Bobby and Alex build out a concept for a World Series documentary on the heels of Taylor Swift’s box office success, then look back on the various Division Series and ensuing eliminations, including a desperate string of narratives in Atlanta, Sonny Gray’s One Bad Start, some legitimate scheduling gripes, and powerhouse teams going silently into the night, before answering some listener questions about the upcoming Championship Series.
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Songs featured in this episode:
Relient K — “Be My Escape” • Blue Deputy — “I Hate Steven Singer” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Transcript
Tell us a little bit about what you saw and—and—and being able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitching and kind of help out, so he wasn’t Tipping his Pitches. So Tipping Pitches, we hear about it all the time. People are home on the stand, what Tipping Pitches it’s all about? That’s amazing! That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, I have a pitch for you, an idea for a way that we can branch out in our multimedia productions.
ALEX: This is great, but I— I think you’re supposed to be emailing these to ourselves—
BOBBY: No, live on the air.
ALEX: —at, like, 3:00 a.m.
BOBBY: I’ll email it to you, like, while you’re taking, like, a quick 30-second break to, like, formulate your thoughts at some point throughout this podcast. I’ll email you the thought. I’ll type it up and then send it to you.
ALEX: Okay. All right. Sounds good.
BOBBY: Here’s the— here’s the pitch. You and I always saw the— the Taylor Swift, the Eras Tour movie.
ALEX: Film.
BOBBY: Is it called— point of order, is it called Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour and that’s it? Or is it called Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, the movie? Because that feels like parody.
ALEX: I— I— it would not make sense for it to just be called The Eras tour, right?
BOBBY: Yeah, but, like, I— I think it is called that.
ALEX: Okay. All right. No, you’re— you’re right about this. So the— the concert, the— the tour itself is called The Eras Tour.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And then the movie— sorry, the film is called Taylor Swift: The Eras—
BOBBY: Thank you for— thank you for specifying. I think we can safely call this one a movie. I don’t think we need to call it a film.
ALEX: I don’t—
BOBBY: It wasn’t— there’s no film involved.
ALEX: Movie might even be pushing it.
BOBBY: 2 hour and 45-minute YouTube video. It’s like a Vevo.
ALEX: It was fun, but I had— I know it wasn’t a narrative mark.
BOBBY: Not the point. You’re distracting from my pitch.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Here’s my pitch, so this is already— much has been written about how this has taken over the movie industry. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of tickets, either have been sold, or in the process of being sold, or will be sold, eventually. Taylor Swift famously went over the studio’s heads and negotiated directly with the theater chain AMC to distribute this film, which is kind of a power move.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Kind of like one of the only people walking the face of the Earth who has the power to do something like that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: My pitch— and you’ll remember that I’ve been pushing for more baseball-related pop cultural content for a while now. My pitch is that we shoot the World Series like this, and then we make a World Series film, and we put it in theaters. And you go and you get to watch baseball in a cinematic experience. No more of this like Fox put this 10 ADP cam and it like circles the players like two seconds per game. And no more of this like nonsense Statcast visualization on the screen where it’s just like, “Here’s the play that you just watched, but acted out in 2D by cartoon characters.” I want it to be shot, directed, edited like a professional documentary, and I want it to be distributed in theaters far and wide. What do you think?
ALEX: And all the players are like Toy Story characters or— I guess I’m just a little— I’m a little confused—
BOBBY: They’re all AIs.
ALEX: Okay, they’re all AIs. Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I— I’m— I’m into it.
BOBBY: Why don’t we do stuff like this for sports? Why don’t sports documentaries have cultural moments?
ALEX: I mean, what is the market for, like, watching live sports games like a few months after they occur?
BOBBY: I don’t mean— okay. So, good question. This is— we’re honing the pitch.
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-huh.
BOBBY: It doesn’t need to be like the full gameplay.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Like Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: The movie. Because that was just straight up the concert. Like I— I was sort of hoping for a little bit of, like, the cheeky little behind the scenes—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —shot or two.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Not in there. Spoiler, not— not in there. This can be more— some more behind the scenes footage too, that we can incorporate it in, to make it like a real documentary. But I also do want gameplay on the screen too, because I want to hear— really just what I want is the opportunity to hear that Dolby mix from— from the—
ALEX: Any excuse you can find.
BOBBY: Well, you know, you saw the Phillies home run— the first Bryce Harper home run in game three where ESPN was also airing like a— I think they called it like a Dolby mix of the broadcast with no announcers and it was just the crowd. Like imagine you hear that in the Dolby Theater at AMC, no sponsorship.
ALEX: Yeah. I— I just have to say I love the idea of rolling out all of this, like, really high-quality— you know, like this is the Dolby mix—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —you know?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And so when you’re streaming it on your phone, coming through your iPhone’s speakers.
BOBBY: On Twitter.
ALEX: On Twitter.
BOBBY: Where it just like down samples everything, too.
ALEX: Yeah. Exactly. You’re really getting the full experience.
BOBBY: It was— is still cool, though. Now, imagine if you—
ALEX: It is still very cool.
BOBBY: —were getting the full experience.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: And you can hear [5:04] John standing on the roof of Citizens Bank Park, while Bryce hits that home run. Your thoughts on the two guys standing on the roof, how did they get up there?
ALEX: I— I don’t even want to question it, you know? It’s kind of one of those things that— I— I— I have to assume that they have always been there.
BOBBY: They live there.
ALEX: That— that they, you know—
BOBBY: But—
ALEX: It— it was just such a perfect, like, encapsulation of—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —what’s going on in Philadelphia right now.
BOBBY: What’s going on in Philadelphia?
ALEX: What’s going on—
BOBBY: Concerning. Looking into it.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: What’s going on in Philadelphia right now, very concerning. So you hate my pitch? You don’t think it’ll work? You don’t think the movies— movie theaters will be into it?
ALEX: No, I actually think— I— I— you have sold it. So I, again, initially— given that you were comparing it to Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour—
BOBBY: The movie.
ALEX: —The movie—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —which is not a part of the title, it’s just to clar— clarifying point. BOBBY: We’re just being good journalists.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. I had thought that it was just going to be the— the— you know, a— a three-hour baseball game, but I— you’re right that like if—
BOBBY: I’m open to that also.
ALEX: I mean, I’d watch it.
BOBBY: Like live.
ALEX: Here’s— hmm.
BOBBY: Open up movie theaters to live sports. Now, we’re just solving all our problems.
ALEX: Now, we are really solving all our problems.
BOBBY: I don’t want to watch a baseball game at a bar where the sound isn’t even on. Okay, I did do that for game four. And I had a great time, I played some trivia, I was with a friend of the show. And the Phillies won and we came in fifth in trivia out of 17 teams, which I considered to be pretty good.
ALEX: That’s a win.
BOBBY: That is a win. However, imagine if I was doing that in a Dolby Theater
at AMC, crack of the bat so loud that your ears will be ringing for days. It’s enticing.
ALEX: It is enti— I mean, you know, they could produce one for every round of the playoffs given how much time is between the series, right? Like—
BOBBY: Yeah, more on that later.
ALEX: More on that—
BOBBY: I have some serious thoughts about that. All I’m saying is call us up. We got ideas, we got thoughts. We could produce it. We could ideate, you know? We could consult.
ALEX: Right. I feel like we’re more analysts in this regard.
BOBBY: I— no. See, I have a lot of technical skills that I can bring to the table when it comes to how stuff should sound. Not so much how stuff should look. You should focus on that. We can Photoshop your NYU degree to say that you graduated from Tisch, in like the visual arts or something, or in filmmaking.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That won’t be hard. You’re pretty good at Photoshop.
ALEX: I am. Yeah, I mean, I could just tell people I went to Gallatin and— and like— that’s— that’ll kind of be it. They’ll be like, “Never mind, I don’t really want to know.”
BOBBY: I majored in live broadcasting experience for theater.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They’ll be like, “Oh, my God, that’s perfect.”
ALEX: Right. Experiential film.
BOBBY: Do you think that people listening know what Gallatin is?
ALEX: I— I think—
BOBBY: It was a TikTok thing a couple years ago.
ALEX: Was it?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I mean— like, again, yeah, I know it’s like a bit in our circles.
BOBBY: What circles are those? Liberal elites who have never been to the ballparks of Middle America and yet judge them anyway?
ALEX: Yeah, millennials of tens of thousands of— of student debt.
BOBBY: Hey, man, too soon. Don’t— don’t be saying student debt on this podcast. That— those payments resume this month. The look of pain and anguish—
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —just stretching across your face. Okay. Should we talk about the Major League Baseball Playoffs? What do you think?
ALEX: I think we should.
BOBBY: All right. Should we talk about journalistic ethics as well? Should we talk about scheduling? We’re gonna talk about all those things, of course. But before we do, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: Okay. Thank you to this week’s new patrons, Austin, Chris, and Max. Speaking of patrons, thank you to everybody who came out to our Patreon Watch-along of game two of the Philadelphia Phillies versus the Atlanta Braves. In retrospect, a hilarious game. Just a hilarious game. The only game the Braves won in truly absurd fashion. We were all just sitting there watching it along together.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I have a question.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Were we like momentarily bad luck for the Phillies? Were we momentarily the only thing that could step in front of the Philadelphia Phillies vibe train?
ALEX: It does appear that way. I mean, we were just sitting here discussing what games we should watch the— the rest of this postseason. And now, I am a little reticent to watch any Phillies—
BOBBY: Because—
ALEX: —for the rest of the year.
BOBBY: Yeah. I mean, famously, last year, we did a— a watch-along during the game that they got no-hit by Cristian Javier.
ALEX: Right. So like things are not looking very great for us right now.
BOBBY: Well, we didn’t— it’s not like we were doing a watch-along of the other three games that they lost to the Houston Astros.
ALEX: True.
BOBBY: And it is possible maybe, just maybe, let me pause at the idea that the Phillies are not the greatest baseball team ever. And we’re not the thing that jinxed them. I would like to pause at that theory. However, I have been told by multiple people close to me in my life, if we come for the Phillies again and we jinx them again, then I’m in trouble. So I just want you to factor that in. So we are weighing when we’re going to do our next watch-along. For those people who were— who were there, who were present, who were able to make it out, you know, we mentioned at the end of it that we intended to do a— at least one watch-along per round of the MLB playoffs. The schedule is very tricky this week. I don’t know if most of you have seen this, you know, schedule kind of weird.
ALEX: I’ve heard some rumblings about it.
BOBBY: We were trying to do Rangers-Astros so that we could, you know, mix up the side of the bracket, mix up the teams that are involved. And hopefully if we have like Rangers fans— or, you know, very select few Astros fans in the Tipping Pitches community, we could— we could watch-along with one of those games. But the schedule is tougher for them this week, so we’re weighing a couple of different options. We will follow up in the Patreon messenger as a Patreon post in the Slack, all of the relevant places. And we will let you know as soon as we know. Thank you for your patience on that front. And thank you for participating in last week’s. It was a lot of fun. It’s a different way to watch a ballgame.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I’ll tell you that much. Better or worse than the hypothetical watching it in the Dolby Theater at AMC, what do you think?
ALEX: I— I think— I think it’s just— I think it’s just different. I think you’d— probably sitting in a Dolby Theater, you’d be forced to kind of pay attention to what’s— what’s going on.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Very— very easy to sort of tune out, I will say, and just get caught up in the conversation. I mean [11:41]
BOBBY: Yeah, what was the highlight— what was the highlight tangent for you this past time? Famously in— in the past, we’ve had some chats about milk.
ALEX: That— that really is the one that stands out, you know? Stands the test of time.
BOBBY: Do you know why it stands out? Because everybody got to see your weird thing about milk. Your weird milk thing.
ALEX: I— I don’t even have a weird milk thing.
BOBBY: You have a weird milk thing.
ALEX: I did, at one point in my life, drink milk—
BOBBY: That’s right.
ALEX: —in— in— at strange moments.
BOBBY: Confess, confess, confess.
ALEX: I don’t see— I don’t— sorry, my bones are strong.
BOBBY: Are they? Are— are your bones strong? I’ve known you since you’ve broken a bone. How strong could they possibly be? You— I’ve never broken a bone since you’ve known me. I don’t know if that’s true. Almost certainly not.
ALEX: I— I think even if you had, you— we probably wouldn’t— you’d just be like, “Oh, my back’s hurting extra amount today.”
BOBBY: Wow. Okay, putting me on blast. Yeah. Alex used to drink milk with burritos. Just to be like, “I’m eating a burrito. You know, I feel like having milk.” And that came up on a previous livestream.
ALEX: I appreciate you reviving this a year after it first came to light.
BOBBY: So this time around, I think one of the highlights was that we talked a lot about moldy jam. So if that sounds like a good way to spend game TBD for series TBD, come join. It really was a lot of fun. People join from all over and we were so thankful that everybody helped us with the fact that we’re completely incapable of technically doing— technically executing one of these events. So thanks everybody for that. Okay. Final reminder on that front, you can sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/tipping pitches. These livestreams are patron only. It’s one of the perks of being part of the Patreon community. And thank you to everybody for— thank you to everybody who is involved in that and who has been signing up. It’s— it’s very much appreciated. Okay. Would you like to talk about the last week since we have released an episode of the Tipping Pitches Podcast about the Major League Baseball Playoffs? What happened?
ALEX: Some things have happened.
BOBBY: Where should we start? Should we just start with the Braves-Phillies and we just— just get all the talking points out of the way?
ALEX: I feel like we should just get that out of the way, like it’s— yeah,
it feels like the biggest sort of behemoth.
BOBBY: So you told me before we started recording that you wanted to start with your full-throated defense in support of Alanna Rizzo.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So I just want to kind of clear out and let you do that.
ALEX: No, can I— can I say, though, that I really do—
BOBBY: Think she made some good points?
ALEX: I really admire the—
BOBBY: Her ability to stand up against the crowds.
ALEX: Damn it. The— the creativity with which Braves fans approached—
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: —this— this playoff series. It felt like every game, they were kind of just— they were throwing stuff at the wall, seeing what narrative was going to stick, right? So like the first one that we got—
BOBBY: No, no, no. There’s too many, too many. They needed to pick one.
ALEX: Oh, well— well, I— I agree.
BOBBY: It’s like a movie that you watch and you’re like, “The— the plot was just all over the place. It felt like it was hacked to bits.”
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. Like they were— I just didn’t know where to focus my attention, frankly. At first—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —we got the layoffs, right? The layoffs narrative was kind of the one that— that overshadowed everything.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: The— the fact—
BOBBY: Like the rest versus rest thing?
ALEX: The— the— right. Exactly. So—
BOBBY: The way you said that the layoffs—
ALEX: The layoffs—
BOBBY: —you made it sound like the Braves, like, laid off multiple employees, like, right before the series, and I was like, “That doesn’t sound right.”
ALEX: Yeah, I don’t think we would have heard about that. Right. The Braves famously, since they’re a good baseball team—
BOBBY: Pardon?
ALEX: —gotta— well, got a bye, right? They didn’t have to play in the— in the Wild Card round.
BOBBY: Correct.
ALEX: What some people view, I think, as a benefit because you don’t risk getting eliminated in a three-game series right off the bat after winning your division by, like, 16 games or whatever.
BOBBY: 14.
ALEX: Sorry, slander.
BOBBY: It’s okay. I’m just trying to be factual. You know, we’re committed to journalistic ethics on this podcast.
ALEX: We are—
BOBBY: We are not jackoff bloggers or podcasters.
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: Nope, we’re not.
ALEX: I don’t know. What do you think disadvantage, Bobby, to—
BOBBY: Clearly not.
ALEX: —to— to have days off prior to playing in a playoff series?
BOBBY: I’m gonna say something that’s going to sound honestly, surprisingly centrist for me.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I think it actually is a disadvantage for your hitters to have more days off than they are accustomed to. I think that is okay to say, because the Braves, I think, are a perfect example of a team that is genuinely great, but has good starting pitching and a great lineup. That is the type of team that can flame out in the playoffs and look much worse than they should, because they just go cold. This is what has happened to the Dodgers multiple times over the last half decade. I would say to Braves fans, you have about like three more of these before you can legitimately complain, like the Dodgers fans can. I think it is okay to suggest that there is some level of rust for hitters after not seeing live pitching from opponents for over a week. That’s not something that happens throughout the rest of the baseball calendar. You get four or five days off during the All-Star break. And then if you get a buy, you get four or five days off before the playoffs. I would just like to say it’s always been this way. It’s always been this way. You’ve always had more time to get your rotation set, to get rested, to get players healthy. And if you think that you’re the type of player that is going to be rusty from taking those few days off, tough shit. Take a live BP against someone else on the 40-man, then. I don’t know what to tell you. Like I— I don’t know what— it’s always been this way. That slight disadvantage that you might have from that through the first one or two games. I’ll give you— I’ll give you two games even, two games, because the players that they were saying were rusty on the Braves. It’s like, “Was— well, was Austin Riley rusty?” Because after— he looked pretty bad in game one, then he hit a really important home run in game two. And another really important home run in game four, so like where’s the rust narrative for him? Was he—
ALEX: Or the— or the entire Houston Astros team? But that’s a separate issue.
BOBBY: It’s a different thing. They’ve made it a— a dark and depressing deal with the devil that team. It’s— nothing ever goes wrong for them. I don’t understand it. I think that whatever slight disadvantage that you can get from being a little bit rusty, try to put in as many qualifiers in here as possible, is like clearly, demonstrably worth it to not have to potentially be eliminated in a three-game Wild Card series.
ALEX: Yeah. Which far more random than a five or seven-game series.
BOBBY: Why don’t she asked the Milwaukee Brewers if they would have liked to be rusty? Oh, wait, you can’t, because they’re not in the playoffs anymore, because they lost in the Wild Card round. Like, ask them if they would have rather had— rather had the bye. Ask the Tampa Bay Rays if they would have rather had the bye and been rusty. It’s like— it’s such a non-story and it’s been made into such a story, because if it was just fans who are whining about their teams, you know, like you’re saying the Braves fans were saying that this was part of the reason that they did not look as good this year and last year against the Phillies. If it was just fans, you could chalk it up to, you know, like sour grapes. “I’m bummed that my team got eliminated. I think that this did not cater to my team enough.” This is the thing that we see all of the time in sports. But it’s not just fans. It’s media members, it’s broadcasters. It’s the entire baseball industrial complex insinuating that this, for some reason, is not fair. And I don’t understand it because these two things are sort of folded into each other, the rest and the playoff format question. Are we benefiting the top seeds enough?
ALEX: I will give credit to— to some Atlanta players as well as other players around the league who— and— and managers as well who rightfully pushed back on this sentiment and said, you know, like, “That’s— that’s just kind of an excuse, and we need to come out and play better.” I know Spencer Strider was among the players who came out and said, “Yeah, we can’t really use the— the rest days excuse. Like, the Phillies came out and— and played good baseball and— and played better without— paid— played better than us over the course of the series.” It’s also just— it kind of boils down to what you think the point of the playoffs are. Like, is the point of the playoffs to simply justify and reinforce the results of the regular season? Because if that’s the case, why do you have the playoffs? Just rank— that seems by record at the end of the year and then the best team wins the World Series. You know, like the point of the playoffs is to invite a level of randomness, honestly, that says, “We took the best players— the best teams from this year and matched them up against each other, and saw how they did. And some had byes— and— and layoffs, and some had to play more games, and were at greater risk of being eliminated. And then at the end, we found out who fared the best in October. Like I— I just— I push back against the idea that the best regular season team should necessarily then be afforded, like, the easiest slate in the playoffs or, like, should be handed the World Series, then?
BOBBY: Yeah, like by divine right.
ALEX: Right. Exactly.
BOBBY: Yeah. I just— I think that— I think fans have a hard time watching 162 games just to see their season end in three days.
ALEX: Yeah. It sucks.
BOBBY: Or in two days. Or in the old format, one day.
ALEX: One day.
BOBBY: I’m just kind of wondering a little bit why all of a sudden the new format is the reason that we think it’s unfair. We have two years’ worth of sample size, and honestly, we haven’t even gotten different teams that have been great and been eliminated. Like, it’s been the Braves and the Dodgers both times that have been driving this conversation. And I feel like the Orioles kind of got left out of this too, because they’re a young team. And this was their first go-around in October and so people were just like, “Well, maybe they’re not used to it. Or maybe they’re not ready for the big stage, or they ran into a buzzsaw in the Rangers, or whatever it is.” But like, it is a very complicated can of worms to open up as to why teams that seem historically good, that are winning over 100 games, that are setting records, that look like heavyweight favorites heading into a series in— in comparison to the team that they’re going against, why they keep losing in the playoffs? Where in the past, it didn’t seem quite like there were as many upsets like this. It seemed like the heavyweight teams actually performed like heavyweights. Part of that is nostalgia, part of that is looking back and seeing, “Okay. The Core Four Yankees, they kept winning and they won all these games during the regular season.” I don’t know like, yeah, also the 116-win Mariners got eliminated before the World Series, too. You know, the greatest team of all-time, if we’re just going to talk about regular season record. I think that the state of the league is that 10 to 15 teams don’t want to compete and they want to trade all of their best players to the teams that do want to compete, so that they can lower their payrolls. Many of those 100-win teams get there— get a portion of their 100 wins by beating up on teams that are worse than ever. And so whereas a team that won 104 games this year, like the Atlanta Braves, might have won 95 games 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. If the Braves were 95 and— if the Braves were 95 and 67, that’s 162. Took me a second there. And the Phillies were seven games behind that, would people be freaking out as much? I don’t think so. I don’t know, but I don’t think so. Because the Brewers won 93 games or whatever, or 95 games this year, whatever they actually finished the— their season with. And people were not lumping them into the reason that the playoff format is broken, because they lost to a Diamondbacks team. I just think there are more complicated factors.
ALEX: No, I think the— part of the enjoyment of the baseball playoffs is that it’s far more chaotic and unpredictable than the playoffs of the other major sports leagues in the US.
BOBBY: Yeah, like just watch basketball if you want the best team to win all the time.
ALEX: Right, exactly. And my— like, that’s— this is what we tune in for. So I don’t know— I don’t— I don’t necessarily understand the sentiment of wanting to blow up the format because your team lost but I guess—
BOBBY: I just have to say, we didn’t want this format. Like a more— a majority of fans did not want the expansion of the playoffs.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And I think whatever has come from it has to do with that fact.
ALEX: I guess, but I also don’t— like these don’t necessarily feel like principled arguments. Again, like I don’t think if Braves— if the— if the Braves had won this series, they’d say, “Well, we probably— you know, we— we shouldn’t have received that layoff ahead of time, you know? Even though we won, it’s still— the principle of it is unfair for other teams who may be in this similar situation, you know? So I don’t know. I’m like, “Yes. Do— did we want the expanded playoffs?” Like, no, maybe not. But, like, it honestly has not affected my viewing experience, generally speaking, beyond the strange off days between series and that sort of thing. Like that is— the— the most jarring part of it is that there’s been two days since there’s been a playoff baseball.
BOBBY: Well, I mean, that was the last piece of this that I wanted to talk about. We got— we got a question from Ken Rosent [25:46] on Twitter, absolute best Twitter name out there. Sorry, Twitter, X formally Twitter. About the— the built-in days off, the scheduling of the playoffs, I think it’s a genuine question, how much of this frustration has to do with the format at all versus the scheduling, where these like random built-in days off so that we can get a slightly higher percentage of games in primetime. But also, it’s like— that’s also not really working, though, because then the ALCS game one is starting in competition with NFL Sunday, which like— it’s not going to do well on that front, so I don’t know, I’m kind of confused about that as well. But like they— they feel like they need to build in a day off in between each round, but then every round has ended early because no series has gone the distance.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So we kind of have like a perfect storm right now of less than stellar scheduling. Like, it’s my opinion that if you have to play a seven-game series, then maybe you might just have to play the next day. Like, that means that you didn’t eliminate a team as early on and earn the rest, which we just talked about as maybe a downside, which it’s kind of nonsense. But having these, like, two awkward days built in, in between each round, it doesn’t do us any favors in terms of preventing people from, like, doing these discourse cycles about whether that past series was fair, or not. And also, like, even beyond just the scheduling question, I don’t think the series have been very good. So like I said, it’s sort of a perfect storm of, like, all of these things are going wrong at the same time.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, it’s been really interesting because I— I do think the Atlanta-Philadelphia series was probably the most compelling in part because of the drama around it all and— and Braves fans continuing to just like step on rakes, right? Like, the— I mean, the Galaxy [27:56] take of— of doing The Chop is actually respectful, and doing The Chop to— to mock us is actually disrespectful, because it’s making fun of something that is actually playing homage to Native American culture. That— I mean, one of— one of the more creatively inspired takes on racism I think I’ve ever seen.
BOBBY: In a long litany of extremely creatively inspired roundabout logic when it—
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: —comes to, like, dealing racism.
ALEX: I mean, coming from a Cobb County alone.
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s true. I would like— can I add a— add a quick caveat to that?
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Because I— the behavior of Braves fans— and we’re gonna get into this a little bit more when we talk about journalistic ethics.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: The behavior of Braves fans has been downright despicable this postseason. And really, over the last few years, on Twitter, it has become a very toxic place to be up against Braves fandom. And I thought our friend Bradford William Davis had a really insightful and thoughtful take on groups of fans and generalizing about groups of fans, and assuming that they all act the same way. He was like, “You’re never”— he basically said something to the effect of, “No one fan base is going to win the racism wars,” or something like that. “No one fan base is going to out-racism the other fan base.” The— like a fan base is a collective of like millions of people in most cases, and those people are all varying degrees of bad, but every fan base is— is— has racist people in it. And we should not act like one fan base is morally superior to the other necessarily. I think that is true. I also think that Atlanta, as an organization, is intentionally signal-boosting some of the more nefarious aspects of their fan base. And The Chop, which you mentioned and the, you know, opinion piece is defending The Chop, that is one piece of it. The— moving the ballpark into the ZIP code with the— the wealthiest and whitest suburban flight development from the city of Atlanta, where it used to actually be located as part of it. Clearly, like there is some organizational toxicity happening with that fan base. They have made, like, half-hearted efforts over the years to distance themselves from some of those more nefarious and toxic elements. And then they’ve kind of reneged on them when they realized that it continued to make them money hand over fist, with the whole like battery, with the whole, like, creating the Braves fan experience. And I earnestly feel bad for Braves fans who do not want to partake in any of that stuff, because it has become so hard to be a Braves fan and to avoid things like The Chop. To avoid things like the toxic Braves Twitter experience. And that is true of every fan base, but not every fan base’s organization is as complicit in some of these things as Atlanta’s is. And I think that’s honestly why I have such a visceral dislike of them, and why a lot of fan bases across the league have a visceral dislike of them. In addition to the fact that they’ve been very good, and so it— it helps your villain status, when your team is also winning at the same time, and everybody else has to be exposed to some of these things in a brighter, more intensely focused light.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, they’re already starting two or three steps ahead from every other team, right? I mean, I— especially, following the Guardians changing their name, like they’re kind of the outlier in terms of organizations who are culturally rooted in, like, racist tropes, and have refused to— to, you know, make that necessary change to their image. Because they realize that there is a culture around it that fans enjoy and engage in. And it’s why people show up to the park, right? So why would you— why would you get rid of that if fans have linked, you know, their identity to this teams? Even if it is a little unsavory, right? Because you’re— because there’s— there’s money to be made with that.
BOBBY: Yup.
ALEX: I don’t know. Is there— is there anything else you want to say, our mea culpa for the Braves?
BOBBY: No. I mean, from a general perspective, no. I mean, I think that we— I don’t know, to pivot it back to the series itself a little bit, I think that— I think that this Phillies-Braves series over the last two years have, at least for me, asked some interesting questions about what makes a good team, honestly. And like how much of that is— I know that we’ve had like a varying— we’ve had a sort of back-and-forth conversation about whether momentum is real in the baseball community. There’s, like, kind of not really a sabermetric explanation for the idea of, like, momentum and, for lack of a better term, vibes. I think that this— these two— these two teams and these two series over the last two years, have maybe been the best test case in my life that I can remember, for a team that is demonstrably better than another team losing because the worst team just likes playing baseball more than the good team. Like, they just like playing baseball with each other more than the Braves like playing baseball with each other. And I actually don’t even think the Braves have, like, bad chemistry or whatever. I— I think—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —the Padres have bad chemistry. But I think the Braves have fine chemistry. I just think that the Phillies— call it what you want, call it momentum, call it vibes, call it confidence, call it whatever. There’s clearly something that is allowing those players to play to the tops of— top of their potential and there’s something that is not allowing the Braves players to play to the top of their potential. I don’t know what it is. It feels honestly cosmic and I— I can’t explain it. But that is like— that’s a win. I think that’s a good thing for the sport and I think it’s entertaining. And I just don’t understand why it has to be bogged down in all of these conversations about rest, and all these conversations about quotes coming out of the Braves locker room, and all these conversations about Braves fandom and all— you know, it’s like we’ve kind of lost the plot a little bit. We’ve lost the plot a little bit.
ALEX: Yeah. And I don’t know if you come up against the— the vibes team in the playoffs as the historically dominant team and lose, then maybe you just weren’t the better team. Like I have— like it might— it actually might be as simple as that. And I hate to just be like the best team always wins in the playoffs guy, but, like— I don’t— maybe this is just like how shit goes every year, is that sometimes the good teams get bounced, and that sucks. And it’s hard to see. But you don’t have to come up with a dozen different narratives of, like, why this cannot and should not happen going forward, because it happens every year. There’s no way of avoiding it. Sorry, you drew the short end of the stick a couple of years in a row. But, hey, maybe next year, you won’t even make it at all and then you don’t have to worry about it.
BOBBY: We got a funny question from Jason. Which— which A’s player will the Braves trade for to try to get themselves over the hump against the Phillies next year? And I know that that’s a funny framing of the question. Frankly, I don’t think there are any players left on the A’s that would get the Braves over the hump. I don’t know. Is there a single player on the A’s— this is maybe a bleak question and a tangent. Is there a single player on the A’s that would even— would have even played in this series, for the Braves? Like, is there one positional advantage that the A’s have?
ALEX: I mean, maybe it depends on your belief in Zack Gelof, which is a pretty— pretty bleak place to— to be starting from.
BOBBY: What position does he play?
ALEX: Second.
BOBBY: So you think he would have played over Ozzie Albies?
ALEX: Over Ozzie Albies? Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Can he play short?
ALEX: Right. Get Ozzie out of there. You would’ve solved a couple— couple problems.
BOBBY: Okay, I guess this is the point of the podcast in which we have to talk about Orlando Arcia and our friend Jake Mintz. I want to hear what you have to say about this, because I’ve feel like I’ve been voicing my opinion far and wide on social media. And so I haven’t really heard your— there’s not even like a— I don’t even want to say take.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Just kind of like your download of this entire situation. The most talked about— over discussed thing in sports for the last week.
ALEX: I think, more than anything else, I was really shocked at how many prominent folks in the baseball world came down on the side of, “Yeah, the locker room is a sacred space.” And as a reporter you have to respect that. Like I— we get weird stories coming out of the clubhouse, I think, after almost every game.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: Famously, there’s a whole narrative right now about how the Texas Rangers fucking love Creed.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Because they just keep bumping it like before games, and it’s how the— like whatever—
BOBBY: Or how the Phillies play the Robin cover after every game.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. It’s like this is—
BOBBY: Or like how Shohei Ohtani packed up his stuff and his locker was empty. Like, is that a sacred space? Are we allowed to talk about that? Like— ALEX: I— there has been a really, I think, interesting shift over the last—BOBBY: Remember the dildo in Matt Harvey’s locker?
ALEX: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: That was a sacred space.
ALEX: Yeah. Or like when Tom Brady leaves his Make America Great Again cap in the background, it’s like—
BOBBY: And it’s on TV.
ALEX: Do we like— do we leave that alone?
BOBBY: Blur it out.
ALEX: There has been a really interesting, I think, shift in the last few years of, like, how fans and even players, I think, sort of think of the dynamic between teams and media. And, like, what that responsibility is of—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Is it to report on things you see as newsworthy, of things you see happening in front of you and as someone who covers the team to— you know, is it your duty to report on that? Or is it to paint a nice pic— picture of the the— the team you’re covering? Because that’s— the role is to— is to act as someone who lifts this team up on a pedestal and gets the story out to the world. Like I don’t—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: This idea that reporters are there to report on the good things.
BOBBY: Yup.
ALEX: It just doesn’t— doesn’t track with me. I— that’s not— like reporters’ job is to be in these faces and talk about the things that they think are impacting the— the baseball that’s being played in front of them. And, boy, did this impact the baseball that was being played in front of them.
BOBBY: I think that I’m gonna have— honestly, a really cynical, like longitudinal take on this whole situation.
ALEX: Great.
BOBBY: I—
ALEX: That’s why I come to you for.
BOBBY: I think that’s what everybody comes here for, honestly. I think that teams have been wanting and pushing for this exact thing for years.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Years, if not, decades. I think that the way that teams have shrunken access, that they have truly cracked down on the free flow of information out of the team to the public for sometimes fair reasons. Some of those reasons, I’ve found compelling over the years. Some of those reasons are players might not feel comfortable talking in front of the media after— after negative experiences in their lives. Sometimes on the field of play, but more often— just like as human beings. And I— I find that a compelling reason to say— to control the flow of media’s access to a player in that specific moment. And you and I used to argue all of the time about Marshawn Lynch—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —and Kevin Durant and their relationship to the media where they feel like sometimes they can just have open conversations with them and sometimes they can just be like, “I’m not— I’m never— never talking to you guys. This is bullshit. They don’t want to talk to me. They don’t want to do media.” I’m like, “Well, then, why do you play in a professional sports league that’s broadcast by media?” I— some of those reasons are justified. I think more often than not it’s just because the team wants to monopolize the entire industry. The team does not want to look bad. The team does not want the truth coming out. They want their version of the truth coming out so that it keeps fans coming back, buying tickets, buying merchandise, liking the team, a generally positive view. And in like a nakedly political sense, we want to keep our image clean. And now, over the course of the last, like, 10, 15 years as you and I have been getting into this media world, access has been shrinking, COVID accelerated a lot of that. And then when people came back into the locker room, it was— there was like a question of what is like still okay access, what is, like, still— are open availability. And that’s not to say that, like, these questions just came up for the first time recently. I mean, like I’ve— I’ve listened— you know, when I was producing R2C2, I remember CC talking a lot about how weird some people were in the clubhouse, and how that is a particularly, like, fraught space, because it is a place where players, like, get changed. They do hang out in that space without reporters there. But I think that, like, Atlanta looks at this, a team that is not quite as friendly to national media, as they are to their local media, or as other teams are to national media. I think they look at this and they’re like, “This is another win for us. You know, this is another way for us to restrict access. This is another way for us to— to point to the— the unfair characterization of our team and our players. And we have— now we have a persecution complex about this that is feeding into our larger persecution complex about media covering us and writing things that they don’t like about us.” You know, like, I bet you the Braves didn’t love it when all of the information came out that got their GM banned for life. I bet they didn’t like a lot of the things that were written about that and the way that their organization is characterized and portrayed. But, hey, those are the breaks of operating and making billions of dollars in a very public industry. You could go make your billions of dollars doing financial shorts of health care companies that are gonna go under or something. I don’t know. If you really only wanted to just make money, like sorry, you’re in a public space. All of that being said, I find this to be a really weird confrontation point, because this was during open media availability and there—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —were like 15 other reporters in the locker room, so
I don’t understand—
ALEX: Yeah. These were reported by multiple people like—
BOBBY: I don’t understand why it became this conflagration point specifically. The only thing that I can contribute to it is that— again, I’m using this phrase perfect storm. It was like— because the Overton window of this conversation started in such an insane place, and that insane place was Braves fan saying that it never happened. The TikTok of the story after that became progressively like slightly less deranged than pretending it never happened, but still, like, not normal, because it went from Braves fan saying, “This never happened. You’re a liar. I’m going to kill you,” to Jake. A person doing his job and completely fairly reporting something. Keep saying that to local Braves media implying that maybe it never happened. Not saying that it didn’t happen. Not saying that Arcia didn’t say, “Attaboy, Harper.” But, you know, just kind of implying that it might not have happened, saying that they didn’t hear it, saying that Arcia uses an interpreter and so why would he be saying that English phrase, which is just absurd and kind of offensive presumption. And then from that point, it went to, “Well— okay. Well, if— if we’re not gonna say that anymore, then we’re gonna say some slightly less, slightly more sanitized version of that.” Which is, “Well, this was in the locker room. This is a sort of morally gray thing.” Like, you don’t need to report this. Why would you report this? And so because we had to take it all the way from, “This didn’t happen. You’re a liar. You’re fake news.” And, like, slowly it trickled back to normalcy to now where it’s at the point where, like, reasonable people are having to, like, come out in defense of where the story started. And the BBWAA has to put out a statement defending Jake for the right to report this thing and saying that he’s a credentialed member, which of course he is not a jackoff blogger. Amazing phrase. That’s gonna be someone’s fantasy baseball team that wins their league next year, the Jackoff Bloggers. That’s the only way that I can, like, from a media literacy standpoint, see how the story became such a big thing. Because it started in such a deranged place. And because this series was also already so hotly contested and watched. The people were just looking for anything.
ALEX: Right. I mean, if the Braves win game three, I don’t really think we’re talking about this. If Bryce Harper doesn’t have two monster homeruns and give those epic stare downs.
BOBBY: It was sick that he did.
ALEX: Oh, it was— oh, I’m a fan.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I’m— I’m— I’m kind of glad that it all unfolded like this, because why would you give Bryce Harper that sort of ammo, you know? Like—
BOBBY: I just love the idea that, like, he wasn’t going to do that if he didn’t—
ALEX: I know. I know. But that’s the thing is like— it just felt like another strain of sort of coping, and trying to create this narrative—
BOBBY: Kick their asses.
ALEX: —of like— of like, hey, us against the world, you know?
BOBBY: I hate that.
ALEX: And it’s just not. It’s just not.
BOBBY: Yes. It’s not them against the world. I don’t know why every team feels the need to do that now. Some teams, okay. Fine. Maybe most people didn’t believe in you, and that’s okay. Then you can do the nobody believed in us thing.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But to say that, like, it’s the Braves against the world, the team that has utilized every baseball industry advantage to build a truly death star of a team that is laying waste to the NL East year over year six, straight champion— six straight NL East titles and multiple 100-win teams, and a World Series, by the way. They did win the World Series. Like it’s pretty universally accepted that you guys are fine.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You guys are actually okay.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s actually kind of the Phillies versus world. You know, like, it’s an uphill battle for them.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And they’re not— but they’re not treating it like that, you know? And that’s why I think that it’s so easy— so— it was so much easier to root for the Phillies than it was for the Braves because they’re just like, “No, we’re here to play baseball. We love each other.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s weird. It’s weird. And the Braves players buying into these narratives is, for lack of a better phrase, loser shit.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I will—
ALEX: Well, this is what I said last week is the— I mean, I know I was not the first person to say that the Braves vibes are rancid, but like it just— BOBBY: Yeah. I was—
ALEX: On every front, I think I was not prepared for how rancid it was gonna be.
BOBBY: They’re like paranoid.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They’re like— they’re like really truly paranoid that— about— about what? Honestly, about what? What are you worried about, that like people are going to think you’re fraudulent? Like, I don’t understand. You’re proving your fraudulent by getting so bogged down in these things and losing. Like, I don’t know— I don’t know what they’re so worried about—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —honestly. All right. We— we need to— we need to move on.
ALEX: I mean, do you want to compare it to the other NL fan base who just kind of went quiet— went quietly this— after getting bounced this October? BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Who almost— who almost— who literally requested that we do not even—
BOBBY: We do not talk about them.
ALEX: —mention their names on this podcast.
BOBBY: Look, I’m sorry. We— it’d be just— you know, it’s because we’re journalists here.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Not jackoff podcasters. It would be journalistic malpractice to not at least mention the fact that the Diamondbacks are going to the NLCS after eliminating the Dodgers, two straight years for the Dodgers going down against their division rivals that they have dominated during the regular season and over the course of the last, like, 12 regular seasons. It’s tough scenes, admittedly. I think they just had a bad week. And I think they can kind of just accept that they had a bad week. They got thoroughly outplayed, they rolled over. It was one of the least entertaining underdog victories I’ve ever seen. I’ve ever witnessed. And it’s not— that’s not to take away from the Diamondbacks who I think are performing well and proving why they even made it into the playoffs to begin with, even though they, you know, they have a negative run differential. Like, I think in past years, they probably wouldn’t have made it in, and they’ve caught a little bit of luck and a little bit of magic. And they— but they’ve taken that opportunity and they’ve spun it forward. They’ve taken every door that the Dodgers opened for them by playing poorly and they’ve stormed through it. And they did the same thing in the series against the Brewers. And now, they’re running into the Phillies, which is like— we’ll talk a little— a little bit about this and briefly preview the championship series. But, like, that’s a tough— that’s a tough matchup for them, but I think that they’ve already— in terms of playoffs being a proof of concept, I think that they’ve checked that box.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, they’re kind of playing with house money a little bit, right? Like, they can— they can confidently say, “Hey, we weren’t supposed to be here, but we did bounce, you know, the behemoth, the— the goliath Dodgers.” And so it’s a— it’s a little bit like the Phillies, I think, in that regard of— they were kind of playing second fiddle to these powerhouses in their division. And each team knocked off their respective rivals and now can sort of justifiably say, “Hey, not a lot of People expected us to be here.” Maybe the D-backs slightly more so than the Phillies. And I— so I do think it does make for a sort of compelling matchup.
BOBBY: It makes for a compelling matchup narratively. I’m not sure if the series will be very good.
ALEX: I mean— I mean, it might be a little lopsided, but—
BOBBY: But I could— I mean, we could be wrong. I think that Rangers-Diamondbacks World Series, just a hilarious proposition.
ALEX: Really, really— hilarious is a way to put it.
BOBBY: Let’s quickly pivot over to the AL side, which— I would say had less drama. The Rangers dispatch the Orioles, swept them. A couple of those games were not particularly close, game one was. In games two and three, the Rangers, I would use the word, outclassed the Orioles. This was kind of what I was trying to get at when I was saying that, “Okay. A 100-win team, what does that mean? Does that mean that you are just thoroughly better than every other team that you were competing against all year? Does that mean that you are— you know, throughout the annals of baseball history, like a 100 wins generally means that you’re a legitimately great team. You can’t fluke into that, right?” And I don’t think that the Orioles fluked into that. I want to be clear about that. I have to say, looking back on the whole season, like that is a very flawed team to have won 102 games or 103 games, or whatever. Like, yes, did they earn the best record in the American League? Absolutely. Did they win a lot of close games? Yeah. Did they need to improve their team at the trade deadline? Probably. Did they do that? No. And so I think you can look at that series and you can say, “May— probably the Orioles still would have lost if they had one other pitcher on their roster that they had traded for at the deadline.” But I just don’t know that, like, the difference between 92 wins and 102 wins is what it used to be because of the fact that maybe the 92-win team didn’t have Corey Seager for 50 games. Or may— you know, maybe the 102-win team just happened to be more healthy. And while they were healthy beating up on 58-win teams, the other team that they’re playing against might have been sputtering for a number of reasons.
ALEX: This is the— the series that shows how easy it is for me to— to be convinced by narratives. Like I— like the fact that the Orioles are young, and they’re [52:33] and they haven’t been here before. I’m like, “This is where— you know, this is where it’s beneficial to have those veteran players who’ve— who’ve been around these environments before.” And, like, I think that kind of thing gets overblown sometimes. I do think there’s something to— the idea of having a team with veteran players who can maybe handle the environment a little better who maybe are— are not necessarily riding off the— the youth revolution, taking the league by storm, but like are actually you know, just— just guys who know how to play ball, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah. I guess yeah.
ALEX: Who just listened to Creed before the fucking baseball game— like I— I’m sorry that I can’t get my— we talked— we talked and I— I said, I was like, “What is the— what is the band that the network is gonna like revive?”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You know, are we gonna get 30 Seconds to Mars? Are we— are we gonna get some Coldplay? And I really—
BOBBY: Does Coldplay need revival?
ALEX: I mean, I— no. I mean, they’re on another just atmosphere.
BOBBY: Did they break up? Are they dunzo?
ALEX: I don’t think so. Did they?
BOBBY: Maybe I’m just thinking of Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow. They’re done, but Coldplay is still alive. Thank God. I think it’s kind of an amazing bit by them, by the way.
ALEX: Yeah, I think so too. Especially given Creed’s sort of meme-ification—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —amid the mid-2000s. It’s like they— they were due for a revival, I think. Are you a Creed guy?
BOBBY: What do you think?
ALEX: Or more of a Relient K guy?
BOBBY: I actually like the Relient K. Relient K is good.
ALEX: Yeah, sure. I listened to, like, their Christmas album once when I was 13 and I was like, “Okay. I didn’t know Christmas songs could actually slap.
BOBBY: I think that the thing that I’m most fascinated with, from the era of Alex before I knew you, is just how much free time you had and the ways in which you filled that time.
ALEX: Yeah.
Bobby” Now it’s like, I think I have a general idea of what you’re doing most hours of the day.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But like 13-year-old, you could have been doing literally any number out there.
ALEX: Literally.
BOBBY: And so I’m like, what rabbit hole was he going down at the moment? And you’re the kind of person who’s not just gonna like— you can’t let go of a thing. So if you start—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —listening to Relient K’s Christmas album, or if you find it— rather, if you find out that Relient K has a Christmas album, you’re not just going to not torrent it. Like, you are going to go get it and you are going to listen to it. And then you are going to formulate an opinion on it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Whereas like I’m the kind of person if I found out Relient K had a Christmas album, and I was like, “Oh, it’s on Spotify.” I would just be like, “Well, just move on with my day.”
ALEX: I guess I’m— I guess I’m never hearing that ever.
BOBBY: And you’re not like that.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: You’re like, “I’m gonna find cowboy Joe West’s CD. I’m gonna put it on MediaFire and share it only with the select people who need it not illegally.
ALEX: Yeah. You know, and that’s what I really— that’s what I admire about you. I just wanted to clarify that. I’m not— I’m not a Creed guy. I will be playing Be My Escape in this episode, though.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: By Reliant K. Back to the Rangers.
ALEX: Yeah. What were we talking about?
BOBBY: They’re a great— they’re a great team. I find it funny how Nathan Eovaldi is the greatest pitcher in the history of the playoffs.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like you can— you know, you can— you can have a million Edgertronic cameras. You can optimize pitching all you want. But you know what you can’t do? You can’t make Nate— now, you can’t make Nasty Nate go out there and just pitch through pain for innings, on innings, on innings. And just mowed down some of the greatest hitters alive year over year in the playoffs. Explain that, nerds.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Put some numbers behind that, dorks.
ALEX: The first time Astros and Rangers face off in the postseason.
BOBBY: Ever.
ALEX: According to my sources.
BOBBY: I guess it makes sense. I mean, they’re in different leagues.
ALEX: Right. And like they— I feel like they have never really had sustained periods of success, especially ones that overlap.
BOBBY: Yeah. I’d like to take a mea culpa real quick.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Remember before the season, in the offseason, when Jacob deGrom signed with the Rangers?
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: And he said that it was because he wanted to compete and the Mets fans were kind of like, “Well, you just left 101-win team with the owner who spent the most money in baseball—”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: “—to go to a team that was under .500 and hasn’t been very good for the last few years.” And doesn’t have like the best farm system in baseball, so that’s a weird thing— that’s a weird reason to frame leaving. You could have just said you wanted to live in Texas and not New York.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And that fits your personality better, like that’s fine. We would have accepted that. I guess I was wrong. The Rangers are good. They look like they’re gonna be good for a while. They look like—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —they’ve built a solid team. And you know what? They’ve done it in a kind of non-traditional way.
ALEX: Yup. Or you could argue a way that you and I—
BOBBY: Admire more.
ALEX: —would— would admire, generally speaking.
BOBBY: I mean, I think that the Mets are building a team in a similar way, so, like—
ALEX: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: —it’s— still it’s kind of a wash to what he said, but I was way more down on the Rangers than you were and that a lot of other people were, and I was wrong. They’re good. The team— that lineup in particular is hard to argue with and as— you know, as a pitcher who’s had very little run support throughout his career, I can see what Jacob deGrom saw in them. The Astros, do you want to say something about the Astros? Rather, do you want to say something about the Twins? You know, the Astros— because I— we’ve talked plenty about the Astros. I think this is a classic case of “Wow, that team on the other end is better than us.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: We might need a couple more years of building this specific core to be anywhere near what they’re doing.
ALEX: Yeah, tough scene for Sonny Gray to have one bad start all year long.
BOBBY: I know.
ALEX: And— and it came at the worst possible time.
BOBBY: I feel like he is having a bizarro world career, where he’s just like— for those of us who are fans of him and who have been following him at each of his various stops, really starting in Oakland, where he was your boy.
ALEX: Yeah,
BOBBY: He’s amazing. He’s so good.
ALEX: He’s a really fucking good pitcher.
BOBBY: He has such a good command. He’s like also my kind of pitcher too, where he’s like a— he’s like a nerd about it.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And he’s, like, very self-defeating when he’s not his best. I’m like, “There’s a man after my own heart.” And he wants to throw different kinds of pitches. He wants to get guys out in different ways. I— I can admire, like, the overpowering, “All right. I throw 103 and I have a 95-mile an hour slider. And that’s just what I do. It’s just— it’s just— you can’t touch this at all.” But Sonny is not like that. He has like two different kinds of fast balls. He has three different kinds of breaking balls. He throws like a [59:19]
ALEX: Yeah. He’s like a 5’10” with, like, Guile, you know? And—
BOBBY: Exactly. And for those of us who have been watching Sonny at each stop of his career and developing this relationship for— with him because of that, and he’s been so good in so many places. And then just in the most inter— inopportune moments possible throughout his career, he has kind of sucked. And— I mean, I’m talking about when he got traded to the Yankees when there were a lot of new eyes on him, a lot of new fans. And he was not very good with the Yankees for that second half of the season, did not come back to them. Went to the Reds, was awesome with the Reds.
ALEX: Which makes me think it had more to do with the Yankees than it did Sonny Gray.
BOBBY: It absolutely had more to do with the Yankees. And he’s basically like come out and talked about that.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: The Yankees have kind of, like, to some extent like some players and— and former, like, people involved in that process have kind of admitted fault there too, in terms of what they were asking him to throw and, like, how they’re asking him to change his— his pitch repertoire and whatnot. But, like, then he goes to the Twins. He’s still really good with them, too. And then against the Astros, in the series the most people are watching, he has one stinker. Like you said, the whole year, he’s been great, and he has one bad start. And that wasn’t even necessarily the reason that they lost the series. I think it could have been the reason that they, like, even up the series and had a chance to steal it, but it wasn’t. And I think that’s just a bummer. And I love Sonny. And I hope that people continue to show him the respect that he’s earned.
ALEX: I’m just really curious to see where the Twins sort of go from here. Like, I— I— it’s really hard for me to put my finger on just what their strategy is beyond, like, get a bunch of guys who strike a lot of dudes out, both starters and relievers. And then an offense that can, like, hold their own.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I— it feels like— and they have the benefit again to play in the AL Central, so they don’t— they frankly don’t need to have a huge, stated plan—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —to get to the playoffs, obviously. The bar is a— is a little bit lower. But I would like to see them kind of figure out a way to actually build off of this momentum rather than doing what I think we’ve seen them do in previous years of success, which is we’re just gonna keep it steady as she goes, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: We’re gonna get round the guys who we, like, the Polancos and the Kepplers. And— and then hope we can kind of fill the gaps in-house.
BOBBY: They need more guys. They just need more guys.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They don’t need to replace anything about the core that they have in place really. Like Royce Lewis, Correa, you know, Edouard Julien who had a great year. Ryan Jeffers, the catcher. Like these players are a good foundation of a team, but like they just don’t have quite, like, the lineup depth of the teams that they’re coming up against. And it really showed when like— because their— and— and that’s without even mentioning their pitching staff, which is really good. Like really, like, one of the best pitching— it was one of the best pitching staffs in the field and I think it was the reason that they even made it this far.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Which is like Sonny Gray, Pablo Lopez, and then like a bevy of dudes in the bullpen who are just, like, throwing absolute gas. I just think that, like, when it comes to a playoff series against a team that is much more complete, and well-rounded, and has a lineup of guys that are harder to get out than the Twins have. Those gaps start to show a little bit more. And I mean, it’ll be an open question as to whether they can— whether they can develop some of those players or whether they’re going to be able to go attract those players to come sign there. And I think that Caray is an interesting fulcrum in that conversation, because by all accounts, he is like the most— one of the most beloved teammates in the league right now and the kind of player who has, like, cachet to attract other players to come play with him, or to attract players to like stick around and build for the long term in Minnesota. And so I— I’m— they are more interesting than the we lucked into this playoffs picture because we’re just the least bad team in the AL Central would have you believe.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, they have a— as you mentioned a decent enough foundation of, like, fringe prospect guys, right? You mentioned Julien, you know, guys like Alex Kirilloff and—
BOBBY: Oh, Kirilloff too. Yeah, I forgot.
ALEX: Yeah. And I mean— I mean, Nick Gordon and— and Jose Miranda as well.
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: So, like, guys who— if things break right, could be everyday regulars. But it kind of doesn’t work if that’s— most of your lineup is—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —hoping that things break right with these guys. So it would be nice to see them take a Rangers-like approach where they fill in these holes with one or two big splashes as they did with Correa, right?
BOBBY: Yeah, sort of an extenuating circumstance there, but yeah.
ALEX: Extenuating circumstance, yeah. And— and again, I am not confident that we’ll see that sort of thing, because I think that they can look at their roster and look at the Central and say, “Well, we made it work this
year.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: “Let’s— let’s run it back.”
BOBBY: But that— but I don’t know. But, like, at the same time though, it would be kind of nice to kind of, like, slam the door shut on that division before it even get started. You know what I mean?
ALEX: Well— right. Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Like, rather than— because that is the type of division where you can— other teams, they have proven time and time again that if you are good, they won’t try. So if you—
ALEX: If you’re competent even.
BOBBY: Right. So it’d be nice if you could just basically, like, guarantee your fan base a level of sustained success rather than, like— the last couple years, the Twins have been sort of wandering in the wilderness a little bit like. They’ve been disappointing. And they— there was like a sell-off in there and they were able to kind of bounce back from that relatively quickly, but— okay, we’ve probably spent enough time on the teams that are eliminated. Honestly, we probably spent too much time on the teams that are eliminated. Why don’t we take a quick break? When we come back, we’ll answer a few questions. And in the process, we’ll preview the championship series a little bit.
SPEAKER 4: I gotta get outta here. I’m stuck inside this rut that I fell into by mistake.
BOBBY: All right, Alex. We got a little bit of a buffer question here. Before we— before we continue talking about the playoffs on the field, let’s talk about the playoffs in the movie theater. Wyatt asks, “Rank the remaining four teams in order of which are most likely to see The Eras Tour movie
in theaters this week? Feels—
ALEX: Great question.
BOBBY: It feels pretty clear.
ALEX: I think number one is— I mean, that one is easy, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It’s Phils.
BOBBY: Yeah. The Braves— oh, wait, no, they’re not in anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeha, the Phillies. They seem like they would have a great time. They also have kind of like a lot of young, online, feeling guys—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —where they seem like they have more of a knowledge of Taylor Swift than your average professional athlete would. Like, don’t get me wrong. I think they have a lot of, like, Luke Bryan guys in the locker room as well, but for some reason they have that sort of energy.
ALEX: Yeah, I feel like they are— would be very happy leaning into sort of the pop cultural zeitgeist.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That happens to be Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.
BOBBY: (The Movie).
ALEX: —(The Film).
BOBBY: Second would be the Diamondbacks, just because they have the youngest team left in the fields. They’re most likely to have grown up with Taylor Swift as a larger part of their life.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I’m trying to picture Tommy Pham watching Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in theaters and just having the worst time of his life. I don’t think he would be chill about that.
ALEX: I don’t think so.
BOBBY: Third, is a toss-up. I think it’s probably the Rangers.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: But I don’t feel that strongly about it. I— I just feel like the Astros are like— we don’t get to hear as much about what the Astros actually like, because everybody’s just mad at them all the time.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So we know that they are just, like, dominating on the baseball field. And I know that Alex Bregman would be in there for the clout. But for the rest of the team, I don’t really know what their, like, personalities are like when it comes to pop culture. The Rangers, I mean, you know, you have the whole Caray thing. Like they have some general awareness of like popular music. Even if that popular music is music that is a meme.
ALEX: Yeah. I don’t know. I feel like Scherzer would get really into it.
BOBBY: Oh, Scherzer, he’s on the Rangers. He is on the Rangers, and back for the series.
BOBBY: Is he— is that confirmed?
ALEX: Yeah, that was— that was just confirmed.
BOBBY: Today?
ALEX: Like, right before we started recording, yeah.
BOBBY: Damn. That actually makes me kind of nervous, because what if he comes and then stinks? It’s like, “We shouldn’t have changed. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”
ALEX: Yeah, true.
BOBBY: “Let Nate cook.” You know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I mean, they still will let me cook. Like this is a longer series, so they will need another pitcher rather than beyond just Nathan Eovaldi and Jordan Montgomery. Okay. Wyatt, thank you. Good question. Next question comes from M. O’Neal. “How unpleasant is it to watch games from the Ranger stadium on television?
ALEX: Miserable.
BOBBY: It doesn’t look good. It looks like it’s being played legitimately in a warehouse. Why? This is a brand-new stadium. Unlike— it’s called Globe Life Field and just— it’s— just everybody in baseball media and on Twitter just calls it Globe Death Field.
ALEX: I do think that one of the enjoyable things about baseball is that every field is a little bit different, right? And part of that means that every broadcast is going to look a little bit different. And so it’s one of these weird quirks that baseball just offers, right? Because the outfield walls are slightly different distances and they’re— they curve at different scientific phrases. I feel like you can figure it out for the playoffs. Like I feel like you can figure out a level of consistency, given that it’s generally speaking the same broadcasters who are putting these things on TV.
BOBBY: Hmm.
Alex Like I just—
BOBBY: So you’re saying that the TV broadcast itself looks disorienting when you watch Texas?
ALEX: Isn’t that what the question is? I— I thought— because like the literal angle of the camera is like—
BOBBY: Well, yeah, I think that is the question.
ALEX: —is like from really high up—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —and directly behind the pitcher.
BOBBY: True.
ALEX: I just—
BOBBY: I— I took the question to be more generally as to why they built the ballpark that looks like dogshit on TV.
ALEX: Got it. Got it.
BOBBY: It’s like dark, and like uninspiring, and impersonal. And I just— I don’t know. I— your point is probably more accurate.
ALEX: There are— there are— there are varying things to take away from this.
BOBBY: Your point is probably more accurate and that this person is probably asking why they broadcast it that way. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I think that for everything that we’ve— for all the exposure that we’ve had to the Astros field, Minute Maid Park over the last six years, because they’ve been in six or seven, or 30 consecutive ALCS’s. I still think that TV— I think that— that ballpark looks pretty good—
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —on TV. I mean, I think the Crawford boxes are kind of a sham, but like whatever, like nothing matters. Like that’s it. You’re all playing on the same field, so I think it looks great. I love the like brick train left field situation. I think that all of the orange really pops on a television broadcast. It’s— it’s nice at least that the Astros are not red, white, and blue, because if we had to see this team—
ALEX: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: —and in boring red, white and blue uniforms over the— over the last half decade or decade at this point.
ALEX: I mean, it’d be like watching the Rangers, I think.
BOBBY: Oh, no. Who do you think is gonna win the series?
ALEX: I mean, I think it’s gonna be the Astros, but I’m not sure that I can say that with my chest, you know? Like, I— it feels like it’s going to be closer than it looks on paper. I just give the— the— the edge to the Astros because why would you not after looking at the last five or six years of baseball, but—
BOBBY: Right. Because, yeah, they’ve never given us any reason not to believe in them.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I know, but then just part of me is like, are there— is it really going to be a World Series rematch?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That doesn’t seem right. But, oh, my God, Rangers-Phillies. I— this is the point in the podcast at which I tell you guys about how I’m staring into the void.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I suppose that the ranking of teams that I want to win the World Series left now— now that the Phillies have done what I needed them to do, now that I can be extricated from my deep, deep undercover work within the Phillies fan base. I think that they move immediately to last.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Despite the fact that any objective person would put them first.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They’re last for me because I’m a very subjective person. I think that second to last, honestly, is the Rangers because I am a hater and I think that I would not— I would not like to see former Mets get World Series rings one year after leaving the Mets. And I hate the energy around their organization specifically.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I actually really deeply admire a lot of their fans and I think that they’re pretty normal about the team. And within recent memory, they have had very likeable teams. Like the— the team— like the 11 and 12 teams, I have a nostalgia for them because I was like a— a teenager, like, watching Beltre, and Hamilton, and all of these guys, like, was sort of amazing.
ALEX: Fielder, Andrus.
BOBBY: Right. Yeah, exactly.
ALEX: Some high— you can really name some guy— remember some guys from the Rangers mid-2000s teams.
BOBBY: Those— those teams were stack.
ALEX: Yeah. Also the only baseball team which will show you a Lockheed Martin banner in the outfield, so you can pick your place in—
BOBBY: Well— exactly. That’s kind of what I mean.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And the whole like— we— we pretend— the whole like if you’re not straight, you’re not welcome here thing—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —is, like, actually legitimately hang over this— this team from a neutral observer perspective. The Astros second— the— the Astros are probably second, because like I’ve— I’ve dealt with it so many times over the last few years. Like what’s one more World Series like we just— it doesn’t change anything about how I feel to them and doesn’t change really anything about how good I think that they are or were.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, I can live with that. That’s just like another line on the Astros Wikipedia page, or baseball reference page or whatever. And then I guess the Diamondbacks have to be the team that I want to win the most, because they’re the least offensive to me personally. But at the same time, I’m, like, pretty uninspired by the notion of the Diamondbacks winning the World Series. So it feels kind of like a real crapshoot for me at this point. I think to— around all the way back to what I asked you, I think that the Astros will win this series, mainly because I trust their— I trust their first and second plan better than I trust the Rangers second plan. Meaning like if everything breaks right for the Rangers, I think that they have a very, very, very good shot of winning this series—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —and beating the Astros and knocking them off. And I think that their lineup somehow, though very comparable, is like performing better right now. But if like one, or maybe two, or even three things I was wrong as they often do in a seven-game series, in the championship series against the best of the best, I feel better about, like, the Astros backup plan, the Astros bullpen, the Astros second, third, and fourth starters. You know, the Astros 6, 7, 8, 9 in the lineup. Like for some reason, I feel more confident in them even though I’m sure that like Bruce— Bruce Bochy will call on some guy at the end of the bench and he’ll hit a pinch hit walk off home run to win the ALCS, but whatever, that is what it is.
ALEX: I think I’m pulling for a Phillies-Rangers World Series.
BOBBY: The Hamels bowl.
ALEX: Uh-huh. You know how much I love red, white, and blue jerseys. I feel like let’s just get it all in.
BOBBY: The Phillies like— their blue is like not really that involved.
ALEX: It’s not really featured. Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s like red and white.
ALEX: It’s red and white, yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah. Clinching in the retros was kind of baller.
ALEX: Such a sick move.
BOBBY: You don’t need to go on record on who you think will win that series. Yeah, we can wait until next episode. So you— so Phillies-Diamondbacks.
what’s like your one big thought about the series? I— I feel a little bit like the— the Diamondbacks are really— this is kind of the first real challenge they’re going to be facing this postseason. No disrespect to fans of a blue and white team that we’re— know— that we’ve been ask—
BOBBY: Oh, my God.
ALEX: —asked not to mention,
BOBBY: Absolutely bodied.
ALEX: Did— am I wrong, though? Like, just in terms of vibes, momentum, whatever you want to call it, the Phillies are in a really good position right now, I think. And just— as you mentioned earlier, that’s a team of players who love to play together, and actively have players around the league who are like, “Yeah. No, we want to come and play with y’all.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Because like this is a— this is a good vibe. So I think it’s gonna be a real test for a very young Diamondbacks team to kind of come up against a group of guys that have had some time to mash, especially in October under some of these biggest lights. I do think it’s gonna be a fascinating series, but I—
BOBBY: It would be too cute to pick against the Phillies.
ALEX: It would be a little too cute.
BOBBY: I— if there’s going to be a team that should do the nobody believes in us—
ALEX: It’s the D-backs.
BOBBY: —and puts Atlanta at the shame, it’s the D-backs. Like they— nobody believes them.
ALEX: Like, actually— like it’s true.
BOBBY: Like straight up nobody believes that they’re gonna win the series. So I think it’s gonna be Phillies-Astros rematch, I guess, that’s my prediction.
We had a couple more questions here, but we’re— we’re running pretty long here, so I think I want to wrap it there. But before I do, as we close it out here, do you want to make a prediction for the weirdest thing that you think will happen in the championship series? Corey Seager six-walk game breaks his record that he said five-walk, I think—
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: —most walks in a playoff game.
ALEX: I don’t know. I feel like— I feel like there’s been a— there’s been a staggering lack of rules discourse and this is a feature—
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: —of every playoffs is at least once— there’s at least one moment or— or two where a relatively unknown rule kind of gets brought—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —into the— the center of the conversation. I don’t know that I can make a prediction on what that rule is. I think because I— that’s the fun of it, is that you kind of don’t have that idea going forward.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But, like, you know, it’s not like we’re just gonna get a pitch clock violation. Although, I mean—
BOBBY: I was just recently reminded of the infield fly debacle—
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: —from a few years back, because there was an infield fly in game four of the Phillies-Braves series that I— because I wasn’t listening to it. I was watching it at a bar with no sound. I couldn’t tell that they had called an infield fly, and I thought that they’re gonna let it drop, and then [1:18:46] there’s a whole thing. Okay. So rules— a rules debate. I think it would be funny if it was a pitch clock violation.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And I think— I think there’s only one person that comes to mind that I think would make it the funniest—
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah. Yup.
BOBBY: —and that’s Max Scherzer, so—
ALEX: I mean, he’s the guy who I was thinking of, of like who is going to be at the center of whatever the controversy is.
BOBBY: Max Scherzer’s sticky stuff ejection in game three.
ALEX: [1:19:08] I know— I know, I was thinking of it first.
BOBBY: Oh, man. I— is this Scherzer and Verlander on the table like as a matchup? Are they— could they potentially pitch against each other? Scherzer, Verlander like benches clearing brawl.
ALEX: That—
BOBBY: That’s my prediction. I think that they might actually not like each other. Like, I think that they might be grudgingly respect and love each other. Like, you might be grudgingly respect and love like a member of your family who you don’t like— or you’re not like psyched to be around at like—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —large family functions. But I think that they’re like not homies.
ALEX: No, I think they’re, again, cordial off the field, but like— like they’re both such—
BOBBY: You and me.
ALEX: Right, exactly. They’re both such competitors and obviously, they have history together.
BOBBY: I think I’m definitely the Scherzer in this analogy.
ALEX: This— I mean, any analogy in which you end up being Max Scherzer or Justin Verlander is a pretty good one.
BOBBY: Don’t you agree, though? Like, don’t you think I’m a little bit more like manic, and weird, and intense?
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: And you’re a little bit more like laid back, but under the surface, like, also still pretty competitive. And like opinionated and like strongly formed in your view of how things should be done.
ALEX: Right, exactly. But— but mostly airing it— airing it out kind of like in—
BOBBY: Like—
ALEX: —sort of passive aggressive ways.
BOBBY: Like I’m a chill, white guy kind of way.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Sorry. I’m gonna chill co-host for life guy kind of way. Okay. Well, I’m glad we clarified that and I’m glad I asked because it got us the Max Scherzer shares or to your Justin Verlander analogy. Thank you to everybody for listening. I— I mean, there’s a decent shot that none of these podcast made any sense because I felt like for the first about, like, 70 minutes, I was just kind of rambling my thoughts about the Philadelphia Phillies.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: A team that I found myself really fully, wholeheartedly supporting over the last week or so. And I was just— you know, I was just coming into this podcast in a weird headspace for various reasons. Just a lot of reasons. Anyway, thank you everybody for listening. We will have more information about when the watch-along is happening, how you can join. We will also be back around this time next week to talk about what is most likely the World Series matchup, but potentially could still be the championship series, so we will see them.
SPEAKER 5: I’m sorry and I’ve been put through the ringer. I flinch every time I see the words “I hate Steven Singer.”
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello, everybody. I’m Alex Rodriguez. Tipping Pitches. Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most. Tipping Pitches. So, we’ll see you next week. See ya!
BOBBY: Can you take me higher? In terms of, like, memed rock from the 2000s, this is like better musically than Nickelback.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Like a lot better.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I mean, his voice is obviously more absurd, but this is—
ALEX: I mean, not by a long shot [1:22:32]
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