Speaker 1: This is Sham and I with the Mets and welcome
Speaker 1: to Bapflicks and Nerds.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Backlifts and Nerds, the Baseball Podcast
Speaker 2: with the British Twist. I'm your host this week, John
Speaker 2: McGhee and joining me. Well, we've got a quartet this week.
Speaker 2: I'm making my long awaited return from the injury injury
Speaker 2: injury list after a you know, a niggling half strain
Speaker 2: perennial for me. But I've got three more people who
Speaker 2: know far more about baseball than I do, which is
Speaker 2: which is arguably a good thing. Well, actually four more
Speaker 2: because I've got the cat here as well. She won't
Speaker 2: go away today. First up, we've got the computer brain
Speaker 2: man himself, mister Russell Lisa.
Speaker 3: How are you.
Speaker 4: I'm doing good, John, I'm doing it excellent in Cleveland.
Speaker 4: Throw it all the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll definitely talk about Cleveland a bit more throughout
Speaker 2: the course.
Speaker 3: Of this of this chat.
Speaker 2: And also Bournemouth Arena's very own general manager, mister Rob Navera,
Speaker 2: are you hey up?
Speaker 1: How are we doing? I'm good as far away from
Speaker 1: Bournemouth as I could get that.
Speaker 2: Rubb's been threatening to get the tech guys from from
Speaker 2: his work, which which is born with Arena into professionalize
Speaker 2: his setup because this is very much a Jerry built enterprise.
Speaker 3: Maybe we all need to get them.
Speaker 2: To pop round and last up performing his very own
Speaker 2: version of the Flu Game. It's Ben Carter but a
Speaker 2: little bit under the weather, but breaking it out and
Speaker 2: on the left.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it would be the Flu Game if Michael Jordan had,
Speaker 5: you know, a slightly poorly Tommy or something not quite
Speaker 5: as impressive as his feats. But I'm going to fight three.
Speaker 5: I want to talk baseball. It's been a while, so
Speaker 5: excited to be here.
Speaker 2: Great stuff, And have you got anything to say, Kat
Speaker 2: or are you just going to keep mussel in this microphone?
Speaker 2: There we go, got a little bell that was nice. Great,
Speaker 2: So we've got quite a lot to get through. Our
Speaker 2: last podcast was just after the trade deadline, so quite
Speaker 2: a lot's happened since then. Some teams have been in
Speaker 2: the ascendancy, Some who people fancied a little bit to
Speaker 2: improve after the trade deadline cough, the Boston Red Sox
Speaker 2: have actually got infinitely worse. So alongside Russell's team, I've
Speaker 2: also got my tiny violin out. But let's sort of
Speaker 2: chump through it all. But there's been the Backflips and
Speaker 2: Nerds podcast. There are a couple of topics that we
Speaker 2: like to dwell on for an inordinate amount of time,
Speaker 2: and the first of those is the announcement of the
Speaker 2: pool that Great Britain Baseball is going to play in
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: World Baseball Classic. Bit previous of us to be talking
Speaker 3: about this already.
Speaker 2: It's a good eighteen months away, and who knows who's
Speaker 2: going to be in the teams or who's going to
Speaker 2: be in the teams that they're playing against. But Russell,
Speaker 2: you're our World Baseball Classic correspondent, and GB's got quite
Speaker 2: tough for all this time through you haven't they?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I think obviously we're having to face the US in
Speaker 7: the group stages once again. Is never going to be
Speaker 7: like an easy draw, thinking how they're going to try
Speaker 7: to like fight their way out of it. Obviously, now
Speaker 7: they're not the qualifier going into this group, so there
Speaker 7: is a qualifier who's going to get there. There's a
Speaker 7: couple of teams that got kind of dropped out last
Speaker 7: time which probably will come back with immediate force, and
Speaker 7: so that qualifier might not actually be that week of
Speaker 7: a team, but we know that they can win a game.
Speaker 7: I still think that that group there is obviously you've
Speaker 7: got another European team in there, which makes it like
Speaker 7: not to besmirch European baseball compared to American and an
Speaker 7: Asian baseball. But you've got to be wanting to win
Speaker 7: that game. As a minimum you get to two, maybe
Speaker 7: get to three, Maybe think about having a knockout game
Speaker 7: in Houston before for a trip to Miami. And I
Speaker 7: think that's the other side. It's in Houston now for
Speaker 7: probably John, Me and Gav and many others who want
Speaker 7: it to be in Tokyo, so we could kind of
Speaker 7: go to Tokyo and watch TV play baseball. It's not
Speaker 7: good from the holiday perspective, probably is better from who's
Speaker 7: actually going to make that team perspective, because it's a
Speaker 7: lot easier for the MLB teams to give up their
Speaker 7: players and have them still be like in the US
Speaker 7: than it is to have them fly the other way
Speaker 7: around the world and kind.
Speaker 4: Of sort it out.
Speaker 7: So hopefully, Yeah, And as John threw an article out today,
Speaker 7: he's got an idea on who might might be playing
Speaker 7: for that team. So I think we've got to go
Speaker 7: in there wanting to get out of that group stage.
Speaker 4: I think it's doable. It's going to be hard, but as.
Speaker 2: Baseball absolutely we'll talk a little bit about what the
Speaker 2: team might look like in a second. But it's interesting,
Speaker 2: isn't it that you possibly got the four most American
Speaker 2: teams in a single pool.
Speaker 7: There.
Speaker 3: You've got Italy, which is just anyone.
Speaker 2: Who can say by the being out loud, You've got Britain,
Speaker 2: which is well, you know it's the commonwe isn't it
Speaker 2: really Mexico which you know, there's a pretty close link
Speaker 2: between Mexico and the USA, a huge border.
Speaker 3: And of course GM.
Speaker 2: Played Mexico last time through as well, right, and that
Speaker 2: was before and they lost, and that's before Jared Duran
Speaker 2: was good. So you know, it's a slightly worrying ominous
Speaker 2: and we'll see who the qualifiers. But you know, as
Speaker 2: you alluded to, Russell, I, I wrote a piece today.
Speaker 2: This has been a big, a big day for me.
Speaker 2: First time I've written anything for about a year, and
Speaker 2: I'm back on the podcast for the first time in
Speaker 2: six weeks or so. And you know, on paper, the
Speaker 2: GB team could be really, really good. I mean, on
Speaker 2: paper and on the field is an entirely different thing
Speaker 2: as we saw in twenty twenty three. If every single
Speaker 2: available player had been available in twenty twenty three, it
Speaker 2: would have been even better than it was. But there
Speaker 2: are a few players who weren't there then who would
Speaker 2: make it better, and a couple more who've taken great
Speaker 2: steps forward in you know, Gabriel Ranconez and Matthew Coperniac
Speaker 2: and Michael Peterson of course big league of Michael Peterson.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think there's there's a reason to be
Speaker 2: to be confident guys, isn't there Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I would say the fact that it's just
Speaker 1: two years before the Olympics as well, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of guys there who are saying, look, I'm
Speaker 1: available to play because a lot of these guys are
Speaker 1: going to want to play in the Olympics. Who doesn't
Speaker 1: want to play in the Olympics. That is, that is
Speaker 1: a big goal. Even if even if you are paying
Speaker 1: for little gb because your grandma has you know, half
Speaker 1: a half a British toe. If that's the day fight, great, fantastic,
Speaker 1: But like that, that is going to be an attraction.
Speaker 1: That is going to be a point where by guys
Speaker 1: are going to want to start sort of getting their
Speaker 1: names on the rosters because they want to They're gonna
Speaker 1: want to play those games. So I think that really
Speaker 1: could bode well for teams who are relying on expats
Speaker 1: and relatives to get them into the games. That could
Speaker 1: both work quite well.
Speaker 3: For us and and Ben.
Speaker 2: Obviously, any team that's got a starting pitching availability potentially
Speaker 2: of Tristan McKenzie, Thanks Russell, I forgot that one, Jack
Speaker 2: like and Kumar Roka, and then a bullpen that could
Speaker 2: include any or all of our oldest Chapman, bark lighter
Speaker 2: in Jibo and others. Michael Peterson, you know it's it's
Speaker 2: not far off being a big league staff, that is it?
Speaker 2: Really No, I'll concede.
Speaker 5: I do not follow the international scene or the eligible
Speaker 5: players as close to yourself from not to do some
Speaker 5: I was reading for your article, I was I was
Speaker 5: somewhat surprised at the caliber of players that we potentially
Speaker 5: will have available. I mean, this is a serious list
Speaker 5: of big names, and perhaps most excitingly, a serious list
Speaker 5: of big names that are mostly young and only improving. Obviously,
Speaker 5: it's going to be a tough job for Drew and
Speaker 5: Coe to recruit all of these names to be part
Speaker 5: of the team, and I think we have to concede
Speaker 5: there'll be some who will be unavailable for for all
Speaker 5: sorts of reasons. And obviously we are still talking eighteen
Speaker 5: months ahead of when this tournament will be and that's
Speaker 5: a long time in baseball. But I think the future
Speaker 5: looks really promising. You know, some of the guys that
Speaker 5: you've outlined here who are even the higher miners or
Speaker 5: just joining the majors, that are considered seriously top prospects,
Speaker 5: who will hopefully form the core not just of their
Speaker 5: respective major league teams for years to come, but hopefully
Speaker 5: the sort of core of this next generation of GB
Speaker 5: teams as well. And yeah, that rotation, like you say,
Speaker 5: lighter Rocker too, absolute superstars from the college level who
Speaker 5: are starting to get their feet where, you know, at
Speaker 5: the major lever on the upper miners. Tristan McKenzie, who's
Speaker 5: been great for the Guardians for a number of years now,
Speaker 5: that's a serious one two three punch that could compete
Speaker 5: hopefully with the best of them. So yeah, I mean
Speaker 5: that their expectations are high with how well GB played
Speaker 5: last time round. But as Russell says that they should
Speaker 5: be right, we should be expecting them to perform well.
Speaker 6: And I like that.
Speaker 5: It's no longer just nice to be there, but actually
Speaker 5: we want to win. We want to beat some people.
Speaker 5: We want to kind of cause a bit of a scene.
Speaker 5: So no, it's a long way away, but I'm excited already.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm sure there's one or two more up
Speaker 2: the sleeve of coach Spencer and is Lee, tenants John
Speaker 2: Cramer and Connor Brooks and Brad Marcelino as well. Us
Speaker 2: Drew keeps his cards close to his close his vest.
Speaker 2: I think he would say, we would say close to
Speaker 2: close to our chest, because.
Speaker 3: That's the correct way of doing it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, definitely, there's going to be somebody who has Caribbean
Speaker 7: heritage that we are not aware of.
Speaker 1: Ormok Trout.
Speaker 2: I love how you've picked potentially the most American looking
Speaker 2: man of all time. I mean, there are a lot
Speaker 2: of Trout in Americans, you know, maybe maybe some Barrick.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay, so that's gb.
Speaker 2: Baseball World Baseball Classic. Go and have a quick look
Speaker 2: at my article. There's going to be quite a lot
Speaker 2: of coverage of the World Baseball Classic. I'm sure that
Speaker 2: that Gavin the team will be churning out a view
Speaker 2: of who they might be playing, who might be in
Speaker 2: those Italy, Mexico, USA, and inde qualifier squads over the
Speaker 2: course of the next eighteen months, and I'm sure we'll
Speaker 2: have an opportunity to speak to Drew and his staff
Speaker 2: between now and then on the podcast too. So from
Speaker 2: the sort of exciting and sublime to a rather I
Speaker 2: think melancholy note right now, but hopefully we can have
Speaker 2: a little bit of fun with this too, the retirement
Speaker 2: of i'd say collectively our favorite player on this podcast
Speaker 2: and many many people's favorite player in baseball, Joey Votto,
Speaker 2: who decided last week, in true Joey Votto style, you know,
Speaker 2: to hang his spikes up.
Speaker 3: Having spent this.
Speaker 2: Year with the Blue Jays organization and all of his
Speaker 2: prior career and indeed therefore all of his major league
Speaker 2: career with the Cincinnati Reds, Votto fastened on with the
Speaker 2: Blue Jays in the hope to play for his hometown
Speaker 2: team before he retired, and unfortunately there was no room
Speaker 2: for him in a triple A lineup, which is a
Speaker 2: bit of a shame. Really, it would have been a
Speaker 2: really nice way to give him a swan song. But
Speaker 2: that isn't the way that baseball goes. It isn't the
Speaker 2: way professional sports goes. Not everyone gets the happy ending
Speaker 2: that they want. But yeah, sad to see Votto go ben,
Speaker 2: isn't it because he's been a source of inspiration for
Speaker 2: us on this.
Speaker 3: Podcast in our time pulling it together.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I can't think of many players who are as
Speaker 5: widely beloved as as Joey Votto is and has been
Speaker 5: for as long as you be doing his podcast, and
Speaker 5: for even longer than that. He's been always a joy
Speaker 5: to watch on the field, a joy to listen to
Speaker 5: off the field. I know we've all on this pod
Speaker 5: exchanged great stories about the various articles about his endeavors,
Speaker 5: whether it be mopping around his house or all the
Speaker 5: other things that he tends to do off the field
Speaker 5: that kind of endear him to us even more so.
Speaker 5: It is a sad day, and, like you say, sad
Speaker 5: that we didn't kind of get that fairy.
Speaker 6: Tale ending from him.
Speaker 5: I think we all probably saw the writing on the
Speaker 5: wall a while back, but anytime that a legend of
Speaker 5: the game, besides hanging up their spikes.
Speaker 6: Is a sad moment, but then I'm excited to see
Speaker 6: what he does next.
Speaker 5: I think he could have a fantastic career in a
Speaker 5: broadcast booth or as an analyst. I hope he stays
Speaker 5: in and around the game of baseball. I don't know
Speaker 5: if coaching is something he'd be interested in. I can
Speaker 5: imagine him being very, very good at that. But this
Speaker 5: is someone who just thinks so cerebrally, if that's even
Speaker 5: a word, about the game of baseball. He's such a
Speaker 5: smart hitter. He thinks about the game and ways that
Speaker 5: others don't. He can talk about the game and express
Speaker 5: himself in ways others can't, So I do hope you
Speaker 5: get the chance to explore that further with him now.
Speaker 5: But he's no longer hit it and just hear what, yeah,
Speaker 5: what he has to say from his mind about the sport,
Speaker 5: about the way he used to think about the game,
Speaker 5: about yeah, what it means to be a hitter. That
Speaker 5: was as good as he was for as long as
Speaker 5: he was. So Bittersweet's sad that he's gone, but I'm
Speaker 5: excited to see what's what's next to Joey. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: of course Russell Now that he has retired, we return
Speaker 5: to the eternal and indeed most boring question in all
Speaker 5: of baseball? Is he all of famer? And as aristatsman
Speaker 5: here you have to tell us whether or not he is.
Speaker 5: I mean we would all say for sure, right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think he's If you would go old school,
Speaker 7: he might be an edge candidate. I think whither basically
Speaker 7: the electorate of the BBWA who will vote him in.
Speaker 7: I don't really see any chance that he's not getting it.
Speaker 7: He might not be a first time ballot person if
Speaker 7: people still start to do that sort of thing where
Speaker 7: they want to just kind of do first ballots for
Speaker 7: just the top people. But he'll make it in, like
Speaker 7: he I think just also his relationship with the media
Speaker 7: will help that. Like he's not made enemies. I think
Speaker 7: joy Voro has I think understood the entertainment value of
Speaker 7: baseball better than most of the players in the last
Speaker 7: twenty years. He plays like the face to the home
Speaker 7: crowd and the heel to like the away fans.
Speaker 4: He knew exactly.
Speaker 7: How to like pull those strings of how the crowd
Speaker 7: is feeling and get them like to love him and
Speaker 7: hate him like in equal measures. And it's just not
Speaker 7: seen much. I think in baseball nowadays, it's one of
Speaker 7: those things that, yes, I am a statch person. I
Speaker 7: love thet side of like baseball, but if the game
Speaker 7: itself still has to entertain you, and so you want
Speaker 7: the people that can do that. I think first baseman
Speaker 7: have a great opportunity to interact with the crowd and
Speaker 7: the players that they're because everybody comes through first who
Speaker 7: makes it on base I think Vodo was a beautiful
Speaker 7: wind up merchant to kind of pull that through. But
Speaker 7: from a statistical point of view, his numbers are pretty outstanding.
Speaker 7: His numbers are like in the runners and scoring position
Speaker 7: is just ludicrous. He has stuff that is like that's
Speaker 7: if you want to talk about up somebody being clutch,
Speaker 7: and you can maybe over about a sixteen year season
Speaker 7: talk about somebody actually being clutch, that's probably just about
Speaker 7: enough time to do it. Vardo was clutch like in
Speaker 7: those big moments, he did what mattered, and so yeah,
Speaker 7: I think I would love to see more of him,
Speaker 7: as I think, as Ben said, I listened to some
Speaker 7: Cincinnati Red broadscasts, but towards the end of last year
Speaker 7: when he was injured, because he was on those broadcasts
Speaker 7: for an inning or two, and how he talked about
Speaker 7: the game just opens up your mind to kind of
Speaker 7: what's actually going on. They just having those people who
Speaker 7: are so recently within the game gives you like a
Speaker 7: clear idea. He had one inning where he was talking
Speaker 7: about like the shift and having it removed and how
Speaker 7: that like changed his mind about how he was hitting.
Speaker 7: And you just don't hear that from players who are active.
Speaker 7: So yeah, I think, yes, I think he should be
Speaker 7: a whole time. He should be a Hall of Fame balla.
Speaker 7: But I would put him first time, but then I
Speaker 7: don't have a vote.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so the question that I have for all
Speaker 2: of you, and I'm going to come to you first
Speaker 2: job unfortunately, because you're just You're the next person I'm
Speaker 2: going to ask a question, is now that Joey Votto
Speaker 2: is is no longer within the great pantheon of Major
Speaker 2: League Baseball? Where where do we turn our collective affections?
Speaker 2: Who's going to fill that giant, gaping hole of you know,
Speaker 2: is Russell so eloquently put it, the guy who is
Speaker 2: the face to the home crowd and the heel to
Speaker 2: the away crowd, but is having a huge fun and
Speaker 2: has their tongue firmly planted in their cheap Do you
Speaker 2: do you have it? Do you do you have anyone
Speaker 2: that brings to mind? Rob and the other guys get
Speaker 2: an extra second to think about it.
Speaker 3: You don't.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't have anybody who's bought Zach Cozart
Speaker 1: a donkey. That's kind of unique. That kind of stuff
Speaker 1: doesn't doesn't translate. But I mean, and if you come
Speaker 1: to beloved guys, I mean, Adrian Beltray is a really
Speaker 1: good comp to Joey Votto in the kind of way
Speaker 1: he played and the kind of the kind of player
Speaker 1: he was. I think it's going to be short lived,
Speaker 1: but you've got cut at the moment. You know, he's
Speaker 1: that kind of beloved character. Beyond that, you know, you
Speaker 1: may be starting to look at like end of season Altuve.
Speaker 1: I think he's got potential.
Speaker 3: We're just picking.
Speaker 2: People our age, Rob, Adrian Beltroy, Joey Votto.
Speaker 3: These is the old people.
Speaker 4: Ben.
Speaker 3: Maybe I need to ask you first.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm actually I'm going to go all person start.
Speaker 5: I had to google it because I wasn't sure if
Speaker 5: he already had retired, But I'd always considered Zach Grinky
Speaker 5: the pitching equivalent of Joey Votto in that like total quirkiness, that.
Speaker 6: Leaning into doing things differently. He isn't quite as personable
Speaker 6: as Votto.
Speaker 5: In fact, I think I've struggle to get ten minutes
Speaker 5: of conversation out of Zach Grinky, whereas me and Votto
Speaker 5: could sink several points and chat till the end of
Speaker 5: the night. I have no issues, no problems thinking about that.
Speaker 5: But I do think Grinky is in that kind of
Speaker 5: area of like widely beloved.
Speaker 6: Towards the end of his career, everyone.
Speaker 5: Sees him as yeah, as someone who we adore and
Speaker 5: likes to listnit you talk about the game of baseball.
Speaker 6: But then yeah, he basically is retires. Maybe he's not
Speaker 6: a good person.
Speaker 5: I think you're going to say, Kristan Cassas, I kind
Speaker 5: of slightly agree with it, but I'm going to let
Speaker 5: you speak about why he might be the right heir apparent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I was. He obviously sprung to mind.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, he is a lefty first baseman
Speaker 2: who has got an incredible eye for the zone. So
Speaker 2: you know, the comparisons start there, but they don't end
Speaker 2: there because justan Cassas is just weird. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you guys have followed, you know, Casas has been
Speaker 2: injured for three months and he's come back from the
Speaker 2: injured list and is hitting the snot out of the
Speaker 2: ball and has an OBP over four hundred and when
Speaker 2: asked how and why this was the case, because usually
Speaker 2: there's some adjustment period for normal baseball players, he replied, well,
Speaker 2: I've been taking loads of swings. And they said, well, how,
Speaker 2: because you've had a rib injury and taking loads of
Speaker 2: swings really hurts.
Speaker 3: He said, I've just been taking.
Speaker 2: Them in my head, which is exactly the type of
Speaker 2: thing that Joey Votto would say. Also, you know, last
Speaker 2: Tuesday he was driving the Red Sox some some portion
Speaker 2: of Red Sox nation fandom wild by doing yoga on
Speaker 2: the field, wearing a supreme balaclava and a pair of
Speaker 2: sunglasses and not like and a pair of yellow shorts.
Speaker 3: And that's it.
Speaker 2: He is a He is an absolute one off. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean he for me is a is a clear analogue.
Speaker 2: But also that's a bit of a homer pick for me.
Speaker 2: I had another one before I let Russell take the counch. Lastly,
Speaker 2: and you know this might be again because I'm just
Speaker 2: thinking Votto and I'm thinking Reds. I'm thinking, you know,
Speaker 2: obviously we don't have so much of him speaking English
Speaker 2: because it's not his first language. But someone who is
Speaker 2: a complete maverick, and you just have no idea what
Speaker 2: they're going to do, but everything they do is hilarious fun.
Speaker 2: Ellie Dela Cruz, I just have so much time for him,
Speaker 2: and I just he's just having fun all the time.
Speaker 3: I say, you know, it's sorry.
Speaker 1: I said, and he looks like a pirate.
Speaker 2: And he looks like a pirate to you know, this
Speaker 2: being a baseball podcast, what do you do when you
Speaker 2: lose Botto?
Speaker 3: You create him an aggregat.
Speaker 2: Right, So you've got Ellie Dela Cruz, you got Tristan
Speaker 2: Cassas with the on base production.
Speaker 3: I don't know you Russell, what do you what do
Speaker 3: you reckon?
Speaker 7: I'm really trying to think who is like beloved by
Speaker 7: their own franchise and kind of maligned by by the others.
Speaker 7: I think a great pick Rock, yeah, but I don't
Speaker 7: think how too they like buys into the malign this.
Speaker 4: He doesn't.
Speaker 7: I think some of the other astro players have like
Speaker 7: taken it on the chin better. I think like Bregman,
Speaker 7: like just a good shout.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, I don't think anyone likes him, even Astroy.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm I still think you say like you're making
Speaker 7: up in the aggregat. I think parts of like someone
Speaker 7: like Jazz, I think really work kind of like well
Speaker 7: here as well. So like I think if Jazz staying
Speaker 7: in New York and can actually do like do well
Speaker 7: in New York, I think he really become one of
Speaker 7: those players that like New York fans love and then
Speaker 7: everybody else hates because se already players kind of seemingly
Speaker 7: already think the Jazz is overrated because he got put
Speaker 7: on the cover of It or Be the Show. And
Speaker 7: according to one of those articles by The Athletic where
Speaker 7: they ask players about these sort of things, they still
Speaker 7: seem to care about that two or three years later,
Speaker 7: So you could have that. I was I was thinking
Speaker 7: of mentioning Ellie as well, because I think you just
Speaker 7: want you need the person to be slightly different of
Speaker 7: a bit we just don't quite have like the community
Speaker 7: of kind of aside from that, so the same way
Speaker 7: like people that it could have been, there was like
Speaker 7: Tim Anderson or something like that that could really kind
Speaker 7: of could have done that but kind of like flopped
Speaker 7: out of the papers.
Speaker 4: So yeah, there is a there is a gap. There
Speaker 4: is a niche.
Speaker 7: Waiting to be filled by somebody who is zany enough
Speaker 7: but also very good because I feel that the last
Speaker 7: maybe five ten years of the z any players, they've
Speaker 7: kind of not really approved actually to be that great
Speaker 7: in the long run.
Speaker 1: Heat Fairbanks is giving it a go to be fair again.
Speaker 1: He's been quite fun.
Speaker 2: Heat Fairbanks is definitely in your building bottle in the
Speaker 2: aggregate for sure, and he's very much giving me very
Speaker 2: weird but really engaging interviews side of things. I love
Speaker 2: pet Fairbug because every time there's a clip of fit Fairbugs,
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to stop and watching this.
Speaker 2: I just know that this is going to be completely
Speaker 2: bizarre and totally off the wall.
Speaker 3: I love him great. That's a great conversation.
Speaker 2: I think that absolutely the right way to celebrate Joey
Speaker 2: Votto is is to think about, you know, his impact
Speaker 2: on the game, not just as a as a player,
Speaker 2: but as a personality, and to think about who's going
Speaker 2: to fill.
Speaker 3: Those enormous shoes.
Speaker 2: Great, So we thought we'd talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: if it's been a weird, old quirky week in baseball.
Speaker 2: This week hasn't it, And it would be remiss of
Speaker 2: us not to mark absolute baseball history that's happened this week,
Speaker 2: which is that the Danny Jansen game. He wants to
Speaker 2: explain what the Danny Jansen got Russell Again, that feels
Speaker 2: like you know something that you're up to the task
Speaker 2: of why is there such a thing as the Danny
Speaker 2: Jansen game?
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 7: Well, due to the wonders of baseball, we sometimes get
Speaker 7: a game starting on one day and finishing on another day.
Speaker 7: Because it's an outdoor sport. Because we play it in
Speaker 7: places which it's not San Diego, where it's basically sunny
Speaker 7: for the entire year, you get these things called rainouts
Speaker 7: or snow outs. And so Danny Jansen playing in a
Speaker 7: game for the Toronto Blue Jays against the Red Sox
Speaker 7: and a game gets rained out, perfectly normal thing that
Speaker 7: happens in baseball. But then he gets traded. But he
Speaker 7: gets traded to the Red Sox. And now everybody, and
Speaker 7: I mean everybody, when that trade happened, everybody was like, oh,
Speaker 7: they've got the makeup game. Danny Johnson could could play
Speaker 7: in this game, and so that was reported. When he
Speaker 7: was traded, it was reported again probably about two weeks
Speaker 7: before the game happened. It was reported again probably about
Speaker 7: a week before the game happened. It was reported probably
Speaker 7: every single day until the game happened, and then on
Speaker 7: the day he was then pinch hit for for another player.
Speaker 2: By the he was at bad he was not only
Speaker 2: playing in the game, he was due to like be
Speaker 2: the next hitter up. So the first announcement in like
Speaker 2: literally the board said next to bat and it was
Speaker 2: Danny Janssen with a Blue Jays hat, and I love
Speaker 2: the fact that they put that up. And then it
Speaker 2: was announced that he was going to be pinch hit
Speaker 2: for amazing.
Speaker 7: Yep, and then obviously comes in as as a Red
Speaker 7: Sox and to do something which I think, to my surprise,
Speaker 7: was the first time it's ever happened. I was genuinely
Speaker 7: surprised when they talked about it about a month ago
Speaker 7: that this was the first time that has happened. And
Speaker 7: I'm now you may have guessed from the last thirty
Speaker 7: seconds of how to speak, frankly, I'm bored with this
Speaker 7: utterly over reported for one really random, niche baseball thing.
Speaker 7: It's been like everybody loves it, and I'm like, okay, cool, yeah,
Speaker 7: move on, Like why is this the one random based
Speaker 7: start that seems to have got national coverage for a month?
Speaker 3: Kind he's been a grump, isn't it.
Speaker 1: He's been a grumb Absolutely being a grump. I think
Speaker 1: the one thing we're missing, though, is that that we wanted.
Speaker 1: We wanted some sort of Danny Janssen put out for
Speaker 1: Danny Jansen. That's the that's the thing I was missing.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, like I wanted to drop third
Speaker 1: strike and then Danny Jansen to throw out the pinch
Speaker 1: runner for Danny Janssen at first, and then I wanted
Speaker 1: to see baseball, you know reference meltdown and not work anymore.
Speaker 1: That that's what I wanted. That's what it's fun. He's yeah,
Speaker 1: let's have our moment in the sun. This is this
Speaker 1: is a fun like we are we are a community
Speaker 1: of statistical geeks. Even those of us who are enough
Speaker 1: on the statistical geek end of the scale, we are
Speaker 1: still statistical geeks. And and yeah we like this, of
Speaker 1: course we like this. Get out, get out, Russell go.
Speaker 3: On, Russell's a misery burn, isn't he?
Speaker 6: In his defense, it doesn't seem like Danny Jansen was
Speaker 6: picked excited about it himself.
Speaker 5: This this was big enough news to actually make BBC Sport,
Speaker 5: which is when you know something has gotten, you know,
Speaker 5: beyond the zeitgeist to baseball. And in it they quote
Speaker 5: Danny himself and the quote they give is, I'm just
Speaker 5: going to put my head down and play. I mean,
Speaker 5: wait telling into it, Danny. Wait to have some fun.
Speaker 5: It's just a game of baseball, isn't it. I'm just
Speaker 5: gonna play.
Speaker 6: You make a history out there, mate, have a bit
Speaker 6: of fun, smile away, enjoy yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ultimately a half and half scarf, that's what I wanted
Speaker 1: to see.
Speaker 3: We're definitely not putting Danny Janssen.
Speaker 1: Tear off one uniform, throw it down and the other
Speaker 1: uniform is underneath, and there goes a home run.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: If this had been you know, Joey Votto or tell
Speaker 2: Tim Anderson right, this would have been been fun.
Speaker 3: Oh yeazz.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe Danny Jansen wasn't the correct avatar for this,
Speaker 2: but maybe if we're all like Russell, he was, because
Speaker 2: who gives a fuck.
Speaker 7: No, no, I want to preface I gave a fuck
Speaker 7: a month ago.
Speaker 4: I was like, this is really freaking cool.
Speaker 7: But when I see the same article about fifteen times
Speaker 7: in the space of like a month, it's no longer cool.
Speaker 4: It's just spam.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, we shouldn't add to the spam except to say,
Speaker 2: you know, look, as a Red Sox fan, I'm just
Speaker 2: glad that something fun happened for my team. I can
Speaker 2: talk about something else fun that they did in a minute. Actually,
Speaker 2: But good grief, it's been pretty grim since the trade deadline.
Speaker 2: Lucas Simms and Lewis Garcia, both of whom the Red
Speaker 2: Sox traded for, are just before the deadline, both of
Speaker 2: whom had been very good for their respective bullpens in
Speaker 2: Anaheim and Cincinnati, respectively. They have a combined ERA of
Speaker 2: over nine and are now both injured. So good times.
Speaker 2: But that's not the team that's been had the worst
Speaker 2: time since the trade deadline, Russell, is it. I know
Speaker 2: we're going to come to your team and a bit,
Speaker 2: let's talk about something good and again. I know last
Speaker 2: time that maybe Russell, you're the right person to ask
Speaker 2: about this because the last time that this was getting reported,
Speaker 2: it was boring, but it was mainly boring because of
Speaker 2: Ben's mate Roger Marris Junior. And that's Aaron Judge just
Speaker 2: being ridiculously good on a level that is like, actually,
Speaker 2: maybe Aaron Judge might be the best baseball player of
Speaker 2: our generation. Now, I mean, I don't know how do
Speaker 2: you attack it. I saw someone saying this morning that
Speaker 2: if he's only got historical comparisons, that means he is
Speaker 2: better than everyone discuss.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that you can talk about pretty much
Speaker 7: Aaron Judge from May onwards and be like, the comparisons
Speaker 7: are bonds, and then if you're ever basically being compared
Speaker 7: to bonds, you're amazing. Like there's no there's no other
Speaker 7: way of describing it. Like before we get into the
Speaker 7: fact that I'll talk about one caveat that's really annoyed me,
Speaker 7: as everybody's been like, well, if you had a good April,
Speaker 7: think of where he would be, Like he didn't.
Speaker 4: Basically the whole reason why he is where he now
Speaker 4: is because he didn't have a good April.
Speaker 7: Maybe he wouldn't have changed his swing or his approach,
Speaker 7: and then he would have like not had the improvement
Speaker 7: that we've seen for another like three or four months.
Speaker 7: You can't pick and choose and basically just say over
Speaker 7: the last four months he's actually on a pace that
Speaker 7: would have beaten Bonds. Yeah, because if you want to
Speaker 7: take a four month period for Bonds, he could have
Speaker 7: had eighty five home runs in a season. So put
Speaker 7: statistics in context. People stop talking out of your asses.
Speaker 7: But Judge has been phenomenal, and I think I think
Speaker 7: having Soto and then having Stanton back means that they
Speaker 7: can't even pitch around him in some regards, watch Cleveland
Speaker 7: do it.
Speaker 4: I don't know why we pitched at him like some regards.
Speaker 7: I just intentionally walk around and Judge every single time
Speaker 7: and be done with it. Obviously, the numbers don't match
Speaker 7: up for you to actually do that. But if there's nobody,
Speaker 7: if there's somebody on base and you've got some of
Speaker 7: the some of that lineup that's been behind him for
Speaker 7: the rest of the season, yeah now I'll pass.
Speaker 4: And that's the level.
Speaker 7: That's how good he's got that people should actually be
Speaker 7: doing it now. I think people got in a little
Speaker 7: bit of a huha when he hit his three hundredth
Speaker 7: home run and Soto was walked to bring him up,
Speaker 7: and then he did that, and it's like, well, actually
Speaker 7: that statistically made sense because Judge grounds into double plays
Speaker 7: more than anybody else in all of baseball, So you
Speaker 7: were free based doing that.
Speaker 4: I don't think.
Speaker 7: I don't know why everybody decided to lay into Grady
Speaker 7: size more as a new coach, doing something that I
Speaker 7: think probably seventy percent of the other managers in the
Speaker 7: league would do so. But yeah, phenomenal stuff from Judge
Speaker 7: will awesome to see hopefully what he does down the
Speaker 7: back of this next kind of month that we have
Speaker 7: of the season, if he can push and break his
Speaker 7: record again. Obviously with the caveat that we don't want
Speaker 7: to see Marrige Junior again cause.
Speaker 4: He'll come up, because he'll pop up.
Speaker 7: There was just no way to get rid of him
Speaker 7: last year, Like he was just one of those frigging
Speaker 7: like alien bursts just come out of somebody's chest to
Speaker 7: kind of come out and say it's like there.
Speaker 2: Wrestle with the zeitgeisty reference there.
Speaker 4: I recently just watched Populus, so yes.
Speaker 2: Well I've watched all of the other films over the
Speaker 2: course of the last week because my wife loves them,
Speaker 2: and we wanted to watch them all again before we
Speaker 2: go and see Romulus. There we go, Ben, you were
Speaker 2: particularly vexed by Roger Morris Junior. And I think it
Speaker 2: was maybe not the last I was on the pod,
Speaker 2: but last long of the last few times. You and
Speaker 2: I were having a conversation about, you know, when Zaron
Speaker 2: Judge going to get is wrong? Hes going to get
Speaker 2: into props? Seemed like a ridiculous conversation. He's certainly been
Speaker 2: getting it in space and rightly so recently.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, since we had that discussion about it,
Speaker 5: it almost seems like he's underrated. He's just gotten better,
Speaker 5: and I think probably the baseball world has caught up
Speaker 5: to the fact that he is above and beyond anything
Speaker 5: that Yeah, certainly that I've ever had a chance to
Speaker 5: view in my lifetime as a baseball watching fan. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm running out of words to describe how good he's been.
Speaker 5: I mean, his second percentage is seven thirty two. It's absurd.
Speaker 5: We you know, we have not seen someone do this
Speaker 5: in yeah, since Bonds. It's it's crazy what what he's
Speaker 5: been able to do. And as those signs of slowing down, Yeah,
Speaker 5: hopefully he can, he can go on to beat his
Speaker 5: own record from a couple of years ago. You know,
Speaker 5: I know Russell likes the poor cold water on the
Speaker 5: what if you know thought train, but there is a
Speaker 5: what if element here, Like we haven't seen anyone who
Speaker 5: could even sniff onto his record in our lifetime, but
Speaker 5: it kind of feels like he is the first player
Speaker 5: where you can legitimately say the word seventy.
Speaker 6: Three and not be laughed at.
Speaker 5: Right, I don't think he'll do it, just it's so
Speaker 5: hard to do and he's running out of time. Obviously,
Speaker 5: age isn't necessarily on his side at this point. But
Speaker 5: he's just reached a new level this year of ability,
Speaker 5: of power, yeah, of presence in the battles box that
Speaker 5: we've never seen before. So yeah, all you can really
Speaker 5: do is stand by and applaud and watch with you
Speaker 5: with your mouth agape. I think if he can finish
Speaker 5: the season strong, we'll be looking at, yeah, basically the
Speaker 5: greatest hitting season we've seen since the great Man himself.
Speaker 5: So that I've been just amazed by how good he's
Speaker 5: been and hopefully continues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the people who are talking about his April Russell,
Speaker 2: we should also add you know, he's only on three
Speaker 2: hundred home runs at the age of thirty because he
Speaker 2: didn't really, you know, make his mark till he was
Speaker 2: in his mid twenties, and its perennially being injured.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: You know, part of the part of the thing about
Speaker 2: Bonds is he played all the time for years.
Speaker 3: I mean he had a bit of help with that,
Speaker 3: but that's.
Speaker 2: By the bye, so right, Rob, I think you know,
Speaker 2: we don't need, we don't need to dwell on Judge
Speaker 2: too much because you know we've got we've only got
Speaker 2: so much time. And I know you want to talk
Speaker 2: about a special particular team that's a favorite of yours.
Speaker 2: So I thought rather than talk, I mean, talk about
Speaker 2: Judge if you like, but really I thought you might
Speaker 2: want to just take a lap.
Speaker 1: Oh right, Well, I mean there's other teams have not
Speaker 1: done as well. I think we may have predicted preseason
Speaker 1: that the Texas Rangers weren't going to be white Tom
Speaker 1: pointers to where they were last year. And I think
Speaker 1: I think, and I don't want to talk too early,
Speaker 1: I think we may be fairly well vindicated in our
Speaker 1: selection of the Rangers not being repeaters and maybe being
Speaker 1: just a touch fluky with their four o nine winning
Speaker 1: percentage so far, sorry my apolage four fifty eight winning
Speaker 1: percentage this year, they're not going to be a winning team.
Speaker 1: They're probably not going to be a winning team. They
Speaker 1: might just about be a winning team, but like they
Speaker 1: need to really go at some even just to be
Speaker 1: a winning team this season. So the Rangers have been
Speaker 1: a bloody disaster coming from a point of view where
Speaker 1: they had some genuinely good players last year, some fantastic hitters,
Speaker 1: like they've got a middle infield to die for. Yet
Speaker 1: this this thing is not going well and it was
Speaker 1: just so horribly predictable that it just didn't look right.
Speaker 1: It looked like a patch together team that managed to
Speaker 1: scrape through last year on practically sheer luck. And I
Speaker 1: think we've we've seen that this year that they are
Speaker 1: not good. They are not good.
Speaker 2: Russell, do you want to do you want to carry
Speaker 2: on Duncan on the Rangers or do you want to
Speaker 2: take a lap on anybody.
Speaker 3: Else whilst whilst where whilst we've got the opportunity to
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I just think that everybody who thought that had
Speaker 7: a bit of a surprise season has regressed and the Yeah,
Speaker 7: Simeon and Seeger of both probably put up like four
Speaker 7: war seasons so far, will probably have four and a
Speaker 7: half five war seasons, which are perfectly and outly respectable.
Speaker 4: They are like all star level players, but they're not amazing.
Speaker 7: And then pitching wise, when Evoldie, Gray and Heeney have
Speaker 7: been your best pitchers, it's not probably the position you
Speaker 7: wanted to be in. I think only one of them
Speaker 7: has any RA under four, which is which is not good.
Speaker 7: So yeah, I think I think also the word thing
Speaker 7: saying and talking about how we didn't think that Texas
Speaker 7: were going to be good.
Speaker 4: We also thought that Arizona were going to be good,
Speaker 4: and Arizona.
Speaker 6: Has been good.
Speaker 2: So you win some, you win some when when you're
Speaker 2: baseball experts like we are. Yeah, we also thought the
Speaker 2: Mariners were going to be bad. Darius is not available
Speaker 2: this evening, but certainly he wanted us to dump on
Speaker 2: big dump up and so maybe maybe somebody else can
Speaker 2: take up that mantle in his absence, but he was
Speaker 2: particularly vociferous about them just being bad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think they're they're they're there are some mistakes
Speaker 4: we've made.
Speaker 7: I think both of us thought Cincinnati were probably going
Speaker 7: to do quite I don't think any of us thought
Speaker 7: the Brewers would actually have made this.
Speaker 2: Because anybody thought the Brewers were going to you know,
Speaker 2: yet again, Mike.
Speaker 7: Gleamand pessimism was was wrong for ninety five percent of
Speaker 7: the season and is now looking like it might be
Speaker 7: right for the final five percent, which is not the
Speaker 7: good thing to watch. But yeah, like, obviously like victory laps,
Speaker 7: taking victory laps in August, I think is I think
Speaker 7: it's fine. This is about the time of the year
Speaker 7: when you can actually start to take your like your
Speaker 7: your victory lap.
Speaker 4: Obviously. Yeah, we make so many predictions.
Speaker 3: On these things.
Speaker 7: There are awful Like if you want to talk about
Speaker 7: the things, I thought Torres was going to have another
Speaker 7: bounce back season, completely netly wrong about that one. I
Speaker 7: thought Randy was going to be amazing, completely netly wrong
Speaker 7: about that one. So yeah, you can you win some,
Speaker 7: but you definitely lose him on those predictions.
Speaker 2: Look, I think it was a perfectly reasonable to say
Speaker 2: that a Milwaukee Brewers with a starting pitching battery of
Speaker 2: Joe Ross, Tobias Meyers, Colin Ray, and Aaron Ashby was
Speaker 2: not going to be all that and yet all of
Speaker 2: those players have been really good, so you know who
Speaker 2: knows you just just the moral of that story is
Speaker 2: just it doesn't matter who they are or what their
Speaker 2: name is. It could literally be like John Smith, that's
Speaker 2: a person who's going to get a three point two
Speaker 2: era playing for the Milwaukee Brewers.
Speaker 3: Just just lock it in. Just lock it in.
Speaker 2: Ben, Have you got anyone that you want to dun
Speaker 2: com or any laps that you want to take?
Speaker 6: I don't think so.
Speaker 5: If we definitely don't have time on this podcast me
Speaker 5: to regard to say all of my terrible takes for
Speaker 5: this season, so spare us at the time going through that.
Speaker 6: I think it's been a bit of a shame.
Speaker 5: And the last time we spoke of Deadam we were
Speaker 5: talking about, however, like they're going to be at least
Speaker 5: an exciting NL wild card race, and all of the
Speaker 5: kind of exciting playoff hunts have kind of gone. I mean,
Speaker 5: we kind of know who the playoff teams are now,
Speaker 5: which is a bit disappointing. There are obviously still a
Speaker 5: couple of exciting division races out there, and I guess
Speaker 5: there is more of an incentive now than there were
Speaker 5: there was previously. To actually win your division and be
Speaker 5: one of those top couple of teams in each league.
Speaker 5: So there's still plenty to kind of watch and look
Speaker 5: out for. But it has been sad to see, you know,
Speaker 5: the teams in the National League that we thought were
Speaker 5: going to be competitive kind of fade away, aside from
Speaker 5: the Dbacs and Padres who've.
Speaker 6: Kind of run away with it.
Speaker 5: I'm not giving up on my New York Mets yet,
Speaker 5: but it does feel like it's going to be a
Speaker 5: little bit of a nice story. And then remember that
Speaker 5: OMG thing rather than the twenty twenty four Mets were
Speaker 5: generational and won it all. I've certainly given up on
Speaker 5: my Rockies, but I think we've done on them enough
Speaker 5: for me to do another victory lap there. So yeah,
Speaker 5: that's started disappointing one. But no, I think there are
Speaker 5: a lot of competitive teams and none that are so
Speaker 5: clearly dominant that it's going to make the playoffs no
Speaker 5: fun to watch, so it should be exciting.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think the Mets just rode the meme train
Speaker 7: for too long, Like Grimace, all good, but the Hocktooler
Speaker 7: girl was, ah, you just you just stumped all over
Speaker 7: one of my two good, too bad.
Speaker 2: Well, let's move on to two good too bad. I'm
Speaker 2: assuming that that was going to be a bad rob.
Speaker 2: So you wanna do you want to start a negative?
Speaker 1: I was teetering. If I'm honest, I really couldn't quite
Speaker 1: work up which decided to throw it. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: with bad. I'm gonna go I've got more bad than
Speaker 1: good this week. I'm gonna put in No, it's a bad,
Speaker 1: it's a bad Hailey Wilsh Welsh like, I have nothing
Speaker 1: against the girl. This girl, she she had five minutes
Speaker 1: of fame on the internet and she's riding that for
Speaker 1: the cash she can get ripped. Fair play for the woman.
Speaker 1: Let a crack on with it. No problems with that.
Speaker 1: My issue is more with with during during the school holidays,
Speaker 1: with the New York Mets deciding to put a woman
Speaker 1: who's how do we phrase this known for spitting it gentlemen,
Speaker 1: making her throw the first pitch was maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit of a misstep.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And the reason I was teetering between is it a
Speaker 1: good thing or is it a bad thing? Is when
Speaker 1: do you remember the last time anyone throughout a ceremonial
Speaker 1: first picture? Do you actually remember any of those people,
Speaker 1: and this one you do, so maybe the marketing side works.
Speaker 1: Like the last one I remember, I was, I was
Speaker 1: in Tampa Bay and I saw the Chewbacer mom through
Speaker 1: through the first picture on Star Wars Night, so like
Speaker 1: I remember that one. But again because she was an
Speaker 1: internet meme rather than anything serious. It's the issue for
Speaker 1: me is like the day before, Like I don't know
Speaker 1: what the dame for was, but I would imagine, like
Speaker 1: you know, some firefighter who dragged six babies out of
Speaker 1: a burning building, like, you know, thank you for your service.
Speaker 1: Now here's a woman who does blow jobs. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a bit of a there's a bit of a
Speaker 1: which way do we go with this? You know? So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put as a bad not for her, not
Speaker 1: for Haley. She did nothing wrong, but the Mets may
Speaker 1: have needed to have maybe selected the tone little different
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 7: Can I just suggest to me, there's only one reason
Speaker 7: why it was bad, and it was not good.
Speaker 4: She didn't throw a spitball.
Speaker 1: Okay, she should have thrown a spitball.
Speaker 3: Come on, I think about good grief. Oh dear Ben,
Speaker 3: how are we going to get through this? I mean,
Speaker 3: it's going to be another.
Speaker 2: It's going to be another bad because we're going to
Speaker 2: go in that order first, but please restore some decorum.
Speaker 5: My my next bad is is Babe Ruth and his
Speaker 5: twenty four million dollar jersey that was sold at auction.
Speaker 6: I think earlier that what you were.
Speaker 2: Going to say, burning his wife Helen to death there, Ben,
Speaker 2: but you know you've kept I.
Speaker 6: Can forgive that.
Speaker 5: No, look I will, I will be honest. I'm not
Speaker 5: the biggest Baby Ruth fan, and that nothing to do
Speaker 5: with how nice the man is. I've never got the
Speaker 5: chance to meet him, haven't heard Some have heard some
Speaker 5: not great stories about him, as you alluded to, But
Speaker 5: he was playing in an era of absolute farmers and
Speaker 5: villagers and people who did not know how to throw
Speaker 5: a fastball bar send sixty miles an hour. He was
Speaker 5: hardly a legend of the game, even though sure he
Speaker 5: hit a load of home runs and it was a two.
Speaker 6: Way player and all of that. I don't have much
Speaker 6: time for.
Speaker 2: The guy wasn't player. He wasn't let's just let's just
Speaker 2: look that. Sorry to cut you off, mid Rant, I've
Speaker 2: got my own. He was not a two way play.
Speaker 2: He was a pitcher. And then he was a hitter.
Speaker 2: It's not a two way yeah, sorry, carry on.
Speaker 6: Not even a two way player. So yeah, I'm not
Speaker 6: may counting the murders.
Speaker 5: I don't really understand the obsession that baseball fans in
Speaker 5: America have with him as this kind of either of
Speaker 5: the sport. And so yeah, when I saw that that
Speaker 5: his jersey supposedly from Game two of the nineteen thirty
Speaker 5: two World Series where he hit two home runs and
Speaker 5: called his shot never happened, it's kind of crazy to
Speaker 5: me that that went for for twenty four million dollars
Speaker 5: in this era, obviously the most expensive piece of sports
Speaker 5: memorabilia of all time. There must be a better way
Speaker 5: to spend your In fact, there definitely is a better
Speaker 5: way to spend your money on literally anything else than this jersey.
Speaker 5: That is basically, you know, fairy tale made up story
Speaker 5: about something that a man who was overweight and not
Speaker 5: that good did in a World Series game ages ago.
Speaker 5: So yeah, look, obviously my cup of tea, I accepted
Speaker 5: it is for other people, but that that was bad for.
Speaker 3: Me, Goodness gracious to me.
Speaker 2: I feel like we should have ended the entire podcast
Speaker 2: with that duel Tour de Force Hawk into Babe Ruth
Speaker 2: dueling rant, the whiplash of gracious may. Of course we
Speaker 2: all know that. You know, if you want some great
Speaker 2: Babe Ruth memorabilia, then Tom's mum and dad found one
Speaker 2: of his actual gloves.
Speaker 6: For two.
Speaker 3: Which Russell was.
Speaker 2: This was in a brick a brackshop somewhere in the
Speaker 2: in the Cartswolds, and Russell was, as Russell rightly put
Speaker 2: it out, it was literally the wrong hand for Bob Ruth,
Speaker 2: famously left handed, would not would not have been having
Speaker 2: his glove on there on his left hand. Yeah, Russell,
Speaker 2: I mean you and I have got how do it?
Speaker 3: Well? I think we can't follow that? But do you
Speaker 3: want to do your guardian's rant now?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I might as well.
Speaker 7: I think effectively, Cleveland have built a team that the
Speaker 7: hitters slap it around a bit. They've learned to hit
Speaker 7: the ball with a bit of power this year, but
Speaker 7: it's kind of reliant on the fact that you kind
Speaker 7: of don't give up too many runs. They even have
Speaker 7: like one of the worst pitching rotations I have seen
Speaker 7: in my fandom of watching baseball. I know I've been
Speaker 7: spoilt in watching the Cleveland teams over the last like
Speaker 7: ten years or whatever, and we've managed to bring through prospects,
Speaker 7: left the prospect and had some cy young winners in there.
Speaker 4: But my god, is it awful Like when you're when
Speaker 4: you when.
Speaker 7: You're thinking that, like you're in a playoff race and
Speaker 7: the players that you bring in are like Matthew Boyd.
Speaker 7: It just doesn't bring any sort of level of like enthusiasm,
Speaker 7: like like whatsoever. If we look since the start of July,
Speaker 7: I think I had it. They have only only been
Speaker 7: outstarted as in like the starters of own. Teams that
Speaker 7: have performed worse are Colorado and Miami. So that tells
Speaker 7: you everything, like you had. This is the twenty eight
Speaker 7: it's worth starting rotation in baseball since the start of July. Yes,
Speaker 7: class A and Gaddis and Smith have been phenomenal throughout
Speaker 7: the season, but even in the last few weeks, each
Speaker 7: one of them has had at least one mishap that
Speaker 7: has cost us a game. But you can't expect them
Speaker 7: to throw three shutout innings every single game to get
Speaker 7: you out of it.
Speaker 4: Like the wheels have come off half. This team can't hit.
Speaker 7: I'll save my good But one of the good things
Speaker 7: that has come from maybe this team, but I feel
Speaker 7: that they're found out. It's only the fact that no
Speaker 7: one is good this year. Kansas aren't great, Matt Minnesota
Speaker 7: aren't great, Detroit aren't good, and the White Sox are terrible.
Speaker 7: And the Cleveland have been five and five with the
Speaker 7: White Sox. They have the worst record against the White
Speaker 7: Socks out of anybody this season. So that puts it
Speaker 7: all into context.
Speaker 2: I think Hill, so from one bad baseball team to another,
Speaker 2: mine's going to be short and sweet.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to dwell on it. Rich Hill, What
Speaker 3: the fuck? That's it? Eight times?
Speaker 2: It's forty four years old. What we're doing? That just
Speaker 2: it's embarrassing. I love Rich Hill, I do know. I
Speaker 2: never wanted to see pitching for the Boston Red Sox ever. Again,
Speaker 2: why are we here again? It's not a good story anymore.
Speaker 2: It's not funny.
Speaker 1: It makes me feel better about myself because because there's
Speaker 1: now seven seven Major League Baseball players who are older
Speaker 1: than me remaining there. I have a little game. Actually,
Speaker 1: if anybody wants to play, take a punt at the
Speaker 1: rest of the top ten oldest players in the base
Speaker 1: in MLB right now.
Speaker 3: Oh God, Andrew McCutcheon, nope.
Speaker 1: Berlander, yes, number two, well done is at number six.
Speaker 1: Sorry five actually because Julie Guriel hasn't played this year,
Speaker 1: but some reason appears on the list. Charlie Morton, Yes,
Speaker 1: number four, well done, Ben. But I guess.
Speaker 3: This is good audio.
Speaker 7: This is really good audio, isn't it. It's got to
Speaker 7: be pictures. It's got to make the entirely picture and hoing.
Speaker 1: No, we've got We've got a brave, a Mariner, a Ranger,
Speaker 1: a Rocky, a met and a Cardinal. That's the rest
Speaker 1: of the top ten.
Speaker 3: Ryan Presley, No, he's only like thirty six.
Speaker 4: It's not not quite old enough.
Speaker 3: There is the Met one. It's the lefty guy I
Speaker 3: can't remember.
Speaker 1: Yes, Adam number nine, the Rocky. Come on, an old
Speaker 1: Rocky who has given a long extension for no good,
Speaker 1: good reason.
Speaker 4: Daniel Blackman, There we.
Speaker 3: Go, Daniel bart.
Speaker 1: You've got an ancient mariner, an ancient mariner. There you
Speaker 1: go is a poetic element to it, an ancient Mariner.
Speaker 1: First baseman Samuel Taylor Colery doesn't really play first base anymore.
Speaker 1: Traded deadline, big old Ginge.
Speaker 7: Justin Turner, Hey, I forgot Justin Turner would stop playing.
Speaker 1: Two left. We've got we've got a brave.
Speaker 3: We've got a cardinal.
Speaker 1: Cardinal has been rounded about a bit, played a lot
Speaker 1: of positions. Some would call him a super utility man. Cato,
Speaker 1: there we go, well done. He's number ten that leaves
Speaker 1: number three. Is a brave, pitching brave, I already said,
Speaker 1: Charlie Morton was not. I know there's two Braves on
Speaker 1: the list for.
Speaker 3: A brave, so it's a reliever, Tyler mad.
Speaker 1: No, but we're getting there. Wait, hang on, is he
Speaker 1: a break a j mintor.
Speaker 3: Why have you done this?
Speaker 1: Brave? He is a brave. He definitely is a bo
Speaker 1: He picked up?
Speaker 4: Was he picked up in the trade deadline?
Speaker 1: Was he picked up in the trade deadline? No? He
Speaker 1: is three years a brave. Last other team he played
Speaker 1: for was the Angels.
Speaker 3: Robs across the worlds on in half an hour. I've
Speaker 3: not got number three?
Speaker 1: Is Jesse Chavez? Oh?
Speaker 6: Is he's still going.
Speaker 1: Number three?
Speaker 2: Get yeah? He keeps getting like released and re signed
Speaker 2: by the Braves, doesn't he?
Speaker 3: Jesse Chavez legend.
Speaker 1: We'll cut all the dead air out there. That'll take
Speaker 1: about thirty seconds.
Speaker 2: It's fine, good, okay, I didn't mean to say rich Hill,
Speaker 2: by the way, Darius put that in my head and
Speaker 2: I just got really and I think I was just
Speaker 2: ben just I was just channeling that energy that you brought.
Speaker 3: So it's all your fault. Sorry, rich Hill.
Speaker 2: But we're way past the jump in the shark on
Speaker 2: rich Hill. He's gone from being you know, remember when
Speaker 2: rich Hill got signed from the Long Island Ducks and
Speaker 2: he had that you know what we thought was his
Speaker 2: Indian Summer and he ended up on getting the deal
Speaker 2: with with Oakland and then the three year deal with
Speaker 2: the Dodgers.
Speaker 3: That was like seven years ago.
Speaker 2: And he keeps getting signed by the Red Sox every
Speaker 2: year when they like ship the bed. I'm mad enough anyway,
Speaker 2: Let's talk about something good.
Speaker 3: Rob What what? What? What's good? You said you had
Speaker 3: more bad than good, but.
Speaker 1: More bad than good. But do you have some good shown?
Speaker 4: He's good?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, yeah, showy. He just eclipsed his force
Speaker 1: in the best possible way by by putting both his
Speaker 1: fortieth steel in the same game as his fortieth home run,
Speaker 1: which coincidentally was also a walk off Grand Slam. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's any way to better underline your forty
Speaker 1: forty than doing that. So mister show, mister Otani, take
Speaker 1: a bow. You've done it in the best possible way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's he's quite good. Ben yet again, I mean
Speaker 3: follow that yeah hard too.
Speaker 5: But I'm I'm gonna shout out Picrow Armstrong and his
Speaker 5: inside the park home run.
Speaker 6: That was kind of electric, wasn't it.
Speaker 5: I think it was the fastest recorded by statcast since
Speaker 5: twenty seventeen.
Speaker 6: And it was one of those which was Baron Buxton obviously, And.
Speaker 5: It was one of those rare inside the park home
Speaker 5: runs where like there wasn't just a floundering fielder who
Speaker 5: dived and the ball got passed him. And it was
Speaker 5: kind of a bit of a boring one because that
Speaker 5: was never a chance to get home. He didn't take
Speaker 5: a bit of a weird bounce off the wall, but
Speaker 5: it wasn't like a horrendous misplay. He just absolutely legged
Speaker 5: it for the minute he made contact with it. It was
Speaker 5: close at home plate, but a picture perfect head first
Speaker 5: dive into the plate.
Speaker 6: It was brilliant. I loved it.
Speaker 5: And you know, the game's kind of meaningless is Cubs
Speaker 5: smilings near the team's any good?
Speaker 6: But Crow Armstrong's a fun player.
Speaker 5: He's going to be good for the Cubs spears to come,
Speaker 5: And that was an amazing moment of just pure speed
Speaker 5: talent on display. Yeah, I thought that was brilliant. So
Speaker 5: shout out PCA and a rare moment of joy for
Speaker 5: Cubstams this year.
Speaker 3: Great Russell, anything good that you've seen?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm here to talk about Big Christmas. Oh yes,
Speaker 7: jo Kenzie Noel to those who don't know, the fact
Speaker 7: Cleveland have probably ran through about fifty five thousand outfielders
Speaker 7: in the last five years trying to find somebody who
Speaker 7: will stick, and to Kenzy Noel is the current one
Speaker 7: who is just about capable to be a corner outfield
Speaker 7: and actually hitting with some power. How long it lasts,
Speaker 7: don't know. It's a good fun story in a team
Speaker 7: that's not particularly playing well to have a guy come
Speaker 7: up and really kind of take on board his big
Speaker 7: Christmas attitude and bring some presents, much needed presents and much.
Speaker 4: Needed power to the Cleveland lineup.
Speaker 6: So yes, he's.
Speaker 7: What's made the last few weeks actually fun to watch
Speaker 7: instead of just being entirely depressing.
Speaker 2: I love it, and I love the fact that you've
Speaker 2: won a near miss of my of my list of
Speaker 2: goods this week was it being revealed that Trent Thornton,
Speaker 2: the Seattle Mariner's picture, goes by the nickname the Big Dridle.
Speaker 2: So we're we're going across all of the dominant denominations
Speaker 2: in their sort of December festivities there with Trent Thornton
Speaker 2: Andrew Kenzie, Noel so he who says that we're not
Speaker 2: diverse and inclusive podcast here on Backflips and Nerds with
Speaker 2: the Brig Dridle and Big John Kenzie. I love it,
Speaker 2: So I'm not to be a complete homer. I have
Speaker 2: got other other teams that I want to talk about,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to say something good about the Red Sox,
Speaker 2: and that's that they had the first team led all
Speaker 2: women's booth on Monday, on Bank Holiday Monday here in
Speaker 2: the UK of Emma Tiderman and Riley Pay. They are
Speaker 2: usual the play by play by play announcer and color
Speaker 2: analyst for the double A Portland Sea Dogs, but I'm
Speaker 2: quite often joined by Emma's pretty newborn baby. So three
Speaker 2: women booth off and down there in Portland, which is great.
Speaker 2: But on this Monday, and they called some of the
Speaker 2: innings for the Red Sox game against the Blue Jays,
Speaker 2: not not the Danny Jansen game, that the one that
Speaker 2: was the other half of the doubleheader.
Speaker 3: And it's great. Just think it a fantastic thing for
Speaker 3: the Red Sox.
Speaker 2: Had done great to see that diversity of voice within
Speaker 2: Major League Baseball, and even better, I saw that, you know,
Speaker 2: the absolute icon of women's sports, Billy gene King has
Speaker 2: been celebrating them.
Speaker 3: They've been fang oliver that which thing.
Speaker 2: So congratulations to Emma and to Riley on that amazing
Speaker 2: achievement and huge round for plause, to the Red Sox
Speaker 2: organization and Essen for giving the.
Speaker 3: Opportunity to do it. Rob let's take it down a
Speaker 3: notch again, mate.
Speaker 1: Oh, I've got kind of a sad one. I've got
Speaker 1: one that's a bit sillier. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: go with Alex Vadugo being allergic to his batting gloves,
Speaker 1: but I think I'm gonna leave that one for now.
Speaker 1: Well reported, it's just ludicrous. I've been watching the Oaklan
Speaker 1: Day's quite a lot, and it's been a bit sad
Speaker 1: because we've got into that kind of phase of the
Speaker 1: season where it's like the last at the at the Coliseum.
Speaker 1: You know, there's been a bit of that going on.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll watch the Rays play there and cameraon
Speaker 1: isn't potentially was the last rookie to get his first
Speaker 1: hit at the Colisseum like that kind of stuff. Has
Speaker 1: all started hitting hitting home Now they look like they're
Speaker 1: having a lot of fun. The guy's playing there locally,
Speaker 1: you know that the team isn't doing as bad as
Speaker 1: we thought they would, and they look like they're they're
Speaker 1: having some fun. But like there's like the visiting teams
Speaker 1: are all all going up Mount Davis to have like
Speaker 1: that sort of one last look from up there and
Speaker 1: you do something silly up there, and they're trying to
Speaker 1: make it fun where they can. But it the the
Speaker 1: overarching of messages, of course, that this is a bit
Speaker 1: of a travesty of baseball. Like I've visited that stadium.
Speaker 1: It does need bull dozing, don't get me wrong, But
Speaker 1: the way it's all gone has been has been pretty awful.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's not been nice and I've not
Speaker 1: particularly enjoyed watching those those games.
Speaker 4: I couldn't disagree more. I think it's a great stadium.
Speaker 4: What's outside the stadium. Yeah, it's it's not the.
Speaker 7: Greatest concrete monstrosity, but once you're inside that bowl, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: The facilities de I mean, like the I've likets.
Speaker 3: But he loves a pole cat.
Speaker 7: Haven't been repainted in like six years and you can
Speaker 7: seal the russ.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's not nice. It needs it needs really and
Speaker 1: like it's it's not a good stadium. It doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense the way you navigate it. Like it leaks
Speaker 1: some places it shouldn't. It is rusty and odd places.
Speaker 1: It's got so much character. I had a beautiful time there,
Speaker 1: Absolutely loved the place. But if you take it as
Speaker 1: a facility and ignore the fact that it's got nostalgia value,
Speaker 1: it's not an appropriate facility for any kind of professional team.
Speaker 1: Like you know that that I frequent League One football
Speaker 1: quite often, and and a lot of that those stadiums
Speaker 1: are are significantly better than the Oakland.
Speaker 7: A's just half of those clubs have been put through
Speaker 7: redundancy and administration to get the money to do that.
Speaker 7: Bring back the concrete monstrosities of like the old Den,
Speaker 7: and like the that's what that's what you need.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, anyway, the sad things are happening there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ben, a good bad from you.
Speaker 5: Sorry, yeah, I'm saying on the topic of things that
Speaker 5: are rusty and not fit for purpose, it's it's the
Speaker 5: Seattle Marina's life again. So we did discuss earlier that
Speaker 5: the Mariners have have been bad. I think part of
Speaker 5: the way at the start of season you could squint
Speaker 5: and see them being good was this seeming ascension to
Speaker 5: superstardom the outfield of Judio Rodriguez was on. It's all
Speaker 5: gone a little bit wrong for him this year, and
Speaker 5: especially of late. I think since the All Star break
Speaker 5: he's hitting one fish six. He's been dealing with injuries,
Speaker 5: but even when on the field, he hasn't looked right,
Speaker 5: certainly in the last couple of months, and that's a
Speaker 5: big miss for the Mariners because they don't really have
Speaker 5: anyone else around him. We did have this kind of
Speaker 5: discussion about Corbyn Carroll a couple of months ago, and
Speaker 5: it seemed to spark him into life, so I'm hoping
Speaker 5: it will do the same for Julio. But yeah, a
Speaker 5: very disappointing season for him. The talent is obviously still there.
Speaker 5: I'm not worried long term, but you have to think
Speaker 5: that the injuries aren't you know, aren't passing the way
Speaker 5: that they should be, or something's just gone horribly wrong
Speaker 5: from a coaching perspective, there because he has looked a
Speaker 5: sort of shell at the player who lit up.
Speaker 6: The league last year, so hopefully he can he can
Speaker 6: sort that out soon.
Speaker 7: Russell over to you, I don't know if it's just
Speaker 7: because I see snippets of bad umpiring more than I
Speaker 7: see all the snippets is good umpiring.
Speaker 4: But it's been really bad the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 7: There's been some umpire score cork at audits have had
Speaker 7: some absolute shockers of showing kind of eighty five percent
Speaker 7: accuracy or whatever, and my Twitter feed or gets a
Speaker 7: bit of that. Then my Instagram feed is literally just
Speaker 7: people actively hating non umpires, followed by a minor league
Speaker 7: game where there's a call, bad call, person challenges it
Speaker 7: goes to first instantaneously instead of walking, instead of yeah,
Speaker 7: it takes three seconds done. Why is this not a
Speaker 7: Major league baseball now? Like this just needs to change,
Speaker 7: Like we don't want bad things to happen in a
Speaker 7: game that we don't want umpires deciding games by mistakes
Speaker 7: It's like, I've not heard being talked about being implemented
Speaker 7: for next season yet, but it might be. But it's
Speaker 7: just it's an embarrassment when effectively the lower tier of
Speaker 7: professional baseball has this and it's not in the major leagues.
Speaker 7: It's just utterly ridiculous. We need the ABS challenge system now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: And whilst we're on the topic of bad umpiring, if
Speaker 2: for majors, dwell there for a moment, I note that
Speaker 2: there's going to be an ESPN thirty for thirty about
Speaker 2: Armando Galarraga's famous non perfect game, which comes up by
Speaker 2: think it's going to be released in October, and from
Speaker 2: a really great and of course this being thirty to
Speaker 2: thirty incredibly portentious trailer, there's this sort of pregnant suggestion
Speaker 2: that maybe they may have pushed Major League Baseball to
Speaker 2: change the ruling.
Speaker 3: On that game. How do you feel about Russell's shaking
Speaker 3: his head? I knew and he wasn't going to.
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I did they protest the game?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 6: Did they? Did they?
Speaker 4: I don't know any of the details behind it.
Speaker 7: If I was the team, I would have I would
Speaker 7: have protested the game and just walked off the field
Speaker 7: and not play the rest of it or whatever and
Speaker 7: just be like, this is a farce. I don't think
Speaker 7: you're probably going to do that when you're winning the game.
Speaker 7: When someone's just lost, you just lost their perfect game opportunity.
Speaker 7: But if this was a British baseball the protest would
Speaker 7: have been sent to the Baseball Commissioner.
Speaker 3: Within would have been death threats.
Speaker 2: Absolutely definitely, we should probably move the conversation on incredibly
Speaker 2: swiftly after that. Okay, uh my, my, my bad, my
Speaker 2: too good, too bad, my having a bad week, and
Speaker 2: I'm kind of disappointed. Back to your point about the
Speaker 2: blanket coverage of Danny Jansen earlier, Russell that this has
Speaker 2: not got more run than it than it really deserved,
Speaker 2: because it's another thing that had never happened before that
Speaker 2: happened on the self same day, which is the first
Speaker 2: time in baseball history that two brothers have given up
Speaker 2: walk off home runs on the same day, which was
Speaker 2: the Diaz brothers, Alexis and Edwin. So I like this
Speaker 2: a lot, but it's certainly like a bad thing to
Speaker 2: have happened. So, you know, it's sort of a bit
Speaker 2: of a similitude in that in terms of having several
Speaker 2: feelings about it at the same time. But yeah, but
Speaker 2: too good, too bad, and they're too bad, too bad
Speaker 2: things that happened to the Diaz family not quite simultaneously,
Speaker 2: but I certainly in the same sphere of time. Right,
Speaker 2: Let's let's round it out with some with some goodnes.
Speaker 1: Rob players weekend bats. I think they've been fantastic, They've
Speaker 1: been great fun. There's been some really really clever ones,
Speaker 1: some really fun ones. Why can't we do this more often?
Speaker 1: Like I get that maybe if we did it all
Speaker 1: the time, they'd be a bit a bit much, but
Speaker 1: you know, I just like Brandon marsh had himself on
Speaker 1: his own bat, that's fantastic, good well done him.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 1: On reception, yeah, absolutely, and like obviously Rice Harper pandered.
Speaker 1: But then also after he pandered, he he got his
Speaker 1: kids like his kids did his bat like it was
Speaker 1: a it was a crap kid drawing design. You know,
Speaker 1: that was fun. We like that, you know, like Colton Cows,
Speaker 1: I had cows. Like these people people are generally have
Speaker 1: a little bit of a little bit of a sense
Speaker 1: of a humor that we just don't get to see
Speaker 1: very often. In baseball, and I think bats were really
Speaker 1: good fun. So you know, like there was so many
Speaker 1: of them. I got a list, a list, a list
Speaker 1: of here, like Jake Rogers had his journey on it
Speaker 1: that was cool. Uh, Tovar had groot Gonna. Henderson had
Speaker 1: a mustache that looks looked alarming me like the pringles
Speaker 1: man's mustache, which which our very own Pringle has recently
Speaker 1: shaved off and it looks now But yeah, why can
Speaker 1: we have more of these bats? I think they're good fun.
Speaker 1: They're good fun. We like the bats.
Speaker 6: We do.
Speaker 3: We do like the bats. Other than when bay Brief's
Speaker 3: handling them. Ben over to, you.
Speaker 5: Wouldn't ever want to have all of la rubbish. You
Speaker 5: won't do anything to his players a weekend bat Bay.
Speaker 3: More like the ship anyway.
Speaker 6: That's two good subjects.
Speaker 5: And yeah, my final good is is s n Y
Speaker 5: the Mets broadcast.
Speaker 6: And I know we talk a.
Speaker 5: Lot about how good their broadcast booth is Gary ron Keith,
Speaker 5: but I'm actually going to talk a little bit about
Speaker 5: the production crew. I just think the s n Y
Speaker 5: production crew and the level production they put into their
Speaker 5: broadcast has reached unbelievable levels this season. It was kind
Speaker 5: of brought into the spotlight a little bit last week
Speaker 5: when they had the two walk off home runs one
Speaker 5: by Jesse Wingo one by Francisco Alvarez. But the unbelievable
Speaker 5: production work in terms of camera angles, getting all the
Speaker 5: reactions they want to from the crowd, from the players.
Speaker 5: I mean, they are the very best in the business.
Speaker 5: I think John demaster Co is the director who deserves
Speaker 5: a credit for this. He has a Twitter account that's
Speaker 5: worth following where they sort of do some of those
Speaker 5: shots them inside the inside the production truck and talking
Speaker 5: about how they cut from one camera angle to another.
Speaker 5: You can see the sort of organized chaos that is
Speaker 5: a baseball broadcast. But yeah, I just think they make
Speaker 5: the game of baseball look absolutely beautiful night in, night
Speaker 5: out with their with their choice of shots, with the
Speaker 5: way they transition from one to the other. And they
Speaker 5: deserve their flowers for turning baseball from a sport into
Speaker 5: an art form at times, and obviously, yeah, backed up
Speaker 5: by those great guys in the booths, so shout out
Speaker 5: at smy I think they made the sport even more
Speaker 5: enjoyable to watch than the one we already know and love.
Speaker 3: I love it loving the Mets. Shocker, Who would have
Speaker 3: thought Ben doesn't support the Nets?
Speaker 2: Come on, I love that. That's a really, really great
Speaker 2: out of the box choice. Also gives me a moment
Speaker 2: to just talk about Winkers walkoff celebration, which just what
Speaker 2: every single home run walkoff should be celebrated, like, made
Speaker 2: all of the right people incredibly angry.
Speaker 3: Jeff Fry, You, I mean, it was just unbelievable. That's
Speaker 3: exactly what.
Speaker 2: That's what anyone would do if they hit a home.
Speaker 3: Hi, Russell over to you.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think mine's from a couple of weeks back,
Speaker 7: there was a clip from an upcoming documentary which actually
Speaker 7: might have been shown on MLB Network the other day
Speaker 7: now about from the Bonds, which was the There's a
Speaker 7: clip of Bonds and Maddocks talking through and at bat
Speaker 7: from when they were in their prime against each other
Speaker 7: and then both talking through like what they were thinking,
Speaker 7: how they were going against it, and started off with
Speaker 7: Bonds being like, oh, I'm not going to remember this,
Speaker 7: and then get shown the clip and it's like, okay,
Speaker 7: so immediately this is what I was thinking going into
Speaker 7: this pitch. He knows like exactly like what he was
Speaker 7: thinking against Maddox, and it was such an interesting way
Speaker 7: to kind of see two of these great kind of
Speaker 7: talk through just just a random moment in a random
Speaker 7: game around remember, like a plate appearance between the two
Speaker 7: of them. And so if you haven't seen that clip,
Speaker 7: I think obviously the documentary is coming out with Actually
Speaker 7: might've already been think it was maybe the twenty fifth,
Speaker 7: but yeah, it's well worth watching to kind of both
Speaker 7: hear described that at.
Speaker 2: That Yeah, that is a great clip. Definitely worth looking at,
Speaker 2: those two legends talking apart their craft and sort of
Speaker 2: bouncing off one another. Yeah, sort from the sublime to
Speaker 2: the ridiculous. Because I'm going to give it, after Ben
Speaker 2: giving sny Sny's back office a bit of a nod,
Speaker 2: I'm going to give a nod to some of the
Speaker 2: unsung heroes of Major League Baseball. That is, the kit
Speaker 2: men who make up make up the Kits, who this
Speaker 2: week have had the Leviathan task of fulfilling the longest
Speaker 2: starting pitching dual of all time in terms of the
Speaker 2: length of their names, which was between Spencer Schwellen back
Speaker 2: of the Atlanta Braves and Simeon Woods Richardson of the
Speaker 2: Minnesota twins that combined length of twenty nine letters, the
Speaker 2: longest names on the back of Major League Baseball jerseys
Speaker 2: going head to ahead ever in a starting pitching jill.
Speaker 2: And as we all know, there's been a lot of
Speaker 2: contry obviously around these new uniforms, but maybe, maybe, just
Speaker 2: maybe fanatics and Nike knew that there was going to
Speaker 2: be a schwellenback versus Woods Richardson Duwell this year, and
Speaker 2: that's why they made the letters really tiny. And if
Speaker 2: they did, that was the level of foresight that one
Speaker 2: expects of some of the great sports brands of the world.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that was a fun curio. I had to
Speaker 2: see those two guys get to face off against one
Speaker 2: another at the same time. Right, guys, We've had a
Speaker 2: lovely old chat. I hope everyone's had a lovely time
Speaker 2: listening to it. We've got gone from everything from Ben's
Speaker 2: outright hatred of bain Proof three to John Kenzie Noel.
Speaker 2: I mean, what other podcast can you say? Does that
Speaker 2: in just over an hour and we've managed it lovely
Speaker 2: to see you all. I would ask the usual questions
Speaker 2: like do you have any writing coming up? But of
Speaker 2: course you don't, and I'm just going to boast that
Speaker 2: I did some so pull your fingers out, guys. Yeah,
Speaker 2: get yourself over to bathfortonners dot com. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of great content going up there all the time, and
Speaker 2: cleaning occasionally by by me uh and we will see
Speaker 2: you again very soon