Bobby and Alex return from summer break with a grab bag of topics in the latest edition of Three Up, Three Down, including the first-place Mariners, owners talking to reporters, Shohei Ohtani, a half dozen team plans to move, ESPN’s big bet, pizza reviews, the delay of Dune 2, and more.
Links:
John Angelos talks the future of the Orioles
John Fisher talks the future of the A’s
Tahoe Coffee Shop bans John Fisher
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
TKTK • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Transcript
Tell us a little bit about what you saw and—and—and being able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitching and kind of help out, so he wasn’t Tipping his Pitches. So Tipping Pitches, we hear about it all the time. People are home on the stand, what Tipping Pitches it’s all about? That’s amazing! That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, on a scale of It’s So Over to We’re So Back, you and I after the longest break we’ve ever taken as a podcast, we are so back, baby!
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: How does it feel? Back in front of the microphone, face-to-face? You staring me in the eyes, donning a Philadelphia Phillies hat—
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: —that I purchased with my own United States Dollars—
ALEX: Yeah, quite [00:53] of you.
BOBBY: —for you, for you? Because that’s how selfless I am.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: How does it feel?
ALEX: It feels great. I— I’m— I’m missing— as I’ve mentioned to you earlier before recording, I’m— I’m just missing my little shadow that sit— sits next to me throughout the recordings. But, otherwise, I’m a—
BOBBY: A life-sized cut out of John Angelos.
ALEX: Yes. Yeah. Well, no, that you had to [01:13]
BOBBY: A three-dimensional— alright. A three-dimensional doll, true-to-life size of John Angelos sitting, fully dressed in Orioles uniform next to you on the couch as you record. That’s what you— usually, you have.
ALEX: Yep. And I’m not going to make any other comments on— on the purposes of the doll. I will just say I’m happy to be here with you, Bobby. I’m feeling— I’m feeling good. We took a little break, cheeky couple of weeks off, spent some time in California, you know? Went and got myself a— a co-host for life, you could say.
BOBBY: That’s how you— that’s how you announced for the first time on the podcast, the reason that we took two weeks off. Well, part of the reason that we took two weeks off is because you got married.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And then you went on a little— a little mini-honeymoon—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —to Palm Springs—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —and then I went to Europe.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Two separate countries, one of them—
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: —was for work and one of them was for pleasure. I have some boots on the ground news for you from Europe. By the way, congratulations.
ALEX: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.
BOBBY: Do you— someone asked us if we wanted to do a full breakdown of your wedding like Jake and Jordan did on Cespedes Family BBQ or on Baseball Bar-B-Cast or whatever that podcast— I can’t keep track. It’s been like seven different things. I love those guys.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: No. No, I don’t think we’re gonna do that.
ALEX: Mostly just because I don’t— I don’t really remember it.
BOBBY: Wow, you’re turnt.
ALEX: No, it was beautiful. Bobby gave a— gave a lovely speech. He had just knocked it— knocked it out of the park, you could say. Really gotten his bag with his— with his— put his writer cap back on, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah. As I rarely do. Well, you did too, with your— with your little vows. I had to follow that up.
ALEX: Yeah, sweet. Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: Your little vows, that’s how they say it. Giving the speech at your wedding was easily in the top five most nervous times I’ve been in, like, the last 10 years of my life.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Really brought me back to, like, when you’re in ninth grade and you have to, like, memorize a speech, and go up in front of the class, and you walk up there, and you’re like, “What if I don’t even know English—”
ALEX: Right. What if I forget how to read?
BOBBY: “—anymore?” Yeah, I— I would— it’s not like I memorized the speech. I was reading from paper.
ALEX: Yeah. You sounded great. Your candor was beautiful. I really thought—
BOBBY: Thank you.
ALEX: —you rose to the occasion, honestly.
BOBBY: Wow. Well, I’m a gametime performer.
ALEX: You really are.
BOBBY: You’ve always said that about me.
ALEX: I have no doubts. You left it— you left it out on the line, yeah.
BOBBY: Left it all out in the field. You know, I took it one paragraph at a time. one anecdote about how stupid we were when we met at a time. Well, that was a lovely reason to take a break from the podcast, and then we were just kind of out of pocket for a couple of weeks after that. I went to Sweden for work, and then I went to Paris on the way back. I’d like to share some boots on the ground observations from Paris for you.
ALEX: I’m ready.
BOBBY: Number one—
ALEX: It’s why we pay the big bucks.
BOBBY: —nobody cares about baseball there.
ALEX: Shocking.
BOBBY: Didn’t see one baseball game anywhere. Not one image of a baseball player to be found anywhere. Not even like an Ohtani suit ad, or a Francisco Lindor Gucci ad, or whatever he’s doing these days.
ALEX: Right. Like smile, with the— the smile.
BOBBY: New Balance.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah, none of it. Nothing. I did see some baseball—
ALEX: Indeed—
BOBBY: This—
ALEX: —you’re going through Lindor’s different sponsorships.
BOBBY: Yeah, he’s raking in that cash right now.
ALEX: He is.
BOBBY: Good for him. I did see some baseball hats, so that would lead me to believe that they know what baseball is. Do you want to know the three team— well, four teams. There’s always Yankees hats everywhere.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: All over Europe. It’s so painful for me to admit that that is the brand that dominates the world when it comes to baseball. I saw three other teams in Paris. The Parisians, they have discovered the Padres. I saw about 10 Padres hats—
ALEX: Hats?
BOBBY: —in Paris. I don’t know what’s going on there. Theorize for me.
ALEX: Right, because they’re kind of a post-hype team at this point, too, if you like.
BOBBY: Yeah. I think they’re really into Jake Cronenworth.
ALEX: Right. Like Yu Darvish. I mean, maybe.
BOBBY: Maybe.
ALEX: I am.
BOBBY: Maybe.
ALEX: Did you get the sense that these were native Parisians or were they— did they—
BOBBY: Honestly, yeah.
ALEX: Yeah?
BOBBY: Yeah. It was weird. I saw, like, five in a row. I was like, “You guys just moved from San Diego? Like, what is going on?”
ALEX: Yeah, big— big Melvin heads. They’re— they’re Preller pilled [0:05:26] over there.
BOBBY: The key to growing the game internationally is—
ALEX: Bob Melvin.
BOBBY: We’ve been overlooking him for too long.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They’re Preller pilled [05:35] over there. Do they have, like, some French player that I don’t know about? Is there a Frenchman on the San Diego Padres right now? Okay, that’s number one. Number two, New York Mets. They just love big payroll over there, I guess.
ALEX: I guess.
BOBBY: They love big spenders.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s—
ALEX: Mets— Mets, that tracks. Right. It makes sense.
BOBBY: Yeah. And like the New York crossover, the Mets have, like, brand partnerships with different, like, fashion agencies around the world, and so that— that makes sense. I saw some— some fancy Mets caps. The third team, other than the New York Yankees, was none other than your Philadelphia Phillies.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: They’ve gone global. I felt like a little bit like Truman Show. You know the movie Truman Show?
ALEX: Dude, I’m—
BOBBY: I was walking around, seeing— there’s—
ALEX: For years of my life, I thought that I was in it.
BOBBY: Wait, say more— wait, back up. Okay. We’re done with my boots on the ground update from Paris. You thought you were in Truman Show?
ALEX: Like, I— I— you know, I watched it when I was, I don’t know, really young. Probably like 12 or 13. And so from—
BOBBY: When I was four, I just discovered—
ALEX: [06:39]
BOBBY: —last year that I wasn’t in The Truman Show. They finally let me leave the state of California.
ALEX: Right, exactly. I took a boat and I didn’t run into anything.
BOBBY: Okay. So you watched it when you were 12 and you were like, “This is definitely me.”
ALEX: No, I just think it was one of the— it was just one of those things where I was like, “Wow. What if I—”
BOBBY: Just main character energy.
ALEX: Oh, yeah. Good God. Are you surprised given where we’re sitting right now? No, it’s just like, what if— what if this was the case? Honestly, I think it was a psyop to, like, make me behave better. Because I was like, “What if there’s a camera watching every single move that I take?”
BOBBY: So you are willing to say that between the ages of 12 and when did you decide that you weren’t in The Truman Show anymore?
ALEX: You know, it did linger for a little while. Probably when I got to high school, I was kind of like—
BOBBY: 12 to 15.
ALEX: Just a little— a little embarrassing.
BOBBY: 12 to 15. So you’re willing to say that you behaved like there was a camera on—
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: —you at all times between the ages of 12 and 15?
ALEX: No, it was just an idea that would pop into my head every once in a while. I was like, “Just remember daddy is always watching.”
BOBBY: Little did you know that you would then, three years later, discovered that the NSA is always watching.
ALEX: Right. That actually I was in The Truman Show. It was just not the one I thought it was.
BOBBY: Wow. That’s revelatory. Any other things from cinema that you’d like to share? Any other ways that movies have warped your view on the real world?
ALEX: I—
BOBBY: We were talking before we started recording about how I watched Fight Club last night—
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: —after you left my apartment at about 10:30 p.m., which is—
ALEX: Such a choice.
BOBBY: Just goes to show my approach towards life—
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: —and sleep. Did— did that— was that a seminal text for you, too? You saw Fight Club and you’re like, “This is how I got to be.”? Until you met all your friends in high school.
ALEX: Yeah, pretty much. It was like—
BOBBY: I mean, that’s how we met.
ALEX: —that and catch [08:16] in their eyes and I was like, “These are my Bibles.”
BOBBY: Right. We have— we have a great cover story for how we met, but the truth is we started NYU’s first Fight Club.
ALEX: Yes, we did.
BOBBY: No— no— no other movies, then?
ALEX: No, those are the only— that was the only movie I— no, I—
BOBBY: Major League?
ALEX: I lived in that one, that’s for sure.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: I love Click, honestly. I was—
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: I spent years of my life wondering— I spent years of my life doing a lot of things, apparently.
BOBBY: Yeah. You’re actually 50.
ALEX: I would just think about, like, what’s my—
BOBBY: That’s why you’re married. It’s like getting halfway through life, so it’s time to tie the knot.
ALEX: I don’t know, man. I just— I had a creative— I had a creative mind. You know, I was very imaginative.
BOBBY: You still do.
ALEX: Thanks.
BOBBY: You still are.
ALEX: Thank you.
BOBBY: What is the movie that you would want to live in the most? Because it’s not Truman Show, I have to imagine it’s not Click. You don’t want that kind of power.
ALEX: No, that’s dangerous.
BOBBY: You can’t even make a decision on what to, like, eat at dinner.
ALEX: Yeah. Okay.
BOBBY: Like let alone whether you should rewind your whole life and do it over again.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: You’d be like, “I’d rewind back to when I was 12 and not watch The Truman Show, so I could get those three years back. How many times I went to bed at curfew? Jesus!”
ALEX: Literally. Yeah, I was just always really thinking about the mechanics of it, too. Like, where would the camera be? You know, like—
BOBBY: It’s right here in this—
ALEX: “[09:40] the mirror doesn’t open.”
BOBBY: It’s right here in this microphone, brother.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. That’s right.
BOBBY: I like the notion that we need to have this on camera also.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: As if we’re not like recording it and releasing it to the world intentionally.
ALEX: Right. Some would say we could record it on video and— and release to the world. Some have said that.
BOBBY: Some— many have said that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Any updates on that, now that you’re a married man?
ALEX: Right. I— I do have a new name, image, likeness contract that I kind of had to enter into, so that stuff has to be negotiated with my lawyers.
BOBBY: I love the idea that when you get married you just have to sign a new name, image, and likeness contract.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. We signed a no-trade clause as well.
BOBBY: No-trade, that’s good.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s good to know.
ALEX: It is good to know.
BOBBY: You didn’t— you dodged the question. What movie would you like your life to be like?
ALEX: Oh, right. Sorry. I want to be J. Robert Oppenheimer.
BOBBY: It feels like you could just do that. Just go back to school. Can you become a— a top hat guy like Oppenheimer?
ALEX: I think I could. I was a fedora guy for a little while, which—
BOBBY: I knew that, yeah.
ALEX: You did— you did know that, yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah, I actually knew this. I’ve seen many photos of you wearing fedoras.
ALEX: I was— once again, those middle school years are— are like my Dark Ages, you know? No one really knows kind of what happened there
BOBBY: It’s like your blue period or whatever, for Matisse.
ALEX: Exactly. This is why— I know— I’m— I know I’ve said something to this effect on the podcast before. But easily, the person— you know like when people ask you, “Oh, who’s the one figure through history that you would want to get dinner with? Or who would you want to pick their brain? Or would you— you know, would you take $10,000 or would you like— to have dinner with fucking Elon Musk?” Or whatever. Like these dumb quote tweet bait stuff—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —that you see all the time? My answer for that is always 13-year-old Alex. I just feel like I know so much about him.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But I want to experience it, you know? Middle School Alex, what was he getting into?
You know?
ALEX: You know, playing— yeah, playing games of Knockout, right? Like—
BOBBY: Accidentally torrenting so much.
ALEX: Accidentally getting my ISP, like, mad at me.
BOBBY: Playing games of knockout. I— I don’t know what people expected from this episode, but having taken three weeks off, I hope that this was it.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: We are going to do— today on the podcast, we are going to bring back an old favorite segment. It is called 3UP, 3DOWN. We are going to try— we’re going to make a good faith attempt at discussing as many of the topics over the last three weeks that we have not hit on as possible. But before we do that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And when we come back, Alex is actually going to answer the question of what movie he would want his life to be. This is Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: Want to make a podcast? Spotify has got a platform that lets you make one super easily, and distribute it everywhere, and even earn money all in one place for free. It’s called Spotify for Podcasters. And Alex, please tell me how it works.
ALEX: Bobby, it would be my honor. Spotify for Podcasters lets you record and edit podcasts right from your phone or computer. So no matter what your setup is like, if you got a full studio or you’re staring at a Zoom screen right now, you can start creating today. And you can distribute your podcasts at Spotify and anywhere else podcasts are heard.
BOBBY: Video Podcasts. Video Podcasts are also available on Spotify. And when you want to take conversations with your fans to the next level, Q&A and polls are the best way to get them talking. With Spotify for Podcasters, you can earn money in a variety of ways including ads and podcast subscriptions, and best of all, it’s totally free with no catch.
ALEX: We host Tipping Pitches on Spotify for Podcasters, makes it really easy to distribute our podcast to all you lovely listeners. If it’s something you’re interested in trying out, you can download the Spotify for Podcasters app or go to www.spotify.com/podcasters to get started.
BOBBY: Gladiator?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: 300?
ALEX: Passion of the Christ.
BOBBY: Oh, God. Snyder cut? Like, I want to be the Henry Cavill Superman. The Thing, Alien?
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Alien?
ALEX: As the alien.
BOBBY: Okay. Yeah.
ALEX: Aliens.
BOBBY: Yeah. Inglourious Basterds?
ALEX: Just naming, you know— American Hustle?
BOBBY: We were like [14:43] name a guy, but name a movie, American Hustle.
ALEX: Right. I love— I’m loving your— the, like, three-second delay [14:50]
BOBBY: Well, every time you say a movie name, I just picture you, like, on the poster, like you’re next of that Christian [14:58] just wearing a schlubby-looking suit—
ALEX: No, I’m— yep.
BOBBY:. —and like a lot of gold jewelry for some reason.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I— I think I got it.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I think I got it. It’s not a baseball movie. It’s not Moneyball.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s not Sandlot. It’s not any of this stuff. We’ve already experienced all that stuff.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I think it’s Wolf of Wall Street.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: I think you got to work for Jordan Belfort’s investing firm.
ALEX: You think I’m in my Jordan Belfort era?
BOBBY: Yeah. You’ve been getting dirty money Jordan Belfort. Remember that song? I— we used to play that song a lot at the student newspaper offices.
ALEX: Yeah. I really— I don’t, like, have a sense of—
BOBBY: That was like a war crime by us.
ALEX: It—
BOBBY: Psychological warfare.
ALEX: It actually was torture.
BOBBY: It’s important to be able to acknowledge these things.
ALEX: Exactly. Acknowledge your past mistakes.
BOBBY: Right, exactly.
ALEX: Or mea culpa.
BOBBY: Sorry to everybody who worked for the Washington Square News between the years of 2015 and 2017.
ALEX: Well— yeah.
BOBBY: For so many things.
ALEX: For many reasons.
BOBBY: Mainly songs that we will play. Yeah, yeah. Wolf of Wall Street for you. I think you’d fit in well.
ALEX: I think so. I mean, I’ve picked up a lot from A-Rod over the last few years—
BOBBY: True.
ALEX: —I think, and his approach to business, which I think is mainly, like, post pictures of, like, gains on Instagram.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And—
BOBBY: The assets and liabilities mindset.
ALEX: Yeah. I don’t know, I think I could swing it. Also, like, they were just kind of making that stuff up, right? Like—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Like, they were just saying, “Here’s the— here’s— here’s the stock. A stock is a piece of paper and I’ll give it to you for four cents.”
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: You can—
BOBBY: You—
ALEX: That’s how I understand the stock market to have always worked.
BOBBY: You function well in that kind of environment is what you’re saying?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Financial crimes.
ALEX: Well, again, like I—
BOBBY: Things of that nature.
ALEX: I bring an outsider perspective.
BOBBY: Okay. Yeah.
ALEX: You know?
BOBBY: You’re like a gut check for them.
ALEX: Right. Exactly.
BOBBY: I’m the gut check for Jordan Belfort. Okay, great. Thank you to our new patrons this week, the last couple of weeks, Jim and Nat. As promised— I spilled water all over my notes and so they’re a little blurry. But as promised, we are going to do 3UP, 3DOWN this week. Alex, two questions for you— three questions, actually. Number one, do you remember how to do this segment? And if so, can you explain to the people what it is?
ALEX: No, I don’t.
BOBBY: Okay. Great.
ALEX: Yes. We—
BOBBY: I thought maybe coming back three weeks refreshed, you know, you’d be able to do some of the hosting duties, but I guess I just got to do it all.
ALEX: No, I’m—
BOBBY: As we’ve learned you’re the star of The Truman Show and I have to be the narrator.
ALEX: Right. You’re the producer. Yeah. No. 3UP, 3DOWN, a— a long forgotten occasionally revived segment in which we visit stories from around the baseball world in a— in a cheeky little way. We take three stories that have brought us enjoyment over the past week, past couple of weeks, past period of time since we’ve previously done this segment. And three topics that are sapping our joy a little bit.
BOBBY: Yes, detracting.
ALEX: Bumming us out, you could say.
BOBBY: Yes. We each— we each choose three topics—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —so in total, there will be 12 topics discussed. Many of you might imagine that we had a lot of shared topics this week, and so we are just going to kind of bounce back and forth and share some— especially these downs, you know, they’re pretty obvious—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —in the last three weeks. There’s a lot of— just a lot of owner nonsense, I have to say.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s a preface to this entire thing. Just a lot of owners just getting calls from reporters and picking up—
ALEX: Yeah. Right.
BOBBY: —like, “What are you guys doing?”
ALEX: No choice.
BOBBY: It’s August, you know? Like, dog days, they’re a little bored.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Trying to throw a little wrench in the whole system.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Do— that was— okay. That was— my— my first question was, do you remember how to do this?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: My second question is, do you want to go first or second?
ALEX: I’ll— I’ll let you kick this one off.
BOBBY: Okay. And my third question is, do you want to start with down or up?
ALEX: And like— where do we start? Yep. Uh-hmm. Bro, you can’t hit me with that many decisions in a short span of time.
BOBBY: I couldn’t think— they’re literally yes or no questions. Like, they’re literally A or B.
ALEX: Okay. Yes.
BOBBY: That means up. Okay. We’re starting with up and I’m starting. In case you can’t follow at home, that means I will start with the thing that is bringing me the most joy over the last couple of weeks. And usually, you know, these are not power ranked necessarily. But for me, I would say this one stands out above all of the rest. My first up this week is that the Yankees actually suck, like they’re actually bad. They’re under .500. Everybody is performing bad— poorly, except Aaron judge for the most part, and Gerrit Cole. I imagine— in my head, I’m picturing Gerrit Cole winning the Cy Young on the worst team he’s ever played for, and the worst thing the Yankees have had since, like, 2014.
ALEX: Really, this is the worst team they’ve had since, like, the ’80s.
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, they haven’t finished under .500 since the 1990s.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: For over, like, 30 years. And it’s not just that the Yankees suck and— and I’m a Yankees hater, like basically everybody who is not a Yankees fan is. But watching the way that the Yankees fans process this is always to me such a treat. And I’m not talking about, like, reasonable Yankees fans who are self-aware about what Yankees fandom is and what that means. I’m talking about like True Blue, calling into WFAN, Yankees fans like losing their sense of identity, because the Yankees are not good. And they’re treating it like this is a life-or-death matter that Brian Cashman still has a job. I just don’t— I don’t think we can take that for granted, because as you said, they— they’re almost never under .500. And because they are and they’re legitimately not a good baseball team who is not going to make the playoffs and has less than 5% chance of making the playoffs according to FanGraphs. We need to just mark this moment both on the podcast and just as people as something to give us momentum into the future. The Yankees stink and it’s causing just the most unstable 58-year-old men who live on Long Island and Staten Island to behave in a deranged manner.
ALEX: Yeah. They— they wrapped up a 9-game losing streak this past week. Impressive. Which they hadn’t done since 1982. And—
BOBBY: Well, that’s ridiculous.
ALEX: Which is insane. But—
BOBBY: Like the Mets lose 9 straight like every three weeks.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: The A’s lost like 20 straight earlier this year.
ALEX: And once again, this— it’s— it’s all a testament to just how skewed the Yankees fan perspective is, because there were a lot of tweets that were like, “Well, being a Yankees fan is like, you know, the worst consignment for a fandom that you could have.”
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Just because the expectation is so high, right? It’s like forget the A’s, forget the Marlins, forget the Rays, whoever, those teams expect to be bad. The Yankees, because we demand success being 8 games under .500. I want to remind you, they’re 8 games under .500. Like I recognize they’re in last place.
BOBBY: Is it really 8? Wow, that’s a lot.
ALEX: It’s— yeah. Well—
BOBBY: That’s fucking— God, this is great. This is awesome.
ALEX: But—
BOBBY: Everything’s coming up, Bob, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah. Well—
BOBBY: The Mets are out of it. I don’t have to worry about it. I don’t have to think about the Braves coming back and taking the division at the last weekend.
ALEX: Yeah. True, because they took it weekends ago.
BOBBY: Exactly. They had it in April, okay? So there’s that. You know, we had Barbie and Oppenheimer, wonderful moment from movies.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: We’re gonna get Killers of the Flower Moon soon.
ALEX: We’re just— we’re off baseball already.
BOBBY: The Yankees stink. I got to go to Europe for two weeks.
ALEX: Power back. We’re off.
BOBBY: Come on. This is— this is awesome. We’re so back. We’re so back. But also you’re a Phillies fan, so that’s—
ALEX: Yeah. Well, that one. But you’re— you’re right. They’re just like, I think, seeing the meltdown around Cashman and the front office and ownership is really quite cathartic.
BOBBY: It’s great. It— being a Yankees fan is so Catholic. Like, every single thing— as soon as one thing goes wrong, it’s like you have to, like, atone for it. Like the team needs to atone—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —atone for it.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s like they have such like a persecution complex to the whole fandom. It’s un— it’s unbelievable. There was— I mean, there was a— a person who was, like, the main character on Twitter for— basically who said what—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —to— like, similar to what you are outlining, where he was like, “The Yankees being under .500 is worse than any other fandom that any— an— is worse than anything else that any other fandom is experiencing this year.” And many people were in the replies saying stuff like, “Well, you know, the Mets punted at the deadline after having the highest payroll of all time, and they’re, you know, running back— retreating with their tail between their legs in shame. And the A’s are literally having their team stolen from Oakland.” And all of these other examples of people who have it much worse than Yankees fans who have but just a run-of-the-mill boring, bad, old baseball team. Nothing weird has happened. They’re just not good. They just didn’t build a good team—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —for the first time in 30 years. And I just think it’s fascinating, like from an ethnographic perspective to watch this play out.
ALEX: What do you think the original sin was then, that has caused all this suffering?
BOBBY: Not getting Donnie a Baseball World Series ring.
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: They didn’t show any respect.
ALEX: No, they really didn’t.
BOBBY: To Donnie B. Alright. What’s your first up this week?
ALEX: My First up this week, you already alluded to it. You already alluded to them, my relationship to them. It’s gonna be the Philadelphia Phillies. My team, my guys.
BOBBY: I’m just gonna sit here in silence for this whole thing as— in protest. I’m gonna see how well you can carry this all on your own.
ALEX: All right. That’s—
BOBBY: You’ve chosen— you’ve chosen to bear this solo, because I’m not coming on this journey with you. So I’m just gonna— I’m just gonna clear out. You tell me what you love about—
ALEX: That’s really interesting. Where did I get this Phillies hat?
BOBBY: I don’t know.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Fairy godmother.
ALEX: [25:04] some tacit support.
BOBBY: Some normalization of the Philadelphia Phillies lifestyle—
ALEX: I’m just saying.
BOBBY: —appeasement.
ALEX: The Phillies are hot in more ways than one.
BOBBY: Whatever.
ALEX: The Phillies are good. And the Phillies are cute is what they are. You may have—
BOBBY: I love male friendship.
ALEX: I love male friendship, too. You may have seen that— that Jose Alvarado has started making friendship necklaces for his teammates. Friendship necklaces that the players are wearing together on the field. We’ve seen guys like Harper wearing it. I just— immaculate vibes, immaculate vibes radiating from this clubhouse. I’m seeing Bobby making notes over there. It’s like— it’s like when you’re waiting for the response in the debate, you know, and you’re scrib— scribbling furiously and then it’s like—
BOBBY: Right. But you don’t want to scribble too furiously because then you look like— they got a— they got one over on you.
ALEX: Exactly. Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, so I’m just doing it calmly. I think I was—
ALEX: Bryce Harper, he’s hot. Kyle Schwarber could not hit water if he fell off a boat, unless it— he was gonna send it 450 feet.
BOBBY: Do you know he has 35 home runs this year and -0.3 WAR?
ALEX: Yeah, I do— I do know that. And—
BOBBY: How’s that even possible? Like, not even—
ALEX: This was— okay. I just want to say this was on the Phillies for literally asking him
to play the field.
BOBBY: I know. Well, they didn’t expect Bryce Harper to tear his ACL.
ALEX: No, they didn’t. I don’t know, man. Maybe they should have— Zack Wheeler going for a Cy Young. I mean—
BOBBY: God, you’re just stabbing me in the heart repeatedly.
ALEX: Hey, man, this is— this was what we spent two whole episodes building up towards.
BOBBY: This is true. I have a question—
ALEX: I need to make this a bit longer than the last time we bandwagon in the past, so—
BOBBY: That’s true. When you were a fan of the Reds.
ALEX: Which— I think it was— it was Twins.
BOBBY: I thought I was a fan of the Twins. Who was I? I don’t know. It’s just— I don’t know.
ALEX: It was true. Yeah. No, you’re right. It was— it was—
BOBBY: We were both fans of the Twins.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And the Reds. And now the rest of [27:09] it seems. I have a question.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: When are you going to make me a friendship necklace?
ALEX: Ooh, a gauntlet thrown.
BOBBY: I’m just wondering. I’ve got no wearable paraphernalia, friendship paraphernalia from you that’s been handmade.
ALEX: Yeah, I suppose you’re right about that.
BOBBY: That could be good Patreon content, us making each other friendship bracelets or necklaces.
ALEX: Oh, just— we’ll just like film—
BOBBY: Live stream it.
ALEX: —filming each other, making up for each other?
BOBBY: Yeah, just talking some shit, chatting about life.
ALEX: So what you’re saying is we should just start making one right now while we’re recording?
BOBBY: We should get into YouTube. You know, like we should start like YouTube— like viral YouTube content stuff like Mr. Beast.
ALEX: Okay. Yeah.
BOBBY: A lot of Mr. Beast chat during your wedding week.
ALEX: A ton of Mr. Beast chat.
BOBBY: More than— I need to borrow a phrase from our beloved Fall Out Boy, more than I bargained for.
ALEX: That’s for sure. Both at the— the bachelor-bachelorette trip and the eventual [28:05]
BOBBY: Well, the bachelor-bachelorette trip, it came to us.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like we accidentally ordered from Mr. Beast’s— I’ll own that we ordered from Mr. Beast’s fucking burger place.
ALEX: Yeah, that one’s on us. We should have done our due diligence.
BOBBY: Exactly. Before giving him our hard-earned cash. And then just at the wedding week, it just kept coming up.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Just— people just being like, “What does he do? How does he make money?” And you having to explain it because you’re the only—
ALEX: We were forced to like under— yeah.
BOBBY: You’re the only person who understands the internet like on that sort of level. I was just kind of— like I’ve opted out of it, but I know that he’s like the most followed YouTube channel of all time—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —so it’s really just an absurd world we live in. What— even if we don’t become YouTubers, do you think we need to become grifters?
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: So if it’s not YouTube, it— it doesn’t have to be necessarily on the internet, you know? Like we could start, like, our own Herbalife or, like, start our own whatever.
ALEX: That feels like a lot of work. No, we got to do something that does not involve us actually, like, doing labor. Like, that’s the— that’s the whole point you know, is— when you’re grifting.
BOBBY: This just in. The people who founded Herbalife are workers, quote Alex Bazeley. Alright, alright. Okay, okay. So—
ALEX: I’m just like it’s gotta be done like behind the computer screen, you know?
BOBBY: Right. Yeah. Okay. Somewhere between founding Herbalife and starting the Mr. Beast YouTube channel is where we’re gonna slide in comfortably.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: The thing is, I think like— I think it’s hard to— I think— I— I think we would find it hard to be Mr. Beast, though. Like, I think that’s way too much work.
ALEX: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: We have to come up with tasks for people to do to debase themselves in public. Like that’s—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —not really either of our skill sets. So if anyone listening at home—
ALEX: Right. We put— we put a one baseball fan from each team in a parking lot and had them fight to whatever happens.
BOBBY: Blindfolded.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I have an idea. We buy a baseball team.
ALEX: Hmm. Well.
BOBBY: If anyone listening at home has a good idea for our grift, please— we’re always available, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com, Tipping_Pitches on Twitter, 785-422-5881. Please let us know how we can grift our way out of having to do this podcast, I guess? I mean, I—
ALEX: Aw.
BOBBY: Just kidding. Just kidding. This is never going away. Never. Never ever. Never.
ALEX: Never.
BOBBY: Never. The Truman Show never goes off the air.
ALEX: That’s right. It doesn’t.
BOBBY: So now— so now we’re gonna go to down?
ALEX: Sure. Yeah. I don’t remember if that’s how we used to do the segment, but—
BOBBY: I’m pretty sure it’s how we used to do it.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: My first down this week, and— I— I know I alluded to this already, is owners doing interviews.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: One particular owner first. We’re gonna get to— to a different one later. Maybe a couple more. I— I think this was the most requested topic that we got from our time period off.
ALEX: Yeah. It— this was also— when I was thinking of topics that we were going to talk about, this is the first thing that popped into my head. It was just like to— I saw it when it was published and just alarm bells going off in my head.
BOBBY: Yes. This is a— an article in The New York Times written by Tyler Kepner, who is a sports feature writer there for the New York Times. He’s reporting from Baltimore, headline, “A Great Team, an Ambitious Plan And an ‘Existential’ Issue.” Quote, “existential” issue. “John Angelos wants to reimagine the way Baltimore approaches the business of baseball, but”— big but here, Alex, “But his team’s electric young core may not be around to see the result.” I’m sure many of you have read this article. It— it was published in The New York Times on August 21st, so six days ago from time of recording. The— first thing first— first things first, the header image, the— this article of John Angelos just standing there, sleeves rolled up, looking real sun-tanned, you know, in front of just some random park and fence. It’s just like— it’s such a like stock image for modern baseball owner, just trying to be like the relatable guy, you know? “Oh, I’m out in the park with the people. I’m holding a baseball in my hands. I definitely look like I know how to hold this baseball.”
ALEX: Why does he— why does he look like the— like, you know, I had to do it to him kid, you know?
BOBBY: That looked exactly like that.
ALEX: Like, what is he doing?
BOBBY: I still think the funniest thing you’ve ever said on this podcast is when you said that you imagined John Angelos pulls his pants all the way down to his ankles to pee. That’s the funniest thing you’ve ever said on this podcast.
ALEX: That’s good to know. It’s all downhill from here.
BOBBY: No, it’s just a high bar to clear. This article is bad shit, dog. The interview that he gave— first of all, he just did not need to do this.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: In the middle of the best Orioles season in, like, 50 years, the best Orioles regular season in— in so long. And the team has so much goodwill, the rebuild actually worked. The grift worked, they won. You know, they— they made their Herbalife, they sold it. And in the middle of that, he gives an interview to The New York Times, of all publications, the publication with the widest reach in the entire world about how he’s not sure if the Orioles will be able to afford to keep all of these players who they have tanked for the better part of five years for. They’re all in there, like, first or second year of service time. This is—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —five years down the road problem that he is getting way out ahead of for unbelievably vague reasons. I don’t get it. Also, aside from the— I think the pull-out quotes which got passed around the most frequently on Twitter were— were the ones about how he doesn’t believe that the Orioles, in their small market, will be able to afford both, you know, renovations to the ballpark, but also just being able to extend multiple of these players and keep them as Orioles for life. Like, previous iterations of Orioles fans— of Orioles baseball teams from— from the past. You know, like lifelong Orioles Cal Ripken, like that sort of thing. He just doesn’t believe that that is suited to the modern baseball world anymore because of how expensive it is, and how— of the stratification between the— the big markets and the little markets. Mind you, I don’t know if I really buy the, like, Baltimore as a small market.
ALEX: I know, I know.
BOBBY: They sell— sell out a lot and it’s like a pretty big city. And— I don’t know. But that’s a whole different thing.
ALEX: Well, once again, that— like market sizes are fake— a myth.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. I would like to talk to you about how he envisions just the quote unquote, “Public-private partnership that would reinvent the Camden Yards campus.”
ALEX: Please.
BOBBY: Quote, “The”— this is from the article now. “The plans, naturally, would include the usual live-work-play stuff.” All the stuff that we’ve talked about before, all the stuff that, you know the Braves are doing at The Battery, the Cubs are doing in Wrigleyville. “Residences, hotels, shops, restaurants, bars, that modern owners covet. But Angelos mentioned several other possibilities.” I’m gonna have you powering these after this. “An elementary school located in the warehouse, a health and wellness clinic, internship and mentorship programs for local youth. People will speak about Baltimore like, ‘Wow, Baltimore is cutting-edge,’ which is what they said about Camden Yards. If we develop it right, and we include that impactful community program module, we can change the whole brand of Baltimore.” Just the whole city. We could change the whole city. Bro, he wants to turn the city of Baltimore into an Orioles company town.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And he said this on the record in the largest newspaper in the world. And this is what he thinks is going to get him to $600 million from the— of public funds that he claims that they need to be able to enact their vision, whatever the fuck that means. Your thoughts? Are you willing to commit on the record right now to move to Baltimore and enroll your kids in the Orioles public school?
ALEX: I am, actually. I hear it’s very cutting-edge—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —which is how I describe cities all the time. Sorry— sorry, Billy, your— your grades are actually a little too high in your math class and you’re making the rest of us look bad. So we’re gonna have to transfer you to a different school to keep the— the scores relatively low across the board.” Like I just— I don’t know. If you want to make elementary schools go— like, run for mayor. Like if you want to— if you want to change the brand of Baltimore, go run for office. Go sign up on your, like, local PTA. Like, I don’t know. Just like being a sports owner is, frankly, just an easy way to skirt the political— political process and shape a city to your will. And, like, that’s what more and more owners are figuring out, right? And— and we’re going to talk a bit later about some of the stadium relocation conversations that are happening.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: But what you’re seeing time and time again, right, is that owners want— are expanding their horizons beyond simply creating a brand of baseball. And they’re like, “Yeah, we— we want to create a bustling downtown, like, micro economy.”
BOBBY: What’s— what do they call it in Succession? The thing that he, like, goes out and gives the presentation on? It’s like Living+, Life+?
ALEX: Yeah, Living+, the thing—
BOBBY: Something like that?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: This is literally that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He, like, actually— he was like, “That’s a great idea.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We want to market the Orioles to be a 360 experience for people’s lives, education, health care, wellness, mentorship. It’s so— like, for lack of a better phrase and without wanting to impugn John Angelos’ extracurricular activities, like it’s the most coked out idea I could possibly imagine. He was like, “What else can we move? We already fucking figured out baseball. We’re the best team in the league.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “What else can we do? I don’t know. Education?”
ALEX: Schools.
BOBBY: “Schools, healthcare? Let’s do it. Let it rip. Give me 600 million bucks. I will solve the education crisis in America. Done.”
ALEX: Counterpoint, if you’re looking to start a health and wellness clinic, and we’re interested in becoming grifters potentially—
BOBBY: Ooh.
ALEX: —in the healthcare space,
BOBBY: No, I don’t want to go in the healthcare space.
ALEX: Isn’t that—
BOBBY: Too much red tape.
ALEX: Yeah, but, like, isn’t Herbalife like— that’s like adjacent to that.
BOBBY: I—
ALEX: Like this is more wellness than health.
BOBBY: If you gave me $100 cash right now, I could not tell you what Herbalife does.
ALEX: I don’t— I don’t know what it is either.
BOBBY: We lived across the street from a Herbalife plant.
ALEX: That we did.
BOBBY: Our whole senior year of college. I saw a lot of trucks. A lot of people coming in and out. I don’t know what they do.
ALEX: I— I think it’s like supplements, right? Right?
BOBBY: Sure. Uh-huh.
ALEX: Uh-huh. Yeah. Protein shakes, weight management programs.
BOBBY: What— this isn’t—
ALEX: Nutritional supplements, personal care products.
BOBBY: This is not what I thought Herbalife was.
ALEX: Oh, but they support nutrition for Zero Hunger.
BOBBY: Oh, okay. I’m— I— I’ll buy into that. I don’t like hunger. I’m in on protein shakes, dawg. Should we— should we cut all this out and maybe see if Herbalife wants to sponsor the pod?
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: 3UP, 3DOWN presented by Herbalife.
ALEX: Should we just go back and knock on that, like, their warehouse dorm?
BOBBY: They’re— oh, they’ve moved on from there, bro.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They’ve moved on from—
ALEX: Can’t stay in one place for too long, though. That’s how they catch you.
BOBBY: I — Herbalife, like, sponsors, like, stadiums. They’re like— they’ve gone mainstream—
ALEX: Yeah. They have. They’ve sold out. Don’t forget about the little guy.
BOBBY: Herbalife went woke. That’s our grift, is just going on and talking about all the things that have sold out, you know?
ALEX: I mean, yeah, that’s actually—
BOBBY: That was like— that was like music journalism for 20 years.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: There’s people going on and be like, “Man, they sold out.”
ALEX: Yeah. So, are we bringing back, like [40:28]
BOBBY: We don’t have— yeah.
ALEX: Actually, Taylor Swift is not worthy of highbrow music [40:36]
BOBBY: We just delete every podcast we’ve ever had, and we pivot, pivot hard. I think— this might sound like a radical idea, but bear with me. I think one thing that would be nice is if baseball owners wanted to just own baseball teams, and create baseball teams—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —that played baseball in front of people who are baseball fans. And that was it. I think that would be nice. I think we could solve a lot of— a lot of problems in the baseball world if baseball owners just wanted, you know, to own baseball teams.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Just the teams.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And the exhibition of the games that those teams play. That’s it. We don’t even— they can have TV rights too, you know? They— that can—
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: —all be folded into this as well. But what if we just— you know, the acronym KISS, keep it simple, stupid, let’s play baseball. I— like, I feel like I’m losing my mind.
ALEX: Well, who’s gonna teach the kids?
BOBBY: I know, especially with all these teachers unions out here, they only care about themselves.
ALEX: Bro, I know.
BOBBY: They’re not gonna teach the kids.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: They’re worried about getting rich and retiring early.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s— I mean, come on, you don’t work for three months a year and still you want to go on strike? Why have a job at all? I— it’s just like— so— okay. I know we’ve been talking a lot about movies on this podcast, but I’m gonna bring it back to movies for just one second, because I also had to take three weeks off from my other podcast just about movies. So I haven’t been able to get these takes off. Dune 2 was delayed, a movie that I was very much looking forward to. I’m a very large Denis Villeneuve [42:10] new fan. I love to Dune part one. It’s one of my favorite movies in the last couple years. And I’m really disappointed that Dune 2 is delayed, because it’s already done, it was ready to go. It was supposed to be, I think, in November, and they’ve pushed it back to next March. And the— the reason that they gave was because of the ongoing strikes, and because they wouldn’t be able to promote the film the way that they usually promote movies. And they’re worried that that was going to hurt the box office. And I felt like that— to me, felt a lot like, when— during the pandemic, the owners decided way ahead of the time that they got to do their favorite thing, which is not actually pay baseball games. Just— to just have this be a tax write off and to just cash as— as much of the money that they were guaranteed as possible, while doing the least amount of their side of the bargain. And so for the movie studios, it’s like, “Oh, great. We don’t have to pay to promote this movie right now and we’re not paying our, you know, workers. And we can just write this off as a tax year for fiscal year 2020— a tax write off for fiscal year 2023. And just keep it moving.” Path of least resistance, don’t put out movies. Just keep telling Wall Street that your strategy is to have movies—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —and then you just don’t have movies. You just don’t put movies out.
ALEX: You just don’t do it.
BOBBY: And then all the people who like movies are kind of screwed.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I’m like, “Does every industry have to be like this?” Does every industry have to have like some grand vision for how they’re going to unite humanity through the power of their product, and the integration and commercialization of their intellectual property, and what it means for the long-term health of the brand and the brand Halo? And how that will— how that will unfold as we make our way through the modern tech frontier?” Like, does everything have to be like that or can we actually just like— I don’t know. Maybe just like—
ALEX: Maybe— can it just be the— the thing that said it was gonna be?
BOBBY: A baseball team and a movie.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And just— and then we can go home and not have to think about how we’re all gonna die one day. Rant over. I mean, that’s just— that’s all—
ALEX: Oh, this is— this is a good down.
BOBBY: That’s all I wanted to say. It’s just for all I’ve been thinking about for last couple of weeks, you know? It’s been on my mind.
ALEX: In other words, why can’t we just have nice things every once in a while?
BOBBY: Exactly. Exactly.
ALEX: Can— can I just say one more thing from this Angelos profile?
BOBBY: Yeah. You can say, like, many things you want.
ALEX: A good chunk of this article and the portions of it that I saw, kind of most widely shared, where— in regards to Angelos talking about how, well, they’re gonna have to raise prices if they want to retain this young core, right? They’re— you know, they— again, they’re a smaller market, they have a small payroll.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Look, you— you know, it takes a lot of money to sign these guys.
BOBBY: It’s just a math problem. If you went to the Orioles Elementary School, you would know how to do that math.
ALEX: That— that is actually true. So he says, “We’re gonna have to raise the prices here dramatically.” And Kepner asked him, and is like, “Well, wouldn’t any business simply set your prices to whatever the market can bear?” Right? Regardless of kind of what your expenses are, you know, you’re pricing your product as to what fans are actually gonna pay for it. And he goes—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: “—Well, that’s a good question. But let’s say we sat down and showed you the financials for the Orioles,” which is a hilarious statement.
BOBBY: He’s— he’s— he’s so—
ALEX: Let’s say that, John— no. Yeah, he’s the guy who like sits at home in his bed and is like having the conversation in his head with—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —the journalist, you know? And it’s like, “Well, this is how I would own him. Like, I—”
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: “—I don’t want to do that to him in public, but he’d be like so owned, honestly, if I just showed him the financials.”
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: You’ll quickly see that when people talk about giving this player 200 million, that player $150 million, we would be so financially underwater that you’d have to raise the prices massively. I think like the beer at the Orioles ballparks like 18 bucks right now.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right? And they’ve run a $70 million payroll for years.
BOBBY: That’s so true.
ALEX: Like, what are we talking about here?
BOBBY: Yeah. Dynamic pricing. It means that it only goes up. That’s what I’m—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: That’s what I’m [46:17]
ALEX: That actually literally is what it is.
BOBBY: I call it the ticket master model.
ALEX: He points— I love that he points to Boston as one of these, like, teams that he—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —that he has to keep up with. “You know, these are the big market teams who are like they’re doing it right.” Which is crazy, given what the Red Sox have done in the last three years. Like how’s that working out for them? They’re running that model you want to run and they still aren’t paying their players like—
BOBBY: It’s working really well for the Dodgers.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: More on that later. Okay. We’ve made it through two ups and one down.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And we’re an hour into this, but we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna power through. This is—
ALEX: I’m ready.
BOBBY: —not going to be two hours. Onto your first down, Alex Bazeley, what is it?
ALEX: Since we’re here—
BOBBY: Public education in America—
ALEX: You know—
BOBBY: —is not doing good enough. We— we have some innovative solutions from some of our foremost businessmen.
ALEX: I want to keep it right here on profiles of owners as a means of illuminating how not all profiles are made equal. This one comes courtesy of NBC Bay Area who got him. He got our man, John Fisher in the flesh.
BOBBY: On the record.
ALEX: In the flesh, seen, heard from.
BOBBY: This is great.
ALEX: I— I guess I hesitate to call it a profile because it was more— it was like— okay. Actually, you know what it was? It was like a Verducci profile.
BOBBY: Oh, okay.
ALEX: Longtime listeners may be familiar with Verducci’s strategy of—
BOBBY: Thirsting over the subjects?
ALEX: Right. Handing the subject the— the notepad to just—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —write down—
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: —write down the quotes. No, this is not about Tom Verducci. It is about Raj Mathai at NBC Sports at NBC Bay Area, who effectively sat down with John Fisher at his home.
BOBBY: Which one?
ALEX: That’s— and ask questions that would lead you to assume that they had just not been following anything that’s happened in Oakland over the last 15 years.
BOBBY: Yeah. Wow. 15. Wow.
ALEX: 20?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: 20— I mean, to the extent— to the— the length of time that Fisher has basically own the team, which, yeah, is like 20 years at this point.
BOBBY: Geez.
ALEX: It’s framed in such a fascinating way. ” We arrived at the Peninsula home of Oakland A’s owner John Fisher not knowing what to expect. Is he the reclusive billionaire ripping out the hearts of A’s fans?”
BOBBY: Nailed it. Stop sentence, period.
ALEX: Or is it [48:51] period, right?
BOBBY: Period.
ALEX: Yeah. Or is it following the script of the Raiders and Warriors? Who also left Oakland for the riches of a new stadium. I mean, first of all, those things aren’t mutually exclusive.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But also that’s just such a strange framing of the dichotomy. “By his request, our exclusive Bay Area interview would not include video or audio, just an old-fashioned Q&A.”
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: “No question was out of bonds.”
BOBBY: We used to be a country.
ALEX: “No question was prescreened.”
BOBBY: No questions out of bounce. Intriguing.
ALEX: Right. That— yeah.
BOBBY: No— no question was out of bounce.
ALEX: Frankly, I would have preferred if he’d said, “No, these questions were pre-screened,” because it would have made far, far more sense. The— the interview basically runs the gamut from John Fisher, “Do you think you’re cut out to be a sports owner?” To, “Why are you leaving Oakland?” To, “Will you spend more when you’re in Las Vegas?” To, “What’s your message to A’s fans?”
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: Like, what is your message to A’s fans? He said it.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: He’s giving the message.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: You don’t get to come out and give your little screed on how this is breaking your heart. But, you know, you have to do what’s good for the business. Like, sorry, you don’t get a platform to do that. You can put on a press release if you want.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But the fact that a local journalism outlet is actually going and giving him this platform without pushback. Like it basically goes, “Here’s what I asked him. Here’s what his response was.”
BOBBY: Classic.
ALEX: “And then I moved on to the next question.” Like—
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
ALEX: To be one of the only outlets to actually get this sort of candid access to him—
BOBBY: Well, I don’t think that’s coincidence.
ALEX: I mean, yeah, so this is why the interviewer reads like this, but I don’t know. It’s just such a dereliction of your duty as like a journalist.
BOBBY: I’m willing to write an article— like, I— I would like to have John Fisher on the podcast, but I’m willing to commit to no audio, and no video, and write an article about our interview. That’s what he needs.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s what he wants.
ALEX: Me, too.
BOBBY: As long as no questions are off the table.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: What would your first question for him be if no questions were off the table?
ALEX: I don’t know. What— what’s your workout routine? Like, do you take any supplements and have you heard of Herbalife?
BOBBY: Are you a big Herbalife guy? I thought— first one that came to mind would be like, “What’s the average life expectancy of males in your family? I’m just throwing a softball out there for you.” So what was his message to A’s fans?
ALEX: It’s— it’s basically— he literally says, “We did an awful lot to reach out and be a good steward of the franchise for fans. And I’m sorry, it hasn’t worked out.”
BOBBY: Oh, man.
ALEX: This is really difficult to do but, you know, at the end of the day, we have to do
it.
BOBBY: Oh, here it comes it’s not you, it’s me.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You’re a great— you’re a great guy. It’s not you, it’s me.
ALEX: That’s his message. And then the follow-up question is, “Alright. So what happens next?” You know, what happens next, that question when you’re writing just like a nice, little, like, softball—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —profile of someone. “So what are you up to?”
BOBBY: “So—”
ALEX: “What’s coming down the pipeline for you?”
BOBBY: “—if you feel like there’s anything I’ve left out, please feel free to add it.”
ALEX: Right. Yeah, exactly. “What other projects are you working on, John?” Like, you know what happens next. I just want to be clear, like all of this stuff—
BOBBY: And the A’s—
ALEX: —is like a part of the public record.
BOBBY: Yeah, and we’ve talked about this, ad nauseam. He also— in this article, article quote-unquote. He also kind of more or less put the complete kibosh on the idea that he would never sell the A’s.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Like, this fantasy that— that a lot of people have been hoping that you’re like swoops in, and buys the A’s, and keeps them in the Bay Area. Or just the less fantastical and more like concerted public pressure that the Oakland A’s fan community has put on him to sell the team, all the sell shirts, and all the chants, and all of the, you know, reverse boycotts and all of that sort of thing, trying to bring attention to the fact that he should not be owning a baseball team, if this is how he wants to behave. And that’s despicable that the league would allow this sort of behavior. Not just allow it, just like more or less endorse and encourage it, and facilitate it. But he was just like, “Nah.”
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: “Nah. I own that. And that’s mine.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “You guys are cooked. Sorry.” How do you think he feels about public education in Las Vegas, though?
ALEX: I’m— well—
BOBBY: Because he’s taking all the money away from the schools, so he might have to make a school.
ALEX: Right. There might be an opportunity there.
BOBBY: Because all the other schools are going to close, because the A’s are gonna get all their money. They must have like a thousand student class sit in centerfield, you know? And then put out like a— like some YouTube on the scoreboard and they’ll learn like math and shit.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: That’d be great.
ALEX: Yeah. Little Mr. Beast side by side with the A’s.
BOBBY: It’s worth a [53:53]
ALEX: God, we’re dreaming up a dystopia right now.
BOBBY: It’s like days away—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —at this point. Okay. Let’s go back to our ups, because that was—
ALEX: Okay. Right.
BOBBY: [54:01] oh, my God. That was like— the real answer is you want to live in Blade Runner 2049, I guess.
ALEX: Yeah, actually.
BOBBY: Or Mad Max: Fury Road.
ALEX: Yeah. Like— like Robocop or something like that.
BOBBY: Okay. It’s my turn. My second up this week, the Seattle Mariners are 10-3 since Jordan Shusterman got married. I texted him yesterday and I was like, “I think that they might have to give you a ring if they win the World Series. You know, you got your ring and you’ll get a ring from the Mariners.”
ALEX: There you go.
BOBBY: And the Texas Rangers have lost 8 straight and that puts the— well, they won yesterday actually, but they’d lost 8 straight before that. The Mariners and Rangers were tied for first. It’s like a three-horse race at the top of the AL West, which I don’t think a lot of people would have guessed, especially with the Mariners. Let’s start with Julio Rodriguez [0:54:46]
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —famously, I said he’s banned [54:47] on the podcast. Infamously, I said that. But I think it’s so much more interesting when there’s a likable team in every division race.
ALEX: Totally.
BOBBY: And that’s not the case for a lot of the divisions right now. Either they’re, like, sewed up or the teams that are contending for them are just like, “Blah,” or whatever, in the case of the Central. But the AL West is keeping division races alive in my mind. You know, you have like the Astros, who everybody expected to win the division. The Rangers who are up and coming, and outperforming everybody for, you know, 110 games, and now are maybe sputtering a little bit, which I’m enjoying. I’m putting on my full Ranger former Met hater hat, by the way. That’s just— I would like everybody to know. I don’t like good things to happen to the Rangers. I just don’t. And so I am thus all in on the Seattle Mariners. This is my squad. I think it’s— I understand why you didn’t pick them, but I think that they had a good candidacy.
ALEX: Totally.
BOBBY: And for, you know, a year-by-year basis, I think it’s a— a fun team to bandwagon, and so that is the thing that’s bringing me joy. Nothing deeper than that, really.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They traded away their closer and their bullpen got better. Sure.
ALEX: Who among us?
BOBBY: Sure. Baseball doesn’t make any sense.
ALEX: Yeah, they just have a lot of really cool stories in that clubhouse right now, between like, stars like Julio and guys like Josh Rojas, right, who were maybe floundering a little bit in other organizations and came over and retool the swing, and is raking since then. Like, they have a guy named Big Dumper on their team.
BOBBY: True.
ALEX: Like that’s a— I mean, multiple points in their favor.
BOBBY: I’m going to be attending a Seattle Mariners game next month.
ALEX: You will?
BOBBY: I will.
ALEX: Where?
BOBBY: In Seattle.
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: Breaking news in the podcast.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m moving to Seattle. Sorry, I didn’t tell you. Who knows? Maybe they’ll be— maybe they’ll clinch the division when I’m there.
ALEX: That would be sick, actually.
BOBBY: That— that would turn me into a Mariners fan.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Now, that the A’s don’t exist, and we can officially write them off, I do think that I have a free slot for my AL team. And so I can basically choose anybody I want to.
ALEX: Yeah, you can.
BOBBY: I’ll tell you a couple of teams that I won’t be choosing. I won’t be choosing the New York Yankees. I— I won’t be choosing the Tampa Bay Rays.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: I won’t be choosing—
ALEX: Backing out on the Rays again?
BOBBY: I won’t be choosing the Houston Astros.
ALEX: Texas Rangers this year [57:23]
BOBBY: I won’t be choosing the Texas Rangers.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Despicable organization. And I won’t be choosing the Los Angeles Angels or the Chicago White Sox. So those are teams that I won’t be choosing.
ALEX: Wait, there was a— before we started recording, there was another team that you were ready to go in on. I just want— I want to give you the space to do that.
BOBBY: Oh, right. I forgot all about that. That team is the Baltimore Orioles. What are we doing? What— that’s my question for people. What— like— okay. Great. Gunnar Henderson’s great. Christian Rodriguez’s great.
ALEX: I love that you’re in full hater mode at this point of the year.
BOBBY: As these— as these [57:58] like the players are great. There’s nothing wrong with the players. Just like there was nothing— until the cheating scandal. Just like there was nothing wrong with George Springer, and Jose Altuve, and Alex Bregman and— I mean, he’s annoying, but whatever. Just like there was nothing wrong with those people. But like from an organizational standpoint, if you’re a neutral fan, how can you possibly look at the Orioles and think, like, good vibes only? You know, their owner wants to fucking own public education in Baltimore. They tanked and had a $30 million payroll for five years. This is everything that we say all the time that we don’t like in baseball. And because they did it and because it worked out, we’re just like, “Oh, my God, I love this. This is the Cubs all over again. This is the Astros all over again. This is the stupidest thing ever. What are we— why are we doing this?”
ALEX: No, I’m in on it. I’m a fan.
BOBBY: No, because when you are choosing between the Orioles and the Phillies, this is like what I was trying to say the whole time. I’m like the Orioles are, like, everything that is wrong with modern baseball.
ALEX: There’s— first of all, there’s nothing wrong with modern baseball.
BOBBY: That’s true.
ALEX: Emo [58:58] legends.
BOBBY: If I could fantasy draft one band to bring— get back together, that would be the band. The fact that I never went and saw them and they were like— oh, God, just kicking myself constantly over that. They’re a Philadelphia band. They were just playing shows like 20 miles from my house, like for years. And I was just like, “Man, I’ll see them next time.” You know? And then I didn’t. Downer. But I know there are probably a lot of Orioles fans listening to this. We seem to have somewhat of a strong Orioles contingent at Tipping Pitches fandom and I want to say very clearly that Orioles fans did nothing wrong. Orioles players did nothing wrong. But Orioles management and ownership, it’s it— frankly disgraceful. I don’t know how else to put it. I don’t know how else to put it. It’s like they just recreated what the Astros did, and we all hate what the Astros did. Just because they didn’t steal signs yet, you know? Just because they didn’t have some scandal come out about their organization yet, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t look critically about the ways that they’ve run their team and the ways that they’ve penny- pinched and saved money. Like I feel— I see Evan Drellich getting into arguments with people about the Orioles on Twitter all the time, because he’s like, “This is just exactly what I tried to tell you guys in my book and it’s all just being overshadowed by the sign stealing thing, but there was organizational rot at the center of the philosophy of the Astros.” Just like there is at the center of the philosophy of the Orioles.
ALEX: I mean— alright. Is there like—
BOBBY: Yes, yes, yes. They tanked to save money not to build a good team. They were like, “Building a good team was a nice side effect. But we’re not going to keep that good team together.” Yes, that is organizational rot to the—
ALEX: I mean— I mean— yes. I— I— my maybe hot take as a, you know, leftist baseball fan is I don’t think that tanking is like the worst thing a team can do. I think the worst thing a team can do is not keeping the band together after you told them.
BOBBY: Well, they already guaranteed they won’t, so—
ALEX: Well, I know. Right. Yes, I agree. But that’s more— what I’m saying is like—
BOBBY: They are who we thought they were.
ALEX: The— the process itself, I think, is not like— I— I think it’s very easy to look at the Orioles right now and say, “Wow, what an amazing team. I would love to see them go all the way this year.” Because, like, I don’t have to think about Angelos when I— when I watch what the Orioles are doing on a day-to-day basis, right? Unless he gives another fucking interview, right?
BOBBY: That’s fine. I— I agree.
ALEX: I do think that like— that, like, the long-term, like, view of them is like, “Boy, I wish they had someone else in charge.”
BOBBY: I— I’d like— I would be happy for the team and for the players if they went on to win. Just like I was happy for the Cubs and I felt like it was a good story. But everything that happened since the Cubs won was exactly what you could’ve predicted was going to happen.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because teams that are willing to keep the band together, don’t tank like that. They don’t tank and spend $40 million on payroll for four straight years and intentionally lose 115 games.
ALEX: Because you don’t have to. Because you have a band you’ve been keeping together that you just need to add to.
BOBBY: We need to sign good players.
ALEX: Exactly, yeah.
BOBBY: Like sign a couple of good players and show your fans some respect, to put an actual professional baseball team out on the field. Like, it’s not rocket science here. I mean, it’s— it’s— it’s a catch-22, because oftentimes when you tank for that long, you have so many built-in advantages, because of the way that the league is structured. To save— saving you money also gets you good players, for some reason. That you do end up being good. You do end up turning it around. But that doesn’t mean that it was the only way, and it doesn’t mean that that was the only path and it doesn’t mean that it was the right path. And it also doesn’t, to me, endear them as a neutral fan. It— it— it doesn’t. Sorry. Like, you really want to see this guy, you want to see the guy who’s like, “The Orioles should have a built-in healthcare.” You want to see that guy get the World Series ring? I don’t know.
ALEX: I don’t know. I mean, it feels kind of marginal when you’re talking about owners who are getting rings.
BOBBY: It does. It does. It does. And it’s like a fool’s errand to try to be like, “What owner do I want to see win the World Series?”
ALEX: Exactly. Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s like, “What team do I want to see?” And that’s what I’m saying. It’s like that’s why if the Orioles won the World Series this year, yeah, I would be—
ALEX: Mad, you’d be mad.
BOBBY: On one hand, happy for all of the players and the many Orioles fans in my life. Honestly, I would not lament that. But on the other hand, it’s like, “Alright, it’s just— here’s another cycle of this. It’s just gonna be 13 owners pointing to the Orioles and being like, ‘We got to do it that way.’” Just like the 13 owners who pointed to the Cubs and the Astros are like, “That’s the only way to win.” It’s just a never-ending cycle.
ALEX: I mean, I think what the A’s and Rays do is more insidious, probably, by effectively never guaranteeing, like, a level of competition, right? I mean, like, you go in and you say, “Alright, we’re gonna, like, give it our best shot this year, with this team we’ve like cobbled together. We’re never going to tank.” I would have loved if the A’s had tanked. Oh, my God. Bro, if they’d lost a hundred, like, three straight years, I would have said, “Yes. Sign me the fuck up.”
BOBBY: They’re doing it now.
ALEX: Well, I know. Yeah. And I’m not gonna be able to see any of it. So what the fuck?
BOBBY: I— what I think is very few teams see models of success that actually cost in— more than, you know, financial costs, but just like effort investment, giving a shit about the team, wanting to put a product out there, and engage with the fans on that level. Give the fans what they want, basically. Very few teams see that and are like, “I should imitate that.” No one’s like, “I should do what Steve Cohen does.” No one’s like, “I should do what the Yankees do. I should do what the Padres do.” They don’t see that and they’re like, “Let’s imitate it.” They see that and they give anonymous quotes so that they can be published about how they don’t think it’s sustainable and how they think it’s bad for the game. And it’s going to ruin fans engagement with the game in a long term, despite the fact that all fans are like, “This is great. I love this.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know it was cool when Steve Cohen was signing all of the good players. That was fun. I enjoyed that, much more than I enjoy actually watching the Mets.
ALEX: No, you’re right. It’s like there’s no follow through on ownership, right?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: It’s like you look at tanking, you look at what the Astros were doing, and what the Cubs did. And you say, “Well, if we can just focus on the first part, we don’t even have to worry about the winning— the second— the second part of that.”
BOBBY: I just find a lot of people just like— it’s like the drill tweet. There’s actually no difference between good and bad.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I find that to be the discourse over tanking teams. Well, there’s no difference between not having a terrible team for five years, and then probably not winning a World Series at the end of it as there is between actually trying, you know? There’s no difference between those two things. Those are the same thing. That’s how we talk about these teams. I’m— that was like a 12-minute—
ALEX: I love this. This is amazing.
BOBBY: —rant, I guess—
ALEX: I’m so glad I reminded you of the Orioles.
BOBBY: I had a lot of time to think. I had a lot of time alone on planes, you know, walking around, just stirring thoughts. I’m certain that we’re gonna get people, like, replying to this, being like, “Why are you such a downer? Like, why are you throwing your wet blanket on the Orioles?” And to that I would say, “John Angelos is throwing the wet blanket. I’m just observing it.”
ALEX: Yes. Well, in fact, he was the one who wet the blanket.
BOBBY: Exactly. Okay. We’re on up. We’re on your second up right now.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: What is your second up this week?
ALEX: For my second up this week, I initially was going to just talk— I was gonna harken back to the early days of this podcast and just talk, you know, players that I like, call-ups.
BOBBY: Tim Tebow?
ALEX: Love— love— yeah, Tim Tebow. There have been a lot of call-ups that I— that I really enjoy. I just like seeing guys make the— Noelvi Marte and Masyn Winn and Nolan Schanuel. You know, coming up guys from the ’23 draft. I fucking love it. If you’re the angels, I guess, what do you have to lose at this point? But that’s not my up this week.
BOBBY: Bro, we are so— not to just— not to interrupt you, though.
ALEX: Not at all. Not at all.
BOBBY: We are so deep in the, like— the— all of these names are, like, just run-of-the-mill—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —like, baseball, like travel names that you heard, like, when you were growing up. It’d be like, “Oh, here’s another Masyn, here’s—”
ALEX: Yeah, Mason with a Y.
BOBBY: Exactly. We’re so deep in that.
ALEX: No. Instead, I want to talk banned topics— actually, not banned topics. I want to talk banned people, alright? I got one more piece of Fisher content for you. And that is the Tree House Cafe that’s in Lake Tahoe.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: Which is doing practice.
BOBBY: Did we really never talk about this on the pod?
ALEX: I don’t think we did.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: This came out, I think, maybe the day we released our last pod.
BOBBY: So you decided to choose the most stale possible topic you could—
ALEX: Exactly. Exactly. All I want to say is, you can do this, too. You can ban owners from entering your establishment. I’m not endorsing, nor am I discouraging— well, I actually am slightly encouraging, you could say. Put up a sign, just like the Tree House Cafe that says, “We reserve the right to refuse service to any member of the Oakland Athletics ownership group.” Go ahead and put— put that Fisher can fuck off on your sign, you know? Keep it safe for work or not, doesn’t matter. All I’m saying is you have the power over these people.
BOBBY: I’m going the other way.
ALEX: Yeah? You want to invite them?
BOBBY: We have the right to invite John Fisher on this podcast.
ALEX: Into the studio. That’s— above the sign that says, “John Fisher is welcome here.” He hasn’t seen it yet, but—
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, people don’t know this, but we— we do have a sign. It’s right above the baseball for the many [1:08:33] sign.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And, like, right next to the Ken Griffey Jr. poster in here. We have a sign that says Fisher’s Den.
ALEX: Fisher’s Den.
BOBBY: No, sorry. I misread. It says Fisher’s Cove. That’s a better name.
ALEX: That’s a really good one.
BOBBY: Thank you. I’m here all week, baby. We’re back.
ALEX: That’s all it is.
BOBBY: It was over five minutes ago when I was yelling about the Orioles and how they stink, and how I don’t know why people like them, but we’re back. It’s back.
ALEX: John Fisher is not banned from this podcast. He does have an open invite.
BOBBY: Some people might say that he is the animating factor for this podcast.
ALEX: Some people might say we talked about him a little too much. What is your— do you have anything else to say on this?
BOBBY: I think they did a great job.
ALEX: Okay, good.
BOBBY: I think it was a viral moment.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I think it was a win-win.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, they probably don’t want John Fisher in there—
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: —so I’ll be earnest but, you know, you get a little clout out of it. You get a little—
ALEX: Easy.
BOBBY: You get a little run on—
ALEX: SFGATE.
BOBBY: —baseball Twitter.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: SF— SFGATE. SFGATE bump, you know? Or gate receipts. Oh, man, sometimes they hate us.
ALEX: Yeah, I know.
BOBBY: Sometimes they hate us.
ALEX: Do you have a— do you have a— do you have a down for us, Bobby?
BOBBY: It’s as down as down it gets.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Alex, Shohei Ohtani has a torn ulnar collateral ligament. The second time in his young star-studded career, he will require— I actually don’t know. Technically, they’re getting a second opinion, but it seems likely that he would require Tommy John surgery part two if he wanted to pitch in the Major Leagues again. Which all signs indicate that he does, seeing as he has done that. He has chosen to be a two-way player, even though he is one of the best hitters in baseball. He is also one of the best pitchers in baseball. I don’t need to tell you this. I don’t need to tell anyone listening at home this. I’m just saying it all, because if I don’t just keep talking nervously about how great he is, I will just get very sad—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —very dour—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —on the podcast. It’s not supposed to go like this, man. I don’t love people jumping to conclusions to blame— like point the finger as to why something like this happened. Like, baseball is— is stupid and people get hurt. And— it’s you’re not supposed to do this with your body, frankly. Like, you know, Stephen Strasburg, I don’t think he’s going to come up on either of our downs.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But it is a real downer that he had to retire. He was like the chosen one, you know? It’s great that he was so instrumental to the— the Nationals World Series run and everything. And he was able to— was able to get paid and, like, was able to deliver on some of that promise, even though it got cut incredibly short. And— but like that guy, like, has a hard time doing his, like, day-to-day life because of the pain that he experiences from all of his arm-related injuries to pitching. And so, I don’t— I don’t know like how much we can— we can’t really, like, play God with how injuries happen. We can’t prescribe whose fault it is. The way that the Angels have chosen to manage Ohtani is to say, “We don’t understand you. We don’t— we don’t get how this happens. You— you are unprecedented in so many ways and so you know you best.” So many people pointed out he came out of a lot of games because of fatigue from cramping, from seemingly being pushed to the brink in an effort to try to get the Angels to the playoffs for the first time since 2015. And theorized that that might lead to injuries, but I don’t— I don’t really know and I don’t want to say whether that was the reason. I just would like to hold space for the fact that this bums me out and this like— the one good thing that we could all come together and agree was, like, the main attraction in the baseball world. And, of course, he’s still hitting. He’s still hitting very well, because he is Shohei Otani. But it’s just— it’s a bummer to imagine the fact that this happens right before he’s going into free agency, which is going to be one of the most interesting contract negotiations. And I— it— I think it still will be because I think most teams will just basically factor in that he’s going to take a year off from pitching, and he will rehab like he did last time, and then come back, and be at— you know, at worst, like if he’s on a mound, so probably he’d be like a three starter. But hopefully, he can make a second full recovery. It’s— it’s very unclear when you have your second Tommy John, how your body is gonna respond. But if anybody can do it, I feel like it’s him. I just think it’s— it’s bad timing, it’s bad for the game. And I frequently am left asking the question, why can’t we have, like, uninterrupted nice things?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Everything always has to have an asterisk or an interruption to it.
ALEX: Yeah, this sucks. This was kind of brutal news to wake up to, especially because I— I got, like, the— the second news alert about it before I’d seen the first one that said he had a UCL tear. So I just got a notification that was just talking abstractly about his UCL. And the way my heart just, like, jumped into my throat, it sucked.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Just kind of a— kind of a bad way to start the day, I will say. Even worse way to start the day is that in, like, the sub-header of the notification, it was, like, also Mike Trout’s—
BOBBY: Mike Trout.
ALEX: —potentially career-ending injury that he’s been nursing for the last, like, three years.
BOBBY: Yep.
ALEX: He’s back on the aisle because of it.
BOBBY: I— this— these are the reasons that people point fingers at the Angels—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —because stuff like this keeps happening.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like— it’s like I saw a lot of people discussing— former players discussing about how little the Angels care about, like, rest, recovery, nutrition, stretching, hydration, like stuff like this. And, you know, like in the modern game, many of these players at this level, like, do all of these stuff on their own, or like have their own routine for this sort of thing. But it just feels like a profoundly cursed franchise and I just want to get anyone and everyone as far away from there as possible.
ALEX: And you have their GM coming out and basically defending their treatment of Shohei and saying, “Well—”
BOBBY: That was the part where I was like, “Alright.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Steady roll, [1:14:26] bro.
ALEX: Where he was like, “Well, we offered to give him an M— MRI and, like, he said no.” And it’s like—
BOBBY: Like, that wouldn’t have done. It’s been partially torn probably for, like, two months at this point.
ALEX: Right, exactly. And it’s also just— I— I recognize he’s not going to be on your team a month from now, but like, why do you need to put your player on blast like that? Like, you’re— the face of your franchise on blast like that.
BOBBY: And I—
ALEX: It’s just unnecessary.
BOBBY: A— a rule that I think is worth maybe following is not talking about, like, medical diagnoses of other human beings. I know you can’t really do that when you’re a GM of a Major League Baseball team, but just like maybe not doing hindsight on the best ways to manage another person’s body.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Just in all aspects of life, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Just let that person cook.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah. Or come out and say, “You know what? We have talked at length. You know, we’ve— we’ve stayed in constant touch with him about how he feels and, you know, there was never any question on either side. And so, you know, we did what we felt like we had to.” Like, either— there’s no positive outcome to going out and saying, “Well, we actually thought that maybe something was wrong, but he said no.” So, like, that’s just makes you look bad. Like, he’s a player, he knows his body best.
BOBBY: Feels like sour grapes.
ALEX: Yeah, it does.
BOBBY: Okay, let’s move on. This is too bleak. What’s your next down?
ALEX: All right. Well— alright. My next down is maybe a little too predictable. But I don’t know if you heard, Bobby, ESPN is getting ready to rake in that— that sweet, sweet sports betting cash. They’ve launched their partnership with Penn Entertainment. You know the one, Penn Entertainment.
BOBBY: Yeah, I do.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Did you see that they sold Barstool back to Dave Portnoy—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —for, like, 100 bucks or something like that?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So they basically gave him, like, 100 million and then now they sold it back to him for $100 because they—
ALEX: Sure, because they just didn’t know what to do with it. Like—
BOBBY: I don’t really know.
ALEX: I don’t know. We don’t need talk about the Dave Portnoy, but—
BOBBY: I think we should talk about him more.
ALEX: There’s no shortage of things to talk about.
BOBBY: Actually, what I would like to talk about is the last time that we were at pizza together.
[laughter]
ALEX: And it came with the little Barstool Pizza rating on the side of the box.
BOBBY: So we had ordered— we— we— the place that we usually order pizza from, it was like closed or whatever, or it was overcapacity and so it wasn’t taking orders. And we needed to have the pizza delivered because we were in the middle of having a meeting and— or doing a recording or something like that. So we found a random place on DoorDash or— I don’t know. And you ordered the pizza and it had good ratings and stuff. And it came, and like you said, it had the Barstool, like, out of 10 Portnoy Pizza Test, whatever he does, the one bite thing.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Rating on the outside and it was— I was proud of that. Very proud of that. We opened the pizza box and the pizza was, like, folded like a rope.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, it was, like, weaved—
ALEX: It looked like someone had, like, tried to wring it out like a sponge or something.
BOBBY: That’s just— that— to me, that’s the Barstool experience, you know?
ALEX: Did you see— this happened in the last couple of weeks, but did you see he, like, had given this pizza place in New York a, like, really high score? You know, like a nine point something, which like he never gives out. Oh, my God.
BOBBY: You know what? Wait. One thing about those videos whenever they, like, creep their way into my life against my will—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —the one thing that really bothers me is that he doesn’t say the point. He’s always like, “9.4.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I’m like, “Fuck off.”
ALEX: Yeah, fuck off.
BOBBY: Fuck off. That pisses me off. Sorry for my language. I got some notes about my language recently from some real people in real life—
ALEX: Yeah. Right.
BOBBY: —and so I just— I don’t know if I can stop, but I can apologize.
ALEX: Exactly. You at least have the awareness. No, he— he gave this pizza place a really high score and then, like, the owner or, like— I think it was like— what— it was like the— the manager or something like that. I don’t know.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Chief of staff, I think.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: Who came out as woke or something.
ALEX: Yeah, they came out and was like, “Honestly, I kind of hate the scene of barstool boys who just, like, come in here, you know, because of Dave.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So Dave went back to the pizzeria and gave it like a 5.4 or something like that.
BOBBY: But did he buy another slice and he—
ALEX: Yeah, he did.
BOBBY: —was like, “I’m gonna give you more of my business.
ALEX: Give you more of my dollars and show you how thin-skinned I’m not.
BOBBY: Now, that throws a wrench into the whole thing, so is it not honest?
ALEX: Right. I know.
BOBBY: So he’s not giving his honest rating but he’s [1:18:56]
ALEX: He can be so easily influenced.
BOBBY: I would like to say, great grift.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I mean, sometimes you just gotta tip your cap to the other team.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: These grifters walking around and be like, “Oh, that’s good pizza.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: All right. Great. I’m gonna do that with supplements. A grand— that’s a great supplement.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: The supplement is an 8.5.
ALEX: ESPN getting into bedding body. And frankly, I didn’t know that was allowed.
BOBBY: What do you mean?
ALEX: Well, ESPN, ostensibly—
BOBBY: This could go so many directions.
ALEX: Ostensibly platforms many sports.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: You know, ostensibly employ a roster of reporters who cover said sport.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Your— your mileage on whether or not it’s journalism may vary, but—
BOBBY: I think the only thing that’s journalism is Buster Olney’s tweets. That’s the last thing we have left. You’re— judging on— based on how much I’m making you laugh today, I— I think I’m doing good.
ALEX: You are doing— you’re doing great. I mean, the more you derail me, the more it’s just tough to— to reel me back in, so I’m just gonna power through.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: It just feels like a really weird consolidation of a large number of interests in a manner that, once again, I feel like we’re— we’re not really thinking about the long game here. ESPN, which is owned by Disney, right? This is— could be seen as Disney’s way of trying to tap into a younger audience, right? Through a new means of engagement. By basically saying, “Hey, if you have a few bucks to throw around, why don’t you throw it down on the Cleveland Browns?” I don’t know.
BOBBY: That was amazing knowledge of a base— of a football team. It’s—
ALEX: A football team. Yeah. I just think you’re getting into really sketchy territory when you have a company who is invested in the— the— the broadcast the play of sports nationally, internationally even. And is now also invested in getting fans to gamble on these games. And is also invested on trying to cover these sports from an objective prospective. Again, whether or not subjective kind of—
BOBBY: That was Bob Iger.
ALEX: That [1:21:33] whether or not you think it’s objective is kind of beside the point, right? Because they’re—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —essentially this kind of one-stop shop for information about sports and I just—
BOBBY: Yeah. That sounds good to Wall Street, though.
ALEX: I mean, yeah.
BOBBY: Those— those dudes over at Goldman Sachs are like, “I like the way that sounds.”
ALEX: [1:21:52] Well, I love information.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I love one stop shops.
BOBBY: I love simple checkout transactions.
ALEX: That’s right. I do.
BOBBY: You know? I— of course, they’re allowed. I mean, they’re— they’re allowed to do anything, you know?
ALEX: I mean, yes, yes. Of course, yeah.
BOBBY: I— I just hate sports betting today.
ALEX: I know. I know, I know.
BOBBY: There was— I tweeted about this, but Bleacher Report and Bleacher Report Betting which have been some of the— to me, like the worst offenders of, like, gambling normalization, frankly—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —on— at least on social media, because I don’t— I don’t actually, like, use these products, so I can’t speak to what— how predatory any of the products themselves really are. So—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But when I’m scrolling on social media, and there’s like a joint post between like Bleacher Report or House of Highlights and B/R Betting,
ALEX: About bet, yeah.
BOBBY: This post about Phil Mickelson, it’s just— it’s just a screenshot with, like, a hat tip, like some podcasts or something like that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Phil Mickelson allegedly bet $1 billion. Over the last three decades, Phil Mickelson allegedly lost close to $100 million gambling, tried to bet on a Ryder Cup he was competing in, made 43 bets on MLB games in one day. That’s just it. That’s just it. They just posted that that’s the whole post. And then B/R Betting commented underneath it like the emoji with, like, the eyes raised. I’m like—
ALEX: Jesus Christ.
BOBBY: We are straight up living into dystopia. Like, this is like they’re just posting this man’s gambling addiction on their content channel where they’re trying to get people to gamble.
ALEX: To gamble.
BOBBY: It’d Be like if a Budweiser commercial was about Alcoholics Anonymous.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m like not— I’m not trying to be facetious—
ALEX: I know, I know, I know.
BOBBY: —like it’s unbelievable.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I think that ESPN getting into this, were like reformatting their whole company is just an illustration of the Overton Window on this topic, just on this issue, just moving in the wrong direction.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So all these other companies are cashing in, in the short term, so why not us?
ALEX: Yeah. I saw a clip from a broadcast recently. I don’t even know the network it was on, but it was talking about where’s Ohtani gonna land, right? And what are the odds on each one, right? So it’s like plus 400 to land with— whoever, you know, the Yankees, right? Like, plus a thousand—
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: —to stay at the Angels. And I’m just like—
BOBBY: How exciting.
ALEX: Yeah. Great. What— that’s such a cool way to think about that.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: As someone who doesn’t gamble. I’m like, “Well, this”— like it— it’s meaningless to me on like an informational level.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But beyond that, it’s just trying to see that language in— see that sort of phrasing into our just, like, kind of common parlance.
BOBBY: Yeah. Do you know what that means, plus 400? Are you— that means if you bet $100, you win $400.
ALEX: Yes. I mean— yes.
BOBBY: That means if you give a company $100 of the cash that you earn—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —through having to sell your labor, you could potentially win $400 because a guy chose to go to a new team.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s just so inane, and uninteresting. And, like, of all of the things that we talk about on this podcast, or other people talk about— about sports, it is like so far down the list of interesting frames of reference for what sports can be in culture.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That I just feel like we’re living in just an intentionally stupid society.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, it feels— I— I think it speaks to the kind of very online way of engaging of things and, like, you kind of want something quick and rapid. And— and—
BOBBY: And— and a list.
ALEX: And a list, exactly. That’s like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —definitive, right? It’s like, “Don’t tell me to like— just like five potential landing spots. Tell me what’s the most and least likely.” So, like, I get it, it’s trying to be in conversation with a way that we sort of already exist and talk about things online.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But I think that just makes it that much more insidious.
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, the call is coming from inside the house.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. Alright. Do you have an up?
BOBBY: Okay. I do have an up. My final up this week and we can— my final up this week and we can move through this— through this one a little quickly, because it’s not— there’s not much that deep that we haven’t already tried this ground before. But Mookie Betts famously used to be on the Red Sox. He’s now famously on the Dodgers for what seems to be the rest of his career. And boy, is he good? He’s right up there for National League MVP this year. Him, Acuna, and Freddie Freeman in a three-man race. He went back to Fenway Park for the first time since being traded to the Dodgers from the Red Sox in 20— 2019 offseason. People were wondering, what’s the reception going to be like? What’s the vibe going to be like? I felt pretty strongly that there would be nobody mad at him.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He didn’t trade himself.
ALEX: Nope.
BOBBY: He just wanted decently fair market valuation for being one of the best players in baseball and the Red Sox were like, “Actually, we are going to trade one of our transcendent stars again 100 year— literally 100 years to the year after we traded Babe Ruth and cursed our franchise, but nothing to worry about here. Nothing to see.” And he got an awesome standing ovation at Fenway. Just a rapturous roaring, round of applause from the Fenway Faithful. And I was like, “For a hot second there, I was like, ‘You gotta hand it to Boston.’” And then like 30 seconds later, I was like, “Alright, that’s enough.” It was cool. It was a really— it was a— it was a cool moment it was an earnest moment and uncomplicatedly cool thing that the Red Sox fans could recognize what he did for the team, having won a World Series with them, having been an MVP, having been one of the best players that they’ve developed in the history of their franchise, and could divorce the fact that he’s— it wasn’t his fault that he’s no longer on the team. And be happy for a guy who is like still a face of baseball for ostensibly like one of the other big market rival teams that is competing with the Red Sox to be at the center of the baseball world. It was— it was cool. I enjoyed it. It felt like a little bit of a throwback.
ALEX: Yeah. I— I watched the clip and, yeah, found a grin just sort of creeping across my face. That was only halted by the remembrance that like it doesn’t have to be this way, right? And, like, you know, I—
BOBBY: Well, I— I’m not mad though, because I’m happy that he’s on the Dodgers and [1:27:50] root from there.
ALEX: Yes. I totally agree. I love seeing these types of returns. It is— the— the Boston fans were very classy towards him.
BOBBY: Boston fans are very classy, quote Alex Bazeley.
ALEX: That’s right, they are. You know, it’s just these moments are a testament to, like, the fact that it’s not about John Henry or John Angelos, right? No one is giving them that standing ovation for coming to the ballpark. It’s about—
BOBBY: Except for you, dude.
ALEX: Except for me. As— I do get on my feet every time Fisher enters the ballpark.
BOBBY: Screaming at the top of your lungs when the owner gets the World Series trophy.
ALEX: You deserve this.
BOBBY: Hold on to it longer. Don’t let the MVP hold it. Alright, what’s your final up?
ALEX: My final up is a bit of a corollary to your previous down, which is that Shohei Ohtani is out for the season, which— or that Shohei Ohtani is— just has a shattered UCL, which is true. And yet, he’s still fucking Shohei Otani, which is just insane.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I don’t really know how to like the fact that two days after he got his UCL diagnosis, he was like, “Okay, I’m gonna steal second base now. And then I’m gonna steal third base.” Like, why are you stealing bases at all?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: First of all, this is actually maybe my favorite thing about Shohei Otani is that he steals faces too, like kind of a cute little thing, but a lot of players don’t do anymore.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And he’s like, “No, I can also do— I know I can do everything else, but I can also do that.” Like not a single person in the world would blame him for standing on first and just, like, resting on his laurels, you know? Like catching his breath. And yet— and yet here we are, he does it for us.
BOBBY: It’d be like— if like Neil Armstrong also made movies. It’s like you’re really good at this—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You’re really good at these couple of things, you know?
ALEX: Or like also had a hand in making the rocket ship, you know? It’s like, you don’t have to do that, we have other people to do that.
BOBBY: And he’s like crunching numbers like—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “—I think actually we should launch at this angle.”
ALEX: Like, I’d— just— it’s a testament to how his star literally cannot be dimmed. Like, we follow a couple, like, Shohei Ohtani specific fan accounts on Twitter and there are— some of my favorite—
BOBBY: I know.
ALEX: —accounts to follow, because they have, like— you know, there’s one that’s like shoheisaveus, which first of all, great handle. I would encourage everyone to follow them. Like, 150,000 followers—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —for a account focused on this singular—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —baseball player. Like, I don’t— I don’t know.
BOBBY: Some might argue the most famous baseball player in the baseball world.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah, some might. I don’t know. I just think it’s cool. And there’s a fan base out there that’s about to get really lucky this offseason, and I think you should just deal [1:30:41] yourself for it.
BOBBY: Dude, the way that he just— well, like, now he’s not pitching anymore, but you can still just go watch him hit every day and he’s just like smoking doubles and triples—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —all over the field. Spraying the ball everywhere, hitting homers still. He broke that light at Citi Field and then the Citi Field scoreboard operator was like, “We’re gonna send the bill to you, Mr. Ohtani.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, good bid, everybody. Nicely done. Nicely done. 7 out of 10. Nice work. Come back next week. That’s a good one. Okay, back to our final downs. My final down and maybe people will be surprised that it’s taken us this long to say this person’s name, given that they really just pulled themselves right into the center of the baseball world, put the spotlight right on themselves. That man is named Jerry Reinsdorf who is in a neck and neck race for worst baseball owner—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —with Arte Moreno and John Fisher. I think that Fisher is leading right now just for— from the sheer volume of opportunity.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: But don’t think for one goddamn second that Arte and Jerry are not watching what he’s doing—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —and trying to get that crown back.
ALEX: Well, Jerry is a veteran in the space, too.
BOBBY: Exactly. He has held— him— he’s held the crown at multiple points over his long and storied—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —storied career—
ALEX: Storied career, yeah.
BOBBY: —as a terrible owner in multiple sports. White Sox rebuild did not go well. They fired the architects of that rebuild, Rick Hahn, who was the GM and president of baseball operations. I don’t know if he actually had that title, but he— he was in charge of baseball. And then Ken Williams, who seemingly was like— his title is co— co-president, vice-president, something to that effect.
ALEX: I think vice-president, yeah.
BOBBY: He probably did the money or whatever. I don’t really know.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: How to do the business stuff.
ALEX: Right. He’s the fall guy.
BOBBY: And just for good measure, just in case you were worried that there was a— a brain drain, sending those dudes packing. He did rehire Tony La Russa as consultant and this is not a bit he actually rehired Tony La Russa as a consultant because nothing matters, and nothing is real. And there’s no such thing as remembering anything that has happened in the past. It’s just all about surrounding yourself with guys that you like.
ALEX: How did— you know, we’ve never stopped to consider whether or not Tony La Russa maybe just has really good vibes.
BOBBY: Jerry Reinsdorf heard Drake say No New Friends and he was like, “I’m in, I’m in.”
ALEX: Sounds like— sounds good to me.
BOBBY: He’s like, “I’m with it.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m with it, Aubrey.
ALEX: I haven’t had any new ones in, like, 40 years. 40 is conservative. There are friends in like the 70s.
ALEX: Yeah, true.
BOBBY: The White Sox—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —is so bad that it’s like almost impossible to talk about. And there are, you know, there are White Sox podcasts out there. I’ve been chronicling this all year, I’ve been wearing their hearts on their sleeves about how frustrating it is. We have many White Sox fans in the Tipping Pitches community, in the Slack, expressing their frustrations over the failures both on the field, but also just the failures organizationally to just be serious about anything at any point in, like, competent at anything—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —really. Like they don’t do a good job of providing access to their ballpark for fans. Like it’s one of the most segmented ballparks where you can’t get from the top deck to the bottom deck, so that they can keep the poor people away from the people who have more money. Like, it’s just, all in all, absolutely rancid vibes. And we got— we got a question about— I think maybe this is your final down and so I can allude to it. We got a question about teams threatening to— to leave. And the White Sox being one of these teams, saying that they can’t possibly afford to renovate their stadium or build a new stadium and stay in Chicago unless they get a lot of public money to do so. And I just think a— a healthier league would see the White Sox like a marquee historic franchise in one of the biggest baseball towns in the world. And they would say like, “I know whose fault this is. It’s the guy who’s been there the whole time that things have been going wrong. Let’s maybe step in here and let’s do something about this.” But we have this, like, libertarian approach to the way teams must be run. It’s like you can’t possibly ever suggest that anybody do anything uniformly or better. We just gotta let guys cook on their own.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And this is— I mean, this is what you get when you got a guy that doesn’t know how to cook in Jerry Reinsdorf.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: He is absolutely one of the most incompetent living human beings on the face
of the Earth.
ALEX: I think maybe we’ve said this before, but I’d be in favor of term limiting owners.
BOBBY: I— yes, I agree.
ALEX: Like, I kind of unironically, like you should have to reevaluate every so often. It’s kind of like when you get—
BOBBY: You own the team since, like, before the internet.
ALEX: —your driver’s license like— actually, like, you should have to prove that like— okay, explain what OPS is, Jerry Reinsdorf. You know, you have to pass— you have to pass like a baseball civics test.
BOBBY: Like the citizenship test.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: That’s good. Weirdly, though, I feel like he probably fucking does know what OPS is.
ALEX: Oh, I know.
BOBBY: Ask him if he knows like— we got to get deeper in the weeds, you know? We got to ask him about, like, some clause from the CBA or something like that.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Although he probably does care about that, too. That’s the thing. He’s too involved.
ALEX: I know. I know.
BOBBY: I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t know. That’s— but just seeing the demoralization of White Sox fans who have had to put up with so much shit, is my final down for the week. I already kind of spoiled yours, but what is your final down?
ALEX: No, I— you didn’t. It’s the perfect segue, right? I mean, we have seen stories trickling out over the last few months about—
BOBBY: I just— I just remembered our segues idea. You remember the one that we emailed to ourselves, Alley-Oop Segues?
ALEX: Oh, that’s right.
BOBBY: This is why they pay us the big bucks.
ALEX: That’s why they do. This is a new concept that Alex and I are gonna be rolling out on the podcast over the next few weeks as we work through what it’s going to look like. But it’d be Alley-Oop Segues, where I start a sentence and he finishes the segue for me, or vice-versa. Please look forward to that. Mark that in your calendars.
ALEX: Yeah, this is just the teaser for that. I just— it feels like a slippery slope. You let one team decide to screw over a city and skip town, so you can get a handout from another city that doesn’t have a professional sports team or— or doesn’t have a professional baseball team. And then every other owner wants to do the exact same thing. You know, we have the Royals— at this point, the— the teams who are threatening to move are the A’s, the Royals, the White Sox, the Brewers who are looking for renovations, but haven’t ruled out a move. And I mean, the Rays are— are part of that conversation. Is there another team that I’m missing?
BOBBY: No, I don’t— not that comes to mind. But who knows? By the time this publishes, maybe two other teams—
ALEX: I just— when you have like a sixth of your league trying to move, and move from cities that have played host to professional baseball for decades.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Decades and decades, in some cases, centuries. I just don’t know how you can see that as being, like, positive for the game. Especially with Manfred’s whole push to engage more people, you know, more communities. We need to do better outreach, we need to really make the game more accessible. You’re about to create five—
BOBBY: Ghost towns.
ALEX: —ghost Town markets.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah.
ALEX: right. Five cities full of fans who feel spurned, right? I just—
BOBBY: No, Alex, what you’re not factoring in is that people don’t care about having baseball in their lives. They care about the pitch clock. They care about the amount of time between pitches.
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: As long as there’s less time between pitches, it doesn’t matter if the team that you root for leaves your city and spurns you.
ALEX: This is— the hilarious thing is, like, again, I think rule changes are still technically banned, but like people have mostly stopped talking about them, because they’ve supposedly—
BOBBY: Followed our lead and then [1:38:57]
ALEX: They followed our lead, yeah. They supposedly have their intended effect, whatever. But like— and then you’re gonna turn around and rip these teams away from these fan bases?
BOBBY: No, dude. You’re scooping water off the Titanic with a fucking eight-ounce cup. Like, what are we doing?
ALEX: Oh, I guess the Orioles are the other team in there as well.
BOBBY: Yeah. Well—
ALEX: Sorry, fifth of the league.
BOBBY: But—
ALEX: They are building schools—
BOBBY: But they don’t have enough room for the schools and hospitals. You know, they need more of a rural—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —setting. Camden Yards worked out really well, and now they’re gonna go the other direction. Don’t go for the downtown ballpark. Go for the rural company down.
ALEX: Just go for the offshore ballpark. You know, international waters.
BOBBY: Dude, yes. Great— great— great joke, that reminded me. I was gonna make that same exact fucking joke about all of these teams.
ALEX: [1:39:52]
BOBBY: They’re like— because someone— because someone asked us the question, like where are all these teams gonna go? If all
ALEX: Yeah, JP on Twitter asked, yeah.
BOBBY: Exactly. If all five of these teams— or all six of these teams are going to move, there aren’t that many new cities that have viable cases, especially given the fact that, you know, in— in theory, we’re gonna have expansion teams, two expansion teams at some point in the next 5, 10,15, 20 years, whatever. Where are they gonna go? Well, they’re gonna go to— to big ships, international waters so that they don’t have to honor the CBA or—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —American laws at all.
ALEX: Well, okay. Let’s take it one step further.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: This September, Baseball United, which is the UAE’s new baseball league is having their draft. Let’s just fast track it. John Fisher meet the—
BOBBY: JJF meets NBS.
ALEX: Yeah. Right, exactly. Meet the— the blood prince.
BOBBY: All right. We’ve hit the threshold. I think we’ve hit the line, you know? We found it for the dystopian future of baseball. We walked right up to it and now—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —we’re verging on stepping past it. You know, I could take betting, whatever. I could take the Orioles controlling public education in the state of Maryland, I can stomach that, I guess. But the crown prince by— in all of MLB— just a frankly, extremely plausible outcome for the next 10 years.
ALEX: I know. Yeah. So it’s— it’s unclear like if— because it— this is like a— a Mid-east— or like a Middle East League.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It’s going to be based in the UAE, so it’s like unclear— I don’t know. The— I mean, the Saudis will get their tentacles in there, eventually, right? That’s usually how it goes.
BOBBY: Let me ask you this.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Tomorrow—
ALEX: Tomorrow—
BOBBY: —the Saudis—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —come to Rob.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And they say, “Rob, I like what you’re doing here. Like everything that you’ve built Major League Baseball into.” Let’s say every— every team is worth 2 billion on average, give or take a little [1:41:55]
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s 60 billion for all the teams.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Let’s say they round it out, just— they pay a premium to have the whole fucking thing, will give you $100 billion. Every single owner cashes a check, straight cash for $3.33 billion. $3,333,000,000.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: What does Rob say? Meaning like, what does the whole league say? You know, because they want a vote on it—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —of course, but what— what did they say?
ALEX: I know. Well, I mean, the— the way some of these owners talk, I think they would really need that money, right?
BOBBY: I— I think they would all say yes.
ALEX: Say yes. That’s— I mean—
BOBBY: Except for, like, I guess the Steinbrenners because their— was— theirs is worth more, so maybe they would have to organize it, so that they get a little bit more of the pie or whatever.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t know. Hammer out the details later. Come on. [1:42:56] of that pie.
ALEX: Just do like MJ [1:42:57] deal. Get it done.
BOBBY: It’s 150 billion. That’s nothing, dude. They spent, like, 2 billion on, like, to eight golfers.
ALEX: Yeah, I know.
BOBBY: We’re so cooked. You know—you know this is really to close out the podcast here.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because we’re going— we’re going very long. You know who throw himself in front of that deal?
ALEX: Who’s that?
BOBBY: It’s Dark Brandon. As long as we got Joe Biden in office, that’s another reason, everybody. Get out to vote in November. We gotta vote to keep Joe.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Back the blue no matter who, because if not, your favorite baseball team might get bought out by the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
ALEX: I love that little— that back the blue no matter who. That’s— that’s good.
BOBBY: Is that no— it’s not [1:43:42]
ALEX: But it’s usually like vote blue no matter who, right?
BOBBY: Vote blue.
ALEX: And back the blue is like—
BOBBY: Yeah. Well [1:43:46]
ALEX: It’s— it’s not a two-hour pod, but we’ve been recording for two— more than two hours, so—
BOBBY: It’s just something to chew on, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: What would they say? I think they would say yes.
ALEX: That’s— yeah. Bidenomics would shut that shit down instantly.
BOBBY: He’s just a trust buster.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Trust Buster— Trust Buster Joe.
ALEX: Yeah, too much [1:44:06] in that one.
BOBBY: He’d walk into that meeting, he’d bust through that door like the Kool-Aid man. The Saudis and Rob, he’d say, “Listen, Jack—”
ALEX: [1:44:16] of informed consent. Rob Manfred, I agree. Mohammed bin Salman, I agree. Dark Brandon—
BOBBY: You forgot [1:44:21] Joe Biden wearing aviators. Alright. I think this is— alright, this is our cue
ALEX: The fuck out of here. Get out, get out.
BOBBY: We gotta get out of here. Thank you, everybody, for listening to this nonsensical, ridiculous podcast. It’s— it’s been nice coming back after three weeks, feeling rested, feeling relaxed. So excited to head through the rest of the baseball season. I— if you are a— a patron, one of the things that you get as part of your Patreon is a newsletter, which is—
ALEX: Very.
BOBBY: —very late and very behind, because we’ve been taking a couple of weeks off. Apologize for that. That will be coming back later this week. And another thing is livestreams of baseball games, which we are planning to bring back for— potentially in September, but definitely for the playoffs in October, at least once per round. So we’re going to be rolling those back out at some point. So, we appreciate everybody’s patience, we appreciate everybody’s support as always. If you would like to sign up for the Patreon, support what we do here, it is patreon.com/tippingpitches. There’s three different tiers. Check that out. It gets you various, different things. And just as a— a heads-up, you know, we started the Patreon at the beginning of last year. It has— it’s been largely unchanged since we started it in the structure and the format and stuff, and what we offer at each tier. But we are going to take stock of what the Patreon different tiers offer at some point during this offseason, and so we will likely refresh it in a way that is more beneficial to— to you guys who are signed up for it. So just know that we are considering them, thinking about that, and, you know, hopefully are going to be providing a little bit more of a, like, direct reciprocation of the support that we’ve been getting on Patreon, because it has been so overwhelming and extremely humbling. So thank you to everybody for all of the support. I believe that is all of the serious hosting I have to do at the end of this— just frankly, unserious—
ALEX: Outrageous.
BOBBY: —ridiculous, outrageous podcast that we just recorded. Is there anything else that you would like to add for people?
ALEX: Zack Gelof for MVP.
BOBBY: Let’s go.
ALEX: That’s kind of— that’s kind of it. That’s the only thing that’s been occupying—
BOBBY: Are the A’s—
ALEX: —my brain space.
BOBBY: —back?
ALEX: A’s back?
BOBBY: Back?
ALEX: If they went out—
BOBBY: They could finish 10 games under.
ALEX: Exactly. Which is right where everyone thought they’d be.
BOBBY: The Mets are in last right now. I know— that’s really tough for me to swallow, yeah. Thank you, everybody, for listening. We will be back next week.
SPEAKER 3: Blood, sweat or all my time, because I shouldn’t have to say this to you. No, you, you know how to live life. And I shouldn’t have to sing all these tunes. No, you, you make me feel alive.
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!
Tipping Pitches 
Leave a comment