Bobby and Alex take a look at how Slam Corp stock is doing, then discuss a recent article about Diamond Baseball Holdings’s minor league shopping spree and what the encroachment of private equity means for the developmental arm of the sport. Then they settle on a slogan for the A’s and answer some mailbag questions about how to denote outs on scorebugs, governmental investigations, the outlook for robot pitchers, MLB in the Middle East, and more.
Links:
What is Diamond Baseball Holdings up to?
Rockies under investigation by the FAA
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Songs featured in this episode:
Arm’s Length — “Dirge” • 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: You know, sometimes it’s weird when I see you on Saturday, and then we go to record on a Sunday. I’m like, “Didn’t we just do this yesterday?”
ALEX: Stevie gets really thrown off, I think.
BOBBY: When she sees you two straight days?
ALEX: Yeah. Or if I come over and I don’t sit down on the couch and pull the microphone up.
BOBBY: Yeah. But I feel like I burned some of my best stuff yesterday, IRL. I think you agree. I think you’re into my whole, like, curmudgeon vibe yesterday at the concert that we were at.
ALEX: I— I was. It was— it was enjoyable. It was like— it was like, “Let’s do try and enjoy the concert that’s going on, on stage.”
BOBBY: I was enjoying the concert.
ALEX: I have some about the audience.
BOBBY: I had— did have thoughts about the audience.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But that happens. You know, sometimes audience is not exactly your vibe. I feel that happens often when I’m at a show where I like one of the bands a lot ,and the other bands, I’m like, “Eh.” Or they’re good, but they’re not my favorite band.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I’m just a skeptic.
ALEX: Right. If everyone is not enjoying the band at the same level as you, what the fuck are they even doing?
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. They should leave. Go home. My— we— we’re— we’re talking about music, but it’s not the music that I wanted to cold open and talk to you about today.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: The thing that I wanted to ask you about, Alex, is when was the last time you were down bad crying at the gym? More broadly, have you ever been down bad crying in a public place? And for this week’s episode of Tipping Pitches Therapy, would you like to recount that on what happened?
ALEX: That’s a great question. Not in a public place, I don’t think. I—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —I keep my emotions guarded, you know?
BOBBY: Because of masculinity?
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: So you’re not allowed to cry in public?
ALEX: Exactly. Well, because I’m afraid there’s going to be someone— someone watching there, showing— watching the emotions that I’m putting on display and being like, “Not really my vibe. Sorry.”
BOBBY: Kind of like me at the show yesterday.
ALEX: Exactly. Like, you at the show.
BOBBY: With all the people. So never— you’ve never cried in public?
ALEX: I mean, I— I— I’m sure I have.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It’s New York. It—
BOBBY: Right, exactly.
ALEX: —it— it brings you— it brings out of you.
BOBBY: I certainly lost it on a couple streets, you know?
ALEX: Yes. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: A couple streets in and around the Union Square area.
ALEX: Yeah. I feel like— it’s— it isn’t necessarily when I’m down bad, though.
You know? Like, that’s because—
BOBBY: Yeah. Like, that feels that’s a dumb lyric.
ALEX: Like, it—
BOBBY: Also, who cries at the gym? You know? You’re at the gym to get out a different kind of energy and emotion.
ALEX: Yeah. But you never know, right? I mean, that’s the— when you’re— when you’re putting in gains, it’s like you don’t really know what’s gonna come out of you. You got the endorphins flowing.
BOBBY: Is that how you feel when you’re putting in gains?
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah, it is how I feel. Just sobbing doing deadlifts.
BOBBY: Deadlifts? You went for deadlifts.
ALEX: I do deadlifts, yeah.
BOBBY: That’s what you do at home?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You— we should, as a project, get gym mem— gym memberships together. I don’t see how that isn’t— maybe it’s like a wellness perk from the podcast.
ALEX: There you go.
BOBBY: Keeping— remember we had a whole back and forth about different types of exercise that we could get you into?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: They never came [3:35]
ALEX: Well, I mean, that has— because our employer doesn’t offer us healthcare, right? But they do offer us the ancillary mental health benefits.
BOBBY: We could offer healthcare—
ALEX: That’s— I guess.
BOBBY: —to each other.
ALEX: Would you like some healthcare, Bobby?
BOBBY: Our health care is like, “How are you feeling?” You did or did not go to medical school?
ALEX: I went to a school that teaches medicine. I went to a school that has a medical school.
BOBBY: Kind of. It’s like in a separate location from where we actually went to school. My favorite thing about NYU is that they just buy all of the solutions to their problems. They’re like, “We want to have a medical school. We’ll just buy one.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “We want to have an engineering school. We’ll just buy a whole university.” Rather than like developing anything on their own. They’re just drifting off of other people.
ALEX: It’s a good business model.
BOBBY: Seems that way.
ALEX: It seems to work out for them. Or the— or the— is— is New York University like the— the Dodgers of academia?
BOBBY: Yeah, they’re playing paycheck academics?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I mean, kind of. Yeah. No, they’re more like the Diamond Baseball Holdings— Holdings of academia.
ALEX: Academia.
BOBBY: Today on the podcast, we are going to talk about Diamond Baseball Holdings. Honestly, I don’t think we’re going to do very much Taylor Swift chat, on account of the fact that we opened up the mailbag. And you know what? We didn’t get a lot of questions about the album.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s [4:56]
BOBBY: —probably because it’s two hours long, and it’s only been out for two days. And people, not naming anybody like myself, for example, have only had time to listen to it once. So we’re not going to do the— the folds back half of the podcast album review that we did for Midnights.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Which in retrospect, one of our more curious choices.
ALEX: There’s a choice. That whole episode was a choice.
BOBBY: Yes. It was after we did a live show that we said we would release on the podcast, we didn’t— never did.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. And—
BOBBY: And I forgot to pack a microphone—
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: —and that— so I was holding the internal microphone from the Zoom recorder. And we were sitting in my childhood home, in the kitchen.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Discussing the new Taylor Swift record.
BOBBY: Yup, the— across—
ALEX: On a baseball podcast.
BOBBY: Across the kitchen table from each other. Great stuff. I feel proud of that decision. We are going—
ALEX: I think, too. I think it was universally beloved by the listeners.
BOBBY: Everybody’s like, “Yeah, I’m so in.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We pod for the people who don’t hear Taylor Swift opinions anywhere else, you know? That’s us.
ALEX: There are few and far between these days.
BOBBY: That’s what we’re here for. Diamond Baseball Holdings, lifetime ban in the NBA. You have a slogan for the Oakland Athletics. Or maybe a couple options, are we going to throw out a few choices and narrow it down?
ALEX: I may— I may— I may ask for help narrowing it down.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: But I— you know, I have my mind set.
BOBBY: And then we just have— just a lot of questions from listeners. A lot of voicemails that I’m really excited to get to. But before we do that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches. Thank you to this week’s new patrons, A. Wright and Chelsea. Both A-Rod tier patrons. Now, the A-Rod tier is going great. Is that because people think that the A-Rod tier, we actually give the money to A-Rod and that will help them before the Timberwolves? Or are people just really interested in listening to the bonus episodes? What do you think?
ALEX: I think it’s a— I think it’s an investment on his next venture.
BOBBY: Which is?
ALEX: Well, I’m not [6:52]
BOBBY: According to our Bingo Card—
ALEX: —so I’m not at liberty to say.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Because it hasn’t been in a— I— I don’t want to be accused of insider trading, you know? Disclosing nonpublic information.
BOBBY: Can we purchase stock in his back? Has it actually gone public yet, A-Rod Corp? And if so, I gotta say, it— it feels a little bit like we’re derelict in our duty of not—
ALEX: Like— like negligent if we haven’t.
BOBBY: —owning part of A-Rod Corp. We could put that in our bio, if we did. Tipping Pitches, try— a podcast trying to nationalize our national pastime, stockholders in A-Rod Corp.
ALEX: So I mean, we can purchase stock in Slam Corp.
BOBBY: Okay. Do that now.
ALEX: Okay. Hang on.
BOBBY: Actually ,legitimately do that now. Go get the business card.
ALEX: I’m downloading Robinhood.
BOBBY: Oh, man, Robinhood?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Now, they did the game stock dudes dirty.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: So you’re going to download Robinhood and give them their money? I think you should go straight to JP Morgan. 50 shares of Slam Corp, sirs.
ALEX: No, absolutely not. I’m— this is— this is for the people, you know?
BOBBY: Just like Robin Hood?
ALEX: Yeah. The retail investor strikes back.
BOBBY: Okay. Buy some— buy some stocks.
ALEX: Okay. I’m— I’m buying some stocks [8:05] I’m sorry.
BOBBY: [8:06]
ALEX: It’s— it’s currently at $11.04. Are we shorting the stock or are we banking on it to— to go up?
BOBBY: Obviously, banking on it to go up.
ALEX: Okay. Naturally.
BOBBY: Hold, hold.
ALEX: I mean, it is on the— on the rise.
BOBBY: Can I get the six-month report? 52— what’s the 52 week high and 52 week low? I’m gonna try to come up with as many words that I can and [8:29]
ALEX: 52 week high is $11.17.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: The— the low was $10.34.
BOBBY: Okay. So this—
ALEX: Which—
BOBBY: Like, we’re not in quite penny stock territory, but we’re close.
ALEX: Which— but— but that— but that low was almost a year ago and it has ballooned since then.
BOBBY: And what— what is it that they do exactly?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: What do they do?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Wha— and did they make anything?
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: And is there a product that I can see? Sounds good.
ALEX: Uh-huh. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Great work by you there.
ALEX: I— well, they— they— you know, they purchased a— like a telecommunications company. We— I think we talked about this, right? They—
BOBBY: No recollection.
ALEX: Okay. Well, they— they did. It’s like a cell phone company.
BOBBY: They’re selling cell phones?
ALEX: They’re selling cell phones.
BOBBY: Trying to bring Black— bring back Blackberry?
ALEX: No, it’s more like democratizing, like, communication. You know, it’s like—
BOBBY: I could get behind that.
ALEX: —affordable cell— I know. It’s like—
BOBBY: It’s like Boost Mobile.
ALEX: Exa— yeah. Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: What’s the Ryan Reynolds one— Ren— Ryan Reynolds one called? I’m having a tough time talking today.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Probably because of the tinnitus in my ears from the show that we were at last night.
ALEX: Most probably. Right. Yeah. Is it— it’s not Cricket.
BOBBY: Mint, Mint.
ALEX: Mint. Oh, okay.
BOBBY: Mint. Mint Mobile. I’m drinking mint tea. That’s what reminded me of it. Mint Mobile is doing very well for Ryan Reynolds as well— so is Aviation Gin, I hear.
ALEX: Lynk, Lynk Global, that’s— that’s A-Rod’s venture. This was back in December, that they— that they partnered up with Slam Corp. It’s the world’s leading satellite direct-to-standard phone, you know? Satellite direct-to-standard phones.
BOBBY: What are some other satellite direct-to-standard phone companies? Competitors in the space.
ALEX: They pale in comparison to— to Lynk Global.
BOBBY: It’s essentially a monopoly is what you’re telling me.
ALEX: It’s not even— frankly, it’s not even worth discussing the others. I know what they are. I just—
BOBBY: They just don’t even warrant— they don’t even merit naming on the Tipping Pitches podcast. All right.
ALEX: It’s— it’s nice going to— to Slam Corp’s page and seeing what people also own.
BOBBY: On Robinhood?
ALEX: Yeah, on Robin— Palantir.
BOBBY: I don’t know what that is.
ALEX: That’s Peter Thiel’s like— like surveillance—
BOBBY: Oh. It’s not his like blood transfusion sit— situation?
ALEX: They’re all kind of one and the same.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You know?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: DraftKings?
BOBBY: That’s funny.
ALEX: Virgin Galactic Holdings. All right, we’re getting less interesting.
BOBBY: So you can just see what other people purchase. Like, this is like a podcast, Apple podcast [10:59] what other people are listening to.
ALEX: Right. Recommended [11:00] yes.
BOBBY: We are in the— we are so through the looking glass, it’s unbelievable. Holy shit. And what is— what exactly is it that they do again?
ALEX: Who— who?
BOBBY: Slam Corp.
ALEX: Well, they’re a [11:15] They help other companies go public.
BOBBY: Earnestly, from the bottom of my heart and from an intellectual perspective, I just want to understand, and so if there’s somebody listening who could get this segment to Mr. Rodriguez, in the hopes that he might come on here and explain what Slam Corp does to an audience of thousands and thousands of people who are curious, who are engaged—
ALEX: Who are looking for that next big investment.
BOBBY: —who are passionate, who can get the Robinhood app, and invest in his stock. If he’s willing to come here, much like he might go on CNBC, right? That’s the business one.
ALEX: That’s the business one.
BOBBY: Okay, great.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’ve watched a lot of CNBC.
ALEX: It’s on right now.
BOBBY: Squawk Box.
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: I only know that because of Steve Cohen. In the show Billions, which is about Steve Cohen.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Then I would like that— that person who’s listening—
ALEX: Big mad— mad money guy?
BOBBY: What?
ALEX: It’s—
BOBBY: Now, you’ve lost me.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: With a second TV show—
ALEX: Yeah, right.
BOBBY: —that’s on CNBC, come on. I— I am just but one man, okay?
ALEX: You remember that Jim Cramer [12:24] bro?
BOBBY: I’m watching— I’m watching NHL hockey, I’m watching Serie A. I’m watching NBA, and I’m watching a lot of baseball. And of course, I watch at least a movie a day. How can I watch multiple CNBC shows, Alex? Come on.
ALEX: That’s— I mean, that’s where I come in, right? It’s like we divide and conquer.
BOBBY: Divide and conquer is the methodology of the Tipping Pitches Podcast.
What do you watch? You know? What do you get down to?
ALEX: On CNBC?
BOBBY: Or just in general. You’re watching a lot of TV these days. Are you watching a lot of baseball?
ALEX: I’m really— I— I’m watching a decent amount, though. I’m not watching a ton of like scripted television shows these days. I think with baseball—
BOBBY: I thought you were gonna say like scripted games.
ALEX: Scripted games.
BOBBY: I was like, “Yeah, open your third eye.”
ALEX: We’re all— we’re all watching scripted games.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. Scripted by the— the fucking sportsbooks.
ALEX: I am watching more baseball. I’ve— I’m— I’m kind of enjoying it. I’m—
BOBBY: That’s good.
ALEX: I am divesting from the A’s little bit, emotionally. I mean, I still— I still tune in. Depends on the week, really. I think you’re familiar with sentiment.
BOBBY: I seem to remember like the four-hour podcast that we did, where you officially divested from the A’s. And now— now seven months, 10 months, whatever later, you’re like, “I’m divesting from the A’s a little bit.”
ALEX: Yeah. Whether or not that segment was a bit, kind of just depends on, like, how the A’s are doing this week.
BOBBY: Yes. And how the Phillies are doing.
ALEX: And how the Phillies are doing.
BOBBY: You’re wearing a Phillies hat right now.
ALEX: I’m wearing a Phillies out right now.
BOBBY: [13:48]
ALEX: They’re currently beating the White Sox 4-2, so—
BOBBY: I mean, that’s not saying much.
ALEX: No, it’s not.
BOBBY: If they were losing to the White Sox, the city of Philadelphia would be burning.
ALEX: Yeah. But I’d bet the spread on them, so I’m really— I’m pulling— pulling for them.
BOBBY: When you say bet the spread, what do you mean?
ALEX: You know.
BOBBY: No, I want to hear.
ALEX: Well, it’s like there are good teams and bad teams.
BOBBY: Uh-huh. And there’s a spread between.
ALEX: And there’s a spread between them.
BOBBY: Earnestly, do you know what that— the spread means?
ALEX: [14:17]
BOBBY: Okay. I was just curious, you know, because we talk about sports betting a lot. And I don’t know. I— I’ve been fucking force fed all these terms, I have to know them.
ALEX: I know, yeah.
BOBBY: Because you know why and I don’t want to say why—
ALEX: Because— because you wanna win.
BOBBY: —because we’re on the main feed, but if I was on the Patreon feed, I would say why. Why I have to know so much about betting, sports betting. We should talk about Diamond Baseball Holdings before one of us gets ourselves [14:43]
ALEX: But first, this week— this— today’s game lines, I’m taking the Orioles.
BOBBY: Bet 365?
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: FanDuel.
ALEX: No, DraftKings, bro. That’s— those are the people who hold Slam Corp.
BOBBY: Except I do have a video of you saying FanDuel, like cheering for FanDuel, like they’re a—
ALEX: That is true.
BOBBY: —sports team.
ALEX: Kind of like years ago, too. Head of our— head of our time with that one.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Do you want to talk vulture capital?
BOBBY: I don’t know what you’re referring to.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: All I see is small business owners trying to make it good in America.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: All I see is baseball development. Referring, of course, to Diamond Baseball Holdings, which is a story that I do think has come up on Tipping Pitches maybe once or twice, but very briefly. This is a new company, venture capital funded company that is buying up Minor League Baseball teams. They are founded by a guy who used to run an apparel company and the guy who used to be a Minor League Baseball owner. They now own, in the blink of an eye, over 25% of Minor League— of the 120 Minor League Baseball teams, I believe is 32 of 120. A big article in The Athletic dropped six days ago, written by Chad Jennings, Evan Drellich, and Sam Blum, just chronicling how it got to this point, and all of the different macro-economic trends in baseball that created space for a company like this, and why the incentive structure for why a company like this might want to get so heavily involved in Minor League Baseball. I think you and I had designs on doing a story kind of like this, or talking to people about maybe what the impacts of something like this might be on the Minor League game. Obviously, we care a lot about Minor League Baseball. I— I had three takeaways from the Diamond Baseball Holdings article in The Athletic. Okay. Are you ready for my three takeaways?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Takeaway number one, venture capital rules. Optimization is good and one baseball is the only way forward. I read that article, and I was like, “They’re making some points.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Good stuff all around.
ALEX: All right. Yeah, well said. I don’t have anything to add to it. I think we should move on. Do you wanna gonna go to voicemails?
BOBBY: No, I’m just kidding. There’s— the link is in the description. I think that if you’re interested in— in the health of Minor League Baseball, this is worth a read. We will, at some point, talk about this in more depth. We will probably do more segments and interviews about this topic in the future. As it stands now, 30 of 120 baseball teams, clearly interested in expanding their profile, situating themselves very nicely to be influential the next time the contracts, the licenses with the Major Leagues run out. They’re on like a 10-year contract at the moment that I think they signed three years ago, so still a ways away. I guess, like, for the purposes of the average fan of broader baseball, but Minor League Baseball, specifically, to you is this like— is— is their presence, and what they’re doing, a cause for a concern.
ALEX: I think there’s always cause for a concern when an international private equity conglomerate comes in and starts making investments in your sport, or— or whatever it is the— the product that you’re engaging with, because are they doing it because they believe in it and want to see it succeed, and— and love it in the same way that we do?
BOBBY: That’s what they say they’re doing it for.
ALEX: That’s what they say. That’s what they all say.
BOBBY: It’s kind of like what you have to say.
ALEX: Right, exactly. And— and the answer is that, like, they see this as a good investment, right? Like they’re— they see money that’s probably being left on the table here as a result of the kind of hodgepodge of ownership.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: This has largely made up Minor League Baseball over the last few decades, right? And that I think the— the thinking— and you know, there’s— the jury is still very much out on, like, kind of what the end goal of this is. But I think from their perspective, you can probably make a case of like, “Hey, if we can streamline a lot of these things, and standardize the way these teams are run—”
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: “—there’s probably a way to trim some fat here.” Again, in the name of, quote-unquote, “efficiency and make some small gains.” Again, it’s not like these aren’t necessarily billion dollar valuations like Major League Baseball teams. But in the aggregate, like there’s a— it’s a decent investment.
BOBBY: Certainly can add up to the billions.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I think there was like— there’s some record setting sale prices for some of the Minor League teams like in the— close to $100 million range—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —which, you know, like you said, multiply that by 32. We’re talking like owning a single MLB franchise levels of valuation, even if it’s not the same, even close to the same level of revenue, because these teams don’t— these teams are operating on smaller budgets with less of— less expense, obviously, because the Major League teams pay the salaries of the players, which is the main expense of any baseball team, professionally. I think that we’re at an interesting lifecycle of this story because for the teams that they have bought, many of them, they have upgraded the facilities, because they’re cash rich right now. They, in the aggregate, have much more money to invest than maybe an individual owner would have had to invest, like the mom and pop style business of owning a Minor League Baseball team, whatever that means. Even though that stereotype I feel like is maybe carrying over from like the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s. So right now, it seems like they’re sort of additive. You know, they’re making the product better. They’re making the— the training, the— the player development better, because they’re trying to align themselves with the league office side, and with the— the Major League side. So they’re trying to give the Major League teams exactly what they’re asking for, which is like high-tech facilities to help train their players in the way that they would be trained if they could all be on the Major League team. And they’re also in the stage of refashioning the business model into the way that a conglomerate runs their business, which is like national level advertising, premium sponsors, not just local, you know, carpenters advertising in the outfield. They want to get FBM, for example. The largest building manufacturing distributor for drywall, I think. They want to get companies like that, because then you start talking about existing in the same ecosystem as the Major League teams, where it’s just incredibly lucrative to own one of those teams, and incredibly, there’s a lot of financial power, there’s a lot of soft political power that comes with that. And these guys fashion themselves as— like, there’s a quote— there’s quotes in there about how they’re like, “We understand Des Moines. We understand Peoria. In the league, it has a harder time. They exist in New York, in LA, in San Francisco, but we— we’re— where the true American is, and we can bring these NBA macro-economic principles to the smaller towns across America, and we can keep baseball thriving.” I’m just going to come right out and say, that’s just nonsense, because whether or not they understand these towns, does— doesn’t matter to me. I don’t know these people. Venture capital doesn’t work for anybody, but the venture capitalists and the businesses that— the business owners who succeed. Everybody else gets shafted, because the whole model is, “We give you money. You give us return.” There’s not a lot in there for everybody else, to not even get rich, to just, like, survive. It’s done it to every industry that it has ever touched, and it will do it to baseball. There is a reason there was so much reticence to allow venture capitalists, stockbrokers, these sorts of money wealth management people into the game. Those walls have come down. Now, we have hedge fund billionaire owners, like Steve Cohen. For a long time, we didn’t have that. We had guys who, like, either inherited fortunes or, like, actually made American products. And their— whatever ethnocentrism that was coloring that, which is for certain that, that was the reason it was that way. There was, like, silver linings to that, at least in that— not every owner for a long period of time was just like a spreadsheet guy. And it’s ironic, because Steve Cohen seems to be the guy who cares the least about the Mets spreadsheet. But to me, it’s like— it’s cause for concern, because the margins for Minor League Baseball are already so slim. And so when you put the stakes of venture capital behind it, I got— I got news for you, man. Like in— in seven years, these guys are not going to be getting rich off of this. Whoever’s giving them this money to do these things is going to be like, “Time to give it back.” And then what? And Minor is the— is the growth plan for Minor League Baseball to become this huge cash cow? Because that doesn’t really serve communities, either, if they’re just making choices based on how do we get this to— how do we get the revenue line to go up perpetuity?
ALEX: Right. Well, it’s like, what is the point of Minor League Baseball? Is it to be the driver of revenue for Major League Baseball? No, it’s the developmental league for Major League Baseball, and a way to bring the sport of baseball to more communities than—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —the 30 in which there are Major League teams. Those, to me, are like the—
BOBBY: 31 if the Rays have anything to say [24:35]
ALEX: That’s right. That’s kind of it.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: The— if — if you make money off of it, it is a silver lining, I think. I mean, I guess not for the folks who invested in it because there’s a certain— you are expecting a certain amount of return. But there’s also an expectation that, like, you’re doing this becau— like not solely because of the bottom line. And I worry about the— that pursuit of efficiency, sanding down the edges of Minor League Baseball. And— and frankly, the— the uniformity that could come from this, because part of what Minor League Baseball rests on is this individuality, the uniqueness, the— the difference in— in stadiums, and traditions, and the ways that quirky Minor League owners, like, decide to deploy their resources in support of the team. You could argue that maybe that’s a vestige of a different era and that a sport shouldn’t exist like that as a hodgepodge of— of ownerships— ownership groups who are kind of making their own decisions—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —for their Minor League teams. But, like, I don’t have a problem with it. As a fan, having this mishmash of owners does not detract from my experience watching Minor League Baseball.
BOBBY: I don’t—
ALEX: And— and I worry that— that bringing in one group as the umbrella for dozens and dozens of teams, I don’t know. We’ll— we’ll start to create a more homogenous look for the sport, that is maybe not what fans are looking for.
BOBBY: Almost certainly. It kind of reminds me of how the internet happened, where if you think of— if you think of Minor League Baseball teams as websites, or different communities online, the more those start to merge into each other, the more one company controls them all. The more websites are complete— the websites, social media platforms, whatever that are completely controlled by Google or AWS, it’s all just the same now. And internet—
ALEX: Right. It’s the [26:44] fixation of everything.
BOBBY: Yes, and it sucks.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And it’s homogenous and it’s bad. And now the internet is not fun in any way, shape, or form.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And they’re coming right out and saying that that’s what they want to do, by the way. From the article, “When battle [26:57] approached”— the [26:58] is one of the guys. When [26:59] approached the league office, MLB not only offered reassurance he was reading the tea leaves correctly, the league connected him with a willing partner who had deep baseball connections, quote, “They saw it as a significant investment in Minor League Baseball. It’s exactly what they were looking to do themselves. And within a week or two, I received a call from the commissioner’s office, saying, ‘You need to meet Peter.’ As a longtime Minor League owner of the Memphis Redbirds, Charleston RiverDogs, and Williamsport Crosscutters, Freund was an insider.” This is Peter Freund. This is one of the cofounders. He was friends with the other owners, familiar with the league office, and had been working with the commissioner’s office to enact the restructuring. Quote, “This was MLB’s opportunity to really take this thing and bring it up to the next level.” So they’re coming right out and saying it like, “We are the industry plant of Major League Baseball. We are here to put into place the one baseball prophecy. We are here to do it for Rob. He connects us, he found basically like, match made our company. That’s bad. That’s a bad thing. For people like you and I, who are invested in the whims, and services, and benefits of Major League Baseball’s corporate office being the thing that dictates what baseball looks like— looks like and what baseball operates. Everybody having to fall in line with what MLB wants is bad for the sport, lowercase b, baseball.
ALEX: Much just like art. Do you need the money that badly that you’re like auctioning off slices of your sport and the league to private equity?
BOBBY: I mean, I don’t know if they need the money as much as they want the control. Like, they want every piece rowing in the same direction, whatever they decide that direction is. Like, to put in place their total world domination plan. Quite literally, they want to dominate the world. We have a question about this later in the mailbag. They need to have everybody on board, right? And the more places that are saying no, and they have like the legal right say no, the harder it is for them. The more time they spend bribing local governments leaning on Minor League owners. I think that they— honestly, here’s what I think happened. I think that Rob, and MLB, and the owners were really embarrassed by what happened. The pushback that they got for how they handled cutting 40 Minor League teams.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Everybody was mad. There’s been a shitload of lawsuits— there’s been a shitload of lawsuits. There’s been the attempts to repeal the antitrust exemption because of the way that they behaved unilaterally with the Minor League teams. They went back on agreements, they ripped up deals, they held the— cross their fingers behind their back while making handshake deals. They just acted despicably. And I think that if you have Diamond Baseball Holdings, and they’re all buddy-buddy, you could cut as many other teams as you want if you just make them whole.
ALEX: You just go to them, yeah.
BOBBY: You don’t give a shit. Like, they are— they own— if they own 50 teams like, “Sorry, guys, this round, you’re losing two.” Who cares? Who gives a shit? It’s like the Rule 5 Draft but for Minor League teams. That’s what I think— that’s what I think happened. That’s why I think they exist.
ALEX: That’s good. Are sports doing well?
BOBBY: Legacy moment for Rob.
ALEX: Yes— yes.
BOBBY: Like, “Fall back in line, everyone.”
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-huh.
BOBBY: “I’m in charge here.” I feel confident that more reporting will come out about how this business operates and what their goals are.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s what I’ll say. They have now been thrust into a spotlight that is hypercritical, I think.
ALEX: I just— it’s always a bad sign when the— the thing you watch is being brought into an investment portfolio.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Where it’s like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —okay, so they are invested in Minor League Baseball, Airbnb, like SoFi.
BOBBY: Yep, keep going.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Slam Corp.?
ALEX: Not Slam Corp. We should put them on that.
BOBBY: Yeah. Do you think they know about Slam Corp.?
ALEX: Stocks going up.
BOBBY: They probably don’t know about Slam Corp., because no one knows what they do.
ALEX: Right, exactly. You’d be like, “Hey, have you heard of satellite direct— satellite-to-direct too fast, to—”
BOBBY: Too furious?
ALEX: ”—to communication?”
BOBBY: Okay. I think that— that’s our cue to move on. NBA player Jontay Porter was banned for life this past week from playing in the National Basketball Association. Are you familiar with why he was banned?
ALEX: I am.
BOBBY: Is it just because he was mean?
ALEX: Yes. He was just a bad hang.
BOBBY: No, Alex.
ALEX: It was embarrassing him.
BOBBY: No, it was not, because he was betting on himself.
ALEX: Which is a crime, apparently, to bet on yourself.
BOBBY: No, he was having a friend or an associate place wagers on his prop bets to make tens of 1000s of dollars, even though he was making hundreds of thousands of dollars in an NBA salary.
ALEX: Which to be clear—
BOBBY: Strange story.
ALEX: —I didn’t know it wasn’t allowed, when he asked me to do that. I— I thought I was just doing him a solid.
BOBBY: Which app?
ALEX: Well, DraftKings.
BOBBY: Of course. I don’t— I don’t have a lot to say about this that hasn’t already been said. Hypocrisy, the way the league is handling this. It’s real. We told you exactly what was going to happen. It happened. Oh, no, I’m so sorry. We’ll— we’ll change it slightly. Oh, we’re going to— we’re going to put in place more guidelines. We’re going to make it so that this doesn’t happen again. Okay. Sure. I think the reason that I wanted to talk about this today is because it’s really just like, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. This is coming.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: For baseball. Everybody watch. I can’t wait to cross it off the Tipping Pitches Bingo Card. It’s gonna be awesome. It’s gonna be great. We should have just done professional athlete gets suspended, but—
ALEX: Yeah, I know.
BOBBY: —it’s okay.
ALEX: But— no, when we were like doing our planning for the season, it was like—
BOBBY: —that felt too easy.
ALEX: We— well, you know, we talked about, like, we should do an episode on like a prospective—
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: —like gambling scandal, you know?
BOBBY: I think we should still do that.
ALEX: I think we should too, but also now, two of the ideas have been taken—
BOBBY: By reality?
ALEX: —by— by the sports world. Exactly.
BOBBY: Yeah. Would the other one being Diamond Baseball Holdings deep dive?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That really wasn’t on our brains— preseason brainstorming list, but that’s okay. It’s just like in multiple sports— in a sports league— in sports— in sports leagues where guys are showing up driving Tesla trucks in spades, you expect them to follow the gambling rules. It’s gonna take in fucking gambles with their life every day getting in that thing. You think they’re not gonna play some bets?
ALEX: I— I wonder how much the NBA— and to an extent other sports leagues almost appreciate a story like this, because it shows that they’re willing to come down hard and say like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You know, like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —”Hey, look, this— the playing field is safe.”
BOBBY: Make an example out of them.
ALEX: Exactly. You know? Like, look, if— if there’s anything that’s not on the up and up, we’re gonna find it. We’re gonna get to the bottom of it.
BOBBY: Stop and Frisk for the NBA betting rules.
ALEX: And— and— and make sure that our players are safe. Not our basketball players, but the gambling players.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Right?
BOBBY: Our partners.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Partners. Gotta get that right, partners.
ALEX: Like, you can use this to signal, basically, that— it— the all clear— we’ve got the all clear. This sport is safe to gamble on.
BOBBY: I know it seems ridiculous to say this because it’s just like such a plain fact and many people have already made this point. And to be fair, these games were irrelevant for an irrelevant team, for a pretty irrelevant player. Just insanely stupid behavior on his part, by the way.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But you are an absolute fool if you think gambling is not affecting the integrity of professional sports. You’re a fool—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —if you think that. Even if guys are not intentionally throwing games, like Jontay Porter essentially was, the pressure associated with gambling is— is affecting the performance of players. They’re saying it. They’re coming out and saying it.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: coaches are saying it, the death threats that they’re getting for performing one way or the other. Whether or not it’s intentional by the players, there’s a psychological effect that is happening. You just—
ALEX: Yeah. There’s a question of like prop bets, right? Where you can bet—
BOBBY: You just opted in—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —to affecting the integrity of your sport, when integrity in sports is the only thing that matters above all else, so we must ban Jontay Porter for life. Ban like— I have a really good solution, and they’re choosing to take the path less traveled.
ALEX: What? Which is that being get rid of gambling?
BOBBY: Stop fucking betting. Yeah, exactly. If you don’t want the integrity, if you don’t want all these problems. Just get your cash from somewhere else. There’s plenty of other places.
ALEX: Yeah. That don’t—
BOBBY: It’s always the lowest—
ALEX: —necessarily required drifting off of, like, vulnerable folks.
BOBBY: It’s always the lowest hanging fruit. They always just take the first thing that is willing to write them the check. They don’t really care what it is. It’s NFT’s, it’s gambling. It’s—
ALEX: Right. Because you know who gets left holding the bag.
BOBBY: [36:20] it doesn’t matter.
ALEX: Consumers.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It’s okay. They’ll bounce back.
BOBBY: They always do.
ALEX: Where are you gonna go? What other national professional basketball association they— they’re gonna go watch.
BOBBY: It’s the churn. It’s the consumer churn, too. They don’t care if people go bankrupt, by the way. That’s good for them, because that helps the banks that also hold the loans—
ALEX: Well, and here’s the thing, even if—
BOBBY: —that they take to build their new stadiums, and buy their new teams, and buy up real estate around their ballparks. They need those banks to be okay, so they need you to go bankrupt gambling on sports so that you can be in debt to the banks, so that the banks continue to profit.
ALEX: Well, also, you—
BOBBY: They’ll like—
ALEX: —you hear— you say going bankrupt, I say you’re one parlay away from financial freedom.
BOBBY: All right. We’re gonna take a quick break and go to the parlay of the week of Alex Bazeley. No. Well, we are gonna go to your slogan for the Oakland Athletics. I am taking side action on what it will be.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: But that’s part of my underground sports book. ESPN Bet, by the way, is such a fucking sham. What is that?
ALEX: [37:31] sports book of choice.
BOBBY: They— they just made their own sports book, and they’re also a media outlet.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And they’re also a broadcaster—
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: —of the leagues. They put the games on there. And they do the bets. And they write about the games.
ALEX: I think it’s good that one of the two biggest journalists in basketball, and frankly, American sports, has an exclusive partnership with FanDuel.
BOBBY: Oh, Shams?
ALEX: Yeah. I don’t see a problem with it.
BOBBY: Do you remember when Shams was like doing his fucking interview tour, about how he’s on his phone 19 hours a day?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I was like, “We needed a hard reset.” Whatever way it comes, we need a hard reset on society that he’s like on TV and he has multiple phones in his hands. And he’s, like, screentime 20 hours.
ALEX: Yup. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I’m like, “Dude, you are unwell. You need a therapist. You don’t need to stop partnering with [38:27] sports books. You need to go to therapy, brother.”
ALEX: Or some blue light glasses, at least.
BOBBY: 20/20 vision on Shams, I hear. Word— word on the street—
ALEX: Hmm. Right. Well— well, yeah, but that’s not about vision. That’s about like—
BOBBY: Headaches?
ALEX: Yeah. Exposure to that much pain.
BOBBY: At this point, he’s working on a 20-year headache, because he just doesn’t sleep.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: So he doesn’t even feel it anymore. Been there.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, at this point, why stop now, too? You know? You’ve made so much progress.
BOBBY: I know, just double down. Just like the parlay, you’re just one—
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: You’re one breaking news [38:56] away.
ALEX: Don’t cash out now.
BOBBY: [38:59] it all back. Shams is probably a good guy, right? Integrity is a word I would use to describe his reporting.
ALEX: As— yes. Same.
BOBBY: Yeah. A’s slogan.
ALEX: A’s slogan, yeah.
BOBBY: I’m just gonna keep doing jokes like this until you start talking about the A’s.
ALEX: Okay [39:11] this was— this was hard for me. I won’t lie. I mean— I mean, it was hard for me, and then once I got the— the juices flowing, slogan started coming out left and right. And so I may need your—
BOBBY: You’re like Don Draper sort— sort of.
ALEX: Yeah. Yes, exactly. I’m doing my math when rewatch, and I think—
BOBBY: Rewatch or first watch?
ALEX: First watch. I don’t know why I said rewatch.
BOBBY: It’s just that word is just so in the lexicon.
ALEX: Yes, it is.
BOBBY: I blame Bill Simmons.
ALEX: I modeled myself after him.
BOBBY: After Bill?
ALEX: Af— yes.
BOBBY: See, I was gonna edit that out because I usually wouldn’t talk about The Ringer on the podcast, but that was just such a funny moment, I think I have to leave it in.
ALEX: The Oakland A’s, heard of them, soon to be The A’s.
BOBBY: Right. They took the wrong lesson from social network, by the way.
ALEX: What— of what—
BOBBY: They dropped—
ALEX: They dropped the name?
BOBBY: —the city name, not the.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Drop the the— just Facebook.
ALEX: Just the A’s. I’m going to see A’s today. I— it’s— it— it suggests that like you’re going to see like some A’s, but you’re not specifying.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Like, I’m going to see Oakland A’s today, but which ones?
BOBBY: The A’s should play inside The Sphere. It’s big enough.
ALEX: That would be an experience.
BOBBY: It’s probably bigger than The Trop.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, you could just project fans onto the screens around. That stadium is gonna be packed.
BOBBY: Would you pay $1 to be one of the pixels of fans on The Sphere watching A’s—
ALEX: [40:46] pay way more than that.
BOBBY: —watch— watching A’s.
ALEX: Watching A’s. I would.
BOBBY: We got business ideas. You can’t say we don’t.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: They are tongue in cheek, but somebody listening would be like, “Great idea. Great idea.”
ALEX: [40:59] Silver Lake Endeavor— or Diamond Base— it’s— it’s Silver Lake which owns Endeavour, which owns Diamond Baseball Holdings, but then Silver Lake bought Diamond Baseball Hold— anyway, it’s the Silver Lake [41:12]
BOBBY: Naturally.
ALEX: —we’re— we’re going after.
BOBBY: Naturally. Silver Lake, the town I used to live in.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. There you go. That’s your— that’s your hometown private equity team right there.
BOBBY: My hometown, Los Angeles, California.
ALEX: Yes. Yep, yeah.
BOBBY: Slogans.
ALEX: For sale, baseball team, never won. Now, it’s a little tough because they have won the World Series, but under John Fisher’s—
BOBBY: Don’t remind me.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Don’t remind me.
ALEX: Under John Fisher’s tenure as owner. They have— they have never won. And frankly, the— the tea leaves, if you want to read into them a little bit, are that— are that Fisher maybe— maybe juicing the value of this investment prior to his ultimate exit.
BOBBY: I just don’t get that. It’s similar to how I felt when the Nationals— when the Lerners were like, “We want to sell the Nationals, but we’ll trade Juan Soto first.” Why wouldn’t you let the new owner decide whether or not they wanted to trade Juan Soto?
ALEX: Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: Why wouldn’t you let the new owner of— of A’s decide whether they wanted them to be in Oakland? A far significant— far more significant market than Las Vegas. A town that fucking hates the idea of them coming in. There’s nobody who’s gonna go.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: And no stadium, and no place to put the stadium, by the way. And all those pretty renderings are fu— are irrelevant, because they don’t even own the plot of land that they were going to build it on.
ALEX: That’s correct.
BOBBY: Just so everybody remembers what we’re dealing with here. Okay. For sale, baseball team never one. What about— okay. I want to hear about them all first.
ALEX: Okay. All right. So— so—
BOBBY: I got ridiculed for not knowing which slogan I was gonna go with, on the New York Mets last week by you and Hannah. And we come in here and you probably have, like, four or more options.
ALEX: I got different options, you know? No. So I— so I— I’m just giving you some insight into the creative process.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: You know, I’m going down the list in order. I thought everything must go.
BOBBY: That’s good.
ALEX: Which is— which I— I kind of liked. I— I also kind of, like, similar along these lines. Everyone leaves—
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: —when hurts a little bit more.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: But, you know, it’s a reminder of the fleeting nature of life.
BOBBY: Yes. Have you ever watched the television show Winter Hill?
ALEX: You know, I haven’t, Bobby. I’ve gathered some— some insights through osmosis, but—
BOBBY: One of the characters, who is really annoying, really annoying.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Classic, like 2000 sitcom thing, where you just write one of the female characters to be as annoying as possible, just to excite everybody. Everybody’s internal misogyny.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —to ignite that. That’s her kind of slogan. Everybody leaves. That’s what she says, about her life. She gets abandoned by her mother. She gets broken up with several times.
ALEX: So it sounds like she’s right. I mean like—
BOBBY: So one pretends to be her fake brother and tries to murder her.
ALEX: Right. Like.
BOBBY: And then her real brother comes and saves the day.
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: Surprise, shocker. He’s black. He’s her half-brother. She’s white.
ALEX: She— did— was it a surprise to her?
BOBBY: It was a surprise to everyone.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: The viewer as well.
ALEX: But it was also a surprise to her?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: But she’d never met this person before?
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Because everybody leaves.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So she’d never met him. It was also just recently in a very important anniversary for the greatest episode of television ever, which ha— occurred on the aforementioned, One Tree Hill.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: The episode where the villain of the show, the father of the two boys, Dan, needs a heart transplant.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And they have the heart transplant, and it’s in a cooler.
ALEX: Yeah. I’d seen this. Yeah.
BOBBY: And then the nurse trips over a dog, and the dog steals the heart and eats it.
ALEX: See—
BOBBY: So legendary.
ALEX: —you can’t make TV like that anymore.
BOBBY: And if you don’t read another slogan, I’m gonna keep recapping One Tree Hill episodes and their events.
ALEX: I will— I’ll let you go.
BOBBY: There’s like several— several podcasts out there that just do that need.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We need to be in their lane.
ALEX: Here was the last one that I landed on, because— and maybe it’s a little too on the nose, or a little too easy.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: But I figured, who else’s words to use to describe the Oakland A’s but the man himself, John Fisher?
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Because he put it better than anyone else.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: “It’s been a lot worse for me than you.”
BOBBY: I— that’s a direct quote?
ALEX: Yeah. You don’t— you don’t remember it? Okay.
BOBBY: I remember it, but that’s exactly what he said?
ALEX: That’s exactly what he said.
BOBBY: That’s what he said? That’s really funny. It has been a lot worse for him than you.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I mean, well, you’re sitting over here—
ALEX: Yucking it up.
BOBBY: —in Brooklyn.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Being a fake Mets fan, being a fake Phillies fan.
ALEX: He’s like, “I’ve been an owner of—”
BOBBY: Being a fake agnostic. He’s—
ALEX: “—of the As for years.”
BOBBY: He’s held it down and the—
ALEX: Through thick and thin.
BOBBY: —the evil leftist City Council of Oakland is out there to try to crucify him—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —for being a good honest American businessman.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: He brought us the Gap.
ALEX: He did.
BOBBY: You remember?
ALEX: Yep. Or at least his parents did.
BOBBY: That’s right. At least he’s shepherding the portfolio of the people who brought us the Gap.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay? That’s hard work. And he’s done a lot of things that you could consider hard work in his time owning the A’s. He’s improved a lot of things.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: The stadium, for one. The status of them in the town. The team—
ALEX: Oh, the team itself, I think, stands out.
BOBBY: —is really good.
ALEX: In terms of success.
BOBBY: He’s really good. So he’s done a lot of work.
ALEX: Well, and also to be clear, the fans are the ones who put up all these roadblocks, right? Like in terms of Mets and—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —the stadium and that sort of— the new fans are the ones who are— who—
BOBBY: Not just [46:52] fans, the woke fans.
ALEX: The woke fans.
BOBBY: The mob—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —of A’s fans.
ALEX: The woke mayor. They’ve— they’ve sat there, they chained themselves—
BOBBY: Several woke mayors.
ALEX: —chained themselves to the Oakland Coliseum and said, “I refuse to let you make infrastructure upgrades.” They know that the players like to [47:09]”
BOBBY: They laid on the ground in front of the bulldozers and they said, “Save our Coliseum.”
ALEX: That’s not a bad idea, actually.
BOBBY: That is a pretty good idea.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: I mean, they’re— they’re just gonna leave the Coliseum there. They don’t care about that. They’re just leaving.
ALEX: [47:22] it’d be like, “All right. we didn’t wanna stay here anyway.” What do— what do you think? Where do— where do we land?
BOBBY: Run through the options again.
ALEX: All right. For sale baseball team, never won.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Everything must go.
BOBBY: I love that one.
ALEX: Okay. And then in the words of John Fisher himself, “It’s been a lot worse for me than you.”
BOBBY: So if we use the ethos of this is like when you’re in an away town, and you see a fan of your team and they say, “Let’s go, A’s.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And you say back—
ALEX: Which is not necessarily how I was thinking about this. I was more thinking along the lines of, like, you know, they can’t use Rooted in Oakland anymore, right?
BOBBY: Why not?
ALEX: Well, they’ve officially got rid of it.
BOBBY: Did they really?
ALEX: Yeah, they don’t— because they’re literally not. They, like, took down all the banners and everything like that.
BOBBY: Oh, man. That’s funny.
ALEX: Yeah. There’s been a whole saga over on A’s Twitter where fans are trying to find this, like, moving truck that’s like plastered with Rooted in Oakland on it, that like used to be in the A’s parking lot.
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
ALEX: And the A’s had to get rid of it somehow. And so folks are, like, tracking it down to like scrap yards and— I don’t know. There’s— the Oakland A’s Twitter does some real investigative work. I just want to shout them out.
BOBBY: Well, they don’t have to watch the game so they have a lot of free time on their hands. I like Everything Must Go, that’s my vote.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I— I love, “It’s hard— been harder for me than it is for you,” but that is kind of high concept, a little confusing.
ALEX: It is. You’d have to know inside baseball a little bit.
BOBBY: I don’t know that everybody will put that together.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That that was like a John Fisher quote.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: My vote would be Everything Must go.
ALEX: 2024, Oakland A’s, Everything Must Go.
BOBBY: For sale, baseball team never won is funny, a little too on line.
ALEX: It is a little too on line. Also, like once, again, like doesn’t really fit, but come—
BOBBY: You could—
ALEX: —back to me in three years.
BOBBY: You could say like, for— for sale baseball team, never wanted.
ALEX: I think we keep that in the back pocket—
BOBBY: For sale, baseball team tax evasion scheme.
ALEX: Right, exactly. I say we keep it in the back pocket until Fisher finally puts the team up.
BOBBY: Okay. Sounds good.
ALEX: All right. Great.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: I appreciate your input on that, by the way.
BOBBY: That’s what I’m here for. I’m your Roger. That’s the name of the character on Mad Men?
ALEX: Oh. Yeah, that is the name of the character.
BOBBY: What’s his last name?
ALEX: I’m— I cannot keep track the characters’ names. I’m not gonna lie. I only know three of them.
BOBBY: There’s a lot of characters. Yeah, there’s a lot of characters. Peggy goated.
ALEX: Peggy [49:50]
BOBBY: Goated.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Elisabeth Moss. Is Scientology back?
ALEX: It’s chic.
BOBBY: I mean, it produces.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Scientology is like the—
ALEX: [50:03] a thousand.
BOBBY: —is like the Houston Astros of the acting world.
ALEX: Yeah, you don’t have to love it, but you have to appreciate it.
BOBBY: You’d have to tip your cap.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: It’s time for some questions. Let’s start with a voicemail about a topic that I wanted to talk about anyway. This voicemail is from longtime listener, Becca. [50:21] It is about the Colorado Rockies triggering an FAA investigation into the pilot that was flying their charter plane on their recent road trip.
BECCA: Hey, guys, it’s Becca. Please excuse my lost voice. I got— I— I lost it yapping too much, but in light of the Rockies being investigated by the FAA, I have to wonder what other federal agencies would it be the funniest to investigate a Major League Baseball team? Of course, the DOJ and the FTC, that just makes sense. That’s not really funny. That would just be good for the game. But there have to be some other agencies that would just conduct a hilarious investigation. Bye.
BOBBY: Becca, thank you for calling. Alex, what are your favorite government agencies?
ALEX: Department of Energy.
BOBBY: Yes. True. Why would they be investigating the baseball world?
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: Any number of the owners.
ALEX: Right. Right, pretty much.
BOBBY: Well, actually, they probably wouldn’t investigate them. That’s the whole thing. The EPA investigating the— the A’s for the toxic waste—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —coming out of the Coliseum. I have an idea for one.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: This one’s not funny.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: It’s something that needs to be done.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: How about the Department of State investigating what MLB does out of the United States?
ALEX: Okay. All right. You’re right. That would not be funny, whatsoever.
BOBBY: The Department of the Interior investigating just— maybe we’ll say an owner who owns parts of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: For example.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: But really— and this is my actual answer for what would be funny. For listeners of this podcast, the United States Department of Agriculture investigating wholesale grocer, Bob Castellini for his practices of distributing carrots and other things.
SPEAKER 4: He’s got carrots, and lettuce, and mushrooms porcine. The vegetable king, Bob Castellini.
ALEX: Like, just— not that they’re good or bad, they’re just like, “We just want to make sure you’re distributing these.”
BOBBY: I mean, there’s something that’s— that’s definitely not on the up and up in that process.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: $500 million from carrots—
ALEX: No way.
BOBBY: —leeks—
ALEX: No way.
BOBBY: —potatoes, things of that nature. I don’t believe it. I don’t buy it.
ALEX: I’d like to see like the FCC getting involved, because like they’re picking up on, like, airwaves that are contain— containing, like, proprietary and from, like— like teams using advanced radio signals, steal signs, or trans—
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: —transmit signs. Someone—
BOBBY: You think the FCC would [53:20]
ALEX: Look, if they’re using secure lines, they may—
BOBBY: Well—
ALEX: —sit there and be like, “Hey—”
BOBBY: —the FCC doesn’t do shit besides—
ALEX: I know, I know. I know that.
BOBBY: —being like, “You cursed on the radio. Give us—”
ALEX: Yeah. I know.
BOBBY: “—50 grand.” You know? They don’t do that.
ALEX: What about a— a team that has been piping like high pitched noises into the opposing teams clubhouse—
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: —to induce a form of Havana Syndrome—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —among the other team.
BOBBY: I call that Atlanta Syndrome.
ALEX: That’s right. Who— I don’t really know who would investigate that, though. So like the— the FBI? Like [53:58]
[laughter]
BOBBY: You’re asking a— a tough question on account of the fact that that’s not real. So who investigates things that aren’t real?
ALEX: The— the FBI.
Bobby The CIA, probably.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I mean, it happened in Cuba, so definitely it was the CIA who was investigating them.
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: If it happened on United States soil, I don’t know. Maybe the plot of Civil War by Alex Garland might unfold.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I think it would probably be the FBI.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They seem like they have broad power just to [54:27]
ALEX: It’s— it’s kind of— you can slot them in wherever. Maybe the National Weather Service.
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: You know, if— if teams are, like, manipulating air flows to—
BOBBY: You think they’re using like the weather machine?
ALEX: Right, exact— like the Diamondbacks—
BOBBY: To keep it [54:41]
ALEX: —are sitting there, like, turning up the wind when there— the hitters are at the plate and turning it down.
BOBBY: They have a roof. That actually— that actually is really good. United States Department of Veteran Affairs, we find out that all of the— the, like, Pfizer veteran of the game, they were paid actors.
ALEX: Seymour Weiner was just a stage name.
BOBBY: Becca, great question.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Thank you. Next question is an email. Greg wants to know, “Would you rather slam your hand in every door you closed or fall down every set of stairs you went down?”
ALEX: Tough choice. Tough choice. I— I think I’m gonna go with the— the door.
BOBBY: You would rather slam your hand in every door?
ALEX: Well, because you can avoid closing doors, right? Like, you can—
BOBBY: So you’re just gonna leave every door open?
ALEX: Well, yes, which comes with its own—
BOBBY: Open door policy.
ALEX: Yeah. Right, exactly. It comes with its own [55:41]
BOBBY: Like, you and I as co-CEOs of Tipping Pitches.
ALEX: That’s what we have.
BOBBY: An open door policy.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: With all of our employees.
ALEX: In our— in our corner offices.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: I— like, there’s no real way to avoid taking the stairs in many cases. I’m—
BOBBY: That’s a problem in America.
ALEX: I’m in— I’m in a walk-up apartment that’s four flights of stairs. If I fell down those stairs every time I left—
BOBBY: I have to say, I was thinking maybe I have a little elevator privilege here in my building.
ALEX: Yeah, you do.
BOBBY: But I was like, “It would really suck to slam my hand in every door I closed.”
ALEX: That— that would, yeah.
BOBBY: But then, again, yeah, you’re right. How often do I close the door? My front door every time I leave my apartment.
ALEX: Right. Okay.
BOBBY: Tough.
ALEX: That’s— that is tough. [56:16] to start the day.
BOBBY: Front door— front door to the building every time I leave my apartment as well. I gotta take the dog out three times a day. That’s at least six hand slams. We’re talking broken fingers.
ALEX: Unless you keep the door cracked.
BOBBY: But the front door? I’m gonna get everybody’s packages stolen.
ALEX: Isn’t that already happening?
BOBBY: Yeah, but they put it in beefed up security. Now, the door—
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: —is even heavier. It’s gonna hurt more.
ALEX: Okay. ADT?
BOBBY: I don’t think it was ADT. I think it was local. I’m thinking [56:41]
ALEX: That’s— that’s good. Supporting small businesses.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. Landlords—
ALEX: You actually volunteered— I— if they were— they were like, “We’re looking to recruit a security—”
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: “—contractor.” And you were like, “I can do it.”
BOBBY: And I was like, “Bazeley and Wagner Productions,” yes.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Landlords always support small businesses. They— because they are small businesses themselves.
ALEX: Being small businesses themselves.
BOBBY: Woo. We’re cooking— we’re cooking with the gas right now. I do think that the answer is slam your hand in every door you closed. Now, the question, it’s not specific enough. Like, how hard do I have to close the door?
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Like, as hard as I would normally close the door?
ALEX: Right. Or can I just, like, let it rest on my hand?
BOBBY: Can I be with someone else at all times and tell them to close the door for me and avoid that?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Loophole.
ALEX: There you go.
BOBBY: Loophole. But then you have to be with someone else all the time.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It’s like that movie Self Reliance. Did you see that one?
ALEX: Nope.
BOBBY: It’s on Hulu. Written and directed by Jake Johnson, who’s Nick Miller from New Girl.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s about a dark web reality show where they hire people to try to kill you. And if you survive 30 days, you get a million dollars. But the people can’t kill you if you’re with someone else. Like if you’re within touching distance of someone else.
ALEX: That’s—
BOBBY: That means you just have to be within that person’s arm’s length.
ALEX: It just sounds like a— like a game that kids make up on the playground, you know? It’s like—
BOBBY: That’s kind of Jake Johnson’s whole energy.
ALEX: Okay, that’s fair. Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, smokes weed, cracks joke, writes movie. You know? It was good. You should watch this on Hulu.
ALEX: All right. I’ll check it out.
BOBBY: You’re not doing anything else.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: So do watch it, and Smart House.
ALEX: And laying down parlays.
BOBBY: And Johnny Kapahala, Back on Board.
ALEX: What?
BOBBY: Didn’t you remember in the Patreon episode, I was just naming Disney Channel original movies—
ALEX: Oh, yeah.
BOBBY: —for like five straight minutes?
ALEX: Okay. Yes, I do remember that.
BOBBY: Come on, man. Come on.
ALEX: What’s next?
BOBBY: What’s next? Brink!, Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior, Color of Friendship maybe? Can I interest you in a little motocross?
ALEX: See, you’re just naming the same ones you named the last time.
BOBBY: So you do remember?
ALEX: I do.
BOBBY: Okay, great. Maybe that will influence you. Can of Worms! with an exclamation point at the end.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Don’t forget the exclamation point when you search for it.
ALEX: Of course. It’s like Panic! at the Disco.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: Can of Worms!
BOBBY: Panic! at the Disco is a bunch of squares. The band stinks.
ALEX: We don’t have time for this.
BOBBY: Next question comes from Zane. The question is, Mets?
ALEX: Nope.
BOBBY: Really? Like you really— you don’t think they’re good?
ALEX: It was— it was—
BOBBY: And earnestly— like earnestly, are they good? What do you think? Do some baseball analysis here.
ALEX: All right. Baseball analysis.
BOBBY: 74 minutes into this podcast.
ALEX: I mean, between Harrison Bader— Bader and tie ballgame.
BOBBY: All right. Let’s be real here. They got real players, too. I know we’ve been doing a long running bit about how David Stearns is a fraud.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: [59:39]
ALEX: Although— although to be clear, all the good players predate David Stearns pretty much, right? So, like—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Again, it’s so hard because I look at the Mets on paper, I’m like, “That is a really good [59:49]”
BOBBY: Except Adrian Houser.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Luis Severino.
ALEX: True.
BOBBY: But, you know, Jose Butto is holding it down. He was pretty— pretty stern.
ALEX: Always has been.
BOBBY: Butto boys, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. We watched his debut together.
BOBBY: On television.
ALEX: At your— at your home.
BOBBY: Yeah, at my parents’ house. They were playing the Phillies.
ALEX: Did not go well.
BOBBY: He sucked bad.
ALEX: It was really bad.
BOBBY: But he’s good now.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You know why?
ALEX: Got out of his system.
BOBBY: He throws his changeup more.
ALEX: [1:00:11]
BOBBY: You know told him to do that?
ALEX: —same.
BOBBY: D. Stearns.
ALEX: David Stearns.
BOBBY: That’s right.
ALEX: Masterclass.
BOBBY: Boy genius.
ALEX: Yeah, the Mets are— are good.
BOBBY: Yes, they are.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That’s all I wanted to hear.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Next voicemail.
CHRIS: Hi there, Bobby and Alex. My name is Chris. I’m from Ohio. I’m a first-time caller, longtime listener. First, I just want to shout-out to the newspapers and the friendships that come from them, as the editor of my college’s newspaper. And it’s a very valuable experience. But second, the main question. I was recently reading Roger Angell’s, The Summer Game recently. And in one of his essays, he talks about how baseball is, you know, a bit different from other sports, because it has this demand of perfection from its players. You know, every movement is marked against an absolute standard and how there’s a certain expectation that is carried with each player as to how it should go and how the excitement of the game comes from when something happens that breaks your expectations and that sort of binary aspect of baseball. And that definitely allows it to be tracked by stats more naturally, but it makes it more unique. But as two people who don’t really keep track of other sports, especially Alex, I thought I’d ask, what makes baseball uniquely appealing to the two of you? Is it just that you grew up playing it? Or is there any specific philosophical aspects of the sport that you specifically admire? Anyways, keep up the good work. Love all the content. Keep podding. Let’s go Mets. Bye.”
BOBBY: Let’s go Mets. I really liked this question. Thank you for calling in. Thank you for this question. I want to be clear, I don’t want to be on the record. I watch a lot of other sports. I just don’t talk about them on a really dumb podcast for 90 minutes a week.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Okay, just wanna be honest, upfront. I consider myself very transparent.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: To the listeners of Tipping Pitches—
ALEX: You are.
BOBBY: —I do watch Italian soccer now. I actually watch a lot of NBA and I watch the NHL. I don’t watch football. You do not watch any other sports.
ALEX: I mean—
BOBBY: Besides cornhole.
ALEX: Yes. Right.
BOBBY: Exactly. Exactly. Are you gonna watch the Olympics this year?
ALEX: I keep forgetting those are happening this year.
BOBBY: I know, me too. Another four years have passed.
ALEX: It’s always the kind of thing where it’s like, “Oh, it’s here.”
BOBBY: Here comes mortality. The Olympics make me feel my mortality, because I forget that it was four years ago since the last one, and it kind of catches me by surprise every time.
ALEX: It—
BOBBY: Like, I’m four years older, I still feel like we— the last Olympics that happened was Michael Phelps.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: 2008.
ALEX: You’re like, “Is— is Usain Bolt still running?”
BOBBY: Is he?
ALEX: I don’t—
BOBBY: He’s not? No? But is he? I don’t know. That’s the tough part with European soccer, too. It’s like all the dudes that I— so I was like really into European soccer between the years of, like, 2012 and 2016, ’17, ’18, because of college. To be clear, I was not in college that whole time. But one of the best players in the world and one of the most beloved and respected players in the world during that time is Luka Modric. Who’s this Croatian midfielder who— who— has played on multiple teams, whatever. He came into a game in the Champions League the other day, and they were like, “Here comes Luka Modric. I can’t believe he can even stand on his own two feet at this point.” The man is decrepit. He’s ancient. He’s like 38.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s like, “We’d be lucky to see him not die on the field today, ladies and gentlemen.”
ALEX: Right. He may turn to dust.
BOBBY: He took a PK and he scored it calmly, because he’s a legend.
ALEX: Good. Happy for him.
BOBBY: Anyway, now that we’ve done real diversion on other sports, can we get to this very thoughtful question about—
ALEX: Yes. Yes.
BOBBY: —Roger Angell’s essay, and the importance of baseball, and why we value it above— above other sports. What do you think?
ALEX: I mean, I was very attracted to it growing up because—
BOBBY: Of the A’s.
ALEX: —because of A’s, and because I didn’t have to do anything most of the time, right?
BOBBY: Oh, like playing, yeah. You just stood there.
ALEX: Like, playing. I— like, you could just stand there, and it was— it was great. Aside from the allergies, that I would get standing in the grass.
BOBBY: Yeah. Hay fever season. We gotta get you on a Nasacort, bro.
ALEX: Yeah, we do. I know.
BOBBY: I’m like a Nasacort brand ambassador.
ALEX: Yeah. No free ads.
BOBBY: No, I’ll give them free ads.
ALEX: Except for DraftKings.
BOBBY: If they’d like to send me a Nasacort for free. I’ll plead to them just like they could send me Olipop.
ALEX: As— as someone who really liked being, like, alone with my thoughts, like that was great. Because I just get to stand here and just kind of, like, kick the dirt around a little bit.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You get to, like, do all the moves that, like, a baseball player does, you know? Like—
BOBBY: Yeah. You fake it ’till you make it.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. Pop some seeds in your mouth. Like it was— it was very like sensorally— is that a word? Enjoyable.
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. And again, like the— the rhythms of it are just like—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —really nice to sort of count on.
BOBBY: I love being outside as a kid.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Less so now. I wouldn’t describe myself as agoraphobic, but I wouldn’t say that I don’t share agoraphobic tendencies. But I loved— I— I loved being outside and just like the fresh air, the way— the time of the year that the baseball season starts always felt so full of potential and excitement. A great way to spend time with your friends, but not, like you said, have to try that hard. I loved being on a basketball team. I loved it. I— I actually— to address that part of this question, I played baseball growing up. I stopped playing baseball in high school and kept playing baseball throughout all of high school. So I more recently have played organized basketball than baseball, even though I would say that baseball is like my number one sport that I like to watch now, and obviously create content about. I still weirdly, probably, like know more about basketball like strategy and X’s and O’s, because of how competitively I played it at a later age. But there’s something about baseball that also, I think— not to pull off too high of a wire act here, but there’s something about baseball that kind of fits into, like, our fatalistic worldview, where it’s like nothing happens for a long time and then something happens. And sometimes it seems really unfair, and you just have to make peace with that. I like that in a sport. I like the unpredictability of it. It can feel really frustrating, but I think that that is what causes the highs to be a lot higher. And it’s like torture in sports form—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —to be a baseball fan.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s cruel what we do to ourselves here. And that, frankly, appeals to you and I.
ALEX: Yeah, I think like the— the sort of mental aspect of it, as torturous as it is, is also really engaging and what keeps you coming back. Because it is a game that you can dissect to pieces between pitches and— yeah. I don’t know. That’s fine. It just— it’s also just, like, different from other sports to— like, just in terms of, like, the setup.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: I think the—
BOBBY: It’s not two goals, trying to throw a ball into the goal.
ALEX: Right, exactly. And so, like, which isn’t necessarily to like— I’m not— this isn’t like baseball exceptionalism, necessarily. Although maybe it is a little bit, but I think there was something about it that just felt, like, different. Like, flex—
BOBBY: It was certainly more creative.
ALEX: —flexing a different part of my brain. Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: I think that— I think that what’s cool about soccer is that is like the original idea—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —of a sport. And you can’t even use your hands. Like, it’s literally, like, we’re running around kicking the shit, and it’s so simple. And obviously, tactically, historically, statistically, it’s become more complicated over the years. There’s a lot of discourse in soccer about advanced statistics and expected goals versus should we just be playing this for the aesthetic of it, the beautiful game, the teamwork, the sensational moments? Should we not be trying to do what happens to baseball? Blah, blah, blah, blah. But I— I actually think that baseball is like the polar end of that spectrum of sport.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I think it’s beautiful. I think both of those— all different types of sports can excite me in different ways on that spectrum of, like, complicated, simple. And I think that those— that soccer is very simple, and baseball is very complicated. Not in the sense that it’s complicated to understand the rules if you know them already, but it’s complicated to understand what makes things happen.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: The causality, the connection, why a guy is playing well versus why a guy is now playing well. It’s just, like, there’s a ton of unknown in that. Like, what’s going on with Francisco Lindor? I don’t know.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That guy is one of the best baseball players alive and he’s hitting, like— he’s hitting like 250 OPS.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: I mean.
ALEX: David Stearns should just tell him to hit better. Like—
BOBBY: He’s— heated up a little bit recently. You’ve been following that?
ALEX: No. I’ll take your word for it.
BOBBY: Yeah, you just have to wait and see once the Mets make the playoffs.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Okay. Next voicemail. I think we did a good job of answering that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, every once in a while, people are like, “Why do you guys like baseball?”
ALEX: And it’s kind of— we have to take a step back for a second.
BOBBY: Yeah. And be like, “Uh—”
JOE: Hey, everybody. This is Joe, heading back from Montreal. Canada. I just listened to the last week’s episode, and mentioned the topic of pitchers falling apart prematurely. And it dawned on me that I think the best solution, most elegant at least, is to take— take a NASCAR sort of approach and have every team construct their own pitching machines, paintball guns, I guess, effectively. Have them operated by pitchers and fire them directly into the catcher’s gloves. Regulated, of course, you know, every— every team gets the same equipment. They’re— well, they can modify it however they please. It would save a lot on— save a lot on pitchers’ arms, and it would spark maybe a different kind of arms race in the league. Just an idea. Love the show.
BOBBY: What do you say? The ma— the machinification of baseball?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. I’m— I’m on board.
BOBBY: Joe, thank you for calling. Thank you for listening. Respectfully, I hate the idea. Not because like— not because it’s not interesting as a concept and not because it wouldn’t address all the problems in baseball, but just, like, it’s the same reason—
ALEX: I like seeing pitchers pitch.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. I like the differentiation—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —between deliveries, bodies, personalities, all these different things that you would just— just lose. Pitchers are weird, man. If it’s just a guy standing behind the machine operating it, I don’t know, like you and me could do that.
ALEX: Right. Max Scherzer, like, pacing around the mound, muttering to himself—
BOBBY: Pressing a button.
ALEX: —before inserting the baseball into the pitching machine.
BOBBY: It just doesn’t have the— quite the same effect. But it is interesting conceptually. I find that interesting about competitive racing as well.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Something I don’t really follow as closely as a lot of people do, but I’m aware of the different team efforts and technical challenges that come along with trying to build a race car. And that— the— you could be the best driver in the world, and because your team just built your shit car for that year, you just like finish in seventh.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s weird. Interesting. So that’s— that storyline material.
ALEX: That’s the Hamilton story right there.
BOBBY: Yeah. Although, what’s going on with him now? He’s racing worse than his teammate at the same—
ALEX: Because he’s checked out.
BOBBY: The Mercedes [1:12:04] Ferrari.
ALEX: He’s ready— he’s ready to go to Ferrari, man. Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: With an F1 podcast. I could do— I do really.
BOBBY: We don’t need more F1 podcast.
ALEX: No, we don’t. I do kind of like—
BOBBY: You’re a big [1:12:15] guy, right?
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-huh.
BOBBY: You like his whole vibe?
ALEX: Yeah. I would be really intrigued to see what MLB teams could come up with building the filthiest pitching machine you can, because like—
BOBBY: No one would be able to hit it.
ALEX: No one— right. If you’re worried about batters being able to hit pitchers now—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —like no one would be able to do it. You would have to set max velocities and that sort of thing [1:12:37]
BOBBY: Yeah, I think he’s suggesting— you— that— that exists in NASCAR.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So, like, there’s maximum— I believe, like maximum horsepower you’re allowed to have in the engine. I don’t think there’s a maximum velocity, obviously, because it’s racing. But there’s maximum things that you can put into it, right?
ALEX: Yes. Yeah.
BOBBY: So, I don’t know. I would be interested in watching like an alternate league that did something like that.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I would check that out, see how that goes.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But please protect my beautiful pitchers. Please protect them.
ALEX: Should we start doing like coach pitch in the Minor Leagues?
BOBBY: Coach pitch? I don’t know. We’ll check with Diamond Baseball Holdings, see what they have to say.
ALEX: Right. Yeah. Okay.
BOBBY: Pretty soon they’re gonna have the freedom to make that decision. Okay, next question.
NICK: Hey, guys, it’s Nick. Hopefully, you’re having a good day today. As one of the liaisons for the Tipping Pitches Slack community, which you can totally joining, by the way, I feel like it is my obligation to keep the rest of the podcast audience apprised of what is happening in that community. And there’s something in particular that’s been taking place over the last week that we really need your input on. Something that has been essentially tearing us apart for the last week or so. And it all stemmed from a tweet that was sent out on April 4th, that sent out, basically, a picture of all of the different score bugs for all the different team broadcasts. And basically, having people trying to figure out, which ones do they like better, which ones they don’t like, and that kind of started up conversation for us, and in particular, how the outs are displayed on the score bug. So there are really kind of three different categories here. One of which you can display the outs as like zero outs, and then spell out the word outs, one out, two outs, whatever. We can leave that aside. The real crux of the issue here is whether or not you display two dots to represent the amount of outs or three dots to represent the amount of outs. The two dots is probably the most common. You put that information there, you’re not wasting screen space. A lot of— again, a lot of teams have that there with three outs. Some people might say that it adds the additional context of giving someone who might not know about baseball. The context that you have to make three outs in order for the inning to change. So the Dodgers broadcast specifically, as well as the Apple TV broadcasts does three dots as opposed to two. Everyone else does two. So my question for both of you is, two dots or three dots?
BOBBY: First of all, Nick, hello, sir. Thank you for relaying what’s going on in the Tipping Pitches Slack community.
ALEX: That was a remarkable explanation of the lay of the land. I just want to say.
BOBBY: I mean, this is what he does, detail-oriented, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Stat head.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Nick and I are in a— in a, like, a blood feud right now.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I’m like hating on David Stearns, but also by team took David Stearns. He’s a Brewers fan.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: We clash every once in a while.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We can meet in the middle again. It’s like Socratic seminar. We get— we go at each other, but at the end of the day, we’re all locking arms in a circle. Do you have strong feelings about— I mean, I know you have strong feelings about score bugs and broadcasts aesthetics, as a graphic designer yourself. But do you— do you have strong feelings about the outs? Keep in mind, it’s better podcasting if you do have strong [1:15:58]
ALEX: I know. Right. I, against all odds, I think, like the three dots.
BOBBY: Oh, wow. Okay, great. This is great. Tell me why.
ALEX: Well, so—
BOBBY: Tell me why—
ALEX: —as— as Nick pointed out, the score bugs that employ this are mostly like national broadcasts, right? Like ESPN—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —Apple TV. Not— not Fox anymore, because—
BOBBY: Yeah. Just—
ALEX: —theirs is just an abomination these days.
BOBBY: —total nightmare. But he— he named the Dodgers.
ALEX: The Dodgers as well, I think, the only—
BOBBY: [1:16:29]
ALEX: —the national individual tea— right. Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: It’s almost impossible to watch them if you live in LA.
ALEX: I— I’ll— I’ll say, first of all, that I probably prefer just the numbers, like putting the, like, digit. Don’t make me count. You say— I’m— I have to do math to try and figure out how many outs there are right now.
BOBBY: When you see one or two, you have to count that manually? You have to be like one, two—
ALEX: No, I’m— no, I’m saying if you’re putting two dots there.
BOBBY: That’s what I’m saying, though. You see two dots, you have to be like, “That’s one.”
ALEX: That’s one.
BOBBY: “And that’s two.”
ALEX: That’s plus one. How many outs are there? Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: Fascinating.
ALEX: I don’t necessarily have a— have a well thought out rationale as to why I like three. I think it’s— it serves very little purpose, as— as noted, right? It’s—
BOBBY: Yeah, because once you get the third out, [1:17:13] go away.
ALEX: Once you get the third out, it like— it like flashes on the screen. They put the third out up there and then the score bug disappears. Anyway— but—
BOBBY: And then you hear a DraftKings ad.
ALEX: And then you hear a DraftKings ad. But I will say— and this is something that has— that some score bugs have run afoul of in the past is clarity on whether like the— the dots are filled in or not.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: You know, sometimes you will get like two dots up there and you’re like, “Are there two outs or are there no outs?
BOBBY: No outs? Yeah.
ALEX: And putting the third one in there, I mean, solves that issue. You’re never— because you’re always gonna see if there are two outs, there is a third spot there.
BOBBY: But there could be three outs and the ump just forgot.
ALEX: You— that’s— I didn’t even consider that.
BOBBY: Like Little League. You remember like when you played in Little League, it used to be like, “We have three outs.” And the ump would be like, “No. I think it’s two.”
ALEX: Not by my book. Not by my little clicker.
BOBBY: Be like hung over, potentially still drunk from the night before.
ALEX: I think most of the way that the— I don’t know. I’ve— I’m out, three dots.
BOBBY: So you side with ESPN and Apple is what you’re—
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Well—
BOBBY: That’s because—
ALEX: — and— and Guggenheim group,
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Investments, whatever.
BOBBY: That G on their jersey looks like shit.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It looks so bad.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It looks like something that I made in my fourth grade on Microsoft Word or—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: God, it looks bad. And it’s huge. It’s massive. We’re just doing the jersey patches on the episode again.
ALEX: Yup. Yeah. Yeah, we are.
BOBBY: I’m a two-dot person.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I don’t like extraneous information. I don’t need the third out. It’s— it’s fundamental to knowing that you’re watching baseball, that you know that there’s three outs. Like, even people who don’t know anything about baseball know that it’s like three outs and that ends the inning, right? Right?
ALEX: I— I guess, sure.
BOBBY: If you don’t know that there’s three outs to end an inning, you don’t know what an out is. So, like, it’s not going to help you to know that you have the third dot, right?
ALEX: Sure. Okay.
BOBBY: I just like how it looks better with the two— with the two dots filling that space, rather than when there might be two outs, that third dot never gets filled. That bothers me. I’m a completionist.
ALEX: See, I love it. It— it’s a reminder of like the—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —how—
BOBBY: The goal is always in front of you.
ALEX: Well, no, it’s a reminder that life is ultimately unfulfilling.
BOBBY: Much like baseball.
ALEX: There’s always going to be a dot that will never be filled. Sorry. Just the way it is.
BOBBY: That’s good stuff. I like that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I like that. Ultimately, I don’t really care.
ALEX: I don’t really, either.
BOBBY: I don’t really care. It does actually bother me when you can’t really tell how many outs there are.
ALEX: And that was the— the Bally Sports bug a few years ago had that issue and then I think they rectified it.
BOBBY: Yes. Yeah., I’m okay with it if you do it like three circles, and one is like— you know, when you have the out, it’s blue, and the other ones are kind of like translucent.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That makes it obvious enough for me. Yeah, I got nothing else on score bugs. Seemed like the Tipping Pitches community had strong feelings.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: They were ready to start an Alex Garland Civil War over it.
ALEX: I— I still maintain that you can just put two outs, the— the digit 2 and then the word outs.
BOBBY: Okay, let’s move on. Next question.
SPEAKER 8: Okay. So given that they’ve been having all these global games in the past couple of years, which I think are a good thing, to be clear. It does make me wonder how many years out we are from one in Doha or in Riyadh, that— like, not really an established fan base, just trying to make some sort of business connection with, like, oil and construction moguls. Yeah. Just— when’s that going to happen? Because it’s gonna happen. And who would be the other team besides the Yankees to play there? Thanks.
BOBBY: It would definitely be the Yankees.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Honestly, Subway Series in Riyadh, who says no?
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-hmm. We’re not that far out from it. And by— by say, like, we’re not that far out, I mean, like within 15 years.
BOBBY: Within 10 years, yeah.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Yeah. I agree.
ALEX: But, like, there was the news that there’s a baseball league in the UAE and that— it’s the first like professional baseball league in that region, where many former baseball— and former MLB stars who have joined in on that venture, guys like Robinson Cano, and Nick Swisher and Bartolo Colon.
BOBBY: Wait, are they playing?
ALEX: Wel—
BOBBY: Or are they like owning? Because if they’re playing, I’m interested. I’d like to watch Bartolo Colon.,
ALEX: They— I— are playing.
BOBBY: Oh, fuck. This episode brought to you by the UAE Baseball League.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Wow. Intriguing. Swisher, he’s been out of the league for a while.
ALEX: I get— maybe— yeah, no, these guy— Cano was drafted to a team and also is an investor.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm. This happens all the time in international leagues.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s like the Big3.
ALEX: Well, I don’t know what that means.
BOBBY: You don’t know what the Big3 is? The basketball league, where they play 3-on-3. It’s owned by Ice Cube. You know, for Caitlin Clark—
ALEX: Oh, right, right.
BOBBY: —like $20 million to play in—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —before the WNBA season starts and she said no. Now, that Caitlin Clark has come up, would you like to weigh in on the Caitlyn Clark debate?
ALEX: Good god. No, I want to talk about the Mumbai Cobras.
BOBBY: Okay. I— I think we’re very close to that. I mean, so far MLB’s international expansion has been targeted towards places that the fan base can grow. We’ve discussed on a few different occasions now at this point, why London? Probably because they speak English. And there’s more of a cultural transfer between those two countries. Why Asia? Baseball’s massive in Asia, They have yet to expand into South America where baseball is also big. Although, there is a series in Mexico City this year, I think.
ALEX: Right. Well, they take the talent from South America. They don’t bring the talent down there.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. They don’t need to bring the players back down there. They’ve already seen them all.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Those where exports.
BOBBY: But once they run out of places where baseball already exists, and where there’s a fan base that they can pull into their one baseball model, what’s next? It’s places that will give the money to further business connections. And in the sports world right now, that’s a lot of— that’s the UAE. There’s a lot of places in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia that have a lot of money that— to throw around. I mean, the Saudi Arabian government owns, like, 12 sports teams.
ALEX: Why not us?
BOBBY: You can— you can easily see a world in which they try to buy a baseball team.
ALEX: What—
BOBBY: Because I can see a world in which they try to buy the Yankees. How about that? They own Manchester City. Manchester City’s United States sister team is NYCFC. Do you know where NYCFC plays? Yankee Stadium?
ALEX: I—
BOBBY: They’re not gonna play there anymore, by the way. That’s where the Mets are building that stadium for them in Queens.
ALEX: I think that baseball owners are too jingoistic and nationalistic to allow actual foreign investment in foreign ownership of a team. At this— at this point in time—
BOBBY: I think yes now—
ALEX: —I think— I think once the Cohens and Rubinsteins are like—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: When there are more of them—
BOBBY: Once the globalists get in the game.
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: Fucking amazing. Okay, let’s move on.
MIKE: Hey, Tipping Pitches. This is Mike Schubert. Your favorite, most annoying, obnoxious Yankees fan. I had a question inspired by going to a recent Yankees game and realizing that it’s super easy to get to Yankee Stadium and whatever Shea Stadium is called now, Citi Field, right? Yeah. Uh-huh. By public transit. It’s annoying in other places, right? So what is the most annoying stadium to get to? Like, what is the farthest/most complicated stadium to get to via public transit from, like, the city center to the stadium of that team’s supposed city? Thank you very much.
ALEX: I don’t know.
BOBBY: I— I listened to this once when we were talking to Neil deMause, I think.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I think it’s Kansas City, is the least accessible stadium by public transit. You would have to walk, like, 10 miles. It might not be 10. It might be like five miles, but it’s like highway miles. So, like, you can play— you can’t walk there. You can’t bike there. It’s not possible. I’ve been to Kansas City. It’s true. You drive— it’s off the freeway. You can see the freeway in the outfield.
ALEX: Which like— I mean, to be clear—
BOBBY: As—
ALEX: —you are on— in favor. You were like, “I hopped in my Chevrolet.”
BOBBY: I drove there in my Chevrolet and—
ALEX: Young— young Bobby Moses over here.
BOBBY: I was like this is real— come on now. Come on.
[laughter]
ALEX: Okay. I’ll power through that one.
BOBBY: I’m not like the power broker. I can’t power through. No, man, I’m anti— I’m anti-Robert Moses, obviously. Not because of [1:26:48] racist.
ALEX: You thi— you think he didn’t build enough freeways.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. Have you ever driven on Long Island? It’s a fucking mess. Can I get a three lane? Can I get a four lane? No, just another two lanes. Thanks, Robert Moses.
ALEX: No, just one more lane, bro. I swear. My city just needs one more freeway lane.
BOBBY: Long Island Express is a— is a mess, man. It’s a mess.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: Have you ever been on that line? [1:27:10] Have you ever driven to Melville, worked at Newsday? No, you haven’t. You don’t know shit about that.
ALEX: No, I haven’t. I— I wouldn’t know.
BOBBY: So I think that Kansas City holds the belt. The— every stadium— every other stadium is hard to get to, for the most part. Not all of them, but honestly—
ALEX: Not the A’s stadium.
BOBBY: Well—
ALEX: The transit system drops you off right there.
BOBBY: RIP. Yeah, I don’t think it’s— it’s like not hard to get to the Giants, either, really. There’s a couple of different—
ALEX: Right. Right.
BOBBY: —options for how you can get there. Seattle, there’s good public transit options to get there. But the rest of the teams, I don’t know. I don’t want— I don’t want to speak for like Chicago. I’ve never been to either of those stadiums. Philly, it’s not super easy to get to, unless you live in a very specific part of Philadelphia that will take you on one of the two subway lines in Philadelphia. One goes north-south, one goes east-west. There’s just two, they cross. That’s it. Angel Stadium is really hard to get to. But by Mike’s standards, like how hard is it to get to from like the city center? I don’t— I don’t really know because Anaheim is, like, not really a city. It’s like a big suburb, sort of. I mean, it is the city. It’s like the biggest suburb, you know? Like that kind of vibe.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: But it’s just like— it’s— it’s literally located under a freeway. And on the opposite side is where the Anaheim Ducks play. It’s just under a freeway. You walk out of the parking lot. You’re under a freeway. So that’s not great in terms of public transit. And I don’t know. I— I don’t know about any of the Texas teams. I’ve never seen any of those teams. But Northeast Corridor, the Acela corridor.
ALEX: That’s the parks pretty easy to get to?
BOBBY: Very.
ALEX: I don’t know if you mentioned that.
BOBBY: Very easy to get to.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t know shit about Fenway. Have you ever been?
ALEX: It’s pretty easy. It’s like—
BOBBY: Probably hard to get to the Brewer stadium.
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: I had to take a guess. What do wonder boy David Stearns do about that, huh? I— I don’t think it’s too much to ask that there should be a train that drops off fans at every single stadium—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —in the United States of America.
ALEX: What about the gondola?
BOBBY: Yes. I’m so glad you said that, because that’s the stupidest idea ever.
ALEX: No, wait, are you serious? That’s an amazing idea.
BOBBY: The Dodger Stadium gondola?
ALEX: Oh, no, I was talking about the Oakland A’s proposed—
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: —gondola that would take you from downtown to— it would transfer like, you know, a dozen fans at a time.
BOBBY: The Dodger Stadium was exactly the same, because it’s a fucking gondola.
ALEX: Proof of concept. There you go.
BOBBY: There’s like— well, it doesn’t exist yet.
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: This is Eric Garcetti. He was like, “We’re doing the gondola, guys. Like, the gondola— forego on the gondola.”
ALEX: Stealing Kaval’s bit.
BOBBY: I think that they had it going before Kaval, so I think Kaval was the one that still— but we can have him on the pod if he asks.
ALEX: Kaval has been ideating on this—
BOBBY: Since college.
ALEX: —since he’s out of [1:30:09] the womb.
BOBBY: Yeah, out of the womb. [1:30:10] Yeah, exactly. The Dodger Stadium gondola is such a bad idea. God, they have buses that will bring you to Dodger Stadium, and they’re blocked by the traffic of the cars trying to get in Dodger Stadium. So what’s the point? I’ll just park somewhere very far and walk very far and walk. They— they would never put a train there. You know why? Because Chevrolet, because the car lobby, they won’t let you put a train anywhere in California.
ALEX: That’s why we need the loop, right? That’s why we need Elon. Dig that tunnel, bro.
BOBBY: Dig that tunnel, yes. Through a mountain, to Dodger Stadium.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That’s gonna go really well
ALEX: If anyone can do it. How does it work when you’re in the loop, and then it gets recalled, but you’re like stuck underground?
ALEX: Oh, right.
BOBBY: Like, if you— if— if you’re in a Tesla, when that inevitably gets recalled, you can just hopefully get out if it’s not on fire yet, because you’re above ground. You could maybe like flag someone down, call 911, but you’re underground in the loop. It gets stuck. It’s actively being recalled, no cell service. What’s the plan? How do we get out of that?
ALEX: In Elon we trust. I tweeted him, saying, “Sir, well, first I sign up for X premium.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: So that my replies are boosted to the top.
BOBBY: You posted him, by the way. You don’t tweet anymore.
ALEX: Sorry. Damn it.
BOBBY: It’s actually every [1:31:30] platform.
ALEX: I’ll get there one day. One day.
BOBBY: Can we end this podcast?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m ready to end this podcast?
ALEX: Shohei Ohtani. Homer, that’s bad.
BOBBY: That doesn’t matter. They already won the series.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: They took the first two. Easy-peasy.
ALEX: Easy.
BOBBY: This is just fucking gravy at this point.
ALEX: Exactly what I was gonna say.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: God. Always so in sync.
BOBBY: I feel really— that’s nice for Shohei Ohtani, he needed one, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s— anytime that a player can kind of build up some confidence, get off the Schneid, a player like him. When you’re standing across the diamond from Titans’ DJ Stewart, you just— it feels nice. You know? It’s like socialism for baseball. Let Ohtani have a couple.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: We don’t need them all, Tyrone Taylor. DJ Stewart.
ALEX: Yeah. Home runs for the many, man.
BOBBY: Spread them out. The— the Mets are better than the Dodgers. Okay.
ALEX: Your— your dog is barking which means it’s time for the show to end.
BOBBY: I don’t care. People told me to leave that in, so I’ll leave it in.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: I don’t care. Thank you, everybody, for listening. More importantly, thank you everybody who called in or wrote in for this week’s mailbag. It was fruitful. It was fun. I’m glad that we could spend some time answering some listener questions that have been building up over the last couple of weeks. Since it’s been a while since we answered— directly answered listener questions between just coming back all the topics that we had to cover the hiatus that we took. It’s nice to chat indirectly with so many of you. As a reminder, Patreon bonus episodes, we had a great one this past week. A 3UP, 3DOWN in which Alex— Alex’s segment about buildsubmarines.com, made me laughed harder than I’ve ever laughed on this podcast. So you can access that entire back catalogue, patreon.com/tippingpitches. That will also get you access to the Slack, where there’s spirited and heated debate and discussion about many a topic, as Nick relayed in his question. I think that’s everything I have for us. And we will be back next week.
SPEAKER 10: Needed a change of scenery. You miss a place you’ve never been. But I suffocate up mountains. And I sink in every sea, so let me be. Vicariously living life through me. When all I want—
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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