Alex and Bobby return to their regularly scheduled programming with — what else? — a betting controversy involving umpire Pat Hoberg, and discuss the sport’s increasingly hard-to-ignore gambling problem. Then they react to some comments from former agent Jeff Berry on the league’s economic landscape, cross a couple of items off their season bingo card, and run through this week’s edition of the Unnamed Ranking Segment.
Links:
MLBUA’s statement on Pat Hoberg
Tucupita Marcano banned from baseball
Mark Attanasio on Bloomberg Business of Sports
Arctos Sports Franchise Index
Q&A with former agent Jeff Berry
Michael Bloomberg joins bid for Timberwolves
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 tipping his 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: My thumb is twitching today. I don’t know if you can see that.
ALEX: Oh, I can’t see that. Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s not— I don’t know what’s happening with that.
ALEX: That’s good. I always love when my body just starts doing things it’s never done before.
BOBBY: We live in an intricate— intricate sacks of flesh and blood, you know?
ALEX: I was trying not to think about it too much.
BOBBY: You think about it really hard— I was thinking about this the other day, because it was like— it’s so crazy how Stevie— you just bring her out and she just goes to the bathroom. You know, like it doesn’t— she doesn’t need to go when she needs to go, and she can always go when you take her. And I’m like, “That wouldn’t work for me.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: If somebody had to lead me on a leash to the bathroom and was like, “This is your one chance to poop today.” I don’t think I would be able to do it. But Stevie can do it, and I’m like, “Well, that’s because she eats the same exact food, simple food, every day and that’s exactly what she can process and nothing more, nothing less. And if you gave her what I eat, it would kill her. I think it’s like—
ALEX: If I had the type of routine that Stevie does, which is mostly sit around the house all day long and then leave—
BOBBY: What’s different from what you do? How’s that different from what you do?
ALEX: Well, my point being, I could probably get used to that routine pretty easily.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I kind of already do. I have that routine when I go into work. It’s like, “Okay, it’s 10:00 AM, time for the first one.”
BOBBY: The first one? That’s— that’s—
ALEX: An afternoon excursion. We just got to see.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: It’s mostly just to stretch my legs and get away from my computer.
BOBBY: That’s taking the company time. See, this is what happens when we don’t do a Patreon episode for the first time in three weeks. We just come out on the regular feed and we start talking like it’s a Patreon episode. We’re in—
ALEX: Right [2:08] the bowel— bowel movements.
BOBBY: We’re live in the pod right now, by the way. Yep.
ALEX: Okay. We are.
BOBBY: We’re live in the pod right now. And this is also what happens when I forget to come up with a cold open.
ALEX: Fallen down on the job.
BOBBY: I suppose in a different world where we had more topics, more news items to discuss this week, we could— we could have used this article written by Evan Drellich about this MLB agent Jeff Berry walking away from the job. The Q&A that he did, we could’ve used that as a cold open. You know, almost like a good take dramatic reading, because there’s some good takes in it. But that’s a whole segment on the pod this week, so this is what you get instead.
ALEX: Well, I do feel like it would be a— a slight dereliction of our duties to not mention that Alex Rodriguez found his guy.
BOBBY: What do you mean? Oh. Yeah, he did.
ALEX: The man who’s gonna push it over the finish line.
BOBBY: He has a really fascinating strategy of buying a sports team, which is ask other people to buy it for you.
ALEX: Yes. I—
BOBBY: I’ve— it’s never before seen—
ALEX: That’s about how I would approach it.
BOBBY: Never— never to be seen again. That’s a band, right? That’s an album, right?
ALEX: Yeah. Yes, kind of.
BOBBY: Never Before Seen—
ALEX: Arm’s Length.
BOBBY: —Never Again Found. I was like I— we were close. We were close.
ALEX: You were— you were right there. You were right there.
BOBBY: I was right there.
ALEX: I was gonna give it to you.
BOBBY: Thank you. It’s not Jeopardy rules. If you get close enough here on this pod. [3:31] podcast that we are. You get it. You get the point. That’s a good album.
ALEX: Yeah, it is. We saw them.
BOBBY: We did see them. Great show.
ALEX: Yeah. In the— in the rear view, great show? You were— you had some thoughts about it at the time.
BOBBY: No, I had thoughts about the crowd, not about the band.
ALEX: Okay. All right.
BOBBY: Well, I had thoughts about the [3:47]
ALEX: Some bands.
BOBBY: You can’t expect me to go to a warehouse emo show at 28 years old.
ALEX: Yeah. And now it takes—
BOBBY: And just— and just to be like, “Everybody here is cool and fine. I’m enjoying their presence.” You can’t.
ALEX: That’s fair.
BOBBY: You can’t. You also can’t expect me to like 100% of the bands. I have to pick at least one band on the ticket to performatively dislike.
ALEX: Of course. Usually the one with, like, the beanie, the little, like, tiny beanie perched atop their head.
BOBBY: And the one whose lyrics are all about— never mind. Let’s just keep going.
[laughter]
BOBBY: Feeling loose today. You’re feeling loose?
ALEX: Little bit, coffee setting in. I mean, it’s— I mean, it’s been a minute, Bobby. It’s been a minute since we’ve sat down and actually done like a— a normal podcast together. I’m feeling good to kind of get back in this routine. There’s been a lot of stuff that’s been coming up that I’ve been like on the edge of my seat waiting to talk with you about.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Chiefly, obviously, Michael Bloomberg in—
BOBBY: [4:49] fusion.
ALEX: —in— in the bid to buy the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx.
BOBBY: Am I wrong in thinking that like this is actually, legitimately will help them? Like, this will get it over the finish line? Like, Michael Bloomberg gets stuff done, right?
ALEX: I mean— I mean, he has objectively far more money than Alex Rodriguez does.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: I think that helps, because the chief problem with this wholesale was that Alex Rodriguez does not actually have the kind of money that— he— he’s punching above his weight, I would say.
BOBBY: Now that we’re talking about Alex Rodriguez’s finances, it gives me cause to think about how he almost bought the Mets four years ago.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And his partner at the time in that bid and in life was Jennifer Lopez who, by the way, I don’t know if you saw this, the trades are reporting she also has no money this past week. So not only are the Mets cursed, they also curse everything they touch.
ALEX: Yeah. Steve— Steve Cohen, look out.
BOBBY: Steve Cohen’s bankruptcy [5:47] yeah, look out, dawg. The Games—
ALEX: Watch those pocketbooks.
BOBBY: The GameStop squeeze almost got him.
ALEX: It really did. What a moment in time.
BOBBY: That was— that was one of our best podcasts ever. You were just explaining Reddit threads. You were like— you were all over like— what— what’s his name?
ALEX: Like— okay. So— so Roaring Kitty.
BOBBY: Roaring Kitty. Yeah. I watched that movie. I saw you watched that movie, too. Dumb Money.
ALEX: I did. Yeah. It was fine.
BOBBY: It needed more Steve.
ALEX: I agree.
BOBBY: Just like the Madoff documentary, which was horrible. Needed more—
ALEX: So bad.
BOBBY: Needed more Wilpon. The answer is always talk more about the Mets owner.
ALEX: Well, at least like Dumb Money leaned into— we’re already doing movies about financial schemes. At least Dumb Money like leaned into having characters play— like— like, actually not doing the awkward thing where you don’t have any footage about the thing you’re talking about. So you just—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —film like character actors with their faces kind of covered, you know?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Like, moving papers around on the desk. They were like, “Fuck that.”
BOBBY: A horrible creative decision.
ALEX: It’s so bad.
BOBBY: Speaking of movies about financial schemes, we’re going to talk a little bit about Moneyball later in this episode and an interview that Evan Drellich did with a former agent about why he retired. We are also going to talk about a different financial scheme, and that is sports betting. Wouldn’t you know it? Another episode of Tipping Pitches, another 40-minute diatribe about how sports betting is ruining the game that we love. We are going to revisit our bingo cards. I would like to— I didn’t tell you this before we started recording, but that’s okay. I would like to discuss with you a couple of fringe cases on the bingo board, and whether or not we should just make a decision to cross those off now, because I think you could make a case for a couple of them that we haven’t yet crossed off officially. And then at the end, we are going to bring back our ranking segment, which is still unnamed. But we have a lot of good contenders.
ALEX: We do.
BOBBY: A lot of good—
ALEX: I’d say we bounced— we bounced between them week to week.
BOBBY: Like, Effectively Wild does with their, like, intro songs?
ALEX: Yeah. No, it’s— it’s more—
BOBBY: That was the face of a man who doesn’t listen to Effectively Wild.
ALEX: Yeah, right. I was— yeah, sure. I guess.
BOBBY: If you say so.
ALEX: It could be like that.
BOBBY: Okay. What do you wanna call it this week?
ALEX: No, it’s like— it’s like an— it’s like an album that we released, but we’re still tweaking the track titles, you know?
BOBBY: Right. Yeah, exactly. Like, when Kanye tweeted, “Ima fix wolves.”
ALEX: Exactly. I was just thinking how much we’re like Kanye West.
BOBBY: Name some other ways. Top five— that’s what the ranking segment is gonna be this week. Top five ways we’re like Kanye West. Just kidding. All that coming up, and more probably. Some discursive discussion about other things that have nothing to do with any of those topics that I just named. But before we do that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: New patrons, Alex. There’s more of them. We said, “Come for the dis— come to the Patreon and hear about Alex’s trips to London.” And people came, and you know what they said? They said that you were way too high on London’s public transportation. Multiple people being like, “You’re completely wrong.”
ALEX: High— clearly, yeah.
BOBBY: “You guys are wrong. It doesn’t work that well.”
ALEX: I can only speak to my experience.
BOBBY: That’s the problem with this [9:06] in America.
ALEX: Sorry that— sorry that the trains came in two minutes and I was like, “Wow. That’s not bad, huh?”
BOBBY: I imagine it’s probably a little bit different when you live there, and you don’t just live in all of the—
ALEX: Of course.
BOBBY: —touristy places that you’re traveling around to.
ALEX: I mean, I’m trying to imagine someone coming to New York and being like, “Oh, my God, this transit system is amazing.”
BOBBY: It’s funny that you say that because while you’re in London, I had a friend come and visit me in New York, and he said the exact same thing. He was like, “I can’t believe people are actually on here. And it works.” He’s like, “I’ve never seen this many people on a subway before.” I’m like, “This is what happens when you actually, at one point, kind of fund public transit.”
ALEX: Right. At one point, like 60 years ago.
BOBBY: Yeah. And more. Do you want to read the Power Broker with me? I’ve been thinking about reading it. I’ve been doing a lot of reading recently. You want to hear about my reading?
ALEX: Yeah, I do.
BOBBY: Okay. I read some books.
ALEX: Okay. Hell yeah.
BOBBY: No, I read a couple Elmore Leonard novels and now I’m reading—
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Did I talk about this on the pod, I’m reading the McKinsey book?
ALEX: I don’t— once— one of these things where it’s like, did— was it on pod? Was it off pod? I know what you’re reading, but you can divulge for the listeners.
BOBBY: It’s called When McKinsey Comes to Town, and there’s— each chapter kind of just follows all of the different things in American life that McKinsey has personally ruined.
ALEX: A bit of a departure from your interests, generally.
BOBBY: Well, actually, the funny part is I had heard about this book because Evan Drellich, whose article we’re going to talk about in just a minute, did like a co-promotion event, because there’s a chapter in When McKinsey Comes to Town about the Astros cheating scandal and about how McKinsey came in—
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: —to advise former McKinsey consultant, Jeff Luneau, on how to run his team better. And honestly, I thought the— the— the chapter was really good. And I consider myself in the top 1% of people who knows about what happened there. I read a whole book about it, you know?
ALEX: All right. Yeah.
BOBBY: I did several podcasts about it, and still this— this— either this chapter was reminding me of stuff that I had forgotten or it was just telling me stuff that I’d never even heard. Good— good shit.
ALEX: A ringing endorsement.
BOBBY: A ringing endorsement here on Tipping Pitches, When McKinsey Comes to Town. Good book.
ALEX: All right. Tipping Pitches book club one.
BOBBY: That’s a— seems like a really good Patreon idea.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Stop giving away good Patreon ideas for free on the main feed.
ALEX: I don’t— I don’t really know how that constitutes giving away an idea. Someone else is gonna be like, “A book club? Huh. Wait a second.”
BOBBY: “I never would have thought of that.” Starting a podcast and slowly building a community over years, and years, and years, and monetizing it.
ALEX: I’m like, “Good Luck. See you in eight years.”
BOBBY: Right, exactly. But, anyway, back to the original question, do you want to read the Power Broker with me?
ALEX: Oh, yeah. Let’s do it. Oh, do you want to like— we’ll, like, trade off chapters and then just explain the chapter to the other person?
BOBBY: I was thinking we would trade off pages. Like—
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: —we would sit in the same room, one copy, popcorn, and pass it back and forth with each other.
ALEX: Right. Read aloud— read aloud to each other.
BOBBY: Videotape it, put it on the Patreon. Yeah.
ALEX: Easy.
BOBBY: There’s— there could be a future for us in audiobooks. Just Alex reads you Moneyball. That’s good to shit right there. That’s good shit.
ALEX: Yeah. I do accent work, too.
BOBBY: Oh, another— another thing about an episode was that people hated your accent work.
ALEX: Yeah, I know. Tough, tough.
BOBBY: I thought your accent was pretty good.
ALEX: Look, I was— I was— I was put into a tough position. I was back to the corner by my co-host a little bit, who would not stop the recording until I did an— a mildly offensive accent. That’s— and that’s what you said to me before we started recording, but you were like, “I want it to be as mildly offensive as possible.” And I was like, “Okay. I’ll just give you what you want.”
BOBBY: This is what you signed up for when you decided to own a business with me.
ALEX: Right. This is in our articles of incorporation.
BOBBY: You signed up to be pushed. You signed up to be challenged. We didn’t get on to the vanguard of— of— what was it that I said last week? Niece, niche, leftist. What were the other words that I said?
ALEX: I think baseball was one of them.
BOBBY: Shit— shitposting, I think, was one of them. Yeah, baseball was definitely in there.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Yeah. I was like— I was challenging somebody to do this better than us. Oh, it was product forward, I think, because we were talking a lot about products on the episode.
ALEX: Right. I think I advocated for the inclusion of AI.
BOBBY: Yes, you did. Yes, you did.
ALEX: AI-powered.
BOBBY: This podcast is AI-powered.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: No, no, no. AI couldn’t do this. Come on. Have you seen the discourse about AI in movies in the last couple of days?
ALEX: You’re gonna have to direct me to a specific strain of discourse.
BOBBY: In— some, like, indie film director put— put up, like, a still image from a movie that she had, I think, made or directed, or whatever, using AI only, using Sora. You know Sora, right?
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: And it looks bad. And she was like, “You gotta get on the wave— say whatever you want. Get on the wave, though, because we gotta— we gotta get in there now. Otherwise, other people are going to take up the space.”
ALEX: I think we’re just giving these people too much oxygen, you know? Like, I would not try and argue with someone who said that Minecraft is like the future of architecture, you know? I would probably just, like, real— recognize I’m dealing with a child and continue going about my day. You know, I’d be like, “Okay, bud. Have fun with that.” That’s— wow. That’s so cool. We should put that on the fridge.” I think we’re engaging in— with too much good faith.
BOBBY: But it’s like a fine line, though, because you don’t want to take away people’s ability to dunk, because that’s cathartic.
ALEX: That’s— that’s true. That’s true.
BOBBY: And I think it’s supposed to just be—
ALEX: It’s a time honored tradition, yeah.
BOBBY: It is. But in this algorithmic world that AI has created, what’s the difference between dunking and engaging?
ALEX: A view is a view.
BOBBY: A view is a view. I honestly thought— I— I thought I was gonna be able to think of a transition to the MLB Umpires Association, but I couldn’t, so here we are, non sequitur. Alex, we— we did it. We finally did it.
ALEX: In— in many ways.
BOBBY: Oh, oh, I was gonna say the new patrons, that was like 12 minutes ago. Thank you to our new patrons this week, Joseph, Evan, Theo, and Hannah. That’s how we got down that rabbit hole when we started talking about your accent work.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Those new patrons they must know that we have a bingo card. And on that bingo card, we have a square that says, “MLB Umpires Association releases a statement.” Well, Alex, the MLB Umpires Association had to release a statement this past week because umpire— the best umpire in baseball, according to UmpScorecards and according to Jordan Shusterman of Céspedes Family BBQ, who loves Pat Hoberg. Pat Hoberg was suspended in a shroud of mystery, honestly. They didn’t really say what he did.
ALEX: Right. We don’t even know if he’s suspended, right? He was disciplined.
BOBBY: Right. But he’s appealing it, so you would— you have to think that.
ALEX: Yes. You have to think it’s some sort—
BOBBY: And he has not been umpiring games for, like, the last six weeks. This is a Bob Nightengale tweet, “The Major League Baseball Umpires Association statement.” He didn’t say that they issued a statement. He didn’t say what it was about. He just said, “This is the statement.” This is a clear copy and paste situation here from Bob.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Which rules. “The Major League Baseball Umpires Association was made aware in Spring Training that Umpire Pat Hoberg was being investigated for potential violation of Major League Baseball sports betting policies. We have been working with Pat since then. We are now appealing the discipline issued by Major League Baseball. Because the appeal process is ongoing, the Union cannot discuss the matter. We will have no further comment until the appeal process is complete. We also provide the following statement from umpire Pat Hoberg himself. ‘I’m appealing Major League Baseball’s determination that I should be disciplined for violating the sports betting policies. While that appeal is pending, it would not be appropriate to discuss the case. That said, I have devoted my adult life to the profession of umpiring.” You know, when you’ve devoted your adult life to the profession of umpiring.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know what that feels like.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “And the integrity of baseball is of the utmost importance to me. I look forward to the appeal process.” Everybody always looks forward to the appeal process. “And I am grateful that the Major League Baseball Umpires Association is supporting me in the appeal.” So this comes amidst, what I would call, a wave of policy violation when it comes to sports betting. We’ve had Pat Hoberg, an umpire, be suspended. We’ve had Jontay Porter, an NBA player gets suspended for life. We’ve had football players be suspended for a year. And of course, most notably for us, which was another square on our 2024 Bingo card, we’ve had Tucupita Marcano, an MLB player who was on the injured list for, I believe, the Pirates— or he had been— he— I think he used to be on the Pirates, and he’s in the Padres now. Suspended for life for violating Rule 21 about betting on MLB games. He bet on games involving his own team, which is a— I don’t know if you know this, a big no-no.
ALEX: You can’t do that.
BOBBY: Yeah, you can’t do that. And then there were also four other players, one on your Oakland Athletics, Michael Kelly, three Minor Leaguers, Jay Groome of the Padres, Jose Rodriguez of the Phillies, Andrew Saalfrank of the Arizona Diamondbacks. They were all banned for one calendar year for betting— just like they didn’t say which legal sports betting operator, but just like betting on one of the apps. Not great.
ALEX: Yep. No, not great. Right. So I— I— it’s worth pointing out— and I’m sure we’ve mentioned this before, right? But, like, if you bet— you can’t bet on baseball. That’s like— that is what Rule 21 is that you’re referring to, right, is in the rulebook, it applies to players, umpires, anyone involved with the game. You can’t bet on baseball. If you bet on baseball, not involving fans—
BOBBY: Does it apply to fans? Does it apply to— does it apply to fans?
ALEX: That’s a good question. Does it apply to owners?
BOBBY: Rule 22 is like— Rule 22 is like, “You have to bet on baseball if you’re a fan.”
ALEX: Yes. You bet on a game not involving your team, you’re banned for a year. You bet on games involving your team, you’re banned for life. And it’s pretty— pretty clear cut. You can do all the betting you want outside of baseball, as long as it’s with a legal better, or a legal—
BOBBY: Sports book.
ALEX: Sports book. There we go.
BOBBY: Yeah. Any word on if you’re allowed to do it in an AI-powered sportsbook? I feel like no one has invented yet.
ALEX: You— you know, that’s— that just tells me you don’t believe in human ingenuity. You don’t think someone’s out there already working on that?
BOBBY: Alex, are you aware of the fact that none other than McKinsey and company advises every major sportsbook in the United States about how to set their lines and make more money off betters? And also, they were the people who came up with a lot of the things like algorithms that when— it looks like someone is about to leave a betting app. They offer them like $50 of free bets. That was their idea.
ALEX: That’s cool.
BOBBY: Just so you know who we’re working with here.
ALEX: I think that’s good. That’s healthy, generally speaking.
BOBBY: Right, exactly. Well, they had a lot of experience because they did that same thing with opioids. And before that, they did a similar thing with cigarettes.
ALEX: Yep. Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Yep.
ALEX: Yeah, there’s something fishy going on over there. I don’t know.
BOBBY: Yeah. No, but they are a values driven organization.
ALEX: Well, do we know— are they— are they woke? Like, are they—
BOBBY: Ooh.
ALEX: Are they buywokefree.com?
BOBBY: Good question. I’ll figure that out while you keep talking about Rule 21, the boring bit. I’m doing the fun stuff over here.
ALEX: [20:42] you are doing the fun stuff, yeah. The— the Hoberg thing is really strange, because it— as you mentioned, it’s shrouded in secrecy because it’s going through an appeal process. No one can talk about it. Not— not on there? I see you shaking your head.
BOBBY: They’re not on there. Yeah, they’re not on there, sorry.
ALEX: They’re falling on their job.
BOBBY: I don’t know. I’m not sure if they’re woke.
ALEX: All right. We’ll add that to the list of companies who were submitted for review.
BOBBY: The header image on buywokefree is apple. It’s just the Apple logo. Incredibly shit.
ALEX: Fascinating.
BOBBY: Incredible shit.
ALEX: The— the— the fact that he was disciplined suggests that he did bet in some regard on baseball.
BOBBY: You’re talking about Pat?
ALEX: But it’s also worth noting— I’m talking about Pat. Yes.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But it’s also worth noting that he has denied that, right? No— now, no one has explicitly said anything, but I think an ESPN is reporting— they added that he has denied report— betting on baseball entirely, right? So we’re in this weird situation where, like, no one kind of really knows what happened. It’s likely that maybe it was some sort of gray area, right? Where he’s playing, I don’t know, fantasy sports.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Or— or perhaps something else that, like, is not allowed, but also you can get away with saying that you were not actually placing strict bets on the outcome of baseball games or anything like that.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I don’t know. What’s your— what’s your read on all of this?
BOBBY: The Hoberg thing is hard, because the— we have the least information about this.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: The five players who were suspended for violating Rule 21, we have a shocking amount of information on them. We have the—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —amount of bets they placed, the timeline with which they placed those bets, the amount of money that they won or lost.
ALEX: Their win-loss record.
BOBBY: Their— yeah, their win-loss record. And presumably because this is an— an open and closed investigation, so they are like, “These are—”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: “—findings and the Hoberg one is still open.” But I— I don’t understand why. If I had to, like, completely spitball, it would be that perhaps a bet was placed from his account, but he’s claiming he didn’t do it, you know? Like, if he has some sort of, like, shared account with his wife, or his brother, or something like that. Or if perhaps, he bet on something that wasn’t in any way related to organized baseball, but it was still flagged as baseball or something, and he’s claiming that it was mischaracterized, I guess.
ALEX: Right. Like— like softball is one of those sports, it’s like a borderline thing where, like, technically, it’s not listed in the rules, but most players are like, “Eh, we’ve been told that’s a little too close for comfort, so we stay away from that.” Now, I don’t know if Pat Hoberg has a crippling addiction to gambling on top. Well, maybe, but what’s weird about it is that it’s taken so long to kind of come to any sort of conclusion, right? They mentioned that this is something that was flagged to them back during Spring Training, right? So— so I have to think it’s nothing that’s so straightforward, like placing a bet through FanDuel, because that’s the kind of thing that, like, if there’s an account that has Pat Hoberg’s name on it, that places bets on baseball, like that’s it. Like, you can’t—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: There’s— there’s not a great [24:09] to argue [24:10]
BOBBY: Even if it was like your son opened your phone and did it, like—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You— you still you have to be responsible for that at the end of the day.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I think that it’s ridiculous that we even have to talk about this, frankly. What do you think of— there was a whole, like— there was a lot of discussion about who’s responsible, you know? Because I think that people like you and I look at situations like this, and we generally blame the institution for creating situations that would lead to something like this. Where —meaning, that MLB rushed themselves into embracing sports betting, as well as the other sports leagues, did the exact same thing, and it’s been normalized so quickly, that there’s almost no way in the sample size of this many people around the game that violations are not going to occur. Whether those violations are committed out of malice, whether those violations are committed out of addiction, whether those violations are committed by accident, whether those violations are committed out of ignorance. It doesn’t really matter. When you have that many people, people are going to err, err, E-R-R, err, err. Not a word I use very out— out loud very often.
ALEX: No, I— I— I love that word, though.
BOBBY: It’s because I’ve been reading a lot, you know?
ALEX: Goddammit.
BOBBY: I think that’s true and then I think there’s a— there was also a sort of vein of conversation that I saw people having that was like, “Yes, and—” been watching a lot of comedy, too. “Yes. And what these people did is— is dumb. What these people did is stupid. It’s obviously a violation of the rules. They knew what they were doing. It was very likely that they were going to be caught. And I guess I net out somewhere in the middle, or I net out that both of those things can be partially true, but I don’t know that I necessarily blame each individual person without knowing what was going on for them as to why they decided to bet on baseball. I don’t know that I feel confident calling all of those people stupid, or selfish, or shortsighted, because I generally think that the idea of embracing sports betting at all, and thus having to create all of these rules around it is all of those things, too, is stupid, is selfish, is shortsighted, is eroding the integrity of your game, whether or not players are betting on baseball. And so I think if some of those players are like, “Fuck it, I will violate the rules.” I don’t think that they should be surprised when they get caught and suspended, because it’s pretty easy to track these things if you’re doing it through a legal sports better, sportsbook. But I also— like, it’s sort of one of those things where I’m like— the— the— the state, in this case, MLB, has like a monopoly on— so they just decided they have a monopoly on hypocrisy, essentially. They have a monopoly on talking out of one side of their mouth and acting a different way. That part bothers me, I think, when I look at how— when I— when I internalize the ways in which MLB tries to paint this as a black and white issue, where it’s like they knew the rules, the rules are printed on every clubhouse, in every ballpark in America. And that’s true. That— they actually have Rule 21 printed out and put on the club houses so that people know not to violate it, and are reminded of it constantly. But it does kind of bother me, the ways in which MLB and all of the sports leagues talk about this like they are— everything that they’re doing is completely above board. And if only these stupid players would follow the rules, they wouldn’t have to do these things. They wouldn’t have to make these suspensions. And they know they have to do that, because they can’t come out and be like, “We’re making these rules, because we know people will violate this and damage the integrity of our game.” They can’t say that, even though they do know that. And that’s the part where I’m like, “Can we just fucking level with each other here? Like, can we just all— can we put it all out on the table?” Like, yes, they are going to be suspended, but at least can you sort of like, tip your cap to the people who know that you’re just being hypocritical about this?
ALEX: I feel confident calling each of these players a little bit stupid, like a little bit.
BOBBY: It’s—
ALEX: Like, I don’t— I don’t think they share the brunt of the blame, but as you mentioned, the rules are pretty clear. And you can bet. You can bet on sports. You can bet on any sport you want, except for baseball, right? That’s the one that gets you into trouble. So if you want your March Madness Pool, or you want to parlay the Ravens and the Falcons, I don’t know. Would you ever do that?
BOBBY: Yeah, man. Yeah, you could.
ALEX: You could do that.
BOBBY: You could definitely do that.
ALEX: Probably get paid a lot of money.
BOBBY: Parlays are a scam, by the way. Don’t— don’t do parlays.
ALEX: I— well, tell that to Marcano, who— almost all of his bets were parlays and he’d lost almost all of it. He— he won, what? Like, 3% of his bets. And, you know, spent more than like $100,000.
BOBBY: Wait, so to— to close this— to close this loophole, I— I agree with you that— I— it’s— it’s fair to say that the— this was an ill-advised decision on many of these players’ parts. I will— I will lend you that truth. But can I read you Rob’s statement?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And then you tell me that you don’t feel the same way that I feel after hearing it. “The strict enforcement of Major League Baseball’s rules and policies governing gambling conduct is a critical component of upholding our most important priority, protecting the integrity of our games for the fans,” commissioner Rob Manfred said in his statement. “The longstanding prohibition against betting on Major League Baseball games by those in the sport has been a bedrock principle for over a century.” Has anything changed in the last century, betting on— betting on baseball?
ALEX: Not that I could think of.
BOBBY: Even in like— even in like the last couple of years, like has anything changed to where that longstanding bedrock principle?
ALEX: Like, even maybe on that 2018 in the [30:11]
BOBBY: Right. Like, would that— I don’t know. Maybe we can look into that. “We have been clear that the privilege of playing in baseball games— the privilege of playing in baseball games comes with the responsibility to refrain from engaging in certain types of behavior that are legal for other people.” That’s actually really fascinating. That’s fascinating. What if an owner bet on baseball?
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: What would happen? Rob would be like, “You’re suspended. We’re taking your team away.”
ALEX: It’s a good question.
BOBBY: What if David Stearns bet on the Mets? What would happen?
ALEX: I think that would— that would very clearly not be allowed. I feel like an owner probably can bet on baseball. I mean, they can do whatever they want, right? Like—
BOBBY: That’s insane. That’s insane. That’s insane.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, like, I— I don’t think you could go around tweeting about your winnings. I don’t think Steve Cohen could be like, “Yo, under on Quintana strikeouts just hit.”
BOBBY: That’s a good bet, though.
[laughter]
BOBBY: I’m just saying like it’s a critical component of our— upholding our most— most important priority, protecting the integrity of our games for the fans. Come on, dawg. Let’s stop with this shit.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, they have to feign some sort of ignorance, right? Because you can’t talk about why you’re doing all of this as a league, which is the fact that it’s like bringing in large amounts of revenues. They see this as the next cash cow, you know? And so it’s— it’s a question of, how much of this are you willing to stomach— or how much of it? Are you willing to stomach as a lea— as a league? And how much do you think the public is willing to stomach? I think if you asked anyone, if you asked anyone, they would probably tell you that there would be some level of, quote-unquote, like “growing pains” as they implement this and players figure out what the rules are, and where the lines are. And the lines are relatively simple, which is that you can’t bet on baseball. I don’t know that they, like, necessarily thought that you would have umpires getting implicated in this.
BOBBY: But why? Why wouldn’t umpires get implicated in this?
ALEX: I— I— that’s a good question.
BOBBY: It’s not like I look at umpires and I’m like, “Here is a population of human beings that have such high integrity that they would never do anything to compromise anything.”
ALEX: [32:25] that’s how I see them.
BOBBY: What— really?
ALEX: Yeah. I—
BOBBY: Going down to the local police academy and being like, “This is a crop of guys who I would have loved to hang out with in high school.”
ALEX: Stand up guys.
BOBBY: “A lot of principals here.”
ALEX: Would not have given me swirlies, whatsoever. I mean, I’m gonna go on a little bit of a tangent, so bear with me.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: There is this private— private investment firm, Arctos, who collaborated with the business school at the University of Michigan to create this, like— this Ross-Arctos Sports Franchise Index, which basically, is an aggregate index of the value and performance of North American sports franchises over like the last 60 plus years, right. It’s basically like one number that says, “This is how much sort of you’re getting a return on your investment in sports teams over time, and how it compares against more traditional investments.”
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: And what it shows is, like, I think what you and I would be able to predict, which is that, like, it goes up every year. It’s pretty darn consistent and far less risky than some of those other traditional types of investments. I think it’s something like, you know, 14% return on, like, a yearly basis. You know, which if you own a team, even for like 10 years, you’re cashing in big, right? You’re making tons of money, and each era has sort of different drivers of why sports franchises are going up. And— and in the last few years, one of those things has been sort of returned from COVID and like an increased optimism around, like, live entertainment. And I— and I do think that sports owners view some of that, quote-unquote, “increased optimism” is being driven due to sports betting, right? I mean, these are reasons for potential fans in theory to tune into your game, who may not have otherwise, right? And— and then on— on Bloomberg’s Business of Sports Podcast this past week, Mark Attanasio, owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, was on and was asked about this index, and kind of gave like a general answer, which is like, “Yeah, these are good investments. Like, you see growth over time,” which never mind what that does to Rob Manfred’s whole argument about risk in the stock market and whatever. But his— his more interesting [34:50] was when—
BOBBY: Rob [34:50] finances, you mean?
ALEX: Yes, exactly. The one I have tattooed on my forehead. But his more interesting quote was about sports betting, right? And where he’s like, “From afar, the ability to follow games in the NFL starts, frankly, as much with fantasy and people playing in fantasy leagues with each other, and then moving on to betting. And it brings interest in our league as well. And so we work hard at the league level to manage those concerns, but a time— at the same time, enhance interest in our game.” Which feels like the just— the point of all of this, right? Or like, if this is going to draw eyeballs to your game, on top of the lucrative partnerships you already making with these sports books, well, then, you are necessarily going to have to stomach some level of, quote-unquote, “impropriety in the game.” And I think that’s a trade-off that they are willing to make, right? It’s a trade-off that most teams were willing to make with steroids in the ’90s, right? Until there were congressional hearings about it, and then all of a sudden, it became a stain on the game, right? So it’s like as long as there is something that will continue to drive interest in your sport and increase the value of your franchise, why would you not— why would you not take advantage of it?
BOBBY: Yes. I see the argument.
ALEX: And— and I don’t— I don’t say that to be, like, pro taking advantage of it, right? But like—
BOBBY: Right. I guess I just— I wonder— I’m dubious of that argument, because I don’t know that it— it’s really convenient for them to say that.
ALEX: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, it’s convenient for them to make the argument that sports betting is making new fans. Nobody who comes into the game via the avenue of betting on baseball is there for the reasons we want them to be there.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Those are the people who are in the ballpark like, “I will kill your family if you do not cash my parlay.”
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: That’s the type of person that comes in there. And it’s like, “I got into baseball because of this.” And by the way, betting on baseball is fucking stupid. Betting on baseball is dumb. It’s one of the dumbest sports in the world. It’s so dumb.
ALEX: I know. I know.
BOBBY: That’s why we love it. It’s really dumb. It’s so unpredictable and betting on baseball games is bad. I’m sure that there are people who bet on baseball games for fun, who already love baseball. Maybe even some who listen to this podcast and they’re probably like, “You guys are always fucking talking about this constantly. Give it a rest.”
ALEX: Our hands are forced.
BOBBY: Our hands are forced. And I’m also sure of the fact that they’re— that professional sports gamblers have been able to find efficiencies in the baseball betting market to make money off of. But that— that’s not— these are not the people that we’re talking about. These are not the class of people that we’re talking about. We’re talking about the people who are coming in, and who are the— the— according to Mark Attanasio and the other owners, and Rob Manfred, it is drumming up their interest in the sport. Is it? Do I need to watch a baseball game and appreciate the human beings who created that baseball game, to be able to look in my DraftKings app and see if my parlay cashed? No. You’re creating people who are interested in the arcade games that you’re building inside of your sport. And I mean, how many times have we come on here and said that that’s not actual fandom? That’s not what fandom is. You’re not creating baseball fans. And guess what you have to do to continue to cash that 14% every year? You have to have fans. And we don’t have fans. The average fan is like 66. That’s bad. How is that not like— I almost said, how was that not like a climate change level alarm bell? And then I remember the people that we’re fucking dealing with. They don’t care about that.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They don’t care about—
ALEX: You’re not— you’re not creating fans. You’re creating consumers. You’re creating people who—
BOBBY: I mean— you’re creating worse than that. You’re creating—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —people who are trying to— to— to leech the game.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Like, you’re creating people who are only there, because they would like to financialize the game.
ALEX: Yeah. Personally benefit off of what’s going on in front of them.
BOBBY: Exactly. Not— not be there to— I mean, it’s like— I— I’m not trying to be dramatic, but betting on sports, it’s kind of like anathema to what I come to sports for. It’s like—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s the exact opposite— betting on sports is— is the opposite of community. Because if you could all come together and bet on the same thing, it would lose, because the sportsbook would change the line. And we’re all supposed to be there for the same reason, enjoying this thing together. Obviously, there are two teams, and so there are two sides to this. That’s not really what I mean, but what— I think that what is at the root of fandom is that we are there to enjoy this sport, and what it teaches us about being alive. And that has nothing to do with betting on the game. It has nothing to do with moving number from one app to other app. It doesn’t. And like—
ALEX: I agree.
BOBBY: —it might raise the stakes a bit for you if you’re someone who is prone to enjoy the adrenaline rush of winning or losing a bet. And I’m not— I’m not trying to, like, criminalize that. I’m really not. And I’m not trying to say that, like, these guys should have been allowed to bet on baseball and get away with it. I’m just trying to say I don’t think that it’s even useful to talk about things like integrity or competition anymore, if this is the direction that you want your sport to go. They’re trying to just make it less real. They’re trying to make it everything less tied to just watch a good baseball game. And it’s driving me insane. Like, I watch— I watched Bull Durham the other night, and I’m like, “Well, this might as well be the Mesozoic Era.” Like, to— to talk romantically about anything to do with baseball. You know, it’s like— it’s way— it’s pre the sports betting [40:47] obviously. But it’s like, it’s pre-Moneyball, it’s pre the Harvard MBA-ification of the front office. It’s pre, you know— it’s even pre, like, huge national TV billion dollar contracts. It’s like— it’s— and it’s taking place in Minor League Baseball, and it’s— it’s pre-MLB’s one baseball, taking control and— and deciding exactly how they own and operate the Minor Leagues. It’s pre all of these things. And so you can watch— and of course, I’m— I’m a sap for these sorts of things. I’m a sap for the speeches in Bull Durham or the spirituality of the sport. I’m not trying to come off like a rube, or like I’m not trying to come off overly corny or optimistic about what the sport can— can and should be. But shouldn’t it be? Can’t it be? Wasn’t it? And didn’t they take that from us? And aren’t they still doing that?
ALEX: Yes, to all of the above.
BOBBY: I don’t know, man.
ALEX: I just— I’m— I’m skeptical that like this is actually creating sustainable growth for teams, regardless of whatever the short-term impact on interest is. Well, your mileage may vary on whether there’s any impact at all. But I think, like, you reach a ceiling at some point. You have reached all the people who are going to bet on sports games. And, like, it feels like we’re reaching that point. Everyone knows the overexposure is here, right? And so, are you convincing more and more of those people year over year to come and watch your sport? Or are you largely relying on a sliver of that class, the people who are most in on gambling, and are willing to subsidize these deals you’re making with the sportsbooks, right? Which is like, I don’t know what’s worse, convince more and more fans to gamble, or just rely on one subsection. I— I— I don’t know. I feel like there’s this— it’s like the same way we look at AI, right? Where it’s like, we can have infinite growth, and it’s like, yeah, but like, what if we don’t?
BOBBY: Yeah, why do we need that?
ALEX: Then— then what? Then— and— and why do we need that? Yes. But also, like, you’re— you’re hedging so much of your sports future to this boat. I don’t know. I heard diversifying revenue streams was like a bus— it’s— wasn’t that a business idea, right? Something about the egg and the basket.
BOBBY: I just— I— I’m I wonder when and how— and I realized that much of this podcast is pulling our hair out about this exact question I’m about to ask. But I wonder when and how baseball went from being a— a big tent [43:31] entertainment product, a sport that’s supposed to be— supposedly, like, for everyone. You got a— a ball, and a glove, and a field, and a bat, and you can play baseball. I wonder when it went from being that to being the series of increasingly smaller tents [43:49] stuffed with cash? I don’t have the answer to that. But every single thing that they— that they claim will drum up interest in the sport is just another small tent [43:59] stuffed with cash. And I’m like, “That’s what I mean when I say that it’s incredibly convenient, the way that they talk about these things that are making them rich, in the short-term.” You know? It’s— it’s incredibly—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —convenient the way that they talk about RSNs feeds and they pretend to be mad about them as if they didn’t create the situation, you know? As if MLB didn’t ask for this. Let’s limit the amount of people who can see our game but actually increase the amount of dollars that we’re getting from those individual people and that’ll increase our revenue. That’ll— that’ll be the thing that makes us rich. That’ll be the thing that guarantees or 14% year over year. We had all— we talked about— we had this— we had this whole conversation and we haven’t even gone into my like— I haven’t even asked you to put the tinfoil on your head and be like, “MLB knew these players were out of the game anyway, and they asked them to bet on games so that they could have some low hanging fruit to suspend people.”
ALEX: Jesus.
BOBBY: “To make people think that they are enforcing it for the sake of integrity.” I saw some those [45:01] lying around.
ALEX: Fall guys. Scape goats.
BOBBY: Yeah. Tucupita Marcano—
ALEX: Bro—
BOBBY: —is the Lee Harvey Oswald of Major League Baseball’s Rule 21.
ALEX: I’m sorry, even Ippei didn’t bet on baseball. Like, that man was siphoning millions of dollars away from the sport’s biggest star and was like, “Yeah, but that feels a little too close for comfort.”
BOBBY: Oh, man. What a mess this has been. It’s not— it’s just— I’m not enjoying it. Do you want to talk about this agent article now?
ALEX: No. Su— yeah, sure. Yeah. Why not?
BOBBY: Okay. Why don’t you take— take— take the ropes? I’m gonna let you spiral over here. This is an article in The Athletic, a Q&A by Evan Drellich with former agent Jeff Berry, who was a big CAA agent, who represented the likes of Buster Posey and Josh Hader, and Trea Turner.
ALEX: Yeah. J.T. Realmuto.
BOBBY: J.T. Realmuto, Mark Buehrle. Some— some real guys, some big name guys.
ALEX: We don’t have to spend too— too long on this story, but I thought that this spoke to our interests, given that Berry sort of talking about how he became so disillusioned with Major League Baseball’s sort of economic system. Going back to 2020, I think it was, when he was going through a lot of these arbitration cases, and specifically, he called out one around Josh Hader. Maybe not the best poster child— well, maybe he is the best poster child for what’s wrong with baseball. But—
BOBBY: Honestly, the way that this guy talks about Hader and Realmuto, where he’s just like, “These are the two best fucking guys in America. I love these guys.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “It’s all about integrity these two guys.”
ALEX: Yeah, I know.
BOBBY: I was like, “Well, well—”
ALEX: All right, we could—
BOBBY: I wouldn’t put— I wouldn’t put us in the same political party, but on this side of the— on this issue, we are on the same side.
ALEX: His— his chief complaint, I think— they— they talked a lot about arbitration, and how just it’s an unrealistic way to— the— the way that the league approaches arbitration cases is just not a modern look at how players should be compensated or, like, what actually matters in the game. Which like— I think we kind of know a lot of this stuff, right? We know that teams get in there and use whatever stats serve their narrative in order to depress a player’s wages. And he calls out, like, teams using saves, right? The Brewers, you know, notably kind of deployed Josh Hader in a— somewhat a traditional way, right? More of the, quote-unquote, like “stopper” kind of guy, right? So he’s not just coming in and finishing up the ninth inning and racking up 40 saves. He is providing value to them in a different way, right? And the team, when it comes time to pay him, doesn’t like to talk about that way, even though for 364 days out of the year, they, you know, tout him for being that guy. But Evan asks him, and— and you brought this up earlier, right? How did we get to this point? Where owners and front offices behave this way? And his answer is Brad Pitt, and Michael Lewis, which I think is like a— it’s not like a completely novel idea, right? That, like, the ideas from Moneyball sort of broke the sport today. But I do— I do think he touches on this idea of, like, coolness and the new generation of GMs wanting to be, like, cool. Not just wanting to throw money at the problem and win, but like, they want to look like smart guys in the room. They want to command the room. They want to be the leaders, you know? And so a lot of them, like, tie one hand behind their backs, because they think that’s the cool way to do it, right? He also calls out guys like one David Stearns and others, who were sort of laundered through the Labor Relations Department before going and running a team, which I do think is a really interesting tension to sort of call out the class of young GMs who get their start on literally the other side of the aisle, right? Who get their start, as he puts it in this article, being part of Morgan Sword’s army of kids running around in arbitration cases, arguing that saves are the most important stat. So I guess I turn it to you, Bobby, is Brad Pitt the reason the baseball’s fucked up today?
BOBBY: I mean, yes. Do you remember— do you remember when we, like, finally eulogize Billy Beane on his podcast, his career with the A’s.
ALEX: Yeah. I do, I do.
BOBBY: Right? Like, not his life. His career with the A’s because he was stepping down officially, and there was rumor that he was gonna like— he’s already been part of— he was going to join Fenway Sports Group as a part owner of the Red Sox, but mostly, he was going to like, work on bringing efficiency to, like, European soccer or something like that. And I don’t think that actually ever even happened, but he was basically stepping down from the A’s and David Forrest was going to be running them even more ruthlessly to John Fisher’s liking, to save even more money than Billy Beane would have wanted to. But we talked about the legacy of Moneyball. We talked about how fascinating it is as a public relations device, because it’s— I find it to be very intriguing how Moneyball became this thing that like, “Oh, let’s find— let’s find the Island of Misfit Toys players. Let’s find the people that other people don’t want.” And that’s the redemption story, right? We find these players, and nobody else wanted them, and we give them another shot. And we see what’s good about them. And, oh, by the way, we pay them the league minimum. We— we somehow, at some point, along the way, we took the money part out of Moneyball, and we made it into this, like, cute, little upstart thing, as opposed to this thing that was a way to ruthlessly undervalue a, quote-unquote, “good team.” You know? We didn’t take the principles of Moneyball and say we should reallocate this money towards players who actually deserve it because they’re actually good. And stop giving so much of the money to players who, through traditional models, seemed like they weren’t good, but the way baseball is played now aren’t actually good. They didn’t do that. It’s like what Berry says in this article, “It was an incredible story. But if everyone’s doing it, then it’s not undervalued.” And then he talks about the greatest undervalued areas today, leadership in scouting. “You can’t copycat being a great leader.” I don’t really know what that means. But if everyone’s doing it, then it’s not undervalued. If everyone is doing it—
ALEX: Andrew Huberman shit right there.
BOBBY: If everyone is doing it, it’s just suppression, right? If they’re not saying, “Let’s take these things and pay more for them.” It’s saying, “Let’s keep doing what we’re doing before and let’s win on the margins, too.” Then it’s like, what has really changed except the ruthless cha— chase for efficiency. And it— it hasn’t incentivize players to— to become the best versions of themselves. And I think Hader is a perfect example for that. It didn’t incentivize him to keep being this fireman for the Brewers being— he was so interestingly, like he was in his career. Where it’s like, “Okay, if we have a high leverage situation, Craig Counsell has full power to be able to bring him in whenever he needs to.” No, what did they do? Josh Hader needed to win a future arbitration case or he needed to set himself up for free agency better. So him and his agent said, “You can’t use me unless it’s the ninth inning of the same situation.” Which I think is actually a really— it’s like a genuinely fascinating way of trying to scratch back some of that control and power over your career. Because for the most part, if you’re a reliever and they call your number, you’re coming in, whether you pitch the day before, whether you are going to get DFA’d afterwards, whether you’re getting sent— because we have options, you’re getting sent down to the Minors because you’ve pitched two out of the last three days. It doesn’t matter, you’re coming in. But Josh Hader had a lot of control because he was the Brewers best reliever. And why did we have to do that? Why did we— why do we have to have all of these like intricately designed bureaucratic inefficiencies in the way things are done, in order to keep players from making the money that they’re— they should be making? Or vice versa, why do players have to buy into all of these intricately designed bureaucracies when they know that it’s not what’s best for them, in order to try to maximize their earning potential in something like arbitration? It’s really interesting, but the— but I mean, not to be annoying, but the bad guys won. Like, the Labor Relations Department people, the cold, calculated analytics people, not only are they in charge of everything, now in charge of basically every team, and basically every department with any power in Major League Baseball. They’re also fond over by fans and media constantly. Like, look what happened when they hired David Stearns to run the Mets. It wasn’t like, “Oh, no. I was like the one man in the wild who was like, ‘Are we sure that we want this guy who’s just like ruthlessly chasing inefficiencies at all costs to be running the team that wants to be the least efficient of any team in Major League Baseball?’ Do we think that is a fit? Are we sure?” And everybody was like, “No, it’s fine. He’s gonna do great.” And then like, “That’s what they said about the 17 other Rays guys who went to other big market teams, and how did that work out?” You know? Not to turn this back into a David Stearns, was I right or was I wrong thing, because the jury is still very much out on that. But I— I just— it’s interesting to hear it from an agent, because most of the time, you don’t hear stuff like this from agents, because agents still have to maintain relationships, because they just want to be agents in perpetuity. Because it’s very lucrative to be an agent, but he is no longer an agent. He’s stepped away, so he can say some of the stuff— he can validate some of the stuff that if you are a fan who’s paying attention, you basically already know all— you basically have already observed all of this stuff. And players have more or less said it to you. Like, players have already come out and said this stuff about arbitration.
ALEX: You learned in this column— or at least I learned this column that he is the source of the— the leak about the arbitration belt that the Labor Relations Department was giving out a few years ago?
BOBBY: Fucking legendary stuff.
ALEX: Legendary stu— I mean, if— if he had only done that, and then nothing else, I would have been like, “Jeff Berry, come on the pod.” Like, no doubt. Televise arbitration, what do you think? He brings this up— or actually— actually—
BOBBY: Nobody would watch that except us.
ALEX: I know, I know. I’m saying like, I don’t even—
BOBBY: It’d be like one of those YouTube lives where there’s— the number in the bottom right corner is just two.
ALEX: Just two.
BOBBY: Sometimes it might be one if we’re in the same place.
ALEX: Right, exactly. I don’t know. I’m on board. I’m just— I’m curious. Is it gonna do anything to increase transparency in the process and increase the— the good faith with which both sides come to the table? I don’t know. But I’d watch it.
BOBBY: I would definitely watch it.
ALEX: I would just be ripping those.
BOBBY: Look, if you’re interested in arbitration hearing about what actually happens there and you haven’t listened to our CBA ABCs episode that we did from the lockout with Jerry Blevins, I— I just highly encourage you to go check that out. Because Jerry was like, “Yeah, it was total bullshit. They were in there arguing about, like, stuff about my personal life. It has nothing to do performance.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “And it radicalized me.” And I think that’s the case for like a lot of players. You could argue that that’s what happened to Chris Bryant, as he got radicalized by arbitration and service time manipulation. And he signed a lucrative contract and decided, “I’m gonna quit, but still cash my check.”
ALEX: Exactly. Uh-huh. Kind of a baller move [57:25]
BOBBY: I don’t know if that’s true— I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, he’s one of my favorite players ever. Okay. Should we— can we— can we do a quick check in on our Bingo card?
ALEX: Yeah, we should.
BOBBY: Okay. So if you’re listening to this, and you didn’t listen to our one of our season preview episodes, in which we built a Bingo card, we discussed 24 things that we thought could happen, had some level of likelihood of happening in the 2024 season. And then we had a free space, smack in the middle with Alex Rodriguez taking a gym selfie. And we wondered if we would hit Bingo throughout the season, and we’ve been updating it as we’ve gone along. So far, Alex, we have three confirmed yeses. We have three confirmed things that have definitely 100% happened. Those three things are a player was suspended for betting, the MLB Umpires Association had to release a statement, and the third thing was that the @MLB Twitter account tweeted out betting lines. All three of these things are betting related. All three, who could have thunked it? I never ever would have predicted this. We have a couple— just to run through— do you want me to run through all of the others right now, let people know?
ALEX: Sure. Yeah, let’s run through them quickly.
BOBBY: Okay. A-Rod tries to buy a team. Tony Clark or Harry Marino comes on the pod. David Rubenstein buys a new historical document. A team gets wrapped up in a culture war. Put a pin on that one. The A’s turn their replies on. Braves acquire or extend a young player. Jerry Dipoto news cycle. MLB releases— releases a new way to engage with the game. I have some questions about that. Juiced ball controversy, pinning that one. LeBron tweets about Shohei Ohtani. Betts, Ohtani, Freeman go back-to-back-to-back. There’s a Prestige Magazine profile of an owner. The MLBPA files a grievance. Dave Kaval resignation. Climate event disrupts games. Owner donates to RFK. That’s my favorite one. Pete Ricketts campaign finance scandal. Incredible log shot. If that hits, I will be so excited. Sitting [59:29] politician gets booed at the game. A team gets sold. Joe Biden messes up a Rangers player’s name. We’re running out of time on this one. Senator— and then finally, a senator calls for the revocation of the antitrust exemption. So those are the 21 events that have not happened yet. However, as I said, put a pin in a couple of them. I think we have compelling evidence on a couple of them and I want to decide with you right now if we should cross them off.
ALEX: Okay, interesting.
BOBBY: Juiced ball controversy.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: The ball is dead compared to previous years. It’s not like super dead.
ALEX: Yeah. But does anyone know or care?
BOBBY: I see people talking about it.
ALEX: Out— outside of— outside of like the— the people who are thinking about this all the time. Like—
BOBBY: I have heard announcers be like, “Wow, thought that one was gonna get out. That one didn’t carry.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, they’re saying stuff like that. They can’t really be like, “This ball is dead.” But are you willing to— so are you willing to say that we have to wait until we get like an investigative article about this to call it a controversy? It can’t just be specument— speculation among fans and internet types.
ALEX: That’s kind of how I’m thinking about it. Like, has it risen to the level of controversy yet? Like, has it broken out into becoming a defining storyline of this year? I don’t— I wouldn’t really say so.
BOBBY: Yeah, I would say no.
ALEX: The ball, like, kind of changing year over year. It has been a thing for— for years, whether or not we’ve gotten investigative stories about it or not. That said, we’re almost halfway through the season, the ball is different, and we’re all just okay with it?
BOBBY: It’s controversy in and of itself.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Open your third eye, everyone. Okay, fine. So we can’t cross that off yet. I’m just— I’m— I’m hoping. I’m— I’m hoping and praying.
ALEX: I know [1:01:23]
BOBBY: I’m trying to get Bingo here, dude. Okay. MLB releases a new way to engage with the game. This has to have happened, right? This has to have happened already and we just didn’t see it. I did see some stuff that was like ML— like, during the London Series, they were like releasing different ways to check it out. I— I didn’t— I wasn’t really following it that closely, but you— do you think that it’s risen to this occasion yet?
ALEX: There has not been a new product that has personally caught my eye, but I’m willing to be wrong. I try to keep my ear to the ground, but we miss things sometimes. So if you’re listening to this, and you have seen the new way that Major League Baseball would like you to engage with the game, write in. Let us know, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com, 785-422-5881. Took me a second to remember the phone number.
BOBBY: I’m actually impressed that you know the phone number. Usually, I’m the one who’s reading it out.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: We— for whatever reason, we didn’t read it out for like a few months, and then the fact that I was still able to pull it out, like it was like my childhood best friend’s phone number, you know?
ALEX: Right. Yes.
BOBBY: Back before we had cell phones, we had to know the house phone numbers of our friends.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Do— do you know my phone number?
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: Okay. Just making sure.
BOBBY: I’ve never had to type your phone number in once.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: Do you know mine? I know the first three numbers of your phone number, obviously.
ALEX: Are you— are you 247?
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: Nope? Not even close. Okay.
BOBBY: Well, that was pretty close, 267.
ALEX: Oh, there we go. All right. That was an area.
BOBBY: There is a four in it somewhere. You just call the operator and you tell them that— you’re like, “There’s a 4 in it and then the first three are 267.” I don’t know. I—
ALEX: Right. This is— I can do a little impression of him if you want.
BOBBY: “I can do an impression of him.”
ALEX: If that’ll help you find him.
BOBBY: Do you think that that would help, if you wanted to call Andrew Hamilton, former president of NYU?
ALEX: It’s possible.
BOBBY: Do you want to do your Andrew Hamilton impression?
ALEX: I’d rather not.
BOBBY: You only want to offend the Brits once a month?
ALEX: Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: By the way, the Mets—
ALEX: [1:03:36] have some very specific experiences for that.
BOBBY: Speaking of this month, this month being June, Happy Pride, everyone. The Mets are 8-3 in June so far. What does Buy Woke Free have to say about that? Let’s go, Mets. Ally ship pace. Okay. The other one that I wanted to put a— put a pin in— well, actually, we got some questions about the MLBPA filing a grievance because of the story with Bad Bunny’s agency, Rimas Sports.
ALEX: Oh, right. Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t consider that a grievance because a grievance in the way that we were talking about it, whether filing a grievance within the confines— within the construct of the collective bargaining agreement and the collective bargaining agreement—
ALEX: Right. On behalf of a player.
BOBBY: Right. The collective bargaining agreement doesn’t have really anything to do with agencies. They have separate rules and regulations and agreements with agencies. So—
ALEX: That said, by the day, I get more and more convinced that we could just start our own agency. It doesn’t really seem like they have any rules to that.
BOBBY: You have to have a client. We have friends, whatever.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We could get Trevor back into baseball. We could get Trevor back in an organized ball. Unretire Trevor Hilden— Hildenberger.
ALEX: Just tapping all the now retired baseball players who have come on the podcast. What’s up [1:04:50]
BOBBY: Doolittle is already employed, bro.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: He’s fixing the Nats.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Have you heard about this? He’s turned all of their relievers into good pitchers. Goddammit. I hate when friends of the pod use their powers against me. This is like when Collin McHugh was just dealing on the Braves for three years. I’m like, “This is bullshit.”
ALEX: Yeah. I feel like that meant a little bit more, though.
BOBBY: No, because if Shawn becomes the new— if Shawn becomes the new Matt Blake, I’m gonna have to watch that for decades.
ALEX: Actually, that’s— the Mets are in like fourth place, so the Nats are kind of their bedfellows right now, right? They’re— oh, they’re at the third place?
BOBBY: Hey, now. Hey now.
ALEX: I’m just— I’m just asking questions.
BOBBY: You dare question the team performing the best in Major League Baseball in Pride Month? Interesting. Okay.
ALEX: Pete Alonso, home run?
BOBBY: Did he just hit a homerun?
ALEX: That’s right, he did.
BOBBY: Oh, my God, as we’re talking about this? Come on, dawg.
ALEX: Come on, come on. So— so what are the paths you’re seeing to Bingo right now? Unless there are other ones that you want to dive into.
BOBBY: Wait, wait, hold on. There’s— there’s one more, there’s one more. A team gets wrapped up in a culture war. We got questions about whether or not the whole situation with the Rangers changing the tagline of their website to— what is it? Like, Don’t Mess With Texas or something like that during Pride Month?
ALEX: It was like— right. To, like, Straight Up Texas—
BOBBY: Straight Up Texas?
ALEX: —or something.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Straight Up Texas. Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s even worse. Oh, my God.
ALEX: Yes. Yeah.
BOBBY: They did put that together. Do you think that that’s wrapped up in a culture war? Honestly, even though that is despicable behavior, and I feel really bad for the people within the Rangers organization who have been pushing hard for years to try to get them to a Pride Month, but the ownership is just like, “No.” I don’t think that that’s wrapped up in a culture war because I don’t think that that has broken containment. Like, it’s— what I’m talking about when I’m talking about wrapped up in the culture war is I’m like, there are several Fox News articles about this. There’s—
ALEX: Right. Candace Owens is like— is ranting about this right now.
BOBBY: Is making the rounds. Like, what’s going on with Caitlin Clark right now. That’s a culture war in sports. It needs to be— maybe if not at that level, in that vein. Would you like to weigh in on Caitlin Clark?
ALEX: Yeah. Oh, my God. I have a lot of thoughts about her.
BOBBY: You do?
ALEX: Let’s go right now. Pat McAfee, I’m taking my shirt off.
BOBBY: What was it that he said about her?
ALEX: Yeah. You— you want me to do it?
BOBBY: You thought about it for a second. I almost got you. I almost got you. Okay. So culture war has not been checked off, either. Okay. So what are the paths to Bingo? I think the most likely Bingo for us to get right now would be— see, it’s— none of them are looking great, honestly.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: We would need Biden to mess up a Rangers player’s name. We would need a senator to call for the revocation of the antitrust exemption. Honestly, those feel pretty— pretty good.
ALEX: Yeah. But it’s— it’s the last one.
BOBBY: But the Bingo on that one would be a team gets sold.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And I don’t know that anybody is on the market at the moment.
ALEX: No, I know the Nationals keep getting tossed around.
BOBBY: Yeah. By the way—
ALEX: I— I don’t—
BOBBY: —shout out to whoever put the Mike Rizzo bobblehead in the urinal at Nats Park. Just excellent work. Keep— keep the Tipping Pitches message alive. The other way I could see it getting done is if David Rubenstein buys a new historical document and then an owner donates to RFK. What if we get it in one fell swoop and David Rubenstein buys some sort of JFK memorabilia from RFK, thus donating to him, and to get a good, new historical document? Now, that would be amazing.
ALEX: That would be amazing. I’m rooting for it.
BOBBY: I have one more contender.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: So right now— and by the way, if you’re listening to this at home and you’re confused, which you likely are, we put the link in the description to our specific Tipping Pitches Preseason Preview Bingo. Now, many of you at home have your own separate bingo cards, that’s how bingo works. You don’t all have the same card, because we want to see who gets bingo first. Now, in ours, they are arranged in a specific way while yours at home might be arranged in a separate way. So if you want to see what we’re talking about how they’re arranged, that link’s in the description. I— I would say the second row here on ours, Alex, has— has some potential. This would be juiced ball controversy, which we’ve already talked about, likely. MLB releases as a new way to engage with the game, pretty likely probably. We already got players suspended for betting. Now, all we would need, in addition to those three things, would be a Jerry Dipoto news cycle, which the trade deadline is coming up.
ALEX: Right, it’s happening.
BOBBY: Braves acquire or extend a young player. The trade deadline is coming up and the Braves are sputtering at the moment. They might need—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —an in— injection of fresh talent. That feels like a pretty good row for us.
ALEX: That feels like a pretty good row.
BOBBY: Oh, my God. The Pete Alonso homer was a three-run homer?
ALEX: Yeah, bro.
BOBBY: I though the Francisco Lindor was a solo shot and I thought that that was the Pete Alonso one. I’m— we’re cooking now. Come on now. Come on. We got pride we got grimace. What else do we need? We got Jeff McNeil being demoted out of the lineup. Jose Iglesias hours.
ALEX: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: Oh, my God.
ALEX: I feel like we have an okay shot at the Prestige Magazine profile.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Like, I— I think a Rubinstein profile, you know of, like—
BOBBY: Yeah, I agree.
ALEX: Like, we haven’t really gotten one of those yet, of like, here’s what’s, you know, driving this, this desire, you know? He watched baseball growing up, and went— went to Orioles games, and just fell in love with the game. And, you know, it was always in his mind. Like— like, that feels like a natural— there’s a natural path for something like that, whether it’s from like Bloomberg or, you know, whoever.
BOBBY: Not a Prestige Magazine, but we can argue about that later.
ALEX: Not a Prestige Magazine, but—
BOBBY: it’s the Atlantic or nothing for me.
ALEX: Okay. So the— the— the two possibilities involving that are— are not— don’t feel out of the question to me, right? That would involve a grievance. Betts, Ohtani, and Freeman going back-to-back and LeBron tweeting about Shohei, which—
BOBBY: I— Bett— Betts, Ohtani, and Freeman going back-to-back is not going to happen, by the way.
ALEX: It’s not going to happen, yeah.
BOBBY: Definitely not. That was so bold.
ALEX: We should have said go back-to-back-to-back, and just left it like that, because I think they went back-to-back-to-back in strikeouts the other day. But the other option is, in addition to the Prestige Magazine profile, is culture war Dipoto news cycle, a climate event disrupting games, and revocation of the anti— and calling for the revocation of antitrust exemption.
BOBBY: Right. We don’t need it to actually be revoked.
ALEX: To be revoked. Which like, I don’t know, the culture war might be the— the one I’m most out on there.
BOBBY: No, the culture war is happening.
ALEX: Well, then— then it’s maybe like the antitrust exemption one, because climate event will happen.
BOBBY: Is definitely happening, yes.
ALEX: It’s like clockwork. Dipoto news cycle, we know it’s happening. The problem with those is we don’t have any of them in either way, unless you count the free space. So—
BOBBY: Yeah, we’re kind of up against it here.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: But who knows? M— for a while there, it looked like we weren’t gonna get a statement from MLB Umpires Association because they just refused to tweet, they’ve logged off. They’re going full— they’re going fully disconnected, you know? They’re leaving their phone in the other room when they go to bed.
ALEX: Do you think Manfred was like, “You guys [1:12:35]”
BOBBY: “You must put out a statement.” Yeah, I think so.
ALEX: Oh, you must put out a statement. I was saying I—
BOBBY: Oh, for the betting thing. Yeah.
ALEX: I— I thought I was saying—
BOBBY: No, no, no, no, no, no.
ALEX: But like— but like—
BOBBY: Manfred— Manfred can’t tell a union what to do. That would never happen.
ALEX: Just be like, “Hey, guys, you’re drawing a little too much attention to yourself. You don’t need to put out the statement every time an umpire gets into an argument.”
BOBBY: Like, every couple months. I missed the good old days, you know, back when they were wearing armbands and shit. That was—
ALEX: Yeah, I know.
BOBBY: —the best. That was the best.
ALEX: I know, that was sick.
BOBBY: They gave up on that. Okay. Well, I— I— I root for all of your Bingo cards at home and I’m— I anxiously await the first person to get Bingo. I’m really— I’m really waiting for it. But we’re running out of time here at the end of this podcast, Alex, and that brings us to our Unnamed Ranking Segment, which this week, I’m calling Ranking Pitches.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Because that’s, for whatever reason, the one that sticks in my head. I would like you to place these five baseball stadium sounds in order of the way that you prefer them. The crack of the bat, the pop of the glove, the stadium organ, the roar of a crowd, and finally, the person walking around selling concessions, yelling out what those concessions are.
ALEX: Great question.
BOBBY: Thank you.
ALEX: I love this.
BOBBY: This was inspired by— so we get questions sometimes in Slack from patrons and someone— Britney put in a prompt tweet that was like, “What are your favorite sounds in sports?” And then everyone was kind of sharing underneath it, what their favorite sounds for in different sports. And I decided to just narrow the focus into just baseball, because this is a baseball podcast, in which we only talk about baseball.
ALEX: Nothing else.
BOBBY: No swish of the net here, ladies and germs. You know what the best sound in all of sports is actually? It’s that fucking—
ALEX: What?
BOBBY: —that fucking horn that they blow after you score a goal in hockey that scares the shit out of everybody.
[laughter]
Bobbby: That is awesome.
ALEX: That actually is cool.
BOBBY: Hockey is the best, bro.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: I can’t wait to start a niche leftist, product-oriented, shitposting hockey podcast.
ALEX: Yeah. That’s gonna be an easy sport to get into.
BOBBY: Baumann is gonna be so mad at us if we do that without him.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: Which is reason enough for me to want to do it.
ALEX: For— to want to do it? Right. Okay. Crack of the bat, pop of the glove, stadium organ, roar of the crowd, concession seller.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: So now these are sounds that you are hearing at the ballpark.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Right?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: This is not— not what you’re kind of picking up on TV at home?
BOBBY: Right. You know, I thought about blending the two, but those are so— it’s such a different experience. You can hear some—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —of the sounds represented on a broadcast and I think the best broadcasts you hear these sounds mixed well into the whole—
ALEX: Right. It’s a little [1:15:38]
BOBBY: Yes. Into the whole ambiance of the broadcast, the whole soundscape. That’s also in the audio industry would say, but no, this is what you’re hearing at the ballpark.
ALEX: I don’t know if it’s controversial. I don’t know if any— I don’t— I don’t know if any of this is controversial.
BOBBY: Be careful. Yep. The culture con— the culture war could start right here.
ALEX: Right here, right now on Tipping Pitches. We’re driving it. So last, I’m going to put the pop of the glove.
BOBBY: Oh, my God. This is so wrong. This is so—
ALEX: Which I— I say mostly because it is the sound that is least evident to me at a baseball game. I think it is the least distinguishable of all of these sounds.
BOBBY: Yeah, it is the sound that you have to be closest to here.
ALEX: Right. Which I’d— I— I don’t know what seats you’re buying. But I’m not sitting close enough to—
BOBBY: The same ones you’re buying [1:16:37] I’m just talking about like— you’ve been a baseball player for at least like 14 years of your life. You know what this sound sounds like. I’m furious.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I’m furious.
ALEX: You should be. You should be.
BOBBY: Okay. Great. What’s fourth, the crack of the fucking bat?
What’s number one, the vendors calling out for beer? Shameful. Shameful.
ALEX: I’m gonna go concessions sellers next at four.
BOBBY: Okay. But they’re so good, you know? Some of them are so— so talented. I wanted to give them respect by putting them on this list.
ALEX: They— they are good. And— and frankly, maybe they’re only down so low, because I think they are a— a dying breed, you know?
BOBBY: I know. Yeah.
ALEX: They are— they’re being replaced by—
BOBBY: Right. By fucking DoorDash.
ALEX: —by fucking DoorDash and MLB Ballpark Bites, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That’s what I do. I just DoorDash—
BOBBY: [1:17:30]
ALEX: —to— to Seaver Way, whatever the address number—
BOBBY: 41 Seaver Way. When I was trying to think—
ALEX: There you go.
BOBBY: You— come on now. Come on now. When I was trying to think of a fifth thing, when I came up with, you know, vendor chatter, I— I looked— I Googled baseball sounds and it brought me to a website called justbats.com., and they have a list of the best baseball sounds, which is misleading because it’s not just bats, it’s listicles, too. I’m so confused as to what some of these sounds are.
ALEX: What?
BOBBY: The clatter of cleats.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Infield chatter, dugout chatter, indistinguishable coach chatter, dragging the infield.
ALEX: Bro, you left off all my number ones.
BOBBY: What is dragging the infield? Is that like when the grounds crew comes around?
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, sure. Actually, honestly, the fifth one, instead of the vendors, should have been the sound of the umpire brushing off home plate.
ALEX: You— you hear that?
BOBBY: Not from the seats, but when you’re in the fucking thick of it, you know?
ALEX: I guess, yeah.
BOBBY: Anything chain-link fence-related.
[laughter]
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Hold on, so these are like— these are like little league sounds?
BOBBY: Right. Right. Postgame handshake line.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And here’s my favorite one, pregame national anthem.
ALEX: Oh, God.
BOBBY: As a patriot yourself. Okay. So you’ve put— inexplicably, you’ve put the pop of the glove dead last. At number four, you put—
ALEX: Once again, I’m—
BOBBY: —you’ve put concessions vendor.
ALEX: I love the pop of the glove. I do.
BOBBY: It’s anti-American, what you’ve done. It is.
ALEX: At third, I’m gonna put the roar of the crowd.
BOBBY: I’m with it.
ALEX: Which I enjoy. It’s— it’s cool. Oftentimes, I’m part of it. Sometimes I’m— I’m not. But it is not essential for my baseball viewing experience, right? It’s part of the reason like, you know, you like Minor League games, is that they feel a little more intimate and you don’t need 40,000 screaming fans to, like, get into the game. Frankly, sometimes it’s fun to go to an A’s game and be able to hear what they’re talking about on the field, you know?
BOBBY: Right, because then you can hear the indistinguishable coach chatter.
ALEX: That’s right, brother.
BOBBY: Or— or the infield chatter.
ALEX: Like, “Ump, ump, can you bru— can you brush that out again? Can you brush that again? Yeah, slow it down. Oh, just like that.”
BOBBY: Would you say that— would you say that when the crowd is smaller and you’re at maybe a Minor League game, and it’s a little quieter, would you say that it feels more bespoke?
ALEX: I’m not— I’m not gracing that with a response.
BOBBY: Come on, man. Bespoke?
ALEX: Can we use AI to power dragging of the infield? Like, what appliance could we get in there?
BOBBY: One that I didn’t read on here, knocking the donut off.
[laughter]
BOBBY: That’s just— they were really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Okay. So you’ve— you’ve got pop of the glove last, concessions vendor, roar of the crowd. Okay, now you’re down to your top two.
ALEX: Top two, stadium organ. I love the stadium organ.
BOBBY: It’s the best.
ALEX: Stadium organ is a— is a dying art.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: And again, maybe— maybe it only falls to two because you don’t hear it nearly enough these days, because they all have their cute, little sound boards, right? Like, someone hits a foul ball and they play the, like, broken glass sound or whatever.
BOBBY: Yeah, I hate that shit.
ALEX: No. Give me an organist who’s up there riffing—
BOBBY: Alex—
ALEX: —for nine straight innings.
BOBBY: —what do you think about this, reject modernity, embrace tradition?
ALEX: Did you just come up with that?
BOBBY: I— just off the top of my head.
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: Yeah. That stupid whistle noise that the Yankees play after a strikeout, reject modernity, embrace tradition.
ALEX: Yeah. I want analog baseball sounds.
BOBBY: Right. Exactly.
ALEX: I don’t want someone pressing play on a computer.
BOBBY: It’s nonsense. It’s nonsense. I mean, it’s just— it’s just everybody’s falling down on the job. It’s a dereliction of duty, like we have standards to uphold. And they’re all just playing, like, movie clips. I’m like, “This is what—”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “—I have YouTube for this.” Like, I’m here to hear a man of indistinguishable age at a part of the ballpark that I can’t see, play a live organ. Okay.
ALEX: The only place I get to experience that, really.
BOBBY: Right. We should bring organs back.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t know where they went, but that leaves the crack of the bat for number one.
ALEX: That does leave the crack of the bat for number one, which is like kind of, I think objectively, one of the best sounds across sports.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Pretty easy to say that it is the best sound in baseball. I’m not— I’m not going to zag too much with that. It’s— I would say one of the most attention-grabbing sounds in sports, and— and frankly, like— I mean, I guess it makes me think of tennis a little bit. That is one where you can always hear the play unfolding. In, like, football, you don’t really hear the play unfolding. You just hear like bodies slamming into each other, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Which is not really aesthetically pleasing. The crack of the bat is so crisp and cuts through everything else that’s going on in the ballpark. It cuts through concession sellers yelling about hot dogs and beer. It cuts through the roar of the crowd, and even can cut through the organ, right? Like, I don’t know how they designed those bats to make that sound, but they did a damn good job. That is— that is built American tough right there.
BOBBY: Just like Chevrolet.
ALEX: Exactly. Actually, I think it’s just like Ford, isn’t it?
BOBBY: I don’t know. I guess so.
ALEX: The Ford tough.
BOBBY: I— I’m out on Ford.
ALEX: Okay. That’s good to know.
BOBBY: Not a big Ford guy. Don’t— if you’re gonna buy me a car, don’t buy me a Mustang. Buy me a Camaro.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Actually, buy me a Chevelle, but either is fine.
ALEX: That’s my list. I don’t— I don’t have anything else to say.
BOBBY: It’s a good list except for the parts where—
ALEX: You can— I open myself up for recu— ridicule.
BOBBY: It’s a good list except for the parts where it’s a terrible list, which is—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —pop of the glove. Insane [1:23:58] just insane. Now, you’re just trying to stoke controversy, honestly.
ALEX: What do you think, I’m gonna come on here and just like do a normal ranking?
BOBBY: Honestly, I would think that about you.
ALEX: What’s the— where is the fun of that?
BOBBY: That’s fair. Okay. Well, next week, you get to come up with something for me to rank. By the way, my list would be exactly the same, except I would take pop of the glove from last and put it first, and everything else would move down one.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: Yeah, bro. I don’t want to hear the crack of the bat. I spent my whole life as a pitcher. That’s a bad sound for me. I’d like to hear that pitch pop the catcher’s glove, strike three called.
ALEX: Is that— it’s like PTSD for you? You, like, get taken back to being like 13 years old?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Getting taken deep?
BOBBY: I actually remember the first baseball game where I was like, “Oh, I’m not the best player here anymore.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “And I never will be again.” Like, playing against some kid who, you know, was like on some very highly touted AAU team and I was like, “I can’t just throw the ball by him every time.” He just absolutely smoked one dead center—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —way over the centerfielder’s head. There was no outfield fences. Like, it wasn’t even a home run. It was like something worse.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I made the centerfielder to have to chase it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So, yeah, crack of the bat, bad sound.
ALEX: You know, we’d— there comes a time for all of us when we no longer play the game. You know, we get told we can no longer play the game, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Some of us get told at 20, some of us get told at 40, but we’re all told, Bobby.
BOBBY: That’s exactly right. Okay. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of Tipping Pitches. If you’d like to call into our voicemail, the number is, as Alex so expertly recalled before, 785-422-5881. If you’d like to write us an email, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com. If you’d like to join our Patreon and hear our bonus episodes in which we, most of the time, reanimate an old segment we like to call 3UP, 3DOWN where we talk about three things that bring us joy, three things that take our baseball joy away for the week. That is patreon.com/tipping pitches, three different tiers. The top tier gets you access to these bonus episodes. Newsletter coming out on Wednesday for patrons as well. So if you’re interested in hearing Alex write about buying stock and baseball players, please check that out on our Patreon. I don’t— I don’t have anything else. Would you like to malign any other essential baseball sounds while we’re here?
ALEX: Oh, fuck. Ah, we’ll do it next week, but the Orioles did announce a new jersey sponsor.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah. We forgot to talk about it. Oh, my God. Okay.
ALEX: It’s just too packed. It’s been so long.
BOBBY: It’s not— it’s not going anywhere, you know? It’s on the jersey.
ALEX: It’s not going anywhere. It’s on the jersey.
BOBBY: What was the— what was the sponsor?
ALEX: Yeah. Well, it’s the—
BOBBY: T. Rowe Price.
ALEX: —T. Rowe. Hmm.
BOBBY: Oh, early return is not good. Investing made simple. Build a personalized portfolio that aligns to your future goals. Okay. Well, we’ll— we’ll slot that amongst our most evil jerseys sponsor rankings next week on the podcast, so please tune in. And thank you for listening. We’ll talk to you 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!
BOBBY: Do you want to start doing yoga.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Be—
[laughter]
BOBBY: I was gonna say—
ALEX: I won’t even entertainment as a bit.
BOBBY: Yeah. Usually, you’re like, “Yeah, sure.” You know?
ALEX: No interest.
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