Return of the pod! Alex and Bobby are back to kick off the 2024 season with this year’s banned topics, a list which includes a media member, a sport, an oft-repeated lie from owners, a uniform decision, and more. Plus, some discussion of a couple small stories from the last week involving Shohei Ohtani and the MLBPA. Everything is fine here!
Links:
Players move to oust Bruce Meyer from union
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Songs featured in this episode:
Thin Lizzy — “The Boys Are Back In Town” • Gulfer — “Clean” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Transcript
Tell us a little bit about what you saw and be able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitch and kind of help out so he wasn’t typical pitches. So tipping pitches we hear about it all the time. People are home on the stand what tipping pitches all about? That’s amazing. That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, I have a story for you to start out this here podcast.
ALEX: Hello, Bobby. What’s your story?
BOBBY: I’m like—
ALEX: Reg— regale me.
BOBBY: That was kind of like a— like a smooth 102.9 jazz voice that you hit me with right there. “Hello, Bobby.”
ALEX: Hello, Bobby. You’re listening to Tipping Pitches.
BOBBY: Why don’t we have you record something like that for the intro? I think— like, I think that would actually be funny and good.
ALEX: Or we could do the— right. The— I don’t know. I kind of forgot how to do this.
BOBBY: All right. I’m gonna tell you my story. My story is I went to fire up MLB.TV. I don’t know how you watch MLB.TV, but I previously watched it through my PlayStation 4. I do not have a PlayStation—
ALEX: Broke boy.
BOBBY: I do not— I do not have a PlayStation 5. I’m not built for the gaming life like you are. I know that you’re a real gamer here.
ALEX: Yeah, for sure.
BOBBY: And I went to go open the app, and you know what it told me? Can you guess what it told me?
ALEX: Either that you’re blacked out or that you need to renew your script subscription? I don’t know.
BOBBY: No, I did renew my subscription.
ALEX: Oh, okay.
BOBBY: I told you that I renewed my subscription and that I put it on the Tipping Pitches [1:46]
ALEX: Oh, that’s— you did, yes.
BOBBY: At our various business meetings over the last six weeks. We’ve just been having business meetings every night.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: No, I— my subscription is up to date. Good to go on that. I wasn’t blacked out. I hadn’t even gotten to the games yet. It told me the app no longer is functioning. It’s no long— the app is no longer supported—
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: —on PlayStation 4. Now, the reason that I even watch on my PlayStation 4, as opposed to watching just through my television, through an app on my television, is that MLB.TV did not think it was necessary to have an app on Samsung TVs.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: For some reason. You know Samsung? How many Samsungs do you think are in America? How many Samsung TVs in America? 30 million Samsung Smart TVs registered in the US and 73 million globally. Not enough. MLB.TV said, “Not enough.” So the reason that I even was using the PS4 app to begin with was because there was no other option for me. So then I opened the PS4 app. And so I was like, “I guess I’m just not watching baseball this year.” Certainly, not gonna pay the 29.99 for a Roku or whatever, that everybody at home right now is, like, screaming, “Just do it. Get— just get it on, Roku.”
ALEX: Right. I— my— myself included.
BOBBY: Just get it on Apple TV. Nope. So I was like, “Okay. They sunsetted it, they sunsetted it on PS4.” Just like Joe Biden.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: They sunsetted it. And I had to get that joke in there. So I was like, “Okay. Just maybe, maybe this one time, they’re gonna follow logic here. And because they’re getting rid of the old app on the PS4, maybe they will have also added an app option on Samsung TV.”
ALEX: You actually thought that?
BOBBY: So I was like doing some deep breathing exercises, box breathing. Have you ever heard the concept of box breathing? Four seconds in, four second hold, four second out, four second pause. 4444 box square.
ALEX: Cool. All right, great.
BOBBY: You should try it.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: It works really well. I’m trying to lower my heart rate, you know?
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: And I opened up the Samsung App Store, which is a disaster, by the way. A total nightmare. I searched for it. Sure enough, it was there. And it works.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: They fucking did it. 2024, the year of hope.
ALEX: Look at that.
BOBBY: Rob Manfred heard our cries into the wilderness, and he called back and he said, “Sirs, I have a solution for you.”
ALEX: He’s looking out for the common man, you know? The— the little Samsung users out there.
BOBBY: All 30 million of us—
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: —in the United States and all 73 million of us globally.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: But I don’t think that you can get MLB.TV globally.
ALEX: I— that’s— I don’t know. I don’t— I don’t live globally.
BOBBY: How are you doing?
ALEX: I’m doing good. It’s be— it’s— it’s been a hot sec.
BOBBY: It has been a hot sec. You’re still wearing your Enron Field hat, so—
ALEX: I’m still—
BOBBY: —some things changed, some things stayed the same.
ALEX: Exactly. I mean, I— I felt like— it’s been a little while since I’ve— since I’ve worn it, but if there’s an occasion to kind of get me back in the right headspace, this is— this is the one.
BOBBY: Talk to me about your sort of like offseason. You know, we just took six weeks off. Are you in the best shape of your life? What would you say? Did you add 15 pounds of muscle?
ALEX: I added 15 pounds of something.
BOBBY: Have you been prac— doing practice pods at home?
ALEX: Yes, I’ve been— I’ve been doing it in the mirror.
BOBBY: In the mirror? Have you ever tried to, like, talk in the mirror for, like, longer than 30 seconds? Like, if you just happen to have a mirror near you and you’re having a conversation with someone, if you try to watch yourself talk in the mirror, it’s like— it really breaks your brain a little bit.
ALEX: Yeah, I prefer talking to myself when there’s not a mirror or I’m— because I look far less stupid that way.
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: I will say.
BOBBY: You don’t look at yourself in the mirror in the morning and give yourself like affirmations, like, “I am enough. I am Alex. I am smart. I am witty. Today’s gonna be a good day.”? You don’t do that?
ALEX: No, I usually— I go the other direction. What’s the opposite of affirmations? Like, ne— negs?
BOBBY: Insults? Negs.
ALEX: You’re like, “All right, bud. You really think you can do this today? Let’s see. Let’s find out.”
BOBBY: You’re like the sports talk radio host for your own life.
ALEX: Uh-huh. I don’t really know if he’s got that dog in him.
BOBBY: He— he’s not built for the moment.
ALEX: I don’t know if he is. But we’re gonna see. It’s all gonna— it’s all gonna show up on the court.
BOBBY: So practice pods? You laid a couple tracks down?
ALEX: Laid a couple tracks down.
BOBBY: Did you go back and watch it, like, film?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You know? Not enough lift on my swing here.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Not enough punch to the end of this bit.
ALEX: No. I just pivoted. I— I just— I’ve—
BOBBY: NFTs?
ALEX: I— NFTs to crypto.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: I just started investing.
BOBBY: You— by the way, is crypto kind of back? Bitcoin is way up. Secretly, everybody’s dunking on it when it was down. Look at it, it’s back.
ALEX: Yeah, I don’t— dude, I don’t— I don’t know.
BOBBY: Last year— today is The Banned Topics, by the way. Hi, everybody. Last year on The Banned Topics episode, we started out with a 25-minute conversation about Silicon Valley Bank going bankrupt.
ALEX: Oh, wow.
BOBBY: It was like an old-fashioned [6:41] on the bank.
ALEX: That was only a year ago?
BOBBY: Unfortunately, yes.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: Yeah. But also, doesn’t it kind of feel like it was like six weeks ago?
ALEX: Yes. Yeah. I— what’s— what’s so cool about crypto is because there’s nothing behind it, is like when it’s back, it’s just because everyone’s like, “It’s back.”
BOBBY: “It’s back.” Yeah.
ALEX: And then when it’s doing poorly, it’s because everyone’s like, “I think it’s doing poorly right now.” Like, it is actually maybe the—
BOBBY: It’s like your affirmations to yourself in the mirror.
ALEX: I mean, it is—
BOBBY: But that’s basically, like, the underlying philosophy of crypto, it’s just an affirmation.
ALEX: It’s— maybe the most properly valued asset in the world right now.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Because like the— the value of it is whatever everyone’s saying, so I don’t know, maybe— maybe I [7:23]
BOBBY: So you’re saying you believe in the [7:24] is what you’re saying?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Free market pivot would be really fun for you. I think this podcast needs a little more attention. I think that’s what it was missing. I think that’s what we discovered over the last six weeks. So we’ve been working sort of on our point, counterpoint energy.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Our crossfire energy. Our first take energy, if you will.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And we’re gonna try it out today.
ALEX: Well, yeah, my— my pivot towards sports betting is really going to catch me off guard, then, because all I want to do is talk about MLB features and— and betting spreads [7:58]
BOBBY: Can you imagine if— if we just decided to do like a season preview, but it was all about betting? Took six weeks off for a pivot, bang.
ALEX: Yeah. And said, “We got the insights. We got the data.” This is data-driven analysis that we’re doing right here. We’ve set up our AI modeling systems.
BOBBY: What do they call those people? They call them sharks. Sharks, we’re the sharks.
ALEX: Sharks, sure.
BOBBY: Shh, nope. You can’t change our name to have shark in the title. Tipping Sharks, Sharking Pitches? Poll in the— poll in the description, which do you prefer?
ALEX: Sharks are reserved for individuals like Alex Rodriguez, who go on TV and sit there, and have ideas pitched at— at you.
BOBBY: You know, I don’t— I don’t think it’s shark. I think it’s sharp, that I’m thinking of the sharps.
ALEX: Ah.
BOBBY: Sharp bettors.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Yeah. I did produce an entire season about gambling and I forgot that I [8:47]
ALEX: And it shows.
BOBBY: An entire podcast season about gambling. Good— good season. You should go check that out. Gamblers, Season 2.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: Part of The Ringer Podcast Network. That was like two years ago—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —but you’ll find it.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Your podcast app of choice. No free ads, though. No bleep, all that.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: No free ads for things that I worked on. Banned topics. We also have a— a lot of topics that are— are not banned, and some might argue are very important things that we’ve just missed over the last six weeks. Very important. Very important. A lot of people being like—
ALEX: A really banner— banner time of year for us to take off.
BOBBY: Unbelievable. Before we get into all of that, before we get into the mutiny at the Major League Baseball Players Association, before we get into the betting scandal that could take down the— the game’s greatest player. That’s not an exaggeration. Before we do some banned topics for the year, the calendar year 2024, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches. Before we get into today’s episode, I wanted to take a quick moment just to say thanks to everybody for hanging out, being patient, waiting, listening to the rebroadcasts that we put on the feed for the last five or six weeks. Obviously, we put out a statement on Twitter, but if you are mercifully not on Twitter, or if you are not a patron, or if you happened to miss the short statement that we put in the podcast feed about a month and a half ago, we just decided to take a break. We had— we’ve been doing the show for six and a half years, basically, with no sustained break, even when I moved across the country, or even when I moved back across the country, you basically had episodes filling in all of those weeks. And we thought it just might be a nice time to recharge the batteries, rethink about what we wanted to be discussing on the podcast, and really get our feet back on the ground heading into the 2024 season, which as people might have noticed over the last six weeks, is going to be full of topics that we want to cover on this podcast.
ALEX: Right. We figured we might— might as well take a break right as everyone is locking— like, right when—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —NFL season over.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: You know?
BOBBY: Right when you’re hearing— seeing a lot of those like, “It’s baseball season now,” tweets.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: We’re like, “We gotta get away.”
ALEX: We were like, “I need— I need some space.” We just didn’t— we did no reactionary takes here, you know? We said we see some stuff coming down the pipeline. What we’re going to do is step away so we can come back with some clear heads.
BOBBY: Yep.
ALEX: Rather than just— just reacting to whatever’s going on.
BOBBY: We are pivoting away from the 24-hour news cycle.
ALEX: Yes [11:29]
BOBBY: We’re more like on the 24-day news cycle.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Like, something happens and about— about three and a half weeks later, we’re like, “We’re gonna talk about this.”
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. That’s the— that’s the policing way of doing things, you know? It’s like something happens, you show up three or four days later and say, “Hey, I heard something happened.”
BOBBY: And that brings us to our first mix— missed topic from the last month and a half, Kathy Hochul inviting the National Guard into the subway.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Would you like weigh in on that—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —as a National Guard member yourself?
ALEX: As a member? I’m a card carrying member.
BOBBY: What would you like— what would you like to say? Have you had your bag searched yet? I know you commute both ways. You just said—
ALEX: I do— I do commute every day.
BOBBY: Oh, you were nodding. I thought you did have your bag searched [12:06]
ALEX: No, I haven’t— I haven’t been really searched yet.
BOBBY: You know, if you had your bad— bag searched by the National Guard and hadn’t told me yet, I’d be upset.
ALEX: I— I— that’s reasonable. No. They would have to look up from their phones to actually see me walking by one of the [12:18]
BOBBY: Are the National Guard guys on their phone, too?
ALEX: I, actually, to be quite honest, have not seen a National Guard guy yet.
BOBBY: I did. At Westport.
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And you gave him a salute?
BOBBY: I— I— no, I actually went down on one knee in front of him and I said, “Sir, I’m expressing my First Amendment Right to protest.”
ALEX: Oh, I thought you were— I thought you were praying to him. You were, like, thanking God. You were doing the Tebow in front of him.
BOBBY: You know, a— a really— one thing that we didn’t talk about enough during the whole Colin Kaepernick thing, if we could go back to that for a second, is—
ALEX: Uh-huh. On our baseball podcast, that’s been off for six weeks.
BOBBY: The— the fine line between Kaepernick and Tebow, you know, because Tebow prayed, so everyone’s like, “Okay, cool, for God.” But Kaepernick was doing it— I guess because Tebow wasn’t doing it during the National Anthem. What if he did do it during the National Anthem, but he was like, “I’m praying.”? Do you think it would have been a controversy?
ALEX: I— no, people would have been like, “That’s the most patriotic thing I’ve ever seen.”
BOBBY: We actually have a guest for today. His name’s Jason Whitlock. Jason, are you ready? He’s been in the greenroom, hanging out. Should we talk about— I don’t even know how to talk about this. Should we talk about the gigantic betting scandal of Shohei Ohtani and his translator, Ippei Mizuhara?
ALEX: I guess.
BOBBY: Where to begin?
ALEX: I don’t e— I don’t even know how— we can’t even establish the facts of this yet, right? Like, we can’t even really lay out a reasonable timeline. The story is still evolving. The broad strokes of it being that Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s longtime translator and close friend, was initially revealed to have maybe been stealing millions of dollars from Shohei Ohtani to place bets on undisclosed sports. And then— and then the story quickly evolved to, say, maybe Ohtani was actually helping him cover his own debts. There’s— MLB dropped the news of an investigation into Ohtani at 6:00 PM on a Friday night. Now, people—
BOBBY: We have— we have to be accurate. It was 5:56 PM.
ALEX: Okay. That’s fair. That’s fair.
BOBBY: Give him some break. Give him— give him some slack.
ALEX: We were— we were still online then.
BOBBY: We might have taken six weeks off, but we are committed to journalism.
ALEX: That’s right. We are.
BOBBY: Accuracy, integrity.
ALEX: There— there’s no like— and I was saying this before we started recording. Like, it’s not like we can necessarily have a take about this, because like we don’t—
BOBBY: Maybe you can’t—
ALEX: Well, I know you can. I know you can. My take is mostly like, kind of like, “That didn’t take long, huh?”
BOBBY: Yeah. I saw a lot of people sharing a similar take. So a couple— a couple more details for people before we start discussing it. The story broke what feels like weeks ago. I think it was only four days ago. I believe it was March 20th. We’re sitting here recording this on Sunday, March 24th. It was the day after the (opening day) in parentheses, the beginning of the Korea series. It was—
ALEX: Right. Which— which you don’t acknowledge.
BOBBY: I don’t— I don’t— I don’t acknowledge it. I mean, I acknowledge it in that these teams played. It seemed cool. I followed the highlights. That Machado Homer seemed— seemed fun. You know who was good? Mookie Betts.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Very good. I thought the— the box scores were ridiculous from this game. A lot of Mets fans taking a victory lap on Yamamoto already. I’m like, “You guys need to fucking [15:41]”
ALEX: Yeah, right.
BOBBY: You guys need to [15:44] roll. It— it— the story broke between games, basically. Like, the— the— in— in Eastern Time, the evening after they had played that first morning. So it was like they had to go play the second game with all of the press, they’re asking Ohtani questions. And the story was that there was a four and a half million dollar gambling debt. That was the number that kept floating around. And that that was how much money was transferred from Ohtani’s bank to the bookmaking— to a bookmaking operation that is under federal investigation for illegally gambling on sports. One thing that was weird about this, which I don’t know how much we can really talk about or like have much to say about was that we’re doing four and a half million dollars of illegal gambling in California, a state where gambling is legalized. So the whole idea that we’ve like cleaned up— cleaned this world up, like—
ALEX: Is it— is it legal in Cal—
BOBBY: I think so.
ALEX: I thought Gavin Newsom was holding it down for us out there. Holding the line.
BOBBY: Oh. Oh, I was wrong. California remains the most populous state yet to legalize any form of sports betting. Okay, never mind.
ALEX: Makes no more sense now. I’m like, “Oh, I get— I get it. I get it.”
BOBBY: But also like 81 games a year on the road.
ALEX: Right. You got— you got—
BOBBY: You can still place bets us on the weekend, you know?
ALEX: Yes, you can.
BOBBY: Place those bets on the flight. If you’re flying, can you place a bet?
ALEX: That’s a— that’s a—
BOBBY: International waters, like inter—
ALEX: [17:09] you can place bets on anything up there, man.
BOBBY: I just— I don’t want to know what international waters actually means in a legal sense. I prefer to keep it lodged in my head as like a place where you can do anything and not be accountable to anyone.
ALEX: I mean, that is kind of largely what it is.
BOBBY: Based on what, you passing the bar exam in the last six weeks? Like, what do you know that I don’t know?
ALEX: Wow. Wow. You came out with fire.
BOBBY: I told you. Confrontational.
ALEX: We want more attention.
BOBBY: Four and a half million dollars, that was the debt. That was what was alleged to have moved from Ohtani’s bank account to this bookmaking operation. I don’t remember this guy’s name, doesn’t really matter. The story came out initially that Ohtani had lent the money to Mizuhara to cover his gambling debt. And then it was very quickly backtracked. This came out through a spokesperson which we later found out was a crisis PR person for the Ohtani camp, a representative that they— that they had hired, like, within the last few days before this. The story was then recanted to be revised to say, actually, Ohtani only gave him $500,000 willingly and the other $4 million was stolen. I believe— they— they kept like referring to it as like, a— a— an egregious theft or something like that. It was like a really powerful language. Curious that the story was changed. Generally, when I think of crisis PR, I think of them being able to handle the PR and not make it worse.
ALEX: Right. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: What do I know about crisis PR? Not a lot. Not a lot. I know that people make a lot of money doing it. We’re in a banner month for PR, by the way, between the Royals, Ohtani.
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: MLB, in general.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like a day or two later, Ippei— Ippei came out and fell on the sword, for lack of a better phrase. He’s— he confirmed the second version of the story, which was that he went to Ohtani and asked for help for the $500,000. And then he— I don’t think he commented on the theft part of it, because that is, like, the active criminal investigation. A lot of reporters being like, “We asked which agency is covering this and none of them have said yes.” So that’s good. It’s not the FBI. It’s not the— it’s not the local authorities in California. I believe they asked the DOJ, like the district attorney for Los Angeles who would be covering this crime, and they had no comments. So I guess most likely is them, it’s most likely DOJ. But alas, a lot of really weird, really obscured elements of this story, which is why you said, “It’s very hard for us to have a take. It’s very hard for us to have like a nuanced thoughtful conversation about this.” All of that being said, all of the conspiracy theories flying about this, and I would say the main conspiracy theory that took hold was that Ohtani has a betting problem and his good friend— by the way, these guys are like— they call themselves brothers before all of this. And as recently as, like, the day before this, they were interacting, like, nothing was different. A lot of people conspiratorializing that Ohtani is the one with the betting problem. Ippei took the fall for it because Ohtani is such a big star. I think that’s reckless to throw that conspiracy theory out with any kind of platform. Obviously, people don’t think of Twitter as a place with the platform that they need to, like, control their conspiracy theories. But acknowledging all of that, as background for this, what do you actually think happened? Because I feel like in my mind, I have an idea of what I think is the most likely, but I wouldn’t put anything more than, like, 25% confidence on any of these options.
ALEX: Okay. It’s— it’s not interesting to say, like, I genuinely don’t know. But like—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —could Ohtani be gambling? Like, sure. I— I am not discounting that idea.
BOBBY: I did forget to mention, that story so far from all parties, has been that none of the gambling was on baseball.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So they have maintained that.
ALEX: Right. Which—
BOBBY: MLB investigation has not uncovered anything, because they didn’t announce it until two days ago at 6:00 PM.
ALEX: Right, of course. Which is what you generally do when—
BOBBY: When you don’t want people to know what you’re looking at [21:27]
ALEX: Right. I don’t— I mean, you say you have a— you have a pet theory. I kind of want to hear what it is.
BOBBY: I believe that the debt was accumulated by Ippei.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I believe that Ohtani did give him the money. I believe that they weren’t going to tell the truth about that, which is why that story came out, initially. And then they realized that they were admitting to a federal crime.
ALEX: Right, because—
BOBBY: By saying that story, because it’s still—
ALEX: Because you’re helping collect for a bookie at that point, collect a debt.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: For an illegal bookie.
BOBBY: Exactly. And you— you can’t be seen as admitting to a crime in the press.
ALEX: No, you— that’s—
BOBBY: That’s just not— does not sound legal defense.
ALEX: That is not good legal—
BOBBY: So I think that they backtracked it. But even then— so then, are they lying about what happened?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Because that— I don’t know if you know this, having just passed the bar, that’s also a crime—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —if they get indicted about this and then they don’t tell the truth about it. That’s perjury. So it’s— that’s why I say I don’t have more than 25% confidence on any of this. The other element is that many people have noted that it would be hard to have a four and a half million dollar line of credit with a bookie on $300,000 salary. Not a lot of bookies make a lot of money by giving people four and a half million dollars’ worth of credit when they know that it would take them 10 years to make that money back on—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —their salary if they never spent a dime of it. I find that curious. This is why there is an investigation.
ALEX: Yeah. It does help if you can say, “No, I have a friend who’s covering me.” Who makes tens of millions of dollars a year.
BOBBY: The— all the people who were like, “Wouldn’t you defer your salary if you had a huge gambling problem, too?”
ALEX: Oh, my God. Yeah. That’s—
BOBBY: Like, stop. It’s not like this man doesn’t have money that he could gamble.
ALEX: That’s not how that works.
BOBBY: He defers the salary because he makes so much money elsewhere.
ALEX: Exactly. Yeah.
BOBBY: So—
ALEX: So he can bet all that money on baseball when he does eventually retire.
BOBBY: I— I will say it’s— I agree that it did not take long to have a gigantic scandal. This scandal could have happened before the league got into bed with— with the sports books, with the public sports books. But where— where I do you sympathize with that sentiment is that the league just has no firm ground to stand on when it takes a stance now, because of everything that they’ve done to normalize problem gambling.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And this is not the same as like a Minor League player throwing a game, because somebody who was placing money on sports betting, legally through a sports book, had a lot to lose. But it is all part of the same moral degradation that the league has opted into for financial gain. And so, no matter what they can include, I gotta be honest, I’m not gonna believe it, and neither are a lot of fans. Because they have a lot of parties to protect now. They have Shohei Ohtani, the biggest star in the entire world, the biggest baseball star in the entire world to protect. If you have— if you want to take a cynical view on all of this, of course, which why wouldn’t you? It’s Major League Baseball. And they have all of their financial betting partners to protect, not to mention all of the people who broadcast their games who are also in bed with the sports books with— with separate agreements, you know? And by the way, other people covering this also have deal with sports books and have a financial incentive, if not, a moral incentive, or if not, a logical incentive to not make this— not make the concept of sports betting look like the problem here.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: When it is.
ALEX: Pretty funny, I— I was scrolling the— I’m sorry. I was scrolling the New York Post the other day.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Just kind of— I— I don’t know— it’s just seeing like what’s— you know, what’s going on.
BOBBY: This is another habit that you’ve picked up in the last six weeks?
ALEX: Yeah. Well, I like to— I like to look on the other side of the aisle, you know? Get— do— do a little oppo research. And then—
BOBBY: And you went to New York Times after that.
ALEX: Exactly. And it was pretty funny because the—
BOBBY: It’s fun to be on the opposite side of the aisle from everyone.
ALEX: Yes, it is.
BOBBY: We don’t have an aisle. We’re like up in the rafters.
ALEX: The— the, like, betting story is immediately followed by, like, a story that’s like, “Dodgers-Padres betting lines.”
BOBBY: Yep.
ALEX: “Here are best bets for the opening weekend series.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like, it’s like, yes, the ability to gamble illegally on sports existed long before MLB got into bed with FanDuel, and DraftKings, and all of the above. But it also was not, like, plastered all over everything that Major League Baseball did, right? It was not something that was impossible to ignore if you were consuming any given sport. And so when you’re talking about something that is, like, quite literally addictive, oh, sure, you can go and— and— 20 years ago, you can go and place your bets on— on sports if you want, but you’re walking a much finer line there in terms of potentially being looked into for what you’re doing. But you’re also just, like, not being encouraged at every turn to do these sorts of things. And again, I’m not going to make any sort of speculation on Ohtani’s connect—
BOBBY: Who the person was [26:39]
ALEX: Or who the person was, right.
BOBBY: The— the problem gambling originated from, yeah.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. I— I’m more just— of the belief that, like, there’s no way that these things are only going to be marketed at fans. Like, the players are also human beings who are going to be exposed to this to some level. And when you make large sums of money, you may be convinced that everyone else is doing it, why should you not do it as well?
BOBBY: I think you get yourself into really tricky territory when you start trying to monetize people’s addictions to things, whether those addictions are drinking, whether those addictions are sports in general, whether those addictions are sports betting. Like it’s bad enough that fandom makes you this crazy without the other vices that it could lead to, honestly. And this is a— this is a story that is clearly starting to corrode— it— it sounds really douchey to say it this way, but it’s starting to cor— corrode the social contract of sports, where we all agree that this thing is ridiculous and silly, it’s nonsense. It makes a lot of money because it’s entertainment. But it doesn’t make money because it’s money-driven, you know? Like, it doesn’t make— it’s— it’s not like— you wouldn’t treat— or you shouldn’t treat the Mets losing to the Phillies the way that you would treat if your 401K bankrupted itself. But now, people have to, because they’re addicted to sports gambling. Or people don’t have to, but now people are. And it’s notable that in other leagues, it’s starting to become the type of thing where people are speaking out against it, you know, of— a handful of people in the NBA, a couple players and some coaches have recently been saying, “It’s all people say to me in the stands. It’s all people tweet at me, ‘You fucked up my parlay. You ruined my bet. I lost X— I lost $500 betting on you. Go kill yourself.’ Like, that was the most— the single most predictable element of all of this, all of the individual scandals, any game fixing, any bribery, any incurred debt— illegal incurred debt for a player’s translator, all of that stuff is sort of hard to predict acute instances like that. But more broadly speaking, this— this element of toxicity around gambling, there’s not a single person using their brain, who would not have been able to see that this was going to come. And I mean, we have obviously talked about it on the podcast, plenty of people have been writing about this, talking about this, warning about this. A lot of international fans have been warning about this where sports betting has already become a problem in their countries. And I just— I have like— I have to say, like, never forget the league did this intentionally. Like, they chose to do this. They said that money is more important than the health and safety of their community. And that’s like what they do with everything, obviously. But it’s— it’s so much more glaring, because this is something where it’s like— they’re not obfuscating it behind, like, asking for money as part of a city budget and taking money from where we could reallocate resources to help people who don’t have homes or, like, people— you know, people who are struggling like— public education systems that are struggling. Like, they’re straight up just taking the money directly from the fans now and, like, bankrupting their friends.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And they’re like, “Cool, this is what we wanted.”
ALEX: They’re like, “But you’re gonna win it back on the next one. Just one more parlay. Just one more parlay, bro.”
BOBBY: Let’s move on to the other— just frankly a gigantic piece of news from last few weeks, which is right— is— is more in our particular wheelhouse and I think it was the [30:27] was having more people ask us to come back in the last couple of weeks, and that is what— what is being described, and I sort of said it in a tongue in cheek way, as a mutiny at the Major League Baseball Players Association. I honestly don’t feel comfortable throwing that term around. I’m not in that union. I haven’t observed what’s going on. I’m not on the Zoom calls. I’m not a reporter. I feel like I ev— have even less of a idea of where I want to start with this, because this story is even more confusing to me than the Ohtani-Ippei betting thing. For those of you who have not followed along with this story, essentially what happened about a week ago, or a week and change ago, is some— some rumors started trickling out. Some reporters started tweeting, some articles started to be written about the fact that there was unrest within the Major League Baseball Players Association, the union for players, Major and Minor, in professional baseball. And that unrest was centered around the presence of Bruce Meyer, the lead negotiator, I believe he is the deputy executive director is his title, and he was the negotiator for the last collective bargaining agreement. It seems like players just didn’t like him. Don’t— don’t want him around anymore. Some people were theorizing or there were some insinuations in many of the stories that that was because he is somewhere on a spectrum of favorable to control by Scott Boras, who is the most powerful agent in maybe all professional sports, but certainly within baseball. He— he represents a lot of the top players as his clients in Major League Baseball. He negotiates the biggest contracts most often. And he has a very defined philosophy on how free agency should look like for the game’s top stars. And honestly, not a lot of players fit into that philosophy. Though, he represents many players and a lot of the top stars, he doesn’t represent the majority of players. The other agents— the other very powerful agents who control a lot of— who have a lot of sway in this industry represent more in— in totality than him. So there’s a lot of pro and anti-Boras sentiment that is, I would say, swirling around for those people who want to pay attention to that sort of thing. We’ve talked about it on the podcast before. I would say that element of all of this was the most confusing to me, the Boras element of it, because no one has actually confirmed that that was— what was underlying a lot of these things. But the reason that it kind of came out, or at least the supposedly reason that it kind of came out now, was because this has been bad offseason for free agents. Not a lot of money is being spent, a lot of the top guys either got signed at the last minute or are still not signed. Jordan Montgomery is still not signed to this point. Blake’s now signed five days before the season started, whatever. And— Blake Snell, by the way, reigning NL Cy Young.
ALEX: That’s not canon in my book.
BOBBY: He did win the NL Cy Young last year, just so you know, just so you’re aware. That’s the second Cy Young last. Second Cy Young, two Cy Youngs for that guy.
ALEX: But on the—
BOBBY: Same amount of Cy Youngs as Jacob deGrom.
ALEX: True, but on one hand [33:38] Blake Snell.
BOBBY: One more Cy Young than Gerrit Cole. Should I keep going? I mean, it’s just ridiculous. This is ridiculous. The guy has two Cy Youngs. And he kind of— kind of deserved both of them, weird. Anyway, a lot of kind of just, like, negativity swirling around that was not there a year ago at this time. And it appears that players— some players are not happy with the way some of the things within the current CBA, the most recently negotiated CBA are playing out, number one. Number two, the management of the Union more broadly, the way the allocation of power, the allocation of spending, the transparency, the communication. And so enter Harry Marino, who has been on this podcast.
ALEX: I’ve heard of him.
BOBBY: Who was the— I don’t know what his title was. But he was the leader of Advocates for Minor Leaguers, which eventually was folded into the Major League Baseball Players Association and largely thought of as the— the place that organized the Minor League players into a union, to push for their union drive for recognition and negotiation. Marino became part of the MLBPA on their executive sign. Former Minor League player, has a lot of good relationships with a lot of the younger guys, Minor League players, et cetera, et cetera. He was involved In the— the negotiation of the Minor League CBA, along with Meyer, who as the lead negotiator, in his capacity as lead negotiator, negotiated that contract as well. But Marino had more of an input on that than maybe anyone else did at the Major League level, because he organized this group of players. While the dynamics here at play, by the way, a lot of like intra-union dynamics going on here. And the way that the story was framed, I don’t know how much of this is true, honestly, and having not been a part of this, but it seems like people had relayed how public or semi-public Zoom meetings when— these are private Zoom meetings within the Union. But, like, when you have that many people there, it’s like— it’s not really like private, closed door meetings. It seemed like Marino and a group of players backing him made an attempt to request that Tony Clark, “Get rid of Bruce Meyer, fire him.” They don’t want him involved in the Union anymore. For whatever reason, unconfirmed, I don’t want to speculate any further than what I’ve already said about Boras. Meyer has said that he never met Boras before he started working for the MLBPA. He also said that he— in his— he came out of essentially like— not retirement, but he came out of a different job that was unrelated to sports to take this job, because he felt passionately about it, and he was asked to do it and wanted— they wanted his help in negotiating this and they wanted his experience. He’s a very experienced guy, by the way. He’s worked for all four major sports unions at this point. And he’s worked in union collective bargaining more broadly for a long time. I feel like that’s a lot of details, and weirdly, I feel like I haven’t explained anything that really went on. Because it’s unresolved. They’ve made a push to get rid of Meyer. They’ve had more meetings since then, to talk about why they want to get rid of Meyer. Tony Clark has defended him, and so that he doesn’t want to get rid of him. And he would prefer to keep him around. And thus, the only way to get rid of Meyer would be to get rid of both of them. So they would have to make a— make a motion to vote on the ouster of Tony Clark, to then be replaced by somebody. Obviously, if you’re— if it’s a group of players voting against Tony Clark, to remove him in favor of Harry Marino, the obvious next guy to step into that role would be Harry Marino. But we’re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves with that sort of speculation. Again, I just feel like I gave so many details and have not clarified any of really what happened. So all of that being said, Alex, we haven’t talked about this really, beyond just being like, “Yo, this is crazy.” What do you make of this? Like, what is your read on what is going on right now? And I guess, moreover, for the purposes of this podcast, what is animating this? Why is this happening now? One year removed from the implementation of a CBA that seemingly like three months ago, everybody was really pumped about.
ALEX: It’s— it was like, “All right, this— this will do it.”
BOBBY: This is working, yeah.
ALEX: Yeah. Is it perfect? No. No CBA ever is.
BOBBY: I have some more thoughts on that, but I want to hear, I wanna hear what you have to say about all this.
ALEX: I— I mean, to a certain extent, like these conversations— like, it’s good that these conversations are happening, right? You have a new generation of baseball players, who are maybe approaching labor within the game differently than the generation before them, or the generation before them. The last few years have seen, I think, increasing animosity towards management and towards the skewed economics of the game, which is a net good thing, I think, having players who are more willing to go to the mat for themselves and their fellow players is like— is good. And obviously, Marino was really instrumental in organizing like— the— the group of people who make up a majority of professional baseball players, right? So it stands to— to reason, I think, that maybe some of his more— I don’t want to say militant ideas, but the— the—
BOBBY: I think it’s okay to say that.
ALEX: But I think— I think to an extent, it is like saying, “Hey, we— we’re not pushing hard enough.” And so I think it stands to reason that he would have a faction of players who feel the same way. And I think it’s healthy, ultimately, for a union to be having these conversations, especially one that has historically been so powerful and has maybe had that power chipped away over the last two decades or so. I think it’s interesting how much of this is taking place in the public eye and just how much confusion it’s leading to— like— like it’s really hard to put a finger on what the animating philosophy is behind this beyond— we still feel like we’re kind of getting shafted, which, like, I don’t know, is enough of an animating philosophy for me to justify, like, wanting to make some changes. Is the ouster of Meyer or Clark alone the thing that is going to push them in that direction? Ah, I don’t know. Myer is clearly very experienced.
BOBBY: Yeah. That’s a really interesting question, by the way. Like, is getting rid of the head of your union actually— if your union is having a problem with lowercase c, conservative thinking—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —is getting rid of the person who has been running the union or the two people— whatever, who’ve been running the union, who have maybe been trying their best. Like, I think that you and I think that Tony Clark is doing an okay job with a tough— in a tough spot.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That is our, like, general consensus on him since he became the executive director of the PA, before we even started this podcast. I don’t know much about Bruce Meyer, other than, again, he’s a negotiator. I think his work carries a lot of— it carries a lot an interesting connotation in the— in the labor world and in the world more broadly, but he’s a bureaucrat.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He’s— he’s like— he’s been around a lot. He has a lot of— he has a lot of ingrained wisdom about how things are supposed to work. And I think that we forget sometimes that unions shouldn’t care about that all the time.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And I think that we also forget, because we actually don’t have any models for democracy in our society. We forget that democracy sometimes looks like this. Sometimes looks like open conversation. Sometimes looks like asking questions, interrogating about whether we’re doing things the right way. And, you know, to a lot of their credit, I think a lot of the players who have been asked about this, there was a Q&A with Lance McCullers, there was a Q&A with former union— former union [41:44] Collin McHugh.
ALEX: [41:44]
BOBBY: And a lot of what you’ve heard is we’re having open conversations. We’re— we’re— we’re— we’re— I think this is good. I think this is healthy, much like you said.
ALEX: Yeah. I— I mean, as to your point of, like, what is the root cause of this? Like, I don’t know. It— it’s— I think you could probably ask a bunch of different players and get a bunch of different responses, right? There’s been like—
BOBBY: [42:07] I think like a lot of players are like, “Yo, this is crazy.” Like, they see the tweets—
ALEX: Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: —and Rosenthal as well.
ALEX: Obviously, you mentioned the like— the— the sort of cold stove this offseason, the lack of sort of high-end free agent signings outside of the obvious, right? You know, they’re— the negotiations around the competitive balance tax and tanking have not been perfect. They have not come to a perfect solution on that. I think some players are still unhappy about arbitration. There was the— there was the case with J.D. Davis this offseason—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —where— right? Like— like the Giants came to— went to arbitration with him, came to an agreement, then basically said—
BOBBY: Went to arbitration and lost.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Didn’t come to an agreement.
ALEX: But—
BOBBY: They lost the arbitration case fully, yeah.
ALEX: Yeah. Well— yes, they— they lost, but the agreement would come to that, like—
BOBBY: They would pay—
ALEX: You should pay—
BOBBY: —$6 million or something like that.
ALEX: Yes, exactly. And then, shortly thereafter, reneged on that and said—
BOBBY: They cut them.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. And so— and he ended up losing like— I think roughly, like, $2 million on the whole deal.
BOBBY: Yes, they— the Giants were required to pay him, I think, 1.1 million and then—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And then he ended up signing with the A’s—
ALEX: And he ultimately signed [43:18] boys.
BOBBY: —for 3 million.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s where like— that’s where, like, veterans who are competent enough to stay on a Major League field, but not good enough to be on contenders go to playoff—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —in their careers.
ALEX: So it’s like— so there’s all these different threads.
BOBBY: I gotta be honest, though, it’d be like kind of fun for you to watch him [43:41]
ALEX: [43:41]
BOBBY: Yeah, he’s [43:41]
ALEX: Bro, I, like, kind of low-key Love to J.D. Davis for, like, three years now.
BOBBY: I think he’s a good player.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I think he’s a good player.
ALEX: I— he’s always one of those guys where I’m like, “He just needs 500 at-bats. Just give him 500 bats, bro.”
BOBBY: It’s so weird that the thing that pushed J.D. Davis out of San Francisco, and the reason he was cut was Matt Chapman.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Who obviously started with the A’s and then—
ALEX: Oh, really?
BOBBY: I mean, I don’t— sometimes I don’t know if you remember that, because it’s so long ago and your mind is clouded with so much—
ALEX: Genuinely.
BOBBY: —so much bureaucracy.
ALEX: Genuinely.
BOBBY: Here’s the dynamic that I want to talk about more broadly. All— also before I say this, I will preface this by saying we obviously know people who are involved in the Major League Baseball Players Association. Some of them have been on this podcast. None— none of what we’re talking about here is informed by any of that, because, again, like you said, a lot of people don’t really know what’s going on, ourselves included. We’re not reporting on any of this. This is just like my read, and I’m— I’m honestly a little bit reticent— reticent to even act like I know anything about the situation, because I would be really annoyed if the— this was my union and people were talking about it in public.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: In fact, I will say something similar kind of happened with the Writers Guild a couple of years ago, where there was like a group of people who had been involved for a really long time and felt the union should be run a certain way, or a group of people who had come in more recently, a larger body of people who had come in with more ideas about what the— what the guild should be prioritizing. And that’s where I want to talk about this dynamic of the idea of organizers versus bureaucrats, or organizers versus negotiators. I also think— by the way, I think bureaucrat is not actually— it does not actually carry that negative connotation in the world of labor. I think, like, you need bureaucrats. You need people to be doing a lot of this grunt work. You need people who have been around to do—carry a lot of expertise and just like a legacy of experience. And that is really important to organizing. It’s not the only thing though, because Harry Marino is an organizer. To your point, like these ideas, in contrast with how the MLBPA has been run for the last three decades, do seem militant. Bringing in the Minor Leaguers was a militant idea. It— there’s a reason it didn’t happen until two years ago. It’s because of the— like I said, the lowercase c conservative thinking that a lot of— that— I will say that a lot of unions in higher earning fields exhibit. And when you put that in contrast with an— I— I gotta say, I don’t— I really don’t feel like Tony Clark fits into that. I feel like this— I’m more talking about Bruce Meyer, the idea of the players feeling one way about Marino and feeling one way about— another way about Meyer. When you contrast that with someone who is just like a lawyer, tried and true, who is like the opposite side of the coin of Rob Manfred, basically. And this is not to say that Meyer did not do very well in negotiations. It’s not to say that he doesn’t have the union as the top priority. But it’s really hard to come into a union, and be a negotiator, and to— to make everybody feel like you prioritize what they wanted from the CBA. And so— and a dynamic emerges, where— especially when these two guys had to work together, by the way, on the Minor League CBA, Marino and the rest of the Advocates for Minor Leaguers crew come in. They are absorbed into the MLBPA. They get all of those resources. They get all of the protection that comes along with an already established union that negotiates with MLBPA. But you and I, we talked about this at the time. They also have to then contend with all of the well-worn, well— the well-worn like ruts, you know? The well-eroded pathways for how these things should operate, because it’s very easy to just fall into the same dynamic that, like, negotiating in a Major League Baseball CBA might feel like. “Eh, we give a little, you give a little. We take a little, you take a little.” We improve incrementally on the last CBA from five years ago or whatever. And we move on, you know? There’s a little animosity, but we’re not here to blow up the system. You could argue that the Minor Leaguers should have been there to blow up the system. They didn’t. I don’t know anything more about that, but I’m sure people felt a way about that. And I’m sure that Major Leaguers who are less compensated, continue to feel the way about the fact that the system works how the system works. If you’re an ARB, you’re probably pretty sick of it. Especially since we just basically have come out, and it’s mask off about the fact that ARB is fucked up and bad. And— and they haven’t come up with a system that is better. And I will say it’s like— it’s not just that ARB is bad or like the process of arbitration is bad, because arbitration is a— is a time-honored union tradition, not just in Major League Baseball, salary arbitration, or arbitration over issues. But the— the team control that leads to ARB is the thing that is severely limiting to players and there’s just like gross issues that are not being addressed. And so you might start spinning a wheel, and that wheel might land on the guy that negotiated the last contract. That’s what I see, like from the outside looking in. I have no opinion, no knowledge. No well- formed thoughts about what should happen, or what will happen, really. I’m curious, just like anyone else. And if they replace Tony Clark with a 33-year-old organizer who just organized the Minor Leaguers, I would find that to be truly fascinating. Because that would be in the same way that it’s really interesting how a lot of our longest running, most successful unions like the auto workers, The Teamsters, have recently had an influx of more militant organizer background people leaving that— those unions. It’d be fascinating. It would just be a different dynamic than the one that we have been covering on the show for the last four years.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, this does really feel like— I mean this is not certainly a novel thing to say, but, like, a kind of huge inflection point for the union right now. And I think it’s good. They’re doing this in the middle of a CBA. You don’t have anything else going on right now. You’re not—
BOBBY: Yeah. You’ve got three years to figure out what the fuck is going on.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. And— and, you know, in this discussion, there’s an assumption that this conflict is entirely about like priorities, which also may not be the case, right? There could—
BOBBY: I think it’s probably also about relationships.
ALEX: Right. Exactly.
BOBBY: I think a lot of guys are like, “Harry Marino got us here.”
ALEX: Like— like— and— like those people and knows the— the tenor is— is far closer to have—
BOBBY: Speaking for more people than people who are in union leadership ever could speak—
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: —because they have a different job.
ALEX: It’s— it’s recently— was— quite recently a baseball player and so is—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —is likely more—
BOBBY: It’s amazing how fast that’s changed though, because Tony Clark was the first player to ever run this union and that was like nine years ago that he became in charge with.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Yeah. So I think—
BOBBY: And that was thought of like— as that’s progressing now, but— yeah.
ALEX: There could be as much here about, like, governance and the bureaucracy of the union itself—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —as the, like, quite literal priorities that they’re taking.
BOBBY: I mean, they’ve hinted about that with, like, the spending audit—
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: —which like, I don’t know what to make of that, because there’s always like a spending audit question. There’s always like—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —guys who are just asking questions like, “How is this money being spent?”
ALEX: Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: ‘I’m not really sure.” I don’t know what to say about that. Don’t know enough about it. The final thing I will say, kind of in defense of Bruce Meyer, players who didn’t want to miss games.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You want a better contract? Miss games.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I mean, like, the executive subcommittee all voted no.
ALEX: Yeah, yes.
BOBBY: It’s not like Meyer wouldn’t have gone back and continue to try to fight harder for a better contract. He fought all the way up until the point where the rest of the union kind of let the executive subcommittee down.
ALEX: Right. The Negotiator is not going to say, “No, I reject the idea of—”
BOBBY: It’s not their job.
ALEX: “—of the whole unit [51:23] thing. “
BOBBY: It’s not their job.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: It’s their job to say, “Here’s the will of the unit, I will go to the table, and I will try to get as close to that as possible.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And everybody on the executive subcommittee, by the way, none of them who are talking about this, none of them are— or have said on the rec— on the record for any of this. We haven’t heard from Max Scherzer. We haven’t heard from— I mean, other than if they’ve been asked directly, and they’ve said canned lines or whatever. You have—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Francisco Lindor has not sat down for a interview with The Athletic. Like, I said this at the time, this contract is Febreze on a broken system. And it might be like Febreze that gets money in people’s pockets and that’s important, too. And we got back and the— the bottom didn’t fall out of the labor market of baseball and that— maybe we consider that a win. But if you are a person like me, who believes that this is the only— these are the only opportunities that we have to actually make structural change to the— to the— the financial system that we have in baseball is like work stoppages. And by the way, the owners put the work stoppage in place, the sentiment was already against them, so you don’t have to worry about that. The public was on their side. And they didn’t do it. They just back down. They balked. And that’s okay. It’s okay. If that’s what the union wanted. If that’s what the rank and file wanted. That’s what the democratic process looks like. It does look uncomfortable sometimes. This is uncomfortable. It’s not great. It’s not a good look, per se, but could lead to good outcomes.
ALEX: Yeah. It is an acknowledgment that, like, there are limits to what you can win without being willing to blow things up. Like, I just—
BOBBY: Amen.
ALEX: That’s kind of inherent.
BOBBY: Across a lot of— across a lot of places and a lot of different realms.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, we’ve been talking for a really long time, I kind of knew this was gonna happen, we’d missed a lot. The last thing that happened over the last— really just— it was— this was, like, yesterday or two days ago, but that we have missed this news item before we get to Banned Topics, is that Peter Angelos, owner of the Baltimore Orioles, died at the age of 94. I find his legacy as owner of the Orioles truly fascinating. One of the most— one of the least conventional owners that we had. Not to say that he was, like, outspending any other owners or that he was maybe, like, better or worse than any other owners, but he made his money in a very different way. He made his money by representing— defend— by defending— by representing defendants in a class action lawsuit against the city of Baltimore. He made hundreds of millions of dollars that way, immediately parlayed it into buying a sports team. Had moral qualms about the international expansion of Major League Baseball and, kind of, for a long time refused to participate that— in that as an organization in the same way that a lot of other organizations did. Now, some people, in retrospect, have sort of thought of that as a little bit of like feigned incompetence.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Masquerading as moralism. But alas, he— he was kind of like, different from other owners in that respect. And then by the end, his cheaper tendencies wore on fans. And then as he got older, got sick, was unable to run the team. His kids having a power struggle over the team, was obviously unique. You know, usually, they choose the successor and successor comes around, and he’s Hal, you know? He goes out there and he’s like, “We have to run the Yankees like an investment bank.” You know? Leading to, obviously, a lot of what has happened over the last couple of years was John Angelos, which is like just sheer unadulterated raw stupidity.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But a fascinating owner to think about his legacy, a fascinating owner to talk about seemingly like— again, we always say this whenever like an owner passes away, we said this about Peter Seidler. But, like, a lot of people feel like— it feels like a lot of people within the organization liked working for him, so I guess that that’s a point in his favor. The final thing that, like, just— process-wise that this does is that it finalizes the sale— the elements of the sale to David Rubenstein. He now does— he will now control a majority share of the team as well as he was already the control person. So functionally, it doesn’t really change how the Orioles are going to be run. But on the actual, like, contract sheet, his name is actually on the top in terms—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —of, like, the percentage and the [55:46]
ALEX: The Angelos names are getting crossed out right now.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah.
ALEX: No lame-duck session for John where he can implement his final wills.
BOBBY: Bummer. He was really looking forward to that platform.
ALEX: I— can I just say? I’m going to miss him.
BOBBY: You’re gonna miss Peter Angelos or John Angelos?
ALEX: John.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Well, I’ll miss— I’ll miss— I don’t— I— I don’t— I don’t feel one way or another about Peter. But I’m going to miss John. I think he was our lovable, little guy, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It’s kind of like, what if we let him run a baseball team? You know, wouldn’t that be quirky and fun.
BOBBY: I’m just really excited that this gave us an opportunity to talk more about the Magna Carta, so we’re going to spend the next 15 minutes now, that the sale is really official. We’re gonna talk about how many more Magna Cartas we can sort of get down at Camden Yards.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, maybe we get a couple— maybe we get a little emancipation proclamation, you know? Maybe we get the— maybe an OG Magna Carta, because you remember this was a copy from 30 years later of the Magna Carta that—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —David Rubenstein owned.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Anybody listening to this right now just thinks that I just contracted a brain disease in the last 30 seconds but— but for the people who did listen to that pod, Forbes 100 Richest People pod, where we talked about Magna Cartas for 30 minutes. People are pumping their fists right now.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s right.
BOBBY: That was some of our best stuff ever.
ALEX: I know. Real ones know.
BOBBY: All right, let’s take a quick break. And when we come back, we are going to do, at long last, The 2024 Banned Topics.
SPEAKER 3: The boys are back in town, the boys are back in town. I said—
BOBBY: All right, we’re back. I’ve acquired some Girl Scout cookies to loot— to— to lighten the mood a little bit. I’m only going to give you some Girl Scout cookies if I like your banned topics [57:28]
ALEX: Okay. Are those like little treats for me?
BOBBY: You better come with— yeah, exactly.
ALEX: Ah, you did— you rolled over. Here you go.
BOBBY: Good job, Alex. Here’s your gold star. Stevie seems—
ALEX: Stevie is up.
BOBBY: Stevie is very interested.
ALEX: Stevie has leaned forward.
BOBBY: Actually, in the last six weeks, what we did determine that everybody would want was more like kind of ASMR, like the sound of unpacking, unboxing things.
ALEX: Yep. Yeah.
BOBBY: That was like our big revelation in the last six weeks. I don’t— I don’t know why Stevie is looking at these cookies as if she could have them, because she can’t get. They have chocolate.
ALEX: Wow [57:56] you’re so stupid, Stevie. You thought you can have those.
BOBBY: A piece of one of these cookies, I was eating it— they’re Thin Mints, by the way.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: A piece of one of the cookies I was eating yesterday broke off and fell into my sleeve, into the sleeve of my sweatshirt.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: And I didn’t realize it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And so then Stevie was like sticking her head in my sleeve. I was like, “What are you doing?”
ALEX: She knew. She knew.
BOBBY: I realized that there was a piece of the cookie in there. She did know. She’s a smart dog. I’m kidding. You can have some cookies if you want.
ALEX: I’m— I’m okay for now. Thank you, though.
BOBBY: Fine. Don’t have the cookies then. I just brought them in for nothing. Before we get started—
ALEX: Room temp. Thin Mints. Who are you, bro?
BOBBY: I’m just gonna like put them in the fridge or whatever, or the freezer.
ALEX: Yeah, bro.
BOBBY: Everybody— there’s a lot of— of all these, like, unwritten rules about candy. Thin Mints have to go in the freezer. Reese’s Cups have to go in the free— they’re better that way. You’re a freaking [58:48] if you don’t eat them that way. Like, okay. All right, relax. I’m just having the Thin Mints, they taste good. Generally, I think things taste worse in the freezer. You lose some of the flavor because it’s so cold.
ALEX: I agree. I— I’m— I’m fine with refrigerated, though. I think it adds a nice, little, like— like crunch to it.
BOBBY: Pretty crunchy as it is.
ALEX: Well, I guess, but it also brings out the minty-ness, I think. It’s kind of like—
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: —adds the, like, ice-y element.
BOBBY: I can get behind that. I’ve always felt like— every time I’ve tried to explain this to people, they’ve been like, “No, I don’t feel that way. I think you’re weird.” So I’m gonna try to do it to the thousands and thousands of people who listen to this podcast. You— you ever know, like, when you— when you chew gum, and you— you go outside, and cold air hits your mouth, you tastes it more?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Does that happen to you?
ALEX: No, I don’t think that way. I think you’re weird.
BOBBY: I just want somebody to validate what I’m saying. So, like, this is the biggest platform I have other than Big Picture, which I’m not gonna just derail with us.
ALEX: I mean, it does— it does intensify the, like, sort of spiciness of the mint, I guess.
BOBBY: Yeah, I mean with mint. It’s definitely— like when you walk outside and you’re chewing gum, for example—
ALEX: Oh, but you’re just saying any type of gum?
BOBBY: It’s re— it’s like there’s a lot of different flavors that it— that it— it amplifies them.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Somebody listening to this will be like, “Yes, sir. You’re right.”
ALEX: You’re saying you want them like— you like to decant your gum a little bit. You’d like to let it aerate.
BOBBY: Yeah. What if I am saying that? Like, what if I am? What are you gonna do? Not host this pod with me anymore? There’s some neuroscientists somewhere who’s like, “There— here’s the reason behind this.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They’re not listening to this podcast, though.
ALEX: No, but they know the answer.
BOBBY: They do. We’ll find them one day. I would like to recap last year’s banned topics really quickly.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: And then I want you to start. Last year, you banned what ended up being a really easy to understand concept, but the way that you introduced it was very confusing. It took us about 10 minutes to really hone the idea. You banned owners feigning surprise about other teams’ payroll.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: And I think this is in response to the Padres mostly, where owner— where there was a lot of anonymous sources going on the record, being like, “I don’t know how they can afford it.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You banned Fernando Tatis, Jr. Like, is he worth it discourse? You know?
ALEX: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Like, just talk about the player, don’t talk about the suspension, et cetera . Remember when he was suspended? Remember he was suspended for just like old-fashioned steroids?
ALEX: No, I kind of— I actually just remember that.
BOBBY: It was so wildl. And then famously—
ALEX: I’m actually hearing this for the first time. You’re just telling me.
BOBBY: Famously— you know you made that joke on the pod last year?
ALEX: No way. Did I— goddammit.
BOBBY: [1:01:21] time is a flat circle. Famously, you banned rule changes, except for the bigger bases.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Important caveat.
ALEX: Still feel good about that one.
BOBBY: Yeah. I do think that that one aged the best.
ALEX: I think it ultimately aged well.
BOBBY: Okay. I banned discussion of the Rays’ front office, just because I was like, “All— everybody is always just trying to give them so much credit.” I’m like, “Can we talk about the team? Let’s talk about the players.”
ALEX: I know. Although, I— you gave them a decent amount of credit last year, if I recall correctly.
BOBBY: Did I?
ALEX: You kind of went back and forth on being like, “Rays are cooked. What the fuck are we doing here?” And like—
BOBBY: Do you know why I did that?
ALEX: Why?
BOBBY: Because I hate the Orioles.
ALEX: Okay. This is like the enemy of my enemy is my friend?
BOBBY: Not even that, but it’s just like I didn’t know how well I— I didn’t know how nice I had it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: When people were like giving so much credit out to a team that hadn’t even won a playoff game yet, I’m like, ” [1:02:14]”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “Slow down.”
ALEX: You’re like, “All right. At least the Rays are, like, cooking something over there.”
BOBBY: At least— exactly, exactly, exactly. This is like when— this is—
ALEX: At least they’re giving themselves a shot.
BOBBY: This is like when— like European history, when you’ve been battling [1:02:30]
ALEX: Yeah. It’s just— I already know exactly what this is like.
BOBBY: You’ve been battling like a— like a dynasty for, like, thousands of years, and then suddenly, like this new clan shows up, and it’s really fucking your shit up. And you’re like—
ALEX: Yeah. And you’re like, “The old guys weren’t so bad.”
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly.
ALEX: Like, at least I knew them. At least, I talked with them.
BOBBY: I’ve changed my geopolitical alliances to be more in favor of the Rays.
ALEX: You mean it’s basically, like, the— the Rays are like George Bush, where you’re like, “You know, at least— at least that guy was presidential.”
BOBBY: And the Orioles are Trump?
ALEX: I guess.
BOBBY: Or are the Orioles Hillary Clinton? I also banned discourse around how a contract will age. You know, like, long contract, back into this, this isn’t going to look very good. Don’t care.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay. That’s like nine years away. And finally, I banned the word analytics without specifying what you mean. You can’t just say analytics.
ALEX: Yeah. I love how— I love the specificity of our banned topics, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah, but we can’t just ban, like, Rob Manfred.
ALEX: I know. Well, you’re gonna love mine this year, then.
BOBBY: Oh, Jesus. Okay, kick it off. 2024 Banned topics. Last year, we in— implemented a rule where after you say the topic, you have to say, ” Banned.” I’d like to sustain that rule.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: That caused Stevie to bark last year. We’ll see if it does this year, too.
ALEX: As she— her eyes slowly starts to close.
BOBBY: She is asleep. Let’s see if you can—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: She’s been sleeping for most of this pod, which— good or bad sign, not sure.
ALEX: Right. She’s like, “Wow. Same old, same old.”
BOBBY: Six weeks off still doing the same shit.
ALEX: My— my banned topics are a little more far-flung this year.
BOBBY: Okay. I’m reading about all the stuff that the Girl Scout, mission includes—
ALEX: All right. Well, I’m banning Girl Scouts.
BOBBY: —STEM, Outdoors, Life Skills, and Entrepreneurship.
ALEX: Banned.
BOBBY: A-Rod would love this.
ALEX: God. He would.
BOBBY: He would love this.
ALEX: Can you get a little closer to the mic, please, while you’re chewing those?
BOBBY: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
ALEX: My first banned topic, virtual ballparks/like VR baseball.
BOBBY: Love it.
ALEX: Banned. I— we— we really leaned into that bit last year, the like VR— the, like, virtual ballpark and like, “Oh, you can go watch the All-star game. You can watch the Home Run Derby.” I’m not interested anymore. It’s— it’s not an interesting concept to me, either as far soar trag— tragedy. I— the— the bubbles— the bubbles burst.
BOBBY: Unfortunately, I don’t think MLB agrees.
ALEX: Do you think— are they scaling it up?
BOBBY: I mean, last year was the first year of it, you think that they’re just going to can it?
ALEX: I— I hope so.
BOBBY: When have they given that impression that they would take feedback and change their mind? Although, if you think back to the beginning of this podcast, they took my feedback of being like, why the fuck don’t they have a Samsung TV app?
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: And they made one.
ALEX: And they did make one. Yes. They read your mind with that one.
BOBBY: Do you think, like, the programmer who programmed the Samsung TV app on the MLB’s side is listening to this right now, is like, “Finally, someone’s [1:05:38] into this, finally.”
ALEX: That’s right. Yes, that’s right. I did it for you.
BOBBY: “The national recognition I deserve.”
ALEX: I hope so. Pulling out for him.
BOBBY: I just know that some people who cash cheque from Major League Baseball do listen to this podcast. I know it, I know it, I know it. It has to be true.
ALEX: Right. Well, I mean, you and I listened.
BOBBY: Like, if someone— well—
ALEX: I’m just kidding. I don’t listen.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. If somebody did a podcast, constantly critiquing my employer, I would subscribe.
ALEX: You’d be curious what they were saying, right or wrong.
BOBBY: Just kidding— just kidding. I would not— I would never do that. I would not do that. My first banned topic of 2024 is a little guy by the name of Ben Verlander. This episode better be the last time I hear this man’s name spoken aloud.
ALEX: Hell yeah.
BOBBY: No— no more. No more. It’s not— it’s not even funny anymore. Like we’re years removed from the poor wife Helen thing. Like, that was legitimately funny. Okay, low-hanging fruit now. It’s always like something happens with Ohtani. This happened this past week with the betting stuff. And then Ben Verlander did a tweet, because he worked for DraftKings now or whatever, being like, “I’m taking the over on all the Ohtani lines.” It’s like that’s insanely sensitive to what’s going on and also like the part of the problem. I’m just not interested in it anymore. I’d like— you know, it’s Justin Verlander’s brother.
ALEX: It’s [1:07:02] like— yeah.
BOBBY: Like, he’s the easiest person in the media to dunk on, like get more interesting, you know? Dunk on Verducci, dunk on Rosenthal, dunk on Passan. Dunk on some of these guys who, like, have people who actually support them, because it’s— I— I’m genuinely curious, like, who was the guy who’s like, “Stop talking about Ben Verlander that way.”?
ALEX: He’s like caping for Verlander.
BOBBY: It’s like— we’re all just in agreement.
ALEX: I actually think he’s adding a lot to the conversation.
BOBBY: Nobody thinks that.
ALEX: No one is yet.
BOBBY: Except like TV executives, I guess.
ALEX: Right, except people signing his checks.
BOBBY: I just— man, I’m tired of it.
ALEX: I agree. It’s like—
BOBBY: And Ben Verlander, more like banned Verlander.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: Got him.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: Got him. Got him. Ben Verlander found dead in the ditch. Got him.
ALEX: I agree, cosigned.
BOBBY: I thought about banning other media members too, like in conjunction with this, but none of them rise to the level of something that I legitimately would not want to talk about, or even something—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —that we might talk about on the show.
ALEX: Like, Ben Verlander is the only person who we know is not actually going to contribute anything that we will need to discuss on this podcast.
BOBBY: But is also present enough that he might come up.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: He’s right smack in the middle of that Venn diagram.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Nothing that Jomboy ever says will ever be something that we’re going to talk about on this podcast. And nothing that— we can’t commit to not talking about something that Ken Rosenthal writes. By the way, had a couple stinkers in the break.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Couple stinkers from Ken—
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —a couple misses, you know? Just saying— just saying everybody’s favorite bowtie wearing dude columnist, holding it down. Ben Verlander, banned.
ALEX: City Connect jerseys.
BOBBY: Oh. Okay.
ALEX: I just—
BOBBY: Great timing. Right before the Mets come out with theirs. Great work. Great work by you.
ALEX: I just—
BOBBY: Do the A’s have a City Connect jerseys?
ALEX: What do you think?
BOBBY: It would be so funny if they rolled out a City Connect jersey this year.
ALEX: And then we couldn’t talk about it?
BOBBY: No. I mean, just—
ALEX: Or just period [1:09:02] yes.
BOBBY: It’s just period because like they’re leaving. Like—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —we’re about to connect to the city. That would be really funny.
ALEX: It would be funnier if they rolled out a Las Vegas City Connect jersey this year.
BOBBY: And wore it in Oakland?
ALEX: Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: When do you think they’re going to turn their replies back on, their Twitter account?
ALEX: Well, you’ve seen that they, like, occasionally have accidentally— like, the other day, they accidentally tweeted out a highlight and they left the replies on.
BOBBY: Oh [1:09:22]
ALEX: And then they had to delete the tweet because everyone was like, “Replies is back, let’s go!” I actually—
BOBBY: It’s so insane that they just have the replies off.
ALEX: It is—
BOBBY: That was so beautiful [1:09:37]
ALEX: These are the times when we wish we could record the video of this podcast. It is unbelievable—
BOBBY: No, it’s only for my eyes only.
ALEX: —that a Major League sports team—
BOBBY: Go off.
ALEX: —just does not allow fans to reply to their tweets. I— like, under—
BOBBY: Broken social contract?
ALEX: —under no circumstances do you ever have to hand it to Dave Kaval, but he has turned his replies back on. He’s facing the music, you know?
BOBBY: How are your burners handling that?
ALEX: They’re going great.
BOBBY: The newfound opportunity to reply to Dave Kaval?
ALEX: It’s doing incredibly well. I’m masquerading as a seagull [1:10:11] account and just dragging him into it debates.
BOBBY: Renderings in bio. What did you ban?
ALEX: I— I banned City Connect discussions.
BOBBY: Okay, right.
ALEX: I just— they ultimately— I know that I’ve gone— I’ve gone back and forth on them over the last couple years. Sometimes they— you’re like, “Okay, that’s— that’s cool or whatever.” Generally speaking, I have not found that they’ve ever risen to the level of like, ‘We can have an interesting discussion about this.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Because, like, they’re largely marketing opportunities. They’re a way to create a new visual aesthetic that you can sell to fans for 190 bucks. And they whiff on most of them.
BOBBY: Speaking of selling things to fans that are whiffs, I’m so happy to not have to talk about the uniforms thing.
ALEX: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: I’m so happy.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Not even worth a ban.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Just something that was—
ALEX: It’s just—
BOBBY: —just straight came—
ALEX: It’s— whatever.
BOBBY: —and went. They haven’t solved it yet probably, but I don’t care.
ALEX: Yeah, I don’t know.
BOBBY: I don’t care. The word fanatics means nothing to me.
ALEX: It really do. Speaking about [1:11:16]
BOBBY: This is— no, this is a good idea, I think, because, again, it’s a visual thing. It’s a subjective thing. Anytime you critique one of the City Connect jerseys, there’s always someone who comes out and is like, “Well, actually, it’s representing this thing from the city that you would know if you were from here.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I’m like, “Okay, fine.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Great.
ALEX: I’m like, “That’s okay. If you enjoy it, that’s fine.”
BOBBY: Exactly. You’re— you’re getting on the let people enjoy things bandwagon 2024?
ALEX: I— I am. I’m shush— I’m shushing your lips.
BOBBY: I don’t see why you can’t just let people enjoy things.
ALEX: So what if they want to bet on the game? What if it brings them joy?
BOBBY: Okay, I am banning— this is a fine line that we have to walk here, and I— I’m— I’m slightly worried that it will limit the way we can talk about certain things—
ALEX: Okay. That’s good [1:12:01] the best banned topics.
BOBBY: —but, but, but, but, but I would like to ban acknowledgement of when a team says they want a new stadium. I think we should just like— I think we should—
ALEX: Okay. All right. Yeah, I kind of— I kind of
thought about this as well.
BOBBY: I think we should just like pretend that that’s not real. They don’t mean that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They’re not saying they’re gonna— they’re not gonna leave. They’re not gonna leave. Just do it. We’re calling their bluff. We’re not going to talk about it. We’re not going to acknowledge it. We’re not going to be like, “This would be really bad for the city, you know? Giving this money to this team that could go better places.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “It’s just— it really should be used for the people who need it the most, and we just get really bummed out about it.” And we’re like, “This is dumb. This is how they do this.” We know, we know. We know, we know. You’ve been listening to this podcast for a long time. You know how we feel about this. We’re just not going to acknowledge when a team is like, “We need a new stadium because our stadium doesn’t work anymore.” It’s just not true and I just don’t need to acknowledge the lie anymore. So discussion of a team saying they want a new stadium is banned. Banned.
ALEX: Banned. We haven’t— we haven’t been doing that. Stevie is fast asleep right now.
BOBBY: She’s just— she keeps us— our egos in check.
ALEX: I— I really liked that, just because there’s so much that comes out of ownership that is frankly, like nonsense, and meant to drive discussion or deceive the public. And most of the time, it just doesn’t warrant discussion.
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: It’s just not worth engaging with whatever game they’re playing.
BOBBY: This was like my solve— this was my solve for like trying to figure out a way to ban the way that we were forced to talk about the A’s last year. Where we had to, like, react to everything— everything they said, like they were a presidential administration putting policy into place. They were just lying, you know? Like they were just not— they were just making it up. They’re just making it up. It’s like— you’re like— we’re like teachers who like— the kid comes in and clearly did not do the preparation for their speech and they’re just up there just—
ALEX: Just vamping.
BOBBY: —freestyling.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We just don’t have to give that kid an A, or a B, or a C. We’re just gonna give them an incomplete.
ALEX: You said [1:14:04] fail more kids. Sorry, if you’re not doing the work.
BOBBY: Do you think everyone should get a trophy?
ALEX: Great point.
BOBBY: Okay. What— what is your third and final banned topic? Reactionary conservative era of Tipping Pitches is gonna be so, so good. It—
ALEX: So good. I feel it coming. I feel it coming.
BOBBY: It’s gonna like— it’s gonna be such a movie, dawg.
ALEX: Yep. My last banned topic—
BOBBY: We worked hard to get here.
ALEX: We did.
BOBBY: And we’re pulling the ladder up behind us. No one after us will ever create a niche, slightly successful podcast about labor and baseball ever again after us. We’re the only— your last banned topic.
ALEX: My last banned topic will be relatively easy for us to ban.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: That’s the sport of football.
BOBBY: There’s too much football discussion last year. I felt put a little under pressure, a little under the microscope. You— you would ask me if I knew who was playing in the Super Bowl. No, I don’t know who’s playing in the fucking Super Bowl. This is a baseball podcast.
BOBBY: It’s so good, so good.
ALEX: So, I’m sorry. The sport of football banned.
BOBBY: That’s fine. That’s fine. How far does this extend?
ALEX: I don’t need that level of scrutiny, my man. [1:15:29]
BOBBY: How far does this extend? Can we talk about off the field? Can we talk about owners? Can we talk about—
ALEX: Sure, yes. But— but I think we cannot talk about the— the—
BOBBY: Like, it can’t be like, “Yo, did you see the— see the Jets picked up?”
ALEX: Right, exactly. Like—
BOBBY: Can we talk about RFK’s presidential run?
ALEX: Oh, that— that’s football because—
BOBBY: Aaron Rodgers.
ALEX: —Aaron Rodgers is his VP, which he’s not actually. I don’t know if you saw but—
BOBBY: I don’t know. I— I didn’t see who he actually picked.
ALEX: I don’t— whatever.
BOBBY: He was never gonna pick Aaron Rodgers.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Nothing that you hear about Aaron Rodgers is actually gonna happen. Nothing. It’s just like bet against it, you know? Fading.
ALEX: Right. I’m fading Aaron Rodgers this year. Yeah, sure we can do [1:16:04] we can— we basically have to— I’m— I’m saying we have to apply our Tipping Pitches ethos to the coverage of football, which is—
BOBBY: Never talk about the game.
ALEX: —not to talk about the substance.
BOBBY: Okay. That’s fine.
ALEX: Can you do that?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Can you— can you refrain—
BOBBY: I know that you’ve—
ALEX: —from grilling me on Jalen Hurts?
BOBBY: I can, I can.
ALEX: Remember when you were, like, teaching me lessons about Philly culture?
BOBBY: About the— yeah. Well, I stop doing that because you’re not actually a Phillies fans, so there’s no point.
ALEX: Wow. Wow.
BOBBY: Exposed. This summer, we’re gonna have to do another MLB matchmaker. All that work for nothing.
ALEX: You don’t think I’m rocking a Cristian Pache jersey under this sweatshirt right now?
BOBBY: I don’t think you are. No. Did you have an A’s Cristian Pache jersey?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Did they even sell that? Probably not.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Definitely not. Okay. My third and final banned topic. This one’s gonna be controversial.
ALEX: Best ones always are.
BOBBY: This might divide the Tipping Pitches Podcast, similar to how Martin Luther divided the Christian church. I think we should stop talking about Alex Rodriguez.
ALEX: What?
BOBBY: No, I’m just kidding. Stop. No, we can’t stop talking about Alex Rodriguez. You joked before the podcast that you were gonna say Taylor Swift.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We can’t stop doing that.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: That’s how people identify us.
ALEX: I know, I know.
BOBBY: You know? Like Bart Simpson, “Say the line. Make the joke.” Can we get A-Rod on the pod this year, do you think? We did our 2024 goals meeting a week ago. No mention of Alex Rodriguez. Why not?
ALEX: It came up briefly, because he’s— we talked about how he’s writing a book. And so when he gets— when the book comes out, I think we can get him on his press tour.
BOBBY: A lot— one person responded to the— the tweet, the picture that I posted of the banned topics [1:17:50] with nothing written underneath it with a picture of A-Rod’s book manuscript on the A-Rod’s letterhead where it just said book.
ALEX: Kind of legendary. I did not realize that art was imitating life with Alan, [1:18:03] did you?
BOBBY: No. I mean, it’s just so— he taught me the way.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You know? Like, the Mandalorian. This is the way.
ALEX: This is the way. Do you have a— a banned topic here?
BOBBY: Are you gonna fire up Acolyte? What do you think? [1:18:15] things?
ALEX: What is this that?
BOBBY: That’s the new Star Wars Show. Wow. They’ve lost you.
ALEX: Oh, my God. Wow. I’m out.
BOBBY: Oh, my God. Disney Palooza in shambles. My actual final topic that I’m banning, I would like to stop discussing the toxic wing of Atlanta Braves fandom.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: I feel like I did a lot of like, “Here’s why this is problematic” serious voice rants last year about Braves fans. Number one, I think everybody kind of knows all of that stuff now at this point, I feel like I’ve— I’ve made my point heard. As a fan of a team in their division, I actually think that they— there’s like legitimately like a lot of really bad faith things going on within the fan base. Like, there are in a lot of fan bases. And I think that the organization exacerbates those things. I think it like draws those characteristics out intentionally in really shitty ways. But I think that everybody listening to this podcast knows that that’s the way that I feel about at this point. And I feel like it’s gone so far that it’s like people who might actually be Braves fans feel that way similarly, or just like having that said to them all the time. And I don’t know that there’s that much more to add and I— I feel like it really crested last year with, you know, continued discourse around the job as well as like their second straight, disappointing exit and the way that the fans handled that, the Orlando Arcia-Jake situation, the fans were— and the media members were really shitty during that. I just— I’m kind of like— I’m over it, you know? I’m not letting the Braves off the hook.
ALEX: Right. You’re actually doing this to spend more time investigating them for crimes against humanity.
BOBBY: I’m just saying, what’s going on with the whole— the foundation? You know, why is everybody—
ALEX: My favorite just asking questions that you do.
BOBBY: 1%, everyone? Everyone 1%? Every single person just believes in the mission.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: They’re all like, “Yeah, sure.” That— I think not enough people are asking questions.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: Yeah, I mean, I— I actually did consider banning the Braves, just broadly speaking.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: No Braves stock. But, you know, I’m probably gonna be like [1:20:18] in baseball, I’m probably going to go to the World Series, like that’d be hard. Tricky, tricky, tricky.
ALEX: Tricky.
BOBBY: Tricky. So, you know, like haughty rants about how the Braves fans are toxic is banned. Banned.
ALEX: Banned.
BOBBY: Banned. How do you feel?
ALEX: I feel good. I think this was— we— they really ran the gamut this year.
BOBBY: The hardest one will be, I think, when the team says that they want a new stadium, because it’s just so low-hanging fruit to be like they’re fraudulent first.
ALEX: Yeah. I— so— okay. So if a— if a team says they want to move, does that count as wanting a new stadium?
BOBBY: Yeah, I think so.
ALEX: Okay. So— so if the San Francisco Giants came out and said, “We’re moving to— to Montreal.”?
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: We’re not touching it?
BOBBY: I don’t think so.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: I mean, unless you want to veto it.
ALEX: I mean, it’s not like it’s gonna happen for, like, seven years anyway, so like—
BOBBY: I— they’re not going to do it. They’re just not. You know, they’re not. Teams don’t move. All right. I’m not even convinced that the A’s are gonna move.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: And they’ve submitted like 88 pages pieces of legislation about how they’re going to move. They’re not going to move. All right? They’re not going to do it. They’re gonna stay in Oakland. Mark my words right now.
ALEX: Oh, all right. Here you go.
BOBBY: I’m putting my foot down. They’re staying in Oakland. Congratulations to you. Like—
ALEX: Wow, they’re back. We’re back. I can start wearing A’s merch again.
BOBBY: You can, because they’re not going to Vegas. That’s not real.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: It’s not real. Okay It’s not happening. John Fisher, name me one thing that he’s followed through on in his life, name it.
ALEX: Besides cutting down trees?
BOBBY: I don’t even know that that was like his mission. I think that was just like a thing that happened to him. Besides taking over— besides being the son that took over the family’s assets, I don’t know. I don’t know. Did he even want to do that? It doesn’t seem like. It doesn’t seem like he wants to be doing this.
ALEX: Is John Fisher actually a sympathetic character in all of this? Has— is this a position that has been forced upon him?
BOBBY: Are you telling me that you wouldn’t watch Succession about John Fisher?
ALEX: Oh, I— I’m not saying that at all.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: All right, book it.
BOBBY: I— I’ve tried. I’ve tried. I’m gonna write that script one day. I’m gonna leave all this behind and become a screenwriter. It’ll be less stressful for me. Six week breaks that are built in or just because I just not— I don’t have a job.
ALEX: Bobby, we’ve reached the end of the banned topics, but—
BOBBY: Yeah, we have.
ALEX: —I do feel like there might be one more we need to ban.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: This might be controversial.
BOBBY: How many times can we get away with doing a bit where we’re like—
ALEX: [1:23:04] this might be controversial.
BOBBY: —”This is controversial and we might [1:23:06] it.
ALEX: But— but this— but this one actually might be.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: I want to ban the All-GIF Draft.
BOBBY: I forgot that I said that I was gonna do that joke.
ALEX: I know. That’s why I— see, I got you.
BOBBY: Thank you. Okay. You know, it’s a— it’s a good joke, but we actually are not doing the are not doing the All-GIF—
ALEX: Yeah [1:23:25]
BOBBY: —Draft this year. In discussing how we wanted to preview this season, we obviously wanted to bring back the banned topics because we had a lot of fun doing it last year, and it paid dividends throughout the year. We have another— we have— we have two more interesting ideas that we came up with in our preseason brainstorm together, that I can’t wait for you guys to hear. Those will be in the next two weeks. We were, like, kind of reassessing, like does the All-GIF Draft still work? And we know people get excited for it. It’s really fun to talk to people about players that we’re excited for in the upcoming year. The issue is like the same as it always has been, talking about a very visual thing on— in an audio medium, as well as it’s a lot of work to then not ever come back to it for the rest of the season. So instead, we will be executing a season preview idea, hilariously, a week from now, which is like three days after the season starts.
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: But, you know, this is how it is. That we will be able to refer back to throughout the year more easily. And that will have some level of audience participation, which is exciting. So more on that next week. More on it— the whole— whole of it next week. And until then, as a little bit of housekeeping here at the end of this episode, this return episode, I wanted to say— reiterate again, we— we just— I feel really appreciative of everybody’s patience and support for the time that we took away from the show so that we could refocus, and reset, and just talk to each other about how we wanted to do the show this year, what we were hoping for from the show this year, how we were feeling a little bit rundown from doing it for six and a half straight years without a break from it, and the words of encouragement that people shared about how they supported that decision to do that. And we will probably be building in, like, calendar breaks to the show throughout the rest of— more often throughout the next six years, like we did not through the last six years, like maybe when the offseason rolls around, et cetera, et cetera. But we will be as transparent as possible and communicating those, and the reasons why, et cetera, et cetera. And as what— in addition, we will be reactivating for people who are patrons, we will be reactivating the Patreon. It should appear as react—reactivated now as you’re listening to this. And that means that we will go back to providing additional Patreon episodes every two weeks throughout the season. Many of them throughout the season, if there is not a separate idea that we come up with, many of them will just function as we said during the season, as full 3 Up, 3 Down episodes. Those will be, you know, 30 to 45 minutes, which means 45 minutes to an hour. And I’m really looking forward to that, because I love doing that segment. I love talking about things that we don’t get a chance to talk about on the main feed episodes, and just diving a little bit deeper and being a little bit looser. Thank you to everybody who stuck around on that, too. I mean, I know we paused the Patreon for a couple months, but it really mean— it means a lot that, like, people weren’t upset by that, or people were accepting of that. And I just wanted to reiterate how committed we are to upholding those things, and continuing to make the show that we want, as well as the show that you guys appreciate, both here on the main feed, as well as on the Patreon. And, you know, a break like this was designed to allow us to be able to refocus on the things that would let us do that. So that was a whole lot of words for basically just like we’re back— back to normal.
ALEX: And— and frankly, I just— I just want to add a little context.
BOBBY: We were in a six-week long acquisition discussion with A-Rod Corp. and it did fall through. That’s actually why we took so much time away from the show.
ALEX: You— you saw that he’s like financing for the T— Timberwolves just like fell through and he had to go and find like a different like— like someone who’s going to pay— like, you know, lend $300 million or whatever. Like—
BOBBY: Right, to complete the sale—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —of the Timberwolves and Lynx.
ALEX: So, like, it’s still [1:27:44]
BOBBY: Nah, he’s got it.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: He’s got it.
ALEX: I know he’s got it. No, I just— I just want to say—
BOBBY: He’s got the money. He’s the face.
ALEX: —the—
BOBBY: [1:27:49] the face that is.
ALEX: —the break was largely precipitated by the fact that Manfred said he’s stepping down, and we said, “The clock is ticking. We need to figure out how we’re gonna cover this over the next five years.” Because he’s not leaving until, like, 2029 or whatever.
BOBBY: I know. I considered banning—
ALEX: Hella cool.
BOBBY: —the discussion of his legacy, but then I remembered that we, like, came up with the podcast idea that was like [1:28:12]
ALEX: It’s fine. We could have done it anyway. We still have five years to talk about his legacy.
BOBBY: I just— I continue to think that Rob should come on the show. And now, what does he have to lose?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: He’s already stepping down.
ALEX: You want to talk lame duck.
BOBBY: If Rob said that he would come on the podcast in 2029, would you then commit to continuing the show until at least 2029?
ALEX: Yeah. Sure. I mean, I don’t— I— I don’t know that I would not commit to continuing the show until 2029 anyways.
BOBBY: I mean, I’d love to continue the show until 2029, but I don’t know that I would commit to it now.
ALEX: You’re— you’re saying you’re not trying to sign a long-term contract yet. You don’t feel like getting locked in.
BOBBY: Exercise my five-year option.
ALEX: You want to test the market a little bit.
BOBBY: You know? Who knows? We might not have Major League Baseball in five years, what we’ll be talking about then?
ALEX: God willing. [1:29:04]
BOBBY: Just all the other stuff that we talk about.
ALEX: Football.
BOBBY: All right. Yeah. It’s not gonna be banned five years from now, that’s for sure. Okay. Thank you everybody for listening. Like I said, next couple of weeks are going to be, I don’t know, like, preview adjacent content, but it’s like— it’s not really going to be like, who’s gonna win the AL Central, you know?
ALEX: If you’ve been listening, like you know— you know what you’re gonna get.
BOBBY: I’m really excited for the next couple episodes.
ALEX: Yeah, me too.
BOBBY: So I hope everybody else is, too. And I’m excited— I’m happy to be back. So thanks everybody for listening and thanks everybody for their patience. And we will be back next week.
SPEAKER 4: As long as they have teeth, they’ll bite. And we danced late into the night. So if he had a nice dream ends justify the means. Wipe the fingerprints clean, wipe the fingerprints clean.
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!
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