Bobby and Alex run through a special (mostly) playoffs-oriented edition of Three Up, Three Down, discussing the Good New York Mets, how this postseason’s relievers are like refrigerators, a well-timed F-bomb, the key to being rich, The Mainstream Media, an on-the-nose advertising mishap by TBS, David Rubenstein’s prolific authorship of nothing, and more.
Links:
David Rubenstein on The Deal
Enrique Hernandez goes blue on Ken Rosenthal
David Rubenstein on presidents T
BS cuts to commercial mid-inning
The Trop’s roof is being sold on eBay
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Tipping Pitches features original music from Steve Sladkowski of PUP.
Transcript
[INTRO MUSIC]
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: Alex, are you familiar with a little podcast called The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly?
ALEX: I am quite familiar with this podcast, yes. The sacred texts, as I like to refer to them.
BOBBY: And now, listen, I know that we are doing this podcast one day early so that we can focus exclusively on playoff baseball. We’re in the middle of baseball’s high time, the middle of October here, but this is too juicy for me not to lead the podcast with it. Do you know who appeared on The Deal this past week? By the look on your face, I know you don’t know.
ALEX: No, I don’t know, which is— which is, you know, an oversight on my part. I just want to say, for transparency sake.
BOBBY: You’re not tapped into these pods like I am.
ALEX: I’m not. I just— I know.
BOBBY: You’re not monitoring the situation. You’re not surveying the landscape.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Maybe you should be.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: If we traded jobs for a week, who would do better?
ALEX: Define better. I think I could make some very entertaining podcasts. It’d be a little—
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: — avant-garde, maybe.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: People would be like, “Why did— why didn’t he let him finish his sentence there? He just—”
BOBBY: I know— I think you would do better. You know a little bit more about audio generally than I do about, like, renewable energy.
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: David Rubenstein was on The Deal.
ALEX: Hmm. Okay.
BOBBY: David Rubenstein, who hosts a TV show at— over at Bloomberg. The Deal being a Bloomberg podcast. You can see how this appearance was massaged. You can see how they got this get. I listened to it. He is so boring.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: He never says anything interesting. However, I pride something just a minuscule, tiny, little interesting moment out of this— this podcast appearance from David Rubenstein to talk about with you here on our podcast.
ALEX: Amazing.
BOBBY: I’m going to play that clip for you right now.
DAVID: So it’s fun. I can see why people who are owners enjoy being owners. You’re treated with some respect, in most cases, not always. You’re building something, you’re— you’re doing something to help your local community, and I can see the pleasure that people get out of owning sports. And if I had it before, maybe I would have done it earlier, but I didn’t.
JASON: Did any of the existing owners, the more senior owners or folks who’ve been in the game, did they give you any advice when you came in?
BOBBY: Awesome question, first of all. I just want to stop right there.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Good question. First good question I’ve heard asked in the history of The Deal.
DAVID: Yes. One owner said, you know, “I like you. You’re a good guy, but you should have paid a higher price.”
[laughter]
DAVID: I said, “What do you mean?” He says, “Well, I think my franchise is— is worth more than you think it’s worth. In other words, I think baseball franchises are worth more, and so you didn’t pay a higher enough price.”
JASON: Right. Right. You put a comp in the market that he didn’t like.
DAVID: Yeah. So I guess that’s right. I won’t identify that person, but— but I’m reasonably happy with where we are today. I hope we continue to do reasonably well.
BOBBY: Who do we think that is? The Baltimore Orioles. By the way, he said the word Baltimore.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: In his Balt— Baltimore accent.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Actually, legitimately, 75 times in this interview. It’s almost impressive. It’s almost impressive. Who do we think said to David— David Rubenstein, “You didn’t pay enough money.”? The $1.75 billion sale price of the Baltimore Orioles suppressed the market of what franchise to the point where that owner called him up and said, the first thing that he said to him was, “You didn’t pay high enough.”
ALEX: Do you have a owner in mind? Because I can think of a couple.
BOBBY: Well, a few came to mind immediately, but I’m so curious to see if they’re the same as yours.
ALEX: Well, the— actually, the first name that came to mind was Monfort, who is sort of known as the— the ringleader among— a lot of the anti-labor owners. Reinsdorf as well, feels like a— a— a more reasonable answer, if— if you’re looking at a guy who— whose team could potentially either be for sale or who, at least, is trying to juice his own market in the coming five to 10 years. Is there any overlap in our list, though? Were you going a different direction?
BOBBY: I had two in mind. One was Reinsdorf.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I agree with you on that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Especially like Midwest owner to semi-Midwest owner— Mid-Atlantic owner, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: They kind of play— they’re in the same sort of value group. You know, the White Sox would probably sell for around the same amount of money if they sold at this point, now that they’ve run the organization into the ground. They probably would sell for a little bit less.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, and Reinsdorf is, you know, an elder statesman, not just of baseball ownership but, like. sports ownership, right? So he would be the kind of guy—
BOBBY: In a way.
ALEX: For better or for worse.
BOBBY: He is old. The other one—
ALEX: In— in— in that ilk, I think, I think he probably holds that— holds that role.
BOBBY: The other one that came to mind was the Lerners.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Because those two franchises are very closely linked in terms of market value.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: In terms of sale price, I assume, in terms of TV contract. What one sells for is probably going to have a lot of impact on what the other one would sell for. However, I don’t know if they’re talking at all right now, because they have various legal disputes over who is entitled to what, and what is going on with MASN and who owns that. So I’m not sure if the Lerners would have called Rubenstein up, but that is the organization that came to mind. I like where your head is at with Monfort. That’s really interesting. Like Monfort—
ALEX: Look, I think—
BOBBY: —calls every owner just to give them the skinny.
ALEX: Right. Exactly.
BOBBY: He’s like, “Here’s what you did wrong already. Get in line.”
ALEX: Right. Peer to— peer to peer. Look, I know— I know there’s Manfred with his— with his diatribes from— from up on the hill, but let me speak to you, you know, as— as just one of— one of your friends. The guy who you can trust. You can lean on me. You can count on me to— to— to lead you in the right direction through this ownership. I’m so glad you mentioned Rubenstein, because this is— he’s— he’s on my list.
BOBBY: What—
ALEX: It— that— that we’re about to do. We’re about to do a special public feat edition of— of Three Up, Three Down and [6:24]
BOBBY: Playoff edition he did.
ALEX: Playoff edition. And he worms his way on there, mostly because he’s boring, actually. So this is great. I appreciate that lead in.
BOBBY: And we didn’t even plan this.
ALEX: We didn’t even plan this.
BOBBY: Incredible work.
ALEX: Us— us separately consuming David Rubenstein’s media appearances this past week. That’s— that’s where we’re at right now.
BOBBY: You can never say we’re not doing the work.
ALEX: No. Some work.
BOBBY: Someone’s definition of work is being done here on this podcast.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: As Alex mentioned, we will be doing Three Up, Three Down Playoff Edition here in October. For those of you who are new listeners, or who are not patrons, or who have maybe forgotten what Three Up, Three Down is. Three Up, Three Down, three things that bring us baseball joy, three things that detract from our baseball joy. We each do our own list. This has become a Patreon exclusive segment that we do every other week throughout the year. So if you like what you hear on this episode, you can check out the Patreon, patreon.com/tippingpitches, and you can get the entire back catalog of all Three Up, Three Downs for this whole season. We decided to bust this out here on the main feed, because on the Patreon episode this past week, we did an audio diary of our— of our trip to the National League Division Series at Citi Field, where, I don’t know if you’ve heard that the New York Mets eliminated the Philadelphia Phillies. I know I’m breaking this news to a lot of people listening to this podcast right now.
ALEX: Yeah. Myself included, actually.
BOBBY: So there’s— you were nowhere to be found when it happened, so you were just down somewhere in the bowels of Citi Field—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —while Francisco Lindor was hitting series-winning grand slams. So a lot of good stuff over there. Like I said, the audio diary just came out a couple days ago that features audio that we recorded from the stadium as well as like live reactions. And we— we ran through the experience of that series by talking about the affirmations that I was saying to myself throughout each game. I thought it was fun.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I don’t know. Thought it was a good episode, so go check it out. If you want to just do, like, a little preview, Patreon does this thing now where you can sell individual posts. So if you’re not ready to quite sign up at the highest tier to get access to those bonus episodes, you can just buy the individual episode and see if you like it. I’m breaking that— that news to you live on the podcast as well.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: New features, you know? Look at them [8:38]
ALEX: I might— I might go and buy the most recent episode and check it out.
BOBBY: Because you don’t remember it happening or—
ALEX: Pretty much, yeah.
BOBBY: So that was a lot of throw clearing. All that being said, we are going to do Three Up, Three Down Playoff Edition, and this— this will be covering all of the Wild Card Round, the Division Series as well as I assume you have some thoughts about the upcoming Championship Series. Maybe we’ll just talk about them more broadly. Before we get to that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[09:07]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Thank you to this week’s new patron, speaking of the Patreon, Alex. Thanks to Xander, thanks to Raphael, thanks to Matt, Ally, Liam, Ben and Andrew. Turns out, when there’s more baseball on, people are more engaged. Thank you all for signing up. I hope you enjoyed listening to me singing Piano Man on the audio diary from the National League Division Series.
ALEX: You should regale us more often, honestly. Tipping Pitches covers EP1, Vindicated, Piano Man.
BOBBY: Ooh. The Anthem by Good Charlotte.
ALEX: The Anthem by Good Charlotte, and the National Anthem by Francis Scott Key.
BOBBY: As well as God bless America.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Rolling Straight in to Take Me Out to the Ball Game.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Now, Alex, I made you face up to this on the Patreon episode, but do you also want to do it on the— the public feed here too, about the fact that you’re the most fraudulent Philadelphia Phillies fan who’s ever lived?
ALEX: No, I don’t owe these listeners anything.
[laughter]
ALEX: Look, look, all right, here’s the— here— here’s my final word on— on the matter.
BOBBY: He’s closing the door on it, ladies and gentlemen.
ALEX: I’m closing the door on it. Baseball fandoms are forged through experiences and— and memories.
BOBBY: You’re on— you’re cooking right now.
ALEX: And— and frankly, that’s what I made at these last two baseball games with you, Bobby Wagner, wearing a Mets jersey, as I had— I had experiences. I forged these— these memories. I— you— you can’t— you can’t pick a baseball team by a podcast. And frankly, I don’t know why someone would try and sell you that idea in the first place.
BOBBY: Don’t— don’t walk back on that now. That was some of our greatest content ever.
ALEX: It was some of our greatest content ever. I, obviously, still stand by the fact that if you were a neutral baseball fan or new to the sport, picking the Phillies would not be a bad way to go. That is a very good baseball team.
BOBBY: Tough argument to make right now, but I— interesting.
ALEX: I— I— yes. Look, I— I’m willing to have my— my mind chain— if someone wants to co— to come give me a real Philadelphia Phillies experience, give me a swirly, carry me through the streets of— of downtown. Hit me up, 785-422-5881. That is my personal cell number.
BOBBY: I feel as though— do you remember when that actually was your personal cell number for, like— for days by accident?
ALEX: Yeah. And I was just getting— getting the calls.
BOBBY: So you were just getting the calls forwarded. I don’t know how that happened, but that was really funny. I feel as though I gave you a pretty authentic Philadelphia experience, and you rejected it. You’re— it didn’t take— it didn’t take into the body.
ALEX: Right. It’s true. What am I, just gonna— I— ditch the last 10 years of our— of our friendship?
BOBBY: I’m pretty sure I said this— crazy that we’ve been friends for 10 years.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Pretty sure that I said this on the episode, I was like—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —”You don’t have the constitution for it.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “You’re not built like these people, and you can’t fake it. You can’t.”
ALEX: And you were right. You knew them better than anyone else, and you were right.
BOBBY: Know thyself, know thine enemy, is what I would say. And I feel as though I knew myself and I knew my enemy.
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And you’re not my enemy. You’re not.
ALEX: I know. No, I am not. I will be standing right beside you with my Francisco Lindor jersey.
BOBBY: Yeah, you will. That’s right. Francisco Lindor, what a ballplayer.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Do you want to roll right into it? You want to do Three Up, Three Down?
ALEX: I think we should.
BOBBY: I think we should start there. I think we should actually start with ups today.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Because it’s the MLB playoffs. I think everybody is really excited that— about this moment in baseball. Normally, what we do on the Patreon feed is we start with downs. We get them out of the way. I would hate to just kind of pour cold water on how everyone is feeling. We’re sitting here recording this 4:30 in the afternoon on Saturday, Eastern Time. The Guardians have just eliminated the Detroit Tigers, and what ultimately ended up being a pretty exciting baseball game that the Guardians won relatively comfortably in the end. We have the championship matchup set. It’s going to be Cleveland versus the Yankees, and it’ll be my New York Mets heading to Los Angeles to play the Los Angeles Dodgers. My First up this week, Alex, is that the New York Mets are heading to Los Angeles to play the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series.
ALEX: Well said.
BOBBY: The Mets won the Wild Card. The Mets won the Division Series. The Mets are going to the Championship Series. They are halfway there to the thing that will provide me peace for the rest of my life. I can’t believe it. Do I think they’re gonna win the World Series? I don’t know. I’m done making predictions with this team, but goddamn it if it wasn’t exciting, if it has not been exciting.
ALEX: Truly magical last few weeks for the Mets. Magical to share it with you and share in some of the joy in person. But just like the— the vibes rating— radiating from this team are next to none right now, whether— and I’m not even necessarily talking about OMG or Grimace or anything like that, you know? Like—
BOBBY: I would say probably second to none is the phrase you were looking for there.
ALEX: Wha— I don’t know.
BOBBY: You said next to none.
ALEX: I—
BOBBY: I feel like that sort of implies that they’re not there.
ALEX: We’re off to a great start. This has been the week in Tipping Pitches botching familiar sayings.
BOBBY: What’s old is new.
ALEX: You can lead a horse to water, but you—
BOBBY: You can’t make it hit a grand slam.
ALEX: —can’t make a podcast.
BOBBY: That was good. I liked yours better.
ALEX: All right, thanks. I mean, what more is there to say? If you really want to hear the— the truly unfiltered takes and feels about sort of the— the last series of Mets play, as you mentioned, you can go listen on our Patreon. But— but yeah, I mean, I’m so excited for this matchup. I— I— I won’t lie. I. I think it would have been fun to see the Padres advance. I think Yu Darvish deserves all that and more.
BOBBY: Man—
ALEX: But—
BOBBY: —bad beat for him—
ALEX: Really bad beat for him.
BOBBY: —yesterday.
ALEX: Really just—
BOBBY: Pitched a really great game. Two mistakes, the Dodgers hit them both out of the park.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yep.
BOBBY: What are you gonna do?
ALEX: Right. That’s— that’s baseball, baby.
BOBBY: It’s October, you know?
ALEX: Yeah, it’s gonna be a fun— fun next week.
BOBBY: You know, I think a lot of people shared that sentiment that Padres-Mets would have been really fun— like a chaos matchup, a sort of rerun from 2022. The Dodgers feel a little stayed. They feel a little, “Okay. We’ve seen so much of the Dodgers over the last decade.” It’s fun and fresh and exciting to see people like Machado and Tatis, have the potential to move on to the World Series. I’ve seen the take getting trotted out there a lot that— you know, because I don’t know if you know this, but I’m surrounded by Mets fans all the time online and in person. I’ve seen a lot of people saying something to the effect of , “Whoa, we dodged a bullet here, that we don’t have to face the Padres.” That was the more well-rounded team. That was the team that matched up better with the Mets. I sort of felt that heading into the series, and so I was like, “Maybe I want the Dodgers to advance.” And then I actually watched the series, and I was like, “Probably a toss-up between these two teams, you know? The Mets are gonna have to play well either way.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: You know? It’s like—
ALEX: That’s— that’s playoff baseball.
BOBBY: The Dodgers won. You can’t really like— that— that argument starts to fall apart when you realize the fact that they play the series. They went to game five. The Dodgers actually beat them.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Including having to win one in San Diego to even send it back to LA, and then to have game five with Yamamoto, who looked good, but kind of touch and go there a little bit. So I don’t know. I mean, I don’t have a super strong opinion about which team the Mets match up with better. Like, we got a pitch to Shohei Ohtani 18 times in the series— actually, it’s a seven-game series. We got to pitch to Shohei Ohtani 30 times in the series, you know? That doesn’t feel good. That doesn’t feel good.
ALEX: No. No, he’s still the best player on planet Earth. The Dodgers are still very good. But, you know, it’s— it’s fun to see these two underdogs kind of actually scrapping it out.
BOBBY: You’re gonna do this now?
ALEX: Yeah, we’re gonna do it. You want to do underdog chat? What’s— what’s underdog—
BOBBY: I’m willing to do— I’m willing to do payroll chat, if you’d like.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: But maybe we should save that for downs.
ALEX: We can— is it on your list?
BOBBY: No, it’s not.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Dude, the payroll thing is just like, who cares?
ALEX: Yeah, I just— I don’t— I don’t care.
BOBBY: Who cares? Just who cares? So my first up is, obviously, the Mets. Listen. I’m not going to bombard everybody here. I know not everybody listening is a Mets fan, although there are plenty of you, and I welcome you all, and I hope you are experiencing joy to the fullest, the way that I have been over the last couple weeks. But I know that everybody has varying interests here. So, again, if you’re a diehard and you love the Mets, and you want to hear our true experience of watching the Mets eliminate the Phillies, like Alex said, patreon.com/tippingpitches. You can go check out that most recent episode. I think it’s $3, because that was the minimum that you can set per post to buy per post. And it’s $12 to sign up for the top tier to get all to— get that and our entire backlog of Patreon bonus exclusive episodes. Pretty good deal, in my opinion. But hey—
ALEX: You be the judge.
BOBBY: You be the judge. Okay, what’s your first step?
ALEX: All right. Well, while we’re talking about the Los Angeles Dodgers, my first up comes by way of one Enrique Hernandez, who, last night on following the Dodgers clinching of the NLDS, got on national television with Ken Rosenthal asked, “Are we live?” And— and then proceeded to drop an F-bomb, right? Ken Rosenthal had asked him, like, you know, “What— what makes this team different from—”
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: “—from past Dodgers teams?”
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: Right? And— and that man says, “Because we don’t give a fuck.”
BOBBY: This was actually all three of my downs, because I don’t support that foul language.
ALEX: It was incredible for a couple reasons. One because—
BOBBY: Protect our youth, Alex. There’s children watching.
ALEX: I know. There were— there were people who were, like, acting like Judd Apatow, you know? Like post-Will Smith. [19:12] was like [19:14]
BOBBY: Post, what?
ALEX: Post— do you remember this? Do you remember this— this [19:18]
BOBBY: Will— Will Smith, the Dodgers catcher?
ALEX: Dodgers smitcher— the Dodgers catcher.
BOBBY: He’s a pitcher now.
ALEX: Went on— went on stage— goddammit.
BOBBY: Keep it going. Come on. No edits.
ALEX: Mostly, I— I mean, I appreciate this, because Kike Hernandez is— is a joy, the little grin that sort of spread across his face after he said it, you know? And making eye contact with Ken like, “I know what I just did.” Beyond that, it— it’s a— it’s a nice little trend of baseball players embarrassing Ken Rosenthal. Like we’re— we’re rapidly headed towards someone— Jesse Winker giving him a wedgie on national television [19:59]
BOBBY: Don’t get too far ahead of yourself. Don’t get too far ahead. Ken is coming here in this— in this here Three Up, Three Down.
ALEX: Okay. All right, all right, all right. We’ll save it.
BOBBY: The Dodgers, this Dodgers team, has a weird energy, in part because, like, half the team is on the IL, so it’s just like, “I guess we have a bullpen, you know, and we also have Ohtani.”
ALEX: Yes. Weird energy, not the, like, sort of juggernaut energy that I feel, like, we have felt in years past. But once again, as you just mentioned, they still have Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts, a hobbled Freddie Freeman who steal— who steals bases for some reason. Like, it’s like they’re— they’re all right. They’re all right. That’s a decent lineup over there.
BOBBY: My second up this week, Alex, is the fact that bullpens stink. Now, some of these bullpens have done their part and more, I would say the Dodgers in that bullpen game where they used, I think, eight pitchers or nine pitchers, potentially, they did their part. But bullpens, and particularly closers, and particularly closers who have been untouchable for, like, two years straight have looked human in this October. Here’s a list of incredible relievers who have gotten smoked in the month of October. Emmanuel Clase, even though he shut down multiple games in this division series. He gave up a three-run home run to Kerry Carpenter. That’s half as many earned runs as he gave up this whole year in one swing of the bat. Devin Williams, three-run home run to Pete Alonso in the ninth inning. The first go-ahead home run in the ninth inning of an elimination game in postseason history, Alex. And Devin Williams is as nasty as they come.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: [21:39] Williams, sorry that it had to come at his hands. Carlos Estévez, who the Phillies traded for at the deadline to be their closer to shore up the back end of the bullpen. He gave up a back-breaking Grand Slam to Francisco Lindor, as well as runs in his other appearances too, to lose the series against the Mets. Ryan Pressly and Josh Hader, two guys who we have— we have seen do wonderful things in the month of October over the last few years. Pressly in particular, he has been the guy that the Astros have gone to time and time again to shut it down in this amazing playoff run that they’ve had. They got smoked in their series while they got limited in the Wild Card round. My beloved Edwin Diaz hasn’t looked super clean at all times. He got beat in game two against the Phillies. He didn’t look great in the first round against Milwaukee. Now, he’s thrown approximately 3,000 pitches in the last eight days, so maybe this— this couple days of rest, that the first days of rest that the Mets have had, will right the ship there, but he got beat. And then lastly, I mean, this is kind of a little bit of a cheat, because this was the last day of the regular season, technically. And the double-header between the Mets and Braves, Raisel Iglesias, who has been locked down all year, gave up the home run to Francisco Lindor in the top of the ninth inning that sent the Mets to play the Brewers instead of playing the Padres. And now, the Mets are still playing, and where are the Braves?
ALEX: Great question. What are the Braves up to these days?
BOBBY: Couple of them are at the Trump rally, and the rest of them are probably in Cancun.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s just been really entertaining baseball, you know? It’s like, we assume that these guys are gonna slam the door shut and I gotta say, not a lot of slams so far. I have not heard the door slams. It’s been a lot of quiet, gently closing it—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —softly.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Allowing everybody to sleep.
ALEX: It’s like when you swing— you swing the— the— the refrigerator door shut behind you, and you’re like, “It’ll close.” Then you look over 10 minutes later, you’re like, “Oh, my God.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That’s how— that’s how watching bullpens have felt this October.
BOBBY: And then— and then the milk is spoiled, you know?
ALEX: Uh-huh. Yep.
BOBBY: Tough.
ALEX: Yeah. And then you have to go back to the grocery store.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: Get new milk.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Then you haven’t budgeted for it. And have you seen the price of milk these days in Joe Biden’s America?
BOBBY: I mean, and have you done your laundry yet? Because you might ha— might as well— now— now you’re doing errands.
ALEX: Oh, my God. Yeah.
BOBBY: So now you have to do your laundry.
ALEX: And then your whole— and then your whole weekend is blown up.
BOBBY: Exactly. And you— for your laundry, you gotta go up and down the stairs a lot of times.
ALEX: It’s like— oh, my God. But at least I’m gonna get my steps in, you know? So it’s like—
BOBBY: Right. Heart healthy.
ALEX: —there is— there is an advantage to it. We are heart healthy.
BOBBY: Did you remember to buy your Cheerios, heart healthy cereal?
ALEX: Hmm, that’s— I—
BOBBY: And if not, ’cause then you have to go back to the grocery store.
ALEX: I will add that to the shopping list. Right, yeah.
BOBBY: Right, exactly.
ALEX: And that’s, like, just the whole thing. We should have just had a real closer.
BOBBY: Yeah. Precisely. I don’t know. It’s been fun, man. I mean—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I know, like, the last decade of baseball has all been about getting these relievers who are absolutely untouchable and nobody can even get the bat to the ball, and we’ve seen a sort of, like, half-blend of all that stuff that we’re used to, while other guys who we would expect to be that, the guys who are making $20 million a year, like Hader and Diaz and stuff. It’s certainly not over by any means when those guys come to the baseball game. Much to my chagrin, in the top of the ninth of game four, that the Mets closed it out, and then Edwin got back on track. So it just makes for entertaining baseball, and I think it’s been a large part of why this October has been just awesome so far.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, any October that has Josh Hader eating shit on a national stage is— is a good one in my book. So—
BOBBY: Right. Which is most October is because he’s never won a World Series, and probably never will.
ALEX: All right. My second up is that we get to retire the— the buy’s narrative. No more.
BOBBY: Damn. This is gonna be my third. This is it.
ALEX: Oh, is this— is this— okay.
BOBBY: Yeah, let’s—
ALEX: It’s fine. We can— we’ll do it together.
BOBBY: Let’s share this one. Let’s share this one.
ALEX: The Dodgers—
BOBBY: Hold on, wait. Hold on, wait.
[Taps Music]
ALEX: Is something playing? I can’t hear anything. You’re just gonna sing it for me.
BOBBY: I’m playing Taps. That’s for the buy’s narrative. RIP. A really emotional one. 21-gun salute. We’re gonna fire them off.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yep, yeah. Really unfortunate turn of events for baseball fans and swing states, I guess.
BOBBY: For people who want to get on TV and not have to learn something new to say?
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. The Dodgers, obviously, the one seed, beat the Padres’. First NL Division champion to make it through the NLDS. And then—
BOBBY: In the new format.
ALEX: In the new— in the new format, not ever, yes. In— in this experience—
BOBBY: Shocking statistic.
ALEX: Crazy statistic, yeah. So sayonara. Well, I don’t know what more to say. Like can we—
BOBBY: It never really was an accurate narrative, because on the NL side—
ALEX: I mean—
BOBBY: —of the bracket, it was just going chalk the whole time. And on the NL side, it’s just not even close to a statistically relevant sample size. This is like—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —four series that we’re talking about in baseball, which is already a coin toss, more or less. And when you cut the series down to five games, it might as well be a coin toss with your eyes closed at that moment.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You know?
ALEX: Yeah. Well, and— and especially when reporters are asking players about it, you know, like, “Hey, do you think the buy impacted you?” And almost universally, they’re like, “Nope, we just didn’t play good enough.” Hey, like that’s—
BOBBY: And you’d rather have the buy, you know? [27:13] except for the—
ALEX: —that’s— that’s— exactly. That’s [27:15] word.
BOBBY: I mean, except for the 2023 Braves, I honestly blame this on the 2023 Braves, because they were all weird about it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Mainly like Travis d’Arnaud, who is, like, one of my guys, you know?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, suck it up. Don’t like it. Play better.
ALEX: Yeah. Or— or play worse, I don’t know. If you don’t want the buy.
BOBBY: Right. Exactly. You have two options here. Play better and play worse.
ALEX: Yeah. You’re in control of the destiny.
BOBBY: Don’t play exactly as good as you played, Travis.
ALEX: Anyway, that makes me happy. I’m sure that’s the last we will ever hear of it.
BOBBY: We’ve got one versus two on the AL side, and we’ve got one versus six on the NL side. So basically, we have the three best teams plus one, quote-unquote, “big underdog.” Now, your mileage may vary, of course, on whether or not the Mets actually count as an underdog, because people are like doing blood feuds online over whether or not you’re allowed to use that word for a team that has a payroll over a certain number. But this is basically the platonic ideal of the playoff structure that we would want. We have two of the best teams facing each other on one side. One of the best teams with the game’s biggest star on the other side, versus an underdog. You know, you want a little bit of— a little bit of a Cinderella story. Like, if you were gonna draw it up perfectly, like the NCAA Tournament. You’d want, like, two number one seeds, a number three seed, and a 13 seed. Whoa. Where did they come from? You know, like, that’s basically what we’ve gotten in baseball here. But everybody still wants to be able to whine about it.
ALEX: Yeah. Much—
BOBBY: Because, you know, I don’t support complaining or criticizing anything at all.
ALEX: No, no. Not at all.
BOBBY: Why don’t— here’s— here’s the thought.
ALEX: Accept the faith that’s given to you.
BOBBY: I don’t know if anyone’s ever thought about— thought of saying it this way, but here’s a thought, let people enjoy things.
ALEX: Right, including let Atlanta Braves fan enjoy complaining about structural issues that doomed their team.
BOBBY: No. Atlanta Braves fans should only be allowed to talk in the privacy of their own homes to each other.
ALEX: Right. Freedom of speech except for Braves fans, I think is what we’re saying.
BOBBY: It’s an occupational hazard of mine that I might open the internet and have to see what Atlanta Braves fans think.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: We need like an OSHA for that.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: All right, what’s your third up? Because this is [29:24] let’s keep it—
ALEX: All right, all right, all right, all right. Yes, true.
BOBBY: Before I really piss off the white flight people in Georgia.
ALEX: Keep it going. I’m just gonna let you talk. My third one actually has nothing to do with MLB playoffs— playoffs, but I am gonna do it anyway. And that is David Rubenstein.
BOBBY: Here we go.
ALEX: Just because I— I love talking about this man. I— mostly because to your point—
BOBBY: Did he buy a document?
ALEX: No, he didn’t buy a document, but— and I don’t know if they got into this on The Deal, but he has a new book coming out, right? So he’s been making this—
BOBBY: Actually, the— yo, they did— he said something absolutely bat insane, which is that he works on a new book every one to two years.
ALEX: Yeah. It’s— I,—and frankly, they’re all the same thing. It’s all just like, wow. Fucking US electoral system. That’s— we should— we should be more talking about that. Yeah, it’s— it’s bizarre stuff, but— but he’s making these media rounds. The— the book is called The Highest Calling: Conversations on the American Presidency. And I see why he is able to work on a new book every one to two years, because he doesn’t actually fucking say anything. Oh, my God.
BOBBY: And also he doesn’t write them.
ALEX: Well, also he doesn’t—
BOBBY: Who’s the other author listed?
ALEX: I know. I mean, there is not one, interestingly.
BOBBY: Okay, but there is a ghost writer.
ALEX: I’m sure there is a ghost rider, yes. But, you know, he—
BOBBY: Did you know he sits on the board of seven different companies, like nonprofits or charities? Seven.
ALEX: Pro— and he probably does a lot of work for each of them.
BOBBY: Yeah, he does. That’s one for each day of the week, and he’s working 12-hour days.
ALEX: True. Yeah. Well, actually he’s wor— he’s split his days up, I don’t know if you’ve heard this, into three different days. So he actually has— has 21 days a week.
BOBBY: True. And he uses the other 14 for the Baltimore Orioles. He did say some interesting shit on there about how he doesn’t know anything about baseball, and he just lets Mike Elias do whatever he wants.
ALEX: That’s amazing. I— more ownership should do that.
BOBBY: Except not when it’s Mike Elias, though, because Mike Elias doesn’t actually want to build a fun and interesting baseball team, and he wants to, like, make the spreadsheet look good.
ALEX: Right. Yeah. Well, I— I think I’ll take this over Ken Kendrick being like, “I personally signed Jordan Montgomery, and it was the worst fucking mistake I ever made.” Anyway, honestly, I just wanted this [31:48]
BOBBY: He needs to go back in his cave, bro. He needs to go back from whence you came, troll.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. Go fund your dark money candidates, like whatever. He— he— Rubenstein spends all these interviews just talking about how, like, presidents are, like, they’re humans. You know, yeah, they’re the most powerful people, but they’re flawed. They’re having known presidents. I know they’re flaws, but we all have flaws. Some of these people have really changed the world for better. Some make terrible mistakes. Some were lucky they became president. Some would be— we’d be much better off had they never gotten involved in politics. I mean, what more is there to say, you know?
BOBBY: That’s a master class in saying absolutely nothing.
ALEX: That was like, what more can you even say? I mean, some presidents have done a lot, and others, you may have disagreed with them, but the one thing you can’t dispute is that they were president of the United States.
BOBBY: Oh, I thought you were gonna say the one thing you can’t dispute is that they were human, except we have a lot of people on the right who have, like theories about the fact that the presidents and other politicians have been replaced by aliens, so actually, people do dispute that.
ALEX: Well, I— this was the other thing that come—
BOBBY: Where are you at on reptilian theory, bro?
ALEX: This is the other thing that comes through in his interviews, is he hits a lot, of, like—
BOBBY: Notably silent. Your silence is deafening.
ALEX: Silence— yeah. No comment on that. He’s like, you know, “The problem is that, like, people just need to be more informed. Like, I was reading about Thomas Jefferson and the history of our country, and just—”
BOBBY: All right, man.
ALEX: “—people need to be more—” I’m like, these people have— have had their brains rotted by Fox News and, like, Facebook AI— I saw a post on my X, the everything app the other day—
BOBBY: Nailed it.
ALEX: Nailed it. It was like, “Hmm, Tropicana Field getting destroyed by a hurricane and the Tropicana Hotel being destroyed one— in the same week. We really think this is a coincidence.” I’m like, “A Thomas Jefferson autobiography is not saving this person, I’m sorry.”
[laughter]
BOBBY: Maybe my favorite 30 seconds in the history of the pod. Yeah, man, get really informed about some things, but not too many things, though. Not the type of things that you could learn about the accumulation of wealth and private asset management that made David Rubenstein really rich. Don’t learn too much about that. Learn more about, like—
ALEX: Yeah. Well—
BOBBY: —I don’t know, government systems, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Of which we definitely have a really good one. You know, we’re doing great.
ALEX: Functioning very well.
BOBBY: Everything’s working really— it’s going really hot.
ALEX: Things are growing way— anyway, I— I do want to use this opportunity to say, David Rubenstein, if you are looking for a place to discuss your new book, A Higher Calling—
BOBBY: Yeah. 785-422-5881 [34:19]
ALEX: A better place to do it. All right. Should we go to our downs?
BOBBY: When he said in that little clip that I played at the beginning of the episode, when he said, “Some people have been nice to me about being an owner, and others haven’t.” Do you think he was talking about us? Do you think he listened to the episode where we first reacted to the fact that he bought the team, and we talked a lot about the Magna Carta?
ALEX: I—
BOBBY: Because people who are this rich, they get, like, media digests, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like they get sent an email that’s like, “Here are the seven things that people said about you today.” And honestly, we were loud. We were loud and proud talking about him.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: He was probably like, “Oh, my God, baseball media is coming around. David Rubenstein fired up.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And he was like, “What?”
ALEX: Finally, people are getting interested in the history of this country.
BOBBY: The Magna Carta is not the history of this country, Alex.
ALEX: That— that’s true.
BOBBY: It’s the history international politics.
ALEX: That’s— that’s [35:11]
BOBBY: It’s the way that the world has evolved.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You know? This is just pure ethics. Magna Carta—
ALEX: I agree.
BOBBY: —the most overrated document in human history. It just kind of, like, said some shit about how you can’t do whatever you want.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. They were—
BOBBY: That’s a B team document, Rubenstein—
ALEX: Yeah. They were getting away with— with a lot— they— a lot was passing for innovation back then.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. My first down, my first down is Ken Rosenthal’s column in The Athletic—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —owned by the New York Times Corporation, about the San Diego Padres and Manny Machado and his leadership and their behavior in the wake of what was honestly kind of a bummer of the game two at Dodger Stadium, where the fans kind of just lost their shit and started throwing stuff at Padres players after being, like, taunted in a friendly sports way by Jurickson Profar and Fernando Tatis and Manny Machado, et cetera, et cetera. There is a lot of vitriol against Manny Machado, specifically. That is the guy that people direct their hate to in ways that definitely cross a lot of lines on the internet.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You don’t have to look very far to see people crossing lines in the way they talk about Manny Machado. Now, is Manny Machado likable? No, frankly. Is Manny Machado a villain? Yes, definitely. Does he play into this? Of course. Is he also a great baseball player worthy of respect and not to be denigrated by the most famous baseball columnist in a way that doesn’t really align with his actions in the series? Yeah, man. Like, what are you doing? This is a weird column from a guy who makes his bones on being like a level-headed media member who’s— who’s taking a smart approach to a lot of these stories and digesting them, and he’s well-informed, and he sees the different valued perspectives within the game. Like, this is Ken Rosenthal— Ken Rosenthal’s thing. He’s not like— he’s not like a reactionary, angry columnist who writes stuff based on, like, your average 72-year-old fan who sees Manny Machado and thinks, “That guy’s a dirty player, we should play bean ball with him.” You know? Like, that’s— it’s not— that’s not his thing, and so it was weird to go all the way out of his way to write a column like this, and to also at the same time, like, hit Profar and Tatis as collateral damage in it, too. If—
ALEX: For the— for the people at home who— who aren’t aware of the story—
BOBBY: Yeah, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to get—
ALEX: —do you want to, like, read the—
BOBBY: Yeah, I don’t mean to get too far ahead of myself. This column is titled The ‘Sinister Sling’ and the multitudes of Manny Machado. It was about— for people who maybe weren’t following, this was much earlier in the NLDS between the Dodgers and the Padres. This was game two. It was honestly a Padres route, and they were kind of letting the Dodgers crowd have it. Profar robbed a home run early. He kind of, like, stared in the crowd and taunted them a little bit. Tatis hit a home run. Machado, I believe, hit a home run, too. And the celebrations were just kind of ramping up the crowd. Tatis was hit with a pitch by Jack Flaherty and then there was some chirping back and forth between those two players. Machado— man, how do I even— how do I even accurately characterize this? Toss the ball in the direction of the Dodgers’ dugout a little bit faster than you would normally toss a ball in the direction, but it hit the fence, and nobody was hurt. And everybody kind of lost their shit about it, because Dave Roberts said something in the post-game press conference about it. And he said something about how he was, like, alarmed by this. And so there was a lot of back and forth. Some of that back and forth was about the ‘Sinister Sling’ as Ken Rosenthal saying, but really, it was more about the antics of the Padres towards the Dodgers crowd, and the bad blood that exists already between these two teams and I think was stoked more in this series, for sure.
ALEX: Right. Antics being like Fernando Tatis, you know, wagging his tongue, or, like, fake dabbing tears from his eyes, or—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —Profar tossing a ball into the stands to a fan. Like— like— like, very loose, you know, interpretation of, like, them taunting the [39:19] you know, it’s like—
BOBBY: Yeah. Like, it’s a very loose definition of provocation, more or less.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It was not that provocative in the normal realm of the game. Now, Machado and the Dodgers clearly have history. He was on the team in 2017. He sucked in the playoffs. He was only there as a rental. He left immediately, went to the Padres, Dodgers fans don’t like him, period. He’s had multiple plays where he has spiked a player or came in hard with a slide. He’s had moments where he’s not run out a ground ball to first base, and he’s given quotes about how he’s not a Johnny Hustle. And so he’s like— he triggers, like, all the right combination of fans to where he has, like, a storm of people who hate him. And then there are people like us who just, like, frankly admire how great he is at playing the game and how talented he is, and don’t really care all that much about whether or not he’s, like, a #leaderofmen. But Rosenthal wrote in his column, and I think this is the article— or this is the paragraph that was getting passed around most often as like, “All right, man, you found the line and you took a couple steps past it.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: “At the moment, one thing seems clear, the Padres aren’t just a heck of a team. They’re also inside the Dodgers’ head. Teams often take the— take on the personality of their leaders. As the Padres leader, Machado is entirely willing to engage in some conduct— in conduct some might consider unbecoming, and he’s unapologetic about it. The best way for the Dodgers to deal with him is to beat him, and that will be easier said than done. Machado is far from the Padres’ only irritant. Fernando Tatis, Jr. is a smiling, dancing peacock. Jurickson Profar is the kid who pulls the fire alarm at school and then asks, quote, ‘Who, me?’” It’s just patronizing, man. It’s like— and it’s not really, like, an assessment or adding any information that you can’t get anywhere else. It’s like— forgive me for the word, because it’s like, I don’t often accuse, like, another member of the media of this, if I don’t know that they are, but it’s lazy. It’s like— this was the lowest hanging fruit that you could have put in your column to get clicks, and you did it. You chose to do it.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: When you have this huge platform, you’re on TV, you’re in these locker rooms, there was a better way to do this story. And that doesn’t mean that I don’t like every story that he writes, and don’t think that he’s, like, generally a force for good in baseball media compared to some people, because he is. But this column, not for me, bro.
ALEX: It— to your point, it was just lazy. It was corny, and was not adding anything useful to the— the discussion. And I— I appreciated, you know, Tatis, I suppose, taking it in stride, right? He did the little post on his Instagram where he put the dancing guy emoji and the little peacock, right? Because, I mean, they— they— it’s— it’s not the first time that any of these guys have dealt with this sort of thing, right? They—
BOBBY: Yeah. It was weird that Padres then, like, boycotted Ken Rosenthal and, like, wouldn’t talk to him and allow him in the locker room. That was weird.
ALEX: I think that’s fine.
BOBBY: Really?
ALEX: I mean—
BOBBY: I mean, I don’t think that they needed to go out of their way to, like, clear the air with him, but to, like, not even allow him in the locker room as a normal member of the media is bizarre.
ALEX: I mean— okay. So get a different media member. Like, if you’re— I— what, Fox is what it was on? TBS? Fox.
BOBBY: Fox.
ALEX: Get a media member who has— who has not written thinly veiled dog whistles in his national media column. Like, I think it’s relatively reasonable to be like, “Okay. You can’t do the in-game interviews with us tomorrow.” Like, if you—
BOBBY: Yeah, I guess I was wrong. He was— I guess he was allowed in the locker room as part of normal media, but not allowed in the dugout.
ALEX: Yeah. Get Verducci over there. I mean, I know, I guess, Verducci was covering the other series at that point, I think, maybe. I don’t know, man.
BOBBY: I— I’ve always found it confounding that they have Verducci and Rosenthal on some broadcasts together, because I’m like— it’s like having two play-by-play guys. Like, you guys are doing the same thing.
ALEX: Yeah, I know. Anyway—
BOBBY: I don’t know. I mean—
ALEX: Weird subplot.
BOBBY: Super weird. I have more to say about broadcasts and media, but I kind of separated it out into a different down, so more on this in a— in a couple minutes, but what’s your first down?
ALEX: All right. My first down, I think we, like, mentioned this briefly, but the ads during these playoffs have just been—
BOBBY: Good God.
ALEX: —unbearable.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Really unbearable stuff. I mean, you know, you obviously have your run of the mill, sort of— like, there’s a GEICO ad every third minute, right— or every third ad or whatever.
BOBBY: Yeah. Patrick Mahomes all over the place.
ALEX: Oh, my God. Patrick Mahomes is all over my TV. But, you know, the— I mean, the political ads are just another beast. I know election year, like it is what it is. The national ads for— for Trump and Kamala are one thing, but even the, like, local New York election ones that I’m getting are just— just bizarre. Kirsten Gillibrand being like, “Look, I’m looking out for working families too, and that’s why I’m stopping the migrant crisis at our border, because I’m about people, not politics.” I’m like, “Whoa. What the fuck?”
BOBBY: I was getting ads like that during the Mets series for, like, Milwaukee politicians. I’m like, “You guys are worried about the border?”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “The border of what?”
ALEX: I saw— I saw this one today that was like, “If you live in Suffolk County—”
BOBBY: Illinois?
ALEX: “—this ad is for you. We may live up here in New York, but we’re still feeling the crisis at our border.” I’m like, “How?
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, like, Suffolk County people are like, “MS-13 is in our schools, basically.”
ALEX: Right, right.
BOBBY: Like, that’s what they think.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: MS-13, a myth.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Like, I don’t know, man.
ALEX: It’s brutal. Actually, the one that has gotten under my skin the most is not a— a campaign ad, but is— is the ones from a financial advisor, I won’t say their name, because no free ads. But whose tagline is like, “The key to being rich is knowing what counts.” Fuck off. Oh, get out of here with that. Come on. Sorry—
BOBBY: Really bad slogans going on in the world right now, and you can tell that—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —they’re just like, “Nah, we’ll just— it doesn’t— eh, whatever.” You know?
ALEX: Yeah, yeah. They’re like, “It’s fine.” There’s— there’s another one whose— whose slogan is booking.com, more like booking.yeah, but booking.yeah doesn’t go— it just leads you to a dead page, like there’s nothing there.
BOBBY: Is that right?
ALEX: Like— yeah.
BOBBY: You actually tried it?
ALEX: I did try it.
BOBBY: You’re the best. You’re the best. Also, booking.com—
ALEX: Anyway, they’re sending their finest this October.
BOBBY: Dude, booking.com, it’s really funny that they, number one, sponsor like the whole MLB playoffs, and number two, I find— I’ve been listening to— hang in here with me.
ALEX: Okay, all right.
BOBBY: There’s not that many, like, daily New York Mets podcasts out there. So I listen to— I listen quite often to Jerry and Jolly, who hosts a podcast called Shea Station, which is— which is part of the Jomboy Media Network. And so the ads that that run on their shows are just like generic Jomboy ads read by Jake or whatever his name is. What— Talkin’ Jake? Is that what we call him? Talkin’— He’s Talkin’?
ALEX: No, we don’t refer to him.
BOBBY: Talkin’ Jake? You’re ki— sort of like a Talkin’ Alex, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That’s what you do. You talk.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Talking Alex.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And he reads booking— booking.com ads—
ALEX: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: —like constantly. And it’s like, “Now, that the MLB playoffs are here, it’s your chance to explore America. You know, use booking.com to go to that city you’ve always wanted to go to, to see this MLB playoff game,” I guess. I don’t really understand the connection. Like—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You would choose to go to Cleveland right now, of all times to see a Guardians playoff game, but you’re not from Cleveland? Like, I just— it doesn’t really track for me logistically, but that’s not my job. That’s someone else’s job who probably—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —makes, like, $330,000 a year. But during the World Cup— sorry, during the Olympics, this past year, there was a whole scandal with booking.com about how people were trying to travel for the Olympics, which were in Paris, through booking.com and they would show up at the place that they were told to go, and it would be, like, infested with rats, or like— there’d be, like, one lantern hanging from the ceiling and no beds, you know? Like— and so it was like all these people who were trying to travel to France for the Olympics, and they just couldn’t get their money back. And it was like an international thing, like, whose job is it to enforce this? Like, to give them their money back. The support was not helping. I’m like, this is not a real company, guys. Like, this is— I mean, I know this never stopped MLB before, but like, I’m sure that there are more regulations and it works better in the United States. And it’s probably just a way of, like, redirecting you, like Kayak or whatever, and they—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —take a fee. But just, like, a shred of due diligence here, maybe. Just like a shred, just a— just a little, like, a modicum, your favorite amount, a modicum.
ALEX: Yeah. Hey, man, the rent seekers are here. What can you say?
BOBBY: Always have been.
ALEX: That— that headspace has to be filled somehow.
BOBBY: Okay. My second down is I think that this has been an— an amazing playoffs on the field. I think it’s about as bleak as it’s ever been in baseball media right now, broadly. And I know I’m— I’ve already talked about Ken Rosenthal, and I thought about putting these as one thing, but really they’re kind of two separate things, because I don’t think Ken Rosenthal is really who I’m talking about when I’m talking about this. But I don’t understand why media now and, like, primary media members and sources, like the people in the post-game, the people on air, the play-by-play people, they’re talking about, like, these weird meta stories that only, like, 5% of people really care about. I’m like, you guys know that you have, like, the game there, right? Like, the game is happening. You can talk about the game. You don’t need to spend, like, three innings talking about how the buy affects these two teams. Like, we’re watching the effect right now. We’re watching the games. You don’t need to talk about, like, the meta things that people are arguing about on the internet and incorporate it into the primary product. That’s what, like, podcasts are for. That’s what the radio is for. That’s what blogging is for. It’s— it’s been this, like, weird backwards creep of, like, the internetification, of, like, the main thing, the broadcast, the games, the things that people are saying to each other in real life. And it’s made for, like, I think, just overall, a worse experience of experiencing everything around the games themselves. You’d almost be, like, better served just watching on mute in a lot of the— in a lot of the cases. Or just, like, tapping out of the stuff who are, like, the main players that the league is, like, hand selecting for who gets to talk about their game and what they get to put out there into the world. We’re focusing on the wrong things is basically my down. We’re way too caught up in the wrong things. Just, like, talk about the game, you know? Don’t spend a whole game talking about, like, culture wars over how we use relievers. Like, that’s what we’re here for. We got it.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It’s under control. You know? I don’t— I mean, I don’t know, man. Like I— I watch other sports, like I watch hockey. I don’t hear them talking about how, like— I watched all of the Rangers playoff run last year, and the Rangers have this player named Matt Rempe, who is, like, this six-seven defenseman who just gets and fights a lot, and people were arguing online all year about it. Like, whether he was good for the game, because Rangers fans get really excited when he comes into the game. Even though he’s, like, this really raw player who is just kind of, like, there to be a physical enforcer, or whether or not it’s bad for the game and it’s dirty. And we need to— to push hockey in the direction away from this, to try to make it more appealing to viewers, so that people are not getting hurt, and there’s nothing. It was like all of this, like, meta conversation about, like, what direction is the league going? What do we want to prioritize? Guess what? Watch the playoff broadcast, that shit was nowhere to be found. They talked about how he pisses off other players and he has big hits, but they weren’t talking about, like, the fan seven tweets deep in the reply, talking about whether or not they want their seven-year-old kid to watch this game, because Matt Rempe is on the ice. Like, it’s just not there. They’re just talking about the fucking sport, you know? And, like, we’re not doing that in baseball. We’re talking about the bad-natured discourses, and they’re bubbling up, like, in places that they shouldn’t be. Perhaps I sound crazy. Like, perhaps I sound like I’m too tuned into these things. I really feel like it’s gotten to a fever pitch this year where people are just focused on all the wrong things, all of the wrong things.
ALEX: Yeah. Dial it back, broadcasters. Know your lane. We do this shit post—
BOBBY: Where— where is fucking Joe Buck just being like, “And the pitch. And the hit.”
ALEX: Quite— quite literally. Oh, my God.
BOBBY: “And the pitch. And the hit.” You know, just like, give me that again. Come on, please, please.
ALEX: Yes. Joe Buck. Oh, my God. This—
BOBBY: Is this resonating with you at all or do I just sound like a crank?
ALEX: I mean, I— there’s a little— there’s a little crankiness in it, but, like— but I understand what you’re saying. Like, I think the conversations that do take place on social media have the ability to sort of draw people, even on the national level, down into the fray a little bit, because this is what fans are talking about. You want to be on the pulse with that sort of thing. And, you know, you want fans to tune in the broadcast and hear, like, maybe their grievances are being discussed, right? There’s no biases here, right? So if the Padres fans feel a certain way, well, like, let’s— let’s talk about it. And—
BOBBY: But like— this is what, like, some fans are talking about.
ALEX: Well, right.
BOBBY: A smaller percentage than you would think based on how—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —loud they are online in comparison to, like, real people in the world. You know? Nobody gives a shit about half this stuff.
ALEX: Yeah.
bobby: Stop. It’s ruining our—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s ruining our fun time.
ALEX: Yes. I mean, the internet was a mistake, hot take, I know.
BOBBY: He says on our podcast host on the internet.
ALEX: I say— I— you know, I’ll take one for the team here.
BOBBY: Fair. I agree. The internet was a mistake, so were podcasts.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Well, here we are doubling down.
ALEX: Right. And yet we live in a society, so what are you gonna do?
BOBBY: This is really true. I actually forgot about that, so thank you for pointing that out.
ALEX: Haven’t seen the new Joker then, I assume?
BOBBY: Did you see the fir— you didn’t see the first Joker.
ALEX: Yeah, I did.
BOBBY: Did you, really?
ALEX: Yeah, of cour— bro, that— that was, like, my personality for, like, three years.
BOBBY: Yeah, I didn’t— it was weird when you had the face paint on for those couple years when we’re doing the pod, but I didn’t think much of it.
ALEX: Right. You didn’t [53:53] but— yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah. What’s your next down?
ALEX: All right, my next down—
BOBBY: I’m all worked up. I’m, like, breaking a sweat over here.
ALEX: I know, I know. I always— I always love this when you have, like, a really, like hyper specific beef, you know? A really hyper specific bone to pick with, like, titans of MLB broadcasting or whatever.
BOBBY: With the media, capital T—
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: —capital M.
ALEX: Yeah. Things are really bad, and somebody should do something about all the problems, and frankly, I agree.
BOBBY: In our replies on Twitter, someone was saying, like— you know, because every once in a while, it’ll be like, “Hey, you know the playoffs are coming around. Any baseball podcast that you recommend I tune into?” And some people will tag us, and people will, like, describe what the show is, and— which is useful for us, because we don’t really know what the show is.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And someone said the other day like, “They’re like Chapo for baseball.” And I was like, “That’s just not accurate.” Someone else replied and said, they’re really more like citations needed for baseball.” And I was like, “Nailed it.” Not that that helps us with the elevator pitch problem, because citations needed, love those guys, still sort of a niche concept, but still—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —you know? Someone— people out there, they understand what tipping pitches is all about.
ALEX: They do. Like, they’re getting it.
BOBBY: That was citations needed hour. You know, I had to do it.
ALEX: You had to do it. Yes, yeah. All right, my second down this week, you know, we have not talked a lot about sports betting these playoffs, and I kind of figured we’re doing a public feed, Three Up, Three Down. Might as well do a little five minutes on the creeping exploitation of good old-fashioned, salt of the earth, hardworking class American people through sports betting companies. I think— I think you turned to me, like, a week or two ago, and you were kind of like, “You know, I don’t feel like the sports betting content has been, like, particularly egregious.” Right? It has not been so over the top in your face this postseason. And I— I kind of agreed with you. It’s like, “Yeah, I think that’s sort of true to a certain extent.: And, you know, I was sort of pondering it, of like, why is that the case? And I think what I landed on is that it’s because we’ve already let the egregious part happen, which is letting it into the sport in the first place. Like it doesn’t feel crazy because, like, it’s just everywhere now, and that’s the way it’s going to be. And we’ve all gotten used to that, you know? Before the— the Guardians-Tigers game today, they do their little DraftKings, like, parlay of the day, you know? Bet on Jose Ramirez to get a hit and Steven Kwan to get two bases. I mean, it’s not a great example, because today’s parlay hit, but—
BOBBY: Did it really?
ALEX: It did, yeah.
BOBBY: Dang. Take that to the bank, bro.
ALEX: I know, for real. I’m glad I put my money on that. But I just like— even stuff like that is like— this is calibrated to keep you going, you know? You get a winning bet every once in a while and you say, “Oh, I got a little more juice for a few more.” I mean, it’s just pure exploitation of behavioral psychology, because you— like, just hook people.
BOBBY: Yo, I think that we should— it— we’re not going back from betting, right? We’re not— we’ve released Pandora’s box, so to speak. So I think that what we can do is we should allow someone in, like, a point counter point fashion to be there during these segments as well, being like, “This likely will not hit.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “Here’s the percentage chance of this actually”— like we have a sabermetrician there, being like, “Here’s the percentage chance of this actually happening. Here’s what you’re actually risking by doing this. If you want to do it because you think it’s fun and it puts— puts a little added enjoyment in, and this is just scratch cash for you, go ahead. But here’s— if you’re actually banking on this hitting, here’s the percentage chances of it.”
ALEX: Yes. I was thinking about this exact thing today because I was like, “Oh, wow, great. I could win, you know, $400 on a $100 bet. Great.” Well, this thing has a, you know, 15% chance of actually hitting, which looks a lot different from, like, win—
BOBBY: That’s high for a parlay.
ALEX: That’s— that is kind of— kind of high, actually. But it’s just— I don’t know, man. I—
BOBBY: We— maybe we could get Google Clou— Google Cloud AI on this, you know? They’ve been telling us a lot about the percentage chances things will happen in the playoffs.
ALEX: Jesus.
BOBBY: Be like, “Percentage chance Aaron Judge will get on base here.” And then they tell us his own base percentage for the year.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: Really useful shit. Thanks—
ALEX: Thanks, Cloud.
BOBBY: —thanks Google Cloud AI. Really appreciate that.
ALEX: To be— to be honest, I— I wasn’t really sure if I was gonna, like, put this in my list today, and then again, during today’s Guardians-Tigers game, I think maybe you were at Guitar Center picking up an XLR cable when this happened.
BOBBY: That’s not what I was doing at Guitar Center. I was doing— I was playing drums for about an hour.
ALEX: You were— oh, you were playing jams?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You were like— you were like if— if— what would— what would Neil Peart do?
BOBBY: I love how Neil Peart is the guy that’s just always—
ALEX: That’s always the— the drummer—
BOBBY: —everyone always thinks of when they think like rock drummer, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Who even would you say second?
ALEX: Right, exactly. Like Ringo Starr.
BOBBY: I guess so. You know, there’s like some— people be saying stuff on each side about whether he’s a good drummer, you know?
ALEX: I know, yeah.
BOBBY: Or people are just like, “Ringo Starr can drum,” and then other people are like, “Ringo Starr is the greatest rock and roll drummer in the history of drumming.” It’s like that tweet of the— the guy who’s like— you guys be saying stuff so definitively. I don’t know, man. Sometimes I think it depends.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: That’s how I feel about Ringo Starr as a drummer.
ALEX: Glad we cleared that up. That was a good— that was a good little detour there.
BOBBY: Back to betting.
ALEX: This is in the eighth inning, Emmanuel Clase is on the mound. I don’t remember who was on the plate for the Tigers. I think there’s like one out, maybe. Line drive to shortstop, Brayan Rocchio hit, makes an amazing snag. And then someone pressed a wrong button, because in the middle of the inning, it cut to a DraftKings ad with, like, David Ortiz, and it played the full ad, and then started another one, and then they came back to the broadcast.
BOBBY: That’s awesome.
ALEX: And it was— I thought I was going crazy there for a second. I checked Twitter and, you know, I was not the only one to experience that, but it felt so on—
BOBBY: You checked what?
ALEX: Sorry, fuck. Can we restart the pod just real quick and I’ll get that right?
BOBBY: Yeah, I haven’t liked how this one has gone anyway, so—
ALEX: Okay. All right.
BOBBY: —run it back.
ALEX: It just felt so on the nose. I was like, “Really? Come on.”
BOBBY: That’s actually really funny.
ALEX: It was funny. That’s a good— good slip of the finger for whoever pulled that one. The between pitch ads talk about things that have crept into our lives that we should not accept.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s unbelievable. God gave us, between the innings, for ads.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: God and the people who invented baseball, they gave us this natural downtime. They gave us pitching changes. Sabermetrics gave you more pitching changes for more ads. Now, you’re just frankly getting absurdly greedy.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s ridiculous. It’s like Reign of Terror level greed that we need to combat here. Not that I have strong—
ALEX: Then start right here.
BOBBY: —feelings about how we should it.
ALEX: About Tipping Pitches.
BOBBY: All right. Are you ready for my third down?
ALEX: Yes, give me your third down.
BOBBY: You know, I was gonna talk about Diamond Sports Group quiet quitting, but we can save that for the offseason.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: My third down this week is actually a very serious one. And you actually— you actually already mentioned it. It’s the— the roof at Tropicana Field getting ripped off during Hurricane Milton, which hit South and Central Florida— actually, don’t know if it hits South Florida. It— it hit the Tampa area of Florida and much of the rest of the state and a lot of the Southeastern Seaboard area. Statistically, one of the strongest hurricanes, by many metrics that we have ever seen in human history, and it ripped the roof clean off. The pictures are downright astonishing of Tropicana Field. Now, you know, I read an article in The Athletic by Sam Blum, who’s a wonderful reporter over at The Athletic, who I like quite a bit, and wouldn’t mind having on this podcast if he listens. Sam, hit us up. About how the engineer of Tropicana— one of the stadium’s engineers, like who was involved in designing and building the stadium, said that the age of the roof had a lot to do with it, and that renovations could have been done to protect the roof ahead of a storm like this. It’s not necessarily that a storm would rip any roof off like this. But still, it’s like one of those things that just brings you to a screeching halt. You look at a baseball stadium, which is memed to death because of its roof, and you got an aerial shot of it, and now that roof just isn’t there anymore. No fly ball is going to hit that thing because it got ripped off by the devastation of nature, and nature rearing its head because of the way that we’ve treated the Earth. And I mean, my— my best wishes, my— my best well wishes to everybody who was affected by this hurricane and Hurricane Helene in the past couple weeks. It’s really, truly, intensely scary, terrifying stuff. And I chose the roof of Tropicana Field not because I think that’s any— any more valuable than any building. In fact, I think it’s exponentially less valuable, frankly, and we’ll be able to fix that and play baseball there. And people who need to get that roof fixed have plenty of money to fix it. I just choose this because it’s— it’s a way that it popped into the baseball world. And like I said, it’s that sort of record scratch moment where you’re just like, “Man, we are powerless to do anything about this if we do not course correct from the last 70 years of human history.”
ALEX: Yeah. Well— well— well put. It is one of those really stark reminders that, like, stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum, right? Like, it affects all facets of life. And I— you know, I’m sure we will talk more this offseason—
BOBBY: And even the facets of life— sorry to interrupt you, but even the facets of life that we use to distract ourselves from these things, like baseball.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. And I’m sure we’ll talk more this offseason, sort of about what the kind of implications are for this as well. The Rays have long been searching for a new stadium anyway. And I’m sure questions will be raised about, “Well, it’s just this— this the impetus that that they need to just go and get a new stadium?” Which I think is not the correct response to this, obviously. But I don’t know. We’ll see. My— my third down dovetails quite nicely with this, because it’s— the pieces of the Trop’s roof are being sold on eBay. If you’d like to get yourself a piece of hurricane destroyed Tropicana Field roof, you can do it for the low price of 69.99.
BOBBY: Jesus Christ.
ALEX: A really, really dark indictment on the state of things right now.
BOBBY: Imagining any hurricane relief aid of which there will not be nearly enough because Ron DeSantis needs to be sent to the deepest, deepest layers of hell. Like imagine any of that— imagining any of that aid going towards fixing the Trop’s roof so that the Rays, with the cheapest owner in baseball, can play baseball there next year, is mind-numbing.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah. Not much more to say. I like— I don’t know. We’ll— we’ll see.
BOBBY: How would you even verify that it’s actually a part of the roof?
ALEX: Right. Exactly. I—
BOBBY: Does it say like “Property of the Tampa Bay Rays” like, on one of the inside layers of it?
ALEX: Right. Each piece has a unique—
BOBBY: Serial number?
ALEX: —serial number, right? It’s like hand-numbered.
BOBBY: It’s artisanal. It’s, dare I say, bespoke?
ALEX: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: The Rays’ roof was bespoke?
ALEX: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: The new driftwood is just destroyed properties from natural disasters caused by human indifference and climate change.
ALEX: Good Lord. That’s actually a really bleak tunnel to stare down. A great way to end this podcast, Bobby.
BOBBY: Hey, man.
ALEX: Well— well done.
BOBBY: You tapped into Mad Max recently? They— they had some stuff to say.
ALEX: I am glad we did the Ups first.
BOBBY: This is why I wanted to do the Ups first.
ALEX: I know, I know.
BOBBY: It’s almost like I think about content, you know?
ALEX: Oh, yeah.
BOBBY: Like, the content [1:06:27]
ALEX: It’s almost like you’re a producer. See? And this is why I couldn’t do your job.
BOBBY: Exactly. This is why I’m trying to produce the broadcasts from— from a third-party perspective. I’m like, “You guy—”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: “This is not— you’re focusing on the wrong things.” I’m—
ALEX: You could— you could be a consultant.
BOBBY: This is what I was about to say. I’m just like a modern day consultant.
ALEX: Yes. Yes.
BOBBY: Hire me, Deloitte.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Hire me, Bain.
ALEX: Oh, you’ll fire some people, that’s for sure.
BOBBY: I don’t think that they would be happy with the people that I would choose to fire.
ALEX: I don’t think so, either.
BOBBY: Yeah. I’d be like, “Fire this man, Donald Trump. You know, fire this man from the Republican ticket. Let’s get him out of here. Let’s get him out of here. You’re fired, sir.”
ALEX: Oh, my God. Have they tried running on that?
BOBBY: Have they tried pointing at him and saying, “You’re fired.”?
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Do we know what—
ALEX: You might be cooking right now.
BOBBY: What would he do?
ALEX: I— he would— he would have to—
BOBBY: Because we can’t have another four years of that clown in the White House.
ALEX: Absolutely not. That Cheeto? I might— I’d prefer that one was left at the bottom of the bag of Cheetos.
BOBBY: Oh, we were running with the Cheeto thing?
ALEX: I— I’ve— really wish it was Lay’s instead.
BOBBY: Lay’s on [1:07:39] I think they’re all Frito Lay products.
ALEX: Wow. Wait, interesting. So you’re saying— yeah. You got the optional Lay’s, you got the option to Cheetos, but really, you’re all voting for the same thing anyway.
BOBBY: That’s exactly what I’m saying. That’s exactly— nailed it. I feel— feel like maybe not one single person listening to this is following what the fuck we’re talking about, so—
ALEX: Are there any people listening to this still? Hello? Hello?
BOBBY: Is this being recorded?
ALEX: Oh, fuck.
BOBBY: Did you press record? All right. Well, that was Three Up, Three Down. That last couple minutes there, I think a nice preview of what the energy is usually like on the Patreon feed.
ALEX: Yeah, no. Well done.
BOBBY: Patreon.com/tippingpitches. Top tier gets you access to all of the entire back catalog of our bonus episodes, as well as those new ones as they come out every other week. Those come out, usually on Thursday mornings, sometimes Friday mornings, depending on the audio production value of the episode. NLDS audio diary, most recent one. You can buy that a la carte if you just like to sample the Patreon. Thank you for doing the work.
ALEX: Are we going to do a Rubenstein book club this offseason?
BOBBY: Well, we have many books to choose from.
ALEX: That’s— that’s true.
BOBBY: I almost was like, “You got to listen to this interview.” And then I just was like, “No, you don’t.” In my head, I was like, “I value my friend’s time too much to tell him to listen to this interview. It’s not important.”
ALEX: His— he— he writes books called, like, the American Experiment, the American Story.
BOBBY: Oh, my God.
ALEX: How to Lead.
BOBBY: Has— have we—
ALEX: How to Invest— oh, that— actually, that’s the one I want to read.
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, I ghost wrote that one, so you probably learned all the lessons already.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Has he ever thought of just like finding where Trump is and going up to him and saying, “You’re not part of the American Project.”?
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: He’s like, “Here, read this, sir, and you’ll under— you’ll step down because you— now, you better understand the American Project, and how you’d fit into it.”
ALEX: But here— the thing that you don’t understand, I can’t believe we’re still recording, but is that— is that he’s human, too. You know, he has flaws.
BOBBY: Oh, right.
ALEX: And the thing that we forget, frankly, the thing most people forget, is that presidents are human, too.
BOBBY: I honestly don’t have anything to add to that.
ALEX: Oh, we got the NLCS coming up, the ALCS coming up. This is a fun one, Bobby.
BOBBY: Yeah, I’m really excited. I mean, I’m nervous—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —but again, protecting my peace. I’m so excited that I can finally wear my heavy slime shirts again. I’m so excited that I can listen to all my favorite bands who are from Philadelphia. I was abstaining during the Mets-Philly series. Now, now, it’s war on LA. Randy Newman—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —it’s on site.
ALEX: Is he still alive?
BOBBY: Gavin Newsom, no, he’s not the mayor. Eric Garcetti, I don’t think he’s the mayor either anymore.
ALEX: He’s also not the mayor.
BOBBY: But actually it is on site for Eric Garcetti. Fuck that guy.
ALEX: Yeah, of course.
BOBBY: Karen Bass, good try, but not— you haven’t done very much. It’s probably not on site, but it’s okay.
ALEX: You’re— you’re slowly slipping away from California politicians, I recognize.
BOBBY: Karen Bass is the mayor of LA now.
ALEX: Oh, she is? Okay.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Oh, was she the one who, like, posted the video of the empty sidewalk and was like, “Used to be homeless people here. Looks pretty nice, huh?”?
BOBBY: Yeah. And that sidewalk was probably cleaned by hand by Gavin Newsom.
ALEX: Right, behind a bulldozer.
BOBBY: You will or will not be punching one in for old— old news— old Newsom.
ALEX: You mean for president?
BOBBY: No, for Governor of California, where you still vote.
ALEX: That’s not true anymore.
BOBBY: I always mix this up.
ALEX: Well, it was true until about, like, eight months ago, so—
BOBBY: That’s so crazy.
ALEX: Anyway, we’re— could— should— should we end this podcast?
BOBBY: Pennsylvania still thinks I vote in Pennsylvania, even though I’ve told them many times that I don’t vote there.
ALEX: By— by still thinks—
BOBBY: Read— read into that what you will.
ALEX: Are they— are they sending you, like, absentee ballot— ballots?
BOBBY: That— you know, you have to request your absentee ballot in Pennsylvania, so they don’t just automatically send it to you. But they do send me stuff that’s like, “Here’s when you can request your absentee ballot. Here’s where you need to go to vote.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I’m like, “I’ve told you guys. I don’t— like, this is what I said on the documents when I was like— when you called me into court for— for jury duty.” I was like, “I don’t live here anymore. I— unregister me.”
ALEX: Right. The ex— the ex that will not leave you alone. It’s just like, “Look, I don’t want to meet up for coffee.”
BOBBY: Is the voting registrar of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Did I tell you I got called for jury duty last week and I did the one time pushback? I was like, “I’ll do it in January.”
ALEX: Why?
BOBBY: Because I had pods to do.
ALEX: Oh, my God. You shouldn’t—
BOBBY: You can’t expect me to go to jury duty during the Mets magical playoff run. That’s just— that’s just— read the room, Kings County. Read the room.
ALEX: Actually, that would be a pretty good bit. You go— you go the next two weeks no contact with the outside world.
BOBBY: Sequestered?
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: I get back in the Mets are in game five of the World Series. The thing that I’ve been waiting literally my whole life for?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Good bit. Not one that I was willing to play out. I’m willing to do almost anything for the bit, that’s not one of them. Thank you, everybody, for listening, patreon.com/tippingpitches. You want to send us an email, tipping pitchespod@gmail.com. Voicemail, 785-422-5881. Best of luck to you if you are a fan of a team still in the playoffs, unless you’re a fan of Los Angeles Dodgers, in which case, I would say, I hope your team crashes and burns, even though I love many of the players and I would consider them my second favorite team in baseball. Thanks for listening. We’ll 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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