Bobby and Alex discuss David Rubenstein’s Presidential Medal of Freedom and rebellious General Manager, as well as a grab bag of other topics, including: Juan Soto’s contract and the media’s annoying reaction to it, Dave Kaval’s resignation, Paul Skenes’ expanded role in the union, and more.
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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: Alex, hello. How are you? Happy new year. It’s good to see you.
ALEX: Happy New Year, Bobby. It’s good to see you, too.
BOBBY: It’s been a few weeks since we recorded this here podcast.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s 2025. Do you have any goals for the pod in 2025? I can tell by the look sweeping over your face that this is the first time this question has occurred to you.
ALEX: Right. That I would have goals for this podcast?
BOBBY: I think one of the goals of this pod is to never have too many goals for this pod.
ALEX: Exactly. We keep it loose.
BOBBY: Yeah, right.
ALEX: That’s how we— that’s— that’s how, you know, we say organic.
BOBBY: Would you say it’s—
ALEX: Like, I don’t want to box ourselves in.
BOBBY: Would you say it’s like punk rock?
ALEX: It— it is.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: We’re the punk rock of— of podcasts.
BOBBY: In that spirit, I’d like to read you a list of names, and I want you to tell me what these names have in common. These are names of people, mostly men, some women. Are you ready?
ALEX: I’m so ready. I can’t believe you. You already came prepared with a segment. You’re just— meet the new Bob, same as the old Bob.
BOBBY: I can’t change. Just like Macklemore said in his famous song.
ALEX: Nice, nice.
BOBBY: Same love. Is that what that one’s called?
ALEX: That’s the one.
BOBBY: And to be clear, you just have one verse from that song tattooed on your shoulder blade or you have the whole song?
ALEX: No, it’s just the— it’s the one verse.
BOBBY: The chorus?
ALEX: And I— I made my wife get the other one.
BOBBY: Okay. Great.
ALEX: Which is ironic.
BOBBY: Love to you and yours. Okay. Here are the names, Ralph Lauren, Lionel Messi, William Sanford Nye, George W. Romney, David M. Rubenstein. Brace yourself for this next name, George Soros, George Stevens Jr., Denzel Washington, Anna Wintour. A couple other names for you, Jose Andres, Bono, Ashton Baldwin Carter, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michael J. Fox, Tim Gill, Jane Goodall, Fannie Lou Hamer, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, and Robert Francis Kennedy. That’s RFK senior, if you’re keeping track at home. Alex, this is a list of names. Do you know what these names have in common?
ALEX: Your— well, I know most of these people are on your personal Mount Rushmore, right? As then folks who you seek to— whose— whose footsteps in— in whom you— you seek to follow.
BOBBY: No, but these people are on my speed dial.
ALEX: Or that’s good. Right.
BOBBY: Particularly—
ALEX: You got the Rolodex ready.
BOBBY: —Anna Wintour and George Soros.
ALEX: No, Bobby. Are these the recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom? I’m so—
BOBBY: I wish you didn’t know.
ALEX: I know. I— but the thing is, I— this was also the thing I was most excited to talk about with you.
BOBBY: 19 great leader— 19, why not 20? 19 great leaders who have made America a better place according to the outgoing president, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: A man who is 83 years old, and who is not going to be the president in approximately 14 days.
ALEX: Some say it hasn’t been in— in much longer than that.
BOBBY: 14 months. David M. Rubenstein.
ALEX: David Rubenstein.
BOBBY: I’m so glad that he’s on this list, because it gives us a reason to talk about this class of people. My favorite are the four posthumous awardees of the—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —Presidential Medal of Freedom. Like, what does that accomplish?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Like, RFK, good dude, I think.
BOBBY: I guess.
ALEX: Maybe.
BOBBY: He died like 50 years ago. Famously.
ALEX: Famously.
BOBBY: Famously. And I know Wintour is really funny. Like this is the most online and offline—
ALEX: Well, it’s just like what—
BOBBY: —list I could have possibly imagined. A combination of—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —people who are, like, reviled and, like, kind of beloved, but, like, with controversy.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, like, most of these people probably a net negative on society.
BOBBY: Not Denzel Washington, though.
ALEX: Not Denzel Washington, absolutely not. But Rubenstein is probably at the top of that list, of, like— of, like, folks—
BOBBY: Of net negatives on Society?
ALEX: I— probably.
BOBBY: I— I don’t disagree. I’m just making— I’m just clarifying for the listener.
ALEX: I don’t— I don’t even remember what— what some of the other names on there were, right? I mean, Soros is probably—
BOBBY: Would you say that’s because they didn’t probably—
ALEX: —the other end of that spectrum, but—
BOBBY: Would you say that he’s a net negative on society because he refused to bring back Corbin Burnes?
ALEX: You know?
BOBBY: Where’s Mike Elias on the list, Joe? What do you have to say about Mike Elias’ performance and refusal to spend money as the General Manager of the Baltimore Orioles?
ALEX: Rick Perlstein, who is the intrepid chronicler, the American conservative movement over the last 50 years or so.
BOBBY: 1973. [5:22]
ALEX: He said act— thank you. Thank you.
BOBBY: You’re welcome.
ALEX: Actually had a piece that came out a couple weeks ago in the American Prospect, this sort of long column about Rubenstein in particular. It’s called King David, and it’s— I— I recommend you to read it, Bobby, as well as the listeners of this podcast, because it breaks down in really wonderful terms just how odious the— the nature of private equity is. And his role—
BOBBY: I’m not familiar with that.
ALEX: No. Well, that’s—
BOBBY: I’m— I’m reading about this for the first time. Private equity?
ALEX: Private equity, what? Anyway, it’s a— it’s a— it’s a— it’s a good piece. He— he discusses the— the various bits of historical memorabilia that— that Rubenstein collects, and then says— and quote, I’m gonna quote, I’m gonna read to you, Bobby, okay?
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: Says, “Waxing rights, waning tyranny: David Rubenstein pays tens of millions of dollars to pose for selfies with that sagas heroes, the— the saga of— of the Magna Carta constitution. Even as, in the present day chapter, he and his are actually the story’s bad guys at the cutting edge of stopping any future advances in human liberty, dignity and equal rights, clawing back those that already exist.” King shit.
BOBBY: That’s a great line.
ALEX: Quite— that is quite literally king shit.
BOBBY: It’s— it’s civics washing, what he does. He pretends to be interested—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —in the American project so that he can do private equity. You know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And baseball is just part of that, honestly.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Baseball is part of the American project, right? It’s part of the American lore and myth, and so David Rubenstein buys a team, and he talks about how much he wants to give back to Baltimore. I don’t really think he’s actually that interested in baseball. There was a lot of high hopes when he came in, and— and maybe he would like them to spend more money, but Mike Elias doesn’t want to. That was one of the rumors of the last month that maybe we’ll talk about in this upcoming episode where we catch up on everything we missed in the last month of doing our main character month. But yeah, we’re off to [7:27] start for— for 2025 with this list here. George W. Romney.
ALEX: Is that—
BOBBY: Mitt Romney’s dad.
ALEX: —Mitt’s father? Okay.
BOBBY: Correct. Yeah, just in case you’re wondering.
ALEX: Is he alive?
BOBBY: No. He’s one of the four posthumous awardees.
ALEX: Okay. What did— what— what did— what did he do?
BOBBY: I don’t know.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I don’t know. I don’t know.
ALEX: But he’s free now. He’s got that Medal of Freedom. That’s what it is, right? It’s the Medal of Freedom?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: The Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is awarded to great leaders who have made America a better place.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Lionel Messi, famed Argentinian soccer player. Bono. You know, all those concerts in the Sphere, they got him something.
ALEX: It’s gonna be pretty bleak when, in, like, 10 years from now, someone is putting one of those around big Donny’s neck.
BOBBY: I was gonna say it’s gonna be pretty awesome when it’s— 10 years from now, someone’s putting one of those around Steve Cohen’s neck. I’m bringing the title home to Queens, baby.
ALEX: Right. The duality of man right there.
BOBBY: Private equity is such an interesting name for what David Rubenstein does, because private equity is kind of obscuring what it actually is. You know, private equity—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —like equity, the word’s close to equality. We’re like, trying to, you know, spread the wealth.
ALEX: Right. But— but— but— but, you know, it’s like— it’s like, private He’s like— he’s like funding it out of his own pocket, right? Like—
BOBBY: All right. Are you ready to move on from— from Joe Biden, like the rest of society and history?
ALEX: Not really.
BOBBY: Okay. Like I said, we’re gonna do kind of a grab bag of everything that we missed over the last month. I’m just realizing now that we didn’t even really talk about how we’re gonna do this, Alex, which is gonna be fun for you and for me, and probably—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —for the listener, I hope.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Before we do that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: Alex, before we get started this week, I want to say thank you to this week’s new patrons. Those new patrons are Zack, Joe, and Iris. [9:50] It’s 2025, we’re a quarter of the way through the century. Do you think we should mix up the intro to the pod? Do you think we should do it differently? Do you think, like, I should introduce you and you should introduce me?
ALEX: Yeah, I think so.
BOBBY: We just further the confusion that people have and being able to tell our voices part.
ALEX: Right. I think— I think we should record as pseudonyms. Like, I think we should take on personas.
BOBBY: Right. Because you’re worried about AI?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And our likeness, our digital likeness?
ALEX: Yes. Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: What— what do you want your pseudonym to be?
ALEX: George Romney. Is that his name?
BOBBY: Yeah, George W. Romney.
ALEX: George W. Romney. They really kind of throw you for a loop there, the first— the first and middle names.
BOBBY: I didn’t— Obama gave George W. Bush a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Isn’t that a thing?
ALEX: I think so, yeah.
BOBBY: That happened or am I just—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Did I get caught by a photo shop, like, eight years ago? That stuck in my head clearly.
ALEX: Right. I’m, like, scrolling through Twitter. I’m like, “Wow. Obama really gave himself the Presidential Medal of Freedom. How did he do that?”
BOBBY: Wow. LeBron really cut his hair to look like Chairman Mao? Any resolutions that you think are relevant for this podcast? You do resolutions?
ALEX: I— I have been young and naive enough to do them in the past. Yes. This year, I’m letting life come to me. You know?
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: I’m letting life make its resolutions about me. I’m just— I’m letting it all happen.
BOBBY: Taking life—
ALEX: Whatever— whatever—
BOBBY: —one pitch at a time, so to speak?
ALEX: Right, exactly. Whatever— whatever the gods have in store for me. That’s— I— I resolve to follow through on that.
BOBBY: Trust the process? It’ll— it’ll yield the results that you’re looking for?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Yeah. Jesus take the wheel?
ALEX: Yes. More simply.
BOBBY: How long do you think I could go on these metaphors for how you handle life?
ALEX: I don’t know. I’m trying to read more.
BOBBY: Oh, cool.
ALEX: That’s, you know, one of the— maybe one of the most three popular resolutions of the— that— that folks can do. It’s like gym—
BOBBY: Tan, laundry?
ALEX: That’s pretty much. I don’t know, what about you?
BOBBY: I tried to read a book a month last year, and I felt just short, and I read 10 books.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: But I could definitely do that this year.
ALEX: Pretty good.
BOBBY: Because I didn’t really start doing that until, like, April of last year, if I’m being honest.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So I’ll probably re-up that one, but no other real resolutions. I don’t think. My baseball—
ALEX: We shoot high over here.
BOBBY: My base— my year resets when baseball starts. I don’t— I don’t acknowledge January 1st. Those people who are waiting for the Tipping Pitches holiday cards can acknowledge.
ALEX: That’s correct.
BOBBY: January 1st is not my new year.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: It’s March— whatever opening day is this year. I didn’t even look.
ALEX: They’re coming. Those cards are coming. They look beautiful.
BOBBY: Right. They would have been just—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —really funny, like, three weeks ago. And this time— like when you do receive them and they’ll be, like, pretty funny. And if we waited like another month, it wouldn’t be funny at all. But if we waited, like, four months, it would be really funny.
ALEX: Yes. So June 2025, keep your eyes peeled.
BOBBY: It’s a good bit. It’s a good bit. patreon.com/tippingpitches, that’s where you can go to sign up to be one of the recipients of that holiday card next year. You can also get access to bonus episodes of which we put out two per month, one every other week. What did we do on the Patreon this past month? Oh, we did a watch-along.
ALEX: We did a watch-along.
BOBBY: With the film Angels in the Outfield. Matthew McConaughey’s greatest performance. You know, some say— some say Interstellar, some say Dallas Buyers Club.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It would be wrong. Both of those people—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —would be wrong. Some say the Wolf of Wall Street.
ALEX: No. Not even close.
BOBBY: Some say—
ALEX: Doesn’t even sniff [13:47]
BOBBY: Fool’s Gold. You familiar with that one?
ALEX: I’m— I’m familiar.
BOBBY: It’s not a good movie, but Angels in the Outfield is his greatest performance, and so we talked about it. And why Alex thinks it’s the best baseball movie ever made.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: We also did a book club about Stealing Home. You know, it’s high time that we announce what the next book of the Tipping Pitches book club will be. Unfortunately, we haven’t chosen it yet. So if you’d like—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —to submit choices for the Tipping Pitches book club, please do so at tippingpitchespod@gmail.com or shoot us a message on Patreon or Slack, or whatever. I— I, actually, am going to make a post on Patreon fielding requests for the Tipping Pitches book club, and so you can comment on it there if you’re listening to this now. I think that’s all of the housekeeping that I have, other than the fact that I just want to say thanks to everybody who listened to main character month this past month. It was— it was a lot of fun, and I think it was an important step in our journey of codifying what we’ve been doing on the show for the last few years. I think this week will be kind of nothing like that, the first episode of 2025.
ALEX: That’s correct.
BOBBY: So we’re just gonna go straight from doing the work to being totally chaotic and aimless. Does that sound good?
ALEX: Just how we like it, honestly. We like to keep the listeners on our toes and, frankly, keep ourselves on our toes. You know?
BOBBY: I think of it more like—
ALEX: We need to color outside the lines a little bit.
BOBBY: Yeah, I think of it more like keeping ourselves on our heels.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: You know?
ALEX: Right, on our back feet?
BOBBY: Right, exactly. We like to make all—
ALEX: Caught off guard.
BOBBY: —the mistakes that they tell you not to make in the outfield. You know, we take the first step in, and then we’re chasing the ball. It’s going over our head [15:25]
ALEX: Right. Well, that’s how you learn— that’s how you learn what not to do, or that’s how you learn that then you can make the diving catch at the end, you know? [15:35]
BOBBY: And the diving catch, in this instance, is packing December, the offseason full of a bunch of really well-thought out episodes that are of a piece with all of the work that we’ve been putting into the show for years on end.
ALEX: Correct. And then just riffing through summer.
BOBBY: If you missed those, they are available. Just check the last few episodes in your podcast feed here, one on A-Rod, one on Rob Manfred, one on Marvin Miller, and one on the five most important owners, according to us, in baseball history. Okay. Let’s— let’s do it. And by it, I mean, I don’t know. How do you want to handle this?
ALEX: Well, I don’t know. What do you— we quite literally did not— you were not kidding. We literally have not discussed how we are doing this segment. So—
BOBBY: I wrote down a bunch of things that I am interested in talking about, but I don’t really care if we talk about any of them.
ALEX: Okay. Lovely. How much are they related to baseball? Like, how much are they related to, like, real baseball?
BOBBY: They’re so related to baseball, bro. It’s crazy.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I want to talk about ball.
ALEX: That’s cool. So let me scratch off the MLB umpires new CBA off the list, because that’s—
BOBBY: No, no, no, no. I think it’s good if we just go back and forth.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Don’t scratch anything off.
ALEX: Where do you— where do you want to start? What— what really caught your attention over the last month?
BOBBY: I’d like to start with the fact that two ESPN baseball reporters, not sure if you’re familiar with their work, their names are Jeff Passan and Buster Olney.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: They appeared on a podcast together, hosted by Buster Olney.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: And they said that paying Juan Soto is an insane overpay for the New York Mets. I’d like to start there. It’s 2025, actually, one of the resolutions that I announced on the podcast is that I want to start more feuds with other pods.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: And it’s not just that I want to start feuds with crooked media podcasts. I’d like to start feuds with ESPN pods. You know, Jomboy pods.
ALEX: Which also happens— they also happen to be crooked media, so—
BOBBY: Got them.
ALEX: Ooh. Got them.
BOBBY: Got them. They’re actually not part of the crooked media anymore, though, because— did you see ABC News decided to settle their lawsuit and give the Trump campaign $16 million to build a museum? Did you see this piece of news?
ALEX: I don’t really know what the sentence was you just said. It started with crooked media, and then it ended with the museum for Trump, and I’m not really sure how we got there.
BOBBY: You and I just aren’t on the same internet anymore. It’s so crazy.
ALEX: It’s grids wild.
BOBBY: We started on the same internet and we’re not anymore.
ALEX: That’s nice. We get better coverage that way.
BOBBY: Yeah. They think Juan Soto— paying Juan Soto $765 million is an insane overpay.
ALEX: ABC News?
BOBBY: No, Jeff Passan and Buster Olney. Let’s get down to brass tacks here. I want to talk about this with you.
ALEX: All right, all right, all right.
BOBBY: We used to be able to just make fun of reporters, you know, without having to couch in jokes and stuff. And without even couching in nuance, what are we talking about here? Who cares?
ALEX: Yeah, what— what are we doing this?
BOBBY: What is an overpay? Who’s getting—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Who— who cares? And of course, I’m certain that they said all of this— or at least Passan said all of this. I won’t speak for Buster Olney. A person whom I don’t understand. I don’t know what motivates him, I don’t.
ALEX: I don’t, either.
BOBBY: I don’t. I wanted to talk about this because I think, like, a lot of things in culture, we seem to be holding on for dear life to, like, takes that were valid, like, seven years ago, you know? That just— we’ve just moved past them. We’ve moved past the idea of an overpay when it comes to the Mets, or Steve Cohen, or ba— like, I thought we all kind of agreed on this, right? That Steve Cohen was going to, quote-unquote, “overpay” based on the expected baseball outcomes for players. Like, it’s not insightful or even relevant to call it an overpay when every fan now knows how much money baseball owners are making, how much they’re worth, how much the franchise values are going up. All these things that, like, you know, we were mad about five years ago when we started doing this pod— or seven years ago when we started doing this pod, to be more historically accurate. I thought we all— you know, I thought everybody kind of agreed we were right about that stuff, and we just don’t need to argue—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —about overpay or value or what this does to the Mets payroll numbers. Like it’s— it’s— did you get Juan Soto, yes or no? If yes, then good. If no, then bad.
ALEX: Yes. Well—
BOBBY: Like, it really is that simple.
ALEX: No, I know. And I do think, like, the— the broader baseball— like the broader conversation within baseball has— like ,the Overton window has sort of shifted on this conversation a little bit in the last few years, right? Like, I think that you see more and more fans expressing the sentiment of, “Hey, frankly, it’s not my money, right?” Like, I— is there a single Mets fan who’s sitting here being like, “What is this gonna do to, you know, the— the Mets debt over the next decade or so?” Right? Like, no one’s— no one’s really thinking about that. And— and frankly, even—
BOBBY: I’m thinking about it.
ALEX: You are? You’re— you’re thinking about it, because you always do.
BOBBY: Two words that get me going are debt servicing.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah. You have the— the Mets EBITDA on the— on the whiteboard behind you, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You just kind of keep a running tally throughout the year?
BOBBY: If I had that, it would be all I was talking about.
ALEX: I know. But, like, the thing is, even with reporters like Passan, the— the window has shifted, right? And, you know, it’s interesting that you bring this up, because—
BOBBY: Thank you.
ALEX: —Passan— Passan— you’re welcome. You’re a great host.
BOBBY: You’re such a good friend. Thanks.
ALEX: Thanks. You look great today, by the way.
BOBBY: So do you. You have that New Year glow. You know, I can’t wait to see you later— when people are listening to this, later tonight.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Oh, yeah.
BOBBY: For our January 6th event—
ALEX: That’s— that’s true. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —planning.
ALEX: Our little celebration.
BOBBY: Right. Night on the town. J6 night on the town.
ALEX: Hey, I miss when we could just make fun of reporters and not have to couch it in silly little jokes.
[laughter]
BOBBY: I just like— I— the thing is— I’m sorry, you’re probably gonna say something insightful and I’m gonna say something emotional. But—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —the thing is, like, we just don’t need— I just don’t understand the, like, function of the media to come on a podcast for two people who are very plugged in, in the baseball world or in the sports world in general, not even to single out Passan and Olney, because this happens in other sports, too. To just, like, talk like a front office person. I just— it just doesn’t serve that much anymore, especially in a sport without a salary cap, especially with a team that has an owner who just clearly— like he doesn’t really care how much he’s spending on a player. He was just gonna keep going until he got this player, or until the player said, “Actually, I’m gonna sacrifice $100 million to go to the Yankees.” And it’s just like— it stands out like a sore thumb now when we hear media members, plugged in people, reporters, “insiders”, quote-unquote, whatever that actually— whatever that term is actually worth. Parrot the line of front offices, like competing front offices, honestly. Because it’s just not really relevant. We know it’s not relevant. It’s not relevant to ticket prices, it’s not relevant to concession prices. It’s not relevant to anything that a fan would care about. And so I don’t know why you would go on a podcast to talk about it.
ALEX: Right. Well— and— and what I was going to say is, like, even Passan, I think, realizes correctly that the conversation has shifted around this. And, like, your ire should be towards owners, right? Not necessarily— owners who don’t spend rather than owners who do, right? And he was talking about this in the context of the Dodgers when he tweeted out, like, a week ago, “Dodgers are—”
BOBBY: Oh, yeah, people are mad about this.
ALEX: Yeah. “The Dodgers are a machine. They print cash. Their willingness to spend in pursuit of winning is unmatched. They put their money where their mouth is. Others could benefit greatly from the same approach, and they choose not to.” Right? So it’s like— and— and he’s correct about that. But then to kind of also just be—
BOBBY: Never be in a Dodgers pod allegations.
ALEX: No, we’re not. But it’s like in pursuit of fairness, you kind of have to— you have to say, “Well, all right. Yes, it’s the— it’s really the— the— the owners who aren’t willing to spend, who should be receiving the ire of fans.” But also like, let’s be real, the— Juan Soto is getting overpaid. And it’s like, well, in relation to what? Like the, quote-unquote, like “fair market value” of his services? This— that’s what he got. He went on to the fair market.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: And negotiated a contract with someone who was willing to pay him that. I don’t know.
BOBBY: Market capitalist Alex has logged on.
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: I just— like the— the market is not real, guys.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, this is not a market. This is not a market.
ALEX: Well, no, it’s not, but also it is, right? Like there is one owner who said— and there were— and there were other owners too, right? There were other teams who said, “Yes, I will pay you this amount.” And then another owner said, “I’ll pay him more.” And Juan Soto said, “I like the sound of that.” And I don’t really know where— where— what it is to get upset in that. I think it’s— it’s hard because, like, the figure that is associated with that contract is just hard for people to wrap their brains around, right? Or like—
BOBBY: It’s not hard for me to wrap my brain around. It’s not, it’s not.
ALEX: No, I know because you— because you keep that under your mattress, right? Like, you— you invested the proceeds from the Patreon entirely an Abercrombie stock a few years ago and— and now, you’re living large.
BOBBY: It’s not true. I split it 50/50 between Abercrombie and Slam Corp.
ALEX: And— yes, I know. That’s right. I forgot about that. I don’t—
BOBBY: I did put a little sprinkle on some defense stocks that I’m not willing to disclose here on this podcast, though.
ALEX: Right? That’s— that’s like an ETF, right? You— there’s just kind of a bunch of different stocks rolled up into one?
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, actually, I invested in the— in that ETF that invest the exact same as Nancy Pelosi and, by God, we’re rich, Alex.
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: That really got you?
ALEX: That really— yeah, really did. I was not expecting that.
BOBBY: 55 million per year. That’s the number. That’s not insane. That’s the number. $765 million is— is irrelevant. Like, it’s 15 years. It’s a decade and a half. Like, trying to predict whether or not a $55 million AAV is gonna seem insane 15 years from now is absurd. It’s absurd. It’d be like trying to predict the presidential election in 2048. It’s just not— it’s not a relevant exercise.
ALEX: I’m voting for you, then. I just want you to know that.
BOBBY: I wasn’t born here. I’m here on an H-1B. Please don’t fire me from this podcast, please. Dear God.
ALEX: It’s fine. You’re— you’re cheap-skilled labor, so keep your [26:47]
BOBBY: Was that joke on the line? Was it over the line? Do I have a little room to the line? Like, what do you think?
ALEX: I think you got a little bit of room.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Just making sure.
ALEX: Top— topical, topical. You’re doing well on that, on that front so far. I don’t know. I— this— this conversation— this line of conversation feels particularly sort of odious given that there’s a new CBA that is going to be renegotiated in a couple years— or, I mean, it— it will be renegotiated, you know, in the coming two years. And a salary cap is going to be, you know, one of the key conversation points, I think, in that, right? Owners have always wanted that, and I think more and more— you know, Evan Drellich of The Athletic wrote— wrote an article a week or two ago that— that discussed this, right? That they are probably going to make it a priority, like they always try to do, right? But, again, you can point to Juan Soto’s contract and you can point to Jeff Passan and Buster Olney and say, “See, even the lame stream media thinks that— that, you know, things have gone too far.” Now, I don’t think Passan is going to be the one who moves the needle for players, but you can certainly move the needle for fans and— and I think that matters some. If you have fans who are all of a sudden are like, “Yeah, you know what? A salary cap might work.” That— we kind of do need that in this sport.
BOBBY: The persistence of the salary cap among fans, like the ideal version of baseball, is something that I’m actually really interested in talking about, and I know that we’ve talked about it so many times, but I feel like it’s almost worth a whole episode to dig into why fans want a salary cap so bad. Whether it’s just a case of inception from the ’94 strike, whether it’s a case of looking around at every other sport, and I’m thinking, “Oh, there’s more parity, or it’s more fair in this.” But that’s just like ahistorical. There is way more parity in baseball, even though there’s no salary cap. There— in— in salary cap sports like the NBA and— some of this is because basketball, as an individual, you actually can have much more of an impact on winning than you can in baseball when you’re just one individual player. But in others— in salary cap sports like the NBA, like the— you guys want to talk about AAV, go over and look what James Harden is making, you know? Go look at what Chris Paul is making— was making on his max contract. Go look at what Jayson Tatum is going to be making in two years. Like— it’s like double. It’s like double with most baseball players. Like—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Because there’s a salary cap and because they’re a max player, and everybody else just gets squeezed. There is no middle class left. There’s not even, like, an upper middle class or like a lower, upper class, like there is in baseball. That stuff like— that should actually matters, you know? Max Freid gets eight years, $218 million. Yeah, it’s not 55 million AAV, but I would argue that he would get less if there was a salary cap, because the Yankees would already be paying Aaron Judge whatever the max contract would be, and it would probably be more, a higher percentage of what their payroll would be. And so that would squash everyone else down. I mean, I just don’t— the persistence of the salary cap and this notion that, like, everyone must be equal, I don’t— it’s— it’s— it’s an interesting, almost like bastardized socialist idea that fans seem to love, and I could get behind it, sure, if we were going to say, “We’re going to split the revenue exactly this way.” And they’re going to be transparent about the revenue and that’s going to lead to the salary cap. But they’re not going to do that. They’re going to spend the whole time arguing about what is baseball-related income. Just like in basketball, they spend the whole time arguing about what’s basketball-related income.
ALEX: Yeah, I don’t know. If— if— if you— we’ve said— we’ve expressed a sentiment before on the pod, but like, if you, as an owner, feel like you can’t keep up with some of the other big money owners in this league, this game ain’t for you. Sorry. Sorry, the game has changed.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Earning money from your— from your— your fruit and vegetable empire doesn’t cut it anymore, sorry.
BOBBY: Play that tune.
SPEAKER 3: He’s got carrots and lettuce and mushrooms, porcini. The vegetable king, Bob Castellini.
ALEX: You need to be loading companies up with debt so they go into bankruptcy, and then you can reap the profits.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I’m just— I’m just calling it how it is.
BOBBY: In other words, you’re saying no more welfare for the poor owners in Major League Baseball?
ALEX: I mean, yes. You’ve got bootstraps.
BOBBY: All right, let’s— let’s move on. Yelling about an opinion that Jeff Passan and Buster Olney had about the Juan Soto contract like three and a half weeks ago, that was good. That’s what people come here for.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: What’s on your list? What do you want to talk about?
ALEX: Dude, I don’t know. Hmm, let’s see. Diamond Sports Group is now Main Street Sports Group.
BOBBY: Really?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Dang.
ALEX: Yeah, they’ve— they’ve emerged. Speaking of bankruptcy, they’re back.
BOBBY: Did they go through a bankruptcy?
ALEX: Diamond Sports Group.
BOBBY: Oh, Diamond Sports Group, sorry.
ALEX: Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: In my head, I was thinking—
ALEX: Diamond Baseball?
BOBBY: Diamond Baseball Holding. That’s why I was like, “They went bankrupt? That’s news to me.”
ALEX: You were like, “Whoa, wait. What?”
BOBBY: Not the whole point.
ALEX: They own the entire Minor Leagues.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. Okay, okay.
ALEX: No. Although, did you see there— there— they are trying to bring their Minor League Baseball model to— to MLS. They’re trying to roll up a bunch of, like, minor— you know, the equivalent of Minor League MLS properties as well. Sick.
BOBBY: I’m sure that’s fine.
ALEX: I, for one, welcome our feudal overlords.
BOBBY: Well, I think it’s a really good thing for a private equity to really spread its tentacles, you know? Like, that’s what it was invented for. And so we just have to kind of let it play out. You know, let’s see how it affects an industry. We don’t have any examples. You know, we’re just not working with enough data to really be able to say whether or not private equity, being in control of the majority of an industry, would be good for that industry. It’d be like, let’s— I’m like one of those guys that’s like, “Let’s let the data speak.”
ALEX: Exactly. [33:05]
BOBBY: You’re not coming in it with any preconceived notions, you know?
ALEX: I didn’t— I didn’t really have anything to say on Diamond Sports— I’m sorry, on Main Street Sports Group, I just wanted to— I wanted to update you, because we are— have been noted—
BOBBY: Main Street?
ALEX: Main Street.
BOBBY: Main Street.
ALEX: Sorry. Main Street Sports Group, which operates the FanDuel Sports Network, as you might recall.
BOBBY: No, no, no, no, no. They don’t operate it. That was just a licensing agreement.
ALEX: Wait, well, but— right. The FanDuel— isn’t FanDuel paying for the naming rights for— for the channels they run?
BOBBY: I guess, yeah.
ALEX: I don’t really know how any of this works.
BOBBY: Main Street, Main Street Baseball Holdings? Is that what— that’s— that— their full name?
ALEX: No, Main— Main— Main Street— no. No, it’s not Diamond— not Diamond Baseball Holdings.
BOBBY: And the owner of— the owner of the Cubs is— hang on, wait, let me think about this for a second. The control person of the Cubs is Tom Ricketts.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: New year, new me, everyone.
ALEX: New year, new Bob.
BOBBY: I just have to think I have to go through like— like a long thought process— process in my head, and I have to remember that they are the Ricketts, and then I have to remember that there’s Pete and Tom.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And then I have to remember that Pete Ricketts is the one that I’m hoping has a campaign finance scandal. And then I’m like, “It’s not him.” So that’s how I remember that it’s Tom Ricketts who owns the Cubs.
ALEX: That’s a fun, little mnemonic device. It seems convenient.
BOBBY: Nothing that I do is convenient. Not— do you think that this process is out of convenience?
ALEX: I just— I remember it’s Tom, because I have a photo with him. I’m like, “He— that’s my guy.”
BOBBY: You’re, like, racking him up, dude.
ALEX: Yeah, I know.
BOBBY: You have a photo with Tom Ricketts. You have a photo with JJF.
ALEX: JJF. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Yeah. We got to get you—
ALEX: Those are the only two, but we got to get more.
BOBBY: Well, there was that time that Steve Cohen was taking photos with fans outside Citi Field, but you didn’t get there in time. That was before the Mets playoff game in October.
ALEX: Correct. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We could get you a photo with him, though, I think. I think Hal Steinbrenner would be a tough one.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: You could definitely get a photo with Middleton.
ALEX: Oh, yeah, the man of the people Middleton.
BOBBY: Right, exactly. From what I understand, it would be a tough to get a photo with John Henry.
ALEX: Probably. What about Rubenstein?
BOBBY: Well, you missed the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarding ceremony. Maybe he [35:34]
ALEX: No, wait, I— I was in the crowd. Are you kidding me?
BOBBY: I don’t think it happened yet. I think they just announced the list.
ALEX: Oh. Oh.
BOBBY: Get your ass down to DC..
ALEX: You know, I’m— I’m mixing it up with, like, whatever, the other one that, like— whatever her— Liz Cheney got. What does that—
BOBBY: Yeah, that Sanders got that, too. That Kamala was presenting him with something. I saw a video of that.
ALEX: No, that’s something else, I think. Okay, never mind.
BOBBY: Oh, no, I did see what you’re talking about. Liz Cheney got something.
ALEX: Yeah. And it was like the highest civilian honor or whatever.
BOBBY: I was under the impression that the Medal of Freedom was the highest civilian honor.
ALEX: I agree. That’s all they [36:11]
BOBBY: Why even call it the Medal of Freedom—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —if it’s not the highest honor? By the way, I just yelled, “You got to get your ass down to DC,” on the episode of this podcast that is coming out on January 6th.” Playing dangerous game here.
ALEX: Already there, brother.
BOBBY: Playing dangerous game here.
ALEX: This is good. I’m glad Main Street Sports Group brought us here.
BOBBY: Main Street Sports Group, is that supposed to be like, “We’re not Wall Street, we’re Main Street,” kind of nod?
ALEX: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Like, we’re the—
BOBBY: That’s high concept.
ALEX: We’re the TV network of the people.
BOBBY: Yeah. A really relatable thing is when you pay your executives shit ton of multimillion dollar bonuses and bankrupt your company. That’s the thing that happens on Main Street a lot, but would never happen on Wall Street.
ALEX: I’m always reducing my debt from like 7 billion down to 20 million or something, I don’t know.
BOBBY: Do you want to talk about your debt? We might have some financial advisors listening to the pod.
ALEX: We might— how do I get rid of it? Because I’ve been holding out for Joe, frankly, and he’s let me down so far.
BOBBY: You got a couple more days. Right? He could go burn it all down mode like— like some—
ALEX: Right. I’m the guy who’s, like— dark Brandon just— just hasn’t— hasn’t picked his moment yet. You know? Like he’s just— he’s biding his time. He’s waiting. And then boom.
BOBBY: I’m gonna have to put a stop to this, actually. I’m gonna have to put a stop to this. You just said dark Brandon. The pod might be over for the day. We’re scrapping this, we’re starting from the beginning. Hi, everyone.
ALEX: Hello. All right. What’s next on your list?
BOBBY: Well, since we’re scrapping everything that just happened, I’d like to talk about Juan Soto and Jeff Passan and Buster Olney. I’m just kidding, I’m just kidding.
[laughter]
BOBBY: I wrote a lot of stuff. I wrote a lot of stuff that actually happened in the baseball world.
ALEX: That’s good. You’re so— you’re so good.
BOBBY: Thank you. Yankees free agency, biggest unsigned free agents, Corbin Burnes. Any of those piquing your interests?
ALEX: I wrote down, “You can buy better odds on DraftKings.”
BOBBY: Ooh, I saw that, and you are doing that, right?
ALEX: I’ve already signed up, yes.
BOBBY: You can buy better odds? That’s just— bro, that is racketeering. That’s what it is. We learned what racketeering is for this purpose. Years ago, we learned what racketeering means. That’s racketeering.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That’s paying for protection. That’s paying to rig the system for you. You can’t buy better—
ALEX: Interesting. Interesting.
BOBBY: —odds on the lottery. You can’t.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You can’t.
ALEX: Wait, so you think that— that the— the— the fans here, the— the players are the ones doing racketeering?
BOBBY: No, no. I think the companies are the ones doing racketeering. This is DraftKings, right?
ALEX: Yes, yeah.
BOBBY: All right. And I can say all this because I don’t have any relationship to DraftKings. I actually don’t want to talk about this. Let’s talk about Dave Kaval’s resignation.
ALEX: Okay. This is also on my list. Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay. We got him. We got him.
ALEX: I guess.
BOBBY: No, no. I’m just saying, like, for the purposes of the Tipping Pitches 2024—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —bingo card, we snuck it in.
ALEX: Oh, I see, I see.
BOBBY: We got him in the calendar year 2024. I did predict that Dave Kaval would resign, and guess what? He did.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And once again, another resounding example of me being right, and all it had to do was come at the expense of the entire A’s organization and everybody who works there.
ALEX: Yeah. Exactly. So I’m very happy for you.
BOBBY: Thank you.
ALEX: Round of applause for you. Round of snaps. That little rat face motherfucker.
BOBBY: Oh. Get him. You know, you wrote a very strongly-worded and I thought, very effective and clear-headed newsletter about the resignation of Dave Kaval. Me, on the other hand, I just fired off some tweets.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Would you like to do a brief summary of the thesis of this newsletter or would you like to just point people
to direction that they can find it?
ALEX: Well, you can go to patreon.com/tippingpitches and— and— and read it there. But the gist of it is that, like I— I don’t know, I— when I— when I saw the news, right? I initially was incredibly elated, I guess. I don’t even think I was, right? I was just— I was just like— I was like, “Fine. You know, it was about time. It’s over [40:29]”
BOBBY: This is like a president replacing their chief of staff. Like— like anything’s gonna—
ALEX: Right. I’m just like— I’m like— I’m like, “Okay.” And it felt a little different, because he’s become the very public face of the A’s organization, right? And so, obviously, A’s Twitter was, you know, having a field day over this.
BOBBY: A’s what?
ALEX: A’s Twitter. I’m sorry— nope. Nope. We’re bringing back Twitter in 2025.
BOBBY: Only if—
ALEX: I’m— I’m tossing the— the style guide.
BOBBY: Only if Mark Cuban can get in on the game.
ALEX: Please. No, he’s too busy democratizing healthcare. All right, I don’t know if you’ve heard.
BOBBY: I thought Jeff Bezos was gonna do that, with the Amazon healthcare thing.
ALEX: He is. Yeah, bro. Are you on that one medical wave?
BOBBY: I’m not. I have real healthcare, thankfully. Although, speaking of Amazon— wait, really quickly. Speaking of Amazon—
ALEX: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: —I did watch the documentary Union yesterday, which is about the unionization efforts at— on Staten Island’s— at Staten Island’s JFK 8 facility.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: The Amazon labor union— the formation of the Amazon labor union in the election that they won to get about 8,000 people. I guess that’s a spoiler alert if you watch the documentary that they win the election, but I thought it was a really interesting, thought-provoking, painfully realistic at times experience, depiction of the experience of forming a union and winning an election and all of the uphill battles that you face along the way. And in this case, it’s literally against the most evil corporation on the planet at the moment pretty much.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We’re one of the top 10 most evil corporations on the planet. That’d be a good offseason pod for us.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Power ranked the most evil corporations.
ALEX: Definitely our wheelhouse as a baseball podcast.
BOBBY: Yeah. Correct. And I would just like to say, you know, if you listen to this podcast, you’re probably interested in unionization or the process of unionization, or what it actually looks and feels like. And, you know, Chris Smalls has become somewhat of like a pretty famous labor organizer since this effort happened a couple years ago. And it really depicts, like, right alongside of him, during the meetings, during the calls, during when he’s getting arrested, like during all of these different things. And it’s cool, you can go check it out on their website and rent it directly, because no Hollywood studio has the fucking guts to put out a documentary detailing how you unionize against a large corporation.
ALEX: That sounds about right, frankly.
BOBBY: So just like give a whole-hearted recommendation for that, for our listeners of this podcast. It’s $11.99, I think, worthwhile. Anyway, back to Dave Kaval.
ALEX: Bobby’s first Tipping Pitches movie recommendation of 2025.
BOBBY: Worthwhile one, I think.
ALEX: Worthwhile. Yeah, I’ll check it out. Wait, what are we— what are we talking about?
BOBBY: We’re talking about Dave Kaval.
ALEX: Hmm, yes. Good riddance.
BOBBY: Then we got started talking about healthcare. I don’t really know—
ALEX: I don’t really know how we got there. Mark Cuban—
BOBBY: Oh, Mark Cuban, he’s disrupting healthcare. All right. We’ve— we’ve pulled— we’ve— we’ve put everything back in the tube. All right, now we can get back—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —to Dave.
ALEX: I don’t know. They— I— Kaval so perfectly represented the, like, hollow corporatism that I think defines the modern baseball team. Just the absolute lack of self-awareness, the lack of empathy for fans. The, you know, glossy PR sheen that— that covered everything he did. I— I don’t know. It was all smoke and mirrors. Like it was meant to distract. It was meant to placate, and it was meant to hold folks at bay until the A’s could get their ass out of town, which they did. So I don’t know, I guess what he did was, quote-unquote, “successful,” because he got the A’s to leave. I don’t know. He came in with— with high hopes, with the goal of getting the A’s a new stadium. And he kind of— he got— he got some renderings. He got quite a few renderings, which is not nothing, because you have to, like, go to ChatGPT, and you have to type in, “Design me some renderings for my new ballpark.” And then you have to wait, you have to wait for the renderings to load, and it’s a lot. It’s an— it takes an emotional toll.
BOBBY: Yeah, then you have to go to confession, you have to apologize for all of the trees in the Amazon rainforest that you tore down by just doing that. It’s tough. We’re [45:08] the process.
ALEX: I like how we— I think that water is the real issue there. I don’t think— necessarily think they’re cutting down trees for— for AI.
BOBBY: Right. Well, there’s no trees left to cut down because John Fisher already cut them all down.
ALEX: Ah, there it is. Full Circle.
BOBBY: I think that Dave Kaval is, like, neutral evil. You know, how does that spectrum work?
ALEX: Right. Yes.
BOBBY: It’s like— it’s like—
ALEX: Chaotic good, chaotic evil, neutral good.
BOBBY: Right. He’s like neutral evil. He doesn’t really—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: There was a couple moments in there where he was, like, particularly odious in the way that he acted to fans on Twitter and stuff, but he’s like— he’s a suit, you know? He’s not even a suit.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: He’s a quarter zip, you know? And he— to me, the most detestable part of the whole Dave Kaval experience for the last 24 to 36 months, or however long you want to make that window, is that there is even space in the baseball world for a person like him. He’s a fucking lobbyist. He’s nothing.
ALEX: Yes. Exactly.
BOBBY: He has nothing to do with baseball. He’s a lobbyist. He’s there to convince government officials to give the richer person who employs him a more favorable deal, and that is the only reason he was employed for the last five years. That’s it. He didn’t bring anything else to the table for the experience of baseball fans, for the community, for the baseball fans in Oakland, for the players on the team, for anyone who would— would even have a modicum of— that you would even give a modicum of shit about in the wider A’s orbit. He did not make their lives better.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: You know, I don’t see like the deluge of positive Dave Kaval stories coming now that he’s out. In the fucking press release, the quote in there from him is saying, quote, “I will be staying in California to explore new opportunities at the crossroads of business and government.” Like, what is that? What is that?
ALEX: Business and government? Sure. That’s good. That’s an intersection where I think things are mostly on the [47:01]
BOBBY: Like, a lot of good things are really happening at that intersection.
ALEX: Right. And, in fact, I like that business and government intersect at all. I think that just, from a starting place, is probably a good thing.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah. Maybe he could get hired by the Angels, you know? The intersection of business and government was— has really been on the rocks for them for the last couple years and so maybe he could come in and clean that situation up.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. I agree. I don’t know. He’s just— he’s— I think if— if nothing else, he was very representative of, like, the people who actually occupy these spaces. And frankly, his downfall was trying to make himself a public figure. And I know that was part of the reason why he was brought in, was to be the public face of this new stadium. But the problem is, you actually can’t keep that up that long, right? Like, you are just a mask for the— the, you know, the much eviler owner who’s pulling the strings.
BOBBY: I’m gonna give you an awesome trifecta of Dave Kaval’s pre-A’s career, pre-A’s life.
ALEX: Okay, all right.
BOBBY: Bachelors of the Arts in International Relations from Stanford University in 1998, later returned for an MBA from Stanford. And while getting his MBA, he did a national security budget summer internship for the George W. Bush administration. That’s George W. Bush.
ALEX: That’s right, he did.
BOBBY: Not George W Romney, in case anybody was still thinking about that from the beginning of this podcast. Cool shit right there.
ALEX: Really good shit.
BOBBY: A lot of good stuff is going on at Stanford, you know? A lot of really cool stuff that I can endorse.
ALEX: Well, that’s just the kind of background that makes me feel inspired, that he wants to do good for the sport of baseball, and for the— and for the [48:48]
BOBBY: Handling George W. Bush’s budget?
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Sorry, not handling, just like cutting his teeth, you know, learning—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —from the people who were running—
ALEX: Learning.
BOBBY: —George W. Bush’s budget. He was at the you know, he was at the right hip of Dick Cheney and that’s how he made the A’s what they are today.
ALEX: Glorious stuff, very beautiful, really fun stuff. I feel really great about the A’s.
BOBBY: Yeah, me too. All right, what else do you want to talk about? What else is on your list?
ALEX: I— we’re kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point. Paul Skenes joined— is— is now one of the union reps, like with the— on the— the board, the subcommittee, whatever it is.
BOBBY: The executive subcommittee?
ALEX: There you go. We’ll talk about that.
BOBBY: Not really. Proper mustache representation at the table, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Are you gonna, like, maybe join me in the mustache community this year, in 2025? Just for, like, a month, you know? Just to see what it feels like, for the two of us.
ALEX: I’ve— I’ve dabbled and I— I— I don’t rock it as well as you. I’m just gonna— if— if I can do a little self-critique. It just— it doesn’t—
BOBBY: You have to give it time, though.
ALEX: Yeah, I know, but I’m not—
BOBBY: It doesn’t just like grow in thick right away.
ALEX: Yeah, I know. But it’s also hard, because I go into in-person work every day and so I just got to like—
BOBBY: What does that mean? I’m on fucking YouTube two days a week.
ALEX: Oh, we’ll see. We’ll see. If you can give me the— the— the tricks of the trade.
BOBBY: All right. There’s not a lot of tricks to this trade [50:26]
ALEX: Help me condition it.
BOBBY: Not doing a lot, just kind of letting it happen. Okay. Paul Skenes, yeah, that’s cool. I think it’s cool when young people get involved in their union. That’s what I’ll say about that.
ALEX: Yeah. I— I think it’s interesting all the— all the— the— the representatives who moved against Bruce Meyer at the beginning of the year are all off and it’s Flaherty happened Giolito?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: My boy, Marcus, holding it down for the old heads.
BOBBY: Notable. I think Lindor is off, too.
ALEX: Lindor is off. I think just because his term expired.
BOBBY: Yeah. But I also think that there’s, like, an interesting— it’s an interesting dynamic that we talked about at the time and that I think still probably remains somewhat relevant. It’s not really salacious, like, I think it might feel like, just because it seems like a sort of a gossipy, like, guessing game that we’re— that we’d be playing by talking about it. But in the fact that everyone in the executive subcommittee voted no for the last CBA and every team rep voted yes. That’s like a really interesting dynamic—
ALEX: Uh-h-hmm.
BOBBY: —when the executive subcommittee is like, “Yeah, we could do better or, you know, this is not as good of a contract.” And the rank and file, so to speak, is like, ” Yeah, we— we want to play. We’re happy with this.” That’s a—
ALEX: yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t necessarily know what that portends. Like, I don’t think it would be fair to say that that means the next round of negotiations will be, you know, not quite as knives out as the last round of negotiations. I think a lot—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —of frustration happens when the owners just immediately default to a lockout. I think that starts to boil the blood of the players, the very competitive group of rank and file players who are in the MLB Players Association, so I’m curious to see how that goes. But I’m really not— like I don’t really want to speculate about what are the internal dynamics of why some people are not on the executive subcommittee or are on the executive subcommittee. To your point about Paul Skenes, I mean, he seems kind of like a motherfucker, you know? He seems like a— kind of like a curious and intense guy.
ALEX: I hate [52:20] yeah.
BOBBY: So I’m like, “Cool to have one of those [52:24] “
ALEX: Well, I was— I was like, “Oh, new Max Scherzer just dropped, you know?” Like—
BOBBY: Right, exactly.
ALEX: Put this guy in a suit and have him walk up to the— to the owner’s table, you know?
BOBBY: Okay. Can we talk about— you know what? Actually, no, I’m gonna save that one for Three Up, Three Down on Patreon later this week, which is something that we’re gonna—
ALEX: Oh, is that what we’re doing?
BOBBY: Yeah, I think we should.
ALEX: All right, all right.
BOBBY: Maybe we should do a Three Up, Three Down of the offseason so far, that’s what I had written [52:45].
ALEX: That’s awesome. I just burned all of my— all of my things on this here podcast.
BOBBY: I know. It’s— it’s like—
ALEX: First up, David Rubenstein getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
BOBBY: Right. Feel free to just like— you know, we could do like the sequel to this podcast, you know? We could just re-talk about all of the same topics and see if it’s better.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s avant-garde podcasting that I don’t know how our listeners would respond to.
ALEX: That’s— that’s Alex and Bobby’s version, you know?
BOBBY: The next thing I wrote down here on my list is that I’m—
ALEX: Also my Taylor joke. All right.
BOBBY: Didn’t even hear it.
ALEX: Okay. It’s fine. Keep talking. I don’t care.
BOBBY: Listen, hold on. I’d like to stop the podcast really quickly to take accountability. I stopped listening for the last five seconds of what you were saying because I was looking at my notes and that’s not cool. I’m sorry.
ALEX: That’s— this is the kind of transparency and accountability that the listeners come here for and I just want to say I appreciate you, right? In the spirit of—
BOBBY: It’s also the type of listening experience that the listeners leave because of.
ALEX: Right. So let’s keep it going. Let’s keep going.
BOBBY: Alex and Bobby’s version, is that what you said?
ALEX: That is what I said. That’s fine.
BOBBY: That’s pretty good. Yeah. They’re all Alex and Bobby’s version.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: I still— here’s a glimpse into my psyche. I still think about the time that we were soliciting feedback on how we ran the student newspaper, and one of the feedback— one of the pieces of feedback from one of our editors, was like, “You guys are fun and cool to work for, but it’s a little bit like too much Alex and Bobby sometimes.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I still think about that.
ALEX: That’s— I do— I do, too. Still talk about in therapy. All right. What was— what was on your list? You were about to say something.
BOBBY: I haven’t gotten to that— I haven’t gotten to that therapy yet. We’re still working through them. We’re still—
ALEX: You’re still at the prequels.
BOBBY: Right. Yeah. I— I feel like we should probably talk about this story that ran in Pitcher List about Mike Elias. I’ve alluded to it a couple times.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I made a few jokes about it. I joked about it on Twitter, obviously. We mentioned David Rubenstein and his Presidential Medal of Freedom. There’s a story from Ben Palmer at Pitcher List, which is interesting, because p Pitcher List is, like, I don’t really think necessarily in the business of breaking news. So the story kind of came from nowhere, but they have a source that says that— essentially, that David Rubenstein has given the green light to spend more money than the Orioles have been spending for the last few years as part of this rebuild and that Mike Elias doesn’t really want to. That’s like the gist of it. I think when people saw this come out, it was kind of like, “Well, what does that even mean? Like, how—”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: “—how could a source deduce what Mike Elias wants to do any more than you could just deduce what he wants to do based on what he hasn’t been doing and that is spending money?”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And so I think when this came out, I don’t think it made, like, huge waves, necessarily, but it was notable to me because it was the first time that someone put in print kind of what we assumed about Mike Elias’ philosophy based on what we know about him and based on how he was a part of the Astros front office that had a similar philosophy, but it played out in slightly different ways, because Jim Crane, honestly, meddled a lot in the Astros free agency experience and in their trades and whatnot. But this does seem like up our alley, but it also doesn’t seem revelatory enough, based on how we’ve talked about the situation the last couple of years to have, you know, tacked it onto the beginning of an episode or really spent too much time talking about it here. But I’m curious, like, if you think that this is— not if you think this is legitimate story, because I’m— I’m— who am I to say that this is not true or— or whatever? But, like, how much you really even care about this? Like, do you think Mike Elias is really just like, “No, I refuse to go over a certain payroll number.” Or do you think that he is just so trigger averse on spending or on making a splash that he’s just missing out because he won’t pay a premium on any of the players that other teams are willing to go kind of over the, quote-unquote, “right” number for?
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, there’s like a lot to unpack in this story. As mentioned, like this comes from a single source, and so it’s really hard to take any of this with more than a grain of salt. It is a single anonymous source, right? So— and— and that’s not— not to cast doubt on the— the truth of the article or anything like that, but, you know, I— you and I went to journalism school and— no, we didn’t. You’re shaking your head.
BOBBY: I don’t even— I didn’t go to college. I was just making content at a young age and that’s how I got into this game.
ALEX: Right, right, right, right. I just found you on the streets outside of NYU.
BOBBY: I didn’t go to journalism school. I went to content school. It’s different.
ALEX: Okay. I’ll let you keep going.
BOBBY: Sorry. In 2025, one of my resolutions is to gaslight you into thinking that we didn’t actually meet in— at NYU journalism school, so—
ALEX: That’s— you will find success with that very quickly.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I’ll just tell that.
BOBBY: The first step to gaslighting someone is telling them what you’re doing exactly when you’re doing it, yeah.
ALEX: What you’re doing— I’m gonna— I’m gonna forget by this time next week. It’s fine. You’re good.
BOBBY: You actually are.
ALEX: And I don’t listen to the podcast, so I’ll never hear it.
BOBBY: What podcast are you talking about? We’re not— this is not a podcast.
ALEX: What are we doing here? Where am I?
BOBBY: We’re just— we’re on the phone.
ALEX: So I don’t know. So— again, so it’s a single source, right? So you take it with a grain of salt a little bit. I think there’s— I’m sure there is some element of truth to this story, to the extent that I really care. I— it’s— it’s kind of hard to say. There are elements of it that feel somewhat unbelievable, like the— like the idea that Angelos was like, “Yeah, I want you to go out and get Soto.” And Elias is like, “Nah, I’m good. I don’t want— that’s too easy, you know.”
BOBBY: Right. The part where the source calls Brandon Hyde a puppet and pushover for mark— for Mike Elias, it’s like—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It’s kind of what the job is, honestly.
ALEX: Yes. Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: It’s like a— it’s like a mean way to say what being a manager in 2024 is.
ALEX: Yes, quite literally. So I don’t know, a lot of this feels just kind of like in-house drama.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: And it’s not really on the fans to try and discern what it means or where the blame is placed. Because, frankly, I mean, the blame lies with, like, all of them. Like, I don’t think Elias— I don’t think the— the success or failure of the Orioles lies squarely on Elias’ shoulders, or squarely on Rubenstein’s shoulders. I mean, like, I think Elias plays a big role in this, but, like, that’s kind of for them to sort out. I— and if he doesn’t want to spend money, then great. You’ll build up a pipeline of talent. And if you don’t do that either, then you will be out of a job. And I— I don’t really know what to tell you.
BOBBY: Yeah. Like, if David Rubenstein was like, “We must run a $250 million payroll.” And Mike Elias was like, “No. Thanks for the suggestion, but no.” He would just fire him, right? Like—
ALEX: Right, exactly. Yes, exactly. If Rubenstein keeps that guy around, then he’s at fault as well.
BOBBY: Right, exactly. And I think that part of it stems from kind of what— honestly, what we’ve talked about from the beginning of the Rubenstein experience, but really, like, ironically, came into focus when we talked about Rubenstein’s appearance on A-Rod’s podcast, where he said a lot about how— he’s like— he likes baseball, but he hasn’t been following it much in his adult life.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And he— he trusts his decision-makers a lot, which means he’s kind of just, like, trying to stay aloof from baseball operations, especially in the beginning of his tenure here as owner. I think that when you look at this as part of a larger picture, though, yeah, dude, Mike Elias is not spending money, and he’s never going to spend money.
ALEX: Right, right.
BOBBY: And he never was going to spend money. This is why, like, I started this segment about me, like, “Not to be like, I was right, but I was right.” Like, we’ve been— we’ve been saying this in the show for years, and honestly, Orioles fans have been sending us mad DMs about how we’ve been saying this, about the Orioles, Like, why are you shitting on the Orioles all the time? I’m not shitting on the Orioles. I’m shitting on the person who’s running the Orioles.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: In his exact image. He— he is, like, devout about what— what he believes, like market value and how you should rebuild a team. And it, in some ways, works really well. And now, in the other ways, it’s not working well at all.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It would just be, like, misguided to not acknowledge the fact that this is who Elias is. He wants to— he’s one of the GMs or presidents of baseball operations, whatever his actual title is. He’s one of the— he’s one of those who wants to do it with one hand tied behind his back just to say that he could.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like, it’s kind of undeniable that that’s the case now. I don’t know why we got yelled at for years for saying that.
ALEX: Yeah. You kind of just have to watch what he does, and you get— generally get the gist of what this article lays out.
BOBBY: Right. Corbin Burnes is on the Diamondbacks now for six years—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —$210 million. An amount of money—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —that the Orioles could have easily afforded to solidify—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —the trade that they gave up a couple good players to get him a couple years ago.
ALEX: Right. Especially given the new quite wealthy ownership group.
BOBBY: I know, that’s what I’m saying. But he just says— he doesn’t believe that it’s worth it.
ALEX: Like, it’s all— it’s all there, but—
BOBBY: He doesn’t— he thinks that he can get enough good out of Charlie Martin. Godspeed brother.
ALEX: I— I mean, I— I think if anything like, you know, this article probably gives Rubenstein a good amount of credit. I mean, I suppose not too much credit, because it calls him naive and says he doesn’t know what he bought.
Sorry, not the article, the— the source is saying this, right?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: But it very clearly paints— you know, it’s like Rubenstein is like the sort of naive, good billionaire who just wants to spend on his team, and Elias is the evil GM who won’t— you know, who won’t do it and— and to whom Rubenstein defers. And so, you know what is— what is Rubenstein supposed to do, right? Because he doesn’t really know how to run this team anyway. And it’s like, again, I— I— it is a reflection of both of their work at the end of the day. Rubenstein runs— co-founded one of the most successful private equity groups in the world. You’re telling me he can’t fire someone? That’s the whole job.
BOBBY: Strategic restructuring has hit the Baltimore Orioles front office. Mike Elias, sorry, bud.
ALEX: I don’t know, man.
BOBBY: What’s the word? Oh, downs—
ALEX: Downsizing?
BOBBY: Downsizing? No.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: No, no. Right sizing. That’s what they say. Yeah. Mike Elias is about to get right sized out of this job.
ALEX: God willing.
BOBBY: Yeah. The world would be a better place.
ALEX: Do you have anything else on your list?
BOBBY: I have a bunch of other stuff on my list, but honestly, a lot of it’s probably worth saving for Three up, Three Down later this week. I will say one thing that I did write down on my list, which is not really like a topic, but it’s something that I— I’m just itching to get out of me, and so I have to kind of give the tease here. My— my list for banned topics, it’s already starting to solidify. I have some very strong contenders for banned topics.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Very strong.
ALEX: I’m scared. You’re just gonna neuter all my bits.
BOBBY: I’m not gonna neuter all your bits, and honestly, I’d appreciate you not using the word neuter on this podcast ever again.
ALEX: Especially in that context, I suppose.
[laughter]
ALEX: No, you would never do anything with my bits, Bobby.
BOBBY: No, no, no. It’s all— it’s all— certainly not in our college dorm. It’s all stuff that like— it’s all stuff that lives rent-free in my head, basically, so you don’t have to worry about it.
ALEX: Okay. All right. That’s good. My bits are safe.
BOBBY: Like, why does everybody care about contract structures? Why does everybody care about net present value, bro? Like, it’s not—
ALEX: Save it. Save it.
BOBBY: Oh, my God. Man, I feel like I’m losing my mind. Anything else on your list that you want to hit on before we get out of here or should we just—
ALEX: No, quite literally no. I can keep reading from the Rick Perlstein article about David Rubenstein.
BOBBY: That Rick Perlstein article seemed good. I don’t know why you didn’t text it to me.
ALEX: I— because I saw it last night.
BOBBY: I was up.
ALEX: That’s— you probably were.
BOBBY: I actually probably wasn’t. I went to my bed early last night. I’m back.
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: I’m cutting back again on caffeine. I’d let it slip back to kind of, like, two to three caffeinated drinks a day. Now, I’m cutting it back to one, sometimes two.
ALEX: I think it’s good. You know, you go through cycles. Sometimes you need one, sometimes you need four.
BOBBY: One of my good friends recently texted me and he was like, “I’m going cold turkey on caffeine at the moment.” And he’s like, “I thought you’d might be the only person who understood.”
ALEX: Cold turkey is kind of tough, honestly.
BOBBY: He does it once every few months. Just resets the tea.
ALEX: Just— just a little— a little tea break?
BOBBY: Yeah, he says that caffeine makes him really tired after he gets really, like, kind of accustomed to it. Like he’ll drink the caffeine, but it’ll make him more tired. You know, it kind of has the opposite effect, which I kind of get sometimes. If you over caffeinate—
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: —or if you are just, like, going back to the well repeatedly, it tends to not really give me any energy. It just gives me jitteriness and, like, a headache—
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: —and, like, feeling of exhaustion. You know, like that, sort of like nothing can replace sleep realization that you have when you’re, like, on coffee number four.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. Your knee is bouncing, and your, like, arms are a little— your, like, armpits are a little sweaty, and you’re just like—
BOBBY: Yeah. That’s how I—
ALEX: —”Fuck, man. Pass the Rubicon.”
BOBBY: Pass the Rubicon? All right. Well, this was a— this was a fine podcast.
ALEX: This was— I— I would say it certainly was a podcast of incredible length.
BOBBY: Honestly, unremarkable length. A normal length for us—
ALEX: Given what my list looks like, I’m— I’m— I’m proud of us. I’m proud we got here.
BOBBY: Right. Like, the third thing you brought up was that Paul Skenes joined the executive subcommittee. Let’s go, Paul.
ALEX: We got some good convo out of it.
BOBBY: It’s—
ALEX: I have not been paying attention to baseball for the last three weeks. I’ll be— I’ll be quite honest.
BOBBY: Nothing to pay attention to. There’s some signings. I mean, it’s— it’s funny that— the second thing I wrote on my list was all the Yankees free agent signings and we just didn’t talk about that at all. They signed, like, six players.
ALEX: Did you really— did you really want to talk—
BOBBY: They signed a lot of guys. I don’t know if you’re aware of this. They got a lot of guys on the team.
ALEX: Wow. Steinbrenner supremacy back?
BOBBY: No, I’m just intrigued. I’m just intrigued.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m also intrigued by the Yankees fans who are doing stuff. Like, they’re doing the like, “This is Juan Soto’s WAR last year. This is the WAR of all— the players that Yankees have brought in.” It’s like six different players adding up to the WAR of Juan Soto.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m like, “You guys don’t understand how WAR works.” It’s very useful to have one guy with a lot of WAR so that you can have other guys who also put up WAR in those other six slots.
ALEX: Just let— let people enjoy things, Bobby. Let people enjoy their recreation in the aggregate.
BOBBY: Moneyball came on the other day on cable. I was hanging at my parents’ house for the holidays.
ALEX: Really?
BOBBY: It got the coveted— it got the coveted Diane walked into the room and stood behind me and watched 15 minutes of it endorsement.
ALEX: Legendary, legendary parent move.
BOBBY: She’s like, “You know, I’ve never seen this all the way through.” And I was like, “What kind of son am I?”
ALEX: Literally, yeah.
BOBBY: I think last time we went to go watch Moneyball, I went to the movies that I had purchased on the service of Voodoo, which is now Fandango At Home, if you’re keeping track.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: The movies that I had purchased over the years, which is a collection of fucking bangers, by the way.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: And we also realized that she had never watched the Social Network, and so we put that on instead.
ALEX: That’s fair.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Frankly, movies have the same energy.
BOBBY: They have the exact same energy. They came out within a year of each other.
ALEX: I don’t know why that— I don’t know why that is.
BOBBY: Because they’re fucking—
ALEX: I don’t know why that—
BOBBY: —bangers, dude. Just no wasted seconds bangers. Revisionist history of things that people are still interested in and still talking about wrongly.
ALEX: That’s the Sorkin way, baby.
BOBBY: Sorkin is my king.
ALEX: He is my king, honestly.
BOBBY: I’ll never— I will never let anybody truly talk— like you can talk your shit about Sorkin, but if you get too disrespectful, I’ll have to step in.
ALEX: I’m doing— I think I’m doing a Newsroom rewatch this year, if you want to join me in it.
BOBBY: Holy shit. Let’s go. I’m in the middle of a Gilmore Girls rewatch. This is probably the fifth time I’ve seen Gilmore Girls in my life.
ALEX: Okay, all right.
BOBBY: That show is—
ALEX: Another banger.
BOBBY: —a fucking masterpiece, bro.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s— it’s an absolute master class. Just a genius invention to write three characters who are exactly the same, but at different ages.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And when one of them is, like, really in alignment, the other one is, like, totally out of alignment, but the exact same way that the other two would be. It’s just— it’s perfect. Perfect.
ALEX: It is.
BOBBY: Total masterclass.
ALEX: It is a perfect show.
BOBBY: Total masterclass. That’s exactly what TV was meant for. I’m— enough of this Newsroom rewatch. Can I get you to watch some movies in 2025? You really, like, hopped off the wagon about halfway through 2024. I thought I had you. You know, I thought I had you in the tractor beam—
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: —but I lost you. We’re going to see a movie.
ALEX: We can— we are going to see a movie.
BOBBY: On January 6th, movie of sorts. And then we’re going— we should go on Wednesday.
ALEX: I’m gonna make a movie.
BOBBY: You should— you should come on Wednesday with me to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
ALEX: Oh, what a banger of a movie.
BOBBY: Never seen it on the big screen.
ALEX: Me, neither. Where are you seeing it?
BOBBY: Metrograph.
ALEX: I thought we were recording a pod that night.
BOBBY: Well, this is me asking you if we can change the time of that, so that I can see—
ALEX: Okay. All right.
BOBBY: —Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: All right, great.
ALEX: Absolutely.
BOBBY: 109 movies in theaters I saw last year.
ALEX: That’s really impressive.
BOBBY: I had a goal of seeing 365 movies, I didn’t make it. I only saw 300. But I did go to the theater 109 times. ALEX: That’s a lot of times to spend in the theater.
BOBBY: More than twice per week.
ALEX: Yeah. That’s—
BOBBY: My goal was a 100 and I hit it.
ALEX: God— hey, you know, snaps all day for Bobby on this podcast.
BOBBY: And for 2025, going to the movie theater.
ALEX: What’s your— what’s your goal for this year? You’re raising the bar?
BOBBY: I have— I haven’t really set any numerical goals for myself this year. I’d like to try to do 365, you know? Since I missed it last year.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I think I can do it. I think I could do it. It’s really hard. You know, if you go, like, a week without watching a movie because you’re, like, traveling or whatever.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It’s over. It’s just— it’s done.
ALEX: All right. Well, I can— I can help hold you accountable, if you’d like.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: We can maybe do weekly check-ins—
BOBBY: All right.
ALEX: —on this here pod, not the movie podcast you’re on.
BOBBY: Yeah, they’re not really interested in hearing what I’m watching by myself, you know?
ALEX: All right, great.
BOBBY: I’m just seeing how long we can make this outro.
ALEX: I— I could tell.
BOBBY: Somewhat of a performance art.
ALEX: It is.
BOBBY: We’re going on eight and a half minutes.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: All right, thank you everybody for listening.
ALEX: I have a plane to catch.
BOBBY: You do have a plane to catch. Alex has a plane to catch, so I’m just gonna keep going solo for the next couple minutes. Actually, the last thing that I wanted to say to people is that I thought maybe next week, you know, we’re having a special guest on the pod next week, which is really exciting. And I’m looking forward to it. I thought maybe also you and I, together, could do some fan therapy at the end of that episode. You know, we did—
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: —a little bit of fan therapy for teams who were eliminated during the postseason and folks called in. We have gotten a couple emails and voicemails scattered throughout the offseason for teams who didn’t make it. And, you know, if you’re— if you’re a fan looking for some guidance through this— rest of this offseason or how it’s going so far, maybe hit our voicemail line, 785-422-5881. That number is 785-422-5881. You can email us always, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com. This is just for if you have— you know if you’re having issues with your fandom, and you’d like Alex to talk you through it, and then you’d like me to say, “Get over it. Come be a Mets fan.” So hopefully, we can do a couple of those next week, and I’m excited for everybody to hear who we’re— who we’re talking to on the pod next week. Thank you for listening. Looking forward to a good January, some fun episodes planned, and 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!
ALEX: Those are six sweatpants.
BOBBY: They’re really comfortable.
ALEX: They look comfy.
BOBBY: They’re a little long.
ALEX: And loose.
BOBBY: They’re dragging on the ground.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Yep, they don’t have— I— I’m really out on elastic bands around the waist— or sorry, ankle.
ALEX: Around the ankle?
BOBBY: Yeah. Which is
ALEX: You’re out on, like, the jogger, like, kind of, like, tapered cut ones?
BOBBY: Yeah, I’m out. I’m out. I’m out. It just makes the rest of the pant fit weird, because if it— if it rides up at all, it looks like you’re wearing parachute pants.
ALEX: That’s why I just keep mine ridden up the whole time.
BOBBY: It’s— well, it’s not comfortable. I don’t want something grabbing my ankle. You know, I’m not in a horror movie.
ALEX: That sounds like a skill issue to me.
BOBBY: You know what? No, it’s not a skill issue. It’s a— it’s a— you’re speaking with pretty privilege right now, you and your slim legs.
ALEX: Fuck. Called out.
BOBBY: This is— yeah, yeah.
ALEX: Called in.
BOBBY: This is the way that I want the pod to start. This is the energy I’m looking for, for this episode and for 2025 in general.
Tipping Pitches 
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