Bobby and Alex try to figure out what the hell the Cardinals are doing with Willson Contreras, discuss a Baseball America series on artificial intelligence in baseball, and give updates on the Tipping Pitches Brooklyn Cyclones meetup in July. Then they welcome back friend of the pod and PUP guitarist Steve Sladkowski to talk about being on the road nonstop over the last couple years, the implications for AI’s emergence in the music industry, his strategy when shopping for vinyl, birthday buddy Brandon Belt’s slash line, and much more.
Follow Steve on Twitter @sladkow.
Links:
Brooklyn Cyclones meetup interest form
Maitreyi Anantharaman on the Cardinals’ Willson Contreras woes
How AI could hone pitcher deliveries in real-time
The scouting director of the future may be AI
See PUP, Beach Bunny, and Pool Kids in NYC
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
PUP — “Full Blown Meltdown” • PUP — “Closure” • Pool Kids — “Talk Too Much” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Episode Transcript
Theme
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, uh, Tipping his Pitches. So Tipping Pitches, we hear about it all the time. People are home understand, what Tipping Pitches is all about? That’s amazing! That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, I’d like to start the podcast this week with an apology, but, um, accountability is a word that’s really important to you and I in the podcasting world. It’s being accountable to our listeners, to the—to the wider baseball world, to ourselves, you know? And I’d like to hold us accountable for going too long without making fun of the St. Louis Cardinals. This used to be a feature of the show.
ALEX: A time-honored tradition, certainly.
BOBBY: And now it seems to only be a bug. It only seems to come up every once in a while, and I am here to vow that we will be better.
ALEX: No more, no more.
BOBBY: We will be better: No, no, it’s not an apology, an on-mic apology for not making fun of John Mozeliak, Bill DeWitt, Jr, the St. Louis Cardinals, their fans, their players. Anybody in and around the St. Louis Cardinals organization, you now have the Death Star of Tipping Pitches pointed at you once more. You were too calm for too long.
ALEX: Not just the Death Star of Tipping Pitches, but I would say they drew the ire of most of the baseball world in the last week.
BOBBY: The whole baseball internet. What are they doing? Um, I am referring specifically to how they’re handling the Willson Contreras situation, their marquee free agent acquisition from this past offseason.
ALEX: Which—which I—I want to be clear it’s not a Willson Contreras situation, right? It’s a—it’s a Cardinals situation which they are putting on to Willson Contreras, right?
BOBBY: Well, they’re certainly trying and I think a lot of people are seeing through that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: This is the guy who was supposed to replace their franchise icon in Yadier Molina, and it has turned into a total tire fire, um, of the Cardinals insinuating that Contreras is not good enough to play catcher, of Contreras saying that, “I’m this guy, I’ve been this guy my whole career. I think I’m good enough. I’m a good enough athlete behind there. And I’m—I make up for it on the offensive side.” Um, and then the Cardinals saying that they are going to maybe move him to the outfield. And then they’re saying, “No, we’re actually gonna DH him and he’s still gonna catch.” And it just doesn’t seem like they can make up their mind. And I think that we should cherish—we should cherish these moments as Cardinals haters, when they look like the most dysfunctional franchise in sports. Because it’s not—it’s not that often. It’s a testament to the Cardinals how, um, few stories that are like this. And so we just need to platform this moment in time. It’s beautiful—it’s a beautiful thing.
ALEX: So, I’d like to be clear that there in the—in month two—
BOBBY: Yeah, month two.
ALEX: —of an—
BOBBY: I’m glad you didn’t say year one. No, it’s just month two. It’s almost month one, honestly.
ALEX: It’s almost—it’s almost month one. It just finished being one month. So they’re through one month of this five—five, potentially six-year deal. There’s a team option at the end. Like I know that overreacting in May is kind of what baseball fans do every time, every year around this time. I—I feel like we usually don’t expect that from the people who are paid millions of dollars to evaluate players and put together successful baseball teams. I’m—it feels like if you were expecting Willson Contreras. Willson Contreras, uh, has been a major league catcher for a few years now. He’s been around. And I think—
BOBBY: Not just that. He’s been in their division the whole time.
ALEX: He’s been in their division and he’s been very—
BOBBY: They’ve been scouting him this whole time.
ALEX: And he’s been very good. I think—I think people generally agree that he is one of the better catchers in baseball at the moment, right? Uh—
BOBBY: Not defensively, but, yes. Overall as—overall profile as a player, yes.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. It—arguably, uh, Bobby, he’s the one catcher you would not wanna DH for. Um—
BOBBY: No, dude, you heard about this—this young cat named Francisco Alvarez? Two—two bombs yesterday in another Mets loss. We’d love to see it. It’s like they’re tanking with a $387 million payroll.
ALEX: But it’s just like there’s so many different factors that go into this, like, namely, there’s a pitcher who throws the baseballs, right? The—the Cardinals pitching staff is kind of the crux of this issue. They’ve been terrible, right?
BOBBY: Yeah, so bad.
ALEX: I mean, they’re—they’ve been so bad over the—especially over the last couple of weeks. And so it’s just—
BOBBY: They’re too busy developing 2.2 more middle infielders, they can’t remember to develop pitchers.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: So, um, just abundance of Tommy Edmans and they just can’t—there’s no more Adam Wainwrights coming down the pike.
ALEX: And I just—I don’t know what Willson Contreras is supposed to do about this. He’s not the one throwing the baseballs.
BOBBY: Um, the—the Cardinals are dead last in the National—not just the NL East, the entire National League, they have a worse record than the Cincinnati Reds in their own division, the Washington Nationals, the Colorado Rockies. They are actually underperforming, they’re Pythag. They’re only—you know, -15 run differential is not tangible.
ALEX: Oh. Oh, they’re underperforming their Pythag?
BOBBY: But I just don’t care. I just don’t care they have the second-worst record in baseball behind the—third-worst record—they have the third-worst record in baseball behind your Oakland Athletics.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: your Oakland Athletics and the Kansas City Royals who was not rebuild—is not rebuilding anything. Certainly not rebuilding a baseball team, whatever’s happening there.
ALEX: It’s true. These—these moments don’t crop up very often. I think—we’re—we’re—not only are we able to turn our attention towards the Cardinals, but or turn our attention towards the Cardinals when they’re in a bit of a vulnerable position. Famously, things tend to, uh, tend to always work out for them, but I—I just wanted to say that, um, Maitreyi Anantharaman in, uh, Defector, I think put it perfectly when she said it’s, uh, it’s true Cardinals Devil Magic. Losing eight straight games in harmless fashion and being as publicly annoying about it as possible. That tracks. nothing more to say here.
BOBBY: It’s just looking more and more like they were fraudulent last year. Fraudulent team, fraudulent team that won the National League Central because nobody else wanted to do it. “Hey, if nobody else is gonna do it. I guess we might as well win 90 games thereabouts.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “And then absolutely embarrass ourselves against the Philadelphia Phillies in the wild-card round.” That was beautiful to watch as well.
ALEX: Yeah. The Cardinals were not anticipating the Pittsburgh Pirates, it seems.
BOBBY: Um, neither was I. The same. I just want to say, uh, I pick the Cardinals to win the NL Central. I am on record of saying I thought the Cardinals would win the NL Central. Even though I think the Brewers are good, so—
ALEX: So this is you just trying to—trying to light a fire under their asses?
BOBBY: Again, accountability, accountability.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Tipping Pitches, accountability, foregrounded. That’s what we do. You know what else we do? We talk to musicians about music and artificial intelligence. Later in the podcast, we’re going to talk to Steve Sladkowski, guitarist for PUP the band. One of our favorite bands who are playing, uh, about a week from now, a little over a week from now in New York City. Um, and we’re going to be at that concert, so we thought it’d be a good time to talk to Steve again. Listeners will remember that—uh, some listeners will remember that we talked to Steve last year around this time, the beginning of baseball season. Steve is a huge baseball fan. A huge Blue Jays fan. He’s from Canada, from Toronto. And we were reading the SPIN magazine roundup of the, um, musicians talking about baseball in the MLB preseason. I forget what they actually call it, how they brand it. And at the time, Steve, um, was just railing into MLB owners during the lockout and we were like, “We got to talk to that guy. We just got to talk to him.” And, uh, a year later, we have brought Steve back and we’re hoping to make this an annual thing where Steve comes on and we shoot this shit. It was a great conversation. I’m excited for everybody to hear it. Um, we’re gonna do a little bit of housekeeping beforehand. Talk about a couple other small topics. But before we do all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: New patrons this week, Alex. We got ’em. We got ’em. Acquired. We are once again recording this podcast five days in advance, so this—these are the new patrons who were the last patrons who were the old patrons from last week—
ALEX: Who were technically [8:27] right.
BOBBY: We’re sorry to the new, new patrons who we don’t know about yet. But thank you to Ellen N. and Left Coast gym for signing up for The Tipping Fitness Patreon this week. Um, another—another note of housekeeping, uh, I wanted to mention. I—I talked about it at the end of the podcast last week and we—we’ve dropped a message for the patrons in Slack and whatnot. Um, Alex and I are hoping to do, uh, Tipping Pitches meetup, uh, community meetup of sorts at the Brooklyn Cyclones later this summer. Uh, we had initially tossed out the date of, uh, Friday, July 28th, um, which is a 7:00 PM home game for the Brooklyn Cyclones who play in Coney Island. We are weighing that option as well as the Saturday option, and so we have—we are recirculating the—the Google Form to express interest. As a reminder, this is not you committing to buy a ticket, you’re not actually buying a ticket by filling out this form. It’s just for our informational purposes to figure out how we wanna, um, get tickets so that everybody’s sitting generally near each other in the same section. Um, so that link is in the description, uh, if you want to fill that out. If you already filled it out when there was only Friday as the option, that’s okay. You can fill it out again if you want to. If you don’t want to fill it out and you just—Friday is still your preference, that’s okay. You don’t need to fill that out again. Um, you’ll probably be receiving an email from us if you already filled it out just to clarify these—just to clarify the changes in the additional option. Um, I’m not sure exactly what day it’ll be on, but it’ll be sometime that weekend of the 28th or the 29th, Friday or Saturday. So I’m really excited about that. Cyclones are really fun to go watch. Beautiful Park. Minor League Baseball still good. Um, in my estimation, maybe—maybe it’ll be even better, they got CBA, you know? Maybe this would be the best year of Minor League Baseball ever.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s a great vibe out there. I love going to the Coney Island Park.
BOBBY: I’ve started to plan on what chant I want to get going—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —at—at the—at this event, you know? Like, are we going to chant CBA? Are we going to chant, like, you know, like, different clauses from the CBA? Are we going to read them aloud? ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: Like, how can we really make our presence known?
ALEX: That’s a good question. Uh, I mean, if anyone wants to leak the Minor League CBA to us in advance of that date, that would be helpful. If that’s the strategy we’re gonna go.
BOBBY: I think the Minor League CBA already exists. Like, I think that Evan Drellich has seen it. Based on his summary of it, it seemed like he had seen it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Summary of it is, like, 8,000 words.
ALEX: Yeah, I think—I think we should—we should, uh, cheer positive affirmations, you know?
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: Like, “You got housing.” Uh—
BOBBY: “Let’s go, contract.”
ALEX: “Disputes will be resolved by third-party arbitrator.”
BOBBY: [11:13]
ALEX: Exactly. I don’t know. We might be onto something here.
BOBBY: This is pretty good. Speak—uh, we—we can brainstorm people can submit—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —785-422-5881. Just call, don’t even say your name, don’t say anything. Just do a chant, you know? And we’ll play it on the pod. Um, speaking of, uh, contracts, collective bargaining agreements, Alex, we did it. We wait—we lived long enough to see them release The 2022-2026 Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement. Unfortunately, it’s 440 pages, so we’re not going to be doing a deep dive on that in today’s episode. Nor are we going to be doing it in next week’s episode. Probably it’s going to take a couple of weeks for us to read through that, and really do the deep dive version of it that we want to. Also, you know, TBD on what that deep dive actually looks like, because we haven’t had the chance to read it and see what’s different and see what’s interesting to us. But just know, at some point in the Tipping Pitches podcast, in the next few weeks, we will talk about The Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement, the actual PDF, the actual document, the actual words. You’ve waited 15 months for it, you can wait another three weeks.
ALEX: Uh, I gotta say I was a little disappointed with the, um, with the rollout.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: I thought there could have been more hype around it. First of all, the MLBPA’s official Twitter account—
BOBBY: I know.
ALEX: —still has—still hasn’t mentioned it. I think—
BOBBY: No—no, they—oh, I guess the—the account—the—
ALEX: The—the, like, comms, right.
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, that’s why I—see, I have tweet notifications on for the MLB PA comms, because I’m a cool guy who’s fun at parties.
ALEX: But, like, I think—I don’t know. Musicians have—have been on this schtick for decades, right, of, like, you got to build hype. Put some—
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: —Easter eggs in there. You know, maybe—maybe drop, uh, a line of the CBA into, uh, into, like, a broadcast and see if, like, anyone notices, you know? Um, maybe start—start hiding, like, salary figures in, like, box scores on MLB—like we have Swifty-level detectives who will go to—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —these lengths because they care.
BOBBY: All of them listen to the—
ALEX: I’m just saying miss—missed opportunity.
BOBBY: All of them listen to the—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —Tipping Pitches podcast. Anyone who is a—a Swifty Easter egg truther who would do that sort of research for the CBA is currently listening to this podcast right now, and I see you all and I appreciate you all. Um, how much would the Patreon tier have to be for you to do a—a live broadcast of you reading the entire CBA? How much would people have to pay a month to get access to that?
ALEX: Pretty low probably, right? There’s a 50/50 chance that’s what the Cyclones game turns into anyway, so—
BOBBY: You’re just reading it like the Declaration of Independence? How—okay, okay.
ALEX: I’m gonna—I’m gonna become one of those guys—you know how people get, like, the Declaration of Independence on their back or whatever, I’m gonna get the—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —opening like CBA texts, like, tattooed, uh, on my back.
BOBBY: You know how people get the—the Declaration of Independence—yeah, people, me, I have the Declaration of Independence tattooed on my back. You know, that’s—
ALEX: That’s why you don’t feel the need to stand because, like, you’re already—I mean, it’s already in your body.
BOBBY: I—much like Rob Manfred before me, I would get it tattooed on me to prove how much I appreciate this country. Um, a better question, how much would the Patreon tier—monthly Patreon tier have to be for people to get access to you reading that 440-page Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement in Alex Bazeley’s ASMR voice trademark? There is a nonzero chance that someone listening to this podcast wants that. It’s not just me.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s not just me.
ALEX: I—I suppose there is. Um, well, this is—so I’ve been working—I’ve—I’ve—you bring up AI, I’ve been working on an AI, uh, Tipping Pitches soundboard.
BOBBY: Oh, you just—oh.
ALEX: Right. So, um—
BOBBY: God, I don’t like that.
ALEX: So, you know, we can, uh, feed the CBA into it, and then it’s no work for us.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: Like, which is—which is—again, the benefit of artificial intelligence is that it’s producing the content and results in very little legwork on our—on our end.
BOBBY: On the flip side, I think it would be interesting for us to treat it like Thespians treat their art, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You’ll only ever do the ASMR CBA performance unrecorded.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You have to be in the room and you have to feel that electricity. You have to feel the tingles on the back of your neck as Alex—with Alex whispers the CBA—
ALEX: Are we going to be one of those people who like—
BOBBY: —grievance policy
ALEX: —we hand out the, like, cell phone Ziploc bags—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —so you have—so you can’t record anything else.
BOBBY: Just so you know, you will have to Ziploc your cell phone for the Brooklyn Cyclones meetup. No pictures. Um—
ALEX: We can’t let it happen, man. The cancel—the cancel culture crowd will—will come for us if this stuff gets out.
BOBBY: I—I don’t want people tweeting beautiful sunsets, uh, at the Brooklyn Cyclones game with wonderful roller coasters in the background, talking about how much they love the sport of baseball and community. I don’t want that. Um, thank you for mentioning AI. It gives me an easy—easy—easy quick pivot before we get to Steve. Um, did you see this—this whole, uh, suite of stories in Baseball America this past week about how AI is going to revolutionize baseball front offices?
ALEX: Briefly. And—and as you mentioned, it’s a suite of stories that, um, really kind of just looks at different aspects of the game and how AI could be applied there. But you—you wanted to talk about it because we really have said the word AI on this podcast far too much for a baseball podcast, like within the last month. Uh, that’s not going to stop with this upcoming interview.
BOBBY: I thought it particularly resonant given that we are about to talk about AI with Steve somehow. Um, you’ll see how we get there. A very roundabout conversation with our friend STEVE:. Um, It touches on—on many different subjects, which is the beauty of bringing on musicians on a baseball podcast. But I thought it particularly resonate with our conversation about the Writers Guild last week. You know, the Writers Guild is not directly related to baseball, despite the fact that a bunch of TV writers love the sport of baseball somehow. I think that’s just the Mike Schur trickle-down effect going on there. Um, but we were talking about what they’re fighting for and how there’s this AI Boogeyman in their conversations. and, you know, I mentioned how once you strip away all of the sort of, like, in—industry specificities to labor negotiations, they all start to look kind of shockingly similar. And then we talked about the front office unionization push or in—intrigue last week. And now seeing these stories come out at the same time in Baseball America about how AI and, you know—about AI and how that’s going to, you know, “disrupt” how data is used in front offices. I mean, what does that—what does that really mean in practice? I’m—I’m not totally sure and—and I don’t want to lend too much credence to the—this suite of stories about whether they actually will turn out to be true and how they change data, uh, visualization and, you know, data processing in—in baseball front offices, because I think a lot of this stuff is actually already going on.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Um, but it’s just funny how all of the, like, tentpole points of these trends in culture kind of wrap themselves around our different interests in similar ways.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, I’m pretty sure I said last week that if you thought the—the—that if you thought the AI Boogeyman around TV writing was bad, like wait ’till it hits a sport whose whole thing is supposedly objective analysis, right? Like, I think there is—I think there are a lot of people who say, “Look, maybe a computer can’t write my favorite TV show, but could probably run a baseball team, right? So why, you know, why the fuck not?” And those people are behind closed doors, white-collar workers, we don’t see the work that they do anyway, so I think that you will start to see this sort of strain of argument. Um, and as you mentioned, a lot of this is already in place to some degree, right? Some of the examples that these articles talk about are, you know, using an algorithm to develop a draft model, right? Or using artificial intelligence to analyze a pitcher’s delivery in real-time.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
ALEX: And, like, again, there are already cameras that are capturing this sort of thing and teams are already using this data. And while I think that there’s probably utility in saying, “Baseball is about collecting a lot of data and—and mining through it, and maybe there’s a way to not have to—maybe there’s a way to better allocate the—the resources that we have, right?” The people that we have here on staff to saying what’s the best way to implement this strategy—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —versus come up with a strategy or whatever. But it does get frightening when you hear like, “We’re going to use a computer to put together a draft model, right?” Because for decades, that’s been the work of scouting directors and general managers who say, “No, I know what a—what a good pitcher looks like, right? I know what a good hitter looks like. I’m really good at drafting college kids, right? I really do think that, like, this is who we should be targeting.” And as we have already started to see over the last few years, computers are already coming, right? You’re already seeing teams make the argument that, “Well, the computer is more in—more objective in their analysis and we can use it to collect a lot more data. And so we don’t need scouts for, you know, short-season complex that doesn’t exist anymore. But, like, for low-level, like—just another thing they got rid of. Uh—
BOBBY: We don’t need to get rid of something to analyze a thing that we’ve already gotten rid of.
ALEX: Right, exactly. There’s your way of getting around it. right? If we just got rid of baseball, we wouldn’t have to employ any of these people. I’m just saying.
BOBBY: No. So—okay. I’m glad you framed it that way. I’m glad—you know you’re joking, but I’m not actually joking.
ALEX: But, like—
BOBBY: But what if we just didn’t pursue efficiency at all costs? I’ve yet to be convinced as to why efficiency is better for me, personally. Me the fan, me the consumer—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —me the average citizen, me the man making his way through the world in this society. Like, I just don’t—I don’t—one, I don’t believe it. Like, I don’t—I don’t believe that a computer is going to replace a person. You know why? Because you know who is the “smartest”—well, I know I banned this topic, goddammit. The “smartest” front office in baseball happens to be the biggest front office in baseball with the most human beings who are employed to actually use these resources and make sense of them. I think big data is not new in baseball and maybe that—the, um, the implication here is that the AI will get smart enough to clean that data better and devise answers about what you should do with that data. I have serious reservations about the efficacy of that and I also have serious reservations about whether we should even trust algorithms to do these things. Because at the end of the day, like algorithms were written by a few people. There are fewer checks and balances on what those decisions—on those decisions if you are just entrusting, like, a one singular artificial—one single—one singular artificial intelligent—artificially intelligent technology to say, “Here’s how you should change your pitcher’s deliveries to maximize their spin rate velocity, you know?”
ALEX: Decrease injury probability, et cetera.
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, you say decrease injury, but what if that increases injuries?
ALEX: Well [22:29] yes.
BOBBY: [22:30] pitchers and—because you actually didn’t have enough people to ask reasonable questions about whether this was the right path forward. And—or—or—
ALEX: Yeah. You—you don’t have decades of data on this sort of thing like we do right now.
BOBBY: Right. And if you—and if you don’t have, like, the analyst as the per—the conduit between the—the big data, the artificial intelligence, so to speak, and the actual player and coach—the coaches who are implementing those strategies with the players, then who is the player supposed to tell that they don’t want to do this is my question. Like, at the end of the day, this is a—this is a team of people who are trying to entertain. Maybe we would do better to remember that and would do better to, honestly, reckon with the idea that it’s better to have more people who have jobs in baseball. It’s better for the long-term health of the sport to have more human beings who remained in the game. Like, this is not technological advancement for the sake of technological advancement, like trying to send a rover to the—to Mars or something.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like this is—we’re not trying to, like, gather as much information about the future and advancement of technology for the sake of the human race, like we’re trying to play baseball. So it’s okay if there’s inefficiencies. It’s okay if there’s—it’s okay if we’re not doing everything in the most optimal way at all times. I think that’s actually maybe the point, which I know—I—it’s gonna echo a similar thought that I share with Steve later on, but, like, you know, these themes are everywhere.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, you’re right that it does echo that conversation, right? Because the—the game itself is—because the game itself is founded on the sort of individuality of players, right? There’s—that’s what’s beautiful about baseball, I think, is that there’s not really one way of doing it, you know? It—it rewards different skills, like different unique skill sets, I think, in a way that maybe other sports do to a—to a lesser degree. Um, the—the absolute range of—of—again, like pitching mechanics, for example, that you see, right? Or Hunter Pence standing at the plate or something like that. You know, I don’t need an AI looking at every pitcher who comes over in—from Japan, saying their wind up is just a little too inefficient.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Let’s streamline it so that they all look like, you know, Corey Kluber.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right? One of—that’s—that’s cool. That’s made the sport more fun to watch. Awesome.
BOBBY: At least Corey Kluber has a nice delivery. They would probably streamline—streamline it and be like, “Let’s make them all look like Noah Syndergaard.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, go out of the quasi stretch all of the time because that is the least wasted movement. It’s like, “Okay, well.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “Why—whatever—”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, what’s—what is the end game I think is a fascinating question to ask ourselves at the onset of something like this. Because I think I—from my perspective, the end game is 20 years from now. We have Theo Epstein 2.0 coming out and apologizing for homogenizing the game to the point that it’s unwatchable. And we have to roll back some of these changes. Sorry, we just saw it. Like, it wasn’t computers who made these changes. It was human beings who made these changes, but—to—to the same end.
ALEX: Yeah, I just—I just don’t know what’s so wrong with the sport right now.
BOBBY: Nothing—nothing it’s—
ALEX: You know, like, with the scouting that haven’t like—I don’t know. Seems to kind of work. I enjoy it when I turn on a baseball game, and pitchers get injured sometimes and that’s part of the game and scouts with—on draft picks. That’s part of the game. And computers are gonna do also—like this is all kind of just—uh, dare I say how it works?
BOBBY: What do you think—uh, what do you think that AI has to say about pitcher winds? Maybe they can win me over with that. If the AI is like, “Actually, pitcher winds are more important than you think.” The pitcher winds—
ALEX: I—I mean, it’s—
BOBBY: “—steep the crossover.” They could win me over with that,
ALEX: You know, if you’re looking for it to tell you that, I think, um, what I’m learning is you can just tell it to tell you that.
BOBBY: Tell it to tell me that?
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s all about the input, baby. Gotta put the right input for the right output. Uh, okay. Well, I’m excited for everybody to hear our conversation with Steve. Uh, again, PUP is about to start, uh, another tour. They had a huge tour, um, over the last year or so. They’ve been off for a couple of months, but they played all over the United States and all over Europe, and they’re about to do that again. Um, shows coming up in DC, Pittsburgh, New York, Boston, Atlantic City, and then a lot of shows in Europe. As Steve put it, um, all of the baseball towns, that’s where they play. Like, I don’t think that’s a coincidence, maybe. Um, and, Alex, I will be in attendance at the New York one, as well as probably like a lot of other baseball writers. Have you thought about—uh, I’ve been thinking about recently how—you know, the—for the 40 somethings, like the—between the 30 and 50 demographic of baseball writers, it’s Bruce Springsteen. But for all of the, like, 32 and younger baseball content creators, we all kind of—we have, like, our own little pockets of Bruce Springsteen-esque knee mobility with like, “Oh, we’re all gonna be at the PUP show. We’re all gonna be at the fucking Paramore concert. We’re all gonna—”you know, like, we’re kind of—we’re aging into our own little version of that stereotype.
ALEX: Yeah, I agree. I think the other actually, uh, a darkhorse contender for that is someone like Carly Rae Jepsen, who is just universally beloved.
BOBBY: So true. Well, that’s because she writes perfect pop songs.
ALEX: That’s because she just writes bangers like I don’t know. Sorry.
BOBBY: Like, if you don’t miss, people recognize that.
ALEX: You mean like Bruce Springsteen?
BOBBY: Let’s not do this right now.
ALEX: We shouldn’t do this right now.
BOBBY: We just have a whole-ass interview to get through.
ALEX: I know, I was having such a nice conversation with you, too.
BOBBY: I know, I felt—I felt—I felt good, I felt positive. You know, we—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —didn’t need to snipe at each other, and now you’re gonna—you’re gonna throw the Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel rant [28:01] into this conversation? Without Steve even here to litigate it?
ALEX: I know. I know. Foul Play. We’ll—we’ll have to wait ’till next time he comes on.
BOBBY: Um, their show in New York and a lot of the other shows that they’re playing, um, will be with Pool Kids and Beach Bunny, who are two other really cool bands. Um, specifically, you and I are huge fans of Pool Kids. We’re just talking before we started recording about how the first song on their most recent album is a note-perfect song that I can’t go a single day without playing. So check those bands out if you don’t know them already. If you do know them, um, consider going and supporting them in their live shows, because I—I—I’m speaking from experience, it’s, uh, exceptional fun. Okay. Let’s go to our conversation with Steve Sladkowski.
SPEAKER 3: And make no mistake, I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m just surprised the world isn’t sick of grown men whining like children. You shouldn’t take it so seriously, it’s just music after all.
BOBBY: Okay. We are absolutely delighted to once again be joined by friend of the pod, Steve Sladkowski. Steve what’s up, man? How are you?
STEVE: Uh, I am—I’m well, you know? Uh—uh—uh, we were, uh, just talking before you hit record, but, uh, yeah, in Toronto, hanging out, getting ready to leave, uh, for some—some tour dates, uh, next week. But, uh, up until then, doing, uh, the good stuff, laundry, you know, the dishes, cooking.
BOBBY: Getting yourself in the headspace to go—to go on a world tour of—
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: —your punk rock music.
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: Doing laundry.
STEVE: Right.
BOBBY: Doing dishes.
STEVE: Doing—doing my—my precious little errands, you know?
ALEX: I was—I was doing the dishes last night and I was like—I was like, “Oh, what do I listen to?” And I was like, “You know, I’ll put on some, like, punk or, like, maybe some, like, metal or something.” And it’s just really—
STEVE: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —a bizarre feeling to be, like, sitting there. Like, “Hmm, let me scrub a bit of this date—the—the—the edge of this plate while someone’s just doing like death growls in my ear.”
STEVE: Yeah. Yeah.
ALEX: And I’m like, “There’s an incongruency here.”
STEVE: That tends to be my time for, uh, for podcasts, actually.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: So I’ll have a little comedy or sports podcast usually.
BOBBY: Do musicians, um, have their version of best shape of their life like before—before a long tour starts?
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, do you get to tell people that you’ve put on, like, seven pounds of muscle in preparation for playing—
STEVE: Yes.
BOBBY: —every night for—for a while?
STEVE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve played the guitar every day for the last two weeks. Um, they were—uh, I was watching the Jays game yesterday and, uh, they were—they basically did that, like, song and dance for, like, Whit Merrifield.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: Which was really funny. They’re just like, “Oh, he came—he came out of camp just in—just like Dan Schulman.” I’m like, “Oh, Dan, you don’t have to carry water like this, man. It’s okay. Like, it’s”—but, uh, but they’re like, “Yeah, he—yeah, he was—came out great shape out of camp,” but it’s like, “Yeah, I mean, I—”
ALEX: Yeah.
STEVE: “I should fucking hope so.” Like—
ALEX: Right. I mean, like he’s a professional ballplayer?
STEVE: Yeah. The only guy that gets a pass for that is, uh, is, uh, Shingen-Ryu, I think, uh, because a couple years ago, they were like—he was like, “Yeah, it’s training camp, that I’m supposed to be ready by the end of it. I’m not ready now. I’m not like—”
BOBBY: Yeah. But—but this is, like, training part, you know?
STEVE: That’s—that’s the guy right there.
BOBBY: A man after my own heart.
STEVE: Yeah. That’s—yeah.
BOBBY: A guy who just wants to do it all in the span of a couple of weeks when he had several months to do it.
STEVE: The—
BOBBY: Like, that’s my manly thing.
STEVE: The enormous [31:19]
BOBBY: Yes [31:22]
ALEX: What—what better way to encapsulate how bosses want you to work off the clock, then being expected to come into—
STEVE: Exactly.
ALEX: —camp in the best shape your life? He’s trying to Netflix and Chill, man.
STEVE: Yeah, that’s literally the only reason I’m not in the majors. It has nothing to do with—like, I just didn’t want to—
ALEX: Exactly.
STEVE: I didn’t want to hit the gym the way that a lot of guys that I played with growing up, uh, wanted to hit the gym. That’s the only reason.
BOBBY: You weren’t in love with the grind, bro. That was the problem.
STEVE: Yeah. Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: You should’ve been more in love with the grind. Um, Steve, we’re talking to you, we’re joking before you go on, uh, quite a length—another lengthy tour with your band PUP. Um, starting out, uh, in Washington, DC, in New York, where we’re going to see you, uh—
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: —in about two weeks from the time that we’re recording. Tickets are still available for that show, and honestly, I’m shocked because this is—this is a win of a bill here with you guys, and Pool Kids, and Beach Bunny, and we’re really pumped to see it. So people can still get tickets for that show I think by the time they listen to this podcast if they—if they’re in the New York area.
STEVE: Yup.
BOBBY: Um, what is the last year of your life been like? Because you guys have been touring a lot. When we talked to you last year, around this time, um, you know, we wanted to talk to you because we—we saw your quotes about hating MLB owners and we were like—
STEVE: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —”Oh, a musician who hates MLB owners. Seems like a good fit for us.” Um—
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: —but the—since then you guys have played quite a few shows. And at that time, you were just kind of getting back into the swing of being able to play shows after COVID and I remember you talking about how excited you guys were. Um—
STEVE: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —but now, now you’ve really settled into, like, the fully—we are touring the entire world. You’ve done a whole stint in Europe. You guys have been on this big tour with Joyce Manor in the United States. So just kind of—I mean, what does it—what does it been like for you to get back into that regular rhythm of being a touring musician most of all?
STEVE: Yeah. You know, it’s—it’s really nice, um, in kind of—on its phase. It’s, uh, it’s been great. Um, you know, I think there was a time there in the pandemic where I definitely was like, “Well, I don’t have a job. Like, what is—what do I do?” Like, the—like, couple of drinks in like, being like, “Should I just, like, watch a YouTube video of myself?” Like, I—to remind me what I did?” Um, I think there—there is definitely still a bit of a like—but this is sort of not, uh, just for music and touring and stuff, but definitely the—the whole kind of like—there’s a bit of dissonance in terms of, like, you can still get sick. You can still get the thing that we shut down the world for. Um, so that—there—that—you know, I—that I’m still conscious of that. I think—I think a lot of people are still conscious of that. Like, you know, we mask on airplanes and stuff still and—and—uh, but, yeah, it’s—it’s been good. Uh, you know, I think a lot of people have—have kind of realized how important live music was in their lives even more, so maybe then the last time we spoke, you know, um, a lot of people were excited to be going to shows and, like—and—and, you know, um, people seem to be, uh, hitting festivals. Uh, you know, we were—there was a lot of worry, I think, about the festival bubble popping. Uh, and to some extent, I think that is kind of true, but—but I think still people are—are looking for those kind of, like, large scale sort of group events, um, as well. I mean, you know, baseball and—and sports are—are kind of similar in that regard. Um, and it’s kind of—it’s—I don’t know, it’s nice. It’s—it’s a—it—I—you know, you kind of don’t realize how much of, uh, that part of your life is kind of fundamental to—to who you are as a musician, but, uh, it’s—it—it is kind of a central part.
ALEX: Yeah. I—I imagine a lot has kind of changed as you—as you guys have sort of come out of the shutdown of the pandemic again. I mean, where—where I think things felt—you know, we didn’t have to think about, uh, I think, a lot of this on a day-to-day basis prior to 2020, right? And—and now a lot of it has really changed kind of the—this doesn’t have to get into, like, a whole, like, COVID conversation or whatever, but I am—but I am kind of curious if there’s anything as you guys have kind of come back into these spaces that feels like markedly different, you know? I mean, like, maybe—like, if you guys had rituals or—or—or something? Um, maybe, uh, you know, you guys—all the bands on the—on the list share a burrito beforehand.
STEVE: Yeah.
ALEX: You know, you’re like, “Boy, we can’t do that anymore.”
STEVE: I mean, I guess—I guess it’s—it’s more for us to reflect of the fact that we maybe aren’t that interesting to begin with. But, like, uh, there’s not, like, a huge difference. You know, I think most of the time if we were going out to eat, um, we would try and find a restaurant that was big enough to, you know, kind of handle the touring group, which for us now is kind of pushing, like, eight, nine, ten people sometimes, depending on—on where we are. You know, it’s a little bit bigger, obviously, in North America in terms of, like, crew and—and—and, uh, um, kind of who’s on the bus with us. But, like, I don’t know. You know, there’s some weird stuff where, like, there are, like, air purifiers, like, backstage where it feels like—you know, uh, stuff like that is being kind of taken by some venues, like, more seriously than others. But then I’m like, “What about”—like, the audience is out there, like, have you done anything for them?” You know—
ALEX: Right.
STEVE: —like—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: Um, but no, like, for better and for worse, it does kind of feel, like, people have sort of picked up where they left off, which is—I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know. That feels like a—that feels like a problem that is—again—or not a problem, but just sort of, like, a phenomenon, um, that is kind of across the spectrum of—of events and kind of, like, how people are functioning on a kind of a day-to-day level.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, there’s definitely been a desire of just like, “Get back to normal, right?” And—
STEVE: Yeah.
ALEX: —a lot of people and a lot of musicians have said, “Well, maybe that—that normal wasn’t the one we were really looking for in—to begin with.” Especially musicians who I think work to cultivate, I think, safe spaces for fans.
STEVE: Yeah. You know, and I think, too, it’s like we haven’t really considered, like, the—um, we’ve added just sort of another, um, concern to a laundry list of concerns for the kinds of artists who have to make a living on the road, um, which is, you know—I mean, I’m not—uh, I—we have made, uh, a career off of, like, timely complaints about that sort of stuff. But, like—uh, um, but, uh, but it is—it is interesting to kind of see, you know, just—it’s—uh, we’re back out there. BOBBY: Yeah. So I mean, I think if people want to hear your feelings about some of the—the systematic things about the music industry, they just have to listen to the music. It’s kind of [38:09] in a lot of cases.
STEVE: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Uh, one thing I’m always curious about, Steve, um, which maybe you can—maybe you’re a representative of or maybe you’re an aberration for. Um, what is, like, your cultural consumption, like pop cultural consumption while you’re touring on the road? Like, are you able to like watch new movies, watch new TV show—shows, listen to other music? Like carve out time for the Blue Jays? Like the Raptors, those sorts of things?
STEVE: I definitely—I definitely—I think sports are—are pretty easy one, um, just because—um, even if you were like, “All right. Whatever. We’re going to, like, a sports bar or something for—for dinner because I don’t want to think about making another decision on, like, a—on a nice restaurant or something.” Like, that’s kind of—you know, so you’re like, “Okay, well, there’s always going to be a game on.” Or, like, if we’re headlining, we go on a 10—especially now with like—with the—the change to kind of the timing of the game. It’s like—it’s easy to watch a Jays game if they are on the East Coast, um, which is really nice. Uh, you know, it keeps—keeps me engaged in my group chats. It keeps me, uh—uh—
BOBBY: It’s very important.
STEVE: Yeah, exactly. Um, so that’s kind of nice. You know, I think it’s like—like with music, it’s definitely, uh, like an—kind of like a non-starter on the road for the most part. Um—
BOBBY: Interesting. Just because you guys are working too hard on practicing or, like, staying in the—
STEVE: Just—
BOBBY: —in the zone of your own music or like what’s—what’s going on with that?
STEVE: I—yeah, I think I’m just like—I—I think my ears are tired, honestly, at the end of, uh—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: —at the end of the day, just like being in the venue for, you know, hours. Um, so I do a lot of like—a lot of like—if I’m falling asleep, I’ll—I’ll—I’ll maybe try and listen to a little bit of music, um, if we’re, like, on the bus, because it’s pretty easy to just be you’re in your bunk and—and you’re like—you have earplugs in or something and—and you can kind of fall asleep, and you roll over, and you just take out your earplugs and whatever. Um, or I’ll listen to something like—like—just like—just the most, you know, like boring, like, history podcasts or something, you know?
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: Just like—and at home—it’s funny, like at home, I don’t need any sound or, like, audio to fall asleep. Like, I try not to run the dishwasher too late, because if I do, like, it’s—it’ll keep me up.
BOBBY: Keeps you up? Interesting.
STEVE: You know? Like—uh, yeah, it’s funny. Um, uh, and then at home, I listen to like—like records, like I have, like, a pretty—um, so I’ll do a lot of like record shopping on the road, I guess, that’ll be the kind of thing where I’ll—I’ll, like, find record stores and try and go and just to kind of see what’s going on in record stores or bookstores and stuff. Um, but, yeah, I read like a lot of—a lot of fiction, uh, on the road, and—and just try and kind of walk around. And if there are, like, art galleries and—and that sort of stuff, like, I’ll, um, I’ll try and force myself to kind of do that, um, as a way of sort of keeping that, um, creative kind of engagement side of my brain, uh, going. But, yeah, like—like sports, I think it’s pretty easy. And—and if we’re in, uh, places that have major or minor league parks, you know, we always, uh, um, try and, uh, sort of sink a day off or something like—like to try and find tickets. And you know, obviously, um, uh, Bailey, my wife, uh, her, uh, maid of honor works for Major League Baseball, and she’s always kind of keeping me up to date on stuff. She’s like, “Oh, you’re in this town, like they’re doing this giveaway or something.” You know, like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: —like stuff like that. Jess Whitney, who I think you both know. Um—
BOBBY: Yeah, Jess is great.
STEVE: Uh, so, you know, there’s always that. Like, we—we had a day off in Indianapolis last year, and we got to go to the—to the ballpark to see the team whose, uh, name I won’t, uh, say, but, um, you know, um—so it’s good. It’s—it’s kind of a nice way to, uh, to just feel connected to home and—and kind of get a sense also of—of the places where we are.
ALEX: When you are—um, as a—as a professional musician, when you are going street diving for vinyl records, what—do you have, like, kind of a strategy when you go in? Are you like, “I’m going straight to, like, the used section to see what’s in there.”? Is it—
STEVE: [42:12]
BOBBY: That’s such an important question because I usually find myself—
ALEX: What are your—what are your pro tips?
BOBBY: Yeah, I usually find myself, like, dumbfounded 48 minutes later, just with—holding three different things and, like, not buying any of them, because I’m like, “Well, I want all of these equally, but can’t afford all three of them.”
STEVE: Yeah. Um—
ALEX: It means that there’s a lot of music I’m interested in listening to.
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: Yeah. So, I—I tend to—I tend to try and keep it, um, under, like, 50 bucks if I’m going into a shop. So, 50 bucks can be one record, it could be three records, or, you know—and then I tend to—tend to go into the, like, used—like the—like recent arrival used sections in a lot of record stores, um, and then from there, I’ll kind of go—um, I’ll go jazz, electronic, folk, all stuff that I find, um, is a little bit more difficult to find on streaming, like either because it hasn’t been reissued or like—just kind of like—like some of these—these sorts of recordings are not as, um, uh, accessible. You know, I—I—I’ve started buying CDs again, honestly, for that—that reason, um, because sometimes I’ll find stuff that I was like, “Oh, I really liked this, like, when I was in college, um, and it’s just not on any streaming services.” Just like for what—you know, what if some artists who just, like, doesn’t—you know, like, I like John Zorn, like the—the kind of jazz, uh, and sort of, like, avant-garde guy who, you know, also played with, like, Mike Patton, and just like—you know, he’s one of those guys who’s just like, “No. Like, I’ll put out whatever physical medium, like, I want to put out, but, like, you have to go buy it. It—I’m not going to put all that shit on streaming,” um, which I think is kind of a cool—cool thing. You know, and then it depends, there—there are—I’m—there—enough that I’ve—I’ve kind of done this enough now where—there are cities that we go to where I’m like, “I’m going to that fucking record store because I love it.” Uh, you know, and, um, you get to know—like, this is insane, uh, but probably is not that surprising. Like—like certain records, you just don’t find in Germany and certain records you find in Germany. Like, in an abundance that you would never find in New York City, right? Or, like—um, which, like, I never thought was, like, a thing, but everyone was like, “Oh, the record shopping in, like, Germany or in London, or all these places are really, really good.” So, like, I found, like, tons of original, like, hip-hop, just like for whatever reason it was popular there kind of in the—in the ’90s and, like, vinyl was still popular and—and it has remained popular. And so it’s like—I was finding, like, original, like, Roots records from, like, the early ’90s and like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: —mid-’90s in Germany. And, like, early Beastie Boys records and stuff like—
BOBBY: Right.
STEVE: Like stuff that if you were to find, like, in New York—in New York or, like, anywhere in North America really, like you just don’t find that, you know?
ALEX: Yeah, that’s like the Holy Grail, right? And like—
STEVE: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Well, it’s also been—so, like it’s, uh, been—so—no, I don’t want to say, like, picked over by collectors, but collecting those specific records, it’s such like a thing in North America. It’s like—
STEVE: It is.
BOBBY: —I want to have, like, the completest version of the Beastie Boys, or The Roots, or whoever.
STEVE: And—and there’s like the weird Discogs-ification of it a little bit—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: —which like, uh, it doesn’t bother me because, like, uh—uh, I think—I love Discogs honestly, um, but, like, people know what their records are worth, so you don’t kind of, like, stumble across like—I—I—I did the, like, classic, I have it right here because I pulled it out literally the other day. But I did the classic thing of, like, I bought a second version of a record that I already owned, that I forgot I own, so I have, like, a European pressing of, like, Kate Bush’s The Kick Inside.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: Wow. Nice.
STEVE: And—and I was, like, going through because I have one of those, like, uh—one of those like IKEA like—like four by four record, uh, like, shelves, um, and I was like, “I—I think it’s time to sell this. Like there’s no reason for me to have two of the same Kate Bush record like in a—in a condo that I live in.” Like, what are we talking about here?
BOBBY: Right.
STEVE: Um, but, yeah, so that’s—that’s still fun, you know, like—um, and then Bailey, my wife, is always like, “It’s wild to me that you can—I can go like in—into that collection and pull out a record, and I show it to you, and you’re like, “Oh, I know exactly where, like, I got that. Uh, that—that’s something that—I—I don’t know. That’s—that’s a weird—these are all these useless skills that I have.
BOBBY: No, but you can’t replace that, man.
STEVE: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, that’s what—you know, I—I found myself in a conversation about this sort of thing on a podcast the other day, um, because someone asked the—the movie podcast that I work on at The Ringer, someone asked in a mailbag, um, “What—how do you think AI is going to change movies and do you think that like—I know it looks like shit now, but like in 10 years or whatever, if AI can make a reasonable facsimile of a feature film, like whether that’s a superhero movie or whatever, an action movie, do you think that studios will do that and do you think people will want to watch that?” And I was like, “I don’t want to speak for other people, but for me personally, like, the point is that another person made it like the—whether that’s music or—STEVE: Hmm.
BOBBY: —whether that’s movies, or TV, or whatever, you could—if—even if AI made the exact same thing, like the authorial intent, even if I don’t know exactly what the authorial intent was, like, the fact that someone went through the actual physical process of making something, to me makes it more worthwhile and like, I can connect to it more personally. And that’s, like, kind of exactly what you’re describing with the records. It’s like, “I remember where I was when I bought this. I remember where I was when I heard this. You know, like, and having it in my hands makes it more valuable to me in a way.
STEVE: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, do you think, like, AI can really—not to make this an AI conversation, obviously, but—
STEVE: No, but—no.
BOBBY: —but I think it’s like that same, like, human instinct to want to connect with another human over art.
STEVE: Yeah, that—that’s someone I think is doing the work is kind of the thing.
BOBBY: Exactly.
STEVE: Like, you’re—you’re—you know, you’re engaging with—with humanity and—what—I—I—I talked about this with someone, um, but there’s—that—that person, uh, they—their, like, handle is, uh, la_meme_young. Um, uh, like—and, uh, his name is Max, but like, he’s kind of talked about this as—as being sort of a like—uh, at the end of the day, kind of what this whole— the crux of this—this AI kind of, like, discussion is, at least with kind of, like, creative fields, is like, what do we actually value in terms of humanity? Like—and—and not so—that’s—that sounds very, like—like, kind of, like, philosophical and sort of, like, you know, a little nebulous, but, like, if—if it’s—if what we value is that a human made a thing and we have to engage with it, then AI is only going to be able to offer so much.
BOBBY: Yes.
STEVE: And like—and like—and I don’t think even that that’s an—uh, a problem, like, uh, you know, uh, I’ll—I think there are probably some really cool, um, applications for AI that aren’t necessarily—uh like an either/or—like Gambit, right? Like, uh—uh, they—they—they are going to coexist in some way, but I think like—there’s not really anything interesting that AI art is doing yet.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: Whether that’s like—even like for that—that—like, that, like three or four-month period where everyone was using those, like, art prompts and just, like, most of this stuff, like it—it’s got to be interesting still, whether it’s generated by, like, an algorithmic kind of computer, or hive mind, or like a neurotic, uh, group of fucking dudes in a jam space. Like, um, you know—
ALEX: Yeah.
STEVE: Like, if it’s interesting, it can be interesting, but, like, the—the—the division is sort of like, “What kind of intangible element”—well, here we are talking about intangibles, uh, but like—
BOBBY: I mean, honestly, I think that one of the problems for me is that mistakes that AI make are not interesting. Like imperfections—
STEVE: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —in AI are not interesting the way that—
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: —imperfections in humans are interesting. Like, the idiosyncrasies is kind of the point for me.
STEVE: Yes.
BOBBY: And that’s like—
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s like you say the same thing about—we talked about this all the time on the show with baseball too, like, actually going and watching a person strikeout is way more interesting than thinking about that person striking out in a spreadsheet. Like, it’s just—
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: Those things are not even comparable. And I just feel like we’re trying to pretend that they are. I mean, I had a crazy meltdown on the podcast like two weeks ago, talking about, like, NFTs and baseball, and how they’re trying to make these, like, non- fungible token player cards, like this whole new version of the game. And I’m just like, this kind of misses the entire point of baseball, which is that it’s like a—
STEVE: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —tangible thing that you can actually, like, maybe be near and watch with your own two human eyes. And, like, efficiency is not the point here. It’s actually—
STEVE: So, we’re—we’re—
BOBBY: —inefficiency is kind of the best part about baseball.
STEVE: So at the—at the end of the day, the nerds are actually ruining the game?
[laughter]
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: But a different set—set of nerds.
STEVE: We’ve come all the way around.
BOBBY: Like the weirder—you know, like finance nerds are ruining the game.
STEVE: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Not the [51:17]
STEVE: I’m sorry. I had to—that was, like, the lowest-hanging fruit. I was like, “Well, I’m—I’m hungry. I’m taking this.”
BOBBY: Absolutely.
STEVE: But—
ALEX: No. So, it’s like—it’s like, yes, the output is something that approximates the sport that we’re used to, or the music, or the art that we’re used to, but, like, it is—it is not that—right? I can listen to the two-minute clip of the Drake and Weeknd song and it might sound like a Drake or Weeknd song kinda of.
BOBBY: Uh, I’m not gonna be listening to that clip [51:41]
ALEX: But it also says a lot more about the state of Drake’s discography right now than it does, like, the ability of AI, right?
STEVE: Well—and I think it speaks to the point that—that this guy like—like Max Alper, uh, la_meme_young was making, where he’s like—he’s like, “The—the—the point is not that the AI is making the thing, is that it’s making the most boring, like, possible thing.”
ALEX: Right.
STEVE: If I want to listen to Drake or The Weeknd, Max Martin has co-writes all over the Weeknd records. That man is a pop genius. Like—and so, it’s like, it’s there for me to listen to, like, I do not need to listen to a computer. That is not as good as Max Martin [52:22]
BOBBY: Yeah. Max Martin is the Ai you’ve been looking for.
STEVE: Exactly. It’s already here. Like, we already have that [52:26]
BOBBY: There’s already a machine that pumps it out.
STEVE: Yeah, yeah. It’s like a bunch of Swedish dudes and one bald Swedish guy, and they’re all just, like, sitting, I assume, in a room full of, like, Herman Miller, like, you know, shit.
ALEX: Yeah.
STEVE: And it’s just like—and—and here you go. Like, I—I do—like, I’m kind of, like, back—uh, I—I love—I used to, like—like, I—I used to think, uh, a lot about like—like, inspiration would need to strike for like, uh, hmm, like, something, uh—
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: The creative muse. And—and now, I’m just like, “No, fuck that.” Uh, the thing that is like—the—the most, like, uh, real version of like—of—of, like, art—especially in—in music, and songwriting is just, like, two of, like, the most unhappy people like smoking cigarettes in a windowless room in Tin Pan Alley with, like, uh, um, like a piano. And, like, at the end of the day, they’ve written Someday My Prince Will Come, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah, dude. The Get—Get Back documentary.
STEVE: Yeah, yeah. Like watching—watching Get Back and being like, “Oh, my God.”
ALEX: Yeah.
STEVE: Because its unchanged, like it’s exact—but, yeah, just—like that is it, that’s actually how it is. That’s how like—like any—anyone works. Uh—uh, it’s—it’s—it’s been a nice sort of, like—um, that’s—that’s what it should be. Like, it’s not about, like, some insane, uh, like inspiration. It’s just about every day kind of—trying to do something. And—and, um, again, like—like, that is—is kind of, I think, a uniquely human thing where like you—you just sort of are working on something because you are compelled to do it on a day—on a daily basis. So, I don’t know how you can write an algorithm that replaces that.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, it, uh, it does kind of bring up, too, right? The ideas, that it’s pulling ideas from around the world, right? The rest of the internet, basically, right? Yeah, and especially we just heard, there was this whole big news cycle about Ed Sheeran getting sued by the estate of Marvin Gaye right over—um, what—like—whatever. It didn’t—it didn’t go through. Artists, I think, swap ideas all the time. That’s like there’s a finite amount of music you can make, whatever. But, like, it does raise an interesting question, too, again, of, like—if you’re using a computer to start writing songs. Like, how much of that is coming up with—on its own and how much of it is like, “Hey, the—the bridge from this Ed Sheeran song really slaps. Like, that would sell really good on, like, a Drake tune.”
STEVE: Hmm.
ALEX: You know? And so, like, as the waters began to get very—very murky, I do think it’s gonna raise a lot of, like, really ethical questions, you know, for obvious reasons.
STEVE: And, again, I think, like, there’s already sort of an answer, uh, for like musicians who— yeah, you—that—that is a—a—you know, especially in, like, tonal, like, harmony, like, you’re not going to—like if you’re—if you’re sticking to, like, four or five chords, there’s only so much you can do—um, the best—the easiest thing to do is, like, figure out how to either recontextualize things or take them out of context, um, and—and, like, hide, you know, like—uh, it’s kind of a hard thing to explain, but you’re like, “Oh, okay, this is kind of a cool idea of, like—you know, this, uh, voice to this chord, uh—uh, exactly, like, some Led Zeppelin record or some”—you know, like—but how if—if it’s a context of—a completely different context like, “Oh, that chord just, like, sounds like a chord—you don’t know that the person who, like, put it in the song learned it from a Led Zeppelin record, or a Beatles record, or some—you know, whatever the case may be. Um, and, like, hiding those seams is kind of like a—that’s sort of where the artistry, I think, is also kind of—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: —um, meant to—to kind of function, where you’re like, “Yeah, of course, I stole it, but I didn’t steal it. I borrowed a concept or an idea and then tried to apply it in a new way.” Which, you know, I think is—is sort of the point—not that I want to stand up for Ed Sheeran, but like, kind of the point that Ed Sheeran was making.
ALEX: Yeah.
STEVE: —uh, I think with that lawsuit, where—where he’s sort of like, “You don’t—like you can’t—you really can’t own a chord progression.” Uh, so I think that sort of was the point that he—he was kind of able to, uh, to—to stand on, because that’s just—that’s just like kind of math at the end of the day, you know? Like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: —um—
BOBBY: So what you’re saying is in two weeks when you come to New York, you are going to stand on top of a car in Soho, and you are going to play some songs for adoring fans like Ed Sheeran did?
STEVE: That—that’s right. Yeah. Giving the people what they want is actually the name of the game, so—
ALEX: It’s like the infinite monkey theorem, but for music, right? I’m like—
STEVE: Yeah.
ALEX: —if I put monkeys down in front of a keyboard long enough, they could probably write shape of you, you know? Like, eventually—
STEVE: Well—and this—this is—
ALEX: —they get to those—
BOBBY: Probably, I mean, come on.
STEVE: Not to like—not to, like, you know, go too far down this rabbit hole, but, like, you could put more chords—like you could develop a more sophisticated sense of harmony, Mr. Sheeran, sir, and, uh, not have any, like—not have any concerns like that. Like, nobody listens to Single Ladies and is like, “Oh, that sounds like something else that I’ve heard,” because what the dream is doing, like, in the—the chorus, when it’s like, “If you liked it, then you shoulda put a ring on it.”
SPEAKER 5: ‘Cause if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it. If you liked it, then you shoulda put a ring on it. Don’t be mad—
STEVE: It’s—if you’ve ever listened to, like, the synthesizer part that, like, comes in, kind of underneath Beyonce’s vocal in—in—it’s—and it’s kind of like toward the end of the song, especially like—whatever is going on in there is, like, so harmonically rich and like—and like— like, jazzy like hip.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: Like really, really thoughtful and—but, like, the—you don’t ever think about it, because the—the hook that Beyonce is singing is so immediate and it draws you in, right? Like, uh, that—that—only upon kind of, like, repeated listening are you like, “Oh, fuck, like the harmony behind this is like”—you can’t just sit down there and be like, “Oh, it’s like this one”—so, you know, it’s like—it is also just, unfortunately and truly, like that—that Ed Sheeran was a victim of his own laziness by like—and—and there’s nothing wrong with being lazy, like a hook is a hook. But, like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: —you can do a lot—especially with someone who has the kind of budget that I’m sure Ed Sheeran does. Like, you can do a lot to disguise what are, at the end of the day, simple and maybe even, um, similar-sounding hooks. It’s just—
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: —whether or not you want to.
BOBBY: Wow, this—this—first of all, this podcast—
STEVE: Sorry.
BOBBY: [59:24] the Song Exploder which was—
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: —in sync for, like, 4 to 5 seconds right there that was like—
ALEX: Kind of like—like Luddites on the Song Exploder. You know, like—
BOBBY: Right. Exactly. And we also, um, went down a really philosophical rabbit hole, which is great because this is going to be such a hard pivot now where I asked you to tell the listeners about your growing affection for, uh, Brandon Belt.
STEVE: Oh, my God, my birthday—my birthday guy. Um—
BOBBY: Exactly. You’re—so, this is like a thing—the thing in baseball fandom is you find the baseball player who has the birthday closest to yours and you kind of develop an affinity for them because as their career goes and they—they age sort of into their later parts of their career, you kind of age into the rest of your life. And it’s be—it’s been a thing. I remember effectively while having a lot of great moments about this sort of exact thing. Um, and your guy is Brandon Belt, which we discovered, um, while we were talking in a Twitter DM—
STEVE: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —about a month ago. And Brandon Belt is having a good year so far, which is great for you. Great vibes.
STEVE: He’s—he’s—yeah. So Brandon Belt and I were born on the same day, uh, the exact same year, same like—we are the same fucking age. So, automatically, yes, there’s a guy—there’s a guy that I have to—I have to, you know, um, stand as it were. Uh, but, uh, I do think like I was a little disappointed that Schneider didn’t send him out yesterday. Uh, played the percentages a little old school. Uh, took far show and belt out against the lefty reliever with the bases loaded. Not my favorite. Especially he racked up—he had six hits and he wore the Pirates out. Um—
BOBBY: That’s right.
STEVE: —and—and, you know, I’m sure his ears were burning, uh, knowing that we were talking about him in the DMs. Um, you know, since—since turning—since his birthday—since our birthday, he has—uh, what is it? 6, 7,8,10 hits. A guy like that is sort of kind of what the Jays had been missing, um, where like he’s got two rings, he’s a left-handed bat. And he can, uh, ease the burden on Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. So that’s sort of like—that’s like kind of a perfect—it was kind of a perfect signing. It was the sort of thing that they just kind of—they kind of needed. So it’s even kind of like—you know, uh, just having him on the bench, you know, I think—I kind of think having Mattingly as a coach is sort of a similar thing that they did.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: Um, you know, they’ve got, um, they’ve got Victor Martinez as like a hitting coach this year. There’s just like a—a—they brought in kind of, like, a bunch of, like, veteran sort of, like, former player, recently retired player. Like, Edwin Encarnacion is on, like, the—the staff as sort of, like, uh, a consultant like—and having this sort of like—uh, there’s a little bit of organizational continuity, there’s a little bit of this kind of, like, old school thing, uh, and just trying to, um, be kind of a little bit more, uh, even-keeled and sort of the day-to-day thing, like they looked like absolute shit against Boston last week. They—they were able to kind of just—”All right. Whatever. It’s done. And—and—”
BOBBY: Yeah, let it roll off.
STEVE: I think having—having a guy like Brandon Belt is—is helpful for that. Um, and he also looks like he smokes like a pack a day, which is great. Like—
ALEX: You know, like—
BOBBY: He does have, like, kind of I’m at a Mountain Goats concert energy.
STEVE: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ALEX: I do love when an organization’s philosophy is so transparently, just like, “Let’s just get a bunch of dudes who hit, you know?”
STEVE: Yeah.
ALEX: Capital H, hitters in here.
STEVE: Yeah.
ALEX: It was like—what’s like the Marlins did with, like, Barry Bonds, right? They were like, “He’s hit more home runs than anyone. Of course, he’s a great hitting coach.” And they’re like—
STEVE: Yeah.
ALEX: It turn—yeah, it turns out you can’t always teach what you know. Um, but, like, uh, you know, as you’re saying like I—it is interesting to see this, like, philosophy sort of laid out. Victor Martinez, amazing hitter. Like, dude had seasons where he was walking more than he was striking out, which just doesn’t—doesn’t happen anymore.
STEVE: Yeah.
ALEX: So it’s cool to see like these—these, like, dudes, you know, these are some, like, “Remember some guys from my child?”
STEVE: Yes.
ALEX: Who all of a sudden are, like, leading the next generation of young stars which I think is tight.
STEVE: Yeah, and I think you know, like, uh, like a guy like Dalton—like everyone was like, “Who is Daulton Varsho? Why did we trade Teoscar Hernandez?”
BOBBY: Varsho is second—
STEVE: And then—and then it’s like—and like Kevin Kiermaier has been hitting again as sort of like a, uh, a left-handed bat. Um, like the bullpen is a fucking tire fire, but that’s kind of a whole other thing. Like, um, uh—but, like, they—they just—there’s—the—the length—especially when a guy like—like Belt is hitting, you—you both, like, have, uh, kind of lengthen the lineup and there’s just—it’s so much easier to—to be like “Oh, like, Vlad’s—you know, in the last couple of games like Vlad’s wrist was hurting.” They were like, “Just sit down. Like, just don’t play for a couple of days. And, like, the team can still hang”—you know, he sat, I think, basically that whole—almost that whole Pittsburgh series and they scored about 20 some odd runs, like, without Vlad in the lineup and the Pirates were—even coming in, had lost a bunch of games, were still the top of the class the NL Central, right? Like, it’s like, “Okay. There—there’s—there’s a little more—it doesn’t feel like we’re—the—the Jays are relying on the home run the way that they had in the past, and if like the guys like—like Bo, and Vlad, and Springer were not in the lineup or not hitting,” I don’t know how we’re going to score any runs, fellas.” Like, uh, you know—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: —whereas like this year, it’s sort of like, “Oh, they’ll take the walk,” and then someone will hit a double. And all of a sudden, it’s second and third, or like they’ve scored a run, and there’s one out, and it’s the second inning. And you’re like, “Oh, cool. This is—this is great. This is really nice. Like, we haven’t had this, uh, in—in—in a while.”
BOBBY: It does feel like they’re a really good test case for, like, the growing pains of a team that wants to be serious, you know?
STEVE: Yes.
BOBBY: Like—okay, you’ve gotten the anchor, you have, like, the foundation now. But in baseball, it’s more than just about having, you know, like to borrow an example from your beloved Raptors, like it’s more than just trading for Kawhi Leonard, like he can’t win you the title on his own.
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: Vlad can’t do it, Bo can’t do it by himself, Springer can’t do it. And you really have to, like, flush out the roster and commit to it, which is why it’s so easy to kind of separate the wheat from the chaff in baseball is because so many owners just like are not willing to flush out the rest of the roster. And I think the Blue Jays are like still in that, like, middle period where it’s like, “All right, we’re, like, pretty in, but, like, we’re in—we’re in a tough division and so we kind of have to, like, keep our powder dry in some ways and, like, in other ways, and then Rogers communication owns us, and their, you know, priorities kind of turn on a whim, too. So, you know, how much are we really gonna go in at the trade deadline is sort of a question.” So as a fan, it’s like you kind of just have to—just wear all that. You don’t really have a lot of control over it.
STEVE: Yeah, I—I do think the thing—the thing with Rogers, uh, was more interesting prior to this sort of, like, We the North, run, like, I think for a long time, it was not like—it was completely about just like, um, like fiduciary responsibility. Like, not to sound in [66:55]
BOBBY: But everyone comes to—I mean, that’s what everyone comes to baseball for, though, dude.
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, it’s all about fiduciary responsibility.
STEVE: But I think the weird thing about it is like—like we don’t have like a lunatic—like there was never like a lunatic, um—
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: Like the guy who owns the Mets, uh—uh, Steve Cohen, right?
BOBBY: Steve Cohen, yeah.
STEVE: Yeah. Like, um, like, he’s nuts in a way that, like, I want, uh, an owner of a professional sports franchise to be, right? You are not a sensible man.
BOBBY: You’re unhinged.
STEVE: And—
ALEX: Right.
STEVE: Yeah, and—and—and that is why everyone has hundreds of million dollars, uh, in their pocket to play for your baseball team. Great. So, it was not like that, and still in a lot of ways is not like that in Toronto, even though I think they’re gonna probably sign Matt Chapman and also give Vlad—
BOBBY: $400 million.
STEVE: More than Fernando Tatis.
BOBBY: Yeah, $400 million.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh.
STEVE: You know, like—right? Like—like there’s gonna be 700—there’s gonna be $700 million there, uh, depending on, uh, what they can—how they wrestle Scott Boras for Matt Chapman’s contract, but that’s a whole other thing. Um—
BOBBY: Labor legend Scott Boras to you.
STEVE: uh, yeah, well—hey, um, but I think as—as everything sort of turned with the Raptors, because, uh, they—Bell and Rogers, which are the two kind of the duopolies of, like, telecommunications, uh, in Canada, own—co-own, uh, stakes in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, about the Raptors and the Maple Leafs. As, uh, they sort of were reacting a little bit to the Blue Jays and kind of the Jose Bautista years all of a sudden starting to kind of crest and—and the DeMar and Kyle Raptors and this sort of, like, core, which hopefully doesn’t get knocked out, uh, tonight as of this record of, like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: —you know, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner and—you know, going out and getting John Tavares and Morgan Rielly, whatever. Um—
BOBBY: They’re in a tight spot right now. Down 0—down 3-0 to the Panthers.
STEVE: Oh, yeah.
BOBBY: Not—not looking good.
STEVE: It’s—it’s Maple Leafs hockey, baby, is what that is. Um—
BOBBY: Just, uh, repeated heartbreak.
STEVE: Yeah. Uh, but, like, uh, I think finally this sort of like, “Oh, wait, if the teams are good, the season is longer, which means more advertising revenue and more broadcasting rights, and like”—so, it’s—it is prudent in a—in a fiduciary sense—
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: —to actually spend this money to make the team and the experience of the team, especially for the Blue Jays, um, uh, better. Uh, like—so, you know, I think—I think a real savvy thing that they’ve done with this, like, new renovation to Roger Centre, Skydome, whatever, is opening it up a little bit kind of like, uh, like Camden Yards or like in Arizona in the outfield. Um, you know, it’s—it’s $20, I think, for now a general admission standing room ticket.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: They only knocked about 10,000, like, hard, like, real seats out, um, which they were not—uh, I’m sure they were not selling anyway because that thing is a behemoth that was like—it was built in time for the Jays won the World Series in the ’90s, so, yeah, there were, like, close to 50,000 people, 60,000 people in there, depending on—uh, for concerts, you know, it’s kind of like that capacity.
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: It’s like where Taylor Swift will play. But, like, um, to then basically not affect the capacity by that much while simultaneously getting people to come in and, you know, it’s as like—you’re—at that point you’re playing—you’re paying 20 bucks to go to—to the biggest bar in Canada is apparently—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: —they’re calling it. Um, uh—
BOBBY: Kind of a good pitch, honestly. I hate to hand it to the telecom guys.
STEVE: Yeah, it is.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s kind of a good.
STEVE: It is, right? Like—yeah, uh, I had a friend tell me that like—like the—the—the, like, Jays employee who was, like, scanning the general admission tickets to, like, go into all kinds of outfield, like, standing room only areas. Um, yeah, it was like, “Yeah, it’s the biggest in Canada, baby.” And—and he—uh, yeah. And, like, it’s—it’s—it’s great and I think it’s a really sensible way to generate a lot of revenue, uh, for the team, like, um, because they’re gonna spend $600-$700 million on this core, you know? I think that was sort of part of it—part of the sort of long-term plan. I think it—I think it’s working out. The—the—the stadium looks good, like I was there for a Bobblehead Night, uh, a couple of weeks ago and—and, uh, was able to get in early, and get my bobblehead, and, like, went out to the outfield and, like, had a beer before the game. And I was like, “Look, like it’s downtown Toronto, it’s the fourth largest city on the continent.” Like, even if I want to go get a beer adjacent to the Skydome, it’s going to cost too much, so I might as well just go in with my buddies and get an early beer like at the dome. And then—and then as soon as I said it, I kind of, like—that logic laid itself out. I was like, “Oh, holy shit.” Like, I’m doing exactly what they hoped would be done.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: You know?
BOBBY: I’ve been worked.
ALEX: Right.
STEVE: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I got jobbed [71:57] completely.
ALEX: Uh, that’s amazing. Well, I—I can see why you might think that would—it would be profitable for, uh, a sports team to try and win at the end of the year. But if you have a couple hours to hang, we can talk about depreciation and amortization—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —all these really complicated, um [72:17] twice—
BOBBY: Accounting tricks? Yeah.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Jerry Reinsdorf, our—our good buddy down in Chicago, uh, gave us some tips on whites. [72:23]
BOBBY: I don’t know if you’ve been following [72:23] we’ve become the connoisseurs of the greater lunch—business luncheon community. It’s just that all these owners who go speak at these—
STEVE: Oh, okay. Okay.
BOBBY: —business conferences because they’re always just like—they’re always, like, giving little quotes at a luncheon, you know? There’s always a—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —luncheon and we’ve—we’ve been curious about why we haven’t been invited to any of these functions.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We’d like to have lunch with these—
STEVE: Tipping Pitches Power Lunch.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
STEVE: We’re—we’re doing it at The Capital Grille and, uh—
BOBBY: Actually, um, we were hoping that we could just, um, turn your—your New York show into a luncheon. You know, maybe do like a luncheon beforehand and then you guys play the show. We’ll just invite various—
STEVE: I mean, it’s at the Pier 17, surely we can—it’s right kind of close to Financial District anyway, so I’m sure we can get in there and—and, uh—
BOBBY: Business signatories of the world. Yeah, exactly.
STEVE: Yeah, exactly. Actually, what the Oakland Athletics are doing is good and—oh, man. It is—it is—it sucks. I will say this is one thing over the past couple years of the American League East where you’re like the pompousness of anyone who cheers for any of these teams, um, Yankees and Red Sox fans especially, uh, but uh, Yankees is 9 back.
ALEX: I know.
STEVE: Three games over .500 and 9 back, it just—it doesn’t even matter that the Jays are seven-and-a-half back. Um—
BOBBY: Only division in this sport where every team has a positive run differential.
STEVE: Right. Right. Like, not only are they all above .500, but, like, they are killing each other and everyone else.
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: Like, um, as, like ,my—uh—uh, Blake Murphy who, um, you know, obviously, uh, is involved with the Jays and—uh, but more importantly was, like, my best man. Uh, we were out, uh, celebrating his birthday last weekend and, uh, I was talking to—there was like someone—uh—uh, some other people kind of involved in—in sort of, like, sports media and stuff there, um, and they were kind of like lamenting the fact that like Tampa is off to this, like, historic start, uh, you know? And—and Baltimore is like up and coming, and—and I was like, “Yeah, but the—the—the American League East is going to be a bloodbath, like divisionally, just like it has always been kind of the—over the last couple of years. But it does kind of make me like—I look at like teams like Oakland and like, uh, you know, like there’s one team over .500 in the AL Central like—and I’m like, “Okay, man.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: It’s time—it’s time to shake up the division. I think it is. I actually think it is.
BOBBY: Interesting.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Well, I mean, there’s gonna be an opportunity for it when they expand.
STEVE: I’m saying—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: —you know?
ALEX: Hmm.
STEVE: Uh, I saw—I can’t remember who shared it, but, like, yeah, if they were like—like—like the Jays and Detroit had, like, legendary, like ’80s and ’90s, like, rivalries, and it makes so much sense, like Windsor is right there like—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: —like, you know, I think if the Expos ever come back, you know, maybe you—you—you keep the Expos, uh, separate or you put them in the same division as the Blue Jays. I mean, I think I talked about this the last time I was—I was with you guys. Like those Canada Day weekend where one year it’d be in Montreal and one year it’d be in Toronto. And then one year would be—
ALEX: Yeah.
STEVE: —in Montreal and one year in Toronto. That was like such an amazing thing to be a part of, like, growing up and going to see that, you know? But I just think I—yeah, I don’t know. Like, how do you—you can still keep Boston and New York. You could put the Phillies in there if you really needed to, right? You have—you have—uh, I think time—
BOBBY: Adding Philadelphia to that rivalry dynamic is actually maybe the funniest possible option, because they would just—
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: —fucking eat Yankees and Red Sox fans alive. I can’t even begin to tell you how much more built-for-it Philadelphia fans are than either those fan bases. Like, they [76:22]
STEVE: You know, I think that’s—and that’s—
BOBBY: Yeah, the Sox and Yankees fans think they’re so great. No, they don’t—don’t stand a chance against the Phillies fans.
STEVE: Yeah. The thing is—the thing is like the Pirates could be in a division with Detroit and with Toronto. Like, you could do it a little bit more geographically. It would be—uh, I don’t know. I just think, like, uh, you have to—you have to shake this up some way to incentivize teams— because—because clearly the way this—these divisions are laid out now, it’s not working to incentivize teams.
BOBBY: Well, Alex, we know that Rob listens to the pod, so maybe Steve is gonna get a call from—from the—
STEVE: yeah.
BOBBY: [76:56] office to consult.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
STEVE: Yeah.
ALEX: You know, strange—stranger things have happened.
BOBBY: Um, Steve, any other burning thoughts about the baseball world that you’d like to get off your chest on—on the Tipping Pitches podcast?
STEVE: Hmm, I don’t know. Well, the Marlins are in second place, sorry. Sorry about that.
BOBBY: Take it—take it down a notch. Take—goddamn. Take it down a notch.
STEVE: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s just like one of those things where like I—I—I’m—I can’t believe it’s like early May and I’m scoreboard watching—
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: —the AL East.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
STEVE: But like it does—it’s just—it’s tough out here, you know, being part of a—a group of fans who are the class [77:39] of baseball again. Uh—
[laughter]
STEVE: Um, yeah, I don’t know. Tampa Bay has lost eight times, it feels—it feels wild. It feels goofy. That’s—
BOBBY: It’s fucking—them and Atlanta are just bullshit.
ALEX: Come on, come one.
BOBBY: If you ask me. Like it’s just—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —bullshit, like fucking lose a game. Like this is supposed—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —to be a league with parity. Lose a fucking game for once.
STEVE: So, I don’t know. I do just—I—I—I—I—I hate to say it, but like, all the teams in the AL East are just fun in some way this year.
ALEX: Yeah.
STEVE: Which is like the most frustrating thing like—you’re like, “Oh, yeah. Randy Arozarena is the best. And, like, uh, you know, Aaron judge is awesome. And, uh, Rafael Devers, I guess—but like—you know, Adley Rutschman, obviously, like, is he gonna be a dark horse MVP candidate? Like, who knows? Um—
BOBBY: Such a guy. Such an absolute dead.
STEVE: Yeah, it’s—it’s fun. It—and it’s fun to like—you know, yeah, the Angels obviously—like Shohei, Mike Trout, and stuff, but to feel like—I think pound for pound like there’s a superstar on kind of, like, every team in the AL East in a way that they’re, like, just isn’t like—Bo Bichette is the best hitter on the Blue Jays right now and he’s not like Vlad like—
ALEX: Yeah, right.
STEVE: He’s the number two guy.
ALEX: He’s—he’s not even their guy.
STEVE: Like, you know, it’s like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
STEVE: Uh, it’s so—it’s—it’s exciting. It’s—uh, I’m hoping to, you know, get to a few more games. I would have loved to have been in Pittsburgh, but, uh—uh, we were, uh, here hosting for the Kentucky Derby. My wife is from Kentucky as you guys both know. Um, yeah, yeah. It’s—I don’t know. It’s gonna be a fun summer. It—it finally feels like summer in Toronto, too. So it’s a—baseball is kind of more on the docket especially because the Leafs are gonna get probably get knocked out today. So—
ALEX: Um, well—well, before we let you go, I just want to say that when you are out on the road, um, doing your—your vinyl hunting. Um, there is a seminal country record that it’s probably worth—
BOBBY: Oh. Great call.
ALEX: —keeping an eye out for and that’s—that’s the debut album by Joe West called Blue Cowboy. Um—
STEVE: Come on.
ALEX: I don’t know if you’ve listened to it or not. I have it on CD, but I have not been able to find it on vinyl. So, um, I—
STEVE: It—is there—like Discogs tells you it exists?
ALEX: It does—it is a—it’s very real. Yes. It’s not on streaming anywhere.
STEVE: No, of course not. Oh, 1997.
ALEX: Once again, I think one of these—one of these artists who I think fought, you know, like music—
BOBBY: We spent, like, a hundred—how much money did we spend, Alex, to buy the CD and have it shipped to you so that we could review it on the podcast?
STEVE: Uh—
ALEX: I think the CD itself was not as much. It was, like, 60 bucks or something like that. I mean, it’s—
BOBBY: That’s not nothing.
ALEX: It’s still a lot for a CD but—
STEVE: Hmm, there’s—
ALEX: —you know I’ll spend any [80:20] right?
STEVE: There’s one for sale, uh, and it’s going for about 67 Canadian dollars all in. But it seems to not have the sleeve. It’s, uh, it’s an advanced copy. I guess, yeah, they have—they—they had—
BOBBY: Oh, interesting.
STEVE: —to make sure—they sent out review copies, but—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I hope that has the full liner notes because there’s—there’s quite a few, um, nuggets in the liner notes that we were pleased to be able to read while we were reviewing it.
STEVE: Does this count as like—is this copaganda?
BOBBY: Yes. Dude, dude, the—his spoken word album is more copaganda—
ALEX: I think—yeah, he has another album.
BOBBY: Because—so this is like a real actual country music album, like it’s—
STEVE: Yup.
BOBBY: It has music on it. And then he also has a spoken word album, which is available on Spotify, um, under the artist name Cowboy Joe West, which we, uh, we have also talked about on the pod. And there’s—there’s actual copaganda, like he—it has songs dedicated to police and the military.
ALEX: Right.
STEVE: He was—
ALEX: My favorite one is The Boys In Blue that one—that one is—
BOBBY: Yeah
STEVE: Oh, yeah.
BOBBY: Thank You to Our Military is really good, too.
STEVE: He—he entered the National League as an umpire in 1976, which means he was over a decade into his career when he made this record.
BOBBY: Oh, it’s—I’m telling you—
STEVE: I’m sure there’s an element of this where you’ve litigated it, but that is wild.
BOBBY: We should’ve added you on for that. We—we had—yes, we had our friend and music critic Lindsay Zoladz who used to—
STEVE: Okay.
BOBBY: —work at The Ringer and now, um, review stuff for the New York Times. Um, and she came on to—yeah, treat this as serious art as it—as it is, you know?
STEVE: As—as it should be treated. No, that’s—that’s a great get for—for—for—that. Um, wow, Joe West on—
ALEX: I know, he’s a content machine, man.
BOBBY: We’ll send you the, uh, the mp3s.
STEVE: Yeah, please do. Yeah, yeah
BOBBY: Or, like, album [82:01]
ALEX: When we were filing—yup.
STEVE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing. Yeah. It would—
BOBBY: Alex sending us a MediaFire ling for the Joe—the Joe West pod was one of the best days of my life.
STEVE: You wouldn’t download a strike zone. Oh, my god.
BOBBY: We should make that ad. Yeah.
STEVE: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: You wouldn’t download an ump scorecard for free.
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s—that’s amazing. Um, Steve, PUP—PUP world tour is happening again.
STEVE: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Anything Swiftly that you want to plug, any—
STEVE: Uh-hmm. We’ll see you in New York. Uh, we’ll be on that tour [82:32] run with Beach Bunny and Pool Kids. Um, uh, we’ll also be in Boston, uh, and Pittsburgh. It’s—it’s baseball cities pretty much exclusively other than Atlantic City, I suppose. But, um, uh, yeah, DC is sold out, uh, but Pittsburgh, um, Boston, New York, uh, and then Adjacent Festival in Atlantic City, which is like, um, best all my friends are playing on the same day, which is cool. There’s a—a lot of people haven’t seen. Um, uh, and then we’ll be at—if—if there any European listeners, we’ll be at a bunch of European festivals and stuff this year. Uh, we’ll be, uh, at Osheaga, um, and in Montreal. And—and there’s always stuff that are being announced, um, the easiest place is just our—our .com, uh, puptheband.com. It’s also us on social media. Um, and yeah, I have my deranged baseball takes that usually, uh, populate my Twitter feed from—from about now, um, which is just , [83:29] cow, so, you know, I’m around.
BOBBY: All that stuff—
STEVE: Yeah.
BOBBY: —all that stuff will be in the description. I’m, uh, I’m on the adjacentfestival.com page. Some interesting bands that I would like to see if I were to go this festival.
STEVE: Oh, yeah. It’s, uh, it’s a Homie Fest—
BOBBY: What a day.
STEVE: Homies fest 2023.
BOBBY: Goddamn.
STEVE: Um, yeah, I think we’re playing the same day as—as Paramore, uh, are the big headliner. Um—
BOBBY: Paramore, Bleachers, Jimmy Eat World, Beach Bunny—
STEVE: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —again, your friend Jeff Rosenstock.
STEVE: Yeah, he’s gonna be there.
BOBBY: Mannequin Pussy, Slaughter Beach.Dog like what a day.
STEVE: I haven’t seen Jake—I haven’t seen Jake. You know, our Pinkshift tour mates are there as well. Uh, my goodness, Thursday, Geoff Rickly. Uh, a lovely, lovely man. Yeah, it’ll be good.
ALEX: Oh, my gosh. All right. Well, I’m, uh, clearing my schedule. That’s the week after, uh, Taylor, Bobby. So—
BOBBY: Uh, I’m gonna be in Los Angeles for a wedding. Alex, should I bail?
ALEX: Uh, I’ll FaceTime you and—
BOBBY: I have joked about bailing on many serious commitments that I’ve made for music. Um, one day, I’m going to do it. You know, one day, I’m [84:30]
STEVE: I—sometimes I literally have to, it’s kind of like—
ALEX: Right. That’s true.
BOBBY: Well, you get to call it. You know, it’s worked for you. So, you’re—
STEVE: Yeah, it’s like a concern actually [84:37]
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I’m—I’m—I’m hung up in the office, you know, I’m hung up in the office. It’s really loud. I can’t talk right now.
STEVE: Yeah. I mean, Spotify, you know, there you go. it’s like a—that’s like—it’s plausible. it’s plausible.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: He’s doing some—some market research.
BOBBY: Market research? Exactly.
ALEX: Right. Yeah. There you go.
BOBBY: Uh, well, as you know, this all circles back to my point where market researchers, you know, we’re lunching connoisseurs. We’re doing business research.
STEVE: We’re B2B, we’re all that good stuff.
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
STEVE: I’m telling you, uh, um, uh, Patreon only content where, uh, it’s a Power Lunch, the Tipping—the Tipping Pitches power lunch.
BOBBY: Yup, those tickets would sell [85:15]
ALEX: But is it high enough? There would be—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —some owners who are like, “Maybe I do need to be a part of this.”
BOBBY: Alex—Alex Rodriguez is the—is the first one in the door.
STEVE: Yup.
BOBBY: And the last one out, you know?
STEVE: Yeah, that’s right.
BOBBY: Um, Steve, thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure talking to you.
STEVE: Thank you both. It was, uh, it was—it was an honor as always and, uh, we’ll see you in the city.
SPEAKER 3: Something doesn’t feel right. I need closure. I need closure.
BOBBY: Thank you, Steve. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Thank you to you, Alex. Thank you to people for filling out the form. If they have, I would actually appreciate the information. Please fill out the form if you’re in the New York City area, and you would consider coming to the Tipping Pitches Brooklyn Cyclones meetup. Uh, as a reminder, that link is in the description. It will ask you whether you’re interested in coming, how many people—how many tickets you would want if you were coming. And whether or not you prefer that Friday or that Saturday. Anything else to leave the people with?
ALEX: I just want to say a quick word, uh, on a somber note this past week, Um, Oakland A’s legend Vida Blue passed away. Uh, and I—I felt like we couldn’t do, uh, a podcast without at least mentioning him who was such an, uh, an iconic figure for his time, um, and an incredible pitcher, but also a really incredible human who played under one of the most ruthless owners the sport has ever seen in Charlie Finley. And in spite of all that, knew his worth, knew how much he was worth, and wouldn’t capitulate to Finley. And sat out part of the 1972 season so that he could get his bag. And, uh, he was kind of a real one for that. He was also a real one when—uh, after 1976 when he said, “I hope the next breath Charlie Finley takes is his last.”
BOBBY: Bro, Vida Blue. So come on the 1976 version of Tipping Pitches.
ALEX: I just—I’ve looked at this—to this man for—for years, for—for many reasons, but he is a— he’s a larger than life legend who I think never really got his—his due both during his playing career and afterwards. Swept up in a lot of the—the drugs in baseball in the 1980s. Missed the Hall of Fame, which is a fucking travesty.
BOBBY: Too many people missing the Hall of Fame while they’re still with us. Like, for—for reasons of inflexibility, you know what I mean?
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, because the numbers don’t say a certain thing when like—I don’t know. This is a—we’re not gonna get into a Hall of Famer [87:54]
ALEX: Right, yeah. It—
BOBBY: Um, talk about a guy who I wouldn’t want to be sanded down by artificial intelligence telling him to change his delivery.
ALEX: Jesus Christ. Oh, My God.
BOBBY: One of the most beautiful, iconic, stylistic deliveries with the high leg kick, the bend over, the far reach back from the left side. Uh, and those beautiful like classic A’s uniforms, it’s just like wow.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Uh, One of the best baseball names of all-time and that—
ALEX: [88:23]
BOBBY: As you said, one of the most down dudes to—
ALEX: yup.
BOBBY: —just lay it on Charlie Finley. I mean, at some point, when you’re Charlie Finley, you’re asking for it, but—
ALEX: Yeah. Yes.
BOBBY: Um, thank you for [88:32]
ALEX: And he—he didn’t make many friends. I should note, I think—I think most of these players at the time probably would have echoed those feelings.
BOBBY: Yeah, I agree. We need to—we need to—um, we got to bring that back, you know? Who’s gonna be the first guy who’s gonna say, “I—I hope this owner takes his last breath.”
[laughter]
ALEX: See, the thing is you can’t say that anymore with cancel culture.
BOBBY: You are right.
ALEX: That’s the—that’s the problem.
BOBBY: You can’t. Um, thank you for mentioning that because it’s—it’s very important not to let that slide by. Rest and power, Vide Blue. Um, thank you again, Steve. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We will be back next week.
SPEAKER 6: Bet you’re the last one to leave. Why can’t we call it even? I worked so hard to scrub it clean and then you fucked it up again. Got caught up in your head.
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello, everybody, uh, 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!
[1:29:41]
Tipping Pitches 
Leave a comment