Alex and Bobby discuss some mediocre yelling at clouds before moving on to talk about the Nationals’ mishandling of the Stephen Strasburg retirement situation. Then, they check in on a pair of lawsuits against MLB, before finishing with their favorite topic: the Nevada state legislature!
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Links:
David Wells’ comments at Old Timers’ Day
Two lawsuits against MLB advancing
Nevada Schools Over Stadiums
Jim Quinn on Tipping Pitches
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Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
Swearin’— “Untitled (LA)” • 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, I’d like to start the podcast by sharing two pieces of critical information about— one about each of your beloved hosts, dear listener. The first one is that Alex has the novel Coronavirus coursing through his body as we speak.
ALEX: I do, not so novel anymore, but—
BOBBY: This is your second time with it?
ALEX: It is.
BOBBY: First confirmed time?
ALEX: First confirmed time, first tested positive. The first time was like when everyone had it, you know, in March of 2020.
BOBBY: You were like pitching [01:00]
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Right. How are you feeling?
ALEX: I’m feeling okay. Good excuse to just lay on the couch all weekend and watch Coco Gauff and Medvedev, and— and— and be here with you, my beloved co-host.
BOBBY: Are you a big Medvedev guy?
ALEX: I kind of am in the last couple years.
BOBBY: He is kind of—
ALEX: And also, I think he’s a fun like— he’ll— you know he leans into it.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: But like not in too much of a self-serious way.
BOBBY: We’re kind of all big Medvedev guys now that he’s playing Djokovic in the finals.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, exactly. Yeah. Medvedev by default.
BOBBY: This is a tennis podcast now. Because you have been sick with COVID and because we, obviously, spent a lot of time together, I figured, given our five-hour car ride—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —five days ago that I would also have COVID, but I— I don’t, at least not yet. But because of that, I have spent the last couple days, as you describe, laying on the couch watching Coco Gauff, watching Medvedev, and watching a lot of films. And so the second piece of critical information that you need to know about the two hosts of this podcast is about me, and it is that I just finished watching the film JFK, like an hour before we started recording this podcast. So Alex [2:11] is riddled—
ALEX: So your head is spinning?
BOBBY: —riddled with— with COVID-19 brain fog and mine is riddled with the truths that Oliver Stone has given our dear culture. So I think we’re gonna do a great episode.
ALEX: I think we are, too. You’re off in conspiracy land. You think there’s a third shooter. I don’t even know how that’s possible.
BOBBY: Why stop at three?
ALEX: Exactly. There were grassy knolls all over the place, right? That wasn’t the only one.
BOBBY: There’s buildings everywhere. If there’s— if there’s one thing that Major League Baseball has taught us is that there’s a lot of conspiracies going on in the state of Texas.
ALEX: If there’s one thing—
BOBBY: Another film that I watched this weekend, Alex, is the movie called Air. Have you seen this movie?
ALEX: I have seen this movie, yeah.
BOBBY: It chronicles the story of the Nike Corporation branding Michael Jordan’s shoe Air Jordan and recruiting him to come be the face of their basketball division. That is my ham-handed transition to talk about former Yankees pitcher, former perfect game thrower, David Wells in his opinions. We’re doing a bad take dramatic reading. The first true one of these that we’ve done in— in quite a bit of time.
ALEX: It is, yeah, but he gave us such a— a wealth of content that it— it— we would not be ourselves if we let this moment pass by without at least acknowledging it.
BOBBY: Headline in The Athletic from Brendan Kuty, Yankees legend David Wells slams, “Woke, woke— culture and rant against Nike, Bud Light, and MLB.”
ALEX: Off to a great start, I just want to say. Hitting all— all— playing all the hits there in the headline, just kind of getting it all in and what— he was like, “They don’t trot me out for very many events like this anymore, so I kind of got every— got to get everything I think out on the table.”
BOBBY: I kind of feel like this is a man who understands Search Engine Optimization.
ALEX: Absolutely.
BOBBY: New York Yankees legend David Wells slammed the state of Major League Baseball while ripping Nike and Bud Light for being “woke.” “We’re in a different world— we’re in a different world,” Wells said Saturday, which was Old-Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium.” Very fitting. “It sucks. That’s why everyone should carry a gun.” I’m missing a couple— a couple steps of logic there.
ALEX: I think it makes perfect sense.
BOBBY: You think it makes per— okay, great. You’re on the record as saying, “That’s why everybody should carry a gun,” because Nike and Bud Light are woke. As well spoke, he wore a piece of medical tape over the Nike swoosh on the chest of his Yankees jersey. He said that if he were playing today, he would have cut a hole into his jersey, and worn it on the field like that rather than display Nike’s logo on his body. I don’t understand why he has to do the medical tape. Why couldn’t he cut a hole in his jersey? Unclear. “I hate Nike,” he said, “They’re woke.” So far, I’m not hearing a lot of justification.
ALEX: Right. A lot of substance to the criticism.
BOBBY: It used to be that you have— you had to flesh out your ideas, you know? Like when John Rocker came out and basically did this rant in the 1990s, he explained what he thought. He didn’t just say, “Queens is woke.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: He went line by line in every group of marginalized people—
ALEX: Right. Ethnicity by ethnicity.
BOBBY: —and said why he didn’t like and trust them.
ALEX: He was just saying, yes, you’d have to show your work a little bit, right?
BOBBY: Okay. Well, we’ll see if he shows his work as we continue. “Wells ripped companies that he feels dabbled too much in social issues and politics. He referenced Bud Light, which used to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in a commercial earlier this year, causing some conservatives to call for a boycott of the beer. Asked whether he would drink Bud Light again, Wells didn’t need many words, “Nope.”
ALEX: No thoughts. Not a single thought. All vibes.
BOBBY: Here’s where it starts getting related to baseball. He just had to get the thoughts about Nike and Bud Light out of the way first, I guess, because those are companies that Major League Baseball has a— a business relationship to.
ALEX: Sure. Yeah.
BOBBY: Do you think he thinks Tara is too woke?
ALEX: I would like to see someone try and explain the blockchain to David Wells.
BOBBY: MLB’s virtual ballpark is too woke. I want to hear that rant. I— I— I would listen to that rant.
ALEX: I— I ironically would.
BOBBY: Wells who pitched 21 Big League seasons also defended General Manager Brian Cashman. Recent topic of this podcast has been under fire from fans this season as the Yankees sit in last place in the AL East. “It always seems that the general managers, the managers, and all of that are getting fired and getting blamed for it, and it’s the players’ fault. If you’re not doing the job out on the field, and if I was a GM, I would start sending a message. I don’t care who it was, if he was in the stinkhole, pardon my French, if you can say that now. I don’t know.”
ALEX: You can’t say that now, by the way.
BOBBY: You can’t say if he was in the stinkhole, I hate that. “But send that son of a gun to Triple-A or Double-A, and send him a wake-up call. They did it to me. They did it to a lot of us back in the day. You’ve got to send a message. I don’t care how much money you’re making. Send them to Double-A. Which players on the Yankees do you think are— have the options to go to Double-A? I— who do— who does he think should go to Double-A?
ALEX: Once again, the new rules that have been instated by Major League Baseball limiting the amount of times that a player can be option to the Minor Leagues are, in fact, woke. This is the coddling of the American baseball player.
BOBBY: I’m glad you said coddle, because then David goes on to use that word. “Send a message to them and let them go sit down there and think about it. That’s what you have to do. I know— I think now they coddle them too much. They baby them. It’s up to your peers to make you better.”
ALEX: See, this is what I’m saying is that we could, like, do an effective job. Like they’re just— they have their list of buzzwords.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Coddle.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Woke, stinkhole.
BOBBY: He goes on to— to recount a time where he pitched poorly and Jorge Posada slammed him against a pillar in the home clubhouse and how Wells respected that, because Posada had said that he gave up and it pissed him off that he accused him of giving up on the game. So, so far, we’ve learned cut holes in your jerseys, that’s Chris sale coded. Don’t drink Bud Light. Slam people against pillars at your workplace.
ALEX: Exactly. Or get slammed by— get your ass kicked by your teammate.
BOBBY: Right. It just depends on whether you feel like— just depends on whether you’re feeling like a top or a bottom that day. “Wells wants to return to the ’90s style of baseball.” The article goes on to say, “He said he had an issue with today’s pitch clock because pitchers shouldn’t need it in the first place.” I gotta say, sounded a little bit like me there. Here’s where he loses me. “This is analyst—”
ALEX: Here— here is where he loses you.
BOBBY: Yeah, everything else was okay. “This is analytics.” What is analytics? What— the pitch clock is analytics. I’d like to hear him justify that opinion. “They tell players certain things to me personally, it’s ruining the game, because these guys don’t have free will to be themselves and go out there and find their own identity.” So now, he wants to talk about identity. He’s pro identity now.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: “Because they’re having an identity brought to them, there’s a game plan. Our game plan was to go out there and win. How are we going to do it? The best nine guys are going to play. You need a fire lit under your butt sometimes. They don’t do that. And it sucks.” Pretty amazing.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: A lot to chew on there.
ALEX: Yeah. Lot to chew on, don’t really know how to proceed from there. I— I have to ask, did someone ask him to talk about this? Like, was this unprompted? Or did— did someone go up and say, “Boomer, how do you feel about the— the state of woke culture in America today?” Because it feels— it feels important to me. If he went out and— and— and did this rant on his own, which seems likely, I— I understand it. We don’t— we don’t need to entertain the— the idea— I know we just did a whole segment, reading word for word every single one of his quotes.
BOBBY: True. We’re part of the problem.
ALEX: I don’t know, maybe it— maybe it’s time to wheel him back into the closet.
BOBBY: I— I— I doubt that somebody specifically asked him about “woke culture.” Maybe somebody asked him about why there was a piece of medical tape covering the Nike logo—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —on his jersey, that could have been it. But I feel like, at least, to the baseball— to the extent of the baseball comments that he made, I do feel like the pitch clock, the— the changes— the rule changes to the game have given everybody their bite at the apple for coming—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —out and sharing their opinion on what baseball is like nowadays, and what needs to change. And whether you’re a believer in the rule changes, or whether you’re somebody who thinks that the— the game was ruined because of analytics, and then Rob Manfred’s hand was forced for the rule changes. Or whether you just think that they shouldn’t have changed the sacred game, like me. Are you in that camp?
ALEX: It’s something for everyone.
BOBBY: You get to come out and you get to— you get to have your at-bat, basically, to share your opinion on what Major League Baseball is like. Like, in past years, this would have just sounded like old man yelling at cloud.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Now, it sounds like old man yelling at cloud that everybody else is yelling at, frankly.
ALEX: Right. It sounds like the great equalizer is what you’re saying.
BOBBY: I think it does. And this is why, on this podcast, you very bravely, you got out ahead of it, and you said, “I’m not talking about rule changes.” And then you proceeded to just completely back down from that opinion and let us talk about rule changes whenever we wanted to.
ALEX: Well, my take on the rule changes is that we basically haven’t talked about them— is— is basically that the— that I think the baseball world hasn’t touched them since, like,
June?
BOBBY: Yeah. Not until David Wells came along.
ALEX: Exactly. And he wanted to share the truth that everybody was trying to keep under wraps. Maybe he watched JFK before—
ALEX: He’s the fish— the fish swimming upstream.
BOBBY: Maybe he watched JFK before Old-Timers’ Day.
ALEX: Maybe— I don’t know. How are you feeling right now? Is this kind of the headspace that yours is in?
BOBBY: No, no. My headspace right now is just about how much of a king Oliver Stone is.
ALEX: Right. Right.
BOBBY: Like the only guy who could have made that movie, the only guy who could have made— incredibly made the connections that he made in that film, gotten the budget, and that entire cast to do that, and say that— those nonsense lines, which may or may not be true, I don’t know. And he did it. For the—
ALEX: He did it.
BOBBY: —Hollywood studio system. A Hollywood studio made a movie accusing Lyndon B Johnson of murdering JFK.
ALEX: You unironically could not make movies like this anymore.
BOBBY: No, you couldn’t make movies like that before then, or maybe during then.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: He’s the only human being who could have done it. David Wells, however, is not the only human being who could have done this rant. You could replace him with literally anybody who has these opinions.
ALEX: So what you’re saying is that Oliver Stone could slam the wokification of America, but David Wells could not direct the magnum opus conspiracy piece of the 20th century?
BOBBY: That’s exactly precisely what I’m saying.
ALEX: Great.
BOBBY: If Oliver Stone has opinions on the state of current baseball, I would listen to it. But David Wells, we’re gonna have to keep it moving, dawg.
ALEX: Yeah, we’ll see you next year.
BOBBY: We’re gonna keep it moving. We have a lot to talk about this week, including a debacle going on in— in Washington, DC with the Nationals, and Stephen Strasburg. A trial proceeding on a case that we have discussed in the past with regards to Minor League Baseball. And then, of course, we gotta go back to the Nevada State Legislature. We just have to go back. You can’t escape it. Alex is trapped there.
ALEX: Yup. Me and— me and Dave Kaval.
BOBBY: Mentally— metaphysically trapped there.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Dave Kaval stuck there physically. You stuck there metaphysically. We’re going to talk about all of that. But before we do, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: Thank you to this week’s new patron, AK. Alex, are you excited to talk about the Lerner Family? Are you excited to talk about them definitely knowing what they’re doing and being able to handle their business?
ALEX: But definitely not having any money in the bank?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And— and checks balancing these days? Yes, I’m always— I’m always reared and ready to go.
BOBBY: So two weeks ago, we talked about the Nationals Stephen Strasburg, and how he had announced his retirement because he functionally can’t pitch anymore. He’s in a lot of pain, even in his day-to-day life. His recovery has not been able to get him back on a Major League mound, nor a Minor League mound, or any— really any mound. And how unfortunate of a story that was. I believe this was in the context of our 3-on-3 episode that we did when we came back from our two-week break. And— and we talked about that as a bummer. It’s one of those things where it— it— it seems like it was out of a lot of people’s control. I don’t think that there was any one thing— one mistake that anyone made along the way to set Stephen Strasburg down this path. It was just a very unfortunate thing that happens to pitchers because I don’t think our bodies are supposed to do the things that Stephen Strasburg could do. And I think everybody was summarily really bummed out about the situation, but at least Stephen Strasburg was going to have his number retired, and he would get acknowledged by the Nationals and by baseball at large for everything that he contributed to that team. Everything he contributed to, like, the wider baseball fandom. I— Michael Baumann wrote a great piece, a friend of the show, Michael Baumann wrote a great piece in FanGraphs about how he was the first kind of, like, modern mega prospect. The first, like, consensus number one pitcher that everybody was like, “This guy is going to be the thing. He— you might remember watching college highlights at SDSU of Stephen Strasburg. Like, why would I care about that? But I was fired up about it. And I think the— the takeaway from balanced views was largely right that it was, like, him and, like, super prospects like— like that. And later, guys like Bryce Harper, and, you know, all the way to the present where we have guys like Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews being just incredibly hyped and coming in, and being good right away, or unifying type of thing for the game. And so, we had all of that, we had that whole cycle of— of conversation around Strasburg, a bittersweet memorialization of his career. And after all of that, the Nationals decided that they wanted to renege on what— on seemingly what their path was. And they decided that they were not going to hold the jersey retirement ceremony for him, in large part due to the— of— a differing of opinion on how the finances would be held or would be handled for the rest of his contract. So according to Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic, “The Nationals approach Strasburg, 35, about retiring earlier this summer. While no finances were implicitly discussed, Strasburg is on the injured list with nerve damage and his contract is fully guaranteed. The Nationals sources say wanted to change the original contract terms and work out a settlement. In a statement on Friday, Nationals owner Mark Lerner said, “Well, we have been following the process required by the collective bargaining agreement, behind the scenes preparations for a press conference had begun internally. However, no such event was ever confirmed by the team or promoted publicly.” So, basically, it leaked that they were going to have a jersey retirement ceremony for Stephen Strasburg. And it was assumed since this contract is fully guaranteed that the Nationals will just pay him the rest of the contract. And the Lerners, I guess, realizing that maybe the insurance on the contract was not going to pay it out in the way that they thought it would, decided to roll back that jersey retirement ceremony. Put out an official statement from the owner about how they weren’t going to do it anymore. And say, “We look forward to seeing Stephen in spring training next year.” A guy who has—
ALEX: Ah, yes.
BOBBY: —basically said that he can’t ever pitch anymore. The Nationals are like, “Come on over to work, if you want your money.” That’s where we’re at right now.
ALEX: And seemed happy burning that roster spot, right? If it means they can squeeze a few dollars out of him. I mean, it’s just so— it’s the bad faith negotiating that we’ve come to sort of expect from owners, and— and this news breaking at the— or at around the same time that we learned that more than a dozen national scouts were being laid off this offseason, from The Athletic and— and the Washington Post. It just— it really feels like penny-pinching for the sake of it. I mean, just a couple of years ago, the Lerners and— and GM Mike Rizzo were talking a big game about how they were ready to build out their scouting department, right? And— and, you know, “We don’t want to take away from this. We are in this rebuild mode. We really want to dedicate the resources necessary to this.” And this all feels like a backtrack from a— a sort of measured retreat from actually saying, “You know what? We’re financially liquid. We can afford the cash here or there. Let’s really start building a— a solid foundation for— for a future franchise.” Which, hey, it’s not the Lerners’ future franchise, so why would you build that solid foundation, right?” But the— the fact that ownership groups kind of have this lateral movement available to them that oftentimes ends up screwing over players and members of scouting teams, coaching teams that actually really feel the impact of these sorts of moves, it just— when— when we were seeing this news trickle out about the Strasburg conference being canceled, it felt all too familiar, you know? Of— oh, of course, they’re going to cancel the contract, and maybe try and keep them on as a special adviser, you know? And, like, renegotiate a salary that way, right? If they can do— they took a look at the books and said, “Hey, there might be another way out of this,” which I guess I don’t blame them for, if their role is to look at the bottom line. But as a fan who maybe has watched this franchise and grown up with them, and— and celebrated Strasburg, or even just as— as a fan of— of good baseball, of teams operating in good faith, this sort of thing is really disheartening to see.
BOBBY: I think the phrase you use “good faith” is a key one, because I think a lot of people felt like— given how unfortunate Strasburg’s, like, health— Strasburg’s health has been, and how it’s— how much had shortened what we thought was going to be a long and legendary career. You know, he has had health— his health problems over the years, and I remember he was one of those guys in that era of Tommy John recovery, where it was like, “Okay. He’s going to come back, but he’s going to have a hard cap on his inning— innings limit.” Him and Matt Harvey—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —were kind of in that era, where there was just so much discourse around how much do innings matter versus how much does pitch count matter? Versus how much does velocity matter versus how much do stressful pitches matter? Versus— we just didn’t know quite as much about then [21:09]
ALEX: Right. And Strasburg is like, “All of it hurts. I— all of the above hurts my arm.”
BOBBY: Yes. Exactly. But he was able to come back and be healthy and effective enough to perform better than almost any pitcher in Major League history in their playoff run in 2019. And in— in the World Series, in particular, where he took on the World Series MVP. And there was this feeling like, “Okay.” You know, to use your phrase “good faith negotiation” that it— it felt like the Nationals were going to do the right thing. And I think that this is a particularly egregious example that frustrated people in a particularly powerful way, because if that’s how an organization is going to treat a guy who— who literally went out there and won the World Series for them. Like without him, they don’t win the World Series win. If he just chooses not to go out there and be used on his throw day, him and Scherzer, and Corbin, if they choose to not go out there and execute this plan that the Nationals had come up with because they basically had no bullpen and won a World Series against a great team. Like, then they don’t have that World Series ring, and then all of— everything that they did, letting, you know, multiple players walk and blowing it up and all that stuff, it seems eminently less worth it than— than it does if they have that, you know, fly— fly forever. And to do this to this guy is just so— it’s just like so naked and so— it just shows that such a flagrant lack of, like, feel and competency, but also just a lack of care for how you’re going to be perceived by the baseball world. And if they felt like it would have any repercussions, they wouldn’t have handled it this way. They would just pay the contract out. But it— it almost seems like beyond just wanting to pinch the pennies, it seems like they’re trying to prove a point. Like, they don’t think that he should deserve this contract, basically. Because he— even though it’s fully guaranteed, they don’t think that he should have it, and it’s like what we’ve talked about so many times where we’ve created this consent manufacturing for teams and owners to come out here and be like, “Well, this player no longer deserves the contract that I agreed to give him, because he has, in— in my mind, reached these arbitrary standards that are not legally written into the contract.” Like Miguel Cabrera is not good anymore, why am I paying him? Albert Pujols is not good anymore. Why am I paying him? If you were worried about this, you shouldn’t have signed the contract. That’s what I said, like if—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You did it, you know? You signed the contract. Now, hold up your end of the bargain. It’s literally legally the least you can do—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —is to pay out the contract. You didn’t—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Maybe you don’t have to do this big, grand jersey retirement ceremony. It was going to be a nice thing that you did it. Why did you ever approach him with the idea? Just— it just ain’t the money, man. It’s like— I— I don’t know how much more plainly I can say it other than it’s— it’s in a binding contract, and you can’t get out of it. So he’s gonna get the money either way.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It could be the— you could— you could douse yourself in shame trying to get an insurance company to give them that money or you could just give them the money because you’re not giving it to anyone else right now. You’re not giving out big contracts that you can’t afford as a Major League team.
ALEX: I’m glad you brought up the— the guaranteed nature of the contract, because it’s— it’s instances like these that show why MLB’s Union is so strong and why the labor landscape for players is— at least when compared to other sports in a relatively good position, right? Because shit like this happens. You’re doing something to your arm that, like, the human body was not designed to do and someone wants to pay you to do it. That’s amazing. It should not fall on you if your body one day says, “Yeah, I literally can’t do this anymore.” Right? You’re entering into this agreement with the team. You both knew the terms at the start. It’s kind of been like this for decades, this whole thing has gone. And we’ve seen, I feel like maybe in the last decade or so, more and more instances of teams trying to worm their way out of this, right? And say, “Hey, we’ll bring you on in a different role. We’ll just keep paying you while you’re injured”— right? It’s like, “We’re gonna play a game of chicken with you, and not give you this level of closure you want until we can come to an agreement that makes both of us happy.” Right? Which is not the way these contracts were ever designed to work.
BOBBY: I think that— that is a really important point, because I— being committed to your values as a union in nearly all circumstances is a very important thing to do. And I don’t mean being inflexible about what you think you believe in. But being committed to the values that bring financial security to your members is very important. I— I say that— to say never backing down off this stuff is the reason that the contracts are still fully guaranteed. So when in 2003, Alex Rodriguez was traded— or 2004? I don’t remember what year. Was traded to the Boston Red Sox functionally, and he would have had to restructure his contract to take less money on his deal, a contract that he had already signed. That is against the Union’s principles. They said, “No, that’s in the collective bargaining agreement that teams can’t ask players to take less money than what is in there fully guaranteed contracts. And they would have to have an exception from the union leadership to be able to do that.” And even though the player said that he wanted to do that— this is the guy making the most money in the league. This is the guy who signed the best contract. And if— if he just says that he doesn’t want to take that money anymore, then that gives a— a specific precedent for teams to come and say, “Hey, well, in this case— in this case, it wasn’t fully guaranteed. In this case, we— we had a reason to renegotiate it.” And—
ALEX: Right. Occasionally, there— there are times when market forces— you know, necessitate us to re-examine the structure of the contract, like it’s all there. Yeah.
BOBBY: Yes. So, conveniently, that occasionally there are times that market forces step in.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Well, actually, there’s not. There’s never a case in which a fully guaranteed contract should yield the player less money than was fully guaranteed. Never.
ALEX: No. No.
BOBBY: Never. It’s never a good thing. It’s never a good thing. I— if you didn’t— that— that’s the thing, it’s like that’s— as a player, you are free to go above and beyond making the— the salary minimum, you know? You are free to sign whatever contract that yields you more money, but you— you know, you have to be an adult about it. You have to know that that means that you’re committed to technically play for that team for 11 years. These are the things that we have to negotiate as— in weird markets like this. You know, a market that is weird and dysfunctional because of ownership behavior, of course. Like, I don’t think that any player would sit here and say, “Does it make the most sense for me to commit 10 years not knowing where I’m going to be 10 years from now, health-wise, family-wise, lifestyle-wise, desire to even play this game anymore wise? But this is the only way that I can get this amount of money guaranteed to me.” No, it doesn’t make— it doesn’t make sense. But the only other option is going year over year and not making any of that money if you actually get hurt. So teams know this, like all of that to say is that teams know this, but they also know that if they come out and they try to subtly undermine these principles, well, then, there’s going to be a decent subset of people who agree with them. There’s going to be people who are like, “Well, he only made it three years into his contract.” And I’m like that’s just not how it works, you know? The teams don’t want player movement. Teams don’t want resetting salaries every year. They would like to lock these players into set amounts of money, because they can plan for that. And when it just so happens that one player here and there doesn’t actually perform up to the contract, be— because of things that were out of his control, which is all written into that contract, then they want to cry poor, then they want to act like they can’t— they shouldn’t have to hold up their end of the deal. It’s nonsense. It’s— it’s total nonsense, it’s bad faith. And it’s— honestly, I realized that a lot of this happens because of the Lerners and because of how they handle their organization, and how unaccommodating it seems that they are in— in certain scenarios. But, like, this is just like professional mismanagement on— on a level that, to me, indicates organizational disarray. And I know that Mike Rizzo is, like, beloved by other people within the game and— and seemingly liked by players and agents, and whatnot, but everything around that organization has just kind of had like a— a mild stink to it for years. And the only thing that has kind of covered up that malodorous scent has been the fact that they did win the 2019 World Series, when the league and a lot of other fans really needed them to do it, to beat the Astros in the midst of their cheating scandal. And I just think that they’re just using that to just— I— I think that they’re using that as, like, a flak jacket. And I— I feel like that goodwill, frankly, ran out a while ago. And as an organization, I think they’re still trying to get away with that.
ALEX: Yeah, there’s nothing more to it. I mean, I— I appreciate you pointing out the sort of insidious nature of this and it’s all— and it’s important to realize like your team’s owner would do this too if they could. Like if it— if it meant a big enough check for them, they get it done. If it— if it meant being able to save a little bit of face at the next, you know, board members meeting, they would— they would do it.
BOBBY: I think if you gave the Wilpons truth serum, you know, what was the proudest thing that they were— what single decision were you most proud of as an owner of the New York Mets? They would say insuring the David Wright contract.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Not getting to the 2015 World Series, not building good teams in the mid-2000s. Not— not the Subway Series, not Citi fields, you know?
ALEX: Uh-uh.
BOBBY: Not— I don’t know, anything that they did in their tenure. Honor— honoring Mets of— Mets players of the past, retiring Mets— Mets players numbers, hiring good managers, hiring good GMs, on the rare occasion that they actually did that. They would not say any of that. They would say—
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: “—Insuring the David Wright contract so that we didn’t have to pay a single penny.”
ALEX: This one bet we had.
BOBBY: And I think that that’s probably true of most owners.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Except Steve Cohen, he’s perfect. Steve, please hire us as consultants for your baseball team. Anything else to say about Strasburg?
ALEX: No, I just hope the Nationals end up doing him justice. I feel like this will get ironed out. It doesn’t feel like the kind of thing you want to linger into next spring training. Like, that’s just a bad look for everyone involved, except for Stephen Strasburg.
BOBBY: “We look forward to seeing him”— we haven’t really been focused on that part of the Lerner statement. “We look forward to seeing him in spring training,” is one of the more unhinged things I’ve heard in the past—
ALEX: Absolutely. Yeah.
BOBBY: And we’ve made [32:16]
ALEX: Given that that he has, more or less, not pitched for the last three years, like it’s unreal.
BOBBY: He had Thoracic Outlet Syndrome surgery at the end of 2021, I think, and he hasn’t— he hasn’t pitched at all since then. And, “I look forward to seeing you in spring training,” is so disrespectful.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Especially after all of the quotes about how he has, like, nerve damage and pain in his day-to-day life.
ALEX: Right. And, like, can’t lift his kid, like it’s sick.
BOBBY: Why— I mean, we’ve made a—
ALEX: “Get him back out there.”
BOBBY: This is not actually our career, so I can’t say that we’ve made a career out of chronicling wild owner statements and— and takes, but we kind of have, so I feel credible—
ALEX: That’s one of the more egregious lies.
BOBBY: —in saying that that is one of the more egregious things I’ve heard an owner say in our time doing this podcast. That is wild. Okay, let’s move along. Evan Drellich, a friend of the show in The Athletic wrote an article about the lawsuits from ML— MLB’s expulsion of two Minor League teams. The news on that front is that they can go to trial, these lawsuits. “A pair of Minor League teams that lost their affiliation with Major League Baseball deserve a jury trial, a judge in New York State’s highest civil court ruled on Wednesday. The order was a blow to MLB, which had sought to dismiss the cases entirely. The Tri-City ValleyCats and the Norwich Sea Unicorns.” I love Minor League Baseball. It’s the best thing ever.
ALEX: It’s amazing.
BOBBY: “Sued the league in separate cases. Both teams had lost their affiliation before the 2021 season when MLB cut 40 teams from its Minor League system. Combined, the two Minor League teams are seeking damages north of $30 million.” I’m going to give a couple of the legal details from the case without delving too far into it, because we’re not lawyers, despite the fact that we do talk a lot about the law and finance on this podcast. The jury would decide whether MLB, The Tigers and the Astros, who are the parent clubs for those two Minor League teams, are liable for what’s known as tortious interference. And—
ALEX: I hate interference, but especially when it’s tortious. I’m like, “Come on, man. It’s just adding insult to injury.”
BOBBY: Tortious interference is when I interrupt you in the middle of a great take that you’re having. That’s tortious interference. The ruling as to— as to whether MLB interfered with the rights of the Minor League teams under the National Association Agreement, which is the agreement that the— that Major League Baseball has with the group of Minor League clubs. It was 160 and now, it’s 120.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So basically, MLB meddled with this agreement without having the legal right to do it, and deprived these teams of the value that comes with being affiliated with a Major League Baseball team after they had entered into a contract they— they claimed that they— they would fulfill their end of the bargain of. Are you hearing a theme here?
ALEX: I am hearing a theme here. Yeah, that National Association Agreement basically prohibits— it’s a contract between the Minor League teams, right? Saying, “We are a unit, we act together, and we’re not going to negotiate individually on our own with, say, an organization like Major League Baseball to come up with some other plans.” Right? Which is what happened here, right? That Major League Baseball went to each of the teams and said, “Do you want to join our— our new and improved Minor Leagues?” And I imagine most, if not all teams said, “Yes, let’s do it and get on board.” And then Major League Baseball went back to someone and said, “Actually, we miscounted the— the chairs that we have available for you.”
BOBBY: What you can’t really do it.
ALEX: Which you can’t do exactly. So I mean, it feels like Major League Baseball effectively saying like, “Okay. What are you gonna do, sue us?”
BOBBY: Yes. It’s—
ALEX: Like, that feels like the honest approach, right? Is them being like, “We have faith in the—”
BOBBY: That’s kind of their business approach, right?
ALEX: Exactly. We have faith in the legal system to protect our interests.
BOBBY: I think they have faith in their own lobbyists to convince the legal system, to protect their interests. I— they have this antitrust exemption which allows them to act unilaterally in their business practices for, I don’t know, like federal matters. But you know how the law works. You know, that’s why this isn’t a New York—
ALEX: I do.
BOBBY: You—
ALEX: I’m very familiar with it.
BOBBY: You’re a bard, please tell us. Please tell us more about the New York State Legislature. The way that— the way that this plays out is that sometimes, you know, local— things that happen on a state level, MLB gets sued over them, because even though they have this antitrust exemption from the federal government and federal laws, and they don’t have to follow like, you know, the United States Labor Laws, it doesn’t have to follow any of those.
ALEX: They’re mostly suggestions anyway.
BOBBY: Explicit exemptions to not follow them. They’re suggested by the House of Representatives and the Senate to not follow them, actually.
ALEX: Yeah, pretty much.
BOBBY: “We suggest that you don’t follow them and we give you the explicit permission not to.” Well done, everybody. Great country we have here. But, like, there was a lawsuit in California that they were violating California State Labor Law and, you know, this is going to court in New York, so they have to follow the laws of the states that they do business in, for the most part. And MLB basically doesn’t believe that they have to do that. Morgan Sword, MLB’s Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations, also a guy who is very present in the Collective Bargaining Agreement— Collective Bargaining Negotiations. He’s like Rob’s right-hand man, basically at Major League Baseball. Told the court in an affidavit that publicly disclosing the documents for this lawsuit “would reveal competitively sensitive details of defendants negotiation strategies, commercial interests, current business, and financial arrangements, and the manner in which they approach and engage in commercial relationships.” That is legalese for “We would look really bad if we had to turn over the documents—”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: “—with regard to this specific action that we took.”
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: “To cut 40 teams out of Minor League Baseball. We would look bad to the people who care, to fans, to— to sponsors, to advertisers, to banks.”
ALEX: And maybe— maybe to the two teams who are suing us.
BOBBY: To the two teams— I mean, I think they already know everything.
ALEX: Yeah, kind of only makes me want to see a more, huh?
BOBBY: It’s so funny. I love this kind of legal defense, “We would look really bad if we had to defend ourselves in the court.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That is— that— I mean, that’s like a core tenet of the American legal system, but it’s
awesome.
ALEX: It is sick that that stuck around.
BOBBY: The judge didn’t find that compelling, writing, “In light of the significant public interest in this case and the presumption of transparency and judicial process— proceedings, the court did not find the required good cause to seal any of the documents at issue.” Really funny. Really good stuff.
ALEX: So there’s one more little tidbit in this— in this news story that I wanted to bring up. Jim Quinn is one of the litigators on this lawsuit. Jim Quinn, longtime listener of the show, royal member. He joined us right here to talk about none other than—
BOBBY: [39:15] this lawsuit, yeah.
ALEX: This lawsuit, MLB’s antitrust exemption. Because he has not just one lawsuit against Major League Baseball. He’s got two lawsuits, and one is about whether Major League Baseball violated this NAA, and does owe penalties to these teams that I think is in the range of $30 million. And the other one, casts a bit of a wider net, and takes aim directly at that antitrust exemption. Jim talked about that case with us. That lawsuit also has to do with the contraction of the Minor Leagues, although he’s representing a couple more teams in it. And basically at every step of the way, the courts have stonewalled him and said, “No, there’s an antitrust exemption. They can do whatever they want.” Which is usually how these things go. But there’s a— there’s one more court to go left— but there’s one more court left to go through. You want to know what that one is, Bobby? That’s the Supreme Court.
BOBBY: I think I’ve heard about them.
ALEX: He said, “I think there’s a reasonable chance that the Supreme Court will take the case.” And if they do, to signal they’re going to get rid of the so-called baseball antitrust exemption.
BOBBY: The funniest day on this podcast is coming.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s either that the Supreme Court takes away the antitrust exemption, and we get to talk about the press conference that Rob Manfred has to do afterwards.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Or it’s that the Supreme Court takes the case just to reinforce the antitrust exemption one more time. And then it is still the funniest podcast we’ve ever done, but it is just darkly funny. Like—
ALEX: Either way—
BOBBY: —you’d have— you’d have to hand it to them, if they were like—
ALEX: You really would—
BOBBY: —”We’re gonna take our fourth case on the antitrust exemption.” And we’re just gonna be, like, still believe in it, still buy, good choice.
ALEX: Well, not if we have anything to say about it. That’s why we’re working on taking the Patreon money, purchasing some private jets—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —purchasing—
BOBBY: We already have one for us.
ALEX: We always— we already have one for us, yeah. But, again, like you said, that’s ours. But I do hear that Clarence Thomas is in need— in need of some new friends. So if anyone knows how to fish, you’re invited, I think.
BOBBY: See, I feel like Clarence is already bought, you know? We can’t compete with these donors.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: So I think we got to go straight to Amy Coney Barrett. A person that I definitely remembered was on the Supreme Court when we were in DC last weekend, and we were looking—
ALEX: Definitely has convictions, sure.
BOBBY: We were looking at the paintings of the— we were in the National Portrait Gallery, and there’s the painting— there’s a painting, semi-famous in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, of— of four of the women who have served on the Supreme Court. And since then, there have been multiple female appointees to the Supreme Court and we’re like, “Oh, it almost looks like they left space for future women to be added in.” And we were talking about them and you were— and I was like, “Yeah, yeah. They got a couple more to go.” And you were like, “Yeah, Amy Coney Barrett.” And I was like, “Who is that?”
ALEX: We came as quickly— really went as quickly as she came, huh?
BOBBY: She did. And while I think she’s still around, we’re just not thinking [42:14]
ALEX: Still holding it down.
BOBBY: I think she’s— I know— I don’t think she’s doing great work for [42:19] the people—
ALEX: Yeah, arguably a little more nefarious.
BOBBY: I have a question. Do you listen to the podcast, Trillbillies?
ALEX: On occasion. They’re— they’re very funny. Yeah.
BOBBY: Excellent podcast. For listeners of this show, they— they talk about— in a similar manner to us, like everything is funny, nothing is good, everything is bad.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But like we’re gonna crack some jokes about it and care about labor along the way. They talk about a wider net of topics than just baseball, of course. One of their recurring bits is called The Penultimate Court. Have you heard them do this before?
ALEX: I have, yeah.
BOBBY: It’s their idea for them having a court to catch cases right before they go to the Supreme Court, to take the load off of the Supreme Court, the workload on the Supreme Court. And they just get to decide stuff that they feel like the Supreme Court doesn’t feel like hearing about. So they’re—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —The Penultimate Court, the last court in the land before the Supreme Court. And I sort of feel like they should sort of loan that concept out to us just for baseball cases. You know, like we—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —should be The Penultimate Court for the Supreme— like, their sort of Auxiliary Penultimate Court, APC, for just this case, and we get to decide it. What say you?
ALEX: This is the antitrust case, correct?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And any other baseball-related case that goes to the Supreme Court, should there be any worse.
ALEX: Oh, oh, we’re taking— we’re taking all of them? Okay.
BOBBY: I just feel like— like The Penultimate Course is— Court is gonna get overrun at some point, and we gotta be the Auxiliary Penultimate Court.
ALEX: If— if—
BOBBY: And then if there are too many baseball cases heading to the Supreme Court, then we’ll have to have a Second Auxiliary Penultimate Court, the SAPC.
ALEX: On the one hand, I was— I was thinking that sending a lot of baseball cases to the Supreme Court does— feels like maybe they could be using their time better. On the other hand, I don’t exactly love what they’ve been doing with their time in the last few years, so maybe the strategy is to actually send more cases to the Supreme Court. You know how like— you know how conservatives have, like, been building this infrastructure over the last few years of like, “Let’s just like pull cases out of nowhere.” Maybe this is our opener.
BOBBY: I haven’t heard about that, yeah. The Federalist Society.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: What do you think— what do you think Oliver Stone thinks about the Federalist Society?
ALEX: I— I don’t— I don’t know that he does.
BOBBY: I think he definitely does. He has apparently one of the more deranged autobiographies ever written, not just— not just Hollywood autobiographies, just autobiographies in general.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It’s like 500 pages. Nobody really thought it was gonna be like this, but when he actually put it out and people started reading it, it’s like 500 pages, and it just gets him up to the point right before he starts making Platoon, which was like the movie that they [45:00]
ALEX: Incredible. What a flex.
BOBBY: He’s like putting it out, like, in chapters. Oh, epic. It’s like a Dickens novel where they used to release one chapter per week in the newspaper and then bind it all together—
ALEX: We should— we should just go back to that, you know?
BOBBY: I so agree. It’s so daunting to have all these books. All these books behind me that you see right now.
ALEX: Oh, my God. If I just got like—
BOBBY: I haven’t read all of them.
ALEX: —portions of it delivered to me on a weekly basis, it’d encourage me to read more books.
BOBBY: As if you can’t just read one chapter every night and then just go to bed, like that’s not an option.
ALEX: It’s too much. There’s so many pages to hold, you know?
BOBBY: it is a lot of pages. It’s intimidating. Daunting.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You could say.
ALEX: Daunting.
BOBBY: Just like the caseload for the Supreme Court, which is why we need The Penultimate Court and why we need the Auxiliary— Auxiliary— Auxiliary Penultimate Court for baseball, comma for baseball.
ALEX: Okay. We’ll keep— we’ll keep workshopping the name.
BOBBY: Nope. I’m not doing it—
ALEX: Oh, it’s—
BOBBY: —if it’s not named that.
ALEX: That’s—
BOBBY: The APC, FB.
ALEX: It is jargony and overly long, which means that is absolutely what the name is going to be from here on out.
BOBBY: Oye, oye, Alex, get ready to hear the takes.
ALEX: Oye, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: We can take— we can hear cases about the Nevada State Legislature budget too, if you want. If someone is willing to sue John Fisher, Dave Kaval, the different people who may or may not have taken bribes to vote yes on a stadium bill. May or may not, may or may not they might not have taken the bribes. They might not—
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: —have accepted money from lobbyists. They may— they may not have.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They may have just wanted to vote no, until suddenly the vote came along, and then they wanted to vote yes, to give them a billion dollars. Like that is not—
ALEX: Who among them that has not made a game-time decision?
BOBBY: Exactly. We can hear a case about that someday at the APC—
ALEX: PC—
BOBBY: —FB.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Can you fill me in on the details of this? Apparently—
ALEX: It’s the—
BOBBY: —the Nevada teachers would like a vote on the stadium budget bill, right? A new vote, a second vote?
ALEX: Basically. Right. So— so they called— the Nevada legislature called a special— oh, my God. So many like shh, legislature called a special session. You can either leave that part and— right. So this past June, the Nevada Legislature called a special— oh, my God. Special session, special session, special session, special session.
BOBBY: You got to work on that before we— we try our first case.
ALEX: Yeah. Back in June, the Nevada Legislature—
BOBBY: Take your time, slow, slow.
ALEX: —called a special— called a special session.
BOBBY: Whoo! We did it, y’all.
ALEX: On the— the— basically, the financing for the proposed— a stadium on the Las Vegas Strip. It was passed by the governor, but there are some groups that are not too happy about half a billion dollars going to fund the actual billionaires’ like pet project.
BOBBY: I— I would argue that all the groups are not happy about that. I can’t think of any groups that are thrilled.
ALEX: I actually have not seen a group that is happy this—
BOBBY: Except the Nevada State Legislature, somehow. And the MLB Commissioner’s Office. Can’t forget that.
ALEX: Right. Of course. One of those groups is Nevada teachers. The Nevada State Education Association has been really raising a stink over the last few months about this. Nevada is very heavily underfunded in their public school system. There’s crowding in classrooms, there’s shortages of teachers. And their argument is, “Hey, well, if you have all this money floating around for a baseball stadium, why would you not give it to our schools instead?” And so the Nevada State Education Association has created this group called Schools Over Stadiums, which they have been kind of rallying behind in the last couple of months. This past week, they initiated a referendum petition, so they’re petitioning to get a referendum onto the ballot, that would allow Nevada residents to vote on whether or not to allow tax revenues to pay back the bonds that were issued to pay for this stadium, right? So— so municipalities, counties, states will issue bonds to raise capital for building a stadium. Investors will buy those bonds with the understanding that they’re going to get some interest from that, and the bond will be paid back, eventually. And then, after the construction is complete, the state will use the taxes generated from the project to pay back the bonds, pay back the investors, right? Are you with me still?
BOBBY: Regrettably, I— I understood everything you said.
ALEX: See— okay.
BOBBY: That’s just a true, true indictment of how I’ve spent the last five years of my life that I still understand what you’re talking about.
ALEX: It is— it is [50:08] yes. Basically, Schools Over Stadiums is trying to make these bonds unattractive to potential investors, right? So they’re not trying to gut the whole bill, because it sounds like they don’t think that would be very successful. Past attempts at that sort of thing have failed. And so they’re saying, “Well, let’s target the money, specifically. Instead of hamstringing the whole bill, we just want to say, ‘Hey, these bonds that you’re trying to issue, no one’s gonna want them. No one’s gonna buy the bonds, which means you’re not gonna be able to secure the funding that you need to create this stadium.
BOBBY: Right. You’re not gonna let the vultures come in. The— the investment banks come in and get their little piece of this pie.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Which as we know, nothing happens in the world without Goldman Sachs—
ALEX: Pretty much. Yeah.
BOBBY: —coming to the meeting.
ALEX: Was it— was it— was it Goldman that they got in on their investment?
BOBBY: I don’t know. I just use them as a shorthand for whoever.
ALEX: No, I think it was like them or Morgan Stanley or something who are—
BOBBY: Merrill Lynch.
ALEX: —who are on board. Merrill Lynch, right.
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
ALEX: They’re all the same. Why do they all have two names?
BOBBY: I think it’s because it’s a guy’s name, or like two guys’ names. Are you more of a Goldman or a Sachs?
ALEX: I’m more of a Stanley, you know? No, you’re not telling me that a man’s name was Goldman Sachs, right?
BOBBY: I think it was two men’s names.
ALEX: Two— two— okay, two names. All right. That makes a little more sense. But, like, I’m gonna drop one.
BOBBY: Come here, Goldman. Come here. It’s dinner time, Goldman.
ALEX: I don’t know if this will work. I don’t know anything about this sort of state politics, but it feels like it’s worth a try.
BOBBY: So this would be like a prop that— that the voters would vote on— on election day or something?
ALEX: Correct. Basically, saying, “Do you want to allow the sale of bonds to fund stadium projects?”
BOBBY: I want to say first of all, I’m gonna allow some little space here for a round of applause for how well you explained that. Honestly, I think you did a great job.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Listeners at home, please clap, to borrow a phrase from Jeb Bush. Our beloved politician, Jeb. Second of all, this seems like a very high wire act, but a really creative and, like, really cool way of thinking about this. Like, if you are not going to have the option to have your voice heard in the democratic process because the people who you elected to vote for you in the state legislature voted against your interests, and against what everybody clearly did not want. They just signed off on it anyway because they’re going to— I don’t know, someone’s going to contribute to their reelection campaign or something. Finding a way into the democratic process through organizing for things that actually matter is one of the last worthwhile things you— you can do in the world and in politics. Honestly, though, because, like, I think that it’s specifically being teachers and it’s specifically being tied to public education is really interesting, especially in a state like Nevada, where it’s actually a— a very rural state with, like, a couple main cities that hold a lot of, like, the— the wealth and— and the decision-making power for the entire state, just by nature of— of being the— the center for economy, which is how we organize our political structures in this country. And just because my partner works in education and has worked with school districts in Nevada, I know how strained the public— public education system is there, like a lot of rural states in this country, just because it is hard to organize public education when it is not a priority for states. And also the geography of a state is not working for you, it’s working against you. When the population is spread out, it can be hard to have public school because it costs money to get everybody in the same place every day, and to— to use those resources wisely and, actually, educate people. So I think coming from a public sector that is adversely affected by mismanagement of funds, and applying pressure to a sector that doesn’t need the money, I think is earnestly really cool. And I know, you know, prop bills in this country are fraught, because it’s usually like whoever puts the most money into it, wins it. And I don’t— I don’t know for certain, but I don’t think that the teachers are going to be able to outspend the Major League Baseball and John Fisher, but I— I suppose we’ll see. Every once in a while, there’s a prop that goes the way that actually helps people, so—
ALEX: Yeah. Well— and I think the— the bigger question is whether or not it even makes it to the ballot, right? Because it being on the ballot is like worst-case scenario for the A’s, right? Letting voters actually have a say in this project. That’s— that’s— that’s a worst-case scenario for them. So I think they have a couple weeks to basically respond to this petition. I don’t know how that’s gonna go, so I won’t sit here and speculate, but something tells me they’re going to fight really hard to keep this from even appearing there, before they have to then do a millions of dollars’ worth ad blitz to convince Nevadans that actually this handout is good for you.
BOBBY: I also— before we— before we get off of this topic and wrap up this episode, I— I want to say, like, just how right they are, you know? Like, how— how— how nuts it is that— to— to look around your community, and see things drastically underfunded, and just be told for decades that it can’t be fixed, because education is a black hole, or male is a black hole, or hospital is a black hole.
ALEX: Right. Or it’s gonna bring tourism. Bobby, it’s gonna bring tourism.
BOBBY: Yes, but we can— we can find $500 million to— to ambiently bring new tourists to the state. Like, that is such a slap in the face, and— and I— I am— I just— I have a lot of admiration for people who get slapped in the face by people in power and then choose to, like, try to kneecap them. I think that that is a cool thing to do.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So, I don’t know. We’ll— we’ll obviously follow the story as it unfolds. And— and like you said, I think the A’s and Major League Baseball will be honing their lobbying death ray on this specific thing. As they have, you know, with this whole storyline over the last year or so. They’ve put a lot of resources, probably more resources than the alleged $100 million that they spent to try to keep the A’s in— in Oakland to try to build a new stadium there.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They probably actually spent more than that to try to move them to Nevada, but that’s neither here nor there.
ALEX: Has John Fisher thought about taking a page out of our good friend, John Angelos’ book, and just build the schools himself?
BOBBY: You— you joked, but I— I actually think that John Fisher, if I’m not mistaken— someone pointed this out to us recently.
ALEX: Yeah.
Boby: John Fisher is like a huge, huge, huge investor in charter schools.
ALEX: Yes, he is.
BOBBY: Which is maybe not the least surprising thing that I’ve ever learned about an MLB owner, but among them, you know?
ALEX: Right. And the—
BOBBY: It’s a ten out of ten on the least surprising scale.
ALEX: Also, just given what you know about Fisher and, like, you know, oh, Bay Area family, who likes to give back and, you know— it— it does feel right up the kind of, like, Silicon Valley— it does feel right up their alley, that sort of Silicon Valley, like, new money way of thinking about education. Like, “Hey, there’s an inefficiency, and we can fix it.”
BOBBY: Sorry, no, no, you can’t fix it. You can disrupt it.
ALEX: That’s right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Get that through your head.
ALEX: Yeah, we’re not fixing— or it— John Fisher said, “I’m not interested in reform, I’m interested in— in revolution, baby.”
BOBBY: We don’t— I do think John Fisher applies that lens to all of the— all of the political issues in the world. No reform, all about revolution, by any— any means necessary. From each according to their ability to each according to their needs. Okay. He doesn’t have the ability to build a stadium. He has the need—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —to build a stadium.
ALEX: The need for it.
BOBBY: He’s read Marx, he’s read Engles. Okay, I think that’s— I think that might be time to wrap it up.
ALEX: I think so
BOBBY: Before we keep the bit going of— of John Fisher, Marxist legend. Last week, on the podcast, we mentioned that we’re going to be doing— we’re going to be recording our 300th episode and doing a special idea for it, where we needed people to submit questions. I— I— I did mention at the end of that podcast that we needed people to submit those questions within the next couple of days, because we would be recording it in advance due to your contraction of COVID-19. We did not record that podcast, so people had extra time, people have—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —extra time to submit their questions. So that link is still going to be in the description this week. So if you want to get your questions in, you’re going to have to do it under the wire. Alex and I still don’t know exactly when we’re— when we’re going to record it, so I can’t give you a cut-off time. But just know that this is the final call for questions, yes or no questions, short answer questions. They need to be yes, no, or very short answer. That is all I’m gonna say about this idea, because I truly want people to experience it unadulterated, uninterrupted.
ALEX: It’s a high concept episode. You’ve done a— a lot of work getting us to this point.
BOBBY: It’s a high concept. I can’t wait for people to see what the actual episode is—
ALEX: What’s a high concept is.
BOBBY: —and to think about your description of it as being a high concept. That’s really funny to me. We’re going to be trying to figure out cold fusion while answering your questions. That’s basically it.
ALEX: Yeah, pretty much. Before we duck out of here, Bobby, there’s one more thing that— that just came across my timeline that I wanted to bring up to you.
BOBBY: Oh, okay. Manfred is resigning?
ALEX: Yup. Uh-huh. That’s the next emergency pod we do.
BOBBY: I accidentally, yesterday, when I was making my latte, the— I was trying to do like some latte art on the top of it, which I know that you can do a little bit—
ALEX: [60:11]
BOBBY: —because—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —you know, you used to punch that timecard at Starbucks.
ALEX: Yeah. I was— I was slinging Joe’s.
BOBBY: You were a latte artist. And I was trying to do just one of the, like, basic little leaves and stuff, and I’m— I just can’t do it. And the art work ended up looking like the MLB logo a little bit.
ALEX: Ooh.
BOBBY: And I thought for a brief second, “Should I like preserve— freeze dry this latte and then sell it on eBay?
ALEX: And sell it, yeah.
BOBBY: Kind of like the woman who, likes, sold the Jesus toast for like a million dollars.
ALEX: The toast, exactly. Like, similar market for those products.
BOBBY: Well, I don’t know, a baseball podcaster accidentally makes MLB logo. What does that say? That’s supernatural. That’s— that’s a divine force that work—
ALEX: Yeah. What does that say about you if we’re being honest?
BOBBY: I think it says that I support Rob.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Shameless shilling for Rob Manfred going on in my apartment—
ALEX: That’s really an— that’s really an unfortunate [61:02]
BOBBY: —when I’m quarantining, trying to do latte art. I think the takeaway from this is that you just have to teach me how to do it.
ALEX: Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, great. I— I don’t— that was a tangent, but sorry to interrupt. I just needed to share that with everybody listening.
ALEX: I just needed to share with everyone listening that— you— you may remember that the city of Anaheim, and its former mayor Harry Sidhu—
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: —got in a bit of trouble for low— low corruption—
BOBBY: Racket—
ALEX: —light.
BOBBY: Racketeering.
ALEX: Right. Around— trying to basically give the Angels a— a sweetheart deal on Angel Stadium.
BOBBY: And the parking lot surrounding it.
ALEX: And— and the— and the real estate surrounding it. So the FBI went to Anaheim City executives over there and said, “Hey, we have a copy of this email proving the corruption between— between you guys, basically. Can you provide your own copy?” And— and the Anaheim City executive said, “That one seems to have escaped us, actually. Would— that— that email, that is— that may be at the center of— of your corruption investigation, we do not know where it is.”
BOBBY: Oh, that’s awesome. That’s the whole Wolf of Wall Street defense.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s the Old Hillary, right?
BOBBY: I know you’re not making the last two minutes of this podcast about Hillary’s email.
ALEX: But her emails— I’m gonna— I just want Anaheim to keep doing Anaheim. That’s like— that’s all. That is such a gift to— to us, I think.
BOBBY: But just like low stakes, business-oriented corruption.
ALEX: Right. Low-level corruption charges.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah.
ALEX: Like, we don’t have enough of that anymore.
BOBBY: I know. There’s a real market inefficiency now. Someone needs to come back and re-disrupt, you know? Bring back—
ALEX: I’m just saying—
BOBBY: —organized crime.
ALEX: —those wheels don’t grease themselves, am I right?
BOBBY: Wheels, palms, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Everything— everything needs to be greased.
ALEX: Uh-huh. Bobby Wagner, everything needs to be greased.
BOBBY: It does. You know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: The levers of democracy need to be greased. I learned that in the film today.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: It’s gonna keep this society going, you know, defense contracting a $100 billion a year industry.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And that was in the 1960s.
ALEX: Kevin— Kevin Kiermaier before he goes out in the freezing cold.
BOBBY: True.
ALEX: Grease.
BOBBY: Real throwback. Google Kevin Kiermaier Vaseline for more on that. Thank you to everybody for listening to this week’s episode of Tipping Pitches. I look forward to episode 300 next week.
ALEX: Whatever it may be.
BOBBY: I look forward to you hearing what Alex described as a high concept episode. We’re gonna put that on the movie poster that we make for this podcast episode. We will be back on Monday.
SPEAKER 3: When I look at you, I see everyone [63:58] and no one else. When I look at you, I see this whole city.
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!
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