Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2212: Baseball in a Country Twice As High As Coors Field

Episode Date: September 4, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuña Jr., and quantifying power/speed excellence and the White Sox somehow playing way worse under Grady Sizemore, follow up on hippos, A-Rod’s relationships, double plates/bases, 40-something hitters, player predictions, and one-pitch first strikeouts, and react to a new kind of bases-loaded walk and private equity’s […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2212 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rauli, FanGraphs, and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer Upstate. Ben, how are you? Kind of concerned because people have been saying and complaining that we're not talking about Shohei Otani enough. Who are those people? Are they in the room with us, Ben?

Check your inbox, it's there. I don't mean this in a Trumpian, many people are saying since. Multiple people have actually written in specifically to complain or observe that we didn't address Shohei Otani's dog, throwing out the first pitch, quote unquote throwing out, right?

And their dual bobblehead night. I note that we also did not mention the big game where Shohei Otani went 40-40 in the same game with the walk-off and everything. I think we've exercised some restraint when it comes to discussing Shohei Otani lately. He's still given us reasons to talk about him. I did forecast, I think, that we would talk about him less this year than we did

last year, just because he's not a two way player this year. And then all the Ipe stuff happened, right? But I think if you Ipe adjusted this year, if we just went from the start of the regular season, let's say maybe effectively wild wiki keeper Raymond Chen can check this out for us. I would guess that there have been fewer Otani mentions on the podcast this year than last, but we'll address that deficiency today because I did just want to mention after Otani's most recent game, we're recording on Tuesday afternoon, and he had a three stolen base game on Monday,

which brought him up to 46 stolen bases on the season and he has 44 homers. So the last time we talked about him, I think I mentioned that he could be the first member of the 43 43 club and he is right. He is also the first member of the 44 44 club. But of course, no one really cares about 43 43 and 44 44. People have all set their sights on 50 50, which we talked about last time to the odds that he could get there, which have only improved since then. And if you go by the fan graphs extrapolated on pace numbers, he is now on pace for 52

homers and 54 stolen bases, which would be quite the impressive total or totals. But I was weighing whether that would be more impressive than what Ronald Acuna did last year. How do we decide? Cause it's going to be more balanced, more even between the power and the speed. But Acuna of course had 41 homers and 73 steals. So somewhat more lopsided, but can you penalize him? Can you detract from his accomplishment because he just had more stolen bases, right? So how do you sort of balance those things? If Otani goes 52, 54, is that better than 41, 73?

07. Why must we make them fight? You know? Jared Ranere They're both good. We'll stipulate to that. Tilda Lerner They're both good. You know, this is not Godzilla and a Muto. The Mutos? They were Mutos? Bet?

Were they Mutos? Jared Ranere Yeah, that sounds right. The Titans? Yeah. Tilda Lerner Yeah, Muto. Why must they fight? You know? Why must they?

I don't know which one I think is cooler. I think they're both cool. I think they're cool in different ways. I think you got to have a space for a bunch of new stuff that's never been done before, right? Absolutely. They're both cool, both impressive. Mudos.

Yes, mudos. But I think maybe in this era, once we've relaxed the requirements for stealing bases, it's a little bit easier to do that now. The ball is still by historical standards, fairly lively, but not as lively as juiced as it was a few years ago. I think maybe it's more impressive to have 50 something homers, even if you don't have 70 something steals. It's hard to era adjust this.

We don't have to era adjust when we're comparing these two specifically, but compared to past seasons with different rules and different balls and everything, there is a stat that I suppose is specifically designed to answer a question like this, which is Bill James's power speed number, which he introduced, I think, to kind of capture the contributions of Bobby Bonds, a great power speed player. And the power speed number is two times homers times stolen bases divided by homeruns plus stolen bases. So it's the harmonic mean of the homers and the steals. And we don't necessarily have to defer to this number but if we want to go by this number Acuna does have the highest single season power

speed number ever 52.5 which we discussed on a long ago episode episode 2057 and I noted that he was on track to have the highest single season number ever and he did finish with that. And so to surpass Okunya, Otani cannot go 52-52. That would not be sufficient. He would not quite have as high a power speed number as Okunya did last year. He would have to go 53-53 or 52-54, which is what he is currently on pace for. If he hits either of those marks, then he will just slightly nudge aside Ronald Acuna and have the highest power speed number in a single season ever.

Maybe then he needs to do that and then it will be, and then it will be cool. Can Aaron Taylor Johnson act? What's the, what's our, I don't have a power speed number for that one. I'm not sure. Yeah. I'm still not sure about him or Sam Worthington. I don't know. I need more data on that one.

Yeah, tough to quantify that. The reason I'm struggling with the question is because even though they are obviously like related concepts, I think of them as such, they're such different players to me. And the thing that's impressive, the most impressive about the one versus the other is perhaps the same, but I'm realizing that I think of Otani and Okunya as having different particular skills that are more forward in their profile than others, right? Like, so for Acuna to say that he is just a speed guy is obviously wrong.

In fact, he's not even that fast. I mean, he's fast, but he's not, yeah, his speed is not such a standout really. And I have a static preference among gifted base runners for that profile because as we have discussed on this pod before, I think that people tend to under appreciate the skill part of base stealing, right? Where they just want fast guys who are fast, and they go, go, go, and they vroom, vroom. But like being a good base stealer and good base runner more broadly, I think has a lot more sort of skill and craft to it than guys who are good at that are often given credit for.

And so that's part of why I find Acuna's approach to be cool and dynamic is because he's not just a speed guy. He's not the fastest boy, right? But I'm realizing, and part of this is probably that he on offense plays the field and Otani doesn't, that it's like, wow, a guy who could steal that many bases can also hit that many home runs. Amazing. And then I have it kind of reverse for Otani where it's like, you mean a guy who might hit

50 home runs can also steal that many bases? Amazing! And so that's why I'm struggling to answer it. Cause it's like, I just, I'm appreciative of those different profiles where they overlap and also where they differ. And I think that that's cool. And also I'm thinking about MUTO's now and how much more successful that movie was of the recent American Godzilla's compared to the ones that followed it, even though I still

don't know if Aaron Taylor Jonskin can act. I don't know, Ben. Well, I do know that Acuna had a 67th percentile sprint speed last year, which isn't all that impressive. It's not all that impressive. And actually Otani is only at 73rd percentile this season. She's a DH Ben, so amazing. Yes.

Well, yeah, I guess it is amazing for a DH, but then again, if he's just DH-ing and he doesn't have to stand around in the outfield all the time, then shouldn't he be even faster? Because his legs are fresher, although he is like rehabbing to pitch and everything too, but still. He doesn't look like a guy who we typically associate with being a DH. And so it's like this like multi-layered onion of profiles that you have to peel back. And they really decided to kill Bryan Cranston like, you know, a quarter of the way through that movie. He's the best actor, him and Ken Watanabe are like the best actors in that movie. And we gave

all this time to Aaron Taylor Johnson, who again, I don't know if he can act. Well, East MLB gave some time to Bryan Cranston to talk about the new Stolen Base rules. So he got some air time there too. Thanks for making something of that. Desperately tried to tie this to baseball somehow. Anyway, Otadi is impressive. 50-50 will be amazing if he does indeed get there, but now I will not be satisfied with 50-50. He's got to get to 53-53, not so that he can be the inaugural member of the 53-53 club, but so that he can have the highest single season power speed number ever, which I think would be nice on top of everything else that he does. Regardless, it'll be the best dedicated DH season ever. And also we do think that the Angels should celebrate him as he returns to Angel Stadium and that Angels fans should cheer him and thank him for the memories.

I'm going to make another really strained movie analogy. I am so sorry. I swear I'm going to learn new references. Did you see The Queen with Helen Mirren? Yeah. Okay. So for those who haven't, The Queen starring Helen Mirren is set in the days and weeks following the tragic death of Princess Diana and how The Queen responded to that moment and the royal family more generally, which was understood to be sort of an unmitigated PR disaster for the Royal Family.

And there is a moment in that movie where Michael Sheen, not that Michael Sheen, the other Michael Sheen playing Tony Blair is watching them talk about this on air, and it is just bad and bumbling, and it is clear that there needs to be some humanity injected into the monarchy and he sits there and goes, can't somebody save these people from themselves? And anyway, I thought about that when I saw that the angels, the teams honor guys who

were on their club for like half a season after the trade doveline when they come back. What on earth are these bozos doing? What are you doing? You traded half of your farm system away for the mere possibility of competing for a postseason spot with that guy still on the roster, and then you did a waiver claim swapity-doo that put the entire industry into a panic about the future of labor and like August waiver claims. And you're not going to honor the guy when he, what are you doing? It's such a bizarre, bizarre, unforced error to the point that I feel like there has to

be something we are missing about this circumstance. Well, they might just be bitter that he left and he went to the regional rival, right? But also they celebrated him in a spring exhibition game right before the season. That's not the same thing. No, it's not the same, but there was an exhibition game at Angel Stadium and he played and they did a little video for him, I think. So, right. You should do both because take every opportunity to celebrate Joey Otani, right? And maybe they will at the last minute. We're recording before the game. Perhaps they will bow to

the public pressure of everyone being like, what? You don't plan to celebrate Joey Otani? Oh, well, maybe we can just replay that video we played back in March, but we'll see. I am sure that the royal family resented the abrupt departure of Princess Diana when she divorced their weird son. But eventually the queen came around and so should Artie Moreno. I stand by this comp. It's weird, but here we are. It's a Tuesday. I am out of, I am like a woman out of time.

I am so disoriented from the long weekend. I don't even know what I'm doing, except invoking movies from, God, this is what happens to you, man. Like it came for me faster than I thought it would. I was like, I'm gonna have relevant references well into my forties, no. God.

I have one other big question for you, which is, do you think Grady Sizemore regrets taking the interim White Sox job? Do you think this has been worse than he thought it would be? Because I kind of figured that there might be some sort of dead cat bounce regression here. Usually when a manager changes, right, someone gets fired, it's usually because the team has been underperforming as the White Sox were

prior to Grady Sizemore's replacing Pedro Griffo. And often there is a slight correction after that through no reason other than just regressing to the mean. And that has not happened. The White Sox have just regressed even more, no mean involved. It is mean to talk about the White Sox these days, to play the White Sox, but the White Sox had a 239 winning percentage with Griffo and with Grady, as we speak on Tuesday, they're three and 19. That is a 136 winning percentage. So they've lost about a hundred

points of winning percentage in the Grady-Size more managerial era. And they're really just such relentless losers. And I don't mean that in a character sense, but just in terms of actual on-field results, it's just testing my beliefs about baseball, which are generally in this era that I have come to cover baseball and no baseball, it's not at all surprising for a bad team to beat a good team, even the worst team to beat the best team on any given day

or any sort of small sample short series upset. It barely qualifies as an upset, but the White Sox are such pushovers these days that it's just like an automatic L for them. It's just incredible. Like I guess the mental mistake I'm making in lumping in the white socks with other major league teams is that maybe this is not a major league quality team. It's as if there were some mix up and a team got promoted from a lower level

league, thus they aren't competitive. And yet I did not anticipate the extent of the suck. I knew that they'd be a bad team. I thought they might be the worst team, but not the worst team ever in any modern recognizable version of baseball. I mean, it's not an original observation. Someone, I think in our Patreon Discord group suggested

that maybe we need to do like a White Sox unfun fact draft because they've been making the rounds. I mean, our pal Grant Brisby noted that there are four teams above 500 in the rounds. I mean, our pal Grant Brisby noted that there are four teams above 500 in the AL Central and that the AL Central collectively is under 500 entirely thanks to the White Sox. I think as of a day or two ago, it's no longer true, but it might be true again, that there is no qualified hitter with a WRC plus as low as the White Sox team, WRC plus, which just doesn't seem like it should be possible, but the White Sox, I guess, don't really have qualified hitters either.

And then you could say that in multiple ways, like qualified for the batting title and also qualified to be big leaguers. So they really have just reset my expectations and even the playoff odds, which all season long have been insisting and the projections that the White Sox are within the realm of a reasonable major league baseball team, like a bad one certainly, but not this bad. Even the playoff odds now have had to concede that they project to break the all time record of losses in a modern era season.

That's the baseline. The playoff odds projection still somehow expect them to play it at like a 400 clip from now on, which it's just not happening. There's just nothing you could do to convince the projections that the White Sox are actually this abysmal. I get that even though they're going to end up with maybe the worst run differential in the modern era ever, They're still like, should be better than they've been based on the runs scored and allowed and everything. Somehow they're dramatically underplaying their expected deserved performance, which itself is awful. It just shocks me. It's gotten to the point where I always look to see if the White Sox

won knowing that they didn't, but now there's just a near certainty. Like I don't even need to check the box score anymore. It's just, I could pencil that in, I could pen it in. To get to your original question about Grady, does he have regret? I mean, he was around before, right? We established this. I was shocked to learn that he was on their coaching

staff. Yes, he was a major league coach of unspecified kind. And so what you're really asking me, Ben, is how honest with himself is Grady Sizemore? Because that's really the question you need to answer. Because he was around, he was observing this garbage fire of a team. He was aware of the likelihood that like they would move players at the deadline. That guys would have increasingly little motivation to do anything at all. So the real question you're asking is, does he in his heart think, yeah, but I can fix it. Because if he's realistic about the team and feels like some sense of obligation to them or he feels an obligation to the guys and wants to help bring this wounded battered

boat to port when it's all said and done, then he's probably not disappointed because he knew what he was getting into. And he took over post deadline too, so the moves had been made. Right. But if he thinks himself to be a miracle worker or some sort of powerful witch, then he probably is disappointed because he probably in that scenario thought, I can turn this boat around, I can patch it up. I don't have a nautical analogy, I don't know how boats work, but I don't have a great read

on what's in Grady Sizemore's heart, how honest with himself he tends to be. I think that to be a big leaguer, there has to be some amount of self-delusion or you would just be driven mad by the difficulty of what you're undertaking. Maybe in the years following his retirement from active play, perspective has grown, but I couldn't rightly say. The only thing that I can compare the current state of the White Sox to, this is going to be confusing to people, is to the 116 win Mariners. Let me explain.

I know that they did not win every game that year, obviously. They only won 116 out of their full season, but they were winning so often that I remember being genuinely shocked when they would lose. Like I couldn't, and we don't want to talk about the postseason because that's, we don't want to talk about that. But it was, it was genuinely shocking. And that's weird because of all the things you said, you know, good teams lose all the time.

They lose to bad teams. They lose to the worst team. It happens. But I was always shocked. I couldn't believe it when they would lose. And I find myself experiencing a similar amount of befuddlement when I find out that the White Sox win, not having to experience it all that often. But I'm always just like, what? They managed to scrape one out? That's incredible. Yeah. I would not have thought I could turn things around if I were Grady Sizemore, but

I might've thought I could turn things slightly just enough to graze the iceberg. I guess the Titanic kind of did graze the iceberg, but you know, maybe avoid the iceberg. The problem was that it grazed it. If it had hit it head on, fewer people would have died. Yes, because then it opened up a bunch of compartments, right? Right. Yeah. But there's just no watertight compartment anywhere on the White Sox. That's right. And I would have said to myself, hey, like we've dramatically underplayed, even as bad

as we've been, we should have been better than that and change of leadership and I'll lay the fire under the guys and it's not going to be good. But if I could just coast into the end of the season and avoid the all time losses record, that would be a win. Not losing the most would be a win. I could take that into the off season. I don't know if that'll get me the full-time job, if I even want the full-time job, but I could say I did my duty. And no, in fact, the losing has intensified since he took over. So we can assess, I guess, at the end of the season,

and maybe we will look up some facts about that because it's just a whole genre, a whole White Sox cottage industry right now. A few rapid fire follow ups. One, we talked about hippos at some length last time for some reason. Whose fault was that? We actually talked a little bit about their resemblance to horses or the lack thereof. And we did not note, however, the root of the word actually is very horsey, right? Very equine. So, Flavia wrote in to say, hippos is the Greek word for horse. Hippodromes in Europe are the race tracks. Hippopotamus is a river horse. Using the Greek words for same, there's a structure in the brain called the hippocampus, named such because of its resemblance to a seahorse. And that is all true. So the Latin word hippopotamus, it derives from the Greek word, which again is kind of a combination of horse and river. So

it's a kind of horse looking, but it's in the water, it's in the river, right? So it all makes sense. We talked about hippogriffs, which are part horse, and for some reason we didn't make the connection that of course, hippo comes from horse as well. I'm sorry. I was distracted by the revelation that the state of media now is the result of a very over-resourced and super-specific vertical. So I didn't put it together, sorry. Yes. I think on the show page, I had 11 links, two stories about Pablo Escobar's multiplying hippopotamuses. So yes, you can check that out if you're interested. We also talked about A-Rod's date night with his current girlfriend, Jacqueline Cordero,

and how it ended at least on a dock where they were watching a Yankees game on an iPad on a little low table and we talked about whether that was a good date or a bad date and how it was emblematic of A-Rod. And we neglected to note that Alex wanting to watch baseball constantly seems to be a pattern as listener Andrew pointed out. Now we noted that this guy just loves to be around baseball and talk about baseball, But this has previously come up in his romantic life. So he was dating Anne Wojcicki back in 2016 or so. This was the founder of 23andMe. And after they broke up, Anne Wojcicki's mother came out

and talked about their relationship and said, I like Deirad, he was a very nice man. But then she went on to, with some reasons why it was a mismatch, why it hadn't worked with his, with her daughter. And she said sort of withering Lee, he had no academic background. We couldn't have an intellectual conversation about anything. His main interest in life was something that none of us had ever focused on, which was baseball. He could park himself in front of a TV and watch baseball for 10 hours a day.

He wasn't even sure he wanted to go on the yacht with Ann. The problems that these people have, I don't even know if I want to go on the yacht because the TV might not be working and you might not have access to baseball. So this was evidently a bit of a roadblock in a previous relationship that he just wanted to watch baseball and talk about baseball all the time. And hopefully his current little love match here is more tolerant of that or more interested in baseball than his previous flame was. But that has been a problem with him before. So he's got to be with a baseball lover or someone who loves him so much that they will tolerate the amount of baseball that he subjects them to. Yeah. I mean, I think that these are questions of compatibility that we all have to navigate on some level.

He's just like a very extreme example in one particular area. But I mean, as long as everybody knows what they're getting going in, like, I don't know. Now could he have a healthier relationship to it? Could he? It's like, it's like A-Rod, buddy, it's okay for you to go on the yacht. Yeah, go on the yacht. You can navigate the yacht. This is okay. This is okay. I mean, I don't know if he can navigate the yacht. Like some of those things are. They probably have people to do that for them. Yeah, I would, I would imagine so, but you know, you can miss a game.

It's okay. It's okay. We also talked about an email question about whether there should be a double home plate, right? To minimize collisions and maybe be a bit safer. And we sort of, uh, casually endorsed that idea. We really endorsed the idea of a double first base or, or I did at least that I think that's a good idea. But as listener Raymond and Patreon supporter and Wiki keeper noted, a double home plate might be problematic because most plays there are tags,

not force outs. And so it's easy to have a double first base because most plays are not tags and you can just have a lot of force outs and you can each step on your separate bag. But on home plate, if you have two separate plates that would kind of fundamentally change the nature of a lot of plays at the plate, right? I mean, I guess you could still tag and just not block the plates and you'd be on your plate, but it would be kind of weird because like you'd be on your plate and you're blocking the other plate or trying to tag someone before they touch their plate. Just a little more complicated at home plate than it would be at first base, say. So I don't know that we had considered that on the air, but it is a worthy point. We also have been

tracking the lack of 40-year-old hitters in the majors this year. There had not been a 40 or older hitter this year. And with the retirement of Joey Vato, it looked like there might not be. And I noted, unless Yuli Gurriel makes it. And I mentioned that he had been hitting well in AAA for Atlanta. And I said, well, they've had so many injuries, he could still make it up there, but they haven't really had first space DH injuries so much. Those have been the players that have been healthy for them. However, he went to Kansas City. Everyone just went to the Royals. The Royals just claimed a bunch of people.

They traded for Gurriel and they added a 40 year old man to the 40 man and then they immediately promoted him. I guess in part because we jinxed the Royals own durability by talking about how healthy they'd been and then Vinnie Pasquentino got hurt and he's out for a while. And so it all comes back around and Yuli Garriel is now replacing Vinny Pascuentino. And so we will continue the streak of having a 40

year old player, which I determined, I think it's actually every season in the live ball era. So since 1920, there has been at least one 40 year old hitter. I think in 1919 there was no 40 year old hitter and the fewest played appearances by a 40 year old hitter according to the fancraft's leader boards in any season since 1919 is Ichiro in 2019 when he just played those two games at the start of the season and retired and got six played appearances. He was the only 40 plus hitter that year that was it and Yui Gurriel has already made six played appearances. He was the only 40 plus hitter that year, that was it. And Yuli Gurriel has already made six plate appearances. So we've already equaled that.

Although Gurriel in his second game for Kansas City did aggravate a hamstring injury and get removed from the game. So I guess, you know, that is what happens to 40 year old people. It also happens to younger people, but maybe a little more likely when you're 40, but it doesn't sound serious. It's not a serious hamstring injury. It's a silly hamstring injury,

but it's a he'll be back, it sounds like. So we have a 40 year old, so that's nice for anyone who was worried about that. It does seem maybe emblematic of the aging curve and the way that players do seem to be aging out earlier these days that we're waiting on the edge of our seat to the end of the season to see if Yuli Gurriel might make it up and be able to continue this streak. So we'll see who'll turn 40 next year and maybe be able to keep this going. Also, we talked about the debut of Ryan Zephyrjohn, who pitched for the Angels and came in mid-plate appearance and threw one pitch and got a strike out. And we did a little combined meet a major league or staff last about that. And we noted

that he's not the first pitcher on record to make a mid-plate appearance debut, but he did seem to be the first pitcher on record to record a strike out with his first major league pitch. However, we have been corrected by listener and Patreon supporter, Rick, who wrote in from memory to recall an instance when this happened. And this is a case where memory trumped data because at least according to some versions of the Retro Sheet database, Ryan Nelson's and the baseball reference play log, although Retro Sheet may have since corrected this. This actually has happened at least once before in the pitch tracking era, the pitch by pitch

data era. And it was May 3rd, 1993. I'm reading a story from the Los Angeles Times headline, Sitzer is pitcher perfect, but athletics still lose. So this actually may have been May 2nd, but the story was May 3rd. Statistically speaking, Oakland third baseman, Kevin Sitzer might be the best pitcher in baseball today.

After reliever Kelly Downs was ejected during an argument that escalated into a bench clearing brawl Sunday at Cleveland, Sitzer moved over from third base and threw one pitch to Cleveland's Glen Allen Hill, striking him out. It was a fitting ending to a bizarre afternoon that saw Cleveland beat the Athletics 10-2. The brief fight erupted after downs and Cleveland designated hitter Carlos Martinez began yelling

at one another after a foul ball. With Cleveland ahead by 8 with two outs in the eighth inning, Martinez, who declined to comment, apparently was upset by an inside pitch earlier in the count. Umpire Ted Hendry warned Martinez and Downs to calm down, and when Martinez kept hollering, Hendry ejected them both. Martinez then charged the mound and was tackled by Oakland catcher Scott Heyman as both benches emptied. And then Kevin Sitzer, who was playing third base, came in, his first appearance as a pitcher since high school. He said, 13 years between appearances,

the pitch split the plate in half. I volunteered. It's something I always wanted to do, but it was quick. I didn't want to walk the guy. And that was that. So not only has it happened before that a pitcher has recorded his first major league K on his first major league pitch, but it was a position player pitcher and his only major league strikeout.

So how about that? How about that? And we would not have known if it had not been within living memory, within listener Rick's living memory, and this had not come to his mind. But yeah, it was a called strike three. And I continue to maintain that it's weird how we assign credit and blame here because Kevin Sitzer got credit for the strikeout, but Glen Allen Hill, who pinch hit, did not get credit or blame for the strikeout. It was Carlos Martinez who left with the two strikes on him who was

charged with that strikeout. So according to the box score, Kevin Seitzer pitched a third of an inning, but Glen Allen Hill did not make a plate appearance in that game. It's just, it's weird. It doesn't come up often, but I think it's weird. How about that? And last follow-up, we got a couple of people who pointed us to the latest, greatest player prediction. So this was Jackson Churio, who on Monday, with the Brewers leading the Cardinals, went up to some teammates, at least Frankie Montas for one, and predicted that he was going to hit a grand slam.

And then he did. And he was smiling a little, laughing as he was rounding the bases because he had made this prediction. So some people tagged us and let us know because this has been something that we've talked about often and Look Jackson Churio is great. He's young. He's amazing. He's playing fantastically This was yet another instance of that but I'm more impressed by his age 20 success than I am by his soos saying here and

Some people seem to think it was more impressive I guess because he had predicted it before the innings started. And I guess on some level it is, but on another level it's not because he predicted that he was going to hit a grand slam. He was due up fifth in that inning. So some guys had to get on in order for him to get to the plate, right? And so that I think in my, makes it a little less impressive. So it was unfortunately off of former Effectively Wild guest Riley O'Brien, but Reese Hoskins walked, Sal Freilich doubled, Joey Ortiz walked,

Bryce Terang lined out, and then Churio came up and hit the grand slam. So our objection is always, what's the denominator? How many incorrect predictions were there. And I continue to think that players just to have fun, to inject a little extra stakes into things because they're bored on the bench, whatever, they're constantly tossing out predictions. They're constantly saying they're going to hit a home run here. And we only hear about it when they do hit a home run.

Right. So I don't know if Jackson if Jackson Trujillo does this often, but again, it's, you know, how, how often does he do it and how unlikely is it? And I guess predicting that enough guys were going to get on base that he would get up and then that he would hit a grand slam. Okay. It wasn't going to be a solo shot probably, cause some guys had to be on ahead of him for him to get to the plate at all.

That in, but you know, yeah, it's impressive. to be a solo shot probably because some guys had to be on ahead of him for him to get to the plate at all. But you know, yeah, it's impressive if he is someone who does not constantly throw out predictions, but perhaps he is. And maybe we will learn that over the course of his career. Do you think that you would be more or less likely to offer such a prediction proximate to your birthday or like, is that part of it? Is it like, well, it's my birthday, so I shouldn't have a-

CB I probably would not under any circumstance predict what I was going to do. I'm just humble like that, you know? I don't think I can forecast the future. So it was, it was Willie Adomis's birthday, right? It was- LS Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was- CB Yeah, yeah. Willie Adomis, he had a home run and he's had a home run like every day. So he's not just hitting home runs on his birthday, but also other days adjacent to his birthday. But- Sure, sure, sure.

Jackson Turio will not turn 21 until next March. That is how young Jackson Turio is. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Forget I even asked then, Ben. All right. Well, we have an interview today and I think it's a fun one. As you probably know, there is a country called Bhutan in South Asia in the Eastern Himalayas. It is the highest country in the world by average elevation, twice as high as Coors Field and it's become a baseball hotbed. China's in the north, India's in the south, baseball is in between. Thanks in large part to the efforts of our two guests, Matthew

DeSantis and Ramon Riesco of the Bhutan Baseball and Softball Association. Some of you may have seen a very viral image that went around last year of baseball being played in this very picturesque atmospheric setting in front of a giant Buddha statue in Bhutan. These are the people who planned and took that photo, but they've also done so much more. They've introduced baseball to the country. They have basically built up a baseball community from scratch. Thousands of people are playing it now. It's growing fast. And one reflection of that growth

is that there was just a Bhutan night at a Hudson Valley Renegades game. This is the high A affiliate of the Yankees. And in partnership with our guests, they brought over a dozen young men and women from Bhutan who got to go to their first professional game and train with the players and then go on to New York and go to Yankee Stadium, et cetera. So we're going to talk about the origin story of baseball in Bhutan. We're going to talk about the trip. We're going to talk about what comes next.

But because of this Renegades game tie-in, I have a couple kind of Renegades related bits of banter to share before our interview. We got an email just the other day from listener Doug, who pointed out something very interesting that just happened in a Hudson Valley renegades game. And Doug wrote, this is my first time emailing the pod in about 12 years, but wanted to alert you to some baseball history that I don't believe was reported. To be fair, the only reason I heard about it is through my brother Greg, who does play by play for the Phillies high affiliate,

the Jersey Shore Blue Claws. In any event, in Wednesday's game, between the Blue Claws and Yankees affiliate, Hudson Valley Renegades, this was last week, there was an intentional walk with the bases loaded, albeit in unusual circumstances to the extent that such situations can ever be usual. In the bottom of the eighth, Renegades pitcher Thomas Balboni walks in a run to make it 4-0

Blue Claws. Following a mound visit, Balboni pitches against Pierce Bennett, but in the middle of that long plate appearance, Balboni reaches his team-imposed pitch limit, which apparently the Yankees are strict about. So the Renegades go out for another mound visit and take Balboni out. However, only then the Umps realize you can't have two mound visits in the same plate appearance, so the Umps make Balboni come back out to pitch. But because the Renegades coaches don't want Balboni to go beyond his pitch limit, they

elect to intentionally walk Bennett with the bases loaded. And thus he didn't have to throw another pitch. So Doug concludes, add Pierce Bennett to the illustrious list of Barry Bonds, Josh Hamilton and Corey Seeger as guys intentionally walked with the bases loaded. According to my brother, that's the first intentional walk in the minors since 2005, but there isn't data before that. And yes, the Hudson Valley Renegades PR guy tweeted out a list of all of the known recorded intentional walks with the bases loaded in the majors or in the minors or

in the Mexican league. And the minor league and Mexican league data goes back to 2005 comprehensively. So it is Pierce Bennett joining Corey Seeger, Josh Hamilton, Barry Bonds, of course, in 1998, and Abel Martinez, who was playing for Laguna in the Mexican league in 2005. And I am not sure why Abel Martinez was walked intentionally with the bases loaded for Laguna in 2005, though I have a few feelers out. And if I do find out the reason for that, I will update everyone. But Barry Bonds just being the best hitter ever basically, although it was 1998. It's interesting that the basis loaded IBB of Barry came really pre-juiced bonds, pre-peaked bonds. I mean,

he was still great and that tells you how great he was, right? But he had many greater intentional walk exploits later on, of course, when he reached an even higher level. Then there was Josh Hamilton in 2008, Corey Seeger in 2022, both of those very good hitters, of course, but also both issued by Joe Madden, right? And he just sometimes wanted to be a maverick just for the heck of it. And so extenuating circumstances, I guess, for both of those. And that wasn't even Josh Hamilton's peak year, right? You might think, oh, 2010 when he was the MVP and he was amazing. No, 2008 when he was good, but not that good. Right.

And now we can add Pierce Bennett to that illustrious list, that club of five, Pierce Bennett, but for weird kind of only in 2024 type reasons. And Pierce Bennett is a 23 year old. He was a 20th round draft pick last year by the Philadelphia Phillies. He has played some corner outfield and some second base and this year he has a 680 OPS in the minors, including a 657 OPS in high A. And so he was probably as

surprised as anyone to be intentionally walked with the bases loaded. Abel Martinez at least was hitting pretty well in 2005, although better than Pierce Bennett, but still not so good that I would think you should issue him a free pass at the bases loaded. He had an eight 79 OPS that year in the Mexican league. Definitely need more info on that, but that was a weird thing surrounding the Hudson Valley renegades. And also the Hudson Valley renegades are owned by Diamond Baseball Holdings. You will hear that that will come up in this conversation. And that's the private equity group that has been

snapping up dozens of minor league teams across all levels of the minors, which we talked to Evan Drelik about briefly one of the last times he was on because he co-wrote an article about that episode 2168. And it's this situation where everyone's kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop, right? Because everyone's like looking at what private equity has done to media and sports media and local media and retirement homes and hospitals and everything else it gets its hands in and going, oh no, how is it going to strip the miners down to the studs even more than MLB has already and try to turn a profit and flip it

here? And that hasn't been what's happened thus far. Mostly Diamond has left the previous management in place and has actually spruced up some facilities and everything. And so people are kind of warily like, okay, so far so good, but what's the end goal here, right? And I bring that up because I just read an article that was published in late August by Ira Boudway in Bloomberg and it's titled Private Equity is Coming for Youth Sports. Oh boy. Yeah. So this is the latest incarnation of this. And basically the article focuses on a couple of billionaires who have started this group called Unrivaled and they've been snapping up various

youth sports properties. And these are guys who had their hands in lots of professional sports already and lots of professional sports franchises. And I will read from the piece. Now they're bringing their big league expertise and very deep pockets to an industry that's traditionally been left to mom and pop operators. Unrivaled is the most prominent development in a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the youth sports industry. Smaller clubs and leagues are combining to form regional powerhouses at the same time that private equity firms are scooping up camps, tournaments, and

other assets across the country. There's an increasing consolidation that's happening," says Jeremy Goldberg, president of League Apps Inc. He lists some other articles on here about buying sprees and snapping up things. The Sandlot era, when kids played sports largely unsupervised, is long gone, Goldberg says, and the days of parent coached recreational leagues are fast receding. In their place has come the age of travel squads. Kids as young as six are playing on teams with paid coaches, year-round schedules, multiple practices per week, long distance travel, and in many cases intense competition for roster spots. In theory, these teams prepare kids to play at the college level and beyond.

In practice, they're making youth sports increasingly at the college level and beyond. In practice, they're making youth sports increasingly expensive, exclusive, and pressurized. In the chase for a limited supply of college scholarships, more kids are also specializing in a single sport at a younger age, despite research showing that cross-sport sampling is best for their athletic development, not to mention mental health. American parents are also going to greater and greater lengths, including hiring private coaches and buying high-end equipment to pad their kids' sports resumes and give them an edge on their college applications. They're spending at least $30 billion a year on youth sports,

according to 2022 research by the Aspen Institute and the actual tally could be as much as 50 billion by now, according to another source. On average, parents spend about 900 per child per season, according to Aspen whose research also shows that children from households making 150,000 or more, are more than twice as likely to participate in travel and club sports than those from households making less than 50,000. So it goes on in that vein and it says the setup is inefficient at identifying and developing athletic talent because it pushes aside children from low income and single parent homes. It's also often no fun for kids whose play comes to

resemble unpaid work and miserable for parents whose nights and weekends become an endless series of training sessions, tournaments and trips to Dick's sporting goods. It sounds miserable. I guess much like the minor league system, you're not necessarily replacing people who are just operating things out of the good of their hearts and altruistically and selflessly and effectively. And so the article comes down as like, this seems bad, but also it's replacing a bad system and it's not necessarily worse and time will tell, right? And the private equity people make the case that like, well, if we can make it more affordable for

everyone, then we'll basically have more business and more clients and people want to play sports longer and it'll be better for everyone, right? And we have kids too, et cetera, et cetera, right? So I don't know that this is conclusively, it's going to just tear down new sports and chew up a bunch of kids and toss them out and try to make the most money they can off of them. But making money is the goal. It's not just developing the most kids into great athletes and having them have a great time.

So it's concerning. Yeah. And I think that like, look, I don't want to say that, you know, your neighborhood like rec centers, sport league is necessarily going to achieve a perfect blend of what I'm talking about, but I think it's fine for there to just be sports that you play because they're fun. And I feel just inherently nervous about, you know, making these spaces where kids can come together, maybe from disparate backgrounds and like engage in a common purpose and get to know one another and become friends and like have a good time making those spaces even more exclusive than they maybe already are. I think that the question isn't necessarily like, is the existing system good?

I'm sure the existing system has problems, but they are interested in designing the perfect system that optimizes for accessibility and bringing a bunch of different kinds of kids together and having them enjoy one another and make friends, their goal is to make money. So if you want to rejigger the existing system, awesome, let's go. But then like you want to bring community stakeholders to the table to help design what's new rather than like people who are trying to make money. You should just always be skeptical of private equity. It's just always worthwhile to be skeptical of private equity.

And it doesn't mean that it's gonna be bad every single time, but like go in with your skeptical hat on and then go from there. Yep, it's a good article and I think appropriately skeptical. So I will link to it and people can check it out. But yeah, the more I read about it and hear about it, and I did an interview with this on an episode when you were away back in 2022, episode 1860. If people want to hear more, this was about youth sports and travel ball and all of that private team

stuff, but not so much about the private equity ization, which has accelerated since then. And yeah, the more I hear about it, it's like, you know, if Sloan wants to be an athlete and play sports, great, I will support her in that. But if she doesn't, I might be relieved, you know, like, because it is expensive and it is a huge time commitment. And that's like, if you're serious about it, like if you want to get a scholarship or if you have pro aspirations or something, if, you know, if you're totally casual about it, I assume you could still in theory do that and just not take it too seriously. And so I think it's incumbent on the parents partly to not to like, you know, push their kids into something obviously, but if your kids want to do it, then of course you want

to support them. And then the pressure is on to go to all these tournaments and be on the road all the time. And then can you even do that? And do you have the bandwidth and like, you know, it depends on your work situation. And if you have a partner and what your partner does, do you have the combined income to make it feasible? And a lot of people and, you know, segments of society are just priced out. And then that is reflected in major league rosters, right? And that's not great. Well, and I think that just to close on this point, I think that it would be foolhardy,

and look, I don't have kids, but I was once, so I'll speak from my own experience. Kids, I think, don't always know what activity is going to resonate with them, and so I think part of what you want to do is make it easy to sort of dip in and out of stuff without it being financially burdensome to parents, because, I don't know, maybe your kid tries baseball or tap dancing or rock climbing or I don't know, chess and they're like, this is great. This

is the thing. Like I found my thing, my people, here's where I want to like devote my time away from school, but maybe they do it and they're like, this sucks. And then they want to try something else. And like, I think trying a bunch of different stuff is really valuable at that age for like a lot of reasons about interests and development and like meeting different kinds of people. And so it's just like, make it more, make it frictionless or as close to frictionless as possible. This is why we need to fund community centers. Like make this a community center,

community centers, they're great. Have you been to a community center lately? I went to a community center the other weekend because I had to pick up our, my neighbor couldn't use her like CSA box. And so I took it so that it wouldn't go to waste. And there was like, there were seniors doing martial art of some

stripe and there were kids doing story time and there were other kids and older people in the pool. It was beautiful, Ben. It was beautiful. I was like, this is my community and they're all here together and they're mingling intergenerationally and like they're doing a bunch of different stuff and it was, it was lovely. And yeah, man, those are great. It was nice, Ben. And they let the CSA like have a room to like give out their, you know, weird potatoes. They were weird. They tasted good though.

And of course all of this early specialization and professionalization of amateur sports leads to injuries, right? And workloads and max effort and showcases and all of that. So a lot of these pro sports problems have their roots in amateur sports. Okay, a nice antidote to that dystopian present of youth sports conversation, hopefully will be this next segment and interview

where we talk to Matthew DeSantis and Ramon Riesco of Bhutan Baseball and Softball, because it seems like there's a lot of playing for love of the game going on over there. It's effectively wild like Nolan, Ryan Wiles sometimes. All right, well, we are joined now by two guests. The first is Matthew DeSantis. He is the co-founder and chairman of the Bhutan Baseball and Softball Association. Hello, Matt.

Ben and Meg, thank you for having us. Really excited to chat today. Thanks for being here. And thanks also to Ramon Riesco, who is the executive advisor of the same organization. Hello, Ramon. Hello, it's nice to meet you guys. Well, it's great to have both of you.

Maybe we can start with the most basic question imaginable. Matt, could you tell our listeners a little bit about Bhutan for people who may not know it as well as you have come to know it? Bhutan is, in my opinion, one of the most special places on this planet. It's a country that's located in the Himalayas, in the eastern side of the Himalayas, north of India, south of Tibet, east of Nepal. It's been a country that's been guided by a very unique policy which was set by the fourth king, which is known as gross national happiness. And so this policy is a very pioneering strategy of development, which focuses primarily on the well-being of its people.

The core pillars of the philosophy are based around environmental conservation, cultural preservation, socioeconomic stability, good governance. So it's a very peaceful, harmonic place. You add to that just the beautiful scenery, incredible wildlife, and most importantly, the amazing people. And how did you end up there? I moved to Bhutan back in 2010, and it was supposed to only be a three-week visit, actually. My background was originally in technology, and so I was building computer systems shortly

after Bhutan had transitioned from a monarchy to the democracy that it is today, a constitutional monarchy. I just gratis in my free time while I was working with Accenture in the U.S. I started to build computer systems to support industry as they were developing into this new, I suppose this new form of development in Bhutan. There were emerging industries, so I started to help. That led to a three-week trip to go and meet people whom I had been working with, and I ended up falling in love with Bhutan. One of my first places that I spent a lot of time was the southern jungle, and that

really caught me, and I just fell in love with the place. So that's how I originally arrived there, but I've had dear friends from Bhutan that have dated back to my much younger years as well. So that's how you came to reside in Bhutan, but how did baseball come to reside in Bhutan? Baseball. So I was fortunate as a child to go to a boarding school called Chote Rosemary Hall and there one of my classmates was His Royal Highness Jigalukin Wongchuk, who was the second son of the fourth king to Bhutan. So I heard very much about these stories of

Bhutan as a young age, but His Royal Highness is the president of the Bhutan Olympic Committee. I grew up playing baseball, and that's how I grew a lot of community as a child in my town and a lot of friends and how I formed relationships with my closest family. And so the way that baseball began was I was assisting some projects shortly after arriving with the Bhutan Olympic Committee. And during that time, myself and Karma Dorji, who is the other co-founder of Bhutan Baseball and Softball Association, were pretty much sharing a cubicle together for quite a long period of time. And I'd keep talking to him about how it would be nice to play a little

baseball. And so on weekends, I'd go out with some friends and play a little bit. But it was after quite a bit of conversation that we decided to shoot a message out on the Bhutan Olympic Committee's Facebook page about how we'd be having a little event where we'd invite children to come and learn a new sport. And it was just really exciting to see it grow quickly from there. CB And we were hoping to be joined by Karma also, but he's in Australia now and we're dealing with a few time zones as it is, so we weren't able to coordinate that. But Ramon is here, who has also been instrumental

in your efforts. Ramon, you're in California. So how did Matt and Karma's initiative catch your eye and how did you get involved? Well, I mean, I was always interested in baseball. I'm a Padres season ticket holder, so I've been going to baseball my life, play the league. And I always found Bhutan really interesting. So it was around the time like when I was in college, like 2016, I decided to Google Bhutan baseball. And then the first thing that popped up was a small town article from Connecticut. That's how I read about Matt starting baseball on the ground up, just grassroots stuff.

So then I decided to email him because when I get an idea, I'll just shoot out emails to see what people say. And then I decided to email him because when I get an idea, I'll just shoot out emails to see what people say. And then Matt responded. So we started to go back and forward about ideas. I thought of just equipment, but it just kept going. And eventually he started having me take the lead on projects and they started to include me. So just from my bedroom, basically, especially during COVID, I just like spent all this effort

to build relationships for us because Matt was the ground person and I'm the one that kind of created the connections. Like this famous picture article was one of my ideas. I reached out to the reporter. So every big project, I had some part of it. I'm not the ground person like Matt, but I'm there. And obviously there's an appetite, there's a willingness to try new sports from the kids who are playing, but I know that despite that enthusiasm, there are challenges to starting

new leagues and new teams. So what are some of the roadblocks that baseball has faced in Bhutan? of the roadblocks that baseball has faced in Busan? We've had so many ups and downs, Meg. It's starting a sport from scratch, in my belief, anywhere is a very challenging thing to do. I mean, when we got on the field, it was just through the passion of the sport, and we really had no intention to ever build it. We never had intention to continue the camp

beyond the first week that it was, and it just kept growing and growing and growing. And so it's so challenging to build from the ground up. You know, just the most common challenges that you face are obviously equipment. We'd be shipping equipment all the way from the US most of the time to Bhutan, which while we were very fortunate to be able to find ways to source equipment, it's the shipping that becomes a huge challenge for us. Infrastructure, meaning where do we play every day? For the first, I'd say, four or five years or so, everything was played on a concrete slab. And that's when we were permitted to have access to it because it was other sports that are more organized

at the time would obviously have more authority to use it. And then third is just organizational support. And by that, I mean one, just finding the sustainability of operationally supporting your program. But second, which is equally or even more important is growing the talent so that you pass that bus test. So, you know, if something happens to one person that the game is still continuing. And with that, you really need good coaching and just giving the confidence that someone can learn to be a good coach because once you start developing coaches, then the game spreads.

On that point, I'm struck by the idea that I think we've all had the experience in the US of going to a baseball game with someone who is less familiar with the rules and having to figure out ways to explain a sport that we've been engaged with our whole lives and sort of have absorbed by osmosis almost the particulars of it. I'm curious sort of what that process was like coaching these kids who really didn't have much of a reference for baseball at all and sort of what you attribute their enthusiasm to because you could have brought anything to them, right? And it sounds like baseball really

resonated. So can you talk a little bit about sort of the coaching experience and then also what you think really grabbed these kids? I'm sure Major League Baseball would love to know the answer to the second because it is a perpetual source of anxiety for the folks in the league office. Well, just to start on that, I think Bhutanese naturally are very talented athletes because Bhutan is a very vertical place. You look at just the landscape of Bhutan and the just family activities for religious purposes. What you normally do on a weekend is you spend the time with your

family going on essentially a pilgrimage up the mountains until you reach a monastery where you give your prayers. And so you spend your whole life in a place where you just are a naturally born athlete. Now as far as getting the kids on the field and teaching the game, the kids just naturally wanted to be there. And so it wasn't really so much of having difficulty getting the kids on the field. Teaching the game also and maybe because of our nearness to India with cricket, Because of our nearness to India with cricket, we have those familiarities, but we found that the general techniques of kids, of being able to learn how to throw and hit, were picked up very quickly.

We'd have kind of a joke with our team that we were forming of adults in 2014 when we were preparing for some competitions, during practices we tell them that we were hitting ground balls harder at the time to the kids than we were to the adults because the kids are just so tough and they want to get in there and you know if one of them takes a ball off the stomach or something, maybe it's the personality of the kids in Bhutan, but there's all giggling. And so there's just such a joy of being around the game.

The thing that we really learned that is something that could be a huge detriment to development is if the coaches don't have the confidence that they need to go on the field and learn it themselves. And we're very fortunate that the coaches that we have do that. But we, you know, over our 15 year journey, that was one of the biggest challenges that we learned

is how do you give the confidence to coaches who are more adults and not kids jumping on the field so that they learn to be experts and feel that they're the experts of the game. Ramon, you mentioned a photo and that was how baseball Bruton was bought to my attention even though it's been going on for some time. It was that viral photo that served as the centerpiece of an MLB.com piece that Michael Clare wrote just about a year ago and this is baseball being played against the

backdrop of the great Buddha Nordinma statue. And it's absolutely beautiful. And of course, when I saw this, I wondered, is this where they usually play? Is this sort of staged? Is this just a photo op? What did it take to make this happen? So Ramon, can you tell us a little bit about how you got that idea and how that quickly spread and then I guess how Matt was able to take that photo as well? We were kind of inspired by Egyptian baseball in the sense that they always take photos in front of the pyramid. So I was like, hey, we need a photo too, like a cool location. And so this is what Matt came up with. It's not AI. A lot of people keep saying they are playing,

they are playing a pickup game there. Matt actually took it and he can explain how he got the kids there. It was a very rainy day and we were very worried because we only had one day to go and play and shoot and it just wouldn't stop raining. And so we didn't even know if we were going to make it up there. There's this long windy road up to the Buddha statue. And so we just started playing pickle and such on the way up and spent, I think, three hours or so on the way up to,

you know, and I was taking photos there. And I think at that time, I thought that that was gonna be the photo. And we ended up getting up to the top and started playing. And we were just really fortunate that the rain stopped for a little bit of time and a little sun came out of the clouds just enough. But to be honest with you, we took quite a few photos that day and we sent a collection of them to Michael Clare at MLB and he's the one who chose that photo. Did you have to get a special permit to play there that day? Was that difficult? Because I'm

imagining what the ground rules are here. You just hit one off the statue, is that gone or what? Or were there concerns about can we actually play safely here without damaging anything? BG We were quite far from the statue even though it might not appear that way. It's a very, very big area which is in front of the statue. And so we spoke to the proper people prior. And just to provide some context, if you do search on YouTube, there are all different things. There are people up there who have done music videos and, you know, and other things. So it's a public space. The only thing is that you shouldn't be doing anything that would be directed at the Buddha. So, for example, if we were hitting the baseballs toward that direction, I wouldn't personally feel comfortable doing that, but it was actually

from a side angle that we shot it. The monks also came out a little after and played around with us a little as well. So yeah. Yeah. I guess that'll teach you an opposite field stroke. Don't hit it towards the Buddha. People might have that in their backyards or something. Don't hit it that way because you might break a window or something. This is a little bit different, but same idea. So Ramon, it seems like your promotional plan paid off. That got a ton of attention, certainly came to my attention. And I guess one of the results of that maybe was the Hudson Valley Renegades event and the stateside trip that we're about to talk about. But what kind of attention did it generate and what difference, if any, did that make in your efforts to grow the game and find equipment and so forth?

No, yeah, I mean the attention was crazy. Like, my, I run the social media so it was getting flooded for like at least a week, just messages and likes and we were getting a lot of people reaching out to us, former players. Then obviously the Renegades was one, but at the time I didn't really think anything would happen for the Renegades one. I just thought, you know, oh, that's cool. Teams reaching out to us, maybe they'll send us equipment or something. The fact that it kind of spiraled into an actual trip, it was like, wow, that picture

really just kept with the catalyst for everything in our program. I mean, now when we pitch Bhutan baseball, we have the picture to bring up and it's like, this isn't a scam, this is a real country. It's been great, the pictures response. HOFFMAN So this is the high affiliate of the Yankees, the Hudson Valley Renegades, and you were able to bring over six young women, six young men. And this wasn't the only event, but there was a Bhutan event at the Renegades game. And I want to hear about the whole trip and all the other stops too, but whichever one of you would like to take the lead here, please tell us about how this trip came together. I know there were some hurdles and hiccups to overcome there with visas, etc. too.

Right. So when was this all really locked down and what did it end up looking like? KJ Yeah, I mean, we didn't know it was going to happen to like two, three weeks before with the visas. Originally, we were trying a way to get the visas that wasn't working. So we had to actually send the kids to New Delhi in India to get them personally. We got lucky that they met the ambassador and everything went well and no one got rejected. So once they got the tickets, it was just green light, get them to New York.

It's a 16 hour flight from New Delhi to New York, but they had a 10 hour layover and it's a two hour flight to Bhutan to New Delhi. And so, you know, once they finally arrived to New York, well, they were tired, obviously when we got to the hotel, got set up, the renegades were like, Hey, do you guys want to just go to a game? Like, it's not the Bhutan night, just like a regular game. And the kids were already enthusiastic. They wanted to go the same day they arrived.

So the kids were like, at the fields, their first time seeing professional baseball. That was a day we posted a picture of them meeting the mascots. They went crazy meeting the mascots. Some girls were crying and going crazy with them. But that was the first day and that just set the tone for the whole trip because everything was amazing for them. Everything that I take for granted as an American to them was just out of this world. Just being on the field, seeing a real field too. The next days we did, obviously we had a clinic, so they got to play with some of the players. So they had proper coaching for like the first time, not like the blind leading the blind

like usual. So they got a pitch in front of the coaches. The pitching coaches thought actually we did a really good job. They got to use a traject machine. So they got to bat off Shohei Otani, which is like their main favorite player. It's also the first time they've seen a 90 mile per hour fastball. So some of them got contact off, which was very good that they didn't all strike out. So the clinic was their favorite part of the whole trip, just playing baseball with pros,

hanging out with the renegades coaches and players. The players were there too, you know, watching, hanging out. Then obviously it led up to the Bhutan night where they wore those amazing jerseys. The jerseys was the Renegades idea. They, I mean, you know how we all know minor league promos, but these ones came out, you know, so beautiful with the flag, the dragon, the design. That's also how flag, the dragon, the design. That's also how they raised the money for this trip. This trip was all funded by the renegades. We have no money to send, you know, kids abroad.

Sure. And then obviously the big thing that was Yankee stadium, going to see a actual Yankee game going on the field. They got to go to a press conference with Aaron Boone and obviously me, Aaron Judge, Garrett Cole, Jazz Chisholm. They got the whole VIP experience at the Yankee Stadium that even stuff I've never done. They got to go on the field with the players before the first pitch. They call it the field of dreams, standing at each position and when the players come out, they meet them. standing at each position and when the players come out they meet them. So they were, I mean that was just incredible moment to see you know kids wearing

their the robes, the goes is what they call them in Bhutan, meeting Aaron Judge, Juan Soto at their position right before the first pitch. It's like just to think like a year ago they're playing on a grass field of rocks everywhere now they're on Yankee Stadium which is bigger than their own stadiums at home. So it's all new to them. It was just an incredible trip. I mean, there's just so many moments to pick apart. I don't know if Matt has any favorites. I think it was also special seeing the two anthems being played together. That was one of the really strong reflection points when I talked to the kids was how special

it was for them to be standing on the field during the anthem and share those two anthems with the players. You know, just the overall excitement of the kids throughout, just to give you some pretext, most of the kids who joined us were our kids of the Royal Bhutan Army. And they normally kind of stick together in groups because their parents work quite long hours and really wonderful, beautiful families in general in the Royal Bhutan Army community. And so, you know, we were just really fortunate

that we had 12 really good kids who came with us. Obviously there are so many more that we wish we could have brought as well, but having these 12 kids experience this and come back and be the ambassadors of the game is really special. And it was, as Ramon mentioned, their first time seeing a baseball field. It was actually all of their first time on a flight.

When we were in New York, we took the ferry down to the Statue of Liberty, and it was their first time on a boat. We took a subway ride, which was fun, our first time doing that. So it was just a lot of, you know, on and off the field, a lot of just joy throughout the whole week and excitement. The kids did a great job representing Bhutan. Now they're going home with the wisdom that they can carry and share and hopefully build multi-generational component of the game within the country. LW- Do you anticipate further collaboration either with the Renegades or with other

minor and major league teams? Because seems like this was a wonderful trip for everyone, right? Something that the team enjoyed as well. Yeah, I mean, with the Renegades, I think as for sure they're going to do it next year. I mean, it's going to go as long as they can keep fundraising for this. But I think this year was such a success that I think more people want to get on board for next year. So at least with the Renegades that was our goal is to make this continuously for an annual event. It's um you know no other minor league teams ever done this before but we've also been very lucky that the owners of the Renegades, the Diamond Sports Baseball Holdings, were big

supporters of this event and they also own a lot of other minor league teams so now we're hoping to you know now that we have this supporters of this event and they also own a lot of other minor league teams. Now that we have this template of an event of what we can do, bring kids, we're hoping that it can be replicated with other minor league teams around the country or maybe professional teams. No professional teams have reached out to us yet, but definitely some minor league teams are interested. I'm going to go and see one this week in Inland Empire, but hopefully other ones will be interested by this event and the publicity it's gotten. To add to that too, what the Renegades did here is so pioneering and it caught attention quick. I remember shortly after that announcement was made, Major League Baseball headquarters,

some of the people internal to there were just speaking about how what the renegades are doing is something that they've never seen before in Major or Minor League Baseball. And so, you know, we're very grateful that we were able to be a part of this first project, but there are so many other programs out there that are doing such amazing work that we've synced up with over the years or that we watch,

who have all the same challenges that we've always had and that we still do have. And we're just kind of hopeful that this creates this new agenda within the minor and major league baseball system where what the Renegades did was they recognized that the love for baseball was strong within the Hudson Valley, but they went to one of the farthest valleys across the world in Thimphu Valley in Bhutan and invited people to their valley. That cross-cultural exchange and that sharing the love of the game going beyond their own valley themselves is something that if it continues in the direction we hope it will,

can be replicated across so many different stadiums across the country and hopefully with so many countries. Yeah, I think one of the reasons I'm so heartened by this success is not only that, hey, now a lot of kids and people are getting to play baseball and you're increasing the gross national happiness, I suppose, right? And international happiness at this point, but also that it speaks to baseball's continued appeal. Just because I always question, I mean, is baseball popular in the US because it arose at a particular place at a particular time and divorced from that cultural and historical context?

Would it have caught on the same way? And of course, people are always fretting about baseball dying. They have been for more than a century now and declining popularity, etc. You might think, oh, this is just a vestige of its former glory and that's why anyone continues to care about baseball, but then it continues to find purchase around the world and becomes a global game. And it's introduced somewhere like Bhutan where there's no real baseball tradition. And it organically, naturally develops a following, which says to me that baseball is a great game. That it's not just a historical quirk that it happened to catch on when it did and where it did, but that it can continue to

catch on. that people can be sort of the Johnny Appleseeds of baseball and those seeds can still take root. So it sounds like if anything, you were almost surprised by how quickly it did catch on and grow and maybe you could give us a sense now of how many people are playing baseball and softball in the country. I mean, I know that the population is only a little over 700,000 in Bhutan, right? So what's the organization like right now in terms of the levels of play and the number of people participating and what are your ambitions? So we have about 6,000 registered players in country. We have the Bhutan Baseball and Softball Association, which was formed in 2020, which is the governing

body of baseball in Bhutan. So there's a small staff that supports that. And that's how the majority of all of the work has been flowing so far from equipment and fundraising and everything has been with that party. In addition to the Bhutan Baseball and Softball Association we also have six independent clubs which have all formed organically and they're all privately organized and most of them are kids who were playing way back in say 2013 when we were doing earlier camps and they loved the game and they moved to different districts and brought it with them. So we've been really fortunate that it's

organically grown in that independent state as well which is really imperative for the growth of the game because we have limited resources ourselves to say extend into those districts. And then within Thimphu itself only right now we have youth leagues that range everywhere from 18 under to 10 and under. We normally run about four per year and those are affiliated with the schools in Thimphu co-ed leagues for now. And we're hoping to soon be able to leak into the collegiate level scene in Bhutan with the sport. One of our biggest challenges is just every single week we receive messages through, say, our Facebook channel from children from the other side of Bhutan from the east which is a little more of a

difficult area to access and we receive messages quite often from kids asking if they can, when they can play baseball and so you know while it's a it's a very bittersweet thing to receive because it's great to see that kids across the country really want to play, but it's been 10 years now and we still haven't been able to get it everywhere in the country. The growth of the game is organic, but league play is really important and so is building that multi-generational relationship so that you have parents falling in love with the game with their kids and kids falling in love with the game with their parents. Because it's one thing for us to all get on the field or for a kid to go on the field

with his friends and love the game because his friends play it. But it's another thing to have a baseball that was your father's or your mother's or your older sister's handed to you and passed down to you. And then you grow that relationship with the game through your parent or your sister. And what you're really doing is growing that relationship with them. And so that is the key to really building the sustainability of the sport is having that love shared between family of the game. What is the main athletic competition historically? What have been the biggest and most popular sports in Bhutan? So there are traditional sports, which are archery and a form of darts called kuru.

And then, again, through all of the guidance of His Royal Highness, there have been other sports which have become increasingly popular in country in addition to all of the work that's gone behind archery and kuru. But that's soccer, football is really popular in Bhutan. There's a basketball culture that's existed for quite some time. Swimming is becoming very popular. So there are all these new avenues for sport that didn't exist before. You also play baseball five, right? B five, which is kind of a variant

and offshoot of baseball and softball, which I don't know if we've discussed on the podcast, but it's kind of a five on five game, right? So is that a little easier to do in a place where space is limited or you might not have a full field to use at all times? So can you explain how that game works and what part it plays?

Baseball five is basically the foot so of baseball is what the goal is. It's kind of like a concrete square. So it takes up less space too than a baseball field and they hit it with their hands. So they, um, they swing with the hand, just hit it. And it's a pretty fast paced game. Um, it's something WBSC, the kind of the FIFA equivalent for baseball is really interested in promoting. Because, you know, bats are very hard, they get to a lot of countries. But it's they just want to get kids learning the rules of baseball. I mean, it's the similar rules

in a sense. It's just a smaller field and very fast paced. I don't know if Matt has anything more. It's also a great program for schools. as you mentioned Ben, it's something that can be played in small space and you can play it on a court or a concrete area. And it really helps to learn the early foundation of the hand-eye coordination that you need and the general rules of the game. And Ramon, in Michael's original article last year, there's a quote from you, the pitch I always tell people is I think Bhutan has the potential to actually be a baseball country. I always compare it to Curaçao. It's small in population, but it's got the demand. So,

we've seen many professional players and some stars come out of Curaçao, of course. Is that an ambition or is that a way to judge success if there were professional players coming out of Bhutan or is that not really on the radar as you just try to grow the game? Might that just be a natural outgrowth of baseball becomes popular and organized enough there? I mean, would that be something that you would see as a sign of success or a goal for the program? Yeah, I mean, obviously short term, we're not there yet, but long term, definitely our goal is to become the curaçao of Asia is how I always pitch it. Just creating talent. If we can get one person on the professional level, I think it'd lock in the whole country into baseball. I mean, the other sports have strong foundations, but Bhutan has not really produced

a lot of professional athletes around the world. But yeah, I mean, our goals is obviously to get into the world baseball classic. I mean, if we can beat Pakistan, that's our region, that would let us to at least go to the qualifiers. But definitely just getting kids into college baseball or professional baseball anywhere in the world, Japan to Europe. That's just the ultimate end goal is to become a talent producing region near Asia. I mean, Asia has a lot of baseball, but in the South Asia, India, Pakistan, it's been much harder to develop talent. But I think Bhutan has a real potential where baseball can actually become the main sport

of the country, which you don't have this potential in the other neighboring countries. We have high demand from the people. The government is super interested in it, which is not true in a lot of these regions. So we're just basically a package ready to send. We just need some help and support and then baseball can just, you know, start running. Two other pieces to add to that is just in general, in baseball development in Asia in general, there's such a big swing happening right now. And I think that does have a lot

to do with Otani and all of the other major league players who have recently created a lot of buzz about baseball in the East. But also, you know, a lot of our players learn the game through Japanese anime, which are, you know, baseball related Japanese anime TV shows that they watch growing up. And so a lot of kids just in the whole region know about baseball and they're excited to try it. And so that's one thing, but then the other thing as to why we feel that Bhutan could potentially develop into a real hub for baseball development.

And obviously, as Ramon mentioned, it will take time and you do need, you know, the interest to be able to build something like that, because, you know, we certainly don't have the infrastructure that we'd need for that form of talent development right now. However, the key, in my opinion, and Ramon semi-hinted at at this is the governance. We have good governance in Bhutan. We have stable governance and we have a place that you know that loves sport and so there's great opportunity there for building a space where potentially it could someday serve as a hub for Bhutanese baseball players and other baseball players who could develop and grow.

And if our listeners want to help further that goal, are there things that they can do to support your teams and Federation? Yeah, so you could follow us on social media at Bhutan Baseball. We're on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. If you're interested in donating, you can go to our website, BhutanBaseball.org or on our social media.

We have links to donations usually pinned to the top of them on Instagram. You have to click the link. They don't let you post links, but definitely if you're interested, you can also reach out to us on email, butanbaseballatgmail.com or just go through our website. We have a contact form. CB I know Shohei Otani gave away a lot of gloves to Japanese school children. So maybe if he can find out that they're hitting against him via trajectory, maybe he'll donate some stuff, send some stuff Bhutan's way. And it would be great if you could get a dedicated field for everyone to use as well. One last question I had, it occurs to me that baseball

is a little bit different everywhere it's played. Every kind of culture has its own brand of baseball. It's kind of like Darwin's finches. They start from a common ancestor and then they evolve a little bit different, different beaks and different sizes and shapes based on their environment. Is there anything to baseball in Bhutan that is unique or singular to Bhutan? I saw some videos that Michael posted from the Renegades game and the practice of home plate flips, so not bat flips, but people flipping as they near home plate and summer salting onto the plate, which I don't know that I've seen that before. Maybe the Savannah bananas do it, but is there anything that's arisen independently there

that we might not recognize or that we should perhaps import? Well, if the Savannah bananas would like to have a day where we can see who can have the best home run trot, I'm sure we can come up with some good ones from Bhutan. But I think there's two things to answer with that. First is just from the love of the game, and then second is more of a technical approach. But Bhutanese kids are very competitive. It's just naturally, I think with the sport, you are competitive, you'd like to win.

But I think more than anywhere else that I've seen baseball played, and I used this word before, but there's this joy on the field that's shared between the two teams. So even though both teams are there wanting to win, there's such a strong sense of this interconnectedness between the two teams and the joy of being there together. And so, you know, when someone does well, both teams are happy and cheering for them. You know, when something goes wrong, they're all there for them. There have been moments where maybe there's a play that goes wrong and all of the kids together are enjoying the moment.

And so, while there is a lot of competition and there's interest to really develop to be the best baseball player and to go out and win the games, there is this interconnectedness between the two teams. Now, as far as from a technical perspective, we do have the nearness of cricket, as I mentioned. So we do have players who are just fundamentally pretty sound from the start, very agile, very quick, and very grounded and strong. And so, originally when we started playing,

we saw a lot of good promise with our hitters, and we actually thought that hitting was our forte. But just for example, when we had the Renegades Day, I think it was our pitchers who grew the biggest buzz. All of the Renegades pitchers were just amazed and really cheering on the kids when they were, their velocities were pretty hard and they were hitting their spots.

Although I don't want to take away from the hitters because we did make, I think we made contact of Shohei Otani if he's listening six times. So, but yeah, so, you know, I think that the pitching has really developed over the past few years. It was really special to see all the Renegades players really chirping about the pitching. HOFFMAN And I read that the Renegades pitching coach taught some of your pitchers the sweeper, so it's only going to get harder for the hitters over there now. What else is new? That's how things go around the world. That's right. Well, thanks so much guys for your efforts. It's been really fun to follow this from

afar and I'm glad the trip went so well. And it's been a great pleasure talking to you. So we wish you the best with your efforts. Thanks, Matt. And thanks, Ramon. Thanks guys. We're super grateful. It's been such a humbling experience to have all of the kids experience this over the past few weeks. And we look forward to having many more kids have opportunities both on and off the field with this beautiful game. All right. Well, after we finished recording, Matt mentioned that he was a little nervous. We were going to quiz him about advanced stats in Bhutan baseball. They haven't quite gotten to that point yet. They've kept some basic back of the baseball card stats, but no Woba for Bhutan.

That's OK. First things first, we're not just a stats podcast. We like talking about history and community and culture and nonsense and silliness. We do a little bit of everything. That's why we're effectively wild. Also, two updates. The Angels did put a graphic on the scoreboard for Otani's first played appearance. It said, welcome back Shohei Otani and listed some of his accomplishments as an angel. He got cheers from the crowd. Also, the White Sox lost. They got shut out 9-0 by the Orioles. That's their 12th straight loss. And as they dropped another game, a new fun fact dropped.

According to ESPN Stats and Info, they're the third team in history to lose 12 straight decisions three separate times in a season, along with the 1899 Cleveland Spiders and the 1889 Louisville Colonels. So the first in the modern era. Maybe they'd do better in Bhutan. Meg and I put a bonus pod up for Patreon supporters this past weekend. It is our 34th bonus episode, all of which are available to you immediately. If you sign up at the second lowest tier of

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I worry what you just heard was, give me a lot of bacon and eggs. Wait, wait, I worry what you just heard was, give me a lot of bacon and eggs. What I said was, give me all the bacon and eggs you have. But without the bacon, so more like this. Give me all the eggs you have. You can access that bonus episode and many others, along with lots of other perks, by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild.

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