Alex and Bobby discuss the latest AI innovation (quoting fake stats with its chest), break down the Perfect Game/Fanatics partnership and what it means for the future of youth baseball, and ponder the prospect of “nationalized” TV rights in the wake of Rob Manfred’s comments, then unleash top sunflower seed power rankings in a new segment. Links: Perfect Game, Fanatics deal has agents raising concerns F.C. Rancho Cucamonga (feat. Ryan O’Hanlon) Could MLB nationalize its media rights? Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon Tipping Pitches merchandise Songs featured in this episode: 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: Yep, cracking a cold one on a Sunday afternoon with the boys. And by cold one, I mean, an— an Olipop digestive healthy soda.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: No free ads. However, I have had multiple times reached out to Olipop and asked if they would like to sponsor this podcast, which we have repeatedly told people is ad-free on principle, but it’s actually ad-free because no one wants to sponsor it. And Olipop has said, “You are welcome to post about us on Instagram.” And I was like, “That’s not really what I asked, but thanks anyway. Thanks for the response.”
ALEX: Right. But then you decided you would keep advertising them on our podcast anyway.
BOBBY: The product is just so good. You know?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: What you can’t say—, I am a critic of capitalism, of course, but what you can’t say is that I’m not honest about the brands that cut through, Olipop, Major League Baseball, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola. What else should I keep going? Shure, the microphone brand.
ALEX: Shure. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Anything else?
ALEX: It— it harkens back to a— to a time when this country actually made something.
BOBBY: And now, our country is run by the people over at Google, who— they’ve let us know that it’s a whole new ballgame with AI. This is a tweet from dead_ baseball on Twitter. They asked Google, “Who is the— who was the home run leader in MLB in 2021?” And Google returned the search, Salvador Perez led 2021 MLB in home runs with 48. Followed by Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. with 604, Shohei Ohtani with 537. Marcus Semien with 652. He’s third, by the way, 652. And Fernando Tatis, Jr. with 478. That’s AI. That’s what this country makes now.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: What’s going on there?
ALEX: What— I was— I was about to ask you the same thing.
BOBBY: Those can’t even be the home run distances, because no home run that was hit—
ALEX: No. I—
BOBBY: —by Vlad Guerrero, Jr. went 604 feet.
ALEX: No, it sounds like a list of all-time home run leaders and the list of current baseball players got merged somehow.
BOBBY: Right, but followed by Vlad Guerrero, Jr. with 604 and then Ohtani with 537, but then Marcus Semien is in fourth with 652? So—
ALEX: What, does that surprise you? You think he couldn’t do that?
BOBBY: —what we’ve learned here is that not only does—
ALEX: The contract that he got after 2021 makes a lot more sense to me, I’ll just say.
BOBBY: You’re just bitter because the A’s didn’t give him that contract. Okay?
ALEX: Right, exactly. I— I saw him with my own eyes hit 400— whatever home runs.
BOBBY: 652 home runs for Marcus Semien.
ALEX: Oh, he was 6— got it. Okay.
BOBBY: So what AI can’t do is answer the question, number one, and it also can’t order numbers by magnitude. So we’re talking about, like, a kindergarten level of—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —analysis here. It’s a whole new—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —ballgame with AI, though. Statcast powered by Google Cloud, a whole new ballgame, AI.
ALEX: It is really funny that AI just kind of perpetually is going to be able to do most of the things that folks say that it can do right now. And the remaining 20% is throwing things that have never possibly been true, and likely never will be true. And it’s up to you, the reader, to figure out what that 20% is.
BOBBY: This is just too delicious of a— of a— a cold open for me to resist. I originally had planned to start the cold open by tipping my cap to one Michael Baumann, came on the podcast last week, Powerbrokers Draft. We put the poll up on X, the Everything App. Please vote in our polls on X, the Everything App, where democracy happens. And the result of that poll was that Michael Baumann won 44%, followed by me at 30%, followed by you at 26%. See, the normies got into this poll. That’s why you got 26%.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They were like, “Dick Monfort, he’s the owner of the Rockies. They’re an embarrassment.’” But they’re the normies, they don’t understand how much power he wields.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You got— you got host, I’ll give you that.
ALEX: I— I think that I did not follow proper, I don’t know, polling hygiene practice, you know? I— the— the teams are referred to you by our last name and then the poll asks, which team won by first name? And I think that likely threw off a lot of people, and people—
BOBBY: Oh. You think all the people voting for our poll didn’t know that your team Bazeley?
ALEX: Right. Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Interesting thought. So you’re saying scrap it, restart—
ALEX: The straws are all around start and I’m just trying to grasp them right now.
BOBBY: Scrap it, restart, redo the election, is what you’d like to—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —put onto the podcast?
ALEX: What I’m saying is they have to recount the votes.
BOBBY: Congratulations to Michael Baumann. Kind of foul play, frankly, choosing Donald Trump first overall, putting it onto Twitter. You know? The guy pulls well on Twitter. We know this.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, a little— a little pandering—
BOBBY: That’s the crowd you want to associate with?
ALEX: —if you ask me.
BOBBY: Okay. We have a good episode lined up for you today. We are finally going to talk at great length about the Fanatics and Perfect Game, crossover event of the century, doing really good stuff for the world, doing really good stuff for the baseball community. We’re going to talk about MLB, Rob Manfred finally coming around and saying, “Nationalize baseball.” We’re here, we did it.
ALEX: That’s right, brother.
BOBBY: And then we’re going to close the podcast with a brand-new segment that we invented over dinner two weeks ago. I can’t wait for you guys to hear it. Before we do all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
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BOBBY: Alex, we’re kicking this week off by talking about your good friend, Michael Rubin, over at Fanatics and all of the fine folks over at Perfect Game who are trying to bring access to baseball development to anyone and everyone who is willing to pay them hundreds of dollars every couple of months. This is something that we discussed on Patreon feed a bit this past week. On Thursday, we had a 3UP 3DOWN which we are doing every other Thursday on the Patreon feed. You might have noticed a random 15-minute teaser dropped into your feed on Friday last week. That’s what that was. You can sign up for the Patreon at patreon.com/tippingpitches. These four people signed up last week, maybe they already heard us discuss the really normal and not at all dystopian partnership between Fanatics and Perfect Game on the Patreon feed on Thursday, in full. Those new patrons this week are Jimmy, Laura, Sir Lancelot, and Ivy. I know that this Fanatics and Perfect Game thing cropped up, a lot of people got mad. We haven’t had a chance to talk about it on the main feed yet, because last week, we were doing The Power Brokers Draft that made the Patreon, 3UP 3DOWN. Not a ton of time to go into our normal depth as you would on something that is this right in our lane, but I know that this is a personal interest story for you. It seems like this one has gotten you riled up a little bit, so I’m gonna let you do the honors of introducing what exactly it is that Fanatics and Perfect Game are cooking up over there. Something good. Something good, I think.
ALEX: Something good, absolutely. The— the latest chapter in the story of Perfect Game and its vise grip over youth baseball was opened a couple of weeks ago, Brittany Ghiroli over at The Athletic wrote a— a piece about the new Perfect Game and Fanatics deal that would basically see kids who are participating in Perfect Game showcases games, having their— having baseball cards made of them, their name, image, and likeness used and monetized by Fanatics. So Fanatics will produce and distribute trading cards and collectibles of Perfect Game athletes under this deal, and then grant some exclusive rights to manufacture, market, and sell these items, including at Perfect Game events. Now, this is not entirely out of the blue. Perfect Game has— has evolved into the behemoth that it is right now, has been a place where trading collectibles around the stars of the future has been kicked around and— and done before. Perfect Game has collaborated with Topps in the past, who create trading cards, although that initially was not meant to profit, but more meant to stoke kind of excitement about the events, about this next generation of players. Of course, folks will see that and say, “Well, how can I make money off of that?” And all of a sudden, these cards started to gain value. And now, we’re in the situation where you have Fanatics, which is growing its footprint in baseball, in terms of being the conduit for how you, I don’t know, purchase any sort of memorabilia related to it.
BOBBY: Right. They’re like the merchandise overlords.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: And they’ve ruined the experience for basically everybody involved.
ALEX: Yes, exactly. So this new deal will basically require young players who are participating in Perfect Game events to sign a waiver, basically, saying, “You give us your rights to your name, image, and likeness. We get to use it. We get to make collectibles. We get to make trading cards.” And in exchange, you get to participate in the showcase, which you are already paying exorbitant amounts of money to participate in. Oh, and you don’t get to make any of the money off of your image.
BOBBY: Well, did you expect to—
ALEX: All that good stuff.
BOBBY: Did you expect to make the money off your own image?
ALEX: Right. It’s already [10:33] trading cards.
BOBBY: Were you expecting that? What [10:36]
ALEX: I assume Michael Rubin is— is singlehandedly cutting out each piece of cardboard and pasting the photos on himself.
BOBBY: Right. You’re telling me that the kids think that they have the means of production to be able to make their own trading cards— and that they should make money from that? Come on. Michael Rubin is taking the risk here. He’s putting the capital in. You understand this as a ruthless capitalists yourself.
ALEX: Right. Yes, exactly. Fanatics, as we talked about— I mean, it’s already staked its claim in the kind of the Major League Baseball memorabilia market. It acquired Topps, the trading card company, recently as well, right? So this is just— feels like another step in that direction of trying to consolidate its power and say, “If you want to deal with MLB, if you want to deal with Perfect Game, you have to deal with us.” I believe we talked with Rob Mains years ago, about the idea of rent seeking in baseball, and it feels like one of the most, like, relevant ideas that we come back to over and— and over again, as we see in the sport, that any opportunity to make a little bit of money off the players themselves, well, we should take advantage of that, right?
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: If there’s a way to— elbow your way into the table, you can do that. On the Patreon feed, we talked about Finley, the— the new startup in which you can invest in young players’ future earnings, you know? I personally don’t have enough predatory loans that I’ve given out in my own life, and Finley makes it easy for me.
BOBBY: Hmm, like a one-stop shop for predatory loans in the sport that you love.
ALEX: Exactly. Exactly.
BOBBY: They have an app? They, like, integrated into Robinhood maybe?
ALEX: Don’t give them that idea.
BOBBY: Well, I give away good ideas for free on here all the time. If Rob Manfred would ever listen, he could just become the people’s commissioner, but he doesn’t. I’m giving away free shit all the time, like ads for Olipop, advice to Rob—
ALEX: He’s not the people’s commissioner yet.
BOBBY: Robinhood partnership opportunities. Not yet. He will be, though.
ALEX: We’ll— we’ll see.
BOBBY: We’ll talk about that.
ALEX: He will be. Yes.
BOBBY: Good work by you.
ALEX: I don’t know. Let’s talk about this. I— it seems bad overall. It’s— it’s worth noting that agents, kind of across the board, are rightfully calling out that the young players are probably getting raw deal. You have players who want to be seen by Major League scouts. You know, through which Perfect Game is the place where you can do that. It is the premier space for competitive baseball players, for better or for worse, right? And this puts a lot of kids and their families in a really tough spot, because your hands are kind of tied here. Where else are you gonna go? There is no Perfect Game 2, although maybe that’s our next business venture. We’ll see.
BOBBY: I think that potentially our listeners would prefer if we did not get into the youth baseball space, but who knows? I could be wrong.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I—
ALEX: All right. Well, we could put a poll up on X, the Everything App.
BOBBY: Right, exactly. That’s where democracy happens. That’s where we execute our democracy. Let’s back up a little bit. Let’s talk about what Perfect Game is for a second so that we have the proper context in this conversation. And for our listeners who maybe don’t know that much about Perfect Game, didn’t grow up playing, you know, competitive circuit baseball, Perfect Game, I would say, rose to prominence what, like, kind of around the time that we were playing youth baseball. I don’t remember it being as dominant then as it was by the time we started doing this podcast, certainly.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It is a— an allegedly independent organization for youth baseball development that puts on tournaments— pri— primarily tournaments and showcases, where top youth baseball players starting in middle school, and really peaking in high school, come to these showcases, these tournaments, they run through drills, they get scouted. They— I joked on the Patreon feed that Perfect Game will charge you about a $1,000 for them to rate— or how fast you throw from shortstop to first base, because it seems like every time you see a short— every time you see a Perfect Game video, it’s like someone with— someone taking a ground ball at shortstop and throwing it as hard as they can to first base, as if that is something that you have to do all the time.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, that’s— that’s what makes you a good baseball player, right? It’s like I’m gonna get a cherry hop ground ball at shortstop, and I’m gonna throw it 109 miles an hour to first base. First overall pick, that’s me.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: But they put on these drills, they have coaches, instructors, scouts. They have become a national organization. They pretty much are, like you said, the behemoth of youth baseball development and scouting, and thought of to be more advanced than, like, school baseball, you know? Because you have such a variance between how competitive a high school baseball team could be. And whether it’s like a public school or prep school, whether scouts are going to come all the way out to your high school baseball tournaments. See, this is like— this cuts out the middleman, in theory, even though, it— more— more so replaces the middleman and makes it easier for scouts, MLB teams, college scouts to come to the showcase and say, “Okay. I see this person. I don’t have to go watch their high school baseball game in order to see this player. I can see them against competition that I think is also good.” It’s not the worst idea, in practice, but as you said, and as we’ve discussed on the show, Perfect Game is— is a textbook example— a textbook example of a rent seeker in the baseball world. They charge families hundreds of dollars for you to be able to come to the showcase, because they say that it pays for the cost of doing business, of putting these showcases on. Sometimes these showcases happen at Major League venues. Some of the most famous videos of high school baseball players were probably at, like, Perfect Game events, you know? Like they put on a Home Run Derby. They put on, like, an all— like all-star matchups by grade level. Like, they do all of this stuff, and it’s supposedly to— to give you a chance to be seen. But the problem is, as with all things in youth sports development— baseball is no exception. In fact, baseball is probably like the shining example of this. It’s pay to play, man. Like you got to pay your way to get there. And I’m sure Perfect Game has some sort of like— to borrow a phrase from our friends over at Ticketmaster and Live Nation Dynamic Pricing, I’m sure that they— there are some sort of like Perfect— there’s probably like some sort of like Perfect Game scholarship where, like, cost relief thing that you can apply for, but it’s like so few and far between for you to be able to have the opportunity to go to Perfect Game. You have to be both good enough to get invited, and you have to have the scratch cash to be able to pay your way to go there and be seen. So we’re already weeding out so many people, and we’re already taking away those who maybe don’t have the financial ability to pay their way to get there. Or maybe just geographically. Or if we’re being more honest, has less to do with geography and more to do with, like, intentional segregation. Don’t— don’t have the ability to be seen by someone who might invite you to a Perfect Game showcase to begin with. And all that leads to like a lot of top prospects being left behind by Perfect Game, which is a sort of separate but inter— interlinked issue. And then on top of that, they double down with something like Fanatics. They double down and they say, “You already had to be in the 1% of the 1% to even make it to this point. Now, in addition to that, you have to be willing to stomach the fact that we’re going to sell baseball cards of you, sell merchandise of you when you’re a teenager, and we’re going to make money on that so that we can make it more sustainable for Perfect Game and Fan— Fanatic can take their cut of the pie, too.” Because they always have to come in here and be like, “Hey, guys, we’re here. What can we do? How can we make things worse for everybody? How can we make things worse for the majority of people so that Michael Rubin can make some money?” You have to be willing to just be like, “Fine, whatever. That’s okay. I don’t need that money. I don’t need my cut of my name, image, and likeness. And so, ultimately, like, what— what is this doing? It’s just making it less palatable to be a youth baseball player. Why— why would you do this? Why would you put up with Perfect Game shit? So that you could get drafted into the Minor Leagues and have to wait three years to get called up and then wait six years so you can get your pay day? Which is also a pipe dream. I just don’t— they want baseball— and we’re going to talk about this in a few minutes. They want baseball to be more national. Well, then, stop siphoning off every stage of the process. Stop making it so clique-y in a generous term. Stop making it so segregated in a not so generous terminology, to ever even be involved in baseball from a young age. What is the number one thing that makes you want to be a baseball fan? You grew up playing baseball. Fewer people are growing up playing baseball, and that’s the reason that people don’t care as much about it. Say what you want about TV rights, regional sports networks, whatever. Like baseball’s not cool anymore because nobody plays it.
ALEX: I— as— as we have had these conversations over the last few weeks about this story, about Finley, and about other similar stories, I have found myself coming back to this idea of like, what— the point of this is— like, why— like, why do we watch baseball? And why do kids play baseball? For a select few, and maybe because they have an incredible talent, that will likely get them to the Major Leagues, or they want to at least try. For most kids, it’s because they want to have fun with their friends, and maybe they have watched Julio Rodrigo hitting bombs, and they’re like, “I think I could do that. Check out my [20:43]”
BOBBY: Julio Rodrigo? You’re crushing some Olivia Rodrigo tape recently?
ALEX: Yeah, right, exactly. This coffee cup is— is empty. What is the point of monetizing youth sports?
BOBBY: Yeah. Great question.
ALEX: What is the bene— what is the benefit to the kids who occupy these spaces?
BOBBY: Right. Is it— is it adding to their experience? Likely not. Is it benefiting them in the long run? It doesn’t appear to be. Beyond, again, the exclusive access that this gives you to a network of MLB scouts and Minor League scouts, and— and coaches and trainers, et cetera. It— it— this puts you— participating in Perfect Game puts you in the right environment, but it does not speak to the overall idea of the point of view of sports, which is that kids should probably be out exercising and having fun with each other, and learning how to play on a team. And I— it feels like we have very rapidly slipped away from the question of, why we ask kids to participate in sports towards this idea of specialization, players choosing to do one sport, choosing to play one position? Because in hopes of an ultimate payday. That if you have all the right support, if you have all— if you do everything right at each step of the way, you too can have a shot. And I just think that’s misguided and it leads to situations like this.
BOBBY: It’s— it strikes me as not so dissimilar from this recent wave of legislation, and also just illegal activity that companies have been partaking in trying to just use child labor, where it’s like we are professionalizing young people’s lives at such an early age. We are turning them into brands. We’re turning them into stars. We’re turning them into moneymakers. We’re basically saying, “Your job is not to grow up. Your— your job is not to grow up, not to go to school, not to focus on these things. Your— your job is to— to do all of that. Otherwise, we start a cultural war about what school looks like, and how we’re not getting people the right education anymore in this country. And also at the same time, to be thinking about your future financially and setting yourself up for future economic prosperity. And part of that process is like taking your lumps at each step of the way, and allowing Fanatics and allowing Perfect Game to monetize your name, image, and likeness. And then one day, there’s this future payday, which by the way, if it doesn’t come, don’t come back to us. We’re focusing on other stuff now.” You know? Don’t come back to us asking why it didn’t happen. Don’t say, “Why did I give away all this leverage? Why did I give away my rights on this? Why did I give away my ability to control what you do with my name, image, and likeness, that I can be seen by a scout who actually doesn’t give a shit about me, probably? Who’s there to see someone else, you know? Who, probably, by the way, already has $100,000 a year trainer, who’s training him and would have gotten him seen by scouts anyway. They’re all just there to watch the same seven prospects, you know?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: This Per— Perfect Game is not making stars. They’re just collating them all into one place so scouts don’t have to travel as far, you know? That’s what they’re doing. That’s— that’s the business. And I— it— it actually just— does make me a little bit insane, that everything has to be run, like, a business, and everything has to be balanced like a balance sheet, you know? Everything has to be, like, financially balanced like a balance sheet at the end of the year, or else we— we actually— like in this country, we believe that it should be ethered off the face of the planet. Like, there’s nothing worth spending money on. There is only something worth investing in the future. Because when you asked that question, that’s what I thought. When you ask the question, why do we need to make money off youth sports? Because there’s so much intangible and tangible good. Intangible in that it helps mental health to grow up playing sports, you know? Some of my greatest memories in life are thinking back to, like, playing team sports, baseball, basketball, football with my friends, honestly. And that’s why I feel so attached to sports now. And the tangible benefits, the health benefits, the— the safety benefits, the places for people to go, so that parents can— if they need to work, multiple jobs to make ends meet. Like all of these things that use sports, we could think of them as like— instead of thinking this as— thinking of this as wasting money on youth sports, and trying to turn it into some sparkling, little diamond of capitalism, we could just think of this as like, “That’s a good cost. That’s a good thing to spend money on.” Same way we could with libraries, same way we could with public transit, same way we could— we could with all of these services that communal infrastructure is supposed to provide to us. But we don’t get to have any of those things, because in this country, we’re still, like, weirdly operating on the idea that everything is business, which is like an idea that came from, like, the 1910s. You know, the 1910s and 1920s, like that— the— the business of America’s business, the Calvin Coolidge quote, that guy started the Great Depression. And Ronald Reagan ran that shit back, like, 50 years later, and he was like, “No, actually, this is good this time. I swear. This is good this time.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Wolf in sheep’s clothing, we’re— we’re okay with it. You know? Like, we should have just— 30 minutes in, we can’t be talking about Reagan. But you know what I’m saying, right? You understand what I mean?
ALEX: I do. I really— like— and— and in terms of entities that need to be nationalized in the broader baseball world, like Perfect Game might be at the top of my list right now.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like having an actual equitable space, where folks who want to play baseball, whether they’re interested in pursuing it as a career or not, can— can come together and have fun. Like, that feels like— to your— to your point earlier, if you want to grow the game, that feels like a worthy cause. And that’s not to say that MLB is investing nothing in the youth sports. They have their play ball initiative, and they work closely with the Perfect Game, you know? They rely on the systems and send little copies [27:05]
BOBBY: And Little— and the Little League, too. Like—
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: The Per— Perfect Game is like their— their elite development and Little League is like, “They’re okay. We’re developing, like, probably future fans, if we’re being honest.” That’s how they see it.
ALEX: Right. I don’t know. I just— when you’re talking about 15 and 16-year-olds who are needing like, you know— who— who are being advised to maybe bring a lawyer into the room to sign the contract, so that you can go play in the showcase tomorrow. Like, we’ve— we’ve gone too far. We need to— like we need to shut this down until we figure out what’s going on.
BOBBY: Reset. Reset. Reset.
ALEX: Literally.
BOBBY: This is a five-alarm fire. What are we doing? Please—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —sto— make it stop, make it stop. But I mean, this is what happens, you know? You ask— you give a lawyer a hammer, all they see is a nail. You know? You put a bunch of lawyers in the room, you put a bunch of business people in the room, all they see is a business opportunity. All they see is a complicated legal loophole to make more money off of this. That’s what this is. I mean, these are the people who are in charge. People who run Perfect Game are not good people. They’re not good people. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be doing stuff like this. They might like baseball. They might think they know about baseball development. You know, they might hear two guys talking on the podcast but, you know, nothing about baseball development. I don’t really care. I don’t really care about baseball development. Like good— good for the five people a year that you actually get to the draft. Congratulations. I mean, like that’s not helping the millions of children who should have that access to playing baseball. It’s not. And you allegedly are in youth baseball development, but you’re not. You’re in career advising. That’s where you’re in. Let’s reframe that a little bit. I have a lot of venom for— for Perfect Game.
ALEX: Yeah. No, we— yeah. It’s the— our conversation about this thing has been long overdue and it will not be the— the— the last time I think we talk about the insidious presence of Perfect Game in youth sports, because these— Major League Baseball, like, largely rests on the work that Perfect Game does right now. Like, it is the pipeline into professional baseball.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And that fucking sucks. Well, it’s like—
BOBBY: That’s—
ALEX: It’s probably not a good thing.
BOBBY: In— in— there’s AAU Baseball, you know—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: AAU, Amateur Athletic Union. Kind of makes it sound like a workers union. Doesn’t really function like that.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: AAU is like a— a collection— it’s a— it’s a— an organization kind of like Perfect Game, but like bigger, looser, less structured. They put on tournaments. Notably, they put on tournaments in a lot of sports, football, soccer, baseball. You— you form a team that is not associated with a school, basically. It’s like a travel team, like a club team. And you go to these tournaments that AAU puts on. They have a national championships. It’s huge in basketball. And it’s problematic in a lot of ways, because, well, it costs a lot of money for a lot of these teams to start, but it also prioritizes the type of youth development that maybe doesn’t actually make you a good player, but— because you play, like, eight games in a weekend for a basketball tournament, and you’re not actually getting that much out of it, besides running yourself into the ground, and you’re trying to win, you want to win youth sports, because everybody wants to win. But you’re really not working on actually becoming a better player, and setting yourself up for the future anymore. But AAU can be fun. I had a great time playing AAU Basketball growing up. Even that is better than Perfect Game, because what— what AAU is saying and what AAU culture is saying is, like, get your team together, pay the tournament fee, come here, play. It’s a— it’s a competitive tournament. They’re not saying like, “Pay us hundreds of— pay us hundreds or thousands of dollars a year to ever even set foot in the door and be seen by anybody.” So it’s like an even more elitist interpretation of an— an adjacent to school sports development. You know? Honestly, I know that we’ve talked about doing more of an in— in-depth look at like youth development. We did an episode with my old coworker, Ryan O’Hanlon a couple years ago about the differences between youth development in soccer in— largely Europe, but much of the international world, the club model, versus how youth development in baseball happens here. Or even how soccer development happens here. We’re probably overdue for another state of— state of the game when it comes to youth development here. And bringing on some experts and talking about really what this picture looks like, updating our interpretation of it. But, like, the more I think about it, the more it seems like it actually should just be more tied to school, should be more tied to like public education, it should be more democratized in that way. Because where you start getting into tricky territory, is like trying to imply that the club version, the private version, which oh, by the way, is hundreds of dollars more expensive. Every year, thousands of dollars more expensive, every year is better, is more elite, is more conducive to setting you up to be a better baseball player in the future. And that might be true, because we’ve— we’ve abandoned schools, we’ve abandoned budgets, we’ve abandoned funding public education and everything that comes with it. So it’s so such an interconnected problem, all of these things create the vacuum that opens up space for something like an AAU or something even more sinister, like a Perfect Game.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, I think we are hurtling towards a world where there will need to be serious reforms or, like, legal safeguards on this sort of thing, which is always— it’s always good when that conversation pops up the same time you have a new business venture, you know? It’s like— like, we are already having to anticipate how we’re gonna have to put safety measures around this, to protect your core market in the future, which is— which is like how the— how this works, right? You ask for forgiveness later. You don’t say, “What is the right way of going about this?” You say, “Well, we’ve found the way that will make the most money, but it’s not, by the book, illegal right now. And then we’ll deal with the fallout when it happens. And we’ll work with the regulators, and the politicians, and the parents— probably not them, but like, you know—
BOBBY: Some of the parents.
ALEX: We’ll work— we’ll work with necessary parties to make sure that we can continue to do what we’re doing, but then everyone else feels like hunky dory about it.
BOBBY: We’ll work with the parents who know the politicians and the regulators.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. Because now— and— because now you set a precedent. Now, everyone— it’s like, “All right, well, Fanatics and Perfect Game already have a relationship. So what do we do to make sure that they at least have a good relationship?” Like they— you move the Overton Window on what is actually possible in youth sports.
BOBBY: Alex, speaking of Byzantine structures that lead to baseball leaders trying to squeeze the most juice out of the orange, how about that for segue?
ALEX: Wonderfully done. Wonderfully done.
BOBBY: Let’s talk about TV rights, one of our favorite topics of the last two, three years. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, cord cutting, number one.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: RSNs struggling to make money.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Having a hard time. Diamond Sports Group, tough time negotiating with Comcast. Comcast came to play hardball, and they are not showing Diamond Sports Group Valley Sports on their channels, which means 14 million people across the United States just can’t watch their teams. They just can’t, at the moment. And all of this confusion, all of this uncertainty leads quite a few people to ask the people in charge, such as Rob Manfred, what’s going on? What’s the future of watching baseball look like? This is a question that has been posed to Rob Manfred many times because we see the momentum of the regional sports network model starting to run out. However, we know that that is something that financially teams have staked their entire liquidity on, more or less. They have money. They get wired tens of millions of dollars from cable— cable channels, from regional sports networks, and then the rest of their money is tied up in loans, very complicated, low interest loans, that people at Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan are very happy to give over. Don’t forget Bank of America, Merrill Lynch. Can’t leave them out in court.
ALEX: [36:12] I never do.
BOBBY: And so this is a big issue. This is a big-ass problem if that money stops coming in, because then all you have is loans. Where’s the money coming from? You know, there’s— there’s gate receipts. Cool couple, you know, tens of millions dollars a year. We can make that work, right? No, probably not, actually.
ALEX: Well, but that goes straight to the field, so it’s not like the owners ever see any of that money anyway.
BOBBY: Well, no, I thought that it actually goes to the workers, right? I mean, they get paid handsomely. Everybody who serves you a hotdog isn’t really getting their fair share, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: So there was a story written by Evan Drellich, reporting that the league, namely Rob Manfred, who is going to be Commissioner until 2029, so he has five years to turn the tide on this or to start to try to plant some seeds about what this might look like for the next Commissioner, who we know is going to be your friend and mine, Morgan Sword.
ALEX: Team Bazeley’s very own, Morgan Sword.
BOBBY: Morgan, please come on the podcast. We’ll be friendly to the Sword regime.
ALEX: We will.
BOBBY: As—
ALEX: This is— this is— we have to start planting the seeds now.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: You know?
BOBBY: This— the olive branch growing right here out of my microphone stand. It’s going out the window, it’s leading its way to Fifth Avenue. Okay?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. We can— we can be the place where you reach the other side, you know?
BOBBY: We’ll come to him. You know, we’ll bring some microphones. We’ll bring a kit. We’ll go to Fifth Avenue. We’ll go up to the commissioner’s office. All he has to do is sit down, talk 15 minutes, in and out. Done. The time it takes you to eat a sandwich. All right?
It would be perfect. Change hearts and minds, Morgan, hear me out. Rob Manfred seems like he started to plant seeds that they need to explore other options, that the RSN model is okay for the short term, although turbulent for some teams, smaller market teams, notably. Medium term, eh, starting a little— look a little sketchy. Long term, definitely not, definitely not. We need to explore as it was put by Evan Drellich reporting these— to explore nationalizing these rights, which is something that the NFL has had success with, because it has lesser inventory and is also much more popular, where all of the rights are sold as part of one package, either to— which means they wouldn’t be broadcast on cable channels that are only available to people in a certain mile radius. They’d be broadcast on channels, that could be cable, or they could be basic cable that are available in theory to everybody in the United States if you have a television package. Or more interestingly to you and I, young, millennial Gen Z cusp that we are, they can be broadcast on streaming, and maybe they could sell those rights even— they could sell those rights separately, or they could sell them as a package. It’s all very confusing. Byzantine is the word we keep coming back to. Love that word, great podcast word. What do you make of Rob Manfred saying, “Maybe it’s time to centralize all these rights together and sell all 30 at once. Maybe it’s time to all start rowing in the same direction and stop letting the big market owners hoard their cash. We need to spread it out more evenly.” Socialists Rob Manfred, what say you, Alex Bazeley?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Socialism for me, but not for the.
ALEX: I think I would love to hear how the Steinbrenners reacted to this proposal.
BOBBY: Well, we know George sent his spirit out of the Earth towards Rob Manfred to scare him at night.
ALEX: Yes. Do you think Rob Manfred gets night terrors from George Steinbrenner, just hovering over his bed? “Don’t take away YES from me.”
BOBBY: I think so. Yeah.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: If we get rid of YES, does that mean we can get rid of Michael Kay?
Because I could get behind an idea like this.
ALEX: Okay. All right.
BOBBY: Now, we’re talking.
ALEX: See [40:10]
BOBBY: This is— exactly, exactly. If Joe Biden came out in one of the two presidential debates that he’s going to have with Donald Trump, which we’re going to, you know, live podcast afterwards, both of us.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: Knowing that the number one power broker is on the stage. If Joe Biden came out, and he was like, “Listen, my only issue is we got to fire Michael Kay.” I’d be like, “You actually do have my vote now, Joe.”
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: “You actually do.”
ALEX: Speaking to the common man.
BOBBY: And as we know that Joe Biden needs to win over New York. You know, that’s a tough state.
ALEX: Right. Right, exactly. I— I think it’s great. You know, I think it’s a little easy for him to say right now, that after the past decade of— sort of— of chaos surrounding how MLB games are distributed, I think that it would be uncontroversial to say, “We need to find a better way to do this.” And this is an idea that is also not new, right? It’s been kicked around that Major League Baseball might be interested in trying to claw back the local media rights for its teams. The, like, in network rights, right? MLB already controls the— the rights to games that are out of network, right? Which is why you can reach—
BOBBY: Market— out of market.
ALEX: Sorry, out of market. Yes.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Which is why, you know, in New York, I can watch A’s games, or Mariners games, and also why I can’t watch Mets games or Yankees games, you know?
BOBBY: Uh-hmm. That’s why you and I had cable in college.
ALEX: Correct. Exactly.
BOBBY: Which is sick. Such a sick move. We had the gigabit connection and cable. We were living the dream. We don’t—
ALEX: We were like, “Should we get a corded phone?”
BOBBY: They— they came in, we sold it.
ALEX: We— I know.
BOBBY: Sometimes it would ring and it would always be a telemarketer, but I would always get excited.
ALEX: We were like, “How did you find this number? Like, are you just going through the phonebook?”
BOBBY: Do you think we were listed in the phonebook? I never checked that.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Can you—
ALEX: How often does that get updated?
BOBBY: Can you— can I just, like, walk to the store and buy a phonebook? Where would you— here’s a question. If you walked out of your front door right now, what— where would you go to find a phonebook?
ALEX: I don’t know. Kind of insane concept, right? Like in the 21st century, like I understand why it made sense.
BOBBY: I don’t. That’s fucked up. You have to pay to take your name out of the phonebook, otherwise, we— all this—
ALEX: Yes. I mean, that’s crazy.
BOBBY: —all this discourse about doxing these days. We just dox people routinely.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Crazy.
ALEX: They would just give them to you, too. You know, you’d come home from work and there would just be a phonebook. They’d be like, “Hey, we just updated it. We got the new one with your neighbor in it.”
BOBBY: It’s like the Baseball Prospectus Annual.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Oh, my God. The phonebook [42:57]
ALEX: Holy shit. This year’s phonebook came in.
BOBBY: Did you ever try ripping— did you ever try ripping the phone book in half? You know the trick—
ALEX: No, I didn’t
BOBBY: —about that is that you have to, like, do it one page at a time so you kind of— you bend it so that you’re only ripping one page at— at a time.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And it looks like you’re— you know— I don’t know.
ALEX: Did you do it? Were you able to successfully rip it in half?
BOBBY: No, I tried when I was like nine and I was like, “I don’t really know what the purpose of this is.”
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: And then phone books really phased out.
ALEX: Right. They did. It’s kind of a political statement if you think about it. You said phone books are over, ripped.
BOBBY: Yeah, true. I didn’t think of it as a political statement, but I often realize that things— things that I did when I was younger maybe were more political in reality than I felt they were.
ALEX: Right. You didn’t realize it. But there was a— there was a fire that was burning in you.
BOBBY: Like, when I was listening to System of a Down talk about how they should send presidents to go die in wars and I was like, “Fuck, yeah!”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And—
ALEX: You’re like, “Hell yeah. Why not? Better him than me.”
BOBBY: And then I revisited that, and I was like, “Huh, I still agree with that. That’s great.” Good job. Good job, 10-year-old Bob. Amazing phone book detour. This is the kind of stuff that you get here on this podcast.
ALEX: Yup. Yeah. I don’t even remember how we got onto this. Again, I think the question is, how you convince big market teams that this would benefit them?
BOBBY: You don’t—
ALEX: Which— which like it— which it wouldn’t necessarily.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right? I mean, you could argue that it— it benefits the health of the sport, which might benefit them in the long run, but that’s not how owners think about running baseball teams these days.
BOBBY: Well, they’re all going to be dead—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —by the time that matters.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Most of them.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Not Mark Walter, though. He’s gonna live forever.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I think that— that— you’re right. Fascinating thing. This is a wedge issue. This is a wedge issue between small market and big market teams, which means a lot of things, which means that it’s a barometer. It’s a litmus test for who’s running hotter at the moment, the collection of about 22 small market teams, or those eight big market teams who really can throw their weight around more so, in that equation. Historically speaking, guess what? The big market teams. Why am I not surprised to hear that? But in baseball, more so than a lot— in a lot of other sports, maybe at various times in basketball, and as Michael Baumann reminded us last week, in hockey, the small market owners have an outsized influence versus what you might expect. But the big market teams usually— because they pull in the most revenue and they create the most fans, they have the most soft power, and they have the most financial power, the hard power. But it’s interesting, right? Like, is there a blended version of this where like— because— here’s the— here’s the logistical problem that Rob Manfred runs into, let’s just say the Dodgers for example. I think they have the longest cable deal at the moment. They signed it— it was like 25 years. It doesn’t expire until 2038, so that’s nine years after Rob Manfred would be out of his commissionership. So he could never actually put anything into practice that doesn’t either not include the Dodgers and other teams that have longer cable deals, or would opt out of doing this, like the Yankees, for example. Or the Mets. Or they would have to buy those contracts out, which would be very expensive, which should be expecting probably the partner to buy those contracts out in order to be able to— to stream those games, or to broadcast those games nationally on television. That’s a lot of money upfront, a lot of money up front. The Dodgers make like— the Dod— the Dodgers cable deals worth like over a billion dollars, you know? It’s— it’s— it’s too much money. That’s prohibitive— prohibitive amount of money just for one of the 30 teams to have it bought out. So I don’t know, it’s creative. It would have to be more in conjunction, and maybe there’s a version in which it’s weighted, like the national money is weighted more towards the bigger market teams and the owners sign off on that. But if there’s any form of revenue sharing, the MLBPA has something to say about that, because all revenue sharing is collectively bargained. So that makes this next CBA maybe the most important CBA since the strike, even though we just went through a lockout, because the MLBPA would have to agree to changing the terms if— if the league would like to go forward with this. If they— if they don’t, if they still want to sell them team by team, then obviously, that doesn’t change much. But if the league would like to go forward with a national broadcasting package, then the MLBPA would have— because, you know, they’d be negotiating those deals over the course of months and months and years and years. They’d be trying to put them into effect on a longer timeline than the collective bargaining timeline. So that— talk about, again, a wedge issue is— MLBPA could really wedge themselves in there and say, “Well, we basically have to approve this, so you have to give us what we want. Otherwise, this whole plan blows up.” I can see a lot of discourse around that. I can see a lot of discourse, like a lot of people stupidly being like, “Well, the MLBPA is the reason that you can’t get your games nationally.” I already foresee that take in the year 2026, but it’s a fascinating issue with just like a million different angles, that all affected in kind of unknown ways. And it’s the exact type of thing that, like, here on this podcast, we’re fascinated by, and across the United States, most people don’t even know.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, I— I feel like the most realistic path forward is a kind of an incremental approach, right? I don’t think Rob Manfred will not come out tomorrow and say, “We’ve done it. We’ve nationalized the TV deals.” I mean— and I— I hope he doesn’t, because then he’d scoop our next T-shirt idea. But—
BOBBY: He could make the announcement on this pod, and then we would know what’s gonna happen.
ALEX: He could. Be a good place to do it. Just saying.
BOBBY: Hearts and minds.
ALEX: I— to— to your point, I think, you know, there’s such a— the way a lot of these deals are structured is like there— you have a lot of time that could possibly elapse before every deal comes up, right? And it would be a bear to kind of renegotiate your way out of these lucrative deals that have, you know—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —decade-long tales.
Bobbby: Actually, we don’t want your $90 million this year. We want to change that amount.
ALEX: Yes, exactly. So that feels [49:29] but— but I can see a world in which— I mean, you know, in the wake of the Diamond Sports Group, not to be confused with Diamond Baseball Holdings, in the wake of the bankruptcy, MLB has clawed back the rights to the Diamondbacks, and the Rockies, and the Padres, you know? Now, it’s not enough to launch— like, I don’t think there’s enough value there to launch an exclusive streaming service. That would be an interesting mix of teams that you would be signing up to watch. But there is a world in which if this trend continues, and if Diamond Sports Group does eventually say, “You know what? We can’t do it. We’re out. Here, take your rights back.” And then we could say like, “Hey—”
BOBBY: 6— 17 teams, right? That I think—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —they would have access to?
ALEX: Right, exactly. All of a sudden, you have a way to say, “Well, here’s half the league in a package and—”
BOBBY: Yeah. Unfortunately, it’s not the 10 teams that you probably want, but—
ALEX: Right. Right, exactly. But if you structure it in a way that you can actually prove the value to both the fans and, like ,the rest of the owners, then you maybe say, “Okay, you don’t want to join right now, because of your lucrative TV deal, but we do have this other burgeoning product that fans are interested in. So come back, meet me [50:44] in a few years.”
BOBBY: Yeah, but who— what company is paying for that, to broadcast that nationally without the Yankees and the Dodgers? Like, the— couple of the companies that come up in Evan’s article, Amazon, Netflix.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And then, of course, there are your traditional linear broadcasting companies. There’s like— there’s Disney, ESPN, there’s Warner, which owns TNT and TBS. And there’s, you know, Viacom, CBS, who is owned by Comcast, I think.
ALEX: Sure, yeah.
BOBBY: Those are like the three players— oh, and there’s— no, sorry, Comcast owns NBC. My fault. Viacom, CBS, and then there’s Comcast NBC. These are the major players in terms of talking about sports rights. The only reason I’m so plugged into this right now is because the NBA deal is up, and there’s been a lot of discussion about where the next set of rights will go. Disney seems to have already re-upped for, like, double the price. And the second national package, which will be like a different set of games, a different set of playoff games, Western Conference, East Conference, they split these things up. Who gets the finals, probably ESPN and Disney again. But I— to your point, though, if they have more of a gradual approach, I don’t see how that doesn’t die on the vine and the time it takes to wait for the Dodgers to come in, you know? Or for the Yankees to come in. Because I don’t think Amazon is just like, “Yeah, we’ll be— we’re happy to give you a billion dollars but also not have Shohei Ohtani.” You know? I don’t think that happens, so I think that it’s like, “Well, we might have to give you $2 billion and claw back the rights from the Dodgers at the same time for this to even be a viable product that anybody wants to watch, at scale, nationally.” Of course, everybody is still regionally going to want to watch their team’s games. This is always going to be true. There was— there will always be 162-game fan base for teams, but is that enough to justify the cost that MLB wants to charge, the team owners want to charge, that they want to rely on? Right now, it seems like no. Like right now, it seems like not enough people are actually watching to justify how much money they’ve been making on the product for the last 10 or 15 years. That just seems like— like the truth, you know? That they are coasting off the fact that people are paying for RSNs as part of their cable package, that they don’t even know that they’re paying for it. Or they pay for it because it’s part of a bundle and they want to watch Great British Bake Off or whatever. I actually don’t think that’s on cable, but you know what I mean? Like, home renovation shows.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And they’re also giving money to Steve Cohen. They’re also giving like $2 to Steve Cohen every week.
ALEX: Of course.
BOBBY: I think MLB gets left out of the discussions about cable packages, cable rights, because it’s so spread out and it’s so regional. And I don’t hear a lot of people talking about it the way that they talk about football rights, the way they talk about basketball rights. But every time there is a new national basketball deal, you know what happens, is like a ton of mon— new money comes in, salary cap goes up, and they fight about it for two years, you know? And that will happen to baseball, too, at some point. It’s just a matter of what it actually looks like when stuff gets ironed out. It’s funny to imagine Rob Manfred trying to line up the expiration of the cable deals the way that all of the major unions are trying to line up the expiration of their collective bargaining agreements so that there could be another general strike for the first time in, like, 80 years.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: It’s like the corporate side general strike. I’m like, “Not so easy, is it, Rob?”
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: “Not as easy as you think.” We could have— I’m telling you, we could have a good time over dinner, me and Rob Manfred. Book it.
ALEX: Where would you go? Nobu?
BOBBY: Ruth’s Chris.
ALEX: I don’t know what that means.
BOBBY: It’s a steakhouse.
ALEX: Okay. Is he paying?
BOBBY: I don’t know. Fucking McDonald’s.
ALEX: Or you’re buying him dinner?
BOBBY: No, we’re going to McDonald’s.
ALEX: You’re saying— you’re— “Let me show you how the other half lives, Rob.”
BOBBY: Yeah. And it’s good. We’re living good. We’re eating McDonald’s.
ALEX: We are living good. Yep.
BOBBY: It’s delicious. Delicious.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: I just had it like— like 12 hours ago.
BOBBY: Wow. That explains the energy levels, which are great.
ALEX: Right, right. Yeah. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Fighting for your life over here. Okay. That brings us to our new segment to close out this week’s episode.
ALEX: Oh, shit, I already forgot this was happening.
BOBBY: This is why I take notes.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: I look down at my Steno pad and I feel safe. You know like— like a thunder jacket for a dog?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like, they can get really scared by something?
ALEX: That’s what your steno pad is for you?
BOBBY: That’s what my steno pad and Pilot G2 pen are. Just— it’s all brands today. All brands all day long. It’s like, even if I’m not really looking at it or using it, just knowing it’s there and I could touch the paper.
ALEX: What’s the steno pad brand?
BOBBY: Let’s check that. National brand. National brand. You’ll notice all of the stickers that I won at your badge party, too [56:05]
ALEX: I do, I recognize those, yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So are you— are you steno pad agnostic? You’re— whatever— whatever paper on that will receive my Pilot G2 ink is— is the paper for me.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah. I think I just bought like a— a big box of these, and I’m still working my way through them. But as you know, I save all of my steno pads for the archives one day.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: My library at Alexandria is just Tipping Pitches notes from 2019. The— the truly illegible notes that I wrote when we had Sean Doolittle on the podcast, and I was trying to rank all of my Star Wars movies.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That still exists, it’s right behind me right now. Okay.
ALEX: So we have a new segment?
BOBBY: We have a new segment. It doesn’t really have anything to do with baseball, although it could, week to week. This new segment will be a power ranking of five items at the end of every episode. Every episode that we’re not doing, like, another ranking idea or another— every normal episode, every standard episode of Tipping Pitches. Do you have any ideas to— to name this? Maybe the listeners can help us. I was like the— the closer, extra innings.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: You know, because it’s like a little bonus content for this little stage at the end.
ALEX: It is a little bonus content. I like that. Yeah.
BOBBY: See? It’s like— I— I do this shit, you know? I do this. This is my job. I’m a professional. Although I might trick you all into thinking I’m not, it’s up here, it’s on the LinkedIn.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: One host will give the other host a list of five things, and then the other host has to arrange those five things. Now, I am giving you the list this week. Important caveat, you don’t know what it is, so you have to do it on the spot, which is something that honestly you feel really good and comfortable about it, you were telling me?
ALEX: Yeah, no. Historically being— when I’m— when you put me on the spot, you know, with the questions at the beginning of the episode, that sort of thing—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —I respond well to that pressure.
BOBBY: Right. You have sort of an improvisatory spirit to you.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: You’re like, “Throw as much stuff at me as possible and don’t prepare me. Don’t make me feel safe or comfortable.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “I like to feel uncomfortable.”
ALEX: Yeah. That’s the pit in my stomach that’s growing right now. It feels good.
BOBBY: What if I gave you, like, for the first one— I— I started you off easy, just so you know.
ALEX: Okay. All right. I appreciate that.
BOBBY: What if I gave you like Trump cabinet members, you know? Or like the different secretaries of state that Trump had? Like, you just have to weigh Rex Tillerson against— I don’t even remember who the other ones. I know he went through like four. No, I’m not going to do that. I’m gonna start you off e—
ALEX: [58:38] Pompeo.
BOBBY: Oh, Pompeo. That’s true. What’s he up to? Probably like an MLB lobbyist.
ALEX: Yeah. Tillerson was good. Tillerson was a real one.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: He was like an, you know, oil and gas guy, but like an OG oil and gas guy.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Right? He was like—
BOBBY: He believed in the power of international politics.
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: Okay. Now, I went right in your sweet spot here. You’re— you’re a foodie. The things that you do have opinions on above other things, are food and flavors, and things of that nature.
ALEX: Right, okay.
BOBBY: So, I’d like you to power rank these five sunflower seed flavors from the brand DAVID.
ALEX: Uh-hmmm.
BOBBY: I told you brands, brands.
ALEX: Brands, brands.
BOBBY: Brands. These five sunflower seed flavors, the original, which is, you know, it’s just salt. Incredible vehicles for salt, sunflower seeds.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Ranch, barbecue, cracked pepper, and dill pickle.
ALEX: I want to thank you for— for asking me this question. I actually was— was— I was discussing it yesterday. I was at the Chicago Cubs game yesterday.
BOBBY: Really?
ALEX: We were talking about sunflower seed brands and I was— I was sharing with my— my fellow attendees how much I love dill pickle. I’m— there was like an ad for like a— like dill pickle beer and I was like, “I wouldn’t do that.”
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: But you know what I would do and have done.
BOBBY: I have to say the dill pickle chips, fried dill pickle chips from UTZ, Pennsylvania legendary brand right there.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s legitimately the best snack I’ve ever had in my lifetime. It’s not even close. Not even close. Just lapping ’em, lapping. It’s like the Barry Bonds of snacks. Has more intentional walks than anybody has walks. Okay? It’s— they’re so good. You were— so this was the conversation happening at the Cubs game and you were there with the rest of the barstool cubs people?
ALEX: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: I—
BOBBY: The DAVID sunflower seed flavors— we can talk about more of them later after you rank these five, but they run the gamut.
ALEX: Yeah, they do. I— I will note that I— I actually, I— I will note, this— this may be an important qualifier, that I —when I’ve had the dill pickle and cracked pepper flavors, I actually usually have the— the BIGS brand.
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: Or no, sorry, sorry, sorry. Not BIGS. I usually have the SPITZ brand.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: That’s— that’s what was available to me.
BOBBY: This is an— this is an Oakland thing?
ALEX: Right. Maybe it’s an Oakland thing. DAVID, obviously, he is the— the premier, the [1:01:27] tier.
BOBBY: Right. The pinnacle of the form.
ALEX: Sunflower seed brand. I assume he makes all the sunflower seeds himself.
BOBBY: Right. One guy named David. Just maybe in his ghost kitchen.
ALEX: Okay, there you go.
BOBBY: BIGS— BIGS, the brand has some unhinged flavors, but I don’t want to complicate this—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —exercise yet, but I— I will read some of them off to you, after we’re done here.
ALEX: So would you like me to go five to one or one to five?
BOBBY: Obviously, obviously. Come on. Be a content maker.
ALEX: All right. All right. All right. All right.
BOBBY: You say the number one and then everybody just turns the episode off. We’re here to—
ALEX: They tune off, they’re like, “I know the answer.”
BOBBY: We’re trying to keep people engaged, Alex.
ALEX: See, this is— this is what you’re here for. You— you’re— you’re my guardrails.
BOBBY: Come on. Live production.
ALEX: Five, ranch.
BOBBY: Okay. Okay. Okay.
ALEX: I—
BOBBY: 11-year-old me is not happy, but I am an adult now.
ALEX: Right. I— now, worth noting, I would eat all of these. Sometimes I would eat most of these flavors within a single game.
BOBBY: Right, of course.
ALEX: Depending on who else is in the dugout with me.
BOBBY: As a pitcher, I am a connoisseur of sunflower seed flavors, because I was really only playing once every three games. So I’m just sitting on the bench being like, “That one’s better than that one.”
ALEX: You’re like, “What’s”— you buy— you’re finding like arbitrage opportunities. You’re like, “Well— well, he has some cracked pepper, and then my friend over here has some barbecue. What could I do with my ranch? A little three-team trade potentially?”
BOBBY: Right. Yeah. Exactly. How do these mesh together? How do these flavors mesh together?
ALEX: Exactly. Most of the time not well, I think.
BOBBY: How can I create the black and ranch dip that Popeye’s gives me with my chicken tenders?
ALEX: Ranch is good, but it’s— I think the one that hurts my mouth the most after I’ve been doing it for the longest period of time. There’s so much— it’s just—
BOBBY: Even more than black pepper?
ALEX: Yeah, but— but like— I— black pepper is somehow a little more subtle. Ranch is like so in your face, with the flavor.
BOBBY: I know. They put so much of it on there.
ALEX: They’re— it’s so— like it is the most coated, I think, in terms of the flavoring.
BOBBY: Very powdery. Very powdery.
ALEX: It’s very powdery. If you’re a big— if you love to lick your fingers after you eat something, this is the sunflower seed for you. Boy, it’ll be there.
BOBBY: No free ads.
ALEX: No free ads. Totally [1:03:53]
BOBBY: The first time I had a ranch sunflower seed, I was like, “Fucking, we did it as a country. Congratulations to everybody involved in the process, to David himself, to all of David’s cohorts and his friends.”
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: I was like nine, but I was like, “This is— I mean, I don’t— do I need to eat anything else ever? Or can I just eat this every meal of every day?”
ALEX: Yes. Next I’m gonna go, barbecue.
BOBBY: That’s the right choice. I think barbecue is tough.
ALEX: Barbecue’s tough. It’s good, but again, one of those ones that I think has sort of diminishing returns.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: I will— I will note, it’s— it’s been a little while since I have had each of these flavors and thought critically about sort of what it’s doing to my palate.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And how my palate is receiving it.
BOBBY: Right. You’re like, “Ooh, it’s a little—”
ALEX: And that’s an oversight on my part.
BOBBY: “It’s a little mesquite energy to that.”
ALEX: Right. Exactly. Ooh, the cayenne— the chili powder ratio on this is a little interesting.
BOBBY: Not in a vinegar on this barbecue flavor.
ALEX: Yeah. I do— I do ultimately like it, but it is— it’s the sweeter one as well, I just— I think probably this, quote-unquote, “sweetest offering” of the ones on this list.
BOBBY: Yeah. You are more of a savory guy.
ALEX: I’m more of the— of the savory guy as these rankings may indicate to you.
BOBBY: Tou— barbecue is— again, it’s pretty delicious if you’re just thinking about it on like a— maybe a half a handful of seeds or one handful of seeds at most. But if you’re trying to move through a bag, half a bag, throughout the course of a game, you just— you can’t eat anything else. Like—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —when I’ve made this mistake as a child eating a— a whole bag of barbecue seeds and then, like, trying to have a slushie or cheese fries after the game, it’s like— we’re doing a lot to the digestive tract here.
ALEX: Coming in at number three, I— I will say—
BOBBY: Okay. Now, I’m getting excited. Now, I’m getting excited.
ALEX: Yeah. I will say it’s worth noting, I enjoy all of the flavors on this list and would rank a bag of each of these flavors above most other things in my life. Like, outside of the sunflower seed world. So if we’re power ranking everything that I eat, or drink, or— or just partaken, related to baseball or not, these five flavors of sunflower seeds are kind of up there.
BOBBY: Right. You would rank all sunflower seeds above having to go to work, just to be clear.
ALEX: Well, yeah, that’s— that’s for sure. So I say that because at number three, I’m gonna put dill pickle.
BOBBY: Okay. Harsh— harsh for dill pickle.
ALEX: I suppose, but I love dill pickle. Dill Pickle is amazing. I— just such a galaxy-brained invention.
BOBBY: I know. Whoever did it, they were cooking. Literally and figuratively.
ALEX: I— they— they— yes. Yeah. I think that out of all the sunflower seeds on this list, it’s probably the hardest to trade— like it’s very divisive.
BOBBY: Yes..
ALEX: I would say.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Like you— I mean, by necessity, you have to like dill pickles very exclusively. You don’t necessarily have to love barbecue to love barbecue sunflower seeds or be a big ranch guy. In fact, I would— I would venture to guess that most people who ate ran sunflower seeds were not regularly eating ranch in the rest of their lives.
BOBBY: You don’t know what I was up to.
ALEX: You’re right. You were pounding ranch. You were like, “This Hidden Valley, down the gullet.”
BOBBY: Well, thank you for naming Hidden Valley, another brand. I will go back and tally how many brands—
ALEX: This is incredible brands, absolutely.
BOBBY: —how many brands we’ve named on this episode, and I will use that as the forward promo. But with regards to ranch, with my friends at Hidden Valley, they make a powdered ranch seasoning. My friend, try putting that on some popcorn. That is where it’s at.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Just a little, little drizzle on top of some popcorn. Mix that bad boy up. Now— now, okay, as they say, we are cooking with gas.
ALEX: Right. So dill pickle—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —a wonderful invention. I personally love it. And— and oftentimes it may be my go-to. One, it wakes you up a little bit. It’s a little offbeat to your— to your— to your taste buds.
BOBBY: Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my dill pickles sunflower seeds. Put that on a shirt.
ALEX: So I want to be clear how much love I have for dill pickle seeds. I don’t want— I don’t want anyone to mistake my placement at number three as— as disparagement of the dill pickle sunflower seed experiment.
BOBBY: You’re too nice. I needed you to, like, crush barbecue or something. It’d be like, “It’s a horrible invention. It’s disgusting. Whoever would eat that?” Like, this is not gonna go viral. Now, you’re just being nice to everybody.
ALEX: Goddamn it. I’ll do it again. All right. Scrub the tape, run it back.
BOBBY: Okay. All right. Scrap the whole episode? You want to start from—
ALEX: Sun— sunflower seed started an abomination. I’m not ranking any of these fucking things.
BOBBY: You just walk off set. So you wanna start the whole episode again? So back to the part—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —about the AI? Okay. Good.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah. Number two, I’m going to put original.
BOBBY: Oh, wow.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: You see where this is going?
BOBBY: I mean—
ALEX: I mean, there’s one option left.
BOBBY: I— I— hold on, wait. I’m [1:09:03] on my notes. All right. Yes. Yeah. I see where this is going, yeah.
ALEX: Okay. You see where this is going? Okay. Yeah. Original, it’s— it’s hard to beat, right? It’s universally beloved.
BOBBY: What’s better than a bag of original sunflower seeds for your nerves? It’s like smoking but without the lung cancer.
ALEX: Oh, yeah.
BOBBY: You know?
ALEX: It really is.
BOBBY: Put that on the back. All right, John Middleton in shambles, frankly. You know how much— do you have any idea how much salt I consumed during the 2015 Mets World Series run?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: Just a— just a jumbo bag of original sunflower seeds per game. All right, my electrolytes were probably so far out of whack, it was never before seen in human history.
ALEX: They’re so good. I— I will say, the salt can be a little overbearing sometimes, right? It does— I think when you’re— if you’re watching a nine-inning game or playing in a nine-inning game, it’s your— your cheeks are starting to feel a little bit.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Feel a little raw—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —on the inside. That comes with the territory. It’s worth it. But I do think that brings us to number one, little cracked pepper.
BOBBY: You like a little spice in your life, huh?
ALEX: Cracked black pepper? I do like a little spice in my life. By far, the most complex culinary invention on— on this list. And you know what?
BOBBY: More complex than dill pickle, huh?
ALEX: I suppose maybe not. I suppose I— I may be incorrectly was thinking about these in part based on their exchange value, you know? As Karl Marx famously discussed this.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: Right? I— I— was not necessarily thinking about it from a used [1:10:42] value perspective, entirely, at the very least.
BOBBY: You sound like—
ALEX: I personally love dill pickle, but— but on the open market, very little value.
BOBBY: You sound like Erik Neander. This is amazing.
ALEX: But cracked pepper is like— you remember in, like, high school and people were like Beesing, you know?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: You’d like take some Burt’s Bees and, like, put it on your eyelids, and all of a sudden, you feel awake. Like, that’s—
BOBBY: That’s what I—
ALEX: —what I feel like when I have the cracked pepper. I’m like, “Oh, my God. I lit a fire under my ass little bit.”
BOBBY: That’s what I do before every episode of this pod.
ALEX: Right. I know.
BOBBY: Just a little Beesing, couple of cracked black pepper seeds, really get the energy flowing.
ALEX: Like, they almost feel like performance-enhancing drugs [1:11:22] It really gets you going.
BOBBY: Like, they wouldn’t let you bring that as your snack at the SATs is what you’re saying?
ALEX: Right. Right, exactly. They’d be like, “Hang on.”
BOBBY: You can’t just crush a riddle in here.
ALEX: It’s just— it’s— it’s so— it’s very creative. It’s a creative invention. It’s a little offbeat.
BOBBY: Right. It’s like Bizarro World original.
ALEX: Exactly. Now, what I’ve never done is—
BOBBY: It’s like— it’s like original Beeside, [1:11:47] you know? It’s like, “Oh—” you’re like, “Wouldn’t it be nice?” You’re just, “God only knows.”
ALEX: Yes. Cracked black pepper is the God only knows of sunflower seeds. I feel very confident saying that.
BOBBY: Completely agree. Our minds, you know?
ALEX: It— it’s over. All right. So— so what do you think? How do you— how do you feel about that ranking.
BOBBY: Love it. I love it. I would’ve gone barbecue last, then ranch, then cracked black pepper, then dill pickle, and then normal, number one. But I’m fine with you. I’m not mad. I’m not mad.
ALEX: I appreciate that.
BOBBY: This is a loving exercise.
ALEX: It is a loving exercise.
BOBBY: It’s not about—
ALEX: We’re learning things about each other.
BOBBY: Exactly. We’re— I’d love to learn stuff about you as you know. Just putting in all my— all in my oral history doc that I have running over here on the side that you don’t know about.
ALEX: Right. Right. Less than worried about Google collecting all my data. I don’t have to worry about that because I know you’re already [1:12:41] that.
BOBBY: Right here. Big Bob collecting data. Here are some flavors—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —from the brand Bigs. They also have dill pickle, zesty ranch, barbecue. You know, the normal ones. Like, we’ve talked about cracked pepper. They also have an Old Bay seasoned one for all of my DMV listeners. That’s probably good, but overwhelming, I would say.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Good but overwhelming. Small doses. Chile Limon. Honestly, I’m intrigued.
ALEX: Quite intrigued.
BOBBY: They— they have an ultimate variety pack at Walmart of— including all of these flavors, as well as all of the ones that I— the— all of the DAVID ones that I put on the list, too. So maybe we should wear this for next time. We were eating on the pod. Everybody’s really excited about that last time. They have a flavor called Taco Supreme. You can try that one.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: You can try that one.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Let me know what you think. Sizzling Bacon, which feels really like a vestige of, like, 2008. Like, we got epic bacon sunflower seeds.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Yeah. Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: Buffalo wing—
ALEX: Did we ever— did we ever— did we ever dig into that, by the way? That was— like, I have to assume that that was just an— a marketing campaign, similar to like Aperol Spritz, right?
BOBBY: Oh, you mean like socio-culturally did we ever dig into that? Or like—
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: —follow the money?
ALEX: Where this all come from.
BOBBY: [1:13:57]
ALEX: Like— like— like follow the money, you know?
BOBBY: I mean, it’s right there on the table for you. Why don’t you—
ALEX: The National Pork Board, what are they doing?
BOBBY: Why don’t you pitch that to ProPublica? They’re probably really into that.
ALEX: They would be into that. Fo— follow the bacon. It’s right there.
BOBBY: Great headline. Buffalo wing, I mean, yeah. Yeah, people like buffalo sauce-flavored things.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’d get behind that. Here’s the one that I really actually am afraid of, cheeseburger. That’s upsetting to me.
ALEX: That is really—
BOBBY: That’s— that’s upsetting. What did they do? They put some meat juice on there. That’s upsetting.
ALEX: Ah, that’s an affront to God is what it is.
BOBBY: It is. God gave us cheeseburgers to eat as cheeseburgers. He did not give us cheeseburgers to try to flavor sunflower seeds. These are two separate creations by our Lord and Savior. Let them be—
ALEX: Are— are you familiar with these Jim Beam sunflower seeds?
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: That are roasted by Bigs?
BOBBY: Again, that sounds upsetting.
ALEX: It’s Jim Beam Jalapeno and Jim Beam Barbecue. So not even part— particularly radical flavors, which makes me wonder just— does Jim Beam think they have a better recipe? Or like, “I know we do— we have this whole other business, but also, we do know how to make a banging sunflower seed.”
BOBBY: True. And also, it makes you wonder, why not have it like— there’s no crossover with the whiskey flavoring.
ALEX: Right. Right, exactly.
BOBBY: It’s just like where [1:15:27] Jim being, “We’re doing something different.” Fa— fascinating. I decided to leave off nacho cheese off of this because that is— that’s a heinous invention.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Jalapeno is another flavor that DAVID makes, that I know is very popular. But I gotta say, jalapeno is over sampling these days at the grocery store. Too many jalapeno chips, not enough dill pickle chip options.
ALEX: So agree.
BOBBY: That’s my take.
ALEX: It’s like if you don’t like dill pickle-flavored things, grow up.
BOBBY: I agree. I agree. We need to get rid of like— we have all of these options for like 17 different sour cream and onion chips, 25 different, you know, salt and vinegar chips, which are delicious. But also—
ALEX: Of course.
BOBBY: —let’s mix it up. Let’s—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —let’s make a little more [1:16:18]
ALEX: Add a little— add a little— a little sweetness to that— to that vinegary goodness.
BOBBY: Okay. Well, this has been the inaugural edition of—
ALEX: Of—
BOBBY: —extra innings.
ALEX: —extra innings.
BOBBY: Patent pending. Please let us know if you have an idea for the name of this segment, and I look forward, Alex, next week to when you provide me a list of five things, and I absolutely tear them to pieces. We’re going to do sort of like a good cop, bad cop, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde thing, going back and forth.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Week to week. And that’s gonna keep the people coming back. Thank you to everybody for listening to this week’s episode of Tipping Pitches. I hope you enjoyed it. As a reminder, you can find bonus episodes of Tipping Pitches on patreon.com/tippingpitches, three separate tiers, highest tier gets you bonus episodes. Other tiers gets you really great stuff as well, including a newsletter written by one Alex Bazeley, which I am going to read I have out here. I solemnly swear that I will read your newsletter, and I will give you feedback.
ALEX: The people— people have heard you now. You’re on the clock.
BOBBY: What clock? You know? You can call our voicemail, 785-422-5881. You can write us an email at tippingpitchespod@gmail.com. You can follow us or DM us on Twitter tipping_pitches. It’s everything I got, and I don’t have time to do any other plugs, or shout-outs, or hilarious bits here at the end of this podcast, because I gotta walk out the door and go see a movie. I’m seeing Certain Women—
ALEX: Typical—
BOBBY: —by Kelly Reichardt. What, you don’t support female filmmakers? You don’t want me to cut this podcast—
ALEX: Like, which— which women?
BOBBY: Just certain women. You know the ones.
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: The ones that were in—
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: They were in— they were in the binder. Full of the women— binder full of certain women. They left a certain amount.
ALEX: There— there it is. There’s the Romney reference.
BOBBY: You got to do it. Obligatory— obligatory Romney reference. Thanks, everybody, for listening and we will be back next week.
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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