Alex and Bobby break down the quote that’s got them saying “Let’s Go Brandon” and check in on some news items regarding a Sacramento baseball team and a recent rash of elbow injuries. Then they take stock of MLB’s current bedfellows by ranking this year’s jersey patch sponsors based on their benefit (or lack thereof) to society. We’re talking grocery stores and oil spills, baby! Links:
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon Tipping Pitches merchandise Songs featured in this episode: Madonna — “Material Girl” • The Saints — “Know Your Product” • 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’d like to start today’s episode by reading you a quote that is fitting for the exercise that we plan to do for this podcast. I’m not gonna tell you who said this quote.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Even though I know you know.
ALEX: I do know. It’s from an unlikely source.
BOBBY: A very unlikely source. But that’s what happens, right? Let’s say, your local woodworker is making something. They’ll put a lot of attention to detail. It’s a handmade, it’s a good quality product. As soon as it becomes manufactured, like big time, usually, they start cutting corners. “Okay, we don’t need this detail. We don’t need that detail. We just need this product to work and we can sell it for the same price, and just mass produce it.” Now, this insightful criticism of late capitalism, it didn’t come from you. It didn’t come from me. It didn’t come from Tony Clark. It didn’t come from Sean Doolittle. It didn’t come from— my mind is drawing a blank on anybody else who might have said this in the baseball world.
ALEX: Strider?
BOBBY: Spencer Strider? No.
ALEX: Who did it come from, Bobby?
BOBBY: It came from noted far right conservative, extremely religious Wyoming man, Brandon Nimmo. Alex, the jerseys have radicalized players of the sort of Brandon Nimmo. We’re— we’re— we’re in big time. Although, you know that unfortunately this is just kind of progress him being like, “Globalization was a mistake. Immigrants took our jobs.”
ALEX: Right. This is why we need American made products.
BOBBY: He’s like this— I mean, horseshoe theory, hold on, I act—I— I had a song that I wanted to play for Brandon Nimmo. Do you want to hear it?
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Okay, here we go.
SPEAKER 3: Soyuz nerushimy respublik svobodnykh—
BOBBY: That’s the national anthem of the USSR.
ALEX: Top five na— national anthem, all time.
BOBBY: You play that at what talent show?
ALEX: Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Every year, run it back.
BOBBY: No wonder you got into NYU, a bunch of commies.
ALEX: Yeah, seriously.
BOBBY: A bunch of commies.
ALEX: Quote got me saying, “Let’s go, Brandon.” Brandon Nimmo, have you read Value, Price and Profit by Karl Marx?
BOBBY: I was gonna say, have you read Das Kapital?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Value, Price and Profit.
ALEX: We have some material for you.
BOBBY: Perhaps he can read that instead of participating in Major League Baseball games, because we could just fold the Mets, and we could turn this into a community building project in which—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —Brandon Nimmo spends, instead of 162 days in this calendar year, playing for a team that’s going to be 30 games under .500. He could spend those 162 days giving back to the New York City commu— community and educating them. Handing out pamphlets—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —about what’s happened to [3:15] late stage capitalism.
ALEX: Right, knocking on doors. Phone banking with Brandon Nimmo.
BOBBY: Who do you— oh, God. Oh, my God. Who do you think he’s gonna punch on in for this— this November?
ALEX: I mean, like as a— as a joke? As a funny answer or the— the real answer?
BOBBY: Do you think that he’s gonna vote at all? Because I would say no.
ALEX: Really? Because he strikes me as the kind of guy who, like— is like, “This is our civic duty.”
BOBBY: To—
ALEX: Like I— it would be disrespectful not to vote. As an American, I’m afforded these privileges—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —therefore—
BOBBY: Right. Like, “My forefathers, this is what they fought for.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: The right. How much money would I have to give you right now in cash, American dollars, to sing Proud to Be an American on the podcast?
ALEX: I don’t— I don’t think I know the lyrics.
BOBBY: You don’t know the lyrics to Proud to Be an American?
ALEX: Why wo— for real? Are you shocked?
BOBBY: I mean, it’s not like I— it’s not like I have that on my fucking phone downloaded. However, I did grow up hearing that song.
ALEX: See—
BOBBY: So this is— you don’t have— you don’t know American values.
ALEX: I literally don’t, I’m sorry.
BOBBY: It’s amazing. Okay. Well, we have a really loaded podcast, so we can’t just— I can’t just continue offering you more money this thing Proud to Be an American. You’ve— have you never heard it?
ALEX: You can keep— probably. See, you— how about— you know what? You do me a favor. You sing me a few bars.
BOBBY: $100.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: You’ll give me $100 to sing Proud to Be an American on the podcast?
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: That’s capitalism right there.
ALEX: It is. And I’m fully bought in. Let’s go [4:40]
BOBBY: Sounds like I could get more from our listener at homes.
ALEX: It sounds like we just— we just agreed. What, are you going to renege on your contract?
BOBBY: And I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.
ALEX: That was good. You have the bank account login.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Transfer yourself the money, I don’t care.
BOBBY: Okay, great. It sounds good. This is not how I intended to start this podcast, but alas, here we are, this is what happens. Today, today, we are going to rank the Major League Baseball jersey sponsors. Those companies who have purchased ad space on the sacred holy threads of Major League Baseball uniforms, to put a patch there and advertise for their company. We are going to rank them by how much evil they do in the world.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Descending order. How do— wait, how do you want to do this? Do you want to say like— do you want to go from one to— there’s only actually 19 teams, not 30.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: Do you want to go from one to 19, so that we’re getting progressively more evil? Or do you want to go from 19 to one so that we’re getting progressively more good, progressively less evil?
ALEX: That’s a good— we didn’t talk about this. I’m inclined to go from less evil to more evil.
BOBBY: I agree. So that’s why I think that we should reverse the order that you have here. Like, we should— number one shouldn’t be the worst.
ALEX: Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay. Sounds good. I’m glad that we’re— I’m glad that we’re fine with that.
ALEX: Yes. Yes, but we’re going in the order that is on the sheet.
BOBBY: This is correct.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Just making sure.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Process notes. You’re getting behind the scenes look here.
BOBBY: I’m really excited to do this. We do have to talk about elbow ligaments, you know, for a couple minutes.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We also have to talk about—
ALEX: The A’s.
BOBBY: Oh, the A’s. Right.
ALEX: Just the A’s.
BOBBY: Just the A’s. I don’t really know what I’m gonna say about that. But before we do all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: Okay, dealer’s choice. Do you wanna talk about the A’s or do you want to talk about the ulnar collateral ligament of men—
ALEX: Jesus.
BOBBY: —first?
ALEX: Yes, let’s get the A’s out of the way.
BOBBY: Okay. Sacramento?
ALEX: They’re moving to Sacramento after this year. This is the final year in O.co, RingCentral Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.
BOBBY: “The A’s plan to move to Sacramento for the 2025-2027 seasons, with an option to play there in 2028 as well, the team announced. They will play in Sutter Health Park.” By the way, I’m reading a Jeff Passan tweet, our favorite pastime. “Just over 10,000 seats.” 10,000. Can they fill it? We’ll see.
ALEX: Tall number.
BOBBY: “With grass outfield seats to increase capacity to 14,000 for at least three seasons.” See, now if you’re— you and I, you might say something like, “Seems like a small stadium. Seems like a bad move.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It seems like a way to tank your revenue.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Continue to cash revenue sharing checks.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: While stealing a team from a city and a fan base that really deserves it, and has really fought hard to keep it.
ALEX: Yeah. Those were all my—
BOBBY: And with the story [7:57]
ALEX: —all of my notes right here.
BOBBY: Exactly. Right. Now, that’s like if you’re like you and me, and probably the people listening to this podcast. Now, if you’re like Jomboy, you’d say, “That sounds cool. We could get a Major League team with a Minor League team vibe.”
ALEX: Come on. I wasn’t gonna bring him up. I’m—
BOBBY: You didn’t ban him.
ALEX: I didn’t ban him.
BOBBY: You didn’t ban him.
ALEX: Oversight on my part.
BOBBY: You did ban City— City Connects.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So we can’t talk about the Phillies.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: But you did not ban Jomboy.
ALEX: Jomboy who says, “Just because you’re suffering, why do I have to?”
BOBBY: Repeated Don Fisher’s line about how cool it’s gonna be see a Major League team play in a Minor League vibe.
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: Somehow I don’t think it’s going to have the same cool vibe that Minor League Baseball has, on account of the fact that I don’t think that they’re just going to give away $5 tickets.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: I don’t think that the Major League players are going to feel like it’s fun and cool that they’re playing with Minor League facilities.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: By the way, I don’t think the Major League Baseball Players Association is gonna love that either.
ALEX: It’s clearly [7:57] no, no.
BOBBY: It’s not going to be cool on their behalf. And the whole thing that makes Minor League Baseball cool, guys, not sure if you know this, the whole thing that makes it cool is that it’s low stakes accessible baseball with people who are trying to live out a dream.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: The A’s have stamped all of that out. There’s nothing cool about it anymore. They’re playing at the top level on a J— on the equivalent of a JV field—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —by their standards.
ALEX: Literally, the— as you noted, I mean, it’ll be obviously the smallest park by number of fans that can fit. Also, the smallest park in terms of literally how big the field is. We’re scraping like the— the league’s minimum for how far the fences need to be. I— I agree with your sentiment that I think this novelty is going to wear off like—
BOBBY: Maybe like an hour into the first game?
ALEX: —like the— as soon as the ink dries on the contract.
BOBBY: I don’t think it’s going to happen still.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I still don’t believe it. I’m still digging my heels in and saying, “This is not going to happen.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: John Fisher is so deep down the rabbit hole of this bluff that he doesn’t even know what’s real anymore.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: He goes to press conferences. He says dumb stuff that Jomboy repeats and then he doesn’t take questions from the media.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s a lead— it’s a lead behavior for him. Every time I see him, and I— and I close my eyes, I picture you standing next to him. And I lament the fact that I wasn’t there, you know? It’s like I missed out on a lot of major events in American history, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I wasn’t at the JFK assassination.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I wasn’t at Woodstock. And I was not at Alex meeting John Fisher.
ALEX: Were those your top three of historical events you wanted to witness?
BOBBY: Yes. I wasn’t at the Mets 1986 World Series victory.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And I was not at O.co— I’ve already forgotten the rest of them.
ALEX: Uh-huh [10:43]
BOBBY: RingCentral Coliseum—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —the day that Alex met John Fisher.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s kind of like the day the music died.
ALEX: I do think this is going to happen. The fact that there is a ballpark kind of means that the— the biggest hurdle, arguably the thing that was the core reason why the A’s were unable to move to Las Vegas, which is that where they’re building this ballpark, how are they building it? What are they building? And the— the repeated failures to— to procure answers any of those questions. You don’t have to answer that here, right? You have a facility that is subpar.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But that exists.
BOBBY: So I’ll— I’ll give it like 50/50 that they actually go to Sacramento next year.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: But I’m still firmly in the camp that they will never play a baseball game in Las Vegas.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because, again, like this is the take until proven otherwise. It— in order to get a stadium and build it in Las Vegas, that requires some amount of work from the ownership group. I don’t believe they’re willing to do that. Based on the fact that all I’ve seen from two decades of them trying to get a new stadium is a bunch of pretty pictures drawn by artificial intelligence. Nothing else.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Nothing else.
ALEX: I mean, the—
BOBBY: Dave Kaval is welcome to come on the podcast and delineate what they have done.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: If he would like to.
ALEX: Of course. 785-422-5881. Give us a ring Dave. I also just want to note, we’ve resolved the problem where those calls were getting routed directly to my phone. So if you call and expecting leave voicemail, and heard someone pick up on the other line, give it a ring again.
BOBBY: That is so funny, actually. I can’t believe people were just calling you. How many people did you answer it for?
ALEX: Like, two.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: So we’re—
BOBBY: Did you have a nice chat with those people?
ALEX: I did.
BOBBY: That’s good.
ALEX: I look forward to hearing those— those voicemails. I think we’re— I think we’re due for a— a voicemail episode [12:48] and that’s—
BOBBY: How did you even do that?
ALEX: I— I don’t know.
BOBBY: This is why it’s so funny that it’s attach— like so many of our things are attached to your phone number.
ALEX: Right. Like, the IRS is just gonna call me one day and be like, “So, hello, Mr. Pitches.”
BOBBY: Now, why— now, why would the IRS call?
ALEX: Why would they be? Come on. But the— the pet theory on the A’s Twitter right now, right, is that there is a National Basketball Association team in Sacramento, right? The Sacramento Kings.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Owned by one Vivek Ranadivé.
BOBBY: Yeah. Who introduced John Fisher at the press conference.
ALEX: Who introduced— who— and who owns the Sacramento River Cats, the stadium—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Who play in the stadium where the A’s will be playing next year, right? And so the theory goes Vivek is going to be sitting there waiting to buy the A’s, to get the scraps when Vegas falls through. Well, all of a sudden, you move to this new city. You have a billionaire owner right here, who’s buddies with the current owner of the team. Why would it not make sense for him to just swoop in and say, “Hey, I’ll take care of this. Sacramento needs a baseball team.”?
BOBBY: Bro, two birds, one stone.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Sell a team— maybe three birds, A-Rod trying to get them in that ownership group.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: A-Rod tries to buy a team.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: MLBPA agreements.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: All-in-one.
ALEX: Easy.
BOBBY: On the Tipping Pitches 2024 Bingo Card.
ALEX: Easy. Almost, almost rooting for this to happen at this point.
BOBBY: Also, it’s going to be sick when we go to Sacramento and see the A’s.
ALEX: Damn it.
BOBBY: And it’s gonna be really fun.
ALEX: I don’t really want to think about that, if I’m being quite honest.
BOBBY: We can catch a Kings game, too. I’ve always wanted to light the beam.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: The A’s should come up with something like that, like— but sadder, you know?
ALEX: We’ll have to— we’ll have to think on that.
BOBBY: Like light the torch or something. It’s like a tiki torch that they bought from Target. So owner collateral ligaments.
ALEX: I— I just want to say, before we move on completely, because, like, this feels like the most concrete evidence we’ve received yet, that the A’s will not be in Oakland next year, or in the years following. And this whole thing has been such an embarrassment to the sport itself. Like—
BOBBY: Oh, my God. Wait, hold on.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I know you’re in the middle of a very serious rant.
ALEX: Uh-huh. Yeah.
BOBBY: Where you’re putting your fist up in the air and your foot down.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: About how the A’s have embarrassed Major League Baseball, of which I agree. I agree. You’re cooking over there, but pause.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Vivek Ranadivé net worth 700 million. He can’t— he can’t afford it.
ALEX: Broke.
BOBBY: He can’t afford the A’s.
ALEX: Broke.
BOBBY: Could barely afford the Kings at that rate.
ALEX: Would not have made our Forbes billionaires list.
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: [15:26]
BOBBY: Not even close. He would be the— I guess there’s still Attanasio, so he wouldn’t be the brokest owner. And there’s still the Castellinis. We can make a song for Ranadivé, though. I don’t know what it’d be about. I think he did— I think he, like, sells technology. Software— intelligence software company.
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: Okay. Anyway, sorry to interrupt.
ALEX: It’s okay. All— all I just want to say is that there’s a lot of ire that’s being directed towards John Fisher right now. And rightfully so, because he is swindling A’s fans and the city of Oakland, and— and whatever city he ultimately ends up going to. I also just think it’s important to recognize that commissioner’s legacies, I think, are not defined by their successes, but by their failures. No one really gives a shit if you implemented a pitch clock that sped up the game 15 minutes, unless you’re destroying pitchers’ elbows with it, in which case, well, we’ll talk about that. But my— my point being that this is the kind of thing that has the potential to define your legacy, letting a storied MLB franchise walk from their hometown.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: And doing so in such an embarrassing fashion, is— is truly like—
BOBBY: I mean, you’re—
ALEX: —shameful.
BOBBY: You’re putting it too lightly, honestly. That’s too passive of a way to say it. Like, paving the way to encourage them to walk—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —in order to keep propelling the business model that you’ve come to harden and define.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That was set before you ever became commissioner, obviously, pressuring different cities. We know the history of the Expos. We know the history of all these different teams pressuring to leave. However, making it the stated policy and continuing to allow it to happen, even though there’s more transparency and more— in the world that we live in, there’s more transparency around how these things operate. And there’s way more public fan sentiment against moving a team than there ever has been in history. I do think that this is basically just— this is the whole legacy for Rob now.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Especially since he was the one, like, quite literally on the phone, pressuring people in public office to allow this to happen.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I mean, it’s not good. It’s certainly going to come up in a Rob Manfred legacy pod that we do [17:46]
ALEX: Absolutely.
BOBBY: But, hey, also encouraging to know that the other 29 owners don’t think that this is their fault, either even though they voted unanimously—
ALEX: Correct.
BOBBY: —and have benefited handsomely.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. The hands are being wrung right now.
BOBBY: Benefited handsomely from both the idea of having other cities to pressure their local governments to giving them more money, other cities on the backburner to move a team to. But also, just that they voted 29-0 unanimously, unanimously. That word, unanimously, I’ve said it a few times.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Unanimously.
ALEX: Yeah. That means everyone is made—
BOBBY: To approve the A’s [18:22]
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Plus their only tweet— oh, my God. What a blessing. But in other organizations, there’s a lot of disgust with how the A’s have handled the ballpark situation, especially when there’s no actual ballpark plan settled in Las Vegas. Gnarly, never would have thought that that would still be the case months later. Nobody predicted that. And there is an assumption, the A’s will tank in the next few years because their revenue stream will be down to a trickle. Quote, “This makes us all look bad,” said one person.
ALEX: What— you got it?
BOBBY: No, they nailed it.
ALEX: You got it. Also, what do you mean, “will tank”? I— as a— like, in comparison to what? In comparison to where we are now?
The A’s are on pace to lose to win zero baseball games, I guess, in 2025?
BOBBY: They haven’t won yet?
ALEX: No, they— they have, but I—
BOBBY: Oh, oh. 2025.
ALEX: But if the assumption is that they actually have further room to fall.
BOBBY: What do you think— how do you think Esteury Ruiz’s talents are going to play next year at the Minor League ballpark? Okay. We had to move on because we have a really big podcast.
ALEX: We do. Yes. Yes.
BOBBY: Let’s talk about pitcher injuries quickly because this is the topic du jour on the internet. A lot of think pieces being written. A lot of informative thing pieces, I will add. I want to shout-out my colleague Ben Lindbergh’s piece on arm health that came out, like, a week ago. Very prescient for him to write that piece. Since it became the A topic for everybody who cares about baseball this week. A lot of people weighing in on, why is there so many elbow injuries? Why are there so many shoulder injuries? Including the Major League Baseball Players Association. Statement from executive director Tony Clark regarding pitcher injuries, this comes in the wake of Shane Bieber going on the injured list and announcing he will receive Tommy John and miss the rest of the year. Gerrit Cole is obviously out for several months with elbow troubles. Spencer Strider has damaged his UCL, the Braves announced two days ago. Among others, you know? Obviously, Durham is out.
ALEX: Eury Pérez just—
BOBBY: Eury Pérez. Sandy Alcántara has been out for this whole year, had TJ at the end of last year, or during last year, I think. Just a lot of guys, like a lot of the best pitchers are not— this is— this was just a perfect storm of injuries all happening in the course of a week, and just a lot of dialogue about contributing factors. Anyway, back to Tony Clark’s statement, “Despite unanimous player opposition and significant concerns regarding health and safety, the commissioner’s office reduced the length of the pitch clock last December, just one season removed from imposing the most significant role change in decades. Since then, our concerns about the health impacts of reduced recovery time have only intensified. The league’s unwillingness thus far to acknowledge or study the effects of these profound changes is an unprecedented threat to our game, and its most valuable assets. Signed the players.” I will offer that as one theory that has been proffered about the uptick, seeming uptick in elbow injuries, arm injuries affecting pitchers, and top little starting pitchers, because those are really the ones that draw the most headlines. It’s fine when a reliever blows out his arm, because he’s been used by the Rays for 90 innings a year for three years and doesn’t make it to free agency. That’s fine. Nobody cares. Not a lot of statements being released for that. But alas, another theory has been going around. I believe from the Texas Rangers staff doctor is that the— at— the increase— the increase of sweepers and power change ups, these harder thrown, harder gripped off-speed pitches being used more in order to induce width, in order to prioritize lowering your whip, all these sorts of things over the last couple years is leading to more strain on the elbows, more Tommy Johns. I’ve seen a lot of theories about velocity in general, the increase in fastball velocity and off-speed velocity, throwing harder, more stress on the arm. I’ve seen theories about sticky stuff. The losing access to sticky stuff has caused pitchers to have to grip pitches differently, throw them differently. And whereas the ligaments were used to throwing them a certain way, now they’re throwing them in a different way, and that is putting increased stress in different parts of the arm. I— I guess first things first, do you think that we are at a crisis breaking point for pitcher injuries? And if so, how would you amass that pie chart of those— these different theories that people are proffering, why there seems like there are more injuries? And do you even think there are more injuries? Because I’m sort of skeptical of that, too.
ALEX: I mean, I think it’s an— it’s quite literally impossible to say, right? Like, there are so many variables at play here that are also changing year over year, that it’s really hard to point to the pitch clock, or sticky stuff as like a primary reason that injuries have gone up. Right now, do all of these probably contribute to the issue to some extent? Like, yes, definitely. How you want to break that down is— is up for debate, and there’s probably something that, like, the MLBPA is interested in looking into. A lot of it kind of comes back to this, like, very fundamental idea that throwing a baseball repeatedly at high velocities is— is like a generally not good thing for your arm to do, right? It puts a lot of strain on one side of your body, this repeated motion.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: And you do it not just at the Major League level, but at the Minor League level, and at the college level, and as— as early as high school and even before, right? Where player— where young players are being trained to have this special skill. And that means when you’re 13 or 14, you’re— you’re logging innings that, like, maybe you shouldn’t. And again, I know that this is, once again, another theory that— that comes up that idea of like, how many innings you have on your arm, right? And how many innings—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —can your body, like, hold in a season or over the course of a few years [24:28] with that.
BOBBY: What age did you become a PO, like pitcher only—
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: —and how— yes. How much damage were you doing to the strengthening of those ligaments when they were growing, and changing, and you were going through, your body was going through significant changes?
ALEX: Like pitcher injuries to elbows, and I— and I guess just shoulders as well, although I’m less versed in that, is— have been on the rise for years.
BOBBY: Like, as long as we’ve been sentient baseball fans.
ALEX: Yes. Yeah, exactly. I do think that like functionally the game today just may not be compatible with the long term health of pitcher arms. And that’s just kind of one of the risks of pitching, that pitchers acknowledge, right? You acknowledge that this is a high stress environment that you’re putting your body into, and you accept the fact that you may bear those consequences at some point down the line. And I think that every pitcher, given the choice, takes that chance, right, to be able to say, “I get to play baseball at the highest level.”
BOBBY: Yes. “And not only do I get to play baseball at the highest level, but I get to sign a contract that is life-changing.”
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Because if you— I saw somebody making— I saw— it was Jarrett Seidler. I saw him making the astute point that I agree with, that if you told someone like Spencer Strider, who was a fourth round pick, thought to be a reliever with his makeup, coming out of college, even though he had great stuff, how long can he sustain that over the course of a season? He did. And he’s a— I believe he’s a driveline guy as well, which I— I even mentioned as one of the things that people are kind of attributing the increase in injuries to the driveline methodology of fighting as hard as possible to— to be a— be a max effort pitcher, add 0.5 miles per hour to your—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —fastball velocity by throwing weighted balls all offseason and doing all of these different exercises that are, I would say, in the context of baseball history, non-traditional. They now have become widely accepted practices, but they don’t have decades and decades of sample size as to how they affect someone’s elbow or shoulder, or other parts of their soft tissue, you know? So— but if you told someone like Spencer Strider, would you do it again? I mean, yeah, he would do it again. He signed a $75 million contract. He’s one of the best pitchers in baseball. Like, it’s either that or be a reliever. And again, like I said, get used for 90 innings by the Rays, and then burn out your arm at the age of 30, and then never sign a free agent contract.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So, like—
ALEX: I think it’s hard because these guys are competitors at the end of the day. They want to push themselves, right, to the very max that they can go. You don’t want to go out there and say, “Yeah, I’m cool throwing it 85% today, because I know it’s going to lengthen the lifespan of my arm.” Right? You want to go out there and say, “Hey, I can be the most impactful now like, yes, as tied to how it’s going to impact my earnings, and how it impacts my team’s chances. And also how it impacts like me as a competitor, as a player in this landscape.” You want to leave it all out on the field, right? And I— I do think we’re maybe reaching a point where— I mean, first of all, I think we’re— we’re reaching the— the, like, max of what we can get out of arms. I mean, maybe we’ll keep pushing. I’m sure we will. But I think in the next few years—
BOBBY: I think we’ve [27:51] like—
ALEX: —we’re kind of like pushing up on this like— this is— we’ve capped out what the human body is, like, able to do.
BOBBY: I think that we’re past what the human body is able to do.
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: Clearly, you know what I mean?
ALEX: Yeah. I mean— I mean— sure. Yes.
BOBBY: Like— and we have been for a while, but we’re now— like, everybody is past it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s not just a few guys that are pushing the boundaries too far and getting hurt, and having short careers that burn bright or whatever. It’s not like every guy is routinely past it. The teams want them to be like this. It is— it’s— the reason that it’s a labor question is because like it actually helps the team if guys maximize how good they are for shorter windows, because then you always have good pitchers, and you never have to pay them.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know what I mean? Like, it seems crass and fucked up to say that, but whether teams are thinking about that actively and putting that in the emails to each other, it doesn’t really matter, because they are training guys to do more than their bodies are physically capable of doing. And they’re telling them, “This is the only way you’re going to make the team, because there is somebody else that will do it. There’s someone else who will go to drive line, there’s someone else who will throw the weighted balls, there’s someone else who will throw two miles per hour faster than their physiology tells them they should. And that person is going to get more whiffs. And we want them.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Period. “You’re not gonna make the roster.”
ALEX: And which is— which is accurate, right? It’s like— I think that’s an accurate assessment of what happens. You don’t want to be the guy who’s left behind.
BOBBY: You don’t want to be the guy that— yes, you don’t want to be the guy that is left behind. But as a team, when are teams— this is like what we talked about with like— it’s like what we talked about with the DH, right? Like, when are teams going to actually have to start paying the price or the— or shifts, for example. When are teams going to actually have to start paying the price for what they’re costing the overall health of the game in order to gain a competitive edge over each other? They’re not. They don’t pay the price ever for it. What we do is we have bash your head against the wall, existential conversations about whose fault it is that all the guy— all these guys are getting injured, while we’re not just looking at the teams and saying, “Oh, you’re training them to do the thing that is going to injure them and you’re telling them they will never get the contract and they will never make the roster if they don’t do that.” And not only are you telling them that in a nebulous way, you’re literally saying that at arbitration for the years three through six of their career. You’re literally telling them they’re not good enough. You have to do these things to be better. And then if you get hurt, you’re also telling them that that’s why you’re not going to pay them in arbitration. So it’s like a lose, lose, lose for everybody, except the teams, again, who don’t have to pay these pitchers as much money.
ALEX: I do think that— I mean, the hyper specialization as we talked about from a young age doesn’t help.
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: Which does lead me to the idea that maybe no DH does make sense.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: I don’t know. We’ll— we’ll just leave that there. We have a segment to get to.
BOBBY: Okay. By the way, I want to say, like, officially on the record, I don’t think any one of these things is the thing.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I don’t— like I think it’s different per person and I think that they are all part of the pie. I think they’re all part of the equation. I’m not totally convinced that lowering the pitch clock, again, is the reason that more guys are blowing out, but I also think it would be silly to say that we know that that’s not the reason.
ALEX: Correct.
BOBBY: Like, without some kind of study.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Or without some kind of longer sample size, or without somebody who, like, studies these sorts of thing— these sorts of things, saying, “Hey, this is actually contributing for certain types of guys and not for others.” And by the way, if I see another person fucking tweeting a video, or sending out gifts where they’re, like, talking about how someone’s arm angle is not perpendicular, or parallel enough at their [31:34] point.
ALEX: At least [31:34] you’re talking about.
BOBBY: I’m like— I’m just gonna— I’m gonna lose it all, you know? I’m gonna go put all my money into just, like, crypto or something and become like a finance bro, because it’s making me crazy.
ALEX: Well, Bobby, we might have some companies that would allow you to do such things, that we’re about to talk about.
BOBBY: Can I find any of those companies in Major League Baseball?
ALEX: You know?
BOBBY: All right. So we mentioned this at the top, and obviously, the title and description, you can sort of get an idea of what we’re doing here, which is that we are ranking the jersey sponsors based on their morality. And you might be sitting at home, and you might say, “There’s no conscious consumerism under capitalism.” You might be saying, “How do you compare an oil company to a life insurance company?” These are questions we asked ourselves. And you know what? There’s no good way to do it. The fun part about this is that there’s no right answer and there’s no wrong answer. This is just a podcast segment.
ALEX: I disagree.
BOBBY: Except Alex’s answer is right.
ALEX: I think that we rank these really well.
BOBBY: So a couple quick things, we have, like, some stats for each of these teams that we will read through and we’re going to chat through them, and we are going to go in reverse order. So there are only 19 jersey sponsors at the moment, the other 11 teams do not have a jersey sponsor at present. Some of these teams have said they will try to add one over the course of the 2024 season. Maybe we’ll pop back into this list and say where they would slot in. That’s fun. So when we start at 19, what we’re saying is, this is the least bad— this is the least bad company.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And when we get all the way to number one, what we are saying is, “This company has racked up the most evil points.”
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: So just keep that in your mind. All right? We’re not— we’re not gonna, like, get all the way to the top, and we’re gonna be like, “I want to work here, you know?”
ALEX: Well, speak for yourself.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: I— I will say—
BOBBY: So did you accept any money on the— from any of these companies to rank them higher or lower?
ALEX: I did, actually.
BOBBY: Let’s put that disclaimer.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah. We’ll throw that in there.
BOBBY: You got a free life insurance policy.
ALEX: Got a free cell phone from Motorola.
BOBBY: From MassMutual. We should do a life insurance scam. Like, we should fake your death.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: We’ll talk about it [33:53]
ALEX: We’ll put a pin on that one.
BOBBY: I figured.
ALEX: We enjoyed doing this. I— I will note that the list falls off pretty quickly into the ranking. I’ll also note that like I— I— how I was thinking about this, as we were going through this list, is like what is the product you’re providing and, like, is it beneficial to society, right? It’s like that— using that as sort of a benchmark of, like, putting these in order and then diving into what other human rights records look like.
BOBBY: Yes. Yeah.
ALEX: You know? So that’s just to kind of give you framing on how we were thinking about these sorts of things.
BOBBY: So just for practical— for practicality sake, I will say, this is Alex’s idea, wonderful idea. So he put the list together. I took a look at the list, assembled some research reports for myself to talk about. And I said, “I would like to move this around a little bit. I think this company should go lower, I think this company should go a little higher.” And so this is somewhat of a consensus of a list, but you’re gonna— you’re gonna lead the way here on— on actually sharing the rankings. And the last thing I’ll say is the way that I oriented these things is the way that I orient all things in life, which is if we had a guillotine and the person in charge of each of these companies, how would you order them in the line? Who’s going first? Who gets to go to the back of the line?
ALEX: That’s good. It’s a— it’s a good mental exercise.
BOBBY: Okay, great. Would you like to kick us off? Number 19— wait, do you want me to read the teams that don’t have jerseys sponsors first just so everybody knows if you’re a fan of those things?
ALEX: Sure. Okay.
BOBBY: I’m sure you already know that you don’t have a jersey sponsor. The Baltimore Orioles do not have a jersey sponsor, neither do either of the Chicago teams, Cubs and the White Sox. The Rockies have not cashed in on jersey sponsor. Can’t wait to see what ol’ Dick Monfort comes up with for them. The Minnesota Twins have no jersey sponsor, the Oakland Athletics, shocking, no jersey sponsor. Shocking. That would have to be reported income that John Fisher would have to share with the IRS, so he’s like, “Please know.” [35:42] the Philadelphia Phillies looking to add a jersey sponsor midseason. My money’s on Wawa. Pittsburgh Pirates, none. Seattle Mariners, no jersey sponsor. When is old Bezos going to come through with that check? Come on. Come on. And the Tampa Bay Rays. Oh, how can I forget, neither do the Washington Nationals. You know why? Apolitical. They don’t pick a side.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: There in the nation’s capital. No.
ALEX: Yeah. Both sides of the aisle, baby.
BOBBY: Exactly. Okay, number 19, get us started.
ALEX: That’s the New York Mets with New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
BOBBY: We are so back.
ALEX: So back. Kind of, inarguably, the least offensive company on this list, I think. Like, in terms of the function you’re providing to society, I— I think it’s hard to argue otherwise than a— a hospital now or—
BOBBY: It’s not like they’re a charity.
ALEX: It’s not like they’re a charity. Does our— is our healthcare system in this country massively fucked up?
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I think it works very well.
BOBBY: Exactly. It makes a lot of sense for everybody who [36:54]
ALEX: It works for me. I don’t know why it doesn’t work for you. It sounds like a skill issue. I don’t know.
BOBBY: Is it amazing that, like, when people were arguing against public health insurance, like quite literally, that’s what they said?
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: They’re like, “I like my appearance.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’d be like, “What about the 40% of people who don’t have any insurance?” You’re like—
ALEX: [37:11] It’s like, “Well, they should get better insurance.”
BOBBY: —”Skill issue.”
ALEX: Uh-huh. Yeah. I— I— this was, I think, the easiest one for me to rank. I think hospitals are like—
BOBBY: They’re literally— they—
ALEX: —a net good.
BOBBY: And, like, New York City hospitals are— are fucked and— and our alma mater, NYU, is a large part of that. Langone owns a lot of health and human services in the United— or in the city of New York. However, compared to the other companies that—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —we are about to get to, just like one hospital group in one city, you have to say, it’s more moral—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —than all of the other companies on here.
ALEX: Like, in terms of the day-to-day jobs that the individuals inside that building are doing, I feel comfortable saying, “I think they’re doing good for us.”
BOBBY: On the New York Presbyterian Hospital Wikipedia page, there was in popular culture header. I’m gonna read this for you. “The ABC documentary series New York Med produced by ABC News features New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Marvel Comics fictional surgeon, Dr. Strange, attended Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed his resid— residency at New-York Presbyterian Hospital.” However, Wikipedia, no mention of the New York Mets in popular culture. No mention of the New York Mets—
ALEX: What, that— that they have a jersey sponsor?
BOBBY: —have the jersey sponsor. That’s lower on the totem pole than the ABC documentary series New York Med.
ALEX: I’ve watched it dozens of times.
BOBBY: I’m sure you have. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you did watch that. Okay. Number— number 19 is the New York Mets, which they— their jersey sponsor is New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Can you please tell us who number 18 is?
ALEX: Number 18, we have the Detroit Tigers with Meijer. Meijer, I think you’re familiar. This is the—
BOBBY: I’m gonna be so real with you. I still don’t know what Meijer is.
ALEX: It is a super center/— what is it? Hyper— hypermarket?
BOBBY: Hypermarket. Described as a super center and hypermarket. You know, the super center—
ALEX: The supercenter hypermarket—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —industrial [39:10]
BOBBY: We were just at the hypermarket.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That’s where you met your wife.
ALEX: That’s not—
BOBBY: Oh, no. It was at the supercenter. I forgot.
ALEX: They— Meijer was the first retailer to launch the supermarket or superstore in the US combining—
BOBBY: How do you—
ALEX: —a multitude of merchandise under one roof.
BOBBY: What does that mean? So it’s just like they have just—
ALEX: They combined a multitude of merchandise under one roof. I don’t know how to be clearer. They’re a grocery store that just added other stuff.
BOBBY: They have 259 stores, 208 of them are gas station stops. 2023 revenue 19.6 billion, Meijer was founded as Meijer’s in Greenville, Michigan, in 1934 by Hendrik Meijer, a Dutch immigrant. Meijer was a local barber, wow, bootstraps, who entered the gro— grocery business during the Great Depression.” Cashing in. “His first employees included his 14-year-old son, Frederik Meijer, it’s a family company, who later became chairman of the company. The current co-chairman, brothers Hank and Doug Meijer,” kept it in the family, “are Hen— Hendrik’s grandsons. After studying trends in the grocery industry, Meijer was among the first stores to offer self-service shopping and shopping carts. He also offered staple items such as vinegar, at bargain prices.” So why 18? Why is this— why is this so good?
ALEX: I mean, once again, this is— maybe it has less to do with Meijer themselves and more the company that Meijer has surrounded themselves with on this list.
BOBBY: Oh, okay.
ALEX: I— I tend to— again, they are a grocery store/retailer of other goods.
BOBBY: Dudes got to eat.
ALEX: Dudes gotta eat. I—
BOBBY: Like from the hypermarket.
ALEX: Pushing the— the mark— the market to its logical conclusion, I guess. We’re post-market at this point.
BOBBY: I’m gonna start something called the Uber market.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Ultra market.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Supers— no supercenter is what they called it.
ALEX: You’re right.
BOBBY: That makes no sense.
ALEX: I— like, they— they provide an essential service. They— they provide food. How they— how they provide that food could be debated.
BOBBY: Yep.
ALEX: The definition they use to describe their purveying of that food may be contested. But like their— their employees, I would assume, are essential workers, right? Like these are places that did not close down when the pandemic hit, because people still needed their products.
BOBBY: Are you admitting that you ranked this list based on how much they got in PPP loans?
ALEX: Yes, exactly. You know what? It did help that they discriminated against a Christian for refusing to work on Sundays.
BOBBY: I saw— I saw that.
ALEX: I was like, “Yeah, I was on the fence, but I’ll bump you up for that.”
BOBBY: Their controversy section was light.
ALEX: It was light.
BOBBY: Products, groceries, clothing, footwear, gasoline, sporting clothing, bedding, furniture, jewelry, health and beauty products, toys, sporting equipment, electronics, housewares, and pet supplies. Sounds like a fucking hypermarket. What’s number 17?
ALEX: Oh, you said bedding. I— like— like beds. I was like, “You can do sports betting there?”
BOBBY: You probably can.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Especially if they’re associated with a Major League Baseball team. Number 17.
ALEX: Number 17, your Kansas City Royals with QuikTrip.
BOBBY: Good showing for them.
ALEX: Convenience store and sometimes gas station.
BOBBY: I’m not really sure. 2023 revenue, 9.3 billion. The quick trick— quip— the QuikTrip Corporation, more commonly known as QuikTrip (QT),” that’s sweet, “is an American chain of convenience stores based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that operates in the Midwestern, Southern, and Western United States. QuikTrip is one of two convenience store chains based in Oklahoma, the other being Love’s. In 2005″— wait, no, this is a fun fact for later. If you’ve ever driven across the country, you know— you know about QuikTrip and Love’s, you know? You’re just like you make a quick trip over there.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: So why number 17 for them? They associate with gasoline, why so low?
ALEX: I feel like they’re basically essential workers, right? Like, you’re like a one step down from a grocery store.
BOBBY: I love this because it’s like can Alex buy Cheez-its from this company?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: If yes—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —then they’re low. If no—
ALEX: When— when the whole world is shut down. Like, I don’t— I feel like they serve a pretty crucial purpose in our car centric world.
BOBBY: Yeah, more on that later.
ALEX: More on that later. Convenience stores are an important facet of American life.
BOBBY: It’s right there in the name. I mean, it’s right there in the name.
ALEX: QuikTrip.
BOBBY: Convenience.
ALEX: Con— Oh. Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Now, if they were to potentially say that they were like a hyperconvenient store, would you have rated them better?
ALEX: Right, because they’re not—
BOBBY: Perhaps even a super convenience store.
ALEX: Right. Not a superstore, a super convenience store.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: What about a micro superstore?
BOBBY: That’s good.
ALEX: That’s— right?
BOBBY: Yeah. They honestly really have that on their website somewhere. It is the, like— you’re— they provide a range of offerings, food and other items.
BOBBY: What’s like your most shameful convenience store story?
ALEX: Most shameful?
BOBBY: Yeah. Like, you’ve never like rolled into a convenience store, like, just as a total mess, or like drunk, or, you know, tried to buy something that you weren’t allowed to buy, like, as a teenager or something like— you don’t have any stories like that? You never steal— you never steal anything from a convenience store? Did you ever like—
ALEX: I mean, I didn’t— I never—
BOBBY: Take a beer of the fridge, and shotgun out there, and run out?
ALEX: I’ve never owned a car, which makes these things really hard for me.
BOBBY: For a lot of people listening, the fact that you said you never owned a car like something really just clicked into place, they’re like, “Oh, that’s why he’s like this.”
ALEX: Oh, okay. Yeah. I get it, yeah. I’m not beating the coastal elite allegations.
BOBBY: How do you feel about never living the American dream?
ALEX: It hurts.
BOBBY: I want to— I actually think a good fit for us would be like if instead of talking about baseball, or instead of talking about late capitalism, as we do, or labor, or unions, or anything, we just pivoted this show to being like, “I’m Terry Gross, and you’re just the guest every week.”
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: You know, what part of your childhood feels unfulfilled because you’ve never lived the American dream of owning a car?
ALEX: It sounds like we could just go to therapy together. Like—
BOBBY: Couples therapy for both of us would be fun.
ALEX: That would be fun. I think we’ve talked about that before actually getting a third party in here to mediate when we have conflict.
BOBBY: Well, unfortunately, we have a third party in here and she’s asleep—
ALEX: Yeah. She’s asleep. She’s like—
BOBBY: —on my leg right now. Like, really asleep. Talk about someone who’s benefited from QuikTrip over the years.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. That’s Stevie to be very— very clear.
BOBBY: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Okay, number 16.
ALEX: Number 16, San Diego Padres and their Motorola sponsorship.
BOBBY: What a showing. What a showing. I think that this sponsorship really surprised a lot of people, because they’re like—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “—Oh, Motorola. That’s the oil [46:13] company?”
ALEX: That’s— same. at first, I— I got them confused with Nokia. I was like, “Oh, they make like the indestructible phones, right? That’s top of the list.” But no, they did the Razr, which I don’t know, had some— some rizz in middle school.
BOBBY: Some rizz. That was my sister’s first phone.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Hot pink Razr.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Motorola. Now, this is not to be confused with Motorola Solutions—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —Incorporated, which is an American video equipment telecom software systems service provider that succeeded Motorola Incorporated. Motorola incorporators around— founded in like the 1910s and went bankrupt in the 2000s. It split up into two subsidiaries that were then sold separately, to different companies, packaged differently as part of their bankruptcy. I believe that the sponsor of the Padres is the other half.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Kind of the broke half, if we’re being honest. “Motorola Mobility LLC, marketed as Motorola.” They kept the logo, which is how— which is how I sort of drew the line between them. And they are the ones that sell the cell phones.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They were purchased by a Chinese technology company, Lenovo. You’re familiar with Lenovo?
ALEX: I am familiar with Lenovo. I’m staring at one of the products right now.
BOBBY: Now, Lenovo has had quite a few security breaches over the years.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: I don’t know if you’ve read about this on their Wikipedia.
ALEX: I didn’t, no.
BOBBY: Why number 16 for Motorola?
ALEX: That’s a great question, Bobby. I— I— I think that a lot of it came down to trying to judge like how much if any harm they’re putting out there.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Now, it— it— it gets a little hairy, because—
BOBBY: So it doesn’t matter to you that they created the pandemic with 5G?
ALEX: Just blowing through that.
BOBBY: Just like the government did.
ALEX: Uh-huh. Distinguishing between like Motorola, the phone company and Motorola Solutions, the, like, communications company was— was tough.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Motorola Solutions—
BOBBY: Feels more evil.
ALEX: —supplying surveillance to the occupied Palestinian territories.
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: Surveillance tools, one of 116 companies. So I was a little—
BOBBY: Yeah, and because of that, they’re a Fortune 500 company.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: That pays better than cell phones.
ALEX: It does pay. That’s the one where business is booming. So we got the cell phone one. I— cell phones are— are supposedly a— a scourge on society, but kind of necessary.
BOBBY: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You gotta take the good with the bad.
ALEX: Like, it’s like— I don’t know. I like my phone.
BOBBY: Great.
ALEX: I get— I get that we exist under capitalism.
BOBBY: Can I tell you about my favorite Lenovo security breach over the years?
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: This one is titled US Marine Network Security Breach. “In February 2021, Bloomberg Businessweek”— you know about Bloomberg?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “Reported that US investigators found in 2008 that military units in Iraq were using Lenovo laptops in which the hardware had been altered. According to a testimony from the case in 2010, “a large amount of Lenovo lap— Lenovo laptops were sold to the US military that had a chip encrypted on the motherboard that would record all the data that was being inputted into the laptop and send it back to China. Lenovo was unaware of the testimony and the US military did not inform the company of any security concerns,” which is really funny.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: A Lenovo spokesperson stated that, quote, “We have no way to assess the allegations you cite, or whether security concerns may have been triggered by third party interference.”
ALEX: That’s cool.
BOBBY: I know. They were just like, “How could we know unless you give us the chips back?”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And the US military is like, “So you just want us to give us all of the data back?”
ALEX: And they were like, “Yeah.”
BOBBY: “Okay, great.” It’s a real he said, she said.
ALEX: For what it’s worth, I kind of think it comes with the territory. I don’t know. You’re putting all this stuff under this magical box. You’re gonna assume it’s gone. places you’re not prepared for it to go. It’s like TikTok, you know? Like, “Sure, but I’m— sure, they’re selling my data, but the algorithm works. So—”
BOBBY: I said this to someone at a party yesterday, but I’m anti-TikTok now, because I care about like the Chinese communist party or whatever. I’m anti-TikTok just because the people on it are annoying.
ALEX: Yeah. That’s reasonable for Gen Z-ers, then.
BOBBY: Yeah, pretty much.
ALEX: Okay, great.
BOBBY: Okay, number 15.
ALEX: Number 15, the Arizona Diamondbacks with Avnet.
BOBBY: See, I almost want them to be higher, just because Ken Kendrick was the one that signed [50:25] on this company.
ALEX: High— higher as in—
BOBBY: Like almost more evil.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: You— see, you’re confused about the concept of this that we’re doing. So imagine what the listener is feeling at home. They are the 15th most evil company on a jersey this year.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Avnet.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But, like, can Kendrick buys into it? So like, what did— what does he know that I don’t know?
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: I spent a lot of time reading about the— I read the entire chronological history of Avnet this morning.
ALEX: That’s— I— my heart goes out to you for that one. I— I have to say— but at the words, supply chain and logistics solutions, my eyes just glaze over. And I’m like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: “—Sure. Okay. Someone has to find those solutions, right?”
BOBBY: Fortune 500— yes, someone does have to find the solutions. Fortune 500 number 163, Avnet. That’s pretty good.
ALEX: That is pretty good.
BOBBY: Like, if you’re— if you’re listening at home and you don’t know what the Fortune 500 is, it’s the 500 companies in—
ALEX: Why are you even listening to this podcast?
BOBBY: —the United States—
ALEX: It’s our bible. [51:17]
BOBBY: —of America, companies based in the good old, red, white, and blue USA with the most revenue, total revenue. Not profit, et cetera, et cetera. It’s revenue. Okay, because profit is fake. It’s all fake. It’s all accounting.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay? $27 billion in revenue in 2023. How much about Avnet’s World War Two business dealings do you want me to go into?
ALEX: How much— we’re already more than an hour into this podcast.
BOBBY: “In 1921, Charles Avnet—
ALEX: Okay. Good. Good.
BOBBY: —a 33-year-old Russian-Jewish immigrant began buying surplus radio parts and selling them to the public on the Radio Rows of United States port cities. As radio manufacturing grew, parts distribution took off. During World War Two, Avnet made antennas for the US Armed Forces,” saved the world. ” Charles’ son Lester joined the business at that time. After the war was over, Avnet focused on buying and selling surplus electronic and electrical parts.” The reason I read all of that—
ALEX: Yeah. Well, can you just repeat all that real quick? Because I wasn’t listening.
BOBBY: He was selling spare radio parts.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: And then antennas to the military.
ALEX: All right. Okay.
BOBBY: How do you go from that to sell— he’s literally selling extra radio parts on Radio Row in the ’20s to a Fortune 500, number 163, $27 billion in revenue? “In 1965, they acquired a guitar company called Guild Musical Instruments and they presented a Guild Starfire 12 guitar to Beatles legend John Len— Lennon and George Harrison. In 19— in March 2019, Avnet announced that it was working with blockchain payment provider, BitPay, to accept cryptocurrency as payment for products and services. Avnet stated that it had already closed, quote, ‘several multimillion dollar cryptocurrency transactions in the first month of accepting bitcoin.’” The reason that I read all of that is not because—
ALEX: It’s because this is where you’re putting your bit. You were one of those major transactions.
BOBBY: Exactly. Is not because I care really about Avnet, and what they do, and how moral they are. I trust where you put them on this list.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: It’s because it’s such an American story to start out selling spare radio parts to people who need them, like, for their home radio or cars. And then 100 years later, you’re just doing Bitcoin.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: It’s like if you already had money or you’re already established in one industry, you can literally enter into any other industry that you want to. It doesn’t mean you just— you grow to a certain size that you become so big that what you do is you just pass money back and forth.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s all of these companies.
ALEX: Especially doing logistics and supply chain, you can—
BOBBY: That doesn’t mean anything.
ALEX: Doesn’t mean anything. You’re just in the middle of everything, it sounds like.
BOBBY: Yeah, you’re just rent seeking.
ALEX: Yeah. It’s a good business model.
BOBBY: This— this Charles fellow seems fine, though. He probably wasn’t, but he seems fine.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Should we move on to number 14? Controversial.
ALEX: Number 14, it is controversial. Cincinnati Reds with Kroger.
BOBBY: See, I think they’re much more evil than this, but I’d love to hear what you have— what you have to say about Kroger.
ALEX: Well, I— I do think they’re pretty evil. Again, they fall into the category of, like, that the— the wares that they peddle are functionally like necessary for society.
BOBBY: You make it sound like they’re out on the street corner like, “Would you like a tomato?”
ALEX: The way they conducted their business, far less savory.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: But I— I— I don’t know. I was— I was going back and forth, because I find it hard to discount them too much, given the fact that like they are providing a service that is, like, foundational to survival. Like, most of the companies that I think are below Kroger on the— or I— excuse me, are higher than Kroger on this list aren’t— don’t really make anything. Like— like don’t really have a product. Like, I can [55:04]
BOBBY: You don’t know what Kroger is about. We didn’t say what it was.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: This is Fortune 500 number 24, 150 billion in revenue in 2023. “The Kroger Company, or simply Kroger, is an American retail company that operates supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the United States. The Kroger Company is the United States largest superma— supermarket operator by revenue and fifth-largest general retailer. The company is one of the largest American-owned private employers in the United States.” Kroger grocery store also owns Ralph’s, a grocery store in California that you might know.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I bel— I believe also owns other grocery chains, too. Anyway, yes, they are peddling their wares of fruits and vegetables must like— much like our friend Bob.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: And his son Phil.
ALEX: Yeah. Much like our friends over at Meijer. Although, you’ll notice that Meijer ranked much lower on this list.
BOBBY: Is that because a 2022 economic roundtable survey of 10,000 workers in Colorado, Southern California, Washing— Washington found that workers’ wages have declined over the last several years while over the same period executive pay has increased? The survey found that over 75% of workers experienced food insecurity, over 66% struggle to meet basic needs, and 14% of Kroger workers are homeless, while CEO Rodney McMullen made over 22 million in 2020, compared to 12 million for the year 2018. Is that why?
ALEX: Money’s gotta go somewhere, right? Why not him?
BOBBY: Kroger really, I think, was an object of the left’s ire, fascination and ire during the pandemic, because as a grocery store chain that needed to stay open during the pandemic is an essent— like you were saying, is an essential company with essential workers. A notion of hazard pay came up, notion of how—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —they were treating their employees, the protections that they were providing for them. And by all accounts, Kroger just missed the mark on all of those aspects. They were not providing adequate hazard pay, they were not providing protections for their employees. They only eventually came around to providing those medical protections, like protective equipment and whatnot. And also, there’s just like— just a lot of union busting going on—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —which is—
ALEX: Generally slimy.
BOBBY: I mean, I don’t think there’s any companies on this list that are like, “Unions are cool.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But still, when you have the— when you have enough of a vise grip on groceries, like food and water in America, that you can create food deserts—
ALEX: Yes, by yourself.
BOBBY: —just with a wave— wave of a hand.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Honestly, I tend to think that that company is really evil, and that’s why I was surprised that you had them so low on the list of like how evil they are, and I advocated for them. Just— just get bumped up a little bit.
ALEX: Do you think they’re— like do you feel good about where they are now? Do you think there’s still some move— like— like we’re about to reach some, like, financial companies.
BOBBY: There’s a company coming up that I think that they should just straight swit— switch with, but this is by [58:04] it’s your pie.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I can’t wait to talk about this.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: Okay. Let’s move on from Kroger, even though I have about 45 pages worth of notes on Kroger. I read Bernard Kroger’s whole Wikipedia page. He’s the founder of Kroger.
ALEX: Yeah. Is he still alive?
BOBBY: No, he croaked it in 1938.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: Kroger was a pioneering grocery innovator who introduced self-service shopping to the public in 1895. He allowed customers to enter his stores, shop with prices clearly marked on every item, and take the merchandise home themselves, instead of waiting for delivery. So before that, you had to walk into the store and be like, “I’d like that,” and it’d be like, “We’ll bring it to you in two days.”
ALEX: Yeah. They’re— they’re like, “All right, go home.” Oh, you planned ahead.
BOBBY: Or write a piece of— or write on a piece of fucking paper.
ALEX: Man was an innovator. What can you say?
BOBBY: Exactly. I mean, innovation is core to the American identity.
ALEX: It is.
BOBBY: And— and for that reason, I support you putting them here.
ALEX: Number 13, the Los Angeles Angels and FBM.
BOBBY: Not convinced that this is real.
ALEX: Also known as Foundation Building Materials.
BOBBY: [59:21]
ALEX: The leading North American distributor of drywall, steel framing, acoustic ceilings, and construction supplies.
BOBBY: I would like to say, again, not sure this company is real.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: No Wikipedia.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: If you Google their revenue for 2023, it says five and a half million, not billion, million. How can they afford the sponsorship?
ALEX: That’s because FBM is Armstrong Ceilings, largest distributor of ceiling grids and acoustic tiles.
BOBBY: Acoustic tiles—
ALEX: Obviously.
BOBBY: I can get behind that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Quote, “They’re a local company with a national footprint that has operations in every MLB market which was appealing, said Angels executive vice-president Dana Wells. And we liked the values, especially with the family and being rooted in the community. We feel like it can evolve into a bigger partnership. We felt they were the absolute number one fit for us.” Translation, Arte Moreno likes the people who work there as politics.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: This one was a tough one to rank.
ALEX: This was a tough one to place, because I’m like, “I don’t—”
BOBBY: Because it’s not a real company.
ALEX: Right. Like, buildings are— are— are good, or I suppose not— not resolutely bad. I don’t— we’re sitting at a building right now, was probably made with some sort of drywall or steel beams.
BOBBY: See, I’m— I’m getting conflicting reports on their revenue, you know?
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Because they’re not a real company.
ALEX: Because they’re not a real company. Insulation, power tools, commercial doors. You need a door?
BOBBY: I don’t, no. No, I got one.
ALEX: And steel— steel studs.
BOBBY: I’ll let you know if I need one.
ALEX: Fiberglass reinforced panels. I know that’s been on your grocery list for a little while.
BOBBY: Can we move on? I think probably they make a ton of money and that they’re just not very publicly reported on.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah. Okay, let’s move on. Number 12, Toronto Blue Jays and TD Bank.
BOBBY: See, now we’re getting into the fucking big fish.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, no more of this— no more of this nonsense FBM, no more hypermarkets. Now, we’re playing with the big fish.
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: 2023 net revenue 75 billion, and TD Bank, $430 billion in assets under management at the moment. I’m just giving you a couple bucks. “TD Bank, N.A. is an American National Bank and the United States subsidiary of the multinational TD Bank Group that operates primarily across the East Coast and 15 US states and Washington, DC. It’s the seventh-largest US bank by deposits and the 11th largest bank in the United States by total assets.” Just in case you were wondering, TD Bank, N.A. is headquartered in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
ALEX: They’re a bank.
BOBBY: Yeah, they are.
ALEX: I—
BOBBY: They’re, like, not the worst bank, you know? They didn’t—
ALEX: It’s true. They’re not Wells Fargo.
BOBBY: Yes. They’re not Bank of America.
ALEX: Right. They’re TD Bank.
BOBBY: I can’t think of TD Bank without thinking of how that was where my grandmother kept her money in the latter stages of her life when she had to move it out of like a mutual— like a credit union.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: So that she could asset— access it more easily after my grandfather died. And so once she— she had dementia later in her life, and so every time she would pass a TD Bank, any TD Bank, she didn’t really understand that, like, banks were just, like, everywhere now.
ALEX: There are branches everywhere, yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. So she’d be like, “TD Bank. There’s my bank.” She’d say it every time. That’s it.
ALEX: That’s sweet.
BOBBY: Even if we were in like— even if we were in Pennsylvania [1:02:48] even if we were like in Pennsylvania near my— near my childhood home, she’d be like, “That’s my bank.” She’s like, “They’re so nice in there.” RIP, RIP. TD Bank, they’re good in my book, you know?
ALEX: Yeah. Right. They’ve done a lot of just like low-level banking schemes, right? Like— like— like lots of stuff related to overdraft fees.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And inadequate—
BOBBY: Run of the mill.
ALEX: —like fraud protection.
BOBBY: Whatever.
ALEX: I— I love the thing about how they were— they’re— they have, like, penny counting machines that just weren’t counting like 25 cents per, like, $100 or something like that. Just like taking a slice off of every single transaction in there. That’s good stuff.
BOBBY: That’s the cost of doing business.
ALEX: It is the cost of doing business.
BOBBY: Yeah, they’re just a bank.
ALEX: They’re a— you take the good with the bad.
BOBBY: Did they cause the housing crisis? No. Did they prevent the housing crisis? Also, no.
ALEX: Also, no.
BOBBY: So they’re just like right smack in the middle of the bunker.
ALEX: So who’s to say they’re good or not? [1:03:48]
BOBBY: Number 11.
ALEX: Number 11, Miami Marlins and ADT.
BOBBY: This is— I— I can’t wait to hear you talk about ADT.
ALEX: Oh, yeah?
BOBBY: 2023 revenue, $5 billion. “ADT Incorporated, formerly The ADT Corporation, is an American security company that provides residential and small business electronic security, fire protection, and other related alarm monitoring services throughout the United States, headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. In February 2016, the company was acquired,” drama, “by Apollo Global Management for $6.9 billion in a leveraged buyout.” Bear hug. “In January 2018, the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange.” Or you can’t walk on the streets in the suburb without seeing—
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: —a “This house is protected by ADT sign.”
ALEX: I know. I mean, so I want to— I want to be very clear. I’m pro the privatization of security.
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
ALEX: I think it’s good for society.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Which is why I was arguing to rank them much, much lower on this list, right? Arguably, right next to New York-Presbyterian.
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
ALEX: You said, “No, we can’t take it that far.”
BOBBY: I’m more of a SimpliSafe guy myself. Company man that I am.
ALEX: This was kind of a hard one for me to place, because like I— I think that the— the products that they create is, like, probably detracting from society and creating bad habits among us. And it’s also a response to, like, broaders— broader ills of society.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: They stepped in because the state is not actively protecting its citizens, you know?
BOBBY: Uh-huh. This episode rules.
ALEX: So they’re like— this [1:05:25] we have not talked about baseball in an hour.
BOBBY: You have to weigh in on—
ALEX: [1:05:34]
BOBBY: —like private home security and its morals. Karl Marx is just like— just laying in his grave, just being like [1:05:41]
ALEX: “God, I can’t believe you invoked me at the beginning of this.”
BOBBY: “This is it. This is it.”
ALEX: I don’t know. It’s like [1:05:47]
BOBBY: It is objectively insane to try to have to weigh the morals of TD Bank versus ADT.
ALEX: Exactly. And like they— these middle ones, I think, are pretty interchangeable.
Boby: I think that what makes ADT truly evil is just, like, the carceral system in America.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And how they enable, again, private security and how it relates to police, and this concept of fear mongering among white upper class people.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And the ways that these companies assuage their concerns by saying, “Give us some of your money and we’ll hoard it, so that it doesn’t go to the places that it needs to prevent these sorts of fears from ever stemming in culture.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know? And that’s— that’s private security.
ALEX: Right. That’s why I’m a fan.
BOBBY: Okay, number 10. Got it. See, this is the part of the list where I just can’t wait to see how you make distinctions between these couple—
ALEX: I didn’t. I don’t even know that these are different companies. We’re at number 10.
BOBBY: They lose me when they have the word mutual in the name. I’m not gonna lie.
ALEX: Exactly. Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t know what that means.
ALEX: So at— at number 10, we have the— the Boston Red Sox with MassMutual.
BOBBY: Yeah, we do. Fortune 500 number 104, $11 billion in revenue in 2022. “The Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, also known as MassMutual, is a Springfield, Massachusetts hometown-based life insurance company. MassMutual provides financial products such as life insurance, disability, income insurance, long term care insurance, retirement 401(K) plan services and annuities. Major affiliates include Barings LLC, and Haven Life Insurance Agency.”
ALEX: I don’t know. What’s the read on life insurance companies? It’s not good. It’s not good, right?
BOBBY: Explain something to me.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Explain something to me. $11 billion in revenue, the 100th biggest company, 104th biggest company in the United States in revenue based on life insurance policies. Based on taking our failed society, and the fear that it generates for people that their loved ones are going to die, die—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —in a horrific accident, or at the end of their lives peacefully, either one. Okay? We take that fear, and the economic insecurity associated with it—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —that you might go bankrupt if your fucking wife dies.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because you got to pay for the funeral services since you no longer have their income. So that you could get a one-time payout and try to stretch that out for the rest of your life. That fear leads to people at MassMutual collecting $11 billion in revenue in one year. That is— that’s like the definition of evil.
ALEX: Yeah, absolutely.
BOBBY: Honestly, that is the definition of evil.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: These people are parasites—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —on society. It’s unnatural what they do. It’s unnatural.
ALEX: Also, I want to say shout out to MassMutual, only company on this list with a subsection on their Wikipedia page titled—
BOBBY: Bernie Madoff investment scandal.
ALEX: —Involvement in the Madoff investment scandal.
BOBBY: That’s exactly right. I wrote this down.
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-hmm. They owned a feeder fund that fed investors’ money into that Ponzi scheme, lost $3.3 billion in the resulting scandal. Who among us— who, at that point in time, was not pouring money into here?
BOBBY: Just like the Mets, you know?
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Just like the Mets. Okay, number nine.
ALEX: Similar boat, we have Milwaukee Brewers and Northwestern Mutual. Not to be confused with MassMutual, the company we just finished discussing.
BOBBY: Not to be confused with Northwestern University.
ALEX: True. I like to see the— the words being highlighted on this Google Doc right now, because I know you’re highlighting it to copy-paste it into Google.
BOBBY: No, I was gonna command F, so I could find my notes and then [1:09:42] Northwestern Mutual, Fortune 500 number 111. Just trailing behind MassMutual. These are neck and neck, these two.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Net revenue for 2023, $36 billion. “Northwestern Mutual is an American financial services mutual organization based in Milwaukee. Wisconsin.” I love how— by the way, this is something we haven’t even talked about. I love how all of these— these teams are like, “We got to partner with a local—”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: “—company.” As if like the lo— like, as if the baseball team is local anymore, or as if the company is local anymore. As if like you have to live in Milwaukee to use Northwestern Mutual. It’s absurd. “The financial security company provides consultation on wealth and asset income protection.” Something that’s very valuable to you, I know. “Education planning, retirement planning, investment advisory services, financial planning trusts and private client services, estate planning and business planning. Its products includes life insurance, permanent life insurance, disability income, and long-term care insurance, annuities, investments and investment advisory products and services.”
ALEX: And I use them all.
BOBBY: Power rank those.
ALEX: Well, I mean, I feel like pretty much everything we said about MassMutual applies to Northwestern.
BOBBY: So why is Northwestern higher?
ALEX: Well, that’s a really good question.
BOBBY: Is it because you hate the Midwest?
ALEX: It is, because I hate the Midwest. No, I mean— I mean— they— they faced lawsuits about misleading customers—
BOBBY: Yeah, they did.
ALEX: —regarding what products they were offering, what products they were selling. Again, it’s a little wishy-washy. In— in a lot of the companies that share the same industry, I’m kind of operating under the assumption that if one company did something, the other company probably would have done the same given the opportunity. Like if Northwestern Mutual had the chance to pour $3.3 billion into Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, I would think they would have jumped at that opportunity. MassMutual was just— was just built different. They were just working too hard, you know? So I think this is that— these two are— are the ones that I feel like are maybe most interchangeable or tied.
BOBBY: They’re essentially— yeah. They’re essentially tied. People also asked on Google, what is the Northwest— Northwestern Mutual controversy? What is Northwestern Mutual known for? Why are advisors leaving Northwestern Mutual? Is Northwestern Mutual a trusted company? And finally, Alex, people wanted to know, is Northwestern Mutual an ethical company?
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: Well, I tell you, dear listener, please send this to everybody that you know, because everybody’s curious about the ethics of Northwestern Mutual, and we’re parsing that—
ALEX: We got the answer,
BOBBY: —right here, live on the airwaves. Number eight.
ALEX: Number eight, we come to the Bay Area.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah, we do.
ALEX: San Francisco Giants.
BOBBY: That’s exactly right.
ALEX: And Chevrolet. Now, do you want to give a lit— give a little context into the background on— on the San Francisco Giants jersey patch?
BOBBY: Yes. Before we talk about Chevrolet, so Chevrolet’s new for the Giants this year. Last year, their first year with the jersey patch, they were using the company cruise, which Bay Area listeners might recognize is the company that has those self-driving cars that never work, cause accidents, and traffic jams, and potential pedestrian—
ALEX: Which just stopped in the middle of the road.
BOBBY: —injuries all the time. And that— I think that company was, like, either sued or like San Francisco terminated the contract with the company early. And so they basically just, like, aren’t a company anymore because of that. Because they were like, basically riding off of the fact that the city was propping them up.
ALEX: Yeah. They—
BOBBY: That was like their big contract.
ALEX: They suspended operations in October of last year.
BOBBY: So the Giants were like, “Shit.”
ALEX: Or like, “We got to get another one.”
BOBBY: This just goes to show you how much due diligence the teams were doing on these companies, that like the Giants would sign up to promote Cruise, a company that like is a startup, that needs the city’s support to even sustain itself.
ALEX: Yeah. Instead that’s why like— you know, like the nationals, it’s the Nationals model, which they Google blockchain product, click on the first one, and then say—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —”Business is booming, baby. Let’s do it.”
BOBBY: Well, what’s the [1:13:47] what’s— is it—
ALEX: Terra. [1:13:49]
BOBBY: Oh, Terra. Yeah. I wonder if those billboards are still up. I bet they are. I bet they are.
ALEX: I— I believe so.
BOBBY: So the Giants said, “Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “Can’t get fooled again.” So instead of going with Cruise, they went to good, old American Chevrolet.
ALEX: Yeah. They said we got institutional power here.
BOBBY: Fortune 500 number 21, the highest on this list. 2023 net revenue, 172 billion. That’s General Motors, which is interchangeable with Chevrolet, functionally. Alex, this is the company that I would argue that you should have switched with Kroger.
ALEX: Interesting.
BOBBY: You know why?
ALEX: Why is that? Because you’re a pro car.
BOBBY: Chevrolet makes American classics, such as the Camaro, the Corvette.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: The Impala.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: The Chevelle, the Blazer, the Bel-Air, the El Camino, and many others. Chevrolet is the American dream. Cars are cool.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: I’m— I’m— I’m feeling a little close to the sun here, but I— while understanding what cars have done to this country—
ALEX: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Tread lightly.
BOBBY: —and the damage they’re doing to our planet—
ALEX: Yeah. Right.
BOBBY: —I would like to say—
ALEX: You’d like to address this issue.
BOBBY: I would like to address this issue. I’d like to come out and say, ha— have you ever been in a really cool car and, like, felt the horsepower? Have you ever see that Chevy logo and you’re just like, “This is what it means. And I’m proud to be an Ameri—”
ALEX: All right. See, this is where you lose me. This is where me not having driven a car gri— growing up, like, divides us.
BOBBY: Okay. So talk about why you put them here.
ALEX: I— I actually did have them ranked slightly higher initially, and then I— I kind of revised them down as I was reordering the list. Like—
BOBBY: So you initially thought you were going to make it say that there are more evil?
ALEX: Sorry. I initia— I initially had them ranked lower.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Slightly.
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
ALEX: And then kind of was moving things around, and— and this is where they— they stuck up. The fact that they create cars is probably net negative for me, in general. They also—
BOBBY: But they create cool cars.
ALEX: I guess. They also create cars that’s like—
BOBBY: Have you ever heard of a V8 engine? Like, that shit will cure your mental health problems.
ALEX: Yeah, true. You won’t even see the kid you hit. The— the— the [1:16:13] of the car.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Like, you know? You won’t even feel that thing. I don’t want to see the family in the other car that my truck hits, you know?
BOBBY: I just want to say, easy for you to say, but Chevy is out here just fucking keeping America working.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Keeping America moving.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Not all of us live in these coastal— not all of us can afford to live in these coastal elite cities with your fucking trains and your planes. You know, some of us need automobiles.
ALEX: That’s true. Yeah. Now, they were implicated when they— when they rolled out cars with faulty ignition switches about a decade ago that killed a dozen people. Eh, once again, who among us?
BOBBY: But life insurance, if you think about it, the business model is killing a dozen— millions of dozens of people.
ALEX: You’re right.
BOBBY: So, like, how do you weigh that?
ALEX: That’s— that’s true. Just— cars also, like just— each one of them individually killing the planet just a— a little bit.
BOBBY: Playing this the rest of this under protest. [1:17:14]
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Number seven.
ALEX: I— I just— I mean, I’m curious— is there a reason beyond the sort of red-blooded American—
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: —that you are that Chevrolet should be higher?
BOBBY: I do think that there is a legitimate case to be made in both directions for this that Chevy— much like— much like Kroger is providing a service that is needed to most of America, which is like accessible groceries via the supermarket, because you can’t buy directly from your local whatever, in a lot of places in America. And because they have that level of power, they create food insecurity for people by not putting a grocery store somewhere.
ALEX: Yeah.
Booby: Just like Chevrolet, for example, creates an economic boom in various decades throughout their history and also takes that economic boom away by moving the factory out of town. Like, they create them and, like, the other car companies almost essentially, single-handedly create the economic downturn in, like, Appalachia—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —you know? But at the same time, like people do need cars in America because the government refuses. And also [1:18:18]
ALEX: Yeah. But also they need cars like they need food, right? Like, there are a—
BOBBY: Matter of opinion. Matter of opinion.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: A dude rolling up in a fucking Chevy Nova. The chicks aren’t gonna know if he’s hungry or not.
ALEX: Okay. All right. Should we move on?
BOBBY: Yes, we should move on.
ALEX: Let’s go to number seven. We have the good old New York Yankees.
BOBBY: I just want to point out the Mets were the most moral and the Yankees are all the way up.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: At the seventh least.
ALEX: That’s true. New York Yankees and Starr Companies.
BOBBY: I don’t know what this is.
ALEX: They’re a property and— and casualty insurance and investment management company.
BOBBY: You said a lot of words there.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: They cover aviation, marine, energy, and excess casualty insurance. It seems just like they’re an insurance company.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: From their website, “From our origins as the first American-owned insurance agency in Shanghai in 1919 to our current presence across six continents, Starr Insurance has grown into an industry powerhouse, built on 100 years of international literacy.” I love international literacy. It’s one of my favorite talents. “And operational knowledge.” That’s your favorite.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t know what they are, but I don’t like it.
ALEX: I don’t like it, either. I— somehow property insurance seems like worse.
BOBBY: Property is theft.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So what is property insurance?
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: That’s like looting.
ALEX: I will note, it is noted on their Wikipedia page that they are the presenting jersey sponsor of the New York Yankees.
BOBBY: That’s cool.
ALEX: Well, What are the rest of these teams have to do?
BOBBY: Wear it proudly.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I arguably am more fascinated to hear about number six on this list than any other company on this list, and why you put them here.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Number six is the Atlanta Braves with Quikrete.
ALEX: Yeah. Quikrete, the— the quick setting concrete, and it comes in those big, like, yellow and gray bags.
BOBBY: Yeah, it does. An industry pioneer known for its iconic and unmistakable yellow bag of concrete.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: The Quikrete Companies was founded in 1940. During the past few years, Quikrete Companies evolved into a fledgling building materials supplier in Columbus, Ohio to the largest manufacturer of pre-blended packaged concrete and cementitious products in North America. You know, all the cementitious products.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: From their website, “The Quikrete Companies truly is, quote, ‘What America is made of.” That’s clever. Okay. Why did you put them where you put them? Six, the most evil, Quikrete.
ALEX: I suppose this has more to do with the product that they make than the company itself. Like, the procurement of concrete and cement products is, like, miserable for the planet, very loosely saying. From the extraction of the materials to the refining of the product, to the— the transport of the pro— like, there’s really— they kind of managed to check all the boxes—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —between, like carbon emissions, and the danger it poses to the— the folks who, like, work in the plants, that is creating the concrete. Doesn’t it use a fuck ton of water as well?
BOBBY: It sure does.
ALEX: So like—
BOBBY: You know what you have to mix the Quikrete product with—
ALEX: Yeah, it’s water.
BOBBY: —in order to make the concrete so that it’ll set.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Yeah, water.
ALEX: So that’s kind of where I— I landed on this. Like, the— the extraction of the materials needed to create this is like doing some pretty unmatched harm to the Earth.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I gotta hand it to them.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: So— but I’m curious to— to hear if you think differently.
BOBBY: Well, I agree with all of that and I—
ALEX: You just don’t care.
BOBBY: —I suspected— right. I suspected you have to lay the concrete so that the Chevys can drive over it.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: [1:22:13] I suspected that this is why you had them so high. It also doesn’t help that they’re like the Braves wants [1:22:20]
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Honestly. However, I was on Quikrete’s website early today.
ALEX: Yeah, going straight to the source.
BOBBY: Yes, straight to the source. And I was checking out their— their social media presence—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —on various platforms. Now, on Twitter, they had— this morning, they had 19— 1,938 followers. Okay, now they have 1,939 because I followed them from the Tipping Pitches account.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Weak number, right? Weak number. One of those followers is the Braves account, which is funny. They have 15,000 followers on Pinterest.
ALEX: Fascinating.
BOBBY: A little bit of a bigger presence over there on Pinterest.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: You know, goals, how to lay your concrete. On YouTube, they have 143,000 subscribers. Here are the titles of their three most viewed videos. I really came with the prep here. How to build deck footings with Quikrete.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: 10 million views on that one 10 million views, million. How does that post in concrete, parentheses, (without mixing), 14 million views on that one. You know, for all the times you have to set posts in concrete without mixing.
ALEX: Of course.
BOBBY: And last, but certainly not least, How to pour and finish concrete (high resolution). 16 million views—
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: —on YouTube for that video. So while they may be damaging the Earth irreparably, and causing future generations nothing but harm—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —and scarcity, and fear and anxiety.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And pain—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —and suffering.
ALEX: Yeah. Keep going.
BOBBY: What they are doing is they’re teaching dudes how to pour and finish concrete in high resolution.
ALEX: This is impossible to say if it’s bad or not.
BOBBY: Okay, number five.
ALEX: We have reached the point of the list where these companies are not actively contributing anything to society. Like, where— whatever they are extracting outweighs whatever they are— are bringing, either literally or figuratively.
BOBBY: Yes, like we’ve reached the point where it’s just objectively you can’t look at this company and say anything but like, “Damn, they’re ruining the planet.”
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. So we’re at number five, the Los Angeles Dodgers and their very own Guggenheim.
BOBBY: This feels like cheating.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You— they are the owners and they sponsor the jersey?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That feels like low-hanging fruit to me. Honestly, I would like to submit that we don’t even really need to talk about Guggenheim.
ALEX: I— I agree.
BOBBY: [1:24:47] net $310 billion in assets under management. They’re a global investment and advisory financial services firm that engages in investment banking, asset management, capital market services, and insurance services. They fucking move numbers around spreadsheets and make billions of dollars from it.
ALEX: Yeah. Asset management, not a job.
BOBBY: Nope.
ALEX: That’s— that’s not a real job.
BOBBY: Get a job.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Mark Walter, get a job.
ALEX: Go to work.
BOBBY: St. Louis Cardinals, number four, Stifel?
ALEX: Stifel?
BOBBY: Stifel?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: What do they do?
ALEX: Same thing.
BOBBY: 2023 net revenue 4.4 billion. American multinational independent investment bank and financial services company created under the Stifel name in July 1983. It’s literally just investment banking.
ALEX: Yeah. I— just a general disease on society.
BOBBY: However, I like— I like this part of it.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: So Guggenheim is not bad because they create the Dodgers, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s why they’re the least bad. This—
ALEX: I— I will say that is the reason that I have ranked them lower on this list than Stifel, because at least they gave us a fucking baseball team that signed Shohei Ohtani.
BOBBY: The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Stifel on August 10th, 2011, claiming the firm duped five Wisconsin school districts into buying $200 million in, quote, “unsuitable securities tied to collateralized debt obligations.” By the way, collateral— CDOs are what tanked the American economy.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: During the housing crisis. The investments which the school district had purchased in 2006, with $163 million in borrowed funds and $37 million of their own money were, quote, “far more risky than Stifel had advertised to the school districts,” the SEC alleged. And the firm hid the risks through a series of falsehoods and misrepresentations. The school district’s credit ratings were lowered and they lost their investments, which were intended to fund school employees retirement benefits. They sold shitty CDOs to school districts in Wisconsin, and then people lost their retirement because of it.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That is amazing.
ALEX: That is really—
BOBBY: You, like, actually could not write it better than that.
ALEX: Yeah. And— and this is what I mean when I say like we’re getting to the point where the service you provide is just functionally not any bene— benefiting anyone except for your shareholders.
BOBBY: Okay, we’re up to the top three.
ALEX: Up to the top three.
BOBBY: I like to call the Petrol Holy Trinity.
ALEX: Exactly. This is the extractive capitalism part of the list. But I do feel good about this ranking. I just want to say.
BOBBY: Okay. Did you put a lot of thought into this?
ALEX: Well, I— a little bit, yeah.
BOBBY: Okay. You slept on it?
ALEX: I slept on it, yeah. First, we have the Cleveland Guardians with Marathon.
BOBBY: Fortune 500 number 464, $6.7 billion in revenue in 2023.
ALEX: This is Marathon Petroleum Corporation, leading refiner and marketer transportation fuels. 2.9 million barrels per day of crude oil refining capacity. That’s light work for some of the other companies on this list.
BOBBY: It is. Yes. Engaged in hydro— hydrocarbon exploration incorporated in Ohio. Direct descendant of Standard Oil.
ALEX: Heard of them.
BOBBY: All-American classic.
ALEX: American classic. To be honest, they are kind of your run of the mill petroleum company.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: They’ve had their issues with, like, refinery fires and stuff, you know? And—
BOBBY: This— this is what happened to all the companies that— that Standard Oil got broken into.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s like, “Yeah, you guys just do oil, you know?”
ALEX: Just— yeah.
BOBBY: “You don’t do it all.”
ALEX: They produce the second most carbon emissions of anyone on this list. So that’s good.
BOBBY: Imagine we’re getting to number one [1:28:30]
ALEX: We are— we will get to number one shortly.
BOBBY: I have a shot— a little shot chaser for you—
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: —of Marathon.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay. Shot the corporate philanthropy section—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —of their— their Wikipedia page. “Since 2003, Marathon Oil and its partners Noble Energy and AMPCO have invested in the Bioko Island Malaria Control Project in Equatorial Guinea.” They do a lot of their business in Equatorial Guinea—
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: —by the way. “The project includes distribution of insecticide nets, indoor residual spraying and larval source management, preventative therapy for pregnant women in malaria case management, and investment in a possible malaria vaccine.” How nice. How nice.
ALEX: That is good.
BOBBY: They’re preventing malaria from where they do their business. Chaser controversies. “The company was investigated for payments made to Teo— Teodoro Obiang Ngue— Nguema Mbasago, the president of Equatorial Guinea. The SEC completed its investigation in 2009 and did not recommend any enforcement action on the matter.” So, we’re doing a little corporate philosophy in Equatorial Guinea. We’re also bribing presidents. That’s quite American corporate philosophy.
ALEX: That is. That’s bingo right there.
BOBBY: Down to a tee. So beautiful. It’s so beautiful.
ALEX: I— do you have anything more to say on Marathon?
BOBBY: No, I don’t.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: Once a Standard Oil, always a Standard Oil.
ALEX: Exactly. We move on to number two, one of my favorites on this list.
BOBBY: This is an all-timer.
ALEX: The Texas Rangers and Energy Transfer. That is Energy Transfer Partners are engaged in the pipeline transportation storage and terminalling for natural gas, crude oil, natural gas liquids, and liquid natural gas.
BOBBY: I wish listeners could see your face. Fortune 500 number 43, 2023 revenue 79 billion.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: This one— this one’s really funny because they’re the— like one of the only people on that Fortune 500 who’s listed as not like an oil company, or not an energy company. They are just listed as a pipeline company.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They do literally nothing else, but move the oil from one place to another.
ALEX: Yes. Founded by the co-owner of the Texas Rangers, Ray Davis.
BOBBY: Who’s somehow still alive.
ALEX: Who’s somehow still— still there. 82 years old.
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: No comment on that. Energy Transfer, illustrious history with— with some standout moments, mostly in the fact that— as you mentioned, they— they own and operate pipelines.
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
ALEX: Including some pipelines you may have heard of.
BOBBY: You know, you’re sitting at home. You’re thinking, “I’ve heard about pipelines. I know— I know the names of a couple pipelines. What’s the first pipeline that might come to mind?”
ALEX: The first— what’s the first one that pops up in your head? Could it be the— the Dakota Access Pipeline?
BOBBY: It was for me.
ALEX: They own 36.4% of it.
BOBBY: A plurality. As of 2023, the company owns or operates more than 125,000 miles of pipelines throughout the United States, making it one of the largest midstream companies in the country. It is also one of the largest exporters of NGLs in the world. You know NGLs?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah. Different from L and Gs.
BOBBY: And LGMs. And NGOs.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And GMOs.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: These are all different things. Did you guys see the movie How to Blow up a Pipeline? It’s basically about Energy Transfer.
ALEX: Right. Yeah, they— if you go to their Wikipedia, it has a list of some of their famous pipelines. And it’s fun clicking into them because the—
BOBBY: Famous pipelines?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: We live in hell.
ALEX: Because you can— you can click down to them and just see the concerns/protests section on there.
BOBBY: The Texas Rangers, though.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They’re not number one on the list. You know why? Because a different Texas team was not to be outdone.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: They’re dynastic in their success. They are the Houston Astros. And Alex, who is their jersey sponsor? The number one jersey sponsor in the official Tipping Pitches jersey sponsors ranking based on how evil they are.
ALEX: Yeah. The honor goes to none other than Occidental Petroleum Corporation, often abbreviated as Oxy. That’s how it’s presented on their patch, Oxy.
BOBBY: Fortune 500 number 110, net Revenue 2023, $28.3 billion.
ALEX: Illustrious history. I just gotta say, these guys are good.
BOBBY: I would like to read you all the headers on their controversy section.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Just the headers. Ready? Lobbying to do business in Libya, Environmental record, Cleanup of the Copper Basin Love Canal, Oleum spill, Colombia, Can— Cano Limon, Maynas Carijano versus Occidental Petroleum, Anadarko Petroleum, Political record, contributions, Gore family, Safety record, Piper Alpha, Greenmail.” What is all of that?
ALEX: I can tell you what some of it is.
BOBBY: I’d like to know. Gore family is really funny.
ALEX: Gore family is really funny. Especially because he was like friendly with them.
BOBBY: One of the all-time things about this that it’s founded by Armand Hammer—
ALEX: Yup. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —Armie Hammer’s grandfather?
ALEX: Grandpa? Yeah. My favorite one in there is the Love Canal disaster, because that’s when they were— were dumping just tons and tons of hazardous materials over like a period of decades in the small Niagara Falls neighborhood, to the point where the US federal government created the Superfund program, which I’m not sure if you’re familiar, but it’s the program that the government created to clean up hazardous waste sites. Their site was so hazardous, the federal government was like, “We need to literally create a program to create some sort of oversight in this, because you guys clearly cannot be trusted.”
BOBBY: They had to use eminent domain— threatened to use eminent domain to take that area back in order for them to actually clean it up.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: You know it’s bad when the US government’s like, “We have to use this thing that we can use that will be for the good of society.”
ALEX: Exactly. It’d be like, “Whoa, you’re kind of blowing our cover here a little bit.” You know, they’ve been sued. by many indigenous groups in Latin America. There were indigenous Peruvians who said, “Hey, you keep dumping lead and arsenic into the basins we use for water and for fishing.”
BOBBY: And just to be clear, that makes water hard to drink. It makes it tastes bad or it makes it kill people?
ALEX: It makes it taste fun.
BOBBY: A, B or C?
ALEX: it’s kind of like—
BOBBY: Or D, all the above?
ALEX: It’s like sparkling water, you know?
BOBBY: Sparkling with something.
ALEX: They also— oh, they also bought one of the companies that had a stake in the Deepwater Horizon spill. So—
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: This is An— And— An— Anandarko— Anadarko Petroleum, who owned about a third of the— of the— I don’t—
BOBBY: Owned a third of the spill.
ALEX: Owned a third of the spill. Anyway, Oxy saw that and were like, “You guys are doing good.”
BOBBY: Occidental Petroleum is, like, potentially on the Mount Rushmore of most evil— evil American corporations.
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: They’re— they’re up there.
ALEX: Yeah. As— as— as alluded to before, they— these guys are the ones who are the mo— the highest polluters of anyone on this list.
BOBBY: Like, if you were going to do a March Madness bracket, where each bracket region was basically by industry, you know, they would come out of the petroleum industry.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Just like Lockheed Martin would come out of the defense industry.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Just like Walmart would come out of the chain store industry. You know, like these companies would be in a fucking death match—
ALEX: Heavy hitters.
BOBBY: —to see who’s the most evil. And— and I— the Astros were like— Jim Crane was like, “Hang on now. Let me get them on the phone.”
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: “We got an opportunity to promote a company that our viewers, the people at home need to know about.” Because listen, Alex, you as a baseball fan, you need to know about Occidental Petroleum because you might want to use their services. To what?
ALEX: I am always wondering.
BOBBY: Spill oil in the Gulf Coast. Why does this need to be a jersey sponsor? What is the point of this?
ALEX: I mean, I buy liquefied natural gas.
BOBBY: But like literally what is the— this—
ALEX: No, I don’t— I don’t. I— just natural gas liquids.
BOBBY: This is— this brings me to the— the denouement of this episode.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Which is half of these things, half of these companies on the jersey sleeve. It’s not like I’m going to see that and be like, “Hey, I should use that the next time I need crude oil barrels.” So why did they buy a jersey sponsorship? Is it just, might I say, sports washing? Are we doing sports washing here in America, the thing that we’ve been clutching our pearls about with the investments of Saudi Arabia groups around the world?
ALEX: No, never.
BOBBY: We would never do something like that, right? Like—
ALEX: Uh-uh.
BOBBY: Certainly not with, like, people who made their money through oil.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That would never happen here.
ALEX: It’s too good. It is too fitting. I— I will say the— the genesis of this idea started when I saw the— the Oxy patch and I was like, “I wonder where this rank.” We have our answer now.
BOBBY: By my count, there’s like five— at least five companies on here that, like, as a consumer sitting at home, seeing this advertisement, you straight up just like, “I can’t use this product.”
ALEX: Right. You can’t parse what it does.
BOBBY: So they’re literally just like trying to do it so they don’t have to pay taxes?
ALEX: It’s not for you, Bobby. Not everything is for you.
BOBBY: Well, I can’t accept that reality. I can’t. I can’t. It’s not for anybody. Okay. Let’s run through the list one more time—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —in descending order. 19, New York Mets, New York-Presbyterian Hospital. 18, Detroit Tigers Meijer, hypermarket. 17 Kansas City Royals, QuikTrip. 16, San Diego Padres, Motorola. 15, Arizona Diamondbacks, Avnet. 14, Cincinnati Reds and Kroger.
ALEX: Controversial.
BOBBY: 13, Los Angeles Angels and FBM. Not real. 12, Toronto Blue Jays and TD Bank. “That’s my bank.” 11, Miami Marlins, ADT, protect that house. Number 10, Boston Red Sox, MassMutual. Number nine, Milwaukee Brewers, Northwestern Mutual.
ALEX: No difference.
BOBBY: Interchangeable. Number eight, San Francisco Giants, Chevrolet. Host, they got host. [1:38:59] Number seven, New York Yankees, Starr Insurance. Number six, Atlanta Braves, Quikrete. Would you like to close this out with the five most evil jersey sponsors of the Major League Baseball teams in 2024?
ALEX: Let’s do it. Coming in at number five, Los Angeles Dodgers and their very own Guggenheim. Doesn’t even count.
BOBBY: Skill issue.
ALEX: Not worth discussing.
BOBBY: They just have so much money, you just don’t know anything about it. You wouldn’t know.
ALEX: Number four, St. Louis Cardinals and Stifel, just wealth management, because someone’s gotta manage [1:39:27]
BOBBY: Hilarious nominative determinism right there.
ALEX: Yeah. Number three, Cleveland Guardians and Marathon. One of— one of many re— refineries on here that— I don’t know. Number two, Texas Rangers and Energy Transfer, for when you need to get the oil to the place where it needs to be.
BOBBY: Say, I had oil here in New York City, and I’m just like, “I’m just a small time oil man.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I’m like, “I need to borrow your pipeline.”
ALEX: They will find the reservations to build the pipeline through. Number one, Houston Astros, Occidental Petroleum. Bringing it home.
BOBBY: Hang another banner, Jim Crane.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You did it.
ALEX: You did it again.
BOBBY: You did it. City of champions.
ALEX: Big dog.
BOBBY: Okay. Thank you everybody for listening to this episode of Tipping Pitches. It’s been very long and I have to go see the film Monkey Man, and I’m going to be 20 minutes late to it. Thank you. We really appreciate the time. We really appreciate the engagement. Please share this episode with somebody who you think will not think that it’s the most deranged thing they’ve ever heard. tippingpitchespod@gmail.com, 785-422-5881, if you’d like to call in and support my Chevrolet takes. patreon.com/tipping pitches, if you’d like to support us so that we can continue to do wonderful normal ideas like this. That’s all I got for this week. We’ll be back next week.
SPEAKER 4: I said, smooth talking, brain washing ain’t never gonna get me what I need.
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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