Down this week, it comes in the form of a column in The Athletic from none other than Jim Bowden. Headline: MLB front office’s should rein in player opt out clauses. It’s reached a tipping point. We love tipping points on this podcast. Tipping Pitches, tipping points. Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, we love it all. MLB front offices have headed down a problematic and potentially irreversible path. Potentially irreversible path, reversible path. By including too many opt out clauses in new deals. Alex, this next line is very important for you to understand this. Pay close attention to this one. We’re gonna get a metaphor, strap in.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Metaphor, strapped in.
ALEX: Alright.
BOBBY: Strap in for the metaphor.
ALEX: I’m locked in.
BOBBY: This isn’t candy they’re handing out at Halloween, these are major concessions. First, let’s talk about opt out clauses. I don’t understand why teams keep agreeing to them. And then you say it’s Bryan Reynolds in the Pirates and talking about the deal is being held up because Reynolds wants an opt out clause and the Pirates don’t want to give it and the, the length of the contract will be eight years and so Reynolds wants the option to have some flexibility in those eight years. To potentially have some more upside if he turns out to overperform that deal. And Bowden saying well what if he gets hurt? So if the player plays well, it’s a four year commitment for him but he also has the insurance of the other four years that the team is guaranteed. Even in a case such as this one, where the money would make it a team friendly deal, the opt out clause tips the scales in the players favor. This from former GM, Jim Bowden, thinks that there’s too many opt out clauses. I for one think we should get rid of free agency altogether. The original optout sin, free agency,
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: What do you think?
ALEX: I don’t even know what I think–
BOBBY: These sounds–
ALEX: –of that like–
BOBBY: –indistinguishable from the people being like, well, why should Curt Flood get to leave?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You know, like, why should he be able to be a free agent?
ALEX: I just like, this is such cherry pick, like, yes, you picked one piece of a contract that might give a player a slightly more leverage. Would you like to go through the litany of pro owner clauses in there?
BOBBY: I don’t think he would.
ALEX: I don’t think he he would. Isn’t this kind of how contracts work?
BOBBY: Dude, yes.
ALEX: Like both sides come together, and they agree on giving up some things.
BOBBY: If you don’t want to give the opt out clause give a shorter contract for more money. Like you’re teaching the GMs anything here like player opt out clauses are ruining the game like how? How? How? That the players have the freedom to decide that the situation no longer suits them, and they can go be employed somewhere else. Think about what you’re actually saying there.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That players should be pot committed to a franchise for 10 straight years, simply because that was the franchise that decided that they wanted to tender them that contract at that time. Like, if the player signs it without the contract or without the opt out clause, then fine, sure, yeah, the players should be committed to that franchise for 10 years. I am fine with that. But opt out clauses are like a creative way for teams and players to commit to each other for long term, for, for the long term, without it being so draconian, that the deal never actually materializes. Because if there was no such thing as an opt out clause, like Julio Rodriguez would not have signed an extension with the Mariners yet. Fernando Tatis Jr. would not have assigned an extension with the Padres. Same with Manny Machado. And like these, the, the opt out clause is the thing that is allowing teams and players to be able to commit to each other with some exceptions.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And I just don’t see anything wrong with that. And I just don’t understand why like this guy–
ALEX: Right, like if–
BOBBY: –is making it his fucking the last act of his life. His mission to just like stump for owners because he sucked as a GM and now he’s like, trying to get back in their good grace. Like I just, I just don’t get it, like–
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: –crazy town.
ALEX: I know. Ut’s like Carlos Correa says I can sense and then the Minnesota Twins say I consent. And then when Jimbo–
BOBBY: [57:42]
ALEX: –isn’t there someone you forgot to ask?
BOBBY: Dude, I and I can’t even I can’t even go down the rabbit hole of how infantilizing this column is. Like comparing player opt out clauses giving them away like candy. But like the players are like toddlers trick or treating. These are adults who have agents and agency. And comparing teams handing these things out. Like they’re for free candy at Halloween is like so borderline like heinous and offensive. Like I can’t believe this even made it into this column.
ALEX: Well, I mean, it’s equally, I think condescending towards the readers, right? In, in thinking that they don’t understand what an opt out is, right? Like he is breaking the news for the first time that sometimes players get to opt out of their contracts, because they negotiated that at the beginning of the contract. Like what does he think he’s breaking here?
BOBBY: Yeah, this is Mushnick, I guess.
ALEX: It really is.
BOBBY: You know why? Because Mushnick fell off his game and now people think that they can kind of step on his corner.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: It’s like, Phil, you need to step back and take it, take back some of that space.
ALEX: Yeah. Also isn’t Bowden the one who was, who was like, investigated by the FBI, because he was–
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: –pocketing Latin American player contracts?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Oh, okay.
BOBBY: No player opt out clauses. We need to save room for racketeering, allegedly.
ALEX: Fucking love this sport, man.
BOBBY: Alright, what is your, what is your last Down?
ALEX: My last Down, is the thing that I’ve been reading, discussing. And that’s the existence of, of the Oakland Athletics. Baseball team.
BOBBY: Woof! Woaf!
ALEX: That’s, that’s, that’s real.
BOBBY: You seen the movie Home Alone? You know, when the family leaves and Macaulay Culkin is going through his brother stuff, his chest of stuff, looking for his life savings. And he pulls out the picture of Buzz’ girlfriend, and he goes Buzz your girlfriend, woaf! That’s how I’ve been feeling watching the A’s.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Alex your team!
ALEX: Yeah, I mean a bit–
BOBBY: Woof!
ALEX: –a bit a different woof, I think.
BOBBY: No, it’s a negative woof in Home Alone. He looks at her and he does not like how she looks.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s been so long since I’ve seen that movie.
BOBBY: Well, maybe you got to fire it up this year.
ALEX: I know, I, I did like a few months ago.
BOBBY: Alex, the A’s, woof!
ALEX: There was kind of a point put on it this past week when the A’s played the Mets and, and beloved broadcaster Gary Cohen regaled viewers about why they were not currently situated in the visitors broadcast booth–
BOBBY: That’s right.
ALEX: –at RingCentral Coliseum.
BOBBY: RingCentral.
ALEX: That’s–
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: Actually I don’t know that they’ve if it’s still, if they still have those rights or not.
BOBBY: RingCentral like ringing the doorbell ring.
ALEX: No, I think it’s like a, I think it’s like a, you know–
BOBBY: Like telecom?
ALEX: Right, like a–
BOBBY: This is too much for advertising. Actually was–
ALEX: [1:00:53] service.
BOBBY: Oh, definitely SAS, SAS, SAS, software.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s just, we’re B2B, we’re B2B SAS.
ALEX: Right, we’re B2B OTT DTC.
BOBBY: I don’t think you can be B2B and DTC, I think those are the opposite spell the spectrum.
ALEX: Well, I mean, what if the consumer is the business that’s still directly to the consumer.
BOBBY: You sound like the Supreme Court right now. What if the consumer, what if the business is a person?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s true. I didn’t even think of that. Thank you.
ALEX: Opossum, did I even, I don’t even know if I got to what it was- okay, yeah, there’s opossum, there’s opossum that does occupy RingCentral or something or other coliseum.
BOBBY: I think let opossum cook. Nothing else important is going on in that broadcast.
ALEX: Yeah, so the reason, the reason that they were not able to be in the visitors booth is because opossum had–
BOBBY: Borrowed on the ceiling, yeah.
ALEX: –staked his, no, well, I mean, yes, but also had directly before this game sort of staked his territory with some droppings. And so there was a bit of a stench that they were overwhelmed with. The Gary, it seemed like did smell it, Ron did not.
BOBBY: Oh-uh. Get that checked out.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Do you think that the home broadcasts should give up their booth and go hang out with opossum? Because I feel like sort of like opossum is probably like looking for a kindred spirit.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And so opossum is probably looking for a Dallas Braden.
ALEX: Right. Well, it’s also like–
BOBBY: One of us. One of us.
ALEX: Well, it’s kind of like, well, there’s also new people coming in and out there if- right? Like, if this opossum that wants stability, why is he in the, the road broadcast booth?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Right? Then you have to meet new people every week. I get you know, like your dog Stevie gets really anxious meeting new people. It feels like–
BOBBY: Sure does.
ALEX: –a similar vibe. Like, give that opossum some friends you can count on.
BOBBY: I agree. Man, the A’s are bad. There, we’ve talked about this offline a few times, and I don’t remember if we’ve talked about on the podcast. I don’t think I can remember seeing a team that looked this bad on a Major League Baseball field.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, obviously, there have been teams that have performed worse. You know, over the course of however many games days have played so far. But like, in theory, this is supposed to be when your team looks it’s best. Like early in the season, everyone’s healthy. The rest of the league has not quite solidified their standing yet. You know, maybe you could catch a couple quick wins off some teams that you normally wouldn’t beat. That is just not the case. They are not good.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And only getting worse.
ALEX: They have a team ERA of 8?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That’s two runs worse than the next worst team.
BOBBY: And even like, even like the young promising pitchers have not looked good.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Fujinami actually looked okay against the Mets yesterday, give a couple runs has some strikeouts. He was really bad in his first start. And then like Waldichuk supposed to be the other guy that is like, the next good A’s starting pitcher, and he’s just not good.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And it used to be that like, okay, the A’s trade away they’re good players before they get to free agency. And then they replace them with, with players that you’d expect to be as good and they develop them. I don’t really believe in that anymore, honestly.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It like when who were the last great, what is the last great crop of A’s players that has been a core that they’ve developed? it’s been, it’s been a little while, like00
ALEX: Yeah, well, yeah, I mean I think it’s–
BOBBY: –Chapman and Canha and yeah.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. It’s that crew, right? Murphy, Olson, these were all, I mean, that was, it’s the core that they traded within the last, like 16 months.
BOBBY: Right. But like, all of those guys were with the A’s at least for like three or four–
ALEX: Years, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: –years before they traded them. And so like, nothing has come since then.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And I think that that is kind of why they saw the writing on the wall for like their sort of soft rebuild strategy that they’ve been doing since you’ve been alive. And now they’re doing a hardcore tear down rebuild. Which the like the A’s have not–
ALEX: I mean, they’re doing a teardown. I haven’t seen any proof–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –of a rebuild yet, but.
BOBBY: But that’s like not, this is sort of uncharted territory for, like the Billy Beane, David Forst, brain trust of the A’s.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like they’ve never really intentionally tried to be this bad with no, nothing immediately on the horizon. Unless I’m wrong like, I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, you’ve been the person following the team all that.
ALEX: No, I mean, I mean, that’s like Beane, Ben Beane’s whole thing, right? Is like, you know, yeah, we can’t run the high payroll, but we can at least be competitive, right? Which is, you see, there’s like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –a lot of years in there where they’re like, just not bad. Just barely not, like just hanging in there, you know?
BOBBY: 80 and 82, yeah.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Or, like 84 and 78, but like missing playoffs.
ALEX: And like, there’s just no plan here, right? And they’ve–
BOBBY: They’re going to lose 110.
ALEX: They have said as much, right? They’re like, we’re not basically, we’re not going to invest until we get this new stadium. We’re not going to put money on the field, until we get a new stadium.
BOBBY: That is so, so short-sighted and crazy. Because like, once you get the new stadium, you’re not you can’t put this dogshit team in there and expect people to come out.
ALEX: Right. You’ve alienated all your fans for the last decade.
BOBBY: I mean, unless the new stadium stays in Oakland, and it’s a great stadium, and it’s suddenly fun and cheap and easy to get to. Like that is the best that you can hope for. But if you take this team to Las Vegas, what the fuck do you think’s gonna happen? You think that people are gonna come watch this team in Las Vegas? This team in Las Vegas. Like no disrespect to anyone out there trying to make their way on a major league roster. It’s an incredible accomplishment. But there are just no dudes on this team. There are no dudes on the team who are worth the price of admission, frankly.
ALEX: Such shade to Tony Kemp, Tony Kemp, man.
BOBBY: I love Tony Kemp, but nobody is buying a ticket like I really need to see Tony Kemp in person. Especially not in the city of Las Vegas. Like, I don’t know.
ALEX: Shea Langeliers, come on, man.
BOBBY: I like Shea Langeliers.
ALEX: You’re not, you’re not signing up to watch James Kaprielian?
BOBBY: You are naming like the deepest cut like baseball heads. Like the- those are the guys that they can name on the Oakland.
ALEX: Right. Those are like the, the remember some guys and that’s like our starting lineup.
BOBBY: So yeah, I’m just, I know that we’ve like talked about this ad nauseam that there is no future for this team. But like, it’s really starting to be unwatchably depressing. Like it’s no longer an interesting thought experiment. It’s like now we’re seeing the results, the yields of the experiment. Okay, my final Up this week, and then you have one more Up to do after this.
ALEX: Technically, yeah.
BOBBY: My final Up this week is, did you see Cody Bellinger rob Jason Heyward’s home run in Dodger Stadium. That was my Up this week, because it’s just such a funny moment.
ALEX: Yup!
BOBBY: Like, I’m sad for Jason Heyward. I wish he got it, I wish he got a home run. I love Jason Heyward, he could, he could take all the home runs he can get at this point in his career. But uhm, he’s actually having an okay year. Because the Dodgers have a cheating lab that they put all of their players into just like San Francisco Giants competing cheating–
ALEX: Yup!
BOBBY: –in the state of California. But it was just like it was such a wonderful moment for like baseball, and like baseball time being a flat circle. Like Cody Bellinger being on the Cubs robbing Jason Heyward, being on the Dodgers in 2023, after they kind of made their mark on the opposite franchises. And I thought was cool. Great play by the way, Cody Bellinger, still can hit, still is a good defender in centerfield, great athlete.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Cody Bellinger’s wRC+ for the last three seasons, 95 this year. Not good, but not as bad as it’s been, approaching league average. Last year 83, okay, pretty bad. 2021–
ALEX: 56.
BOBBY: 47. Man, he has just been down so bad since that shoulder injury in 2020.
ALEX: That really makes me sad.
BOBBY: I know, because he’s like, just such a beautiful swing to watch–
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: –when it’s right and when it’s wrong.
ALEX: Just a funny dude.
BOBBY: When it’s wrong, like, it looks like he’s never going to ever hit a baseball.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: Because it’s swing is so long and so violent and so hard, it’s just seems like swinging over shoes every time. Urgh, man, maybe you can get right. Maybe Jed Hoyer can get him going.
ALEX: My final Up this week is coming out of St. Louis, which might be a bit of a rarity when it comes to Three Up, Three Down. But that’s thanks to one Jordan Walker, who just really burst onto the scene in baseball over the last couple of weeks and kind of captured everyone’s attention, right? He started the year off with 12-game hitting streak that unfortunately came to an end this past Thursday. I think a lot of people up to just how sort of electric he is at the plate, in the field. I think it’s kind of funny that he had a hitting streak because he’s not known for his hit tool. He’s–
BOBBY: No, no.
ALEX: –having insane light tower power.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But you know, he’s flashed that a bit too, and he’s, and he’s fas,t and he’s got speed. So again like this feels like day one Tipping Pitches content where I’m just like damn I like watching him play baseball. Makes, makes me feel good inside. But that’s kind of, that’s kind of how I’m feeling right now. He skipped Triple-A entirely. You know he was doing there were all these sort of like, you know data points up but he’s the, you know, the youngest person since so and since 1914 to hit in 17 straight, 12 straight first–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –pitch game, yeah.
BOBBY: No, that, I love that stat.
ALEX: Yeah, that was a good stat.
BOBBY: Yeah, I heard that one on effectually well
ALEX: [1:10:50] Uhm, I also just think it’s cool to have another black baseball player who is going to be a fucking star. And especially this comin Jackie Robinson Day was two days ago. Black baseball players are at an all time low right now. And Jordan Walker just brings that, brings our fuckin energy, man.
BOBBY: Did you see honorable Up, honorable mention Up this week? Did you see Bob Kendrick’s appearance in the Royals broadcast booth?
ALEX: He did, yes.
BOBBY: While he was talking about a little bit like of the financial situation of the Negro Leagues at the time that Jackie was signed by the Dodgers and broke the color barrier and about how he was clearly not the best player in the Negro Leagues at the time. He was just the most attainable in the manner in which Branch Rickey was interested–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –in getting black baseball players into baseball. Which was on the cheap as a low cost way to make his team better. And not have to actually like reimburse the Negro Leagues owner, which is what Negro Leagues owners, which is why he ended up not going and signing a player from the New York Eagles owned by Effa Manley, who drove a much harder bargain than the white owner who owns the Kansas City Monarchs at the time was willing to drive for his fellow white owners who were interested in breaking the color barrier. So highly recommend that, highly recommend anytime Bob Kendrick is talking to carve out time to listen. Because I’ve, I’ve literally listened to this man for like, I would say at this point like, hours and hours and hours of his storytelling. And it’s like he I still haven’t heard him repeat that many stories. So I’m like, could you just do this for like–
ALEX: You got, you’ve got backlog.
BOBBY: –300 hours? Like it’s just, it’s unbelievable what he does. So he was yeah, he was in the, in the Royals booth on Jackie Robinson Day. Yeah, Jordan Walker, he looks ready for the big leagues. It’s so, I love early season prospect debuts, because it can really go one of two directions. Like prospects can look really bad when they come to the bigs. And it can mean nothing, you know. Like you can just start off slow or you can just need a little bit more time to adjust. Or like Jordan Walker, you can just be dropped into Major League pitching without ever having even seen Triple-A pitching and start your career off with a 13-game hitting streak. Like Francisco Alvarez is 0-11 with 6 strikeouts. And he was the number one prospect in baseball when–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –he was called up.
ALEX: Not, not exactly ready for Major League pitching.
BOBBY: No, not ready for Major League pitching at all. And so it’s always such a unique and distinct delight to see a prospect just be immediately ready for pitching at this level. Because it’s just never, never ever even remotely guaranteed that that will be the case no matter how surefire you’ve seen. The same thing happened with Wander Franco a couple of years ago, he came up and he was like, immediately I am a .400 OBP player. Congratulations to everybody around me on my team.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s nice to have me here.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And I’m just gonna be that for the rest of my career. So I mean, Walker’s a little bit different because like, like you said, he’s much more of a hard contact with kind of guy.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Are these profiles to be, I have no idea if this is sustainable. Is it all be sustainable at this level? But yeah, good one. I think that does it for this week.
ALEX: I think so.
BOBBY: Housekeeping, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com, tipping_pitches on Twitter. 785-422-5881, that is our voicemail number, which you can call and leave a voicemail. To hear your voice on the Tipping Pitches podcast, sharing your thoughts about any of the things that we discussed on this podcast or anything unrelated. If you’d like to sign up for the Tipping Pitches Patreon that is patreon.com/tippingpitches. Three different tiers, 5, 7, 12, I’ll get you different things. Alex, one thing that we’ve discussed offline that we both are interested in and that I know that Tipping Pitches listeners are interested in is the potential of like meetups at games. Specifically, I would love to do one at the Brooklyn Cyclones this year because that’s Minor League Baseball. It’s a really cool park, it’s much cheaper. The access is easier. Has Coney Island Brewery underneath it, which is a cool spot to hang out with or meet up before after a baseball game. So for the New York area Tipping Pitches folks, maybe we’ll be, maybe we’ll be thinking of organizing something like that later this summer. I know you and I have very busy summer. So we’ll have to find a time in which both of us can actually attend something like that. And then, I know other listeners, either in the Slack or just in the general community on Twitter and whatnot, Hhave also expressed interest in doing things like that, too. So I wanted to shout out longtime listener, Tipping Pitches community member Owen Maynard who listeners might remember organized the Tipping Pitches State of the Union survey. Which we feel the data on and talked about before the season started. Owen lives in the UK, obviously, the MLB does the London game every year. And Owen is, Owen is going to try to organize like a meet up of people that listen to the pod, who might be going to the London game if there’s a handful of people who are living in the UK or who are going to be traveling there for that. So if you’re interested in something like that, and you’re in the Slack, get in touch with Owen. If you’re not in the Slack, maybe consider signing up to, to be part of the organization and the communication around some of these things. But obviously like the one, the ones that will do for the Cyclones and stuff we’ll talk about on the pod and on Twitter and whatnot. So no need to sign up for the Slack to get involved, generally. But uhm, but yeah, I wanted to put that on people’s radar, because it’s high time we all show up to a Minor League Baseball game and get raucous, get a raucous crowd going.
ALEX: Yeah. They’ve got, they’ve got like beer bats there, I don’t know if you’ve seen?
BOBBY: Dude.
ALEX: Like the–
BOBBY: You don’t know if I’ve seen, I’ve seen you drinking one. You’re talking to the listener, right? You don’t know if the listeners–
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: –seen, right? I love that place.
ALEX: Yeah, that place is wild.
BOBBY: I love Coney Island, I love like the roller coaster in the background.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s just such a fun time.
ALEX: The scene.
BOBBY: It is the scene.
ALEX: It’s New York, man. I mean that’s like, fucking make it here.
BOBBY: That has not been true for so many New York Mets prospects. But anyway, thank you everybody for listening. Hope you enjoyed it, we will be back next week.
[1:17:20]
[Music]
[1:17:40]
[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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