This is Sham and I with the Mets and welcome to Backflips Enders. Hello
and welcome to Backflips and then the Baseball Podcast with a British Twist. I
am your host this evening, Russell Lisam and I'm delighted to be back to
talk about baseball. To doos with with me today, I have Ben Carter.
How are you doing? Ben? I'm good, Ross. I'm a
bit hot, Yeah, been in a non air conditioned office all day melting
away, but other than that, doing very well and joining us on standby
so he may have to leave at any moment. Noticed Tom Bringle, how
are we doing. I'm sure you're breaking some sort of natural security by mentioning
that. Yeah, listening to this live so very true. That is very
true. Yeah, I'm good Like Ben, I'm extremely hot, but this
country is so rubbish, isn't it. We're either too freaking hot or too
cold. That makes mind up. Literally two weeks ago we had the heating
on what the hell is going on? Yeah? I think you can probably
just put a nice simple global warming getting that the glabor Warming Podcast. Some
good some good non believers out there. Well, this is the reason why
we need to build submarines, Tom, so we can have our own submarines
and deal with the flooded world, haven't we built them yet? Less than
a minute in And she wasn't even your fault this time. It was Russ
Rechat. Okay, Okay. Obviously we put out a pod last week and
John put out a quick note at the start of that to kind of say
that, like we recorded it just before we may have passed. But yes,
that that happened, and I think it's worth while talking about that and
the impact of kind of like the recorwood Field game. So obviously May is
one of the greatest players of all time, so people have some people had
regarded him has the greatest living player who was still around, and I think
his impact on the game is beyond measure. But I was wondering if Ben
and Tom, if you had any kind of like specific things about Wemye that
you've always kind of either found very interesting that it came out in the last
couple of weeks or something that you were always just like just that was one
of the reasons why you knew he was one of the best. Good of
you Bed first, Yeah, I mean, obviously I'm not old enough to
ever watch him play. Tom Tom might be, but I will say I
will say that you know, you obviously hear about Willie Mays really when you
start hearing about baseball, right, I mean, his name is is probably
on the or his face beyond the Mount Rushmore of baseball figures. Right.
I think we all know about his catch in the was it the fifty four
World Series? That you know, he was just a legend for his team
and obviously really paved the way for a lot of black players. And that's
why it was obviously so poignant that we had the record game last week.
Obviously sad that he passed away before he was able to kind of see that
come to life. But I thought it was really nice that we were able
to shine a spotlight on what he did, the way he paid, the
way his achievements as a player, what he achieved off the field, to
how much he meant, I guess to so many current players, are so
many fans that I just thought was really nice to see as part about those
celebrations last week. So for me, yeah, definitely learning a lot about
him and his life and what happened, which is needed, right. I
mean, you know it's easy for us to watch based one a bit of
a vacuum and see the scores and results and not think about, you know,
what part it has played in the sort of culture and fabric of the
United States, and I think Willie May sort of represents that almost better than
anyone. Any additional thoughts, Dog echo over them Bender. So here's a
huge amount I can put on. But if you want to learn a lot
about Willy Mays, then I highly recommend the book that will May's Like the
Legend by James as Search, which I managed to pick up years ago and
happened to just casually read it. But my word, he's upbringing was tough,
and also just the way he was treated in San Francisco and when he
moved over there was absolutely insane. So yeah, highly highly recommend go and
read that. And as Ben said, he's had such an impact on the
game like this people still wear in Mage journeys Joseph today, isn't there The
tributes are incredible as well, So yeah, huge loss. Yeah. The
one thing that I found really interesting from hearing discussions over the last couple of
last week or so was that he seemed to understand that baseball was also like
entertainment. I found it very interesting to have who see some videos of him
discussing that sometimes like he would deliberately fall over after he made catches to make
it look more difficult than it was, because he's like he's entertaining like the
crowd. And I always think that, like piliers are out there to do
their best, but if they can do that and entertain at the same time,
and then you think about everything that he's going through at those moments as
well, just I think as a phenomenal player. And yeah, I think
if we now talk about like Rick Wood, you saw the moment where they
had a moment to hear him out on the field with so many players of
great caliber, of a bunch of Hall of famers, a bunch of people
who probably should be Hall of Famers out there kind of like celebrating the impact
that game will I think get into a minute in particular. But I think
it would be remissiless if we didn't also talk about like the poignant comments that
Reggie Jackson had made. But you kind of I think a rare w for
kind of like sports coverage that they kind of just let him have two two
and a half minutes to kind of talk about the bad things that happened well
after, like the segregation well after, like the Jim Crow laws, like
in the States. It's still very it's tough to hear that, like these
things were still going on, but it's still important, I think, to
people who were able to kind of to hear those comments about what was going
on. Yeah, I'm actually glad you put this into the show notes because
I hadn't seen this when it happened, so I sort of looked them up
after you after you mentioned it today, and so really powerful, I mean,
like visceral stuff from Reggie Jackson. Yet if you haven't watched it,
obviously do search it out. He made some comments I think prior to the
game on the on the broadcast, sat around the sort of pundits table with
the other former players. But yeah, they, as you say, they
were very clever. They gave him room to breathe and he kind of went
off for a few minutes. But it was, Yeah, such powerful sentiment
to listen to to hear his stories and you can hear the anger in his
voice and like rightly so, I mean that was you know, so long
ago now, But like you say, it also wasn't that long ago,
and it's crazy to think of, you know, what those players went through
and the fact that he was is and always will be a legend of the
sport and still had to go through that on and seemingly a daily, nightly
basis. So yeah, I'm glad that you got me to seek that out
and listen, because it was one of those moments where you kind of you
and stunned silence after you hear it, And I think the other guys with
him were literally in stun silence when they didn't know what to say when he
finished, because what I mean, how do you respond to that? But
yeah, really powerful stuff, and that's the whole, the whole point I
suppose of this game. Right, it's easy to forget what a lot of
players had to go through, how long and hard the road has been to
get to where we are today, and obviously there's a lot of work to
be done. But yeah, hearing his sort of first hand comments on how
he was treated what it was like for black ball players in that era was
yeah, like powerful and yeah, not quite hard to hear. I'm just
reading through the transcript bag. Exc I didn't see it either. Just seeing
some of the lines of those like absolutely shocking, Like you say, bent,
it's so good that he was allowed to talk about it, and like
something we need to be reminded of constantly say, yeah, it's really really
good to say try to drink and do the talent to a bit of professional
and gets it all wrong. No, But then obviously let's talk about like
brickwid Field itself like kind of like one of the old the oldest kind of
like professional ballpark that's out there, host to kind of like so many back
in like the nineteen tens is when it when it was opened, host to
kind of so many kind of moments in baseball and Negro League baseball, and
to kind of have that kind of like the Birmingham Barons that kind of like
that went through there. That game I think was probably one of the most
well produced games of baseball I think I've ever seen. They took everything that
was kind of like they were trying to memorialize, trying to bring to light,
and they did it perfectly well. The Scorebug looked beautiful and old style.
That did a whole entire half inning in black and white, where the
graphics were the same that they would have seen in like the nineteen fifties or
even earlier when like some of the games would have been going on there.
It just felt so well done that as it just felt that like some people
have actually just really got why this event happened. That sounds brilliant. I
didn't see it, but I didn't realize that that sounds really really good.
And I was just thinking about the jerseys and the hats as well. They
looked absolutely super like incredible. I've got to get one of those giants hats,
the Bear's hats. The Yeah, I didn't realize they've done that.
It's kind of It's a bit like the NFL and their SpongeBob broadcast that they
do for the Super Bowl, isn't it on Nickelodeon? Very very similar but
very different reasons. I'm gonna say. I think we're always very quick to
criticize MLB when they get things wrong, and they can sometimes make it very
easier for us to do that. But I also think we should be quick
to give credit where it's dumid and as you say it, lust, I
really think credit should be due for the way this entire event was put together.
Everything from as you say tom the uniforms, through to the production of
what we saw on screen, through to the way the ballpark looked. Mean,
it was like something out of a movie, some of the shots they
had at that ballpark in the background with the sun setting. I mean,
yeah, I think they did a spectacular job. Obviously didn't watch the game
live, just caught the highlights the next day, but it really took you
look, took you there in a way that I think they intended it to
be right, and especially that half inning in black and white. I mean,
that was just such a joy to watch and to enjoy, and it
was done so brilliantly. I know a lot of people were saying they wanted
to have, you know, more games done that way, and I think
we'd probably get tired of it quite quickly. But I wouldn't mind seeing like
stuff like that used more often, especially in situations like this where there's,
you know, a real point to be made and we really do need to
open people's eyes to the history of the sport a little bit more so.
Yeah, I think tip of the hat to Major League Baseball, to the
teams, to the broadcast as everyone involved it from starts finishing what I could
tell it was a huge success. I never knew. I didn't realize that
San Francisco team was actually San Francisco Sea Lions. I thought it was a
bear And I'm literally just reading about the fact that it's only a bear because
they bought the team that was called the San Francisco Cubs. Didn't know that,
which I'm sure we're sending the broadcast playing times and lots of people already
know. Yeah, I think kind of what the what comes out of this
is that I think that there is the opportunity to do this more often.
I think that what MLB has that most other sports don't have. It has
a long history, has a longer history than most sports. It also has
one hundred and sixty two games in a season. So if you can take
games away from the home fans, and there'll be some that won't like this,
but if you take two, three, four home games away from a
team, they've still got seventy five, seventy six, seventy seven home games
to watch. Like this means that like things like the London Series, things
like all of the world tall they're doing these things, things like going to
the Little League World Classic, or even doing things maybe when like the college
baseball world, like like championships are happening, anything where there are kind of
these old like memorial stadiums or whatever that could be kind of like worked with.
We had the Field of Geams one the other year, which was a
little bit more commercial, but I'm imagining there's some things like you could probably
do some sort of like sandlot game or thing like that where it kind of
it very much feels like you have the vibe of all of these different moments
in historic moments from baseball which could be brought back and kind of given to
everybody in small doses to the fact that they kind of like appreciate it is.
Ben, if you got anything or Tom, have you got anything that
you would love to see like redone or kind of like repurposed for baseball.
I think you've kind of hit it with a number of games have got and
MLB clearly want to like encourage new fans and the way they're probably going to
encourage new fans of doing things like this, And some may argue that pick
Rickwood was quite an old thing, but it's going to be dragging people from
the past who may not be watching baseball anymore to talk about Ritwood, to
talk about what happened there and how it's so important. But then they can
also tell it to their kids, their grandkids, and they can develop new
fans that way, and like you say, they can do these kind of
like gimmicks within the game as well. Surely it's going to encourage new fans.
I mean we all say, will a lot of people like watching one
hundred and sixt two games in the season, and I think it's great to
go through every single game watch it exactly the same way. But I think
unless you've got some sort of entertainment factor in there, whether that be the
team in the field or the announcers or something they're doing to make it different,
and people are going to get bored. They're going to get tired of
it, especially if the teams not very good. So yeah, I think
I think they can do more. I haven't got any ideas right now,
but well, we could have a team in London. That'd be nice,
that'd be really good. But I think that's probably a bit of a stretch.
Yeah, I think the logistics behind that one is slightly more difficult than
it is for the NFL to potentially have a team out here. But I'm
thinking, like when you talked about the SpongeBob game, it's like there's the
opportunity again about it's not necessarily maybe that the games have to be in different
locations, about how you broadcast it in a different way to kind of like
bring people in. Ben, if you've got a kid's TV show that you
want to have for commentating on baseball. Yeah, well, I was going
to say, it would be really great to see like an exhibition game where
the Colorado Rockies field and comportant team, you know, just something like that
the fans aren't used to seeing that. A few new viewers then that's that's
too far fetched, mate, let's a little bit. I'll never buy it.
No, I think it's a great idea, like you say, Tom,
for the average sports fan that like the rigmarole of a Winds these two
game season just gets a bit dull, right, Oh judgeing on the home
run great, you know so too did this and tiny did that, which
we all love, as you say, Tom, but a lot not many
people do. I think it's doing something different as often as you can,
whether it's Richard, whether it's London, whether it's the Yeah, the field
of dreams game. Wherever it might be, it is good for the sport.
It just gets people stopping and saying, oh, what is that?
What happened? Reading up a little bit about it, maybe watching a couple
of highlights, and that has value for Major League Baseball. I guess the
concern is poor that Murray Cook can be cloning. There's only so many places
you can go to to set up new baseball field, isn't there there is?
I think like you're talking about doing something gimmickying different. Do you think
it just loses shine though as well, because I absolutely love hearing Snoop Dogg
in the announcers booth, no matter what game it is or whether it's the
Olympics, I absolutely love listening to. I don't know if I could do
one hundred and sixty games and Snoop Dogg, I think I'd get a bit
tired of it. So I think it's a fine balance they've got to play.
But hopefully stuff like this has really shown that they can do it.
And like you say, if we can clone Murray Cook, then why not.
Yeah? I think from the broadcast effective like we've had those stack cast
broadcasts as well, where they've kind of like lented it from a more analyticals
perspective. If you watch any of the BBC broadcasts when they had like Melaning
that lot there, they've concentrated far more on like the newer audiences to come
through. So I think there are like broadcasts and doing broadcasts differently or getting
some interesting guests on that hey we know or don't know. I literally threw
a prost about the softball game also a softball game the other minute ago,
and I'm like, I kind of know Chiron Pollard and Pedro Martinez on that
list, so it's like, maybe we're not the target audience for that event,
But yeah, there are so many different ways of kind of bringing people
into the sport. It's interesting you boys talk about that because I wrote an
article we put it on the site the other week which I talked about what
we could potentially get in the London series in the future. So right now
we get two games. I think in twenty twenty six we're going to get
two games. That's the way it works. If we want more, it's
kind of I think fact it's quite difficult to do it, Like we could
maybe extend it, get like a three day weekend out of somebody kind of
do that. I went for a bit more of a maybe like nuclear and
kind of I want an MLB Cup. I want if you've any of you
follow NBA, this is kind of something that they've put in in the last
two years now because they want to kind of buy into this atmosphere they get
from like European sports, especially from football, this idea of like there's something
that kind of like anybody and everybody could win. So I kind of proposed
the idea of kind of just replicating the like the the NBA Cup, but
having it effectively for MLB and you have it in like six different locations,
So you have a week of baseball in a location almost like the WBC,
where you have ten games over like five days, and they could be anywhere
in the world, Like they don't have to be in the States, most
of them can be in the States, but anybody you can host them.
I think it's a really cool way of potentially like expanding MLB beyond like the
domestic kind of like market. I think it's really good. I think,
like you say, the idea of trying to get a three day weekend unless
it's bank holiday in the UK. That's not going to work. You imagine
London Stadium on a Monday morning, like trying to film that up to show
daytime based would just be tricky. I can't imagine there be anyone there.
But you know, you could push it to the evening and push it that
way. But I like the idea of the MLB Cup. I think,
like you say, you could do Mexico, you could do Career Japan,
so your West coast could go out there, central go to Mexico or stay
in the US as the East coast can come across to US or Berlin or
in Holland. And I like it. I think it's good. Yeah.
I don't follow the NBA very closely, but I know that when the nd
season tournament was first announced, it was criticized quite a lot. Right people
thought it was a gimmick, it would never last, the players wouldn't enjoy
it, fans wouldn't enjoy it. And as far as I can tell,
and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, within two years actually it
seems like people have really brought into it and quite enjoy it. And like
you can say, Russ, it gives I mean, and that's obviously the
NBA, which who have what an eighty two game schedule, that's half the
time that Major League Baseball players spend out on the field. And still the
NBA were like, we've got to do something about how long and boring the
schedule is. We've got to put some kind of tournament in there to make
it interesting. So Major Baseball should absolutely be taking notes and learning lessons from
that, and then the fans are brought into it, from what I can
tell, and I think they went in too. I'm sure people would call
it silly and trivial and wouldn't enjoy it and would turn a naise up at
it, because that's what we always do when something new comes along, right,
But I think you need to have that kind of radical thinking to push
this sport forward a bit. And I'd love to see something like that,
you know, take place and an inject a bit of life into the doldrums
of you know, whether it might be Dune July or times in the season
where it can be a bit dull. The game is not the answer.
Yeah, that's thicking to me. Like I really don't think much of the
All Star Games, so I love this as kind of like a potential like
alternative that, like the way the one to win the NBA works is that
all the group stage games are still like league games as well, but it
just kind of counts for you getting out of like your the group that you're
putting as well. So teams still have to kind of compete with them to
the highest level because they do have impact on their rankings. Games afterwards aren't.
But then there is incentives. There is player incentives because I think in
the NBA one players could earn a bonus that was roughly equivalent to like a
rookie contract, and like the teams were offered potential draft picks. So it's
a way of kind of like incentivizing the people to kind of like actually do
it. So, yeah, of the idea obviously I created it. Well,
I didn't create it. I stole it and basically just said let's do
it for baseball as well. And yeah, I think it has gone down
well. I think they just signed a ten year deal with Emirates to be
the sponsor the NBA Cup. So I might have put in my article suggested
a certain sponsorship should be the lead sponsor for the for the MLB Cup.
I don't know if you'll be able to guess which website vessels that work under
the water, it might have been. But yeah, so yeah, I
think we all stand to hear, and I think most people out there any
getting baseball into as many different places as possible is always going to be great.
And I think how IM will be continues to do this, how that
CBA looks in a couple of years time. It's going to be really interesting
to see how we can push this thing. Yeah, it's difficult with the
one six to two though, isn't it. I mean, if you're taking
games out of the schedule to do it, then fine. If you're adding
games to the schedule like that's surely you're going to start looking at six seven
million games at least try and cut it down. But then how do you
make them counts? I love it. I think it's a great idea.
It's just how you integrate it, Like the one sixty's got to be taken
into account, hasn't it. Yeah, there are some logistics behind it that
you can kind of work through. I'm assuming Anthony Rendo would love it if
we went to or we'll still be playing the Probably he's got to have a
contract. So the thing is also with the one six two, it isn't
as kind of it's only been around for like the last sixty years. If
people love the Father Baseball and baseball history or whatever, less when there was
less teams, So yeah, you kind of go with that, Okay.
Other big highlight for last week, especially for people in this country, was
Michael Peterson's debut a British born player playing in Major League Baseball. It is
and has been a long time, depending on whether you regard PJ. Conlin
as British or Iris or born. He was born in Belfast. He was
effectively kind of like the last person who kind of got to that point of
view. We had a few others in like the twenty tens, but it's
not been It's been a long time basically since we've kind of really seen British
players kind of like get it through to this moment. So it was pretty
amazing to see. I have probably a personal interest more in Michael than anybody
else because a lot a lot of this is I met him back in twenty
twenty when the WBC was supposed to happen. I went out to Arizona to
go kind of cover those games, and then that all got canceled when Rudy
Gobert tested positive for coronavirus, and then every league shut down in an instant
And I was in a pub with Ian Carroll, like Will Linton and and
Michael. He was one of the few players that had arrived early, and
it was like, well, let's just drink our tiers away because like this
isn't going to happen. So seeing everything that comes out afterwards has been amazing.
But I guess I think first to you Ben, as somebody who kind
of like plays baseball like in the UK, how awesome is it to see
kind of like this happening? Awesome? I mean, like representation matters.
We talk about it all the time. But when you want to inspire,
you know, kids in this country to take up baseball play and go somewhere
with it one day, it's a lot easier when you can point at the
you know, the guy in the Dodgers uniform getting the win on his debut
and say that could be you. If you know, you grow to be
six foot seven, I'm say ninety miles an hour. So I think it
is really important, and you know, just putting British baseball in the map
in a serious way is always a good thing, right. I mean,
we've been blessed in the last few years that the national team has has done
us massively power on the global stage, and that's been awesome. But like
you say, PJ. Connum aside, we haven't necessarily had you know,
born and bred players how you want to describe it, taking part in Major
League baseball for a long time, so only time you can have someone like
him who you know, admittedly didn't spend a lot of his life in the
UK, but is absolutely born in this country, in Middlesex, of all
places out there, representing US. I think that's awesome and it just gives
people like a nice tie, doesn't it. Like you wake up in the
morning, you check the box scores, you see how your team did,
and you kind of want to see how he did, if he got into
the game, and whether he played well. And I think, you know,
we see that all the time in other sports, where you know,
countries really start to root for a certain player as they you know, progress
through league just because of their link back to that country. And you know,
Michael Peterson probably won't become a star in Major League baseball. But he's
very much looked at home so far, and that just gives us something nice
to kind of rally around and chat about and check and see what's going on.
So I don't think we can underestimate that. And you know for tmg
B as well, that they're rallying, cry really can be around guys like
him, and you know what's the phrase they have, like you can do
it here, you can do it there. I don't know something like that,
but but he's like the embodiment of that, isn't he. So from
that perspective, just super important. It's fantastic, It's it's super cool,
Like it's really really good. It's really nice to see. My only worry
is are the British press going to follow it and going to push it?
Now we know Rachel is clearly Rachel's going to keep pushing it and keep keep
writing articles and getting his name out there, and we're going to push it,
but is it going to make mainstream of people going to be talking about
him. I'm just I'm just a little bit worried. And this is no
disrespect to Michael at all, because he's clear awesome athletes, but is he
going to be the one that really highlights baseball to British people, Like he's
not hitting dingers, is not a closer, he is not a starting pitcher,
Like, is this going to be the one? And that's no dispect
to Michael. This is like amazing, just an incredible feat to get there,
and at thirty years old, and you know as a reliever he could
go for what another ten years potentially still relieving and maybe in the majors,
So you know he's going to He's going to make something out of it if
he can do it. I'm just a little bit worried that he's not the
one at the moment that's going to tip us over the edge. No,
I don't think you will be. I think kind of is one of the
signs of this episdes I think he's another like WBC success story. If we
kind of talk about Michael's career. He was drafted four times in rounds that
don't exist in Major League Baseball's draft anymore. They shortened it down. He
spent time in the Milwaukee system, got injured, got picked up by the
Rockies, got injured, had a like I think, had TJ surgery when
he was like twenty seven, which most people are like, well, if
you do that, you're kind of pretty much done, and he still was
just like now, still going to do it, still going to try it.
Came back like didn't pitch all the Rockies between like twenty nineteen and twenty
twenty two, and then yeah, because of the WBC, he got a
moment where people got to see what he can actually do. Struck out like
Noel and Aaronado in a game against the USA, like and was touching one
hundred, which is like, that's gonna make MLB teams be like, hmm,
this guy. Yeah, he hadn't played at that moment, he hadn't
played above high A. That's crazy. And then he went immediately the Rockies
put him into Double A. Ian. By the end of last year,
he's playing in Triple A with the Rockies. Didn't make it up. They
let him go, and the Dodgers picked him up in like early January.
So it's a pretty kind of quick move on there to point to kind of
pick up the free agent and be like, hey, he could do something.
He was impressive in spring training, went down to Triple A, started
off in kind of medium leverage, ended up the closer for the Oklahoma City
team and got called up because, as we all know, the Dodgers are
app asolutely having a horrid of time because of injuries, and yeah, he's
gonna be in low leverage moments right now. It's ridiculous that he has two
wins or into his name in three games that he played. He came in
when the Rockies were absolutely destroying the Dodgers, and then the Dodgers had a
seven inning, a seven run inning, the after he after he pitched and
got the W. And then last night again he came in early in a
game because Bobby Miller was poor, and he picked up two innings in the
middle of the game and picked up the w because the Dodgers came from behind
then. So it's like he has he's already like tied seventh or eighth I
think on the British win list. So the renaissance of the Winds start.
Oh yeah, we all we all love wins now, we all I want
to get that Billy Bean meme. And instead of he gets on bass,
it's just he gets the win. It's just what we needed. I think
that there was a really good interview done by the Baseball Isn't boring Boring podcast
with Michael. The kind of the really interesting side to it was that he
was always over the last couple of years, had been expecting his debut to
come at Causefield, and for his debut to still come at Colsfield, even
though he was playing for the Dodgers instead of the Rockies. Was just this
kind of weird moment that like added to all of it. Yeah, must
have been quite satisfying for him. I mean, we don't need to talk
too much about the incompetence of the Rockies, but it just goes to show
that he's in their organization for so long, as you say. They kind
of let him flounder away in the high Minders last year without ever giving him
a chance, and he makes his debut against them, He looks great,
he gets to win in a pretty unbelievable Dodger's comeback. That had to be
quite nice for him to kind of go out there in front of pitching staff
in the front office that I'm sure he knew well over his time there and
kind of show them like, yeah, I can do this on the biggest
stage, and I can do it against you, so that you know,
I'm sure he wouldn't brag about it and say it out loud, but inside
that must have been quite a satisfying feeling. Yeah, I think there's there's
a moment in his first game where like a grounder goes to like Freddie Freeman
to like end the inning, and he kind of does his PfP goes in
the direction to start off with, see he isn't needed, and then basically
as he's coming off, like he gets a tap on the back from like
Freddie Freeman. I'm like, I don't know how he thinks. And we
sometimes probably when you are a top end professional athlete, you kind of have
to think that you are amazing as well. But kind of having that player
just kind of like giving you a tap on the shoulder, you've got to
be like, hell, yeah, it's pretty cool. That is very cool.
So from a pretty awesome topic, it was just going to quickly talk
on something that's not so good. Obviously, we've had another potential betting scandal
come out from Major League Baseball. This time we have an umpire, actually
one of the kind of well regarded younger umpires, part Hoburg, has been
had a suspension offered. It's not he's like declined it and he's appealing it
or some betting related incidents. So we don't know much details around this because
it's still ongoing and Hoburg and the Umpires Association are appealing the suspension that MLB
wants to lay on him. But effectively we have somebody who was guarded as
one of the best. He had a perfect game as an umpire according to
one of the like the umpire scorecards sort of things in the World Series the
other year ago. So it's they think we're going to talk about this only
briefly because we most of us, if you listen, you will know what
our view on betting is. Kind of like to do with this podcast,
but just feels like we're just seeing what's just creeping in and creeping in and
creeping in. But there probably are just tons of people who actually bet because
it's so easy to do. So yeah, I suppose if you bet and
you think you can get away with it, you get worried it once,
you'll continue doing it, won't you. It's just so weird though that,
like I've just reading MLB statement to say that the Emory did not say if
in its investigation showed Hoberg bet on Baseball League also didn't find any evidence gains
work by Hoberg were compromised or manipulated in any way, but added discipline was
warranted. So it's it's a really weird one, like it seems to be
involved but not involved. I don't really know. But if he's if he's
that good and his performance has showed is that good, then it's a really
strange one. If he's done it is obviously snuck it in there somewhere somehow,
I mean the Angel Hernandez. Then we'd be talking a different ballgamen't we
completely because we'd all just be laughing and go, well, clearly he's been
betting the entire time. That's not say's betting. Please don't sue us.
So yeah, I don't know how many would be doing it, But I
suppose if you get away with it once, you might want to try and
get away with it again. But I don't really know what it's like in
the clubhouse, is either I know football is a huge no no, isn't
it? So it was like he was really frown upon and people will be
shunned if they try and do it. So I don't know. In baseball
like it's it's on like the walls of the clubhouse, basically like clou shalt
not bet. It's like it's a it is a big thing, but with
the what you kind of the ease of it as it is now makes the
people who make a mistake very easy to be now like found out like I
don't want to say the kind of that there are some sites where you could
look at, like to keep a marcano like that was probably a problem and
probably an addiction. Like he was betting when he was injured and bet like
a very considerable amount of money doing it. The other players that were suspended
at the same time, it hears I think their total bets were like less
than five hundred dollars. And when you're like, well that kind of is
just to me, that's like you done goof like you've just completely forgotten something
and you've just gone like, oh, it's a tenor do they really good
to care about? Like and so this is when you have I just still
to me, it's like it's the juxtaposition of MLB being like baseball is one
of the most like the betting on baseball is one of the most fundamental parts
of our game. We will not have anything to do with the players,
and umpires shouldn't have anything to do with it. And like this message is
brought to you by time. Yeah, MGM bet or draft Kings or whatever.
It just still seems to kind of just doesn't sit quite right with me.
I don't know how you feel. Bent. Yeah, yeah, I
don't have a whole lot to add, to be honest with you. You
know, we've obviously covered at on his podcast. I know John and Rob
talked about it a bit last week. I echo all of your guys sentiment.
Really, it's sad to see how pervasive it has become in sports,
to see it effect and ruin the lives of you know, not just people
like well, we'll see what happens with the hope both people like him and
Marcano, but you know, thousand people's lives all over the world every day.
So yeah, look, hopefully people will learn from this, but it
does feel like this is kind of the tip of the iceberg rather than some
kind of moment that's gonna change change things. Yeah, and on that we're
going to swiftly move into talking about maybe some actual baseball. What we talked
about it, it's because you got me on that's why you're not talking about
baseball, because what Tom's going to tell us, he's going to only know
some part of things. So we'll get there in the end. But I
think we're at the point now where we are close to trades. There have
already been one or two things that have happened that are being very minor on
the Rickter scale of trades. But we're at this really weird moment where I
don't remember it ever being like so many teams are kind of in it.
Obviously we've expanded the playoffs in the last few years. But from the AL
side, the Toronto Blue Jays have like the fourth worst record and they're only
six and a half games back, with their Angels, Athletics and White Sox
being like ten, fifteen and twenty two and a half games back, respectively.
Like those three are done, like there's nothing they're getting from the season.
And on the NL side, the Cincinnati Reads the third worst team and
they're four games back, so only the Marlins and Rockies are kind of out
of this, And it's like, who's actually gonna trade here that I'm worried,
Like, is there gonna be some team that's gonna be like, ah,
yeah, you know what, We're not even gonna try. We're going
to try and use the fact that there's this limited trade market and we're going
to bail on this season for another season. Or is there actually anybody from
the Angels, the Athletics, the White Sox, the Marlins, or the
Rockies that people might actually want are go to you, Ben, because you
might have an idea on that. Yeah. Ouch, I think the those
teams will have some pieces. The White Socks have got some pieces that might
be of interest, the A's have got a couple of pieces that might be
of interest. And those guys are fairly obviously going to be on the chopping
blow or the trading block. I should say, we're not getting rid of
them at some point this summer. But I think we'll also see a bit
of a standoff between a lot of these teams that are on the bubble or
however you want to describe it, you know, sort of clinging on to
world card hopes at two, three, four games back, they'll probably try
and sit and wait as long as they can to see whether they want to
end up being buyers or sellers. And I think you're also going to end
up with some upset fan bases. You know, I think we know what
fans are like, and for good reason, they want their team to try
and win. I think there are a lot of fun officers out there who
are going to stick to their timetable regardless, And you can argue whether that's
a smart thing to do from baseball perspective. In my view, you should
do whatever you can just to get into the playoffs because you literally never know.
Just look at last year's World Series. But there will be teams that
decide. Actually, especially if you know someone comes knocking with a huge hole
for one for one of your players, huge prospective hall that you decide you're
going to flip them and you're going to say, you know what, we're
not going to compete this year. We're going to say that we're going to
make a run next year or the year. After looking at teams up the
pirates, I guess who maybe they're you know, plans been brought forward of
a year because they're competing quite well this year. Well, they're still two
and a half games back of a very competitive wild card spot. Don't think
any of us really see them being World Series contenders. Do they end up
selling some of their players that are expendable. We'll see. I'm sure fans
won't like it if they do, but that's just the nature of the business,
I suppose. So we'll see. I think you'll be a fascinating sort
of deadline as it creeps closer and closer, and we'll be to see which
teams sort of they can move first in which sit on their hands and wait.
I think, like Ben said, like you said, Russ, it's
going to be really interesting to see those teams that do decide to pull the
tricker, because they're probably going to get a lot more than they would have
been expecting previously, especially with so. I still can't believe how many teams
in the nl're in the wildcard race and all below five hundred. There's
literally three teams in the wild card slots and they're all above five hundred.
The rest are below. Do you know why, Tom? Do you know
why? No? Tell me? Because the al Central is good. I
did have a real big shock thing because I was looking at some of the
players and the leaderboards and I was like, well, maybe which junior is
going to get trade? And then it looks I was like, oh,
my god, the Royals are like forty three and thirty eight the how did
that happen the last couple of weeks? So have just absorbed all of the
bad from the division. Yeah, we've got it, boys, you carry
on, you have a good one. Yeah. I think it'd be fascinating.
I think we're going to see some potentially some real last minute ones.
But like Ben said, like there's gonna be fan base it's gonna be super
pissed off if they get to you know, if they're at five hundred and
they're you know, two games back, and the team decides to sell,
they're like, oh my god, we haven't had a playoff appearance for X
amount of years, How the hell could you do this? But then I
suppose, like the NBA, if you're a number eight seed in the NBA,
you're not going to win the NBA finals, You're not that good.
You've just crept your way in and that's it. Whereas as Ben mentioned,
anything can happen if you get in that wild cards a lot. So I
think there'll be there'll be fan bases that we feathe in if they sell and
don't try and buy when the two games back with you know two games to
go to the trade deadline. Yeah, because I think last year we saw
a couple of interesting things. We thought the Angels go for it when everybody
was like Tradeotarni and I applaud them for that. I question whether it was
the right decision to make from a from a the season point of viewing for
a long term point of view, but that's what you want teams to do.
You want teams to like go for it, like we've seen other teams
like the Orioles last year didn't really kind of like stampat when you're like,
no, you're in the position now when you need to go for it.
I think, and especially even now like they are like now by a little
bit behind the Yankees, they're looking a little bit light on pitching because of
like what's happened. Like if they don't actually actively go for it, you're
going to be like, well, you're kind of potentially missing out on your
opportunity. Like there was a really good article by Dan Zenboorlski on like the
Cub's Dynasty, and it was very much like talking about how like Bryant,
Baiers, Rizzo and all of those other players were like this is when they
won that World Series, we were like, oh, this is a good
young team. Yeah, they're going to be there for years to come.
And you're like, these guys have fallen off the cliff. What happened?
Like obviously there were potential like things to say about all of them buyers,
there's always potentially a liability that could kind of like waiting to happen. But
Rizzo has had some just some bad injuries, the concussion stuff to do that.
Bryant seemingly took a nice cushy deal in the in Colorado to probably just
enjoy himself instead of maybe competing at the highest level. I don't want to
say whether he's he's gone to Denver for the cush but uh, I even
mention it. Everyone do what you meant, But yeah, I feel like
teams that have to go for it. And on the opposite end, you've
got the Blue Jays, which have just kind of stunk a bit this year,
and it's kind of, well, are they going to be like,
Hey, we've got a really difficult division with Baltimore and New York and Tampa
all ahead of us. It's going to be more difficult for them to kind
of get those games back. Are they going to be like, yeah,
you know what, we're out of this. We're going to look to blip
some people and try and compete again in like a short time period. I'd
be very interesting. I think the really interesting one to look at though,
for is it's all about the Mets. Maybe it's all about the grimmest run.
The grim run is insane, wasn't it. That's something that I can
get on board with. Is a very casual baseball fan there, The grimmest
run really got me back into it. That was that was waking up and
checking the Mets score every morning. Yes, lives And it's just that they're
now a game and a half outside of the Wildcard Racer game back from five
hundred now, which when they were probably coming into the London Series, I
think we were all thinking that they might be trading Peelonzo. Now I doubt
that's going to happen unless Cohen really eats into the fact that, like they
are thinking about next year more than this year. I thought so yeah,
And that's I mean, do they even need to make any acquisitions there?
And they've just got the grimmest magic. Now I imagine the Phillies are looking
over their shoulder worriedly. You know, it's only a thirteen game division leader
at this point. The way the way the Grimmist Mets are going, they
could overhaul that by the end of August. Yeah, maybe they'll just be
trying to bring in like the Hamburglar as well, and a few of the
get all the team in. Can you name all the team? McDonald Grimace
Hamburglar. I was more thinking just other purple people, the dinosaur people like
that, purple people. That's a that's an interesting the Rockies mascot skeleton,
isn't it. Yeah, And now all I'm thinking about is that remember or
just singing that the the Hey are sung by the Fall non blondes, but
the humanvit man. That's an old meme probably purple character. Well, while
Tom's doing that, thinky winky yes, count count count yes one. Dariusis
Taris Is even said this. Of course, of course the energy that and
the Mets have combined, I think is a perfect match. Absolutely, he'd
be he'd be great reliever, I think, or Luigi good long arms.
Okay, so before we get to the too good, too bad, want
to quickly briefly say some exciting news. You may have seen on our Twitter,
but we have teamed up with Athletic Logos and we have some T shirts
out there for the first time in Blackflips and NERD's history. It's a really
exciting thing for us to do. We're kind of really glad that the Athleticos
guys came and spoke to us about whether we wanted to do a partnership,
and we came thought through quite a few ideas and decided that one we have
to have something about roy Utah to commemorate Rob's single greatest moment on the pod
as far as I'm concerned coming up with that, And then one that came
through discussions with all of us about maybe we need to take back the ownership
of the round Us come back. So the big fan of the Rounders T
shirt. I think it's one that I very much love, and I'm gonna
get a few things of that and give it to a few friends who I
played baseball with to kind of be like, we're gonna we're going to own
this, take control of this kind of like comeback. That's it, and
these T shirts help support us. We don't we don't get any money that
we put in our pockets for this this, anything that we do, any
giveaways that we do, any trips that we do, we try and pay
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on streams, put them on Instagram tag us, that'd be awesome because then
at least we'll get people out there seeing them, and it helps us continue
doing what we're doing. So yeah, we don't put any of this money
in our pocket. It all goes back to you as the listeners, especially
the giveaways. We spent a fortune in London out of the fund to basically
pay for giveaways and do stuff. So go and buy our T shirts.
I've just discovered the groak who I'm going to show to the cameras to these
boys who looks like Grimace, but he is pure nightmare fuel. I think
that might be the image for the podcast. Just that. While you were
doing that, I also was thinking of like Ganngar, if you're going from
like a Pokemon ghastly purpose, yeah, ghastly hunter Gangar, the whole evolution
chain. You can probably but I was thinking Ganngar because he's just another chonky
lad like and also just want to say that obviously we are still getting new
contributors coming on. There's plenty of opportunities for people to come right for the
site. We are trying to put everybody in touch with our edisters and cut
them any ideas they want to put out there. We are doing potentially looking
at a kind of like mid season report for your team, So if you're
kind of looking forward to writing something around that and the team are going to
try and put a selection of articles together kind of saying what's gone right,
what's gone wrong? And Yeah, if you look for the right for his
page on our homepage of backflips and dot com, you will find where you
can kind of submit your kind of like idea and hopefully you can become a
contributor on our site. So too good, Too bad? Ben, I
will start with you because I think you're going to talk about one of my
favorite things from the weekend as well, be signed with the goods. Yeah,
yeah, I'll start with a good Yeah. Well, my first good,
like you say, I think we had to talk about it at some
point, was the first ever walk off pitch clock violation that took place over
the weekend in the game between the Rockies and the Nationals, and for once
the Rockies from on the good side of a calamitous play. It was a
Brandon Finnegan I believe that the Nationals closer on the mound. It was a
tie game, bottom of the ninth thinning. I think Ryan McMahon was at
the plate for councer, A real perfect storm of circumstances for something like this
to happen, which obviously has to be. And yeah, I think he
is a fairly serial pitch clock fraction violator. Yeah, he's done it a
lot, and he did it again here in a big moment, and it's
a brilliant like moment. First of all, the like Shaer confusion of what
was happening as it happened, because you just don't really expect in a big
moment of the game like that, come storming out from behind home plate and
started stipulating. But actually that was the best part of it. I think
was just a theater and the excitement the umpire had as he ran out and
pointed at his watch and pointed at Finnegan and pointed at home plate. And
it was all chaos and obviously quickly the players realized what was happening in the
announcers realized what was happening, and after the moment of chaos, it was
sort of one of the oddest warkoff celebrations you'll ever see. Is McMahon wanted
to celebrate, didn't know if he had to run to first base. I
think he started to run first base and he was like, do we have
to do that? I'm not sure. Anyway, the one scored. It
was a bizarre walkoff win and what a perfect game for it to happen in
and entirely forgets about Nationals Rockies game in June. So yeah, that was
that was a very exciting moment for those of us who liked to follow baseball's
quirkier side. Yeah. I think the only thing I can add to that
is that the technical term is a sleep walk off. I think that we're
going for. Tom Tango was definitely tried to go for the sleep walk for
any like walk that goes from a pitchure clock violation. So I think we
like sleepwalk off is a is great one to go with. Yeah, it
was mental like Also the fact the finingan is just one of the worst players
are doing this. Think he's already got eleven violations like so far this season,
like most players have basically got significantly better compared to last year or got
to difficuely better during last year. About this kind of just seems like he
doesn't care. And maybe when you are the closer for the Nationals, like
most of the time that you might be involved in the games, it doesn't
really matter. But it is highly amusing to kind of to see this happen.
So I did have one fun question for you on this. YEP,
on Fangass, they measure you know, how many pitchcock violations have been done
by certain pitch so and his and I wondered, is it a skill if
you're a hitter to cause a pitchclock violation just because you're so hard to pitch
too? So would you like to guess? And I think you probably could
guess which hitter has caused the most pitchclock violations so far this season? So
one Soto is correct. He has caused five pitchclock violations so far the season,
which kind of makes sense, right, He's actual an elite disciplined hitter.
Pitchers are probably overthinking what they want to do to him, take a
bit too long pitchcock violation. So I thought, there's a little bit of
substance to my theory here. Then I scrolled down a little bit second on
the list Jeff McNeil. Turns out the theory is completely ruined. It's one
of the worst this season. Four times a pitcher has gone, I don't
know what to throw to him here. So, yeah, theory ruined.
But Ben's glorious secret stat is gone. I found the next sort of inefficiency
in baseball just to find good pitch clock violator causes. It was about to
become part of the pits rankings, But no is that. Is that how
Jeff McNeil is going to get his next contract? Just by going? Yeah,
but look, I cause most pitch clock violations what to do? Hey,
if I don't know what I'm doing, they definitely don't know what I'm
doing. If Guya and Nimmo got contracts basically by leaving their elbow over the
plate and getting hit by pitchures in the zones, I think there are plenty
of other ways that players can can do that. Yes, so my good
I'm going to do a very homer thing here and talk about stephenque He had
an amazing start of the season, got injured and everybody was like, oh,
well, was it short amount season? Whatever? Come back, He's
still amazing. He basically has turned around like the way that he plays,
but hasn't basically changed the way that he plays, and I think it's a
really remarkable thing to do. There's a great article but about Mike Petriello today
all the other day or yesterday about how it's kind of worked out and he's
kind of decided that in the right moments he should become a more power hitter.
So when he's in good counts, he is lifting the ball a bit
more, he is pulling the ball a bit more, and that means that
he's got seven home runs this season when he got like four in all of
last season. And it's just remarkable to see that. Like if you look
at hard hit metrics, if you look at contact metrics, like Kwan is
the person with arias who makes contact with the ball most when he swings.
He's also got like the least amount of power in one of the slowest batswings
in the game. But right now his ops is only worse than like Aaron
Judge and Juan Soto, which like this, this shouldn't be the case.
He's added like three hundred points to like his ops compared to like where it
was last year five nine. He's tiny, yeah, and it's just it's
and it's not a power hitter, not a power hitter, but he's choosing,
he's choosing to kind of get in and so he's pulling the ball.
He's like and he's kind of like doing that. It's it's also some of
it is that he's really punishing like low leverage situations. So I think in
some regards when pictures and he's basically just taking the bad stuff. Mike Petuli
showed something amazing that like third time through the order, he's like utterly crushing
it. He has like a six hundred average and like a one fifteen hundred
ops when he faces the hit a bitcher for the third time, which is
like those are things that are unsustainable numbers. But it's also just like seemingly
he's one of those players that like he's got his eye in you're done for.
He also just seems like a really lovely guy. I don't know if
you read Zach Mysaul's article in The Athletic, but he profiled Quiets next in
piece. I'd recommend it, but kind of seems so nice and likable and
down to earth and like not the kind kind of had to have an ego
at all. Like it keeps playing down his achievements, but you can kind
of tell in there he's grinded so hard to get to this point and become
the baseball player that he has. You know, he's been up against it
for reasons, you know, like his size and the power profile, and
he's never really seen to be a great defender all that kind of stuff,
and all he's done ever since is just Rake. And you know, he
thought he'd never going to make it as a college baseball player, never mind
in the majors. So yeah, the whole story about sort of how he
made it to the big leagues, what his approach is at the plate,
you know, how he thinks about the game is fascinating. So you know,
as someone who doesn't follow the Guardians that closely, I can't help but
root for Quin and hope that he continues to do what he's been doing.
Yeah, I think what's kind of like the Guardians have done this year some
of it. They've changed the little way that some of the outfield works.
They've removed some things, so the balls are traveling a little bit further than
they did before. So they've got a bit more power to that team.
But it's very interesting to kind of see that they've kind of gone, oh,
we just we were a good contact team, but we need to get
a little bit more umph to actually do that, and it seems to actually
be working. Tom, Do you have a good do anything you would like
to talk about? Our T shirts are really good, Go and buy our
T shirts? Should say there are more T shirt designs coming soon. Yes,
that's a really good point. Yeah, yeah, we've got some more
excellent Well we think they're excellent, whether you don't, and that doesn't really
matter it kind of does you need to buy them? Please buy our T
shirts? Who wants to be any more cool stuff? There is one I'll
be buying the minute it comes out, since it will become very clear when
it does come out. Give me a little clue. It's not Rockies related,
certainly, isn't. I can chip in with a with a bad yep.
I'll go for poor Hunter Green and his poorly tummy. I'm assuming everyone
has seen this by now, but during his his start last night, in
the first inning, he made them. In the first hitter, he faced
Hunter Green release the pitch and almost simultaneously absolutely hurled his guts up on the
mound vomited directly down, seemingly towards the rubber, literally right after. I
think that as the batter was swinging and fouling off the pitch, Green vomiting
on the mound. It's quite extraordinary to see. He got checked on by
the by the pitching coaching, The trainer came out to see if he was
okay. He, to his credit, gutted it out. I think he
ended up going four and easy to give up six runs or something. He
wasn't his first performance, but fair play for for clearly playing through something that
had upset him. We do see guys peop on the field sometimes. It
seems to happen quite a lot. I guess maybe heat related in summer,
and who knows what some of these guys are putting into their into their body.
But it's never felt more relatable for me, as someone who plays,
who has played a lot of baseball games extremely hungover to see a player hurl
a pitch and actually just turn around and vomit behind the mound. Felt very
relatable. I don't think I've ever vomited on a field. I'm quite fortunate
that's it. I've played a lot of games I'm talking about football, played
a lot of games hungover as well, But I don't think I've ever vomited.
You're seeing the NFL a lot as well, don't you. In college
football, the guys are like like in the huddle or they get they're going
up to that what'd you call it? When they're at the yeah, scrimmage,
Yeah, and they're just like vomiting there. And then you're like,
can you imagine me in the opposition. You're like, oh mate, ah,
no, Yeah, I've not done it playing baseball. I did it
playing a couple of times playing ultimate tournaments when I might have imbibed a little
bit too much. What's an ultimate tournament? Frisbee? Oh? I didn't
realize that. Oh, it's ultimate Frisbee. They call it ultimate because frisbee
is a or the flying disc because frisbee is as Yes, because frisbee is
a trademark termed by like whatever company made it, like Hasbro or whatever.
Is this like Alan Pardridge when he says and he says, no, that's
a that's a brand name. Yeah as not as you yes, talk about
something else that happened firly recently, if not last night, My bad Dave
Martinez and the Nats. Tom will obviously have an opinion on this as well,
but basically admitting that he allowed his picture to throw at someone for celebrating
the walk off the night before and maybe just putting a tiny bit of that
celebration towards your team instead of celebrating with his own team is the childish mentality.
That kind of is the one thing that really annoys me about baseball,
like the some of the unwritten rules things where it's like, oh, we've
got to get back at somebody like he celebrated too hard. Like I'm I'm
a petty individual, and I can understand some of that to a regard,
But if I was Manny Machado when I hit that home run, I would
have been rounding the bases with two fingers up, just going like obviously that
would escalated things in the wrong way, and Manay Machado, maybe for once
in his career, handled things in a fairly kind of well I desperately wanted
to talk about this, like the fact that Manny Machado was the only one
pretty much who was telling everyone to calm down. Everyone else was kicking off
and he was the only one who stood again no, no, no,
I'm literally watching it now highlights Again, he's the only one there. There's
pointy time. No, no, everyone calmed down. So I think it's
like, it's kind of I also have to say that are bad. I
think goes to the umpires as well. They issued warnings and then Mackenzie Gore
hit Jerreks' profile and then they didn't eject as well, Like is that looking
at the pitch? I don't think it was actually intentional looking at the pitch.
I don't know, kind of another scene. It's kind of like it
wasn't It wasn't like in the ribs, was it. I genuinely don't think
he was intentional. Well, and I must have agreed, Yeah, yeah,
it's for the fastball at ninety eight to hit him in the leg right
right off an argument at homeplate. Yeah, but maybe he just disguised it.
Well, yeah, it's just there. You just have the all it
takes from Schmidt to be kind of like, yeah, I know it wasn't
handled like in the best way, but no, see I get no manager
is probably going to do that, Like we don't have any managers in MLB
that are going to be like Hosey Mourinho and call out their player for being
an idiot. But yeah, the unwritten rules of baseball are just so dumb
and this kind of level of kind of I called it like middle school like
melodrama in one of the chats we have here, like in the UK,
that's that's what it is. It's like it's kids who can't deal with their
emotions deciding that the only week they can deal with their emotions is lashing out.
I think it might have been a Ben Limberg podcast when he said,
like, could you imagine trying to explain somebody who's never watched baseball before.
They just go, this is ridiculous. These they're acting like children, like,
get a grip, get rid of it, David Martinez, get a
grip. So let's double up on the bad. So we end on some
goods, Ben, what was your second bad for the week. The second
bad was going back to the Mets again and Edwin Diaz being ejected and then
suspended for having sticky stuff on his hands. I think it was on Sunday
night baseball. Wasn't it so particularly high profile game as well? But he
entered the game the reft the umpires stopped him had like his hands, and
we did see a few broadcast shots of well it like quite a significant amount
of sort of gray substance on his hands. The umpires decided that it was
stickier than usual, by the usual bizarre method of umpires touching you and deciding
if it's stickier than a normal sticky hand. That his hand was too sticky.
Obviously, pass him from the game. That's an automatic ten game suspension.
I don't believe he's appealing. He's going to just play it out,
which is a big miss for the Mets. I mean, to start with,
obviously, in the middle of a pretty good run at the moment,
Diaz was just seemingly returning into his top form. He all now missed ten
games. Obviously, they're not able to replace him on the roster, so
they'll just be down a player for ten games. And also, I guess
just kind of like shows how silly this whole process is. He claimed it
was just Rosin combined with song screen or whatever it is that they are allowed
to use. That he did what he usually does when he comes into the
game, and you know, maybe he did put on a little bit too
much this time and got a bit carried away, and the umpires within their
right to determine his hand too sticky. But the whole system just seems a
little bit broken. I get why they have to do this every now and
again and just clamp down on it in some way just to deter players from
actually taking it too far, but it does seem like a kind of broken
system where umpires can just kind of feel up a hand and go that one's
sticky, but not sticky enough we to do anything. You're fine. Oh,
actually that one's a bit too sticky. Y're gone. So yeah,
it kind of just shows how silly the system is. Still not quite the
way I want it to be, or the way I don't think majorly Baseball
want it to be, and especially when it's a high profile player like Diaz.
He gets ejected on Sunday Night Baseball, not a great look for the
sport, But I understand there has to be a way of stopping guys from
cheating, and maybe he was so yeah, just just a shame way to
see him ejected from the game and suspended in that way. Yeah, I
think I've got up here the quote from the crew chief umpire Vicky Carapaza.
It definitely wasn't rosin and sweat. We've checked thousands of these. I know
what that feeling is. This it was this was very sticky. It's like,
what training do they get in this? Do they do? They go
to MLB umpire school and there's just a bunch of hands and they go,
oh, that's sticky. I don't like that one. All no, that
one's that one is Oh no, that's wine gums. That's all right.
That one's fine. This one, oh no, that's rosin. I'm not
happy about this one. This is this is subjective bullshit, isn't it.
Let's be honest. Yeah, it's it is, And I think that there
are probably very easy ways of not making it subjective. It's like you can
literally have something like a baseball that the plump pire just goes grip the baseball.
Does it fall out of your hand? If the answer is no,
then it's probably too sticky, mate. That It makes a great theater just
pictures holding a ball and then having to hold it upside down and does it
stick? Does it for got to be there for like ten seconds and then
he gets banned. Yeah, they're all the kind of the way that I
think I've seen a few pictures come out is just be give a substance.
Just say that kind of like because has sweat it and sweat and sun's green
or whatever. These things are allowed to be used, but can be combined
to create some various kind of like sticky levels of substances depending on kind of
like how you use the ross in the sunscreen and when the apothecary and they've
got their big caldron just spinning it around. Yeah, so it's just like
provide something, get on with it, or get the TACKI ball out there.
They've used it in like the MPB for years. So I think something
that may be annoyed match funds too, is the inconsistency in which the law
is applied. Some players seem to get told wash their hands and come back
in. Some players seem to be kind of given bit of a warning by
the umpires, like you're on the edge here, I don't want it any
stickier next inning. You know, this kind of stuff, and whereas other
guys get told while you're out the game, you're done for ten games.
You know, that is a very severe punishment. So I think if they
are going to use it, you know it needs to at least be levied
consistently, which is hard to do. But you know, I can see
why they're de frustrations to fans who you think it's one rule for some players
and another rule for others. So my second bad is around the dearth of
like First Basement power hitters. They've kind of just pseudo disappeared again, Like
we've got like Freddie Freeman and kind of Christian Walker doing pretty good obviously in
Bryce Harper, but if you kind of look beyond that, like Vladdie's not
had a great season like the other players that you kind of expect to be
like Paul Goldschmidt, some of these other kind of like hop First Basement are
just not good. And even then the other teams, some teams are putting
out some horrendous people playing first base, like not to kind of shoot down
on the on the Rockies, Harrison Alas Montero, who I think has a
minus one point six f war for his appearances at first base so far this
season, Josier Brew another kind of like minus one war Spencer talkers and Christian
like Ericsson, even good old Yandy Diaz lovely level, love Yandy, but
likes not been good. It's like they're seemingly with what the changes we're seeing
in baseball this year, that those big swinging power first basements are really struggling.
I had a look and like the WRC plus for first basement is like
one hundred and five this year, above average, but it's always been one
hundred and eleven hundred and eleven hundred and twelve hundred and eleven hundred, like
it's always been like a bit more than this. We're really kind of seeing
some all first basement kind of like those power hitters doing there. And I
think this is like we've lost the dhs. I think there are many teams
that now have like a to get a dedicated d H. I think we
could be losing like these kind of how we're hitting first basement as well.
I think teams are just starting to use people who can provide more to them
than just playing first base. You don't know what you've got till it's gone
miss yet Princefielder's gon Myyer still playing probably not okay. So to end on
some positive notes, Ben give me give me a good. So my second
good is good. Old Max Scherzer, he is back. Made his season
debut I think a couple of nights ago now for the Texas Rangers, and
you look great. He went five scorers innings. I think he retired something
like thirteen of his first fourteen batters faced. He was on a fairly strict
pitch count. I think it might have been sixty pitches or something like that.
But from what I've heard, he yeah, he pitched brilliantly. That
they've lost, team looks strong. For his first game back, he tied
Greg Maddox for eleventh on MLB's all time strikeout list, which is pretty awesome.
And I think, you know, we know he's on the tail end
of his career now and probably hasn't got an awful long time left pitching at
the top level. So I kind of just want to enjoy it while he's
here and while he's pitching, and while he's effective. You know, he's
always been so entertaining to watch on the mound. He is an animal when
he's you know, squaring up against someone in the battles box. He's delivered
some unbelievable moments over the last decade or so. He was the best picture
in baseball for a short period. I think indspeed to be so so yeah,
look great to see him come back and come back with some form.
Hopefully he can stay helpy for the rest of the year and help drive the
Rangers back into playoff contention. No, it's amazing to see Madawax back on
the mound, especially he seemed just back in the dugout. I saw he
was. Heckelic Peter Alonso the other day for not swinging at the master player
pitching, which is just yeah, you got to love having those guys because
Max is just like he doesn't care. Like obviously he's a brilliant when it's
his game day or whatever he's on, but he's at that point of his
career now where he's just like, I'm going to have fun. So yeah,
No, it's it's great to see Max back up there. I'm also
going to end on a picture. I just want to highlight someone which might
have been missed because people probably haven't been watching any games that he pitches.
But Garrett Rische has had an absolutely like phenomenal season and had a really good
June in Across like the five games that he pitched, he has like just
over three AAR and a kind of like a two and a half FIP across
seventeen starts so far for the White Sox. He's not going too deep.
That's why he's kind of only got like ninety four innings pitched. But he
didn't start a game in the last three years for the White Sox after they
brought him up early in the twenty twenty seasons straight after being drafted like this,
he hasn't basically started for three seasons until they kind of extended him out
to start for this season. He's looked phenomenal, Like he's looked like one
of the best pitchers in the league, which really kind of makes you question
why they haven't done this in the last couple of seasons, But also they've
done it now and it looks great, and it kind of to be to
say that, like to some people out there that like there are there are
real reasons to watch like White Sox games or whatever. For some of those
fans, they still have something to go out there and see. But yeah,
Gara Crochet really go have a look at some of his his starts.
He's been pretty epic so far, really high strikeout rate. We all laugh
at the White Sox a bit at the start of the season two when they
announced him as you know, opening day starts here and he is going to
be a starter again, And you know, this just seemed like another thing
that one of the worst run teams in baseball was getting wrong. Like you
say, hadn't started in three years and struggled with injuries. It seemed like
the worst idea possible. So I guess credit to them, I mean more
credit to him, but for letting him flourish in a starting role where he
where he has been so good. And maybe there is a bit of a
trend of you know, we see so many starts has converted to relievers.
We have actually seen some relievers converted to starters pretty successfully recently. I know
we joke a lot about him, but Seph Lugo has been brilliant again this
year, seemingly staying healthy when he couldn't really do it much as a reliever.
I think everyone assumed Hunter Green would end up a reliever, and when
he's not throwing up on the back of the mound. He's actually been a
really good starter, So you know, I think that's a good thing for
baseball, right when we can have guys who can go the other way and
actually show they can go deeper into games. Maybe it's easier when deeper into
games there's only five or six innings now, But yeah, I think it's
great. The team's going to give guys a chance to to lengthen out and
be impact starters. And who knows Approche will be dealt with the deadline.
But if he, if he is, I think he's going to get them
kings Roun. Yeah, I think the one that jumps to minus Tanner,
how can I think it was obviously the season before last when he kind of
like switched back from being like he's been a starter. Then they put him
as a reliever and I'll push him back to a starter, and he's look
up to like phenomenal. Listen, it is. It is amazing to see.
And yeah, like Crushet, maybe even Bede or whatever with the with
the white socks for two of those people that people could be want to do
a king's ransom to get Okay, that has been a fun hour a bit
of podcasting about baseball. Ben, Tom, I'll ask the obvious question,
which the answer was probably know, got any writing in the works? No?
Yes for me by a T shirt. I don't have to write buy
the T shirts obviously, as we said, yeah, please do kind of
like if you want join us, plenty of opportunities for you to write.
I'm gonna hopefully trying to get a couple of analytics Peak pieces out in the
next few weeks as I have a bit of spare time on my hands right
now. So look to that for some things about some of the swing speed
data which don't know if you know it's available now, it's become available ont
cast. Really interest to see who's swinging hard. I'm like, do you
want to, Tom, do you want to guess who swings to the bat
the hardest on average in Major League Baseball? Umm, it's probably Aaron Judge.
Isn't it close? Right? He placed for the team, Jan Cardinal
or Stanton Oh? Is he healthy? He remained healthy. He's actually just
gone onto the IL. Do you know what? I did see that the
other day and I was like, surely is that his first trip? Because
he's done very well to get that fire into the season. Yes, he
has, but I was going to say we also have discussed the hit that
Santon had that led to a double right before he popped his hamstring, when
Jared Knick and center field made the worst attempt at catch I think I've ever
seen. I don't know if you guys caught it and he's got turned around.
He got turned around the wrong way completely by the ball almost as second
into it being in flight, ran to the wall, then jumped into the
wall, but all importantly forgot to even try and put his glove up,
fell to the dirt in a heat. That is a very bad explanation,
but please do look it up and find it because it looks like someone he's
never plaid end field in his life. Yeah. I think it goes up
there with the Ozuna clip where Azuna climbed up the fence to get the ball
and then realized it was landing kind of like five foot in front of the
fence. Yes, as long as lines, we're gonna watch it. But
yes, as always, please go to the website to look at the amazing
articles that have been written by contributers. That's backflips and nerds Dot com these
followers on Twitter at Backflips, Underscore Nerds, and look out for more podcasts
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