It had to be something special for the 300th episode: Alex and Bobby do a “power hour” while answering your questions, ranging from cities they’d want to live in, a fictional A-Rod and Taylor romance, eggplant parmesan vs. lasagna, and much more. Plus, they finally deliver on the long-promised two hour episode. Strap in!
Links:
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
Fall Out Boy — “Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued” • 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, we have a very special episode today. And because of that, we don’t have a traditional cold open. I don’t have a question for you. All I have is some ground rules.
ALEX: For a very high-concept episode.
BOBBY: High-concept as you dubbed it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m really excited that people get to see just how high-concept, you know, how highfalutin our ideas here—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —are on the Tipping Pitches Podcast. It’s episode 300. Woo.
ALEX: Hey.
BOBBY: Random applause. 300 episodes. 300 of them. 300.
ALEX: 300.
BOBBY: 300.
ALEX: So they say.
BOBBY: Like 100, but three times. You know, before we get started, congratulations. We did it. 300 episodes. I feel like that’s— you know, anybody can do 100 episodes. Anybody can do 200 episodes even.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Can you make it to 300? That’s— now you’re in Hall of Fame territory. It’s like the 3,000 hits of podcasting.
ALEX: Yeah, it separates the kids from the adults, you know?
BOBBY: Exactly. Are you ready for my ground rules?
ALEX: I’m ready.
BOBBY: Today on the podcast, Alex and I just celebrate episode 300. To give everybody what they have been asking for, for so very long. We are going to do a Power Hour on the podcast. A Power Hour, a live drinking game. Some of you might know what a Power Hour is. If you don’t, you’re about to find out in a very serious way. 60 minutes, one question per minute. The questions have been chosen ahead of time. Many of you submitted wonderful questions, and we appreciate that. We are both going to answer each question. So, really, we have 30 seconds to answer these questions. And then we are going to take one shot or sip of beer every minute, on the minutes for 60 straight minutes. That’s just going to be kind of like a Scout’s honor situation. Like, you don’t have to take a full shot. We’re not going to measure out a shot while also trying to record a podcast. We’re spilling— spilling beer all over our audio equipment here. I don’t think anybody needs that.
ALEX: I don’t think so. I am really interested to see the— the cadence of our sips and, like, how big that like—
BOBBY: If I finished my beer before you, you’re canceled.
ALEX: Yes, exactly. Okay.
BOBBY: Basically is what you’re saying.
ALEX: Just making sure we’re on the same page.
BOBBY: All right. Good. The questions are yes or no, or short enough to be answered in one minute by both of us. We have pre-screened these questions. Each of us will get two timeouts for the duration of this hour. And that timeout can be used for something like regrouping your thoughts, pausing to go to the bathroom, figuring out how you want to answer a question in more detail. Whatever you need to use the timeout for, each of us will get two of them. We— you will hear us use them throughout this hour. Because of the timer, the first half of this podcast will be almost entirely unedited, which is uncharted territory for the two of us.
ALEX: All of the listeners are about to find out how much work you do. I will just say that.
BOBBY: Oh, that’s nice. Thank you. How bad we are at podcasting, actually. So we will just— we’ll have the timer running and because of that, we can’t, you know, we can’t make it [0:03:34] so we’re just gonna have to keep it rolling like it’s radio. This is actually our real audition for Topeka, Topeka, Kansas Radio—
ALEX: That’s one.
BOBBY: —Hour where we have been joking for years that we want our careers to end up. I’ll make some small cuts for background noise or slight interruptions, or audio quality concerns, those kinds of things. They won’t affect the 60-minute timer that we are going to set.
ALEX: The integrity of this game.
BOBBY: While recording this Power Hour— this part is important. While recording this Power Hour for the first half of the podcast, we will note topics and questions that we want to return to and explore in more depth, that deserves more than just 30 seconds from each of us, one minute in total. I will highlight those questions and we will return to them, and talk in more detail after the Power Hour is over. And what I’m loosely describing as a free-flowing second hour of this conversation.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. We— we really don’t know how it’s gonna go.
BOBBY: I fear for how it’s gonna go, actually.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But I think it’s gonna be good. And I think it’s gonna be what the people want. It’s— it’s episode 300, you know? We have to do something weird and experimental.
ALEX: Yeah. You’ve already seen the timestamp of the episode, you know what’s coming. We— we don’t. So—
BOBBY: Like what did people want for episode 300? You know, did they want us to just sit here and talk about another Rob Manfred quote? No.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: No. You want something that is as unhinged as the fact that we have done 300 episodes about labor, and baseball.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And people actually listen to it. You are those people. We thank you very much for that. And here we go.
ALEX: Yeah. I just want to say thank you to everyone who submitted questions. I mean, they were all really amazing. They ran the gamut as you are about to see. And we had to make some hard decisions about which ones made the cut, and which didn’t, but we value them all equally, I would say.
BOBBY: Yeah. And a lot of them, actually, I wrote down to save for the future to come back—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —to come back to for other mailbag episodes, either because we didn’t feel like we can answer them within a minute or because we just felt like it would be, you know, better suited for a future episode. It might have been too related to baseball if you ask the question. It’s like we were kind of trying to let this one be a little bit more out there. So we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna set the timer for 60 minutes, and we’re gonna take one sip of beer— or one shot of beer, I guess. I don’t really— we— we need to— I don’t know how we’re phrasing that, but the real Power Hour, by the way, I— I just want to tell people this before we really start.
ALEX: Please. I would— I will just— the— the listeners should know, I had no idea what this was.
BOBBY: That’s because you went to a boring school with boring people.
ALEX: Pretty much, yeah.
BOBBY: And you grew up in a liberal enclave—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —where you didn’t do beer drinking games like this. You guys sat around and talked about theory.
ALEX: Yeah. You’re actually right. I don’t— I don’t have anything to add to that.
BOBBY: A Power Hour is, yeah, a shot of beer every minute, on the minute, I already said that. But it— and it equates to about seven and a half beers. So I can’t promise you that we will fully do the seven and a half beers, it’ll be more like a sip, but there will be a sip every minute.
ALEX: Have you done one of these before? Like an actual Power Hour?
BOBBY: I can neither confirm nor deny that.
ALEX: Interesting.
BOBBY: I don’t need to confirm, nor deny that.
ALEX: It’s —I suppose you don’t.
BOBBY: I have done it before. And, really, I used to do like the half hour because that is a better—
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: —that’s a better allocation of your time. Like, you— it’s— it’s a real— it’s gonna— like a real— doing this the full hour as a pregame is a real— not only just time commitment, but it’s like uphill sledding.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like for the last 15 minutes.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: We’re at least going to have something to talk about.
ALEX: Yes. Yeah.
BOBBY: And like— an objective to keep us going. But when you’re just sitting there, staring at like a—
ALEX: Like, whirling the bottom of the beer.
BOBBY: —a YouTube video. I used to do this when— when I would visit my friends at Penn State University. We used to do this one that was only 30 minutes so like the power half hour.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And it was just each minute—
ALEX: I like you say do this one. Like, you guys were sitting there like, “Which Power Hour should we do?
BOBBY: Well, no, I’m gonna tell you because you— there are— there are YouTube videos for this exact thing, where it’s like a countdown designed to be played while you do the Power Hour for fun. And we used to do this one that was like a one-minute Allen Iverson highlight every minute for 30 minutes.
ALEX: That’s cool, actually.
BOBBY: Yeah, it is cool.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So— so maybe next time for episode 400, when we run this idea back and we iron out the kinks, maybe we can do it live on video with— with Troy Glaus highlights, you know?
ALEX: UH-hmm.
BOBBY: Andrelton Simmons highlights.
ALEX: Yeah. Manny Machado highlights.
BOBBY: Manny Machado highlights. I’m a— I’m a big Troy Glaus kick today.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s your second Troy Glaus joke you’ve made first on air.
BOBBY: I’m just really— I’m really— I’m backing on the Angels. I— I believe in Arte’s vision.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Now, that Ohtani is gone, I— I really think that they can figure that thing
out.
ALEX: Right. It’s kind of like, well, you’ve tried everything else. Right? Maybe—
BOBBY: Try being bad.
ALEX: —maybe the problem is him.
BOBBY: Maybe— maybe it will make him— maybe it will make you good. Okay. Here it comes, Episode 300 Power Hour. Before we get to it, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And this maybe the last episode of Tipping Pitches you ever hear. All right. I’m about to set the timer, but first, I want to shout-out our new patron for this week, because that is something that we do every week. And that new patron this week is Matt. You’re a legend this week, Matt.
ALEX: You are.
BOBBY: You get to be part of this history. You get to be part of this episode forever. And that is the kind of thing that can happen if you sign up for the Tipping Pitches Patreon. You can be the only patrons sponsoring Episode 300 before whatever is about to unfold. Now, that may be a bad thing for Matt.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That might— that might come back to bite Matt.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Matt might have to take back his Patreon endorsement of us after the events of this episode. But I choose to believe now, in this moment, that it’s a good thing. Alex, are you ready?
ALEX: As I’ll ever be. I mean, this has been brewing for, no pun intended, for—
BOBBY: Boo.
ALEX: —definitely no pun intended—
BOBBY: Boo.
ALEX: —for— for months.
BOBBY: Boo.
ALEX: And so it’s really— it feels like we built a lot of momentum towards this, and now that the big night is finally here, I’m like— I have, like, jitters, you know? Like before you get out on stage.
BOBBY: Or it’s like World Series game one?
ALEX: Exactly. We’re gonna get to the end of this summer and be like, “Oh, that was fun. Let’s do another one.”
BOBBY: Before I press play on our timer, can I just give a very brief recap of the things that I’ve put into my body in the last three hours?
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: Multiple cold brews.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Five slices of pizza.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And now I’m about to put eight beers in it.
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: I think it’s gonna be good.
ALEX: I would like to just point out that you had the pizza and then the coffee.
BOBBY: Still having the coffee right now.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: About to finish it right now before we crack the first Cerveza. Should we say the beer brand? I feel like they might be mad. Because I feel like you’re not supposed to associate beer with be— like a brand with this sort of drinking. I’m just gonna say it comes in the yellow can, and it’s one of my favorite beers. And it’s maybe named after a body of water near where you grew up.
ALEX: I thought we were doing the, like, anti-woke, like— like, conservative—
BOBBY: Freedom beer or whatever it’s called?
ALEX: —with— yeah, whatever it’s called.
BOBBY: Actually, before this, we had bought— we had bought Bud Light, but when we saw that they were too woke, we shot it with a shotgun and then we went and bought the anti-woke beer.
ALEX: We’re already off the rails.
BOBBY: We’re gonna— we’re gonna crack the beer and then I’m going to press play on the timer. A little ASMR.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Something that you’ve always wanted to do on the podcast. Frankly, you’ve been doing it for years, but I’ve just cut it out every single time.
ALEX: It’s true.
BOBBY: And I have a master file of all your ASMR. Here we go. First question, timer has started. First question comes from Christina. Honestly, unbelievable that Christina asked this question. “Can we get a Power Hour mailbag Tipping Pitches episode?” The answer Christina is yes.
ALEX: Yes. Welcome— welcome to the—
BOBBY: We can—we can have that. We also got— there’s going to be some bonus questions built into this timer, because the questions are very related and I—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —I wanted to answer as many people’s questions as possible. So there’s gonna be more than 60 questions, okay? It’s gonna feel a little bit chaotic for people. We also got a question from Alex. Not from you, I don’t think. Although, I’m not certain. “When will we get the two-hour pod?”
ALEX: Now.
BOBBY: And another question from Alexis, “Why do you hate your listenership and avoid the holy grair— grail of a two-hour pod?” We don’t hate our listenership.”
ALEX: Just had to earn it.
BOBBY: And we are going to give you the two-hour pod. It is already in progress. If you have looked at your podcast app, you know this.
ALEX: So, do— are we taking a sip at the end of the question?
BOBBY: At some point during the question. We now have five seconds left in the first minute. Ooh, that is fast. A minute is fast.
ALEX: It’s really fast. All right, let’s go.
BOBBY: Next question, Doug. “Will Shohei Ohtani ever win the Cy Young?” Doug asked this question before show Shohei Ohtani’s most recent injury news, because he tore his ACL.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Alex, do you think he will ever win the Cy Young?
ALEX: I mean, it’s maybe an easier question to answer now, but I would say no. I think that, like, last year may have been the best shot that he had. And I don’t know that he ever gets above 160 innings anyway, so—
BOBBY: Yeah, but nobody gets to that anymore.
ALEX: I guess.
BOBBY: I don’t think he will either, unfortunately. I think he will probably— as much as I hate to say it and I don’t want to make this a downer so early in the podcast, but I think he will probably be used in a much more limited role.
ALEX: Absolutely.
BOBBY: Like five innings, okay, he’s done. Heads to the bullpen.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t think they’re gonna make him a reliever because I think that’s actually harder for him.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Maybe like actually impossible. Like, you can’t come out of the DH spot and be a reliever.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: All right, another sip. We can’t sip at the same time because then there’s just silence, you know? Like you— maybe you sip early in the minute and I sip later in the minute.
ALEX: Okay. All right. All right. All right.
BOBBY: Okay. So we’re on to the next minute.
ALEX: All right, minute three.
BOBBY: Take a sip for you.
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: Dave asks, “Do beer and nachos go together? Both ballpark staples, but when I take a bite of a jalapeno or other pepper, a slug of suds isn’t the thirst-quenching.” I gotta say I agree. They don’t go together. I don’t think beer, alcohol in general, does not go with spicy food for me.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: What do you think?
ALEX: I think— I think that beer is not thirst-quenching. I think that’s the— the mis— like you can have a sip of water— like I mean, I think they do go together. I think ballpark nachos are maybe a little different than like—
BOBBY: This is the fastest I’ve ever heard you talk.
ALEX: I’m— I’m doing my best, you know.
BOBBY: I’m taking my sip now for the— for this one.
ALEX: Take your sip. I— it’s— it’s okay to have some water, you know? I— when I— when I need to be hydrated, that’s what I— that’s what I go for.
BOBBY: I love water. I think soda goes better with spicy foods, sweet, spicy. I think that works much better.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Next question, Becca who asks so many good questions over the years.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Becca, we thank you for all of your participation. You’ve made the show so much better. For this historic episode, you’ve decided to ask us, “Which players do you think have to count the most and the least sheep to fall asleep at night?” I think Nick Castellanos has to count the most.
ALEX: Interesting.
BOBBY: Because he has a lot going on in his brain. And the least, I’m just gonna stick with the Phillies. I don’t think Bryce Harper has any trouble falling asleep at night.
ALEX: I— I would agree with that.
BOBBY: He seems like one of those people who has, like, a cryo chamber, you know?
ALEX: It’s—
BOBBY: Sensory deprivation sleep tank that he sleeps in every night, because he’s an alien.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. So I think that— that maybe a guy like Scherzer takes a second to fall asleep at night. Same with Josh Naylor, like those—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —guys who are just like always wired. And I think Nick Castellanos is out before he lays his head on that pillow, so maybe we bookmark this one.
BOBBY: Okay. Okay. Bookmark it. First question that we’ve had to highlight. We are on to our next question.
ALEX: We’re talking about baseball players counting sheep.
BOBBY: Question number five. I don’t know what color to highlight it and I’m just gonna make it pink. Luke asks, “If you could fight anyone from history, who would it be?” Alex?
ALEX: No, I’m gonna let you do this one.
BOBBY: Dude, Kissinger, bro. I could take his ass, and I would be a legend for it. You get to fight Kissinger in his prime. You know, like he’s orchestrating the Vietnam War and you just clock him. You’re in every history book forever. Plus, maybe you give him a little bit of brain damage and he dies sooner, because he’s still kicking and it’s like, “When is he gonna do it?” I’m gonna take my sip and I want you to answer.
ALEX: Take your sip. I don’t have an answer. I’ve never really considered myself much of a— look—
BOBBY: Oh, we got a pacifist on the pod.
ALEX: Maybe Napoleon so I could take someone who’s, like, more my size.
BOBBY: I think he might actually put you in a body bag, though. Like, he was a general. He had some sort of training.
ALEX: I know, but then you could say you fought Napoleon.
BOBBY: That’s true. Good answer. Do— would you like to come back to that one or are we good?
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: You don’t want— you don’t want me to talk more shit about Kissinger? Next question. Dan asks, “Should pitching be somehow speed limited to protect players’, especially young players, arms?” Good question. Intriguing question. Tough to answer in a minute. You first.
ALEX: Yeah. I don’t really know how you do that. Just like from a mechanical perspective, I feel like it would make more sense to do something like lower to the mound, which may put less strain on a pitcher’s arm, although maybe it would put more strain. I don’t know.
BOBBY: Because they would just try to throw harder.
ALEX: Try— try to throw harder, exactly.
BOBBY: Because they’d be [16:42] a lot more. I don’t think it should be speed limited, but I do think that there could be a philosophical shift in how it’s taught. Like, I don’t think that you can put a hard cap on it, but the prioritization of, like, speed above all, max effort above all, I do think is contributing to injuries. But I don’t think that we should— like, I don’t think more rules is the answer, as people probably know, like, from the long history of this podcast. I think that, like—
ALEX: Did you take a sip for this question, bro?
BOBBY: Like cultural shift in how we teach baseball and how it’s played, we’ll make a change. We are now seven seconds past. Our next question, Arthur, question number seven, “Best overall concert this year.” Best overall concert for me, personally, was I think PUP and Pool Kids.
ALEX: That’s probably the one I was gonna say.
BOBBY: Because it’s two acts that I wanted to see.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: You know, it’s hard to compete with that. I mean, I always— I love to see Paramore, you know? I’ve seen them almost as much as any other band that I’ve ever seen in my life. And I— I think a lot of people probably would have expected us to say Taylor Swift for this, but that was like a really challenging experience with—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —the rain in the weather. Like it was a great show and everything, and I’m excited to see the movie version, but I think I will say PUP and Pool Kids.
ALEX: I’ve never been a huge stadium— like arena show person, like it just feels very, I don’t know, impersonal. I thought— I thought you put on an amazing show, but I would tend to agree with you that I think that PUP and Pool Kids— we got to see our— see some friends you know? We got to hang.
BOBBY: Shout-out to Steve. Maybe we can get Steve to join us for a Power Hour on the pod. Nat, question number eight, “Do your bosses and co-workers know about and/or listen to this podcast?” I’m gonna take my sip while you answer this.
ALEX: They know.
BOBBY: Do you hope that they listen or—
ALEX: I hope they’re not listening. I— I— I’m not here as a representative of my employer. I will— I’ll just say that.
BOBBY: Can I highlight this one and we can come back to it, actually? Because there’s— there’s more to that.
ALEX: Sure. Okay.
BOBBY: My bosses know about this podcast. My co-workers know about this podcast. It’s kind of hard for them not to, because this is also— you know, podcasting is my job and so it’d be weird if they just like— if I was tweeting out this other podcast and they were like, “Nah, I just don’t see that.” You know? “I don’t— I don’t know what that is at all.” So over the years, they’ve come to know that. Listen to? I— I doubt it, but we’ll come back to that. Monica has the next question. “Do you wear baseball wear every day?” No.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: I would say I wear baseball wear like— well, I guess— I mean— I realized I can’t stop to think about my answer. I just gotta keep going.
BOBBY: The carbonation is tough.
ALEX: Yeah, the carb— and also to get like— I have [19:24] count.
BOBBY: I’m also down with this whole beer. I— okay. I’m taking a sip now.
ALEX: Me, too. I’m— I— I wear baseball hats more than I do any other item of, like, baseball-related clothing.
BOBBY: Me, too. I’ve come to be known for wearing my Petco Park hat a lot.
ALEX: You have.
BOBBY: Like my co-workers, like, point it out now—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —that I wear that and that’s like part of the Bob, like, wardrobe, an oeuvre.
ALEX: It’s like— it’s like that and the tie-dyed like retro shirts you have.
BOBBY: I wear tie-dye, like, five days a week.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I mean, it’s important, I think, for people to know. And when I’m not wearing tie-dye, I would just wear like a— like a black T-shirt or like a—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —blue T-shirt. That’s my—
ALEX: With a little— little pocket square?
BOBBY: Yup. Yup. That’s me. And the glasses, which I— I’m thinking about getting rid of the glasses, by the way. I’m thinking about going to contacts. We can come back for it later.
ALEX: Oh, that’s—
BOBBY: No time.
ALEX: I’m gonna poke [20:08] on that one.
BOBBY: No time. No time. Thanks, Monica. Matt— by the way, I’m going to stop telling people when I’m taking my sip. I— I think people can assume that I’m gonna take a sip at this point.
ALEX: Yes, yeah.
BOBBY: Matt asks—
ALEX: Although, I will call you out if you don’t.
BOBBY: Okay. Thank you for the reminder. You keep me on track. We’ve wasted 15 seconds of Matt’s question. “Would you rather have Rob Manfred and the ghost of him when he croaks be commissioner forever or never be able to listen to any music ever again?” Funny question, Matt. It’s very easy to answer. I would rather be— I’d rather have Rob be a commissioner forever.
ALEX: Absolutely.
BOBBY: He’s like— as far as commissioners are concerned, he’s just being the textbook version of what a commissioner is. We’re not going to get anything much better or much worse than him forever.
ALEX: Right. I mean, we could get someone worse who is— someone who’s better at hiding their intentions, I think.
BOBBY: True. Exactly. And I could not survive without music.
ALEX: Me, neither. Also, I— I— I will say I do feel like it would be putting a bit of a target on our own backs if Rob Manfred’s, as commissioner, was dependent on our lives, so I just want to put that out there.
BOBBY: Adam, question number 11, “Over or under, January 1st, 2028, when the first MLB team is sold to a foreign entity.” I think over. That’s pretty soon. Sold to a foreign entity is like on the medium-term horizon.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: On the short-term horizon is like a foreign entity becoming—
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: —a business partner investing, advertising, sponsoring, whatever. Like doing deals for them to come play games in their territories or something like that.
ALEX: Where it’s like— I’d take the under on that one, probably.
BOBBY: Yeah, I probably would, too. But in terms of them owning a team— and obviously— I mean, I think Adam is probably alluding to, like, the Saudis and their involvement in sports recently.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Owning a whole team, I think over January 1st, 2022— 2028.
ALEX: Yeah. I don’t know. I’d— I— I have the— the utmost faith in the jingoism of baseball owners to keep that from happening as long as possible.
BOBBY: Yeah. Why let— why let other oligarchs get rich when they can keep their own oligarchs rich? Question number 12 comes from Chris. “Will this be the third year the Miami Marlins wildcard their way into a World Series win?”
ALEX: Funny question.
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: I don’t think so.
BOBBY: No. I’m on the record as anti-Marlins and everything they stand for.
ALEX: You are anti-Marlins. Yeah.
BOBBY: I think it’s sickening what they’ve done to the baseball-watching public.
ALEX: Well, to be— to be clear—
BOBBY: They have moved the goalposts just because they’re winning nonsense games. Okay? “Oh, we want everybody to compete and try hard,” and then the Marlins don’t. And then they win a couple games and it’s like, “Oh, they’re funny.” Why? It’s not funny. I don’t like it. I don’t like the Marlins. Get them out of here.
ALEX: I don’t have a— a strong negative reaction to the Marlins. I—
BOBBY: You never have a strong negative reaction as me.
ALEX: I just need— never— yeah, no.
BOBBY: I’m the negativity. I’m bad cop.
ALEX: But the answer is still no.
BOBBY: Question 13 comes from Alison McCaig. Hi, Alison. “Which active player has the best baseball name in your opinion?” I’m curious to hear what you wrote for this.
ALEX: I— I wrote a couple down. I love Lars Nootbaar, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Jazz Chisholm is another one—
BOBBY: Boo.
ALEX: —that came to mind. Great name.
BOBBY: Marlins, boo.
ALEX: The answer is Mookie Betts.
BOBBY: I wrote him, too.
ALEX: Whose initials are MLB. Give me a fucking break.
BOBBY: I wrote him— I actually wrote him second, because I wrote Spencer Strider first.
ALEX: Ooh.
BOBBY: That’s a really fun one to say.
ALEX: It is a fun one. It rolls off the tongue.
BOBBY: It feels like weirdly resonant with the thing he does on the field, too. You know? Like you got to stride towards home to be—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —an effective pitcher.
ALEX: That’s like when— it’s like Colin Holderman, you know?
BOBBY: Except he wasn’t getting a lot of a holds, man. I also like that it reminds me of the first Lord of the Rings when Aragorn is going by Strider. Deep cut for you.
ALEX: That is a deep cut. I’ve— I don’t have a response to that, but I appreciate you bringing it up. What’s the next question?
BOBBY: David, question number 14. “Should they make the bases even bigger?” Funny question, David.
ALEX: No, but they should change the shape each year and— and it doesn’t have to be a huge change, although it could be. I think fans would really appreciate the star bases.
BOBBY: Onto number two.
ALEX: That was— that was really good. Wow. Well, then, do I have to? All right. Answer— answer the question, then.
BOBBY: They should not make the bases bigger. I don’t think so. They made them like less than a millimeter bigger every year, almost like—
ALEX: Like, when you, like, turn the volume down at a party little by little.
BOBBY: The frog boiling in water thing—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —except for the bases, and suddenly it’s like the whole diamond. No, it’s like commensurate with the sea level rise, you know? That’s how much bigger they make the bases to make a political statement.
ALEX: Guys, it’s the climate change pod right here.
BOBBY: Oh, this is what we’ve been waiting for. Question number 15 comes from [25:03]. “Will Brian Cashman still have his job with the New York Yankees by the next milestone?” The next milestone— I mean, if we’re going by what— how we’ve treated milestones in the past, it’s like—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —our anniversary—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —of when we started the pod, which is July 31st, 2017. Next year will be year seven, year seven. We’re coming up on a two-term presidential run.
ALEX: I have been doing this show as long as I have been with my wife. So—
BOBBY: Don’t you mean your co-host for life?
ALEX: Yes, I do.
BOBBY: It’s not your wife, your co-host for life. People really love that, that that’s how you announced on the pod. I think—
ALEX: She didn’t. She did not.
BOBBY: —I think he will— I’ll ask her about that on Friday. I think he will because he already has extended for next year and, you know, that’s— that’s— during next year.
ALEX: yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t think he will be fired halfway through next year.
ALEX: I— I agree with this 400 episodes?
BOBBY: Yeah. That’s— that’s a more interesting question.
ALEX: More of an open debate.
BOBBY: Brandon, question number 16. “Are there too many full powder blue uniforms in baseball at all levels?” I know you feel very strongly about this, so I’m just going to take my sip and let you cook.
ALEX: I— I mean, I think the answer is yes, but I think it has more to do with the fact that there are just too many teams that rely on blue or red as their primary color in baseball. And this is a natural extension of it. The blue powder— the powder blue jerseys look great on some teams. I just don’t think you need a dozen of them.
BOBBY: I— I agree. I think we should get rid of the Phillies.
ALEX: Just period?
BOBBY: Not just the— yeah, not just the powder blue uniforms, but the powder blue uniforms in the process. We should get rid of the Phillies. No more Phillies. Are there too many powder blue uniforms? I— I think so. I think so. Like, the Rangers?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Really?
ALEX: Come on.
BOBBY: Come on. Come on. We don’t need that. Would you like to come back to that question later or are you good?
ALEX: No, I don’t— my answer is yes, there are too many.
BOBBY: Did you take your sip that time? I don’t think you did.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: take the sip. Take the sip. Next question, Kevin. “What’s the best ballpark you’ve been to and why?” Fantastic question, Kevin.
ALEX: Great question. Actually, one that I didn’t ponder ahead of time—
BOBBY: I’m sorry, I didn’t highlight this one. I tried to highlight everyone that I thought you might need a little bit of prep time—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —for it. However, I did not hire this one— I did not highlight this one. So you’re just gonna have to go off the cuff something that you’re so good at.
ALEX: Yeah, I’m gonna go off the top.
BOBBY: Over the years you’ve proven this. You can really just let it rip with the best of them,
ALEX: Improv.
BOBBY: You know, you were trained in improv in college.
ALEX: I— I’m— I mean, I will always love the A’s Stadium. I do really have a
deep appreciation for the Mariners Stadium, honestly.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Which I know you act—
BOBBY: I’m going later this month, yeah.
ALEX: Are— are going to check it out, so you can report back. Right, your five seconds—
BOBBY: Five seconds. My answer is Dodger Stadium and I have answered this question so many times. It’s baseball Nirvana, it’s heaven. It’s the greatest place to actually watch a baseball game. Even if it’s impossible to get in and out of, it’s miserable. But it is the best ballpark in the world. Christina asks, “Have you ever named a car?” And Hannah also asked, a supplemental question for this. So this is all part of question number 18. “What is your favorite car color?” Have I ever named a car yet? Yeah, Christina, I’ve named every car I’ve ever had. Who do you think I am? Yes. My very first car was a white 1998 Mercury Sable. I named it The White Stallion.
ALEX: Goddammit.
BOBBY: I did. I did not name the current car that I drive, which is a black Nissan Rogue. However, Phoebe’s aunt named it Nero—
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: —which is Italian for black. That was the reasoning behind it.
ALEX: It— it does track.
BOBBY: That answers the question. Favorite car color? Ferrari red. Do you have answers for these?
ALEX: I’ve never owned a car.
BOBBY: Of course you haven’t.
ALEX: Sorry, I’ve never done a Power Hour either.
BOBBY: Christina again. “Do you have any houseplants?” As a matter of fact, Christina, I do. Although, my houseplant, the one that I’ve owned the longest is currently at my parents’ house. I had a Fiddle Fern with my partner that we bought in Los Angeles, at the LA Hollywood Farmers’ Market. And it lived a long, successful and prosperous life. It loved Los Angeles. We had a west-facing window that it soaked up all of the sun of, and it grew to be very large and very healthy. And then we moved across the country in the winter and it died. However, my father and mother, green thumbs that they have, revived that plant and it is thriving—
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: —in their kitchen as we speak. That is the story of my houseplant. My one houseplant. How about you, Alex? Do you have any houseplants?
ALEX: I do. I had a Moor before I left my apartment for a month. My Peace Lily died and I’m trying—
BOBBY: Oh, no.
ALEX: —not to— not to read too— too much into that one. But I have a nice little snake plant and we’ve got some aloe around the house or— we’ve got like a— like a— the fiddle leaf.
BOBBY: Yeah. Fiddle leaf—
ALEX: The— yeah, that’s—
BOBBY: Fiddle leaf fern.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That’s one that I had, yeah.
ALEX: Yup. Oh, I gotta take a sip.
BOBBY: You have to take a sip. Also, we need to move on. Devlin asks, “A-Rod and Taylor,” I have to assume this means Taylor Swift, “enter a short-lived tryst.” great use of the word tryst. “What’s the name of the breakup album?” You said this was easy for you to come up with. So what is it?
ALEX: Well, my first thought was 13.
BOBBY: Oh, that’s so good. Now, I don’t even want to say mine.
ALEX: Well, you got to answer, bro.
BOBBY: I— I— I want to— I played around with, like, the concept tab— I played around with the concept of like juice— you know, juicing, do something with juice.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, something with juice worth the squeeze is— but it wasn’t— I just couldn’t land on it, so I just decided to go one word, like Taylor Swift always does for all of her albums these days. Cheat.
ALEX: Okay. All right.
BOBBY: All right. Take your sip.
ALEX: A little on the nose, but—
BOBBY: You did get 13, dawg. That’s just as on the nose. Emmie, question 21. No timeouts taken yet. I’m proud of us. “Should MLB, primarily the organization but maybe also the fans, be more grateful that the Nats won the 2019 World Series? Like what would have happened if the Astros won and then the cheating scandal came out? Sincerely a suffering Nats fan, looking for someone to say a little something nice about my sad team.” Yeah, MLB should definitely be more grateful. They saved MLB’s ass with that. Some might say that maybe MLB even rigged it for the Nats. Who knows?
ALEX: Some might. You might.
BOBBY: I didn’t say that.
ALEX: In— in retrospect, I do think that the Nationals World Series win is maybe the one that was most satisfying to me over the last decade or so. Like after a run of, like, Cubs, and Red Sox, and Astros, having it be punctuated by, like, the Nationals who are cool and good, and—
BOBBY: Weird take, hate the Nats. The Nationals are cool and good as an organization, so you love the Lerners?
ALEX: Yeah, bro.
BOBBY: Okay, great.
ALEX: We got to live somewhere.
BOBBY: Next question. Did you take your sip? No. “Will the Nationals win another World Series in the next 10 years?” This comes from Jamie. I’m just gonna say no. Statistically speaking—
ALEX: Statistically, no.
BOBBY: —unlikely. No. Although, I don’t know that I would have predicted that the Nationals won a World Series 10 years before they did.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You know, 2009— they were not looking so hot in 2009. They were a newly moved franchise. Ryan Zimmerman was the only player worth a damn on the team. A lot—
ALEX: Wow. Shaded Danny Espinosa.
BOBBY: Okay. A lot can happen in 10 years is what I will say.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: That’s like two rebuilding cycles.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know? That’s like four GMs for the Mets. Although, not now with David Stearns, baby. We’re the future.
ALEX: That’s right. You got him, you got your boy.
BOBBY: But I think I will— I will say no. More likely no. Logan, “What are your thoughts about baseball on the radio? Do you all enjoy this format of media for baseball coverage?”
ALEX: I think that it might be the sport that is best suited to be broadcast on the radio, just given the cadence of the game, the amount of downtime that allows broadcasters to add color, right, to what you’re hearing and—
BOBBY: Or get themselves in trouble.
ALEX: Well— yeah. I— I don’t know. There’s just something that’s very, like, relaxing and calming about it, because the game unfold so slowly, like you don’t have to be tuned in. It’s a great— it’s a great thing to fall asleep to.
BOBBY: Don’t let Rob hear you saying that. I love baseball on the radio. My thoughts about it are that it’s not my preferred way to— to consume it, but I think that it is a perfect way to do it in conjunction with other things and I find it very comforting—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —to hear the sounds of a baseball game. I— I will say I don’t listen to baseball on the radio as much as a lot of other people that I know do, but I don’t have anything against it. And I think some of the radio announcers are, like, some of the most talented people in the world.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Honestly, that’s a very hard thing to do. I could never do it. Peter, question number 24. “Eggplant parmesan or lasagna?” Lasagna. I’m not a huge eggplant person.
ALEX: I’m just not a huge eggplant person either.
BOBBY: I like eggplant in caponata, because I— then the consistency is correct. You know, it’s soft. It’s supposed to be soft and spread over a piece of bread or a cracker, or something like that. Or on a sandwich. But I find that it gets soft when it’s in eggplant parmesan, you know? And I don’t want that texture. I want lasagna and, you know, lasagna is my thing. That’s my dish.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s what I make. We also have some bonus questions. Josh, “Peanuts or sunflower seeds at a game?” Sunflower seeds.
ALEX: Sunflower seeds.
BOBBY: Now I Only Want to Triumph, [34:52] “Odd numbers or even numbers.” Pick one. Seven seconds.
ALEX: God, I might need to use my timeout for this one. Oh, even numbers.
BOBBY: Odd for sure. 11 is my lucky number, 21 is my second favorite number. Bonus Question from Now I Only Want to Triumph. [35:05] I’m going to use my timeout. Pause, Alex. Pause that. Pause that timer. I’m going to use my timeout for this one because Now I Only Want to Triumph [35:12] added a second question in here.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: This is our fourth question for this one minute. I don’t know why I cram so much into this. “Bobby or Alex.” That’s the question.
ALEX: Ah. I’m glad you paused it.
BOBBY: Take that any way you want, you know?
ALEX: You really— you
really put this one right smack dab in the middle.
BOBBY: In life and— and on the podcast, you know? In a game of one-on-one basketball?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: In a fistfight? In an at-bat? What else? Arm wrestling?
ALEX: Uh-huh. Keep naming— well, I’m waiting for you to get to one that I would name myself for.
BOBBY: No, didn’t we determine that you’re a better baseball player than me, because I have a torn UCL?
ALEX: That— well— yes. Okay.
BOBBY: Bobby or Alex? Answer the question. Are you Bobby or an Alex guy?
ALEX: I’m a Bobby guy.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: If I’m being honest.
BOBBY: Well, I’m an Alex guy and we all know that’s— I’m obsessed with Alex. More specifically, I am a— an Alex between the ages of 10 and 16. You know, like—
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: —just imagining like what you were getting into, you know? What you were looking up, all the different Wikipedia, spirals you were going down, all of the habits that you were, like, learning and then unlearning.
ALEX: Uh-huh. Just go— don’t go around telling people that you’re a big fan of Alex between the ages of 10 and 16.
BOBBY: Well, I guess I said it on this podcast that thousands of people listen to, you know? Do you think that there is like— do you think that there are, like, hives? You know, like, of people who listen and they’re like, “I listen and I— you know, I’m like mediocre on Bobby, but I love Alex.”?
ALEX: I choose not to think about that.
BOBBY: Okay, great. Un-pause. Jack. Now, question number 25 comes from Jack. “If y’all couldn’t live in New York and couldn’t live in your hometowns, where would you choose?” I am fascinated to hear your answer to this. I didn’t highlight this one. I probably should have, I’m sorry.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s fine.
BOBBY: Off the dome. Come on, let’s do it.
ALEX: Do you— do you have an answer?
BOBBY: I do have an answer.
ALEX: Okay. Go.
BOBBY: The answer is London, England, my friends. The best city on Earth. I love London. If I could not live in New York City or Philadelphia, I would live in London. I definitely wouldn’t live in Los Angeles, a place that I did live for four years and it sucked and I hated it. Do you wanna highlight this one? Should we come back to it?
ALEX: God, I just like— I don’t have a discussion about this one. Like the answer, frankly, is like Montana.
BOBBY: Wow. Bozeman.
ALEX: It’s like—
BOBBY: A big Bozeman hive.
ALEX: It’s like a ranch somewhere.
BOBBY: Kalamazoo. My—
ALEX: That’s off the grid.
BOBBY: Coming in second place as we go overtime on this one is Maine.
ALEX: Ooh.
BOBBY: Just in the— in the— in the forest in Maine. If I wanted to just press the reset button on my life and just get out of the game, you know, I would just become like a gas station attendant in Maine. You know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Just live off the land.
ALEX: Start a little B&B.
BOBBY: Question number 26 comes from Molly, “Which MLB team should relocate to London, England?” Speaking of London. What’s your answer for this?
ALEX: Red Sox.
BOBBY: My—
ALEX: Red Sox.
BOBBY: Get them out of here. Get them out of the state.
ALEX: Just— John Henry spends all his time over there anyway.
BOBBY: That’s so true. It would help him get to so many more Liverpool games, the thing that he actually cares about.
ALEX: His commute would be easier.
BOBBY: I just want to say right now in full transparency, I forgot to take a drink, like, the last four questions.
[laughter]
BOBBY: So I’m gonna need a timeout soon.
ALEX: You have to chug— no, you have to chug right now.
BOBBY: But I’m— no, I’m gonna answer this question first. Which MLB— MLB team should relo— relocate to London, England? New York Mets. I can watch them in my new city, my favorite team.
ALEX: There you go.
BOBBY: Okay. I’m going to use— no. I can’t use my time out because I’ve already used one.
Oh, no.
ALEX: Well, you could. I don’t know. That’s part of the game, man.
BOBBY: Okay. Question 27, McCoy. “What do you think Rob Manfred would do if he had the control bestowed by Sauron’s One Ring?” You don’t know what that is, do you?
ALEX: I do, but he wouldn’t do a fucking thing. He like— he wouldn’t end blackouts. I know that. That wouldn’t be the first thing he’s [39:08]
BOBBY: You’re getting punchy. I— I need to take, like, three steps right now. So keep going. I love what you’re doing right now.
ALEX: I just— I—
BOBBY: I support what you’re doing.
ALEX: I don’t think he would do anything actually interesting. Like, he seems like the kind of guy who would act, like, kind of holier than thou and say, “No, I don’t want to mess with the integrity of the game.” And just do the same thing he always does, which is just eat around the edges.
BOBBY: I think he would institute shock collar for players who violate the pitch clock.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: That is his one project, you know? That is the one thing that he has wanted more than anything.
ALEX: But no one— no one has been violating the pitch clock lately.
BOBBY: I know. Cheap. Rob says jump, they say how high, Alex. Next question, Jesse asks, “Should Taylor Swift drop Jack Antonoff for the next album? Yes or no.” Dude, yes. Yes, please.
ALEX: Yeah. It’s time.
BOBBY: Yes. It’s so time. Make more stuff with— I don’t even fucking care. I don’t even like the National. Make more stuff with the National. I don’t—
ALEX: Well, huh.
BOBBY: If it means that she can stop making the same songs of Jack Antonoff, then yes.
ALEX: I tend to agree. Like I’m maybe not, like, the Jack hater that some—
BOBBY: Yeah, the Swifties—
ALEX: —like those fans are. Like, I mean—
BOBBY: Yeah, the Swifties really hate—
ALEX: Very divided. I— like he’s got some talents but like, you know, diversify your interests a little bit. I know you can do something else.
BOBBY: Get her back with Bon Iver, you know?
ALEX: No, that’s— that’s actually— I’d— I’ve rather have Jack.
BOBBY: Sounds like we got to highlight that question and come back to it.
ALEX: I’m just not a Bon Iver guy.
BOBBY: Me, I— it would never happen, never happen, but I love him wearing that Gator and the long [40:43]
ALEX: Aesthetically, it would be a nice reunion.
BOBBY: Question 29 comes from David. “Should you name your pet after your favorite ballplayer?” I did. My pup is named Rusty after Rusty Staub. Great dog name. Great question. I know that this is something that you’ve been considering.
ALEX: It— it is. I’ve been considering a— a dog and if I—
BOBBY: Yeah. Like, when are you gonna do it? When are you going to do it?
ALEX: Yeah, I know. You’re calling my bluff, really.
BOBBY: I’ve been calling your bluff for years—
ALEX: For years.
BOBBY: —on many things.
ALEX: I would do— I don’t know that I would necessarily do it after a specific player.
BOBBY: Come here, Eric Chavez.
ALEX: Hey, Bobby Crosby.
BOBBY: You could name a dog like Hudson. That’s not bad. Zito?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s a pretty good dog name.
ALEX: True. Zito. That’s a good guy.
BOBBY: Write that down.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Write that down.
ALEX: I’m going to email that to us.
BOBBY: We really stop doing that. You— should you— I don’t know if you necessarily should, but you could.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And it can be great.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I know a lot of Mets fans have named their dogs Shea.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So that’s a little bit, like, taken in the world, but we are over time. Thank you, David. Christina asks, “Mountains or beach day?” This is question number 30. We’re halfway home, Alex.
ALEX: It’s flown by, I just want to say.
BOBBY: Halfway home and we haven’t finished two beers, and we’re supposed to finish eight. So we got to pick it up.
ALEX: How much do we have left in this one? I’m like sip.
BOBBY: Oh. Yeah. So I’m done now. Mountains or beach day? Answer, answer. Mountains or beach day?
ALEX: Mountains, mountains.
BOBBY: You hate the beach.
ALEX: I’m— I’m— yeah. I— famously, I just like— I mean, I never— yeah. Sand, like, gets everywhere, then you’re out in the sun, and it’s like hot, I don’t really—
BOBBY: People really love that about the sand. They’re like, “I love the feeling of, like, exfoliation. You know, like being one with the Earth.” And I’m like, “Why?”
ALEX: Yeah, no. I love—
BOBBY: It just like ruins everything.
ALEX: Just like not being able to sit anywhere, because when you get up, it’s just going to be covered in sand and—
BOBBY: I get, like, deeply upset when there’s like sand in places that’s not supposed to be, like a bed or a car. Like, that’s fucked up.
ALEX: Oh, if it’s in the bed, it’s— it’s over.
BOBBY: Yeah, you might as well burn the bed.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Mountains. Oh, wait, so you’re a— you’re a mountains guy, too?
BOBBY: I think— oh, God, it’s close. I don’t know. I like all of the associated activities with the beach more, like drinking—
ALEX: Yes. Yeah.
BOBBY: —and playing games, you know? And, like, dipping my toes in the water but not actually swimming in the ocean, because I’m afraid of it. So I’m going to say beach still.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: But mountains— I do like the mountains. I like both. I don’t know what to tell you. All right. Question number 31. “Who are your favorite players from your respective hometown clubs?” Assuming this means the A’s and not the Phillies for you.
ALEX: Correct.
BOBBY: Although maybe it should be in the Phillies then, if you’re such a fucking Phillies fan.
ALEX: Maybe— maybe that’s where I’m moving instead of [43:24]
BOBBY: Who never made an All-Star. So you’re gonna move to a place that I was banned from moving by the parameter of the question? We don’t have time for this. Probably never— who never made an All-Star team and probably never deserved to make one. Favorite players from your respective hometown clubs who never made an All-Star team and probably never deserve to make one. Who did you say?
ALEX: I said Mark Ellis just because— I don’t— maybe I’ve talked about on the— on here before, maybe haven’t. I just like— he was the kind of player that I love to, like, style myself after as, like, kind of a short, little second baseman, you know? He had a little pop in there, a little speed.
BOBBY: You’re not that short. You’re not that short.
ALEX: But I was back then.
BOBBY: Really?
ALEX: Yeah, I—
BOBBY: How short— when did you have your growth spurt? We don’t have time.
ALEX: I thought you were a— you were an Alex 10 to 16 guy.
BOBBY: Mine is Mookie Wilson, come on, he won the Mets the World Series, but he never made an All-Star team.
ALEX: Criminal.
BOBBY: 32, Kelly asks, “Favorite Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) Vault Track.” I gotta say a lot of Taylor Swift questions in here.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We’ve created a brand. We have to uphold it.
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: “Favorite Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) Vault Track.” None of it.
ALEX: Not applicable.
BOBBY: I don’t like any of them. They’re not good. I don’t have a favorite. I don’t think any of them are good.
ALEX: I do think the— this was the weakest set of vault tracks.
BOBBY: Should have left them in the vault.
ALEX: Like— like there’s some fun ones on there, but—
BOBBY: Should’ve saved a couple from Red, my gal.
ALEX: I feel like this one more than the other albums feels like— it’s very much like just an amalgamation of kind of some of the other better songs on Speak Now where I’m like, “Oh, familiar riff.”
BOBBY: I want to say with these last 10 seconds, I was recently accused used to being a late- comer to the Taylor Swift game on the podcast, The Big Picture.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: And I decry those allegations. That is false.
ALEX: As you should.
BOBBY: I have been there since Fearless. I won’t say I’ve been there since self-titled, but I’ve been there since Fearless.
ALEX: I think Taylor doesn’t even acknowledge self-titled.
BOBBY: She doesn’t even think that it exists. Okay. 33 is the best question we’ve ever gotten and I’m already going to highlight it to come back to in the future. Greg, thank you, Greg, for this question. It is, “Are there more wheels or doors in the world?”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Listener at home, I want you to think deeply about this question, because you may think that you have the answer. But then if you think more about it, you will flip flop approximately 1,000 times before you come to your answer. Alex, what do you think, more wheels or doors? ALEX: Doors.
BOBBY: I agree.
ALEX: Really?
BOBBY: Yeah, because, like, most things with wheels only have two, or maybe four— or maybe four. But like most buildings have, like, hundreds of doors. You know, like all urbans— all— you know, all urban—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —environments have skyscrapers with thousands of doors in them. But there’s so many cars. I don’t know. It’s a really good question.
ALEX: There’s so— and there are, like— they are, like, office chairs in there that roll around, you know.
BOBBY: Oh, so true.
ALEX: Once again, this is why you not have to think about it.
BOBBY: I’m sitting on four wheels right now.
ALEX: You are.
BOBBY: I’m sitting on four wheels right now. We have to come back to this. Okay.
ALEX: Is a window a door?
BOBBY: Kiran asks, “Fuck, marry, kill, Gary, Keith, Ron.”
ALEX: You’re taking this one first.
BOBBY: Right. I’m going to marry Ron. He seems like a really sweet, intelligent, thoughtful, cosmopolitan man who would fit with my lifestyle. I’m going to fuck young Gary with the long hair and the beard.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That guy seems like he’s a good time.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I’m— I’m obviously going to kill Keith because he’s nega, unfortunately. Brought me a lot of fun, a lot of joy, a lot of laughter, but unfortunately, in this context, I do have to kill him.
ALEX: I think that I would— I would switch Ron and Gary in my [47:02]
BOBBY: So you’d marry Gary?
ALEX: So I’d marry Gary. Imagine waking up to those dulcet tones in the morning.
BOBBY: I would feel inadequate?
ALEX: Well— yeah.
BOBBY: I feel like Ron is the more understated choice to marry. I feel like he’s more for the long haul. Thank you for the question, Kiran. Great question. Andy asks, question number 35, “Do you think we’re in an age of union strikes?”
ALEX: Yeah. I do— I mean, the last five years I have seen more strikes than in, like, the decade prior, so— sure. Yeah.
BOBBY: I think yes, because I think that a strike is a pretty radical thing to do as a union. And I think that more unions nowadays are fast— you know, are thinking of themselves as radical unions, because they have no choice but to be, because of the circumstances of the economy and of labor in the modern world. And so I think that external factors have created this and I think that unions are, you know, a force for good and—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —they will do the things that they need to do, so yes. And they— that needs to be done right now. So, yes, I do think we’re in an age of union strikes.
ALEX: Yeah. Well— and like we saw a lot of teacher strikes just a few years ago, especially in like— like North Carolina that— yeah, man, people are— people are fed up. I don’t know if you heard.
BOBBY: Question number 36, “People are fed up,” Alex Bazeley. Another question from Now I Only Want to Triumph, [0:48:25] “Is a hot dog a soup?” I don’t think I understand the question. “Is a hot dog a soup?”
ALEX: Like, it’s more of a smoothie, but you have to— you have to, like, simmer the hot dog for, like, a few hours, so that it kind of—
BOBBY: A hot dog is a sandwich, okay? And you don’t believe it is. You don’t think a hot dog is a sandwich. A downright deranged take from you. Why don’t you think that? It’s meat between bread. Okay? I’m highlighting this to come back to it.
ALEX: This is— no.
BOBBY: No, no.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Goddammit.
BOBBY: Yes, because I have more stories about this. I have stories to tell about this. I have context to fill the listener in about this. Time is up. Okay. 37— did you take your sit, by the way?
You’re not— you’re not taking your sips.
ALEX: Are you taking your sips?
BOBBY: I’m— I am taking my sips. 37, Alex, another Alex, the Alex hive is out— out today. They’re out today. “You can only keep the full discography for either Taylor Swift or Paramore. You can never listen to the other again. Which do you keep?” This is easy-peasy for your boy, but what are you gonna say?
ALEX: I know, I mean, I hate to be a homer but, like, Taylor has a better discography.
BOBBY: Wrong, wrong.
ALEX: It’s—
BOBBY: Wrong, wrong, wrong. I’m keeping Paramore.
ALEX: I love— I love Paramore. I really do, but I find myself listening to Taylor more on the
day-to-day.
BOBBY: Congratulations on pandering to the listenership.
ALEX: Me and Bryce.
BOBBY: You’ve never— no. You know what? You’ve always been anti-Paramore. You always have been.
ALEX: So stupid.
BOBBY: I love becoming like— now that I’m getting kind of punchy and confrontational.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yup
BOBBY: You know, that’s the type of drunk—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —that I’m becoming right now. No, I’m keeping Paramore, obviously. The— the discography is so much more wider, so much wider and deep— deeper. It’s like— it’s just— it’s better.
ALEX: It’s not better.
BOBBY: It is better. 38, this also comes from Alex, a run from Alex here, “Who is the player that made you fall in love with baseball?” You want to take this one?
ALEX: Hmm, another one I forgot to ponder ahead of time, so I’m actually going to kick it back to you as you take multiple sips to make up for the fact that you haven’t been drinking.
BOBBY: I have been drinking. I have. I took it for the Paramore one, because I was yelling at you the whole time.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: And then I took it for this question, because I knew that you were gonna throw it back to me, because I knew that you didn’t have an answer, because I know you. The player that made me fall in love with base— baseball is Pedro Martinez.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: I just— there was something about him that was, like, so demonstrative, but also he just, like, treated it as entertainment. And I just didn’t know that you could do that. Like, I didn’t know that you could be the ultimate competitor and, like, want to win more than anyone else, but also still have fun. And that—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —that, like, two sides of that coin just made me be like, “Oh, this actually is, like, the best sport ever.” I love this guy. What’s your answer? You’re overtime already.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You fucked it. You fucked it. You need a timeout now.
ALEX: I know. I know. Ahhhh! Ahhhhhh! Just do it. I let the play clock run down. I got called for delay of game.
BOBBY: So you used one timeout and I’ve used one timeout. And we used— we used the timeout that the listeners didn’t know about to go get more beers.
ALEX: Goddammit. You told them.
BOBBY: I’m pulling the curtain back. I don’t know what you want me to tell you.
ALEX: Are these— are these timeouts timed?
BOBBY: No, dude. I mean— like, don’t take an hour, you know? Just answer the question. Who is the player that made you fall in love with baseball? Yourself, you know?
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Fell in love with the game, by being out there in the dirt.
ALEX: I mean, this will sound cliche, but like the dudes who made me fall in love with baseball are, like, the scrappy Moneyball dudes like Erubiel Durazo and Adam Melhuse.
BOBBY: Oh, my God.
ALEX: Like guys who would— I, you know, have not thought about in— in years and made no mark on—
BOBBY: Should we like pun— should we pun on the— the whole podcast project, like everything we’re doing? And should we just decide to just name guys like that for like an hour every week?
ALEX: I mean, yeah, but I think that bit has already been taken. David Roth does it well enough.
BOBBY: David could come. He can be part of it.
ALEX: Oh, he’s invited.
BOBBY: It’s not like— they don’t let him do that on The Distraction.
ALEX: You— you’re right.
BOBBY: You know, like he only gets like 30 seconds for that. What if we make it the whole pod? Like if you said—
ALEX: So what you’re saying is we’re poaching David Roth from Defector?
BOBBY: David, you’re hired. You get to participate in excellent ideas such as this one. You know, like, how could you say no?
ALEX: Uh-huh. Yeah, I don’t know. It was like— I don’t know that it was necessarily—
BOBBY: Say— say those two names.
ALEX: Erubiel Durazo.
BOBBY: See, how could Roth not come now? Come on, Erubiel Durazo. Roth, if you’re listening, come on.
ALEX: That was my guy. Honestly, a guy like Jason Kendall where I was like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: “—Oh, my God, you can do that?”
BOBBY: Yeah. Yeah.
ALEX: Like, you can—
BOBBY: Keep going. This is my [53:09]
ALEX: I don’t— I don’t— I’m— it’s like you can dive— you can— hmm, you can play catcher and just fucking— just dive towards the plate, tag the runner out and like— I’m like describing a specific instance that happened here and, like, not really well.
BOBBY: I’m so glad you used your timeout on this.
ALEX: We should have put a time limit on the timeouts. You could have started putting me off [53:31]
BOBBY: No, keep going. You’re cooking right now. The Oscars music starts playing. I’m just wondering, like, before we come out of this timeout, you know, while we’re still here in this nether space—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —I’m just wondering if this episode is going to be legible at all to the people listening to it.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: I am going to edit it tomorrow morning when I’m sober.
ALEX: Okay. I think that’s smart.
BOBBY: So like if it is illegible, like what do I do? Don’t answer that. Let’s start the clock again.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Next question, also comes from Alex. “What is your favorite TV show of all time?” You’re gonna go, like, hipster on me. You’re gonna name something that is like under seen, you know?
ALEX: I don’t— I don’t— maybe. I’m— it’s hard to pick one as— if— if you know me, you know me. I love The Leftovers, that—
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: —that show just, like, fucking wrecked me.
BOBBY: People love that. I never watched it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s good. Should I fire it up?
ALEX: It’s pretty good.
BOBBY: You know? Is it gonna put me in a good mood?
ALEX: No. No, it’s gonna make you want to—
BOBBY: Don’t— don’t finish that sentence.
ALEX: Or Fresh Prince of Bel Air, that’s my other answer, the opposite.
BOBBY: Mine is— mine is The Sopranos. Come on, that’s my culture.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: That’s my culture.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: I don’t know what to tell you. I— I don’t know what to tell you. My other answer for this is Catastrophe. The Rob— the Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan show. I just want to say really quickly in three seconds that I have before this question is over. Sharon Horgan is the most important creative person out there right now working.
ALEX: Bang.
BOBBY: She’s very important.
ALEX: Bang.
BOBBY: Okay. Question 40. Pause for a couple sips that I forgot to take—
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: —because I’ve been fired up. Yosef, “Is 162 games too many?” I mean, yeah, yeah. It— it is.
ALEX: Practically speaking, yes.
BOBBY: But it’s like part of the thing now.
ALEX: That’s what— I—
BOBBY: They’ve like committed to the bit.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know?
ALEX: Like rom—
BOBBY: Major League Baseball is just a bit.
ALEX: Romantically, I’m like, “No, don’t get rid of the game”— but, like, should the players be playing fewer games? Like, yeah. Yeah, they deserve that.
BOBBY: Some players are like, “I love playing 162.” You know, like—
ALEX: No, you don’t.
BOBBY: —Lindor did that and I was like, ‘All right, sure.” Although he might be actually the one guy who does love just being out there, you know?
ALEX: That— that is sure.
BOBBY: It’s like the place that he deserves to be. Thank you, Yosef. You also asked another question which we have in here. “Can you refer to the team you root for as we?” I’m very curious to see how you answer this question because—
ALEX: I’m curious to hear your answer.
BOBBY: —it’s important to Philadelphia culture the way that you answer this question. So we’re about to see if you’re fucking fugazi or not.
ALEX: Of course you can.
BOBBY: No, you can’t!
ALEX: Yes, you can.
BOBBY: No. I actually got in, like, a straight up like shoving match with this— about this with
People in, like, middle school.
ALEX: You can be a fan however you— hang on, do you want to bookmark this one?
BOBBY: I do want to— I do want to bookmark this one.
ALEX: You can be a fan however the hell you want. If you can wear a player’s jersey, you can call the team— like you can’t have one, but not the other, I guess.
BOBBY: Are— are you on the team?
ALEX: I— I don’t know. Do you own any baseball jerseys? Are you on the team?
BOBBY: Do you own a Phillies Jersey yet?
ALEX: No, which is fraudulent.
BOBBY: Are you gonna get one?
ALEX: I see you’re trying to deflect over here.
BOBBY: You— no. I— I feel strongly that you can’t refer to them as we. That’s loser behavior.
ALEX: I— okay. I’m anti-fan gaping— gatekeeping, but I know you’re like low-key pro gatekeeping, so—
BOBBY: I love to gatekeep. Okay. Next question comes from Hoosier, 42. Take your sip, you fraud. Hoosier, “What are each of your favorite baseball movies?” Hoosier asks for a top five. We don’t have time for that. Favorite baseball movie. what’s your answer?
ALEX: I— I’m just gonna overthink it and honestly, I kept coming back to Angels in the Outfield, which is like—
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: —such a goofy, I feel like corny— like, you know, the Disney— the Disney one with, like, young Joseph Gordon Levitt, you know? Like, it just— it is not— like it’s a—
BOBBY: The one where he’s in the Cubs?
ALEX: No. No, that’s—
BOBBY: Oh, no. Oh, oh.
ALEX: —that’s Rookie of the Year.
BOBBY: Right. Yeah, yeah. That one—
ALEX: This is— this is the one with, like, Christopher Lloyd.
BOBBY: Angels— yeah, I remember it. Yeah, I remember Angels in the Outfield.
ALEX: Yeah. I don’t know. It’s just— it just always made me feel good.
BOBBY: Mine is Bull Durham. It’s the best baseball movie ever made in this [57:31]
ALEX: I mean— I mean, yeah. All right.
BOBBY: I’m sorry to be so cliche. This guy says The Sopranos and Bull Durham. Oh, my God. “Will the Mets”— this comes from Michael, “Will the Mets make the World Series again before the Phillies do?”
ALEX: I don’t know. What do you think?
BOBBY: I think they will, honestly.
ALEX: Really?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Why?
BOBBY: You are always so down on the Mets.
ALEX: No, I— I have [57:52]
BOBBY: I just want to say ye of little faith with David Stearns, you know? The vibe in Philly— by the way, I was in Philadelphia this past weekend.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: The vibe in Philly is that not only are the Eagles going to go undefeated and smash whoever they play in the Super Bowl, but that the Phillies are just going to cakewalk their way back to the World Series. Like, that’s the vibe.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like you walk around and people are like, “Go Phillies, go Birds.” You know, a lot of T-shirts, a lot of just swaggering energy in Philadelphia.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And it makes me ill. It makes me sick, your people.
ALEX: It’s my happy place.
BOBBY: Just walking down Broad Street, you know? I think the Phillies are overhyped, overrated. Solid team, fine team. Mets are going to be back. That’s all I have to say. We can come back on that one if you want.
ALEX: Boo.
BOBBY: But we don’t have to. 44, Jack, “Andor is the best Disney+ show. Yes or no.” Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I think yeah.
ALEX: I haven’t watched every single Disney+ show, but maybe that’s [58:52] about it.
BOBBY: I actually thought you had, you know? I thought you were just ripping through all those Marvel— like, what was that one—
ALEX: Wanda Vision?
BOBBY: Yeah, that was the one. That was the one that I was gonna name.
ALEX: That was the one? Look at that. Mind melt.
BOBBY: Loki.
ALEX: Four beers in.
BOBBY: People actually liked Loki. Did you watch that? Do you watch a lot of TV? What do you do, like in your free time? When we’re not together, like what are you doing?
ALEX: I can’t remember at this point.
BOBBY: I just watch movies. Like if you want to—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —know what I’m doing when I’m not with you, go to my Letterboxd account.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: That’s what I’m doing.
ALEX: If you want to know what I’m doing, go to my PS4, like, recent notifications.
BOBBY: Do you want to drop your PS— your PlayStation username for people to request you?
ALEX: No, I’m not good enough.
BOBBY: I know, people will be making fun of you like calling you a noob and shit.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: And you’d be like, “Fuck this.”
ALEX: Exactly. I don’t—
BOBBY: And then just quitting.
ALEX: I don’t need that.
BOBBY: Okay. Take your sip. I’m done with this one, by the way.
ALEX: I am, too.
BOBBY: 45, Nikki, “As an East Coast resident, I always feel a little out of touch with West Coast teams that I can’t stay awake late enough to watch. Do you feel this as well?”
ALEX: Yeah. I think when I moved out here nine years ago, it became just like immediately harder to watch any nice—
BOBBY: Why hide it? You know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s what we’re here to do.
ALEX: The— the people know.
BOBBY: The people want this.
ALEX: Yes. It— I mean, it is just like objectively harder to watch it out here and, like, I think some of the cooler rivalries exist out on the West Coast. I think the MLS teams are—
BOBBY: What you’re saying is West Coast is the best coast?
ALEX: Low-key.
BOBBY: I don’t feel out of touch with the West Coast teams. I watched— I watched way more Dodgers than the Mets this year.
ALEX: Has more to do with the East Coast.
BOBBY: Yeah. It also has more to do with my sleep schedule, which is like deeply fucked— like deeply fucked these days, like maybe as bad or worse as it was in college. Just to let you know, just to give like you a personal [01:00:46] about my life.
ALEX: That actually kind of scares me.
BOBBY: I know. It should.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: It should. We can talk later about it. Okay. Michael asks, “The Mets announced that Citi Field is hosting a movie night,” speaking of movies, “after a weekend game in September. What movie would you like to see on the Humongotron?” What did you— what did you put for this?
ALEX: The Zapruder film.
[laughter]
BOBBY: It’s not a movie. That’s like 10 seconds. You’re taking the 7 train— sorry, actually, wait, you’re taking the Q to the 7 train for 90 minutes to watch the Zapruder film?
ALEX: If the Mets said we are playing this on the Jumbotron, are you telling me you wouldn’t?
BOBBY: I think if the Mets said that we could justify expensing an Uber to the Tipping Pitches account.
ALEX: That— that’s true.
BOBBY: To us, from JFK. That’s the answer because then you—
ALEX: JFK, that would be—
BOBBY: —can see The Zapruder film— Zapruder film—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —Zapruder— the Zapruder film like 15 times. I wrote the Sandlot. What am I a schmuck? The Sandlot. Next question, Tim. “What would be your walk-up song for hitting or your warm-up song for pitching?” What did you put? You know—
ALEX: I don’t know. You keep throwing at me for all these first questions and I—
BOBBY: All right. I’ll answer. No, no, no, no. Stop. I’ll answer, I’ll answer this. My walk-up song will be Kevin Costner singing Back and to the left in JFK. No, no, no. Don’t stop me now by Queen.
ALEX: Banger.
BOBBY: Really put me in the mood.
ALEX: Banger.
BOBBY: To go out there and probably strike out, but—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: More likely that would be the— my warm-up song for pitching. Don’t stop me now. Don’t take me out of this game, Buck Showalter. Get out of here.
ALEX: So you want it, like, playing between at-bats?
BOBBY: Just maybe— preferably the whole time I’m out there.
ALEX: All the time.
BOBBY: What’s your answer?
ALEX: That’s what’s on the other pitch comment here— on here.
BOBBY: Right, exactly.
ALEX: Maybe Paint It, Black by The Rolling Stones.
BOBBY: Nice.
ALEX: I know we’re in our, like, classic rock bag here, but—
BOBBY: It has to be something timeless. Everybody has one to listen to it along.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know you can’t do like an oh, so, oh song as much as you’d like to.
ALEX: Watch me.
BOBBY: Just morning songs playing. 48, Adam, “Over-under, one and a half international MLB teams in 2030.” So we already have one.
ALEX: Right. It’s—
BOBBY: So— so the question is, will there be another international team? I guess— I don’t— I— maybe Adam is not counting the Blue Jays international, like from now on. I don’t really know. What do you think?
ALEX: I mean, I don’t even think we’re going to get one international team in the next seven years necessarily. I feel like MLB’s focused on expansion to some of the other sites that we— like we’ve already talked about. Like, I think that they are far more likely to explain— expand to places like Nashville or Portland than they are to, like, Mexico City—
BOBBY: Yeah, I’ll—
ALEX: —for example,
BOBBY: I’ll take under because I think that there are more logistical hurdles to adding an international team—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —just in terms of travel. And I think that they would, like, fill out those other domestic locations before they would expand to a place like Mexico City.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Even though it’d be really cool.
ALEX: Playing at, like, 5,000 feet elevation?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: That’d be sick.
BOBBY: Question number 49, Dawson. “If you were granted the opportunity to take over sole ownership of an MLB franchise, would you do it?” No.
ALEX: Nope.
BOBBY: I don’t think I would do it.
ALEX: Nope.
BOBBY: Maybe I’ll highlight this one and talk about it later—
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: —actually—
ALEX: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: —because I have some questions about the parameters of this, because I think Tipping Pitches Media would do a great job running an MLB franchise.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: I think we can get a lot of fun with that one. I’m gonna take my sip, though.
ALEX: I will say no as well. I don’t know that I could live knowing that many people dislike me.
BOBBY: What if they loved you? What if your uncle Stevie, Uncle Alex?
ALEX: I get— I mean, is inherent in the question that I also, like, have streams of income—
BOBBY: Uncle Alex.
ALEX: —coming in, it’s just— I’d gloss right over that, but—
BOBBY: We’ll talk about it later. 50—
ALEX: I want to— I want to circle back to your—
BOBBY: We only have 10 more.
ALEX: —obsession of different ages of mine.
BOBBY: We only have 10. You’re my best friend. What do you want me to tell you? We only have 10 more. Matt asks, “Bobby, if you had to do it all over again, would you still choose the Mets?” You’re goddamn right I would. You know, it’s a big part of my personality. It has taught me a lot of resilience. Bonus question here comes from Devin. “Bobby, as a heartbroken A’s fan rooting for the Mets this season, will you be answering for your crimes?” I just want to say I didn’t make John Fisher. I didn’t make him do what he does. And honestly, Devin and Matt, if I could control what goes on with the Mets, I would do it. Okay? You got— your eyes wide open.
ALEX: No, you clearly wouldn’t. You just said no to the ownership question.
BOBBY: But I have some reservations, though. We’ll get back to that.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Matt and Devin, I’m sorry.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You could be like Alex, you could choose the Phillies in a fraudulent way. Question number 51. You didn’t take your drink. You haven’t taken a drink for, like, five questions.
ALEX: That’s not true.
BOBBY: It is true.
ALEX: Well, I just take three drink— sips, I mean. What’s the question?
BOBBY: Kevin asks, “If it was required to save your life, would you become a fan for the rest of your life for either the Detroit Tigers or the St. Louis Cardinals?” I mean, that’s like the— like the easiest question ever.
ALEX: Feels like a— like an easy answer.
BOBBY: Alex is like I’ll be— well, no. Were the Tigers the one that, like, came like— came last?
ALEX: The Tigers [1:06:12] were the last on the list, and putting these two against each other, I would pick the Tigers.
BOBBY: How do you feel about the fact that you’re never allowed in the city of Detroit again, the Elledge family or what have you, wasted away?
ALEX: Yeah, kind of a bummer.
BOBBY: Since you’ve never been there to begin with?
ALEX: To begin with, you know? Crossing it off my bucket list.
BOBBY: Tigers, Tigers. Good question, Kevin, But Tigers. 52, Danielle, “What— what is your favorite ice cream flavor?” You’re a big ice cream guy. You like to— he likes to crack—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —open a quart, you know, here and there.
ALEX: I don’t know that I actually, yeah. I do like to do that.
BOBBY: I just remember that in college sometimes, you would just go to Walgreens—
ALEX: Yes, I mean, it would [1:06:52]
BOBBY: —and like come back with a Ben & Jerry’s quart and eat the whole thing.
ALEX: That is true. And I didn’t know we were going to share that on the pod.
BOBBY: Come on, that’s question number 52.
ALEX: I mean, I like— I like Stracciatella, you know?
BOBBY: Stracciatella. Wow.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Hey, hey, whoa, hey, hey. This guy likes Stracciatella.
ALEX: Or like— or like cookie dough, which is like the opposite end of the spectrum there.
BOBBY: I forgot to write an answer for this question.
ALEX: Well, you have 15 seconds.
BOBBY: Am I really gonna have to use my second timeout on the ice cream flavor? I like pistachio and hazelnut together.
ALEX: Like a scoop of each?
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s my answer.
ALEX: Great.
BOBBY: All right. Great.
ALEX: Great. Move on.
BOBBY: Good talk. Another question from Danielle. “How many times have you seen Fall Out Boy live?” Only twice for me.
ALEX: I think only twice for me as well.
BOBBY: Dude, do you know that—
ALEX: Neither of which were the— the same concerts, obviously.
BOBBY: Yeah, we’ve never seen Fall Out Boy together, which is a real shame because—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —frankly, we put on many Fall Out Boy concert in our dorm room in our—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —sophomore year of college.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Our own little concert.
ALEX: Now—
BOBBY: Alex doing all of the instruments and me being a bad version of Patrick Stump.
ALEX: Now, Fall Out Boy is doing like—
BOBBY: Dude.
ALEX: —Sunday Night Football music.
BOBBY: Well, aside from that, the concert tickets now for Fall Out Boy—
ALEX: I mean, I don’t even—
BOBBY: —they’re like $300. Like, fuck off.
ALEX: You gotta have a better back half year just to [1:08:27] me to do that.
BOBBY: Like, if they were gonna tour From Under the Cork Tree and they were gonna play the whole album, I would pay $300 happily.
ALEX: [1:08:34] yeah.
BOBBY: Happily. You know, Pete, if you’re listening—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Pete Wentz, that’s Pete Wentz, if you’re listening.
ALEX: Did we—
BOBBY: No, we went over. So next question.
ALEX: Okay. All right.
BOBBY: Did you take your drink yet?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Nick asks, “You can change any specific number related to baseball. What are you changing? Example, the length of the basepaths, years of team control, number of teams.” Good question. Probably should have highlighted this one to prep beforehand.
ALEX: Yeah. Would you— but you thought it was easy because you didn’t highlight this. What was your answer?
BOBBY: I’m— I’m gonna go ahead and just use my timeout for this one. I apologize to you and to my— my— my past self for not highlighting this one as one I should have prepared for ahead of time. And I apologize to Nick, you know, because we’re gonna have to vamp for a second here while I think about the answer. If I could change any specific number related to baseball, what would I change? Do you have something for this? This is a hard question.
ALEX: I mean, it is because, frankly, the more I think about it, the— it’s a little like the doors and wheels question. The more I think about it, the more I find, like, more numbers I want to change.
BOBBY: Oh, really? See, I can’t think of any that I want to change. I’m like, “It’s all divine.” You know, don’t change anything.
ALEX: And you’re like— there’s— there’s— I don’t even see numbers, you know? I just see art.
BOBBY: Right. Exactly. Speaking of art—
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Where are you going with this?
BOBBY: I watched There Will Be Blood a few weeks ago.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Art.
BOBBY: Art, art. Hardcore art.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Also, by the way, I’ve been led to believe that Killers of the Flower Moon is, like, really in conversation with There Will Be Blood. So now I’m like mega excited.
ALEX: Mega hyped, yeah.
BOBBY: Mega excited. I watched that movie and— and then I reviewed it on Letterboxd. And I decided to just, like, do like a thousand-word review of it on Letterboxd where I told the entire story of us walking through the [1:10:38] and tied it back to my experience watching There Will Be Blood.
ALEX: Well, I haven’t— I haven’t read this. Now, I have something— now, I have homework.
BOBBY: Yeah, you do. Read that on your walk home tonight.
ALEX: I don’t know if I’d ever been— been able to read anything on my walk home tonight.
BOBBY: All right. Read it in the morning.
ALEX: All right. So what’s the number?
BOBBY: I don’t know. That was me vamping [1:10:57]
ALEX: Maybe a fourth strike?
BOBBY: I have to say— not fourth strike. No, no, no. Because then you have to change Take Me Out to the Ballgame. It’s like a whole— it’s like a whole production if you change that. I have to say I’ve never loved 60 feet, 6 inches.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: That feels unresolved. Why not just 61? Why not 60? Either— either is fine. 61, an important number in baseball, Roger Maris.
ALEX: Well, I mean, I think the reason it’s like that is because it’s like exactly in the middle, right? Like, yes, you could make it 61, but then it wouldn’t be perfectly centered.
BOBBY: Ooh.
ALEX: And that would bug me, and I know it would bug you.
BOBBY: Shit. I thought I had an answer there.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Probably just change the size of the bases again, you know? Can I cheat and say like the cost of a ticket? Like, that’s a number.
ALEX: Right. Can I move the— the decimal point on just every transaction?
BOBBY: I got one.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Number of Mets World Series rings.
ALEX: That’s a good one. You found the loophole.
BOBBY: Nick, I’m sorry. Alex—
ALEX: You didn’t ask for more wishes.
BOBBY: Alex, what’s your answer? Nick is gonna be listening to this so mad. Nick is like a real numbers guy. He definitely has, like, 10 good answers to this and we can’t think of one.
ALEX: The pitch clock, just to fuck with Rob Manfred, because I know that he pored over that for weeks.
BOBBY: So what would you change it to, like 21 seconds?
ALEX: It’s 24, right? Is it—
BOBBY: No, it’s 20.
ALEX: 20—
BOBBY: 20 with runners on.
ALEX: 24 is the shot clock.
BOBBY: Shot clock of baseball— of basketball.
ALEX: I’m—
[laughter]
BOBBY: Let’s just move on. Let’s— let’s— let’s just move— so— so I would change the number of Mets World Series rings to about 15.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: You know? Don’t need to be like the Yankees, but, you know, maybe second would be nice. And you would change the pitch clock?
ALEX: To, like 35.
BOBBY: 35? Wow. We’d be here all night. We’d be here all night. What happened to action? Bang, bang, bang. Take your drink.
ALEX: I thought you hated the rule changes.
BOBBY: I hate the rule changes. Please do not violate our banned topics, not even on episode 300. Next question, Hannah. “How many water bottles do you think you could drink in 15 minutes?”
ALEX: Don’t know. Can I answer in beers? You mean like a— like a standard Poland Spring?
BOBBY: Yeah. Like, 16.9 fluid ounces.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: That’s how many ounces are in a Poland Spring. Talk about a number we should change. 16.9 fluid ounces is infuriating. Why not just 16?
ALEX: You want to get into like a— like a metric system conversation?
BOBBY: I—
ALEX: Imperial system?
BOBBY: I— I support the metric system, yeah.
ALEX: Interesting.
BOBBY: Yeah. I was a science kid in high school, you know? It’s all about metric.
ALEX: I think to two, two water bottles.
BOBBY: I could— well, like what’s on the line? Like, do I get money? I could drink like— before vomiting—
ALEX: [1:14:05]
BOBBY: —I could drink like three.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Just one more than Alex says. That’s my answer. What Alex—
ALEX: Okay. Well, I could beat that without— without not before vomiting, though.
BOBBY: Like five, I don’t know. Next question, Josh.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Josh. Hey, Josh. Nice to hear from you. “Should postseason stats count in career milestones. Adam Wainwright has a 4-5 record in the postseason, why doesn’t that count in career stats if how we define careers is so influenced by performing— postseason performance? I’m kind of conflicted about this.
ALEX: I am, too.
BOBBY: Because it’s not always one player’s fault that they don’t make it to the postseason as much as another player, and why should a player be? I mean, the real answer—
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: —is that we should— like we shouldn’t put so much stock in, like, woke [1:14:47] numbers as, like, the thing that defines a person’s career. Like, we should— there should be more nuance to it than that. But, like, you know, why should a guy who’s wasting away on a bad team? You know, say David Wright for most of his career, why should he not get to add to his postseason statistics in a way that someone like— I don’t know.
ALEX: Like—
BOBBY: Like Chase Lee does?
ALEX: Right. And— and I also think it cuts—
BOBBY: We’re— we’re already over time.
ALEX: I think it cuts the other way too, right? Of, like, why does a player get penalized for making the postseason and pitching an extra month every year?
BOBBY: Yeah. Or why does Derek Jeter get fake acclaimed for making it to the postseason as the third best player on all of the teams that he was on?
ALEX: Well, yes, that’s— that’s the real adjustment we all need to collectively make.
BOBBY: Jake asks, “From Under the Cork Tree or Paramore self-titled.” From Under the Cork Tree, bro. Paramore self-titled is like their fourth or fifth best album, sorry.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I know— I know Hayley Williams is listening, I’m sorry. From Under the Cork Tree is the greatest pop punk album ever.
ALEX: Speak on it.
BOBBY: Bonus question here. “What is the third greatest pop punk album of the 1990s?” Not sure, don’t know what the first two are. Elisa asks, “Would you cut off your left pinky toe if it meant that modern baseball would play one last show?”
ALEX: You know, I don’t need to, because I’ve already seen them.
BOBBY: Oh, fuck off. You know that that is like my number one like I can’t believe I missed them.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They were just playing, like, 20 miles from where I was, like, for years.
ALEX: Opened for none other than The Wonder Years whom you just saw.
BOBBY: I did just see them, with Sweet Pill who is really good.
ALEX: [1:16:23]
BOBBY: If you haven’t listened to Sweet Pill, go check out Sweet Pill. Sweet Pill is good. Question number 58. You haven’t taken a drink in, like, five questions.
ALEX: [1:16:31]
BOBBY: “Who has the— who has the best moustache in baseball?” I’m gonna go back to my man, Spencer Strider.
ALEX: There— there is a whole, like, class of players with that moustache, right, like the— the Striders of the world, the Dylan— the Dylan Ceases of the world.
BOBBY: Yeah, Cease’s mustache is legit.
ALEX: It is— it is legit.
BOBBY: Where would I [1:16:54] in?
ALEX: On just, like, baseball mustache— mustaches in general?
BOBBY: Yeah. Yeah. Below Strider and Cease, but like up there.
ALEX: But like up— but like up there.
BOBBY: I’m doing all right, right?
ALEX: I mean, you have one which is like—
BOBBY: Like a B plus?
ALEX: —above like half of the league.
BOBBY: I just want to say Sal Fasano puts all these dudes to shame. No one is doing it like Sal was.
ALEX: You’re right.
BOBBY: Next question. This is question number 59, Alex, the end is near. Josh asks, “Would you rather be stuck on a desert island with Rob Manfred or John Fisher?” This is pretty easy for me.
ALEX: I would take Manfred.
BOBBY: Yeah, I think so too. Something way more than I would wanna ask—
ALEX: Yeah. I just don’t think John Fisher is very interesting.
BOBBY: Yeah, I don’t think so either. But if you’re on a desert island with John Fisher, you could, you know, delete him.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: You take one for the team.
ALEX: Opinions are not a representation of my employer?
BOBBY: I just mean, like, you could change his mind about the A’s.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You could delete his thoughts about what he’s doing.
ALEX: Uh-huh. Yeah.
BOBBY: Would Rob, like, become like honest, like start divulging things to you on a desert island?
ALEX: If you deprived him of enough food.
BOBBY: Okay, great. Okay. Number 60. Last but not least, another question from another Alex. But— do you just have, like, alter egos? Like, what is going on? Why were there so many questions from Alexes in here?
ALEX: Yes. I mean, I was traveling this weekend and was in a group with three other Alexes, so—
BOBBY: It’s unbelievable. “Which movie are you most excited about the rest of this year?” What is your answer?
ALEX: Like— like Killers of the Flower Moon. Like—
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s my answer, too. I’m seeing that tomorrow.
ALEX: Yeah, I know.
BOBBY: it’s really exciting. It’s really exciting. My other answer for this would have been Dune 2, but then they— they fucked it, you know? They ethered it [1:18:45].
ALEX: [1:18:45] this is what strikes take away from us. I’m just saying.
BOBBY: All right, Bill Maher. Take it down a notch.
ALEX: “I love my writers. I am my writers.”
BOBBY: “I am my writers” is so funny. I’m pretty excited about Priscilla, Sophia Coppola.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: I’m pretty excited about Ferrari, Michael Mann.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m a big Adam Driver fan.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: That’s it. That’s it. We’re out of time. Power hour, completed. Cheers.
ALEX: Cheers—
BOBBY: Cheers.
ALEX: —brother.
BOBBY: I have a bonus question on here. I’m going to stop the clock, and that’s where the real fun starts. Everything you just heard was a— was a prologue.
ALEX: Just a warm-up.
BOBBY: Now, it’s where the real fun starts. I have a question for you.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: Over-under, Alex, 300 more episodes.
ALEX: Like with the question about the Nationals World Series chances in the next 10 years. BOBBY: Okay. I don’t know where you’re going with this.
ALEX: It’s easy for me to say under, but I also would have taken the under probably seven years ago when we started doing this.
BOBBY: Are you trying to say you don’t— so you don’t think we would do 300 more episodes?
ALEX: Well, at this point, now I’ve seen what we can do. Now, anything’s on the table.
BOBBY: What— should we change the podcast format to be this every week?
ALEX: I think that our— that our livers, they wouldn’t take it. That our partners, they wouldn’t take it.
BOBBY: Nonsense. Your liver is strong. I’ve seen it in action.
ALEX: We’ll see. Again, like 300 seems like a huge number, but I honestly never would have thought that we would have gotten here, which is not that I didn’t have faith in us. Maybe just a little bit that I didn’t have faith in us.
BOBBY: Yeah. Come on. I mean, who has faith in us?
ALEX: But— but I think it’s more that— that’s just a really large number of podcast episodes.
BOBBY: I think that it feels— now that we’ve done it once—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —now that we’ve done 300—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —I thought we could do 300 more.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We’re so much better at this now than we were for the first 150 episodes.
ALEX: That is true.
BOBBY: But also, when I think about getting to 600, that seems ridiculous.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: When I think about going past 500, it seems absurd. You know, it seems like— you’re gonna be like— we’re gonna be like 34, you know?
ALEX: I mean, yes. Right. As you mentioned, we’ve been doing this for, what, just over six years at this point?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like a— just over a fifth of our lives?
BOBBY: Yeah. And like we’ve been doing this longer. This is— the podcast has been going more than half of the time that we’ve known each other. So there’s more pod time than non-pod time—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —in our friendship. Of course, like, the podcast is just, like, one day a week, you know? We, like, have other things that we do and so it’s like not— it’s not like once we started doing the podcast that it was, like, the only thing that existed in our lives or even in our friendship.
ALEX: I will say it took over most of our text exchanges.
BOBBY: Well, what was— what were we texting about before that? You know, like, Fall Out Boy lyrics.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, it’s not like we were really giving up— it’s not like we lost the Library of Alexandria there.
ALEX: No, we just channeled it into one space.
BOBBY: I— I have no interest in stopping this podcast. I will say that. I think it’s fun.
ALEX: Well, you’re gonna hate my answer, then.
BOBBY: I— beyond just doing the— the funny like over-under 300 more episodes, I did actually want to talk about, like, the fact that we’ve gotten to 300 episodes. And like whether or not that actually feels like a worthwhile milestone to you. 300 is a very important number in baseball, and in Zack Snyder films.
ALEX: I mean, does it feel significant? Like, yeah, absolutely. I think that we have obviously spent a lot of time doing this and— I hate if I’m being candid, like I really don’t think it’s— until the last couple years— like maybe— maybe since you move back to New York that we’ve really sort of hit the stride a little bit. We were able to record in person a little more. We were able to kind of talk—
BOBBY: Wow. So you think all of the pods we did when I was in LA were bad?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: No. No, I don’t. But— but I do think maybe we’ve picked up some momentum, and that counts for something. I— well, I do think— and, you know, we— we have said this on the show before and I— I don’t want it to sound cliche, but I do think in the last couple years, as we have started to really see the— the community of folks who are not just engaging with the podcast, but genuinely contributing to it, and sending us articles, and like having discussions in the Slack and stuff. Like, that has, frankly, been really heartening to see, because it doesn’t feel like the podcast begins or ends on Sundays. And it doesn’t begin or end with us either, right? Like it’s— like it is far more than just me sitting next to Stevie and petting over an hour and a half.
BOBBY: Well, can I say actually now, like now that you address that fact, the elephant in the room and Stevie’s not here?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: She didn’t have the chance to bark her way through that entire Power Hour, and just completely disrupt the whole thing, which she definitely would’ve done.
ALEX: What she would have done. This would have been her time to shine.
BOBBY: That was kind of an ominous way that I introduced that. She’s— she’s just at my parents’ house.
ALEX: I’m glad that you brought that up, because Steve is no longer with us.
BOBBY: Aw, I felt for that.
ALEX: For the next week.
BOBBY: She’s— she’s at my parents’ house living her dream. She loves to be there. She loves to have a backyard. She loves to be spoiled by my father. I’m going to Seattle next week. TBD on what we’re doing about the podcast when I’m there but like, we’ll talk about that later, I guess. And so she’s— she’s there and my parents are watching her while we go to Seattle. I completely agree with what you said. I think that, like, the last couple of years of the podcast have been us realizing that, like, the things that we said in our apartment and talked about in 2017 are— are things that other people care about, and like things that other people want to engage about, and, like, be around like-minded people to discuss. And that is like a really cool feeling. I wanted to ask you, like, what the podcast has done to your relationship to baseball? Like, maybe that’s a big question, because I feel like it, of course, has changed both of our relationships to the sport, and the way that we, like, consume it, and talk about it, and engage with it. But when we started the show, ostensibly, the reason that we did that was because there was a lot of stuff that was going on in the baseball world. And we found ourselves, like, getting into, like, long, discursive conversations about—
ALEX: Right. We were like bright-eyed, bushy-tailed NYU students. We were like, “How can I apply this to the real world?”
BOBBY: Exactly. In a— in, like, a kind of annoying way, honestly. And I— I think when we started the show, it was like, “Oh, we’re gonna, you know, do our best to have, like, earnest conversations about some of these things. And, like, try to get to, like, a deeper truth about what baseball means to us and all that stuff.” And now, it’s— it’s— it’s become a lot more, like, you know, jokes and sitting here—
ALEX: Drinking games.
BOBBY: —and laughing about how funny the world is, and how—
ALEX: yeah.
BOBBY: —about how funny different members of the baseball community are and how we relate to them. But do you feel like— do you feel like we did what we set out to accomplish? Do— like, do you feel like a sense of completion about all of the thoughts that you wanted to get out into the world about baseball and, like, the reason that we started the show?
ALEX: I mean, I think the answers to some of those questions are different, like, how has the relationship to baseball changed versus did we set out to accomplish what we aim to? I don’t think we knew what we aimed to accomplish, right? I think our— our, like, rough elevator pitch early on was like baseball from the fans perspective. Uh-huh. And what of it? Like, I think we—
BOBBY: Well, now you’re the president of the fans union, though. So that way—
ALEX: Okay. That is true.
BOBBY: —you— you did accomplish what you set out to.
ALEX: Like, I don’t think we really knew what we were setting out to accomplish from the outset. It was like we have all these ideas. Let’s sit down. Let’s hash it out, you know, over the course of an hour or two, instead of taking up our Saturday evenings. And it has developed something— into something that— that, you know, probably has changed my relationship with baseball to an extent. Although I will say I think it’s maybe a little different for me having also experienced, like, the last five to 10 years of being an A’s fan, which has probably impacted my relationship to baseball more—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —than doing this podcast. And then getting on here every week and talking about, “Oh, the owner— the owners did this and— and Rob Manfred instituted XY and Z and— and wringing our hands at the state of the game.” I— I think a lot of that, actually, buoyed my interest in the actual sport of the game—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —because I would get out of doing these podcasts and then go home and watch Ronald Acuna, Jr. put up like a 40-40 season and be like, “How can you be—”
BOBBY: You’re a Braves right now? First Phillies, now Braves?
ALEX: “—how can you— like, how can you do anything but love and appreciate this sport?” Which I don’t think is a reason to not discuss these things. I think it just highlights the sheer disconnect between what the people at the top of the game feel versus, like, what the people who are actually experienced in the games feel.
BOBBY: I do think that, like, that’s one of the things about the podcasts that I’ve, like, really appreciated over the last few years, is the ways that we’ve been able to compartmentalize some of the stuff that we talked about with some of the stuff that we actually experienced in our fandom. And, like, that was like sort of one of the things— one of the reasons behind doing Three Up, Three Down is like that was like real-time compartmentalization of the things that we were enjoying about the sport, and the things that were like really bumming us out about the sport. But, like, you know, in the time that we’ve been doing the show, we’ve gone, like, into the professional world, and one of my professional obligations was, like, producing baseball shows that actually cover games, you know? That actually are, like, having to do playoff reactions and actually having to do player analysis, and that is actually— that was actually, like, my job. You know, like, that was like my 9:00 to 5:00. It was like I have to think of a good segment and a way to cover, like, this thing that just happened. And if I don’t, then like the show is not gonna be successful, and that’s a lot of pressure. And, like, that sort of relationship to the game has a way of, like, making you feel a little bit like, “Is this— is this still the thing that I enjoy?”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: “Or is this work?” And I feel like our show has done the opposite in like a weird way where it’s like I have things that I enjoy about baseball. I bring those up from time to time to talk to you about—
ALEX: Every once in a while.
BOBBY: Every once— every here and there, you know? Where like, “Oh, baseball is cool.” And then we are, like, working through it the rest of the time about the stuff that gives us general angst in the sport. And, like, 300 episodes in, I feel pretty confident that is like a decent formula for both still being able to enjoy the game, but also to, like, offer something that other shows don’t seem to do, you know? So maybe we didn’t accomplish what we set out to accomplish.
ALEX: But I think we may be found what we were trying to accomplish.
BOBBY: And now, it’s just bits.
ALEX: And now, it’s just bits.
BOBBY: Now, it’s just bits. Now, it’s just Power Hours.
ALEX: And I’m— I’m all right with that.
BOBBY: It seems like everybody else is all right with the two. What are the things you still want to do on the pod, in the next 300 episodes before you quit? Do you wanna talk to A-Rod?
ALEX: Right. I mean, there’s a question like, what do we realistically want to accomplish or, like, what is our pie in the sky?
BOBBY: Both. Why limit yourself?
ALEX: Would you go A-Rod or Manfred given the option?
BOBBY: Manfred. Manfred. A-Rod wouldn’t tell us anything. Neither would Rob, but like there’s more to be gleaned. Like, we live in a world that is closer to Rob, honestly, as a show.
ALEX: Yes. Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Like, we don’t talk about the things that A-Rod is interested in. We don’t like— we’re not talking about like hitting it the other way. Like, we’re not talking about A-Rod’s legacy. We’re not like on the field, you know? And he’s never going to talk about himself from a personal perspective. He’s never going to dig into any of the things that we care about with him. And Rob, like, he would hate us, of course, if the intern who listens to the show for him ever actually played anything for him. But we are at least on the same plane with him. Even if we’re like vectors going in opposite directions on the plane.
ALEX: Yeah. I think that Rob is probably more easily rattled. Like, I think that if we were doing our usual like bit centric, low-key combative, like, shtick, I think Rob would crack—
BOBBY: Rob going on and me being like, “Rob, you’re just a quirked up white boy goated with the sauce. You’ve brought a sort of quirked up white boy goated with the sauce energy to the commissionership.”
ALEX: On the other hand, only one of those two people would do a Power Hour with us, and I don’t think it’s Rob Manfred.
BOBBY: I don’t think it’s A-Rod either though, because I don’t think he actually drinks.
ALEX: You think it’s more like a— like he’s an aesthetic drinker?
BOBBY: He’s like a sponsor for El President— Presidente, yeah, yeah, yeah.
ALEX: He’s like, “I love a glass of bourbon.” And then hands it to the intern once he’s taken a [1:33:01]
BOBBY: Does Rob not drink?
ALEX: I don’t— I don’t know. I just feel like A-Rod gives off more of like a Silicon— Silicon Valley, like work 9:00 to 5:00, party 5:00 to 9:00 guy.
BOBBY: We get asked a lot who is, like, the dream guest. And my answer for that is usually Rob, like, plus truth serum. You know, like, Rob, if he was actually going to come play fucking ball.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, like if there was going to be a pitch clock that he had to adhere to, so to speak. But is that like— is that still your answer? Like, do you— do you agree with that? Is there a better person that you would want to like pie in the sky talk to? Another common answer that we’ve given is Bernie.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean—
BOBBY: Just like it’s becoming less and less likely, you know?
ALEX: I— I—
BOBBY: Because he has less to gain.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, the— the, like, annoying answer is I think the, like, our ideal guest is probably not someone we would think of, is not Bernie Sanders, or Alex Rodriguez, or Rob Manfred. It is someone who has, like, been studying architecture in Baltimore for the last 30 years and has thoughts about the Orioles state, you know? And like— like, I think—
BOBBY: John Angelos, you mean?
ALEX: No, I said architecture, not education.
BOBBY: Oh, shit. Sorry.
ALEX: You know, like I— I have always found that it is those that really— those interviews that I really— and the expertise that fascinate me the most, especially as someone who does come at a lot of this from the perspective of, like, having soaked it all in, but maybe not having done it professionally or studied any of this. All— all I have to offer is my fandom and praxis, you know? Like—
BOBBY: That’s all any of us have to offer.
ALEX: And I look for someone who could meld the two.
BOBBY: I find that to be one of the harder questions that we get frequently, because, like, there are a few people who, like, I think that we are, like, within a couple— you know, like Kevin Bacon Degrees of Separation away from being able to talk to. Like, one of those people is Tony Clark. You know, like, there was like— I— I actually will pull back the curtain for a second. There was—
ALEX: Do it, do it, do it.
BOBBY: —there was like a second where— come on, we’re in hour two of the Power Hour pod, the two-hour— the first two-hour pod ever. People are gonna want to hear all of this stuff. There was a second where after Minor Leagues unionized, the Minor Leagues unionized where some people from the MLBPA were like, “Hey, would you guys want to talk to Tony Clark?” And we were like, “Would we want to talk to Tony? Yes [1:35:39]
ALEX: No, I’m sorry, I’m not free that day.
BOBBY: “Oh, actually, sorry. We’re— we’re no longer interested in labor. You know, we’re no longer interested in hearing from the person who has a lot to say in this— in this realm.” And we were like, “Yeah.” And it never happened, whatever— it never materialized, for whatever reason, busy schedules.
ALEX: Right. He has stuff to do.
BOBBY: You know, changing incentives. He has bigger things on his plate. He has more important media outlets with, like, larger reach to talk to. Even though I think that it would have been a— an interesting conversation, because we would ask more idiosyncratic questions than he would be accustomed to answering, and so it would elicit different sorts of responses. And I think that that had the opportunity to be like a really interesting conversation. I think that it still does, like if anybody is listening to this, and still wants to make the Tony Clark conversation happen, I’m still pro that. So I think that he is one of those people for us. But I— I no longer think that, like, there is one perfect guest—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —that, like, we can have. I think that there are just like a lot of people out there. Surprisingly like— a surprisingly high amount of people out there in the world who just— whose approach to the game is like— approach to the game and, like, the sport and culture is, like, shockingly similar to the very specific way that we approach it, that like it’s made for interesting conversations when I didn’t expect them to be.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Or, like, I didn’t— I wasn’t sure how— like, what our vibe would fit like with other people because of our— because our vibe is so, like, specific. Like Neil deMause is one of those people that we talked to, like, in the last year or so, where I was like, “This is someone who is like an expert in a field that we are only, like, quasi-experts in, you know? That we, like, are interested in, but haven’t spent as much time, like, living in, but also kind of like gets our shtick.” You know, like it’s the fact that we were like very cynical and jokey about all of this, but also we, like, care underneath of that—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —underneath that layer. And so I just— 300 episodes in, I’m like— I remain surprised at how many people want to talk to us, in the way that we talk about the sport.
ALEX: That I agree with. Do I think that Tony Clark will come on after listening to this podcast?
BOBBY: I think he would. You know, he seems like a fun guy.
ALEX: Man of the people.
BOBBY: He is a man of the people.
ALEX: That’s his old job, you can argue.
BOBBY: There’s nothing that I said on this podcast that I wouldn’t say to Tony Clark.
ALEX: You’re gonna cut out the part where you said the union is weaker than it’s ever been in the last 30 years?
Bobbby: No, stop. Stop. The union is stronger than it’s ever been.
ALEX: No, it really is. I mean, in the last—
BOBBY: In the last 30 years.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: One thing that I really appreciate is the MLBPA Communications Twitter account. I’m not even— I’m not even being sarcastic.
ALEX: That can be— I know you’re serious [1:38:17] yeah.
BOBBY: I have Twitter notifications set up for them and I love when they do, like, tweet threads about, like, quotes from Minor Leaguers about the ways—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —that the CBA— the new CBA has impacted their lives.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: To get like really nerdy on you, like I had a large hand doing a lot of that stuff for The Wringer union. It’s like thinking of, like, ways that we can, like, message about the things that we want to fight for. And so, like when I see MLBPA doing that, I’m like, “Hey, man, they’re just like us. They’re just like us.”
ALEX: I mean, I— that is something that has also changed over the course of us doing this podcast, and I think that it has necessitated us to change how we approach the game, right? It’s like the landscape of labor and, like, broader sort of socio-cultural dynamics has really shifted in the last five to six years. And, you know, I think it’s the responsibility of folks you talked about the game to sort of meet that moment with the weight that it deserves, which is not to say that I think that we were, like, the— the— the model, like, media outlet or anything like that. Like, we were like shit-posting in— in verbal for— you know, shit-talk— shit-talking?
BOBBY: No, it— no, but that’s not true, though, because it started out that way and, like, on a lot of weeks, that is how it manifests. But also at the same time, like who else does a deep dive into the CBA like we did? Honestly, honestly, who— like who cared enough to do that? I think most people were totally fine recapping Evan Drellich’s recap of the CBA.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I read the CBA on a highway in Ohio, in the passenger seat, hotspotting my laptop.
ALEX: That’s my favorite Taking Back Sunday song. I don’t know.
BOBBY: That’s not Taking Back Sunday. That’s Death Cab for Cutie.
ALEX: That’s true. I just— I remain amazed that people are, like, interested in that stuff. I saw someone in the Slack saying that they were mad at us. This was actually Nick, the same person who asked the question about what numbers we would change in the baseball world. He said that he was mad at us for making him care about stadium finance, which is, number one, really funny.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And number two, honestly, like validation of what the project is because, like, people should care about that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: People should give a shit about stadium finance, because it actually affects the— the fan experience. And if there’s one thing—
ALEX: If— if— if you’re not a baseball fan, then you should absolutely care about stadium finance.
BOBBY: Yeah. Yeah, you should be like, “Don’t give them any money.”
ALEX: Yeah, that’s mine.
BOBBY: You should— you should care way more. Yeah, you should, like, put that in education, like the Nevada Teachers. But honestly, if there’s one way that we have fulfilled the original mission of the podcast, to— to tie this whole thing in a bow and— and, you know, stop being like self-congratulatory for getting to 300 episodes, it’s like— and by the way, like, we appreciate that everybody has listened to this episode, and every other episode, all 299 other episodes, like, we would not be still be doing this if there were not, like, the overwhelming support and, like, validation that we’ve experienced from people in the community and just like people who have said such nice things to us, and we do not take any of that for granted. But if there’s one thing that I feel like we have accomplished from the original mission that we set out to, is that I feel like we have carved out a space to be able to talk about really— like really nitty-gritty stuff like that, that other places are not talking about. And, like, when we started the show, we were like, “Oh, we’re gonna have a version— that we’re gonna have a conversation that is a version of baseball talk that we don’t see other people having.” And then we didn’t know that it was gonna be like labor and finance—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —and, like, macro-economics. It just so happened to become that with, like, some bits working in. And the fact that they were like— have been people who would care enough to listen to that and submit questions for this absurd and ridiculous episode, in relation to that project is, like, humbling and overwhelming. And, like, I’m very appreciative of that.
ALEX: And can I just say? We’ll be kind of forced our hand on that one. They didn’t leave us a lot of options.
BOBBY: They were like, “We’re gonna make this the only thing that matters.”
ALEX: I mean, like genuinely—
BOBBY: Other people— other people inviting us on their pods be like, “You guys are the only ones that have been covering this for the last three years.”
ALEX: Well, I— I— I don’t know if it’s just because we— we do this on a weekly basis and we are very entrenched in the communities to talk about these sorts of things. But I— I really do feel like— and this— you know, I mean, goes back to a question that was asked about sort of, like, strikes and the current labor moment, right? And the broader awareness of class politics. But I— but I do think that in the last few years that we’ve done this that the— the divide in baseball, and sort of those that control the levers of power, and those who participate in it has become much more clear and is— it necessitated a response to that. Which, again, we’re far from the only people to have done— and if we’re being honest, I have seen more fan animus in the last few years towards MLB the institution than I have, say, like, broader sort of media sentiment, right? Of like— of like whether or not to kind of trust MLB the corporation. And it’s been really cool to see. I do think MLB has forced, like, fans’ hands a little bit to pick a side.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And so we were maybe a by— like a— you know, a casualty of that, so to speak, a byproduct of that, as someone who wanted to talk about the game from a fan’s perspective.
BOBBY: I think we were more than a casualty.
ALEX: Yes. Of course, of course, of course.
BOBBY: Like, I think that we were pretty intentional about it. I think that we were like, “Let’s make this a class war.”
ALEX: But how—
BOBBY: “How do we make a baseball a class war?”
ALEX: Well— but I think that we approached it from the perspective of let’s talk about this, like, as someone who is not necessarily paid to cover the sport, and doesn’t, like, have a literal vested interest in the game outside of wanting to enjoy it. And, like, do the things that we’ve done for the last like 20— 25 years. Yeah, not a— not a casualty, but I think Manfred and MLB writ large—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —did force people like us to make a decision.
BOBBY: I mean, I think that part of that was because they put the labor guy in charge of the whole league. They put the guy that was like worried about negotiating CBA is in charge of the whole shebang.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And he, unsurprisingly, made the whole league about labor, and like it just became— I don’t— I don’t know if that’s like— I don’t know if that feels true to other people, but, like, most things in baseball now, like I filter through the lens of, like, the way that we think about the stuff. And that could be like an— you know, an internet poison, like, podcast poison approach to the game. But I do feel like it’s like way more present than it was when— when a guy like Bud Selig who was like much more savvy as a commissioner in, like, how he negotiated talking about like the artifice of the game and like the history of the game than Manfred is. Where he’s like— he’s had— he’s had moments throughout his tenure as commissioner, where he has, like, made a casual fan think about and talk about the game in a way that we would. You know, like when he called the World Series trophy a hunk of metal, he had a whole lot of people acting like we act—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —on a week-to-week basis. So, like, I think that he has been a large part of that, and I think that, like, the last six years of this pod, like the last six and a half years of this pod, have been inextricably tied to the changes that he has also made to the game.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, I agree, which is— I’m part— like, I’m part of why— you know, I mean, we joked about it earlier, but when the question comes up of like, “Well, would you take Manfred or read— would you take another commissioner?” I— Manfred’s— Manfred has done a lot to, like, get the average fan on board with a lot of the things we talked about. Like— and for that—
BOBBY: Thanks, Rob.
ALEX: —I do kind of have to tip my captain.
BOBBY: Please come on the podcast to talk about that, Rob.
ALEX: And speaking of other questions that were— that were addressed earlier, I think we have some to return to.
BOBBY: We do, yes. We highlighted a handful of questions that we wanted to go back to, because we didn’t have enough time, or that we just felt like we needed to explore in more depth. Time to play the hits again. Time to revisit all of the hard-hitting and the, like, capital-J Journalism questions that we got—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —in this Power Hour. By the way, if you submitted a question, and you did not hear your question, there is a decent chance that I have siphoned it out for future use in a mailbag episode. So I— I really want to say— I know that you already said this at the top of the show, but I really want to say like a heartfelt thank you to everybody who submitted questions for this episode. Like, we clearly could not have done this episode without your funny and— like funny and insightful, and effective questions for this ridiculous idea that we had to do with this episode. So thank you to everybody who submitted. There were a lot of questions where I was just like, “I don’t think that Alex and I can both answer this in a minute, or I would rather just answer it in a longer form.” And so a lot of those questions will be answered on a future mailbag segments on our pod. Let’s go back to those questions that we highlighted.
ALEX: The capital-J Journalism. Let’s start off with Becca’s.
BOBBY: Which players do you think have to count the most and the least sheep to fall asleep at night? I— I honestly don’t remember why we highlighted this one.
ALEX: Well, we highlighted it be— the Power Hour is showing. We highlighted it because you think it takes Nick Castellanos—
BOBBY: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
ALEX: —the— the most amount of sheep. And I think that he’s more of like a— like a Reddit, like our shower thoughts kind of guy, where it’s not like—
BOBBY: I think that he just likes to count the sheep. Like, I think he thinks the sheep are nice. He’s like, “I want to see how high I can get this week.” You know?
ALEX: Right. I— I can trust that.
BOBBY: You’re right. I mean, you’re right. He—
ALEX: I— like it feels like the kind of like—
BOBBY: There’s not a lot going on in that guy’s head.
ALEX: It’s not like a—
BOBBY: But there’s also a lot going on his head.
ALEX: I could not have put it better, if we’re being quite honest.
BOBBY: I think everybody listening knows what I mean.
ALEX: Yes. Which is why both of our answers are right.
BOBBY: Like, he thinks he’s having— he think he’s having, like, such deep thoughts and everyone is just kind of like, “All right, guy.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Our guy.
ALEX: So then again, I think it’s an open question, you know?
BOBBY: Can we, for just like a brief second, talk about the fact that just, like, the Phillies vibes are immaculate?
ALEX: Right. It’s just unmatched right now.
BOBBY: Do you have any regrets about picking the Phillies, like you— because of what you’ve done to me? Like, you’ve sent me down a deep spiral.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Over whether or not I should value the things that my friends love, or the things that I hate. You know, like that is— you haven’t had to make that choice. You were never like, “I hate the Mets.”
ALEX: True.
BOBBY: So have you had any second thoughts about that?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Because I’ve enabled you, right?
ALEX: Yes. Yeah. Because—
BOBBY: I bought you Phillies merchandise.
ALEX: —every week on this podcast—
BOBBY: I’ve made it seem cool to be a Phillies fan.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Why is that?
ALEX: That— that’s an internal question you have to wrestle with. [1:50:04]
BOBBY: Hour two of the Power Hour pod, like should I just go full therapy mode with you right now?
ALEX: I mean, kind of.
BOBBY: Should I talk about how I’m trying to reclaim my trauma—
ALEX: How is it making you feel?
BOBBY: —of being a Mets fan in Philadelphia territory? And I’m trying to make that relationship positive in my life.
ALEX: See, the thing is I don’t know if it’s a bit right now.
BOBBY: It’s not a bit.
ALEX: Okay, just making sure. I’ll let you go off. I’ll give you the space. It’s a two-hour pod. We got the time.
BOBBY: It’s just— it’s nice— it’s nice to have a healthy relationship with the Phillies, honestly. Honestly, it’s like a healthy normal relationship with the Phillies where there are not like adults bullying when I’m a child. Also like— it is— we’re— we’re in, like, you know, minute 95, maybe more—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —of like a two-hour pod, I will just say, like, HEAVYSLIME, the, like, clothing brand—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —has been like a big— like a bellwether in making me normalize the Phillies.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: you know, like I— I relate to HEAVYSLIME, the— the clothing designer, Eric Kenney is his name. I— I have a lot of his stuff. I like— I like support Philadelphia now. It’s weird.
ALEX: You’re one step removed,
BOBBY: No, like, I am. And I’m like— I like the music. I like—
ALEX: [1:51:15]
BOBBY: —the just, like, the urban vibe, you know? Like, I like the type of person who is like, “I will fight for Philadelphia, I will support for Phil— I will support Philadelphia. It’s like a good hard-working city.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, I’m starting to have, like, pride over my hometown and a—
ALEX: That’s a dangerous thing to do.
BOBBY: It’s really dangerous, especially when, like, I’m, like, actively invested in hating the sports teams.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: There’s like a lot of things pulling in the opposite directions for me. I just— I just wanted to share that for everybody and for you.
ALEX: Well, I almost just want to let you keep going. I’m like— it feels like we just scratched the surface.
BOBBY: Eh, next, next. Maybe on the 400th episode. Maybe in the next Power Hour. Nat, we’re coming back to your question, “Do your bosses and co-workers know about and/or listen to this podcast?” I believe that highlighted this one because this was the topic of conversation between us recently.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: About your new co-workers.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, I’ll— I’ll refrain from details. But there was an open question about, like, what the hell this whole project is?
BOBBY: It must seem—
ALEX: Like, it’s a thing to be worried about.
BOBBY: It must seems so weird to people who, like, aren’t in podcasting like art—
ALEX: Yeah. Oh, it was— it was a fair question.
BOBBY: —like art.
ALEX: I just want to point out.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I didn’t have a good answer for it.
BOBBY: We’re like— aren’t in, like, the media or podcasting world. Like for me, I’ve actually always felt like pretty normal about doing the show, because it was something that I was doing before I started working at The Ringer and like something that I was just like—
ALEX: I’m powering through that motorcycle.
BOBBY: —I’m gonna—I’m gonna like— I’m gonna— I don’t even care at this point. Like, we’re on— we’re on beer number seven, hour number two. You know, we’re in uncharted waters, just like I said at the top of the show. But like it— it was just like I wanted to be in podcasting and so I started my own podcast. And this is a thing that has been going on since before I started working here. It only makes sense that I would continue to do it and it’s like very much not a Ringer style show, so I’m just gonna keep doing it on my own. And that was like end— you know, end of conversation. But then like for you, you actually don’t work in this field.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So now— now, it just— it’s like a really way out of left field like hobby that you do. It’s almost like— it’s almost like if you had a co-worker who was, like, really into like— like, free soloing mountains.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And, like, on the weekend, they were like, “I free soloed a mountain.”
ALEX: Right. And you’re like, “I don’t think this impacts our work, but I supposed—”
BOBBY: But what if he fell—
ALEX: “—big picture, it could.”
BOBBY: What if he fell and died?
ALEX: That is what my new co-workers asked me. Yeah.
BOBBY: Hey, congrats on the new job. I’m really happy for you. You’re gonna be great. Any organization would be lucky to have you—
ALEX: Thanks, Bob.
BOBBY: —including thing Tipping Pitches media.
ALEX: Thanks, Bob.
BOBBY: We are lucky to have you. We, being you and me, are lucky to have you.
ALEX: You are my biggest fan, so—
BOBBY: I am, I am. I even normalize Philadelphia Phillies culture for you. Adam, “Over-under, January 1st, 2028 when the first MLB team is sold to a foreign entity.” I highlighted this because I feel like we rushed through it a little bit.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: This is like a huge thing.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like this is gonna— this— this has potential to be, like, the next big thing that— that becomes like a staple of our show—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —that we talked about. Like, I would say that those things over the years have been like, you know, labor fights, CBA fights.
ALEX: Right. Like Minor League unionization.
BOBBY: Minor league unionization. Sports betting, a more recent one.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Which I just wrote a— a long and potentially slightly unhinged newsletter about.
ALEX: Not unhinged at all. You all should give it a read.
BOBBY: Hey, thank you. That’s very nice. It’s always fun when we like— when one of us, like, write something and the other person reads it and is like, “Hey, we used to do this
a lot.”
ALEX: “This is like— hey, you’re really good at this.”
BOBBY: Oh, nobody gives a shit about writing anymore, so we’re just doing pods. Sports betting is one of those things. Alex Rodriguez is one of those things.
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: Just like Rob— like Rob’s tenure and, like, the things that he’s cared about and, like, put his focus into. Owner behavior and, like, the ways that they’ve warped the game towards their interests. Like aside from labor, you know, like, from a macroeconomic perspective, like, that’s been like a recurring theme on the show that we’ve talked about a lot. And I— I just feel like we might be— maybe even slightly underrating how much, like, foreign interest in the game unlike American sports, is going to become a topic of conversation. And not just Major League Baseball, but like sports in general. I— I— I think it’s like— the— the groundwork is laid.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it’s already taking hold in other sports. We just talked a couple of weeks ago about the UAE’s new baseball league endorsed by one Nick Swisher. So, like, you’re— you’re right that—
BOBBY: That hurts.
ALEX: I— it— it feels more nigh than maybe we think it is. Now, do I think that a— do I think that an entire franchise is going to be owned— like primarily owned by a foreign entity before 2028? No.
BOBBY: But like did—
ALEX: But it’s not going to take that long.
BOBBY: —did Manchester City fans think that their team was going to be owned by the Saudis? No. And then the Saudis were like, “We’d like to buy that team.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm. And which is really helping us.
BOBBY: [1:56:43] sure. That’s a lot of money.
ALEX: Yeah. You make them an offer they can’t refuse.
BOBBY: I’m going to spiral if we talk more about that. Okay. Let’s go to our next highlighted question. Next one comes from Molly. Hi, Molly. “Which MLB team should relocate to London, England?” said the Mets. I actually don’t remember what you said.
ALEX: I said the Red Sox, right? Just get John Henry out of here.
BOBBY: Oh, because you wanted to get John Henry out of the—
ALEX: Yeah. This may have been a you highlight. I don’t know what— I don’t know what more you had to say on this. Just that you’re gonna be living there anyway so, like, might as well.
BOBBY: Well, yes, that— and that’s why I chose the Mets because I would like to watch my hometown team not five hours ahead. You know, I mean, I— I do stay up until 3:00 a.m. so like, I would be able to watch the Mets.
ALEX: Okay. Wait, wait, wait. So— so I have a question for you, then.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Is— which is— what— do you have an answer to this question that would change like in a vacuum? Like— okay. Pretend you are not also moving to London, England. Would your answer still be the Mets?
BOBBY: I think I meant— I think I meant to also highlight Jack’s question before this, that was, “If you couldn’t live in New York and couldn’t live in your hometown, where would you choose?”
ALEX: So, are these two questions inextricably linked?
BOBBY: They are kind of linked in my mind.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You know? Because, like, I was like, “London. I would like to live there.” You know, they have— they have good movie culture. They have a good sports culture.
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: It’s a very cosmopolitan city. It’s walkable.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, I’ve enjoyed my time there over the years.
ALEX: Very cosmopolitan. Okay.
BOBBY: It’s close to Paris. I like Paris. I really like their— I just really love London’s culture of just, like, drinking during the day and, like, not being weird about it, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Just having Guinness on tab all the time.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. That’s the British culture right there.
BOBBY: It’s actually Irish culture.
ALEX: I know, right? I’m like—
BOBBY: But they’ve, like, co-opted it, so it’s okay. I highlighted this question, because London seems like the place that Major League Baseball, for some reason, is most interested in cornering.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Why is that?
ALEX: Because the fans speak English.
BOBBY: Is that— what do you think— like, is that what you think?
ALEX: I mean, I— I— I don’t—
BOBBY: Is there something about baseball that seems uniquely appealing to, like, Londoners or like British people? You know, like did they look and be like, “Oh, here”— like the soccer culture is like you— like the soccer culture has a lot of overlap with baseball.
ALEX: No, I think the cricket culture might be a bit more.
BOBBY: Interesting.
ALEX: Although I also don’t think—
BOBBY: You’d think how MLB has not gone to India.
ALEX: I— well, yeah. I— I also think—
BOBBY: I think that’s kind of far.
ALEX: I— like I do think that all of this is speculation. If you—
BOBBY: No, no, no. This is deeply sourced.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: You know people on the inside of the commissioner’s office.
ALEX: On the one hand, I want to be like, “Well, if you watch cricket, you have an— like a relative understanding of some of the basic moves of this sort of game. On the other hand—”
BOBBY: Well, like throwing a ball and hitting a ball?
ALEX: Yes, basically. On the other hand, if you already watch that sport, would you watch—
BOBBY: God, I know the—
ALEX: —another one? Like, probably not.
BOBBY: Oh, I know that executives think that way, though.
ALEX: Uh-huh. Right.
BOBBY: I know— I know that they’re like, “Ah, baseball is just a better version of cricket. We’ll steal those fans.”
ALEX: But, like, it’s just the same language, you know?
BOBBY: It’s kind of actually insulting in a way.
ALEX: Yeah. I— yeah.
BOBBY: But I’ll— I’ll— I— I will say actually, though, that like the fandom in London seems legit. It— like there are, like—
ALEX: The baseball fandom?
BOBBY: The baseball fandom in—
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: —London is legit. Like, there are, like, whole communities dedicated to specific teams. Like, it is like flushed out there in a way that is not maybe in other locations that Major League Baseball, like, would like to have a sort of like one baseball, colonialist presence with.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: There’s like a much more direct, like, cultural and corporate exchange between America and London, America and the UK.
ALEX: I mean—
BOBBY: In a way that there isn’t in like other countries.
ALEX: And I—
BOBBY: And London does not have its own burgeoning league that MLB has to compete with.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: Where like the DR— you know, DR does, and Japan does, and South Korea does. And like MLB has had a— had a— they’ve, like, made inroads in those places, but it’s been sort of like a third rail to, like, the actual baseball culture in those locations.
ALEX: Right. Well, there also is not a dis— as you meant— like— like there’s not a distinct baseball culture necessarily that exists there. Like, there is a thriving baseball community of fans.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But there is not something that feels like a different flavor than what is played in the US, right? Whereas I think that Major League Baseball probably looks at baseball in, say, Latin America and says, “Well, that’s like just a little bit different than what we’re doing.”
BOBBY: And better.
ALEX: And better, right. Now, whether or not that’s true is an open question. But I think they probably feel like there’s more of a blank slate there that— and— like, I don’t want to keep coming back to language, but I think that the fact that Rob Manfred doesn’t need an interpreter when he goes over there makes a difference. And— and genuinely, I don’t think—
BOBBY: It’s just more cost effective.
ALEX: I don’t think— why would I think about this?
BOBBY: “Why would I pay an interpreter?”
ALEX: Like, I’m not even kidding, though. You know, I think they’re like— this is the easiest— it makes the most sense.
BOBBY: I also feel, like, actually one thing about the UK and about like— like Western Europe, its relationship to sports that is like uniquely appealing to Major League Baseball and American sports interests. Like, the NFL does this, too. You know, like MLB is not the only league that has tried to, like, make inroads in London. Like, there’s an NFL London game every year too, where they play in Wembley Stadium. There is like a nakedly capitalist approach to, like, television rights and, like, the broadcasting of sports and, like, the big business of sports. In the UK, where, like, the recent TV deal with the Premier League, like, puts Major League Baseball’s regional cable deals to shame. Like the—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And the Champions League, too. Like those— those teams have become so, like, fucking rich that basically like the stratification between those teams and the lower-level teams is such that like— it makes MLB teams even jealous with their, you know, antitrust exemption. You know, they’re like, “Who cares if they— if we have an antitrust exemption? Like they’re making way more money than us.” And so I think that they probably see a little bit of that pie and they’re like, “Hey, let’s— let’s— let’s get in on that new markets.” You know? There’s nothing you can sell to investors like new markets.
ALEX: New markets.
BOBBY: Emerging. Sorry, wait. Emerging markets. Emerging new customers.
ALEX: That’s risk analyst Bobby right there.
BOBBY: You think I should make a hard career pivot?
ALEX: You wouldn’t have to worry about your co-workers listening to the podcast anymore.
BOBBY: Can I tell you something about London, England?
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: I’ve recently been informed that there’s a Philadelphia Phillies bar in London, England—
ALEX: Yes, that’s right.
BOBBY: —that has stained glass windows with Philadelphia Phillies players on those windows.
ALEX: They are already beating us at baseball.
BOBBY: Well, one, they’re already beating us at baseball, because they’re much cooler than us. Because London is the best city on Earth.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Number two—
ALEX: Because this is a pro England pod. This is an anti-American Revolution podcast.
BOBBY: I mean, come on, it’s— of course it is. That’s number one. Number two, are we gonna go to that— are we gonna go to that bar next year when we go to the MLB London series?
ALEX: Like, when— when is that happening, Bobby?
BOBBY: When we go to the MLB London series?
ALEX: Is this breaking news?
BOBBY: Is this breaking news?
ALEX: We haven’t bought our tickets yet, so—
BOBBY: What, do you think they’re gonna run out of tickets?
ALEX: I— I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know how it works.
BOBBY: All right, fine. You don’t want to tell the people that we’re going to the London series next year.
ALEX: I want to tell the people. Let’s do it right here.
BOBBY: Alex and I are gonna go to the London series next year and we’re going to cover it like doofuses. We’re gonna have a great time. We’re gonna do some cultural exchange.
ALEX: Yeah. We’re gonna do a Power Hour with—
BOBBY: [2:05:11] listeners. I’m gonna stay. I’m not gonna come back. Do you want to talk more about where you would live if— if you couldn’t live in New York, your hometown? The thing that I forgot to highlight. Or do you want to just move on? What was your answer?
ALEX: Like—
BOBBY: Oh, Bozeman.
ALEX: —Wyoming— or Montana or whatever.
BOBBY: Yeah, Bozeman.
ALEX: Just because I— I met someone from Montana today. It was the first state I can think of.
BOBBY: Oh, interesting. Where are your real answers to that? Because you’re like— you— you actually care about this stuff. Like, you actually think about cities and, like, sustainable cities, and you studied this in college. And, like you have— you have, like, refined opinions about this. Not just like bullshit, I met someone from Montana opinions. So, like, what is your real answer?
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: Because— because, like, I— I would actually like live— I would live in London, you know? It’s kind of hard to do the moving because London jobs don’t— don’t pay very well. So you kinda have to, like, be from there already, you know? But, like, London—
ALEX: I mean, it’s an offset by, like, rent?
BOBBY: No. I don’t know. It’s like a— this is like— this is like a different conversation. But, like, I— in my life, like, I have genuinely thought like, “Oh, I would like to try to live like in a foreign country, like London, Rome, Milan.” Like, these are all places that I have thought like, “Oh, I would actually try to live there if, like, circumstances were beneficial towards that kind of idea.” But, like, there are plenty of places in the United States that I would— would have liked to try to live, too. You know, if I didn’t waste four years of my life living in Los Angeles.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So, like, what— what— I mean, what is your answer? Like, New York was one of those places for you.
ALEX: I— I mean—
BOBBY: Here you are, baby, a city that never sleeps. You know, you’re doing fucking Power Hour pods with me on a Tuesday.
ALEX: Yeah. I didn’t know what I was signing up for. I mean, I—
BOBBY: This is what you’re signing up for.
ALEX: Genuinely, I mean, I— I joked like Montana or whatever, but I am interested— I read like Walden once in high school, you know, and was like, “This is my guy.”
BOBBY: Walden is kind of good.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Good piece of writing.
ALEX: Shout-out to— to Jenny Jack, my— my sophomore to junior English teacher. That’s right.
BOBBY: Do you know that my junior year English teacher— let me just tell you a little bit of Bob Lore.
ALEX: Yeah. Pull back the curtain.
BOBBY: When I was in high school— think about the city that you want to live in, by the way, while I’m telling the story.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So that you can actually have an answer—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —and we can move on. So that this is not the first two-hour and the first three-hour podcasts that we ever do. When I was in high school, I was like a real science guy. Like, I took a lot of AP science classes. I thought— I thought that I wanted to be—
ALEX: This guy took APs.
BOBBY: I thought that I wanted to be an engineer and, like, I made my life miserable for three years out of my high school because I was like, “Oh, I’m taking all these classes and, like, putting a lot of stress on myself.” I, deep in my core, wanted to be a writer. I wanted— I wanted to be like a fiction writer, which is actually kind of insane, but also was like in— interested in journalism, interested in, like, persuasive writing, and that sort of thing. But I was like, “I can’t get a job doing that.” I was, like, taking this very practical approach to life at 16—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —which was like a dumb thing to do. And my junior year English teacher, I was in AP, you know, language and writing, or whatever it’s called. And she was like, “You clearly care so much about writing. Like, you clearly put so much effort into this and you, like, want to talk about it, and you, like, are so invested in this class. Like, do you feel that way about science?” And I was like, “No. Like, I feel like I’m doing this out of obligation. I feel like I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do.” And she was like, “You’re gonna, like, hate your life. Like if you do this, like don’t go to a college and study engineering just because you think it’s the right thing to do and it will get you the right job.” And I was like— I had a real, like, come to Jesus moment, and I was like, “Okay. I guess I’m going to NYU. I guess I’m gonna study journalism.” And that led me to this podcast, that led me to meet you, that led me to start this podcast with you, that led me into media, that led me into my whole career now. This was like one person who was—
ALEX: What was that teacher’s name?
BOBBY: Her name was Maryann Daley.
ALEX: Maryann Daley.
BOBBY: And I like, you know, kept up with her. Like, she’s like a friend, you know?
ALEX: Does she listen?
BOBBY: I don’t think she listens. She might, she might. But, honestly, like, that is the power that like a good teacher who actually gives a shit, who like identifies—
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: —the thing in a person and, like, stokes can have. Anyway, that was my way of vamping to give you time to think about what city that you want to live in.
ALEX: I mean, again, do I have one city that, like, answers those question? I don’t know. I have always been really attracted to, like, Brazil and sort of a lot of their— just like urban organization, I guess. They especially have a lot of— they’ve done a lot of work around sustainability and like renewable green cities, and that has always just really intrigued me. I mean, also like— I mean, I don’t know. Now, I’m just going back to historically— cities I read about and I’m like, “Oh, they have public housing. That’s cool.” But, like, you know—
BOBBY: So if you—
ALEX: —like, Vienna— like Vienna in Austria was, like, for a long time, like, really the model of, like, what public housing, like, looks like. And so, like, is that where I want to live? Like, I don’t know. But I’ve always been really fascinated with just how other cities, other countries organize their societies and, like, house people, because that is one of the fundamental questions. And one of the fundamental questions that we sure as hell haven’t figured out.
BOBBY: Not only have we not figured it out, we’ve, like, actively tried not to figure it out.
ALEX: Right. We have contributed to the problem.
BOBBY: We’ve revolutionized fucking it up.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know?
ALEX: Yeah. And so it might be nice to live somewhere where, like, they didn’t try to
do that.
BOBBY: Do you remember our senior year of college when we were living together and I was reading Evicted by Matt Desmond?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And then I gave it to you and I was like, “I’m gonna give this to you, because you should read it, but also don’t read it, because it’ll ruin your life.”
ALEX: Yeah. For what it’s worth, I didn’t read it, so—
BOBBY: You should read it. You should read it.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: Now, that you’re at a stable place in your life. You know, you’re married.
ALEX: Now that I’m— yeah.
BOBBY: You have a job, you have a home. You sort of solidified your beliefs in the world.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You can handle it.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You can handle the fact that like humanity is totally fucked.
ALEX: Really bleak. Now, that I’m all right.
BOBBY: For— for those— those listening at home, it’s— it’s like one of the best books. Like one of the best ethnographically written nonfiction books I’ve ever read. Evicted by Matt Desmond. Okay. Now, to talk about Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I—
ALEX: I had more on Vienna, Austria.
BOBBY: I highlighted this question because it seemed like you had more to say about The National and Bon Iver, and I just kind of want to let you— let you cook, you know? Because I’m pretty Anti-National and anti-Bon Iver too, but I want to hear more with regards to your thoughts on Taylor Swift’s collaborations with those two folks.
ALEX: I am actually not— maybe not as anti-National. I think Taylor and Aaron Dessner— what are we even doing right now? First of all—
BOBBY: What— what are we ever doing?
ALEX: Second of all—
BOBBY: Do you remember the time that we recorded a podcast that was, like, 45 minutes, like, serious baseball chat and then 45 minutes Midnights album review? That was so sick when we did that.
ALEX: That was sick, and you, like, didn’t have a microphone, right?
BOBBY: I forgot my microphone and had to record with, like, the internal Zoom microphone.
ALEX: Like, actually, one of the more stressful recordings we’ve ever done, I think.
BOBBY: Yeah, we did it after we did like a— a conversation with like a journalism class at Rowan University.
ALEX: And there was an hour of us just head in hands be like, “How’s this gonna work?” And then it did.
BOBBY: Good times. And then it did, and everybody really liked it. I was like, “Yeah, Midnights, I thought it’s great.”
ALEX: I think Taylor’s collaboration with Aaron Dessner is quite fine. I don’t dislike it. I don’t love it all, but I like not all—
BOBBY: I like her collaboration with Aaron Dessner. I don’t like when, like, The National guy was— the— the guy who actually sings for The National. I don’t like when he sings on her songs, because then it just becomes about him and his, like, deep voice.
ALEX: Not a Coney Island fan.
BOBBY: I’m not. No, I don’t like that song.
ALEX: Just like— the— that’s the song that, like, did not stand out to me at first and just grew on me immensely. Isn’t that like Matt Behringer or something?
BOBBY: Yeah. I actually don’t—
ALEX: Wait, what is his actual name?
BOBBY: I don’t know.
ALEX: Oh, I thought this is what you’re looking up.
BOBBY: No. Yeah, Matt Berninger. You’re close. Behringer is the name of an audio company.
ALEX: Matt Behringer was a kid I went to elementary school with, so I’m just like pulling out deep cuts from elementary school, middle school.
BOBBY: I—
ALEX: I hope they’re all listening.
BOBBY: —am not a fan of Bon Iver’s music, necessarily. I think that— like, I understand the vibe, like I— I get it. I just don’t ever want to just like fire it up.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I think Exile is like truly a transcendent song, and you’re a hater?
ALEX: I— it’s— I’ve never been a fan.
BOBBY: Wow. Interesting. Even with the Gator in the [2:14:51] sessions.
ALEX: I, like, really liked Evermore, like the last song on that album.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: A duet with him.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I don’t know. It kind of banged. I also like—
BOBBY: “I don’t know. It kind of banged.”
ALEX: I don’t— like I don’t know. It kind of slapped. Also, I was like a Bright Eyes guy, right? And so I feel like—
BOBBY: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You weren’t just like a Bright Eyes guy. You can’t just, like, let that slide through. That’d be like me being like, “Nah, I sort of was into Paramore.” You were like— like Bright Eyes was like the animating musical act of your life for more than five years.
ALEX: Right. It was, like, them and Wilco. Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, like, let’s just not— let’s not like pretend. You know, like, let’s not just let’s— let’s not understate things—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —this long into the pod. Your— Conor Oberst is your guy.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And frankly, I was out. I was out, all the way out on him for years. And then I discovered the [2:15:47] and I was like, “I get it. I was wrong. I was wrong. I’m bending the knee. I was wrong. He’s right. You’re right. I was wrong.”
ALEX: We all have our [2:15:55]
BOBBY: In a way that I don’t do often.
ALEX: Yeah. Admit you’re wrong.
BOBBY: Exactly. Anyway, you were a Bright Eyes guy. How does that relate to Bon Iver?
ALEX: Oh, this is the Jack Antonoff question that we’re on? I’m just making sure.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: I don’t know. Just another sad—
BOBBY: I actually—
ALEX: —white indie dude.
BOBBY: I would be interested in her collaboration with him. He’s too much of a—
ALEX: I’m fascinated.
BOBBY: He’s— he’s too much of a wild card, like as a person—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —for her to ever actually collaborate with.
ALEX: I mean, I send all the love to him in the world and, like, hope he’s okay—
BOBBY: No. No.
ALEX: —right now, honestly.
BOBBY: Me, too.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I— I just feel like he is like less, like, predictable, controllable, like public relations, sanded down as a person, as an artist, to the point where, like, she would not— probably not collaborate with him. Like, she would collaborate with Phoebe Bridgers who is like in that world, too.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But it’s like—
ALEX: Who has just elaborated with Conor, but like—
BOBBY: Exactly. But it’s like one degree removed from that sort of, like, unpredictability—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —that, like, Conor Oberst has.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But I think that it would be good creatively. Honestly, I’d be interested.
ALEX: Well, Taylor, if you’re listening— or Connor, if you’re listening. I think Connor is more likely.
BOBBY: To be listening to Tipping Pitches?
ALEX: Only marginally.
BOBBY: Do you— you find— you think Conor Oberst is a podcast guy? Frankly, I think some—
ALEX: I think— I think they both—
BOBBY: —some of the songs feel like podcast sometimes.
ALEX: Well, the way he preaches? I think— think they both find—
BOBBY: And I— you know about this—
ALEX: —distinct things to dislike in our podcast.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: Taylor, all the unlicensed music [2:17:31]
BOBBY: Come on. Come on. Well, what would Conor dislike?
ALEX: He has never struck me as a sports guy.
[laughter]
BOBBY: Do you know how many times I’ve tried to start my Bright Eyes era?
ALEX: I do, actually.
BOBBY: Yeah, of course you do. Because every time I do, I text you about it. I’m like, “I’m listening to Fevers and Mirrors again.”
ALEX: And saying— and saying, “I’m leaving my Bright Eyes era again.”
BOBBY: You know, I’ve only ever tried it on planes—
[laughter]
BOBBY: —because, like, that’s my— that’s my time, like for trying out new music where I’m not— I’m not going anywhere. I’m a captive audience. Like, I’m going to try out new stuff that I’ve never gotten into, planes.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I have nowhere else to go, I have nothing else to do besides listen to this music. Like, when I’m, like, walking to the subway, I want to listen to something that I can, like, move along to that I already know.
ALEX: Right,
BOBBY: That I can, like, you know, air drum to, like embarrass myself in public to. Like you’re— “Here comes so, so, so again. Here comes morbid stuff.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know? Wow, we’re— wow, we’re—
ALEX: Are there other questions you wanted to get back to?
BOBBY: We are so deep.
ALEX: It’s fine.
BOBBY: We are so deep.
ALEX: This is the only way the two-hour pod was going to happen, to be very clear, is to get very deep on things that did not need that.
BOBBY: The point of doing the two-hour pod was to make people never feel like they ever wanted another two-hour pod.
ALEX: Right. This is a careful what you wish for.
BOBBY: Exactly, because you just might get it. Greg, “Are there more wheels or doors in the world?” I just— I highlighted this one because like— not because I think we’re gonna get to a deeper truth, but because I truly want to let Greg have his moment. I’m not overstating when I say that this is one of the best questions I’ve ever been asked.
ALEX: So, I— I think this circulated as like a viral question like a year or two ago, and I met— I missed it.
BOBBY: Yeah, I didn’t see that.
ALEX: Like the discourse of it.
BOBBY: The only discourse that I ever see is like whether Olivia Rodrigo was a valid artist. People are just like, “This is your queen, Gen Z?”
ALEX: That’s the six-hour episode.
BOBBY: I’m like, “Please be normal.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “Please be fucking normal.”
ALEX: Like, she’s 19.
BOBBY: She’s 20.
ALEX: Just whatever like—
BOBBY: She’s 20. She’s 20.
ALEX: It’s cool.
BOBBY: The songs are good.
ALEX: It’s cool. It’s fine.
BOBBY: There’s good songs and there’s less than good songs.
ALEX: Yeah. Mostly good songs, if I’m being honest.
BOBBY: Mostly good.
ALEX: See— all right. This is why you make an album. I’m just saying. Real ones know. The thing is, what’s a door, right? Like—
BOBBY: So for the purposes of this question, I treated a door as I, like, assault the microphone.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I treated the door as like a door with the handle and hinges. It’s not just like— like any fucking cave can’t be a door. You know, because then it’s like— then, of course, there’s more doors. There’s like archways that you could walk through that can be classified as doors.
ALEX: Well— yeah. I mean, I— I think—
BOBBY: Like a window is not a door, it’s a window.
ALEX: I— okay. What about a cabinet?
BOBBY: Door.
ALEX: That’s a door? Like a cabinet door?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Well, what else would it be? It’s not a window. But a drawer is not a door.
ALEX: No, you’re right about that.
BOBBY: It’s only a cabinet that swings up and has— have hinges, hinges. hinges.
ALEX: So like—
BOBBY: Have you ever built a door? It’s fucking hard as shit.
ALEX: Have I ever built a door? It’s one piece of wood. What’s there to build?
BOBBY: No, no, no. Like putting the door on the hinges.
ALEX: Well, I’ve taken the door off the hinges.
BOBBY: Why?
ALEX: To get my fucking couch through the—
BOBBY: Oh, true. True. I built an— I— I— me and my partner built a piece of Ikea furniture that you had to put doors on the hinges, like two doors, and, like, tried to have them lined up. I just— I don’t envy carpenters.
ALEX: What’s— what’s— what are the circumstances under which you need to build a door?
BOBBY: When you buy an Ikea furniture.
ALEX: Was— so this is like a cabinet, then?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: It’s the armbar that’s like eight feet to your right, through a wall.
ALEX: See, I thought you were like— rented an apartment and there were like— but the doors—
BOBBY: Built—
ALEX: —are— the doors are self-installed.
BOBBY: One time, my closet door, in this apartment that we’re sitting in right now, just, like, came off the hinge. It was like I had to work it back on. I love landlords. I still think there are more doors, but kind of it’s not close. This is like one of those questions where like—
ALEX: Or maybe not, you know?
BOBBY: When I was younger, I used to like— you know, because I grew up Catholic. Because, you know—
ALEX: Famously.
BOBBY: Kind of famously, yeah. I mean, like Catholic— Catholic guilt never leaves you for— some might say. And I was like— I was made to think about the afterlife a lot, and I was thinking like, “What would be a good version of the afterlife?” You know, like, what would be a version of the afterlife where I’d be like, “This is cool. This is sweet. This was worth it.” You know? And—
ALEX: This was worth it?
BOBBY: And my answer to that—
ALEX: What kind of [2:22:33] you wanna get?
BOBBY: My answer to that question was like a version of the afterlife where you could ask, like, God or, like, the angels, just like questions that you had while you were alive.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like statistical questions. Like a recap of your life. Answer all of the questions that were unanswerable in your life.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: This is one of those. Where you could actually, like, go to heaven and you could be like, “Were there more doors or wheels?” And they would have a definitive answer for you. They’ll just put the numbers on the board.
ALEX: But here’s the thing, you don’t need that. Like—
BOBBY: I do.
ALEX: Well— well, I mean— I mean, yes, we need the answer to that, but what I’m saying is that is something that, technically speaking, could be done without the aid of, say, an— an all-present being, right?
BOBBY: I’d like to find the person that could do it.
ALEX: Me, too. Same. That’s— if you are that person, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com, tipping_pitches on Twitter.
BOBBY: tipping_pitches on Twitter while it’s still free, because we’re not gonna be paying for that. While we’re here, if Elon Musk charges, like, paywalls all of Twitter—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —we’re not going to be on there. Like, this is going to be the only outlet that you hear from us. Just so— just so people, like, are, like, clear.
ALEX: So I shouldn’t tell people I made a Bluesky account for us last night?
BOBBY: Oh, I mean, you can post on Bluesky, but I’m— I’m only speaking for myself.
ALEX: I don’t— I’m not— to be clear, I’m not going to post on Bluesky.
BOBBY: I’m only speaking for myself. Like, I’m not going to Bluesky.
ALEX: Like that’s it?
BOBBY: I’m not going. I’m not going.
ALEX: It’s— it’s— give me Twitter or give me death.
BOBBY: Give me Twitter or give me Letterboxd. I’m done. I’m done. I’m not posting anymore. I’m done with this. I’m putting all of my creative energy into this podcast as you can feel, and see, and hear.
ALEX: Uh-huh. Are there other questions you want to answer?
BOBBY: There are three more.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: The first one comes— came from [2:24:29] Now I Only Want to Triumph, “Is a hot dog soup?” I think this was tongue in cheek, the question.
ALEX: I think so too, but you highlighted it, because you wanted to circle back to it.
BOBBY: Can you reveal for the listeners what the name of our group chat is, with you and me and our partners?
ALEX: It— it is What is a Sandwich and it has been that way for like—
BOBBY: Years.
ALEX: —four or five years at this point?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: It stemmed from a conversation we had in a bar one night.
BOBBY: Was this a bar? I don’t remember. I don’t remember.
ALEX: I— I’m pretty sure—
BOBBY: I believe you.
ALEX: I’m pretty sure it was at Syndicated.
BOBBY: Wow. Wow. Syndicated, if you’re listening, we would love to do a live show—
ALEX: We had like an hour-long conversation.
BOBBY: We would love to do a live show at your bar. We would love to present the film Sandlot at your bar if you’re listening, Syndicated. Oh, I remember this now.
ALEX: There we go.
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: It was the last Power Hour.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah. It stemmed from a conversation about, like, whether or not a hotdog is a sandwich, and you said no for some, like, weird reason. You’re such a fundamentalist.
ALEX: I—
BOBBY: Like, okay, Scalia [2:25:36] over there.
ALEX: If I’m gonna be honest, and I don’t know if it’s the length of pod or if— if it’s the— the beverages, I don’t know why I would have argued for that. In fact, I don’t even know what the alternative is? What is it, a sandwich or a—
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: What’s the other one?
BOBBY: I mean, I— I honestly think that your argument was like, “It’s not a sandwich. It’s just a hot dog.” And I was like, “That is so absurd.” It is a sandwich. It is. Especially if you subscribe to the life mo— like the life motto, that’s like every food can be soup, salad, or sandwich. Which I honestly think that that is like a guiding structure, like, in my life.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like I approached my— my nutrition like that. But actually, though, I want to bring this back to the pod. I want to bring this back—
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: —to, like, your pod choices. It is Philadelphia culture that a sandwich— because like everybody is always like, “Oh, a bun if it’s connected, it’s not sandwich.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: “Because like this bread has to be separated and the meat has to be— to be between.”
ALEX: But I know— I know what you’re about to say, yeah.
BOBBY: But, like, in Philadelphia culture, like a hoagie roll—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —is oftentimes connected on the side.
ALEX: Right. It’s like— it’s like the— the loaf of bread that is sliced, but not all the way through.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Like, just barely not.
BOBBY: So that it can hold, you know, the melted meats and cheeses of a cheesesteak, frankly.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And like now as a— as an honorary Philadelphian, as like one of the foremost chosen Philadelphians, if you don’t think a hot dog is a sandwich now, like I think we need to reevaluate like a lot of things.
ALEX: Like, I didn’t think I was going to change my tune coming into this podcast, and now I’m actively changing our group chat name as we speak.
BOBBY: To a Hot Dog is a Sandwich.
ALEX: Right. To I know what a sandwich is.
BOBBY: So many good things have come out of this episode. The other thing that’s highlighted, “Can you refer to the team you root for as we?” I feel like we— we resolved that. The answer I think is no. You think it is yes. It’s very—
ALEX: So what—
BOBBY: —Philadelphia of you to say yes.
ALEX: Oh, so you— so to be clear, I am in the Philadelphia group as in—
BOBBY: You are.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: You are. Philadelphia group sounds like the Wagner—
ALEX: The— the—
BOBBY: The Wagner Group. The Philadelphia Group is trying to overthrow the government.
ALEX: You know?
BOBBY: And install Jalen Hurts as president.
ALEX: I just— like once again—
BOBBY: Do you know who that is, Jalen Hurts?
ALEX: He— he is the— yeah, he’s the—
BOBBY: The quarterback.
ALEX: Like, he’s the quarterback. I just—
BOBBY: He’s one of the most handsome athletes out there right now.
ALEX: He is a fucking hunk. Oh, my God.
BOBBY: We can’t get— we can’t get too sidetracked, by the way. But, like, if he was a baseball player, we would spend a lot of time talking about how he looks.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Okay, great. I’m glad we’re on the same page.
ALEX: I just like— why can’t you— once again, like— like, I think that we, like, tie fandom to so many other parts of life that I’m like— it feels like it makes sense that folks would do that. Now, I go back and forth on it, I feel like, depending on the conversation, what the context is of like, am I saying, “Oh, we won today.” Or, “Oh, we lost today.”
BOBBY: Frankly— frankly, I think it’s kind of nice to have some distance.
ALEX: I— well, sure.
BOBBY: It’s healthier.
ALEX: I— I agree, but I also think that every other part of the culture has done a lot of work to, like, tie your sports fandom— to tie your fandom to the specific team you root for and, like, no one’s gonna mistake you for playing for the Mets.
BOBBY: You don’t know that about me.
ALEX: Well, I’ve looked at your UCL, I do.
BOBBY: Do you actually have an MRI for my UCL? Because I would love to see it. I would love to see it. All right. Final question that we want to return to and then we will wrap this podcast here up. That final question came from Dawson, it was, “If you were granted the opportunity to take over sole ownership of an MLB franchise, would you do it?” I think both of us said no. However, sole ownership, key— key phrasing here. I wouldn’t like to run an MLB team on my own, but I— I think I would like to run a team like as Tipping Pitches. Like as the community that is Tipping Pitches—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —like we get to make— like, vote on it. We get to, like, make group decisions.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We get to talk about running that team on a week-to-week basis.
ALEX: Someone puts in the Slack channel like, “Poll: Do we release James McCann? Y or N.”
BOBBY: I’d rig that poll.
ALEX: “And 100% why?”
BOBBY: Would it be good for our personal lives? No.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Would it be good for our mental health? No.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Would it be—
ALEX: Would it be good for the pod?
BOBBY: Would it be good for content? Yes.
ALEX: Most likely.
BOBBY: I think it would.
ALEX: Signs point to yes on that one.
BOBBY: I think it would. I think that the only rule it has to work was a good book. And I think our version of that on the podcast would frankly be downright entertaining. And I think it’s something to strive for by episode 400, or 500, or 600.
ALEX: I mean, I think the real goal is to own a baseball team and then do a Power Hour. Maybe at the trade deadline?
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah. Like the hour leading up to the trade deadline.
ALEX: We’ll have to work that out with David Stearns
BOBBY: Having— I have a lot, a lot to say about David Stearns
ALEX: You have to save it, bro.
BOBBY: I have it saved. All right. It’s up here. Right here, pointing to the brain.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s up here. I have a list of things that I want to talk about next week that I couldn’t sully this year, Evergreen Podcast with, but I’m ready. Just know that I’m ready. Okay. I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole. What I do want to do—
ALEX: I saw you— I saw your mind, like, flitting with it and then—4
BOBBY: What I do want to do is I want to— I want to say thank you. How do you feel having done the Power Hour? And honestly, we didn’t even do it for real. We did, like, six beers, not eight.
ALEX: It felt real to me, to be quite honest.
BOBBY: Is there anything else that you wanna say to the listeners? I always give you this opportunity every week, but I feel like this might bear more fruit.
ALEX: I’d like to thank you for sticking with us.
BOBBY: Yeah, you would.
ALEX: I— I mean, very, genuinely, I feel like the last six plus years of this podcast maybe track very closely with what the last two plus hours of this podcast have looked like, which is spurts of coherence, and a lot of bits, and a lot of jokes, and a lot of ways for us to process our own emotions about the sport of baseball, in hopes that there might be other folks out there who feel similarly. And this podcast has been a really interesting exercise for us, I think. But I think it turned into something that neither you nor I really expected it to. Like, I don’t think either of us would have expected that we would have been here doing 300 episodes with a community of folks who are supporting us and putting out, shall we say, sporadic newsletters.
BOBBY: You’re up next.
ALEX: Uh-huh. I am. I— does— do I have like two months for the next one or— no, I— I’m very serious, like I don’t think we— we thought it would end up here. And the fact that it did is, like, not because we just decided to start doing something weird overnight, but because we found people who made it feel like these were things that were worth talking about, and that other folks want to hear people talk about, and like wanted to engage with on a very human level. And so whether it’s been on this podcast, or in the Slack channel, or on the Twitter, like this is— things I participate in to varying degrees.
BOBBY: On the Twitter.
ALEX: On the Twitter I’m very full of love.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Honestly, you know, six beers in.
BOBBY: Yes. Yes.
ALEX: Like not to sincere post.
BOBBY: I love earnest Alex. Power rank my favorite Alexes. Ernest Alex number one, 10 to 16
Alex number two.
ALEX: Uncle Alex is third.
BOBBY: Phillies fan Alex dead last.
ALEX: I don’t know. It sounds like Phillies Alex is rising in the power rankings for being quite on it.
BOBBY: You were— honestly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re making a case. You are making a case. I— I could not agree more with what you said. And I— one thing I can promise is that next week’s episode will be much more closely aligned to what you’re used to from a Tipping Pitches episode, but I hope that this was a fun, little change of pace for everybody. Thank you again to everybody who submitted questions. Thank you to everybody who has, like, supported us both by listening, by becoming a patron, by participating in episodes like this, by participating in the Slack, by participating just like in the community and sharing articles and sharing ideas, and— and responding to tweets, like in all of that stuff, like it— it is, like, deeply appreciated. And I will say like 300 episodes in, if you’re a big fan of the show and, like, there are people in your life who you think might also be a big fan of the show, it is such a value add for everybody to have like so many smart, engaged people like in the community listening to the show and, like, making us better at hosting it. And so like I— I just— I deeply encourage you to, like, share it with somebody. And I— I try not to, like, say that too often, because I try not to make it seem like there is, like, work for you to do as listener of this show. Like, other than just, like, engaging and enjoying it, which, like, we are so flattered that people do. But, you know, we’re an independent show and, like, we don’t have the added benefit of, like, being part of, like, a larger network where people discover it naturally. And so, really, all we have is, like, sharing it on our own, like to the extent that we can, and like the people listening to it, to just like give it their— to give it their blessing. And so if you, like, feel strongly about the show, and like you’ve enjoyed it— if you’ve enjoyed it, like, at any point over the last 300 episodes, I would— I would, like, deeply appreciate it if you shared it with more people.
ALEX: Especially if you— you enjoyed it, like episode 150, and then the lost interest, if you’re still here—
BOBBY: And now you’re back for 300. You know, you’re just like, “Yeah, just— I’ll fire it up one more time for 300.” That is everything for this week. I’ll spare everybody the— the full plug of all of the places that you can find Tipping Pitches. I’ll bring all of that stuff back next week. For now, this has been the two-hour episode, this has been the Power Hour, this has been episode 300. Alex, thank you for being part of this for the last 300 episodes. I can’t wait to be part of it for the next 300 episodes, unless you kill it at episode 500. I have greatly enjoyed and loved doing this with you. And we will be back next week.
SPEAKER 3: We’re only liars, but we’re the best. We’re the best. We’re only good for the latest trend. We’re only good ’cause you can have almost famous friends. Besides—
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!
BOBBY: Let’s go.
ALEX: Either the best episode we’ve ever done or the worst, and there’s no in—
Tipping Pitches 
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