PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Banister on the Bench

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are joined by senior editor for Last Word on Sports Evan Thompson to discuss his new book, A Complete History of the Major League Baseball Playoffs Volume 1, the D-backs hiring Jeff Banister as their new bench coach, the A's moving to Las Vegas, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as the mayor of PHNX. Apparently it's still in question despite being appointed that. I was going to say, I thought it was official. One and only ESMO, right? So yeah, that does make it official. But that voice you heard, of course, is my vice mayor, which wouldn't, if I wasn't the mayor, how could he be the vice mayor?

But the vice mayor, my friend, my co-host, it's Thunderstick Jesse Friedman. bringing back in Tori we trust I see there that's right that's right I like this higher that we're going to talk about today and I'm excited for the direction of this team Jesse but of course this show is brought to you by the draft king's sportsbook app go download the draft king sports book at now get your use your code of pHNX and simply for betting $5 on any NFL game you will get $200 in free bets as long as the team you bet on wins and you know of course I've been trying to steer you guys in the right direction at times. And this is not a great weekend. But I recommend you go out there, give it all. And I think you're going to get your $200 in free bets. There's some sure things out there, I assure you. But excited to have you guys here. Of course, like I said, I'm joined by Jesse. Today's a big day. We're going to talk about the Arizona Diamondbacks hiring a new bench coach. But we have a guest today, Jesse, and I'm excited to bring him in. Of course, he is our friend from The Last Word on Sports. It's the one and only Evan

Thompson, Evan, come on in. What's up, buddy? Hey, guys. Nice to be here. Thanks for having me. Hey, great to have you excited about your new book that you have coming out. I know, knowing you personally, we've been friends for a while now, and I know how excited you are to get this out. It is literally the history of the Major League playoffs. Absolutely. There weren't any in existence, and now we have one volume of what will be at least and eventual six. There we go. I like it. I like it. And that's, that's, that's very, it's very positive. You're like, we got one out there, but there's going to be six. And we need it. We need baseball to be,

I think, you know, put into a form like this. I think it's, it's weird because baseball history is so important. And so many people know so much about it. I still find, though, at times, it's not easy to to find this information even with, you know, the internet and all of these, all of this information we have available to us. That's right. Fortunately, it's easier to find it for baseball than for the other sports, especially because back before television broadcasts, the only avenue anyone had to get baseball results was the newspaper.

So the newspaper writers back in the 40s and earlier were very detailed and what they wrote down about the game, not just in their articles, but they would have a batter by batter list usually. So that helped a bit, quite a bit. Well, baseball is just, I mean, Jesse and I talk about all the time, right? Baseball is big on stats and the little numbers. And I mean, even stats that Jesse hates that I bring up, where I bring up like really small sample size and try to act like what I just said.

He does it all the time. All the time. A guy will go two for four and I'll somehow talk about, you know, know, that being an actual batting average or whatever. But, no, I mean, this has been an exciting world series. This postseason has been really thrilling. I was, I'm still shocked to find out. And I'm fact-checking this with you again because I still can't believe it.

This was the only time that the Dodgers and the Giants have faced each other in the postseason? Correct, but there is a caveat. Okay. They faced each other in a National League tiebreaker twice prior to divisional play. And tiebreakers count as part of the regular season. Okay. So this wasn't the first time they faced each other with advancing in the postseason on the line. Right.

Although the two previous times they played each other, it was for the pennant. That makes sense. That makes sense. It's just still, it's crazy to me. And again, that was a great series. It's great to see the National League West go down. in flames if the diamond backs can't be there. What can I say? I'm petty. I'm petty. I'm not, I'm not ashamed to admit it. But we have big diamondbacks news to talk about guys, and that is that

the debacks have hired today, Jeff Bannister as their bench coach, which I honestly was a little flabbergasted by, right? And the reason why I say that is because I think it's such a great hire. It is such the opposite of their former bench coach and the amount of experience that this individual is going to be bringing to Tori LaBolo. I also understand that he is going to be taking on the role that Robbie Hammock played also involving the run game and catchers and stuff. So it doesn't sound like they're going to replace two positions. It sounds like they're just going to roll both of those positions up under Bannister. but this is a man that's managed the Rangers from 2015 through 2018, led them to the AL West Division title twice. He was named American League Manager of the Year, first guy to ever be named Manager of the Year with having no prior actual managerial experience before his first year as manager in 2015.

So I just, I really like his experience. And I am, again, just kind of amazed that the Diamondbacks were able to get somebody of his caliber to fill this. position. It's pretty amazing, Derek. I am, once again, the diamond back seemed to have, seemed to be doing pretty well for themselves here. We were pretty happy with Joe Mather. I'm not sure where your, where your take was there. But the diamond backs appear to have gone two for two so far. And I say that with caution, because, I mean, when was the last time we looked at somebody they hired and were like, oh my gosh, this is a horrible move. Right. I feel like there's always sort of an optimism that that comes with hiring new coaches. Generally, at least from a

fan's perspective, people are more just ready to see whoever was there before gone more than anything else. The fact that anyone else is in the position now, a lot of, a lot of times is viewed positively no matter what. But yeah, I mean, this is a guy who has a lot of managerial experience. Tori Lavello was very adamant yesterday and saying that that was not a requirement, that the Diamondbacks looked at, you know, candidates who didn't necessarily have that much experience in the managerial role. But Evan, I'm curious, your thoughts. What are, what are things that stuck out to you in his presser yesterday?

I found him really impressive. Well, his resume is quite strong. And like you said, he was the first American League manager ever to get manager of the year without having any prior experience. By the way, Tori repeated that feat in the National League two years later. I just wanted to point that out. Yes, right. I remember that.

And again, that's something that made me think of them having kind of that bond. Right. And see, what I really liked about it was that when he was in Pittsburgh as the bench coach under Clint Hurdle, Pittsburgh's core, they had a few veterans like A.J. Burnett, they had running on fumes, Rod Barajas, no offense, Rod, if you're watching. But, I mean, he's about to retire. But they also had. that was when Andrew McCutcheon was stepping into his prime.

That was Starling Marte's breakout season. They had a bunch of other younger guys there, a very young, Josh Harrison, for example. And he got them developed and on their way to being solid major, like strong major league players, got some of them paid too. And then when he went from there to Texas, he had some young players there, such as Delano DeShields and Rudy.

at Odor and Elvis Andrus was just entering his prime. But he also had some seasoned and in some cases grizzled veterans like Adrian Beltray, the future Hall of Famer. And, you know, Josh Hamilton was back. He was still putting up some good numbers and all that as well as Shinsu Chu was a veteran. So he had to figure out when he got to Texas how to get the young guys to work with the veterans. We have that with the Diamondbacks right now. If you look at Rojas, Carson Kelly, Taylor Whitener, Josh Van Meeter, who else, Dalton Varshow, all these guys.

The oldest guy I just named off is 27. But we also have guys like Nick Ahmed, David Peralta, Madison Bumgarner, who are veterans that they need to get good production from. So Bannister's experience in Texas getting the young and the old to mesh together should translate well here. I agree. and I think that that's something that excites me. Most recently, he was in charge the director of player development for the University of Colorado baseball program.

So again, the theme here is that the Arizona Diamondbacks have made it no secret that they're going to turn to their farm system to develop these young guys into major league players. And a guy like Bannister is the exact guy that I want in this position. He spent 29 years with the pirates as both a player and a coach in their major and minor league system. That's just a wealth of experience. And again, his ability and his commitment to basically turn, you know,

turn young guys from being guys with potential into guys that reach that potential seems to be like an expertise of him. It excites me to no end right now that he is the man that the Diamondbacks got for a bench coach. I think back to Tyler Gilbert's no-hitter. And I have talked on several shows about how much I feel like Mike Fedders contributed to that no-hitter. It's one of the reasons why I hope that Fedders is a name that they consider for their new pitching coach. I think he could be outstanding in that position with his abilities to build relationships and to know baseball like he does. I mean, I still think of his amazing stare-down on the mound when he, you'd,

used to pitch himself, right? But Levello talked about, there it is, Levello talked about how much that night, Fedders basically convinced him to leave Gilbert in and to give him this opportunity. I think LeVolo needs vocal, you know, staff, a vocal staff with experience. I think he is an open, he's not a dictator. I think he's someone that's open to collaboration, right? I'm thinking, you know, I'm thinking of Ted Lasso's coaching staff, you know, and he needs to put a Roy Kent around him and he needs to have the whole staff there, right? And I think to bring in guys that can not only develop players, but that can also assist LaVolo in just coaching, in managerial decisions, in, you know, in helping him get better every day and reach the next level as a

manager, not just the players, but level Lovolo too, right? Right. Well, I, yeah, go for it, Evan. Look on, I know this is fiction, but Captain Picard on Star Trek, would he have been as good of a captain without Commander Riker? I love it. Yes. You know, I mean, you look at the Yankees during their glory run in the late 90s. Joe Tori is a good manager, but what really, really solidified that staff was bringing Don Zimmer in as the bench coach. Yeah, yeah, you know, exactly. You need another set of eyes and ears.

You need all that there. You need different personalities. like Jeff Bannister, I don't know if you have seen videos of him get and run from games. He's a lot more fiery of a personality than Tori is when he gets worked up over a call. So it'll be nice to have that yin and yang type thing in the dugout. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I love yesterday, really like to your point, I love yesterday how Tori talked about

just the importance of having someone who kind of balanced him out in a way. Yeah. So yeah, like exactly what you're saying. Like they have different personalities. And I think that really suits Tori well. Tori even said it was funny. He said something like, I can be kind of boring sometimes. He said something along those lines.

And Jeff is not, right? Like, Jeff is a little bit, he's obviously a little bit more emotional. I believe he said, I'm so boring. I make myself want to throw up in my own mouth. I think that's what he said. That's close to a direct quote, yes. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. That's what he said.

And I love him for it because we know that's not the truth. Tori is a fascinating person and he is not boring. but I get where he's coming from as far as, like, wanting somebody that you feel is different from you, right? He's almost like two level-headed almost. Like, he's very, like, just so calm and so, which is a great thing. But at the same time, there are, there's room for guys like Jeff Bannister who, you know, maybe in the midst of a hot streak or a cold streak or whatever it is to pour a little bit more emotion into, you know, into the clubhouse.

And not that Tori never does that, but that's something that's going to come more naturally to Jeff than it probably would to him. I agree 100%. And Tori said something yesterday also that was interesting to me. He talked about not being able to be like the player's friends anymore, right? And I think I'm not sure if he said anymore or if he just said I can't be the player's friends. But I feel like he's always been a very friendly player manager. And I think that's something that might have changed a bit for him over his time, right? Making some of these decisions and some of the stuff you have to do as a manager, you kind of have to distance yourself from these players as much as you want to be there for them and be

like family like he's always described it as a family he's always said that he felt about the players in the clubhouse like they were his kids and maybe that's not the best approach sometimes as a manager you know maybe maybe you can't think of them like that because of the tough decisions that you have to make as a manager i wonder if this approach you know might be a change considering the amount of young guys that are going to be coming up and and maybe Maybe it's about the way that he is going to handle himself around these guys. But I feel like players have always loved it, you know. I don't think that's going to change just because he's not buddy, buddy with him.

But I could see, you know, maybe at times LeVolo having that, like, I might have gotten too close with these guys or, you know, some of these decisions bothered me because of how, you know, how much I, how close I grew to this player. or that player. I don't know. It just seems like we've seen a change in him a bit over the course of this very difficult season in regards to, you know, his demeanor in the dugout and just some of the way he's talked about players and talked about this entire situation. I don't know. What do you think, Evan? I feel like I'm not close enough to the team on a daily basis to make that kind of judgment. But I mean, in some ways, it kind of makes sense. I mean, Tori has certainly evolved over the years. He's not the same guy he was back in 2017.

But I mean, like, I still mostly view him as a player's manager as a guy who, you know, sticks up for his players through thick and thin. I don't think Derek is saying he's not that. Yeah, I just think, I think it might be the actual relationships, though. Or again, like just how close he's gotten with players on this team in the past, you know, I don't know. I think his exact words were I can't be their friend all the time. Yeah.

And so, um, you know, by having Jeff there who managed himself, uh, maybe Tori can, you know, have Jeff be more of their friend and he is more of the distant principal. You know, yeah, when you get a good cop bad cop.

Yeah. You have a good cop bad cop. Um, I mean, I think back to, uh, the way Herb, uh, Brooks ran the 1980 U.S. men's hockey team.

He told the players, I'll be your coach. I won't be your friend. That was what his chief assistant was for, Kirk Patrick or Craig Patrick? Yeah, Craig Patrick. So maybe it's along those lines. The other thing that will be nice about having Jeff in there.

Tori and Jeff may deliver the exact same message, but if you hear it 44 times from Tori, you know, it starts to ring hollow. You hear it once from Jeff, it suddenly clicks. You know, that, that happens all the time too. No, that's totally true. I think we all probably have mentors in our lives that said the exact same thing. Somebody else said it, you know, to us in the past or our parents said to us or whatever. but because it came from somebody we respected or somebody that put it in a way that just made us

made a click in our minds, you know, that that could very well be it. You know, we were talking, you know, we were, again, I like Joe Mather a lot. I like that hiring and, you know, he was talking about, you know, simplifying, you know, the approach of baseball and hitting. And it's, it seems so simple, right. It's, it really does. but it reminds me of a I think it was a like an investment firm commercial but it was making a metaphor about how much advice we get in life and it was showing a guy trying to swing a golf club while thinking of all the advice people had given him about how to swing a golf club and all of those things were happening to him so like all of a sudden he heard a voice that was like swing it like you're swinging a garden hose and then another voice it's like stand like you're riding the back of an elephant.

And like all of a sudden, he's swinging in a garden hose while he's like riding the back of an elephant and keeping his head down while also keeping his head up. And all of this stupid stuff that people tell you that I can contradict you and just confuse you. I think that I think of that with some of these players with, you know, just being on the mound and getting sometimes as a pitcher the amount of information they get or as a hitter, the amount of information that they get instead of just simplifying the game to. throwing this ball in this box or hitting this ball with this stick, you know. But again, God bless Paul Goldschmidt for sticking to his guns and always telling us that he was just going out there to try to hit the ball hard. I appreciate it. And here's something you guys can appreciate. You can go to Draft Kings right now.

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And also, I want you guys to go sign up for the, you know, go PHNX. com. I'll tell you a little secret. One of the three of us here is a member, and it's not Jesse and I. So shout out to Evan for being one of our family members over on go phnx.com. And you can too, either with the annual subscription option, which will get you a free t-shirt over at the PHNX locker, or you can get the month-to-month option, and you'll get your first month for just 50 cents. Try it out. If you like it, it's $8.99 after that. And as I said in the past, I tried to say it was one caramel i still believe maybe a grande carmel macchiato costs about nine dollars but i'm not i'm not up to date on my star book prices but by jesse and i a cup of coffee each uh per month and

there's your subscription costs uh you can jump on our discord with us and and chat about baseball baseball is going to be over tonight i have a feeling i have no idea what the score is in the game right now i think that i could be wrong about that uh but i just feel like tonight might be the night for the Braves to close it out. We'll see, though. More baseball, the better. I'm excited either way, either for the Braves to close it out or for this to go to seven games. But this has been a fun postseason. And we have been writing about it. We've been writing about some of the stuff that's been going on in the postseason. I kind of kick some dirt on the Dodgers a bit. Also, Jesse and I have been writing about these hirings that we've had lately. And most importantly, on Thursday this

week. We are going to have Jeff Bannister, the new bench coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks right here, believe it or not on this podcast. He's not going to be in studio with me. And that's completely understandable because few people want to be. But he will be on the show with us. I don't even want to be in studio. I know. I know. Jesse came on one time, said, not for me and went back to Seattle. Maybe he got dressed up as a pinata. I would have taken me. I gave you a chance to hit me and you lightly tapped me. This is not my fault. You could have enjoyed yourself. That could have been a viral video, Jesse, and you chose

to go light. At least do it in slow motion or something. I know, right. Yeah. Thank you. But again, go go be a member. Become one of our members. Again, we call you guys members because you're family members and we really enjoy the support. Thank you. I can't

thank you enough. But okay, let's talk about your book, Evan, because I, like, first of all, I'm excited. It's a beautiful book. It's, it's wonderfully detailed and I am incredibly proud of you for getting this out. But I wanted to ask you first, what made you decide? Was it simply the lack of of this being on the market or available that made you decide? Or was this something more to you than that? There's a good story behind that,

Derek, you're not surprised. You know me. Not at all. I know. I know. I just, I can say, Evan, how's the weather outside? And you're going to give me a good story. So let's hear. Okay. So it actually was, September 28th, 2011. And you know I memorized dates for things, but this isn't just some random date. What happened that night was so memorable that Fox Sports actually made a special out of it called One Crazy Night in Baseball. That was the night where going into the final day of the regular season, the wild card in both leagues had not been decided yet. And there were four games that ended within an hour of each other that determined the wild card. That was, the night where you had the Cardinals and the Astros, you had the Braves and the Phillies. Braves were leading on the wild card. But if the Phillies beat the Braves and the Cardinals beat the Astros, the Cardinals would get the wild card. So they were tied, actually.

Then you had in the American League, the Yankees had clinched the division. They were playing the race in Tampa, took a comfortable lead in the eighth inning. And then the race had that massive comeback. And at the same time, the Red Sox, who had completely had the wheels come off in September, we're playing the Orioles in Baltimore. If the Red Sox won and the Reyes won, or if both teams lost, they'd have a playoff for the wild card. But if one team won and the other lost, then the winner would progress.

Well, during the rain delay in Baltimore, the Red Sox were ahead, the Reyes came back and won. Then the Red Sox blew the game and the Reyes made the wild card. So after all this ended, and like I said, those four games ended within an hour of each other. I was just like, I have some good books on the World Series. I need to have a game by game history of the playoffs. I'm going to go order one on Amazon right now. And I sat down and I was like, there isn't one.

That's not acceptable. Me as a fan as well as a historian, that's not acceptable. Well, Judy Blume once said, I'm sorry, not Judy Blum, Beverly Cleary, who recently passed away, once said. And then Maya Angelou echoed, if the book you want to read is not on the shelf, you must write it. There you go. There you go. So I got that idea then. Took a while to get everything going.

And then about three years ago, I really put the nose to the grindstone and just got it done. And volume one, thank you. Well, I'll tell you, a lot of people come up with an idea like that and then never pursue it. Right. So, I mean, I really find that pretty incredible that it, I found it incredible that it took that long and that you stuck through it through that process. because that's a lengthy process. It's a long book. It's like 350 pages.

Is that what it is? Let's see here. You don't even know off the top of your head? Come on, Edd's 460. 460. I could probably ask you Nick Ahmed's batting average from this season and you would know it without looking it up. But I'm not, you don't know how many pages in your book. Come on.

I went blank because I'm on. I'm not as used to it as you guys are. By the way, the Braves are ahead. nothing right now. Hey, there is. There's an update. There's an update. That's an exciting update. According to Jesse Friedman's law of baseball, that means it's over and the Braves have won. That's what that means. Oh, my gosh. I would say it's over now, but my, my colleagues at last world on sports who are Braves fans have pointed out that I am doing very well with reverse hexes this series. So, all right. Yeah, I won't say that it's over because they'll get very mad because

the last three times have said that. I'm sure they will. Last game, it kind of looked like it was over, too. So let's not get you out of ourselves here. For sure. The Astros are a very good baseball team. Let's remember that. They're an incredible baseball team. And the thing is, is that they have the experience, right? I mean, that's one thing I was going to ask. And I wanted to get your thoughts just in general on these playoffs. What are, what's your assessment as a historian and as somebody that wrote this book on the history of the playoffs? What is your assessment of this year's playoffs? We've seen some cool things. We've definitely seen some neat things. We've seen some surprises. This was the fur only in the divisional era, I believe this was the sixth time that the defending champion won 100 games. And they didn't even, they didn't win the pennant.

So, I mean, that shows you how hard it is to repeat. Yeah. You know, Derek and I were, I'm a little bit older than Derek, about a year older than Derek. Actually, a year and a day older than Derek, but anyway, we're both in our early 40s. And in our entire lifetimes, we've had two back-to-back champions, the 92-93 Blue Jays, then the 98 through 2000 Yankees.

That's it. It's really hard to do. There has not been a back-to-back national league champion since 75, 76. And they were the first one since 1921, 1922. There have only been three ever in the national league. So it's really hard to repeat. Yeah. You know, so we've seen that this year.

And, you know, the people saying, oh, they can't win in a full seat. give me a break. They had a lot of stuff go weird this year. I mean, and they still won 106 games for crying out loud. Right. So, you know, I mean, and the, the Giants won 107, which is the team record. And they didn't even make the NLCS. So, you know, we had 300 game winners in the league this year, and none of them won the pennant. So, I mean, that's just bizarre. But we've had that. We had the, Ray's Red Sox series became only the second series ever in any postseason World Series or or Pennant playoff where the winning team made the last out of the series. Let me rephrase that. The last play of the series was an out by the winning team because the Red Sox ended it with a sacrifice fly.

That's only happened one other time ever. And it was also the Red Sox 1912 World Series. Larry Gardner sack flyoff, Christy Matheyson. But anyway. See? Jesse, how you feel about that one? I feel fine. Is that circumstantial or no, that's not?

I was wondering if that's a small, what kind of stat that ranges in for you, but, no, Evan, Evan gets a pass on all of this stuff. Yeah, no, because we can't, we can't fact check any of it. We know he's right. We know that. Yeah. We just have, you could, you can tell us whatever you want right now.

We're going to believe you because we're not going to question you and your knowledge, your wealth of knowledge, right. But to answer your question even more, more thoroughly there, we're seeing how, I mean, when we saw the Braves come through, did they look like a pennant winner? No. Not really. They did not look like a team that was about to win the pants. Are you talking about against the Diamondbacks?

Didn't the Diamondbacks take like two out of three against them or something ridiculous? They swept a double header in Atlanta and gave up one hit the line between the games. Madison, I'm going to throw a no hitter that day. The no hitter against the line. Zach Allen threw a one hitter in the early game. Oh, hey, we have that. If they're World Series champions, we can hang our hat on that. Right.

All right. In Arizona, they blew us out in one game. I say, I was like I'm on the team. You are on the team. Come on the team. Yeah, we are. They blew us out in one game, but the Diamondbacks played them close and the other ones. They very easily could have won those other games.

I agree. They did not look like a future pennant winner. So I got to say, I'm really impressed with the way they knuckled down and got through it. It's really all about making it to the playoffs and what happens. And sometimes I think with Tori Lavolo and his ridiculous, lineups and some of the stuff he does that we don't understand, I feel like mentally that's the long game that he's playing, right? Not during a season like this, obviously,

but I think once you have a plan like that, someone like Lebello sticks to it regardless of if they're going to make the playoffs or not. Mentally, though, I think he is trying to make sure that this team doesn't just win games and get into the playoffs, but can be there at the end, healthy and able to compete. What we saw in the playoffs this year was a bunch of teams, including the two that are in the World Series, decimated by injuries and losses that were their star players, too.

We're not even talking about small losses or, you know, key players or they lost their everyday guy. And that's, you know, we're talking about like the biggest players on some of their teams. And they still were able to outlast, you know, the other teams and make it to this point. I think everybody deserves credit, but it really doesn't matter. when you get down to the playoffs. I think that the, you know, one thing Mike Farron, you know, brought up when he was on the show was how the 162 games season is a playoff.

It's the reason why it's that long, you know. And then from there, it really is kind of a tournament of champions, if you will, right? Like the elite of baseball then get to duke it out for the World Series crown. But the 162 games really should determine who the best teams are in baseball. You still got to then get to that point. and start over at zero-zero against all of these other teams and and play them in these series. I thought it was a great playoffs. There are some classics in here.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I've said some ridiculous things that I'm sure you won't agree with when I've said some of these series have been the best. But of course, that's recency bias. And I'm sure I'm guilty of that. Now some do rank up there. Yeah, they've been pretty good.

But there are some real classics in that one, too. You can, you know what you can do is I'm going to tell you guys right now. You can take your wealth of knowledge, much like Evan has, and you could go to Drafking Sportsbook, use our code of PHNX, and you can bet $5 on any NFL team to win, and you will get $200 in free bets if that team wins. I say use your wealth of knowledge, because, again, all I could think about when I was in Las Vegas was how I was gambling on a little ball spinning around a wheel that I had absolutely no control over, or I could walk 20 feet to the sports book and use this 40 years of sports knowledge that I have to throw some money. down and give myself just a little bit more chance of winning than letting that ball spin around on the wheel. So you can do that too over at draft Kings. And I had one last thing I wanted to discuss with you guys because I don't know how much to put, how much stock to put into it or how much to even directly relate it back to the Arizona Diamondbacks. But much like the Arizona

Diamondbacks, there is now some intriguing rumors and news coming out about the Oakland A's possibly moving to Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Aviators sent out an email to fans probing interest in moving the Oakland A's to Vegas and if they would be loved to see their Oakland A's in Las Vegas, like they get to see their Raiders now. So I wanted to ask you guys, does this in any way, shape, or form have any kind of legs to it considering the state of the Oakland A's Coliseum and, you know, the situation that they have there, especially with the way the Raiders also moved? Or is this kind of like an Arizona

Diamondback situation where, you know, this leaked photo came out about Henderson, Nevada. Now everybody thinks that the team is already gone. Well, I'd rather it be the, I'd rather it be the Ace than the Diamondbacks. There you go. Sorry, sorry Oakland A's fan. I'll give you this much. If you're an Oakland A's fan and you live here in Arizona, it's a shorter drive to Vegas. There you go. They're going to keep your colors. They've done cool things with the Raiders, except I hate that stadium. So let's not even talk about how I was trapped there.

They have the stadium where you can. Is that the stadium where you can watch stuff? Yes, from the freeway. Yes. It's not a good idea. Yeah. Not a good idea. Very distracting.

Very distracting. But so honestly, so is so much other stuff on the freeway when you're driving right there. Because that's like right by like the Bellagio and all these other huge casinos that have there's a giant pyramid. No one's watching the road. Right. Everybody's looking out the window.

But I mean, Evan, if you're an Oakland A's fan, are you concerned about your team moving based on this seemingly innocent email to the aviators fans? No. Not concerned at all. Here's the thing. With the diamond backs, oh, they're going to Nevada thing. That whole story originated with the Las Vegas paper. Yeah. They were trying to stir stuff.

up. That's all it was. It was nothing. Okay. The A's the Alameda County just passed. It's non-binding, but it's still a resolution that would create a new tax district so that the A's, any sales tax revenue generated by the A stadium or around where the A stadium would go would pay for everything directly there. And then once that's all paid for, go into pay for schools in Alameda County. That's just been passed like a few days ago. So now this email goes around. So what do you think about the A's moving here? I think it's just smoking mirrors. There's nothing to worry about. The A's are going nowhere. And if I'm wrong on that, I will, I'll do something on the show that's funny. Okay. Well, I'll keep this clip forever. Oh, never get it. No, I think you're right.

And I honestly, the other thing I think on the flip side of that is I know, I know people in Las Vegas and and what is it, Henderson County that aren't very pleased with this situation with the stadium, right? So they're not, they're not super excited over there to now pay for some other structure or some other thing. You're not going to get the taxpayers to sign on for that, right? So, like, that there is the entire idea that just because Las Vegas is made of money, the city itself isn't made of money. The casinos have all the money, guys. I hate to break that to you. Now, if they got some sort of agreement from the casinos, right, which, wouldn't be a bad idea because of the length of a baseball season and, you know,

the amount of people that it's going to bring as, you know, even more, you know, even more fans consistently, even more visitors into their city constantly. I mean, it's, it's not a bad thing for the hotels and casinos to want to get in on that action and have another sports team, right? It's just that you're not going to get them to, you're not going to get them to pay for it. So good luck getting anybody. pay for it at this point. And yeah, I agree with what Evan said. I saw the stuff about Alameda County and it seems like they're doing something. And to be honest, hopefully, hopefully this is like

the Las Vegas aviators just doing it to try to like stir up stuff to get them to move faster on giving the A's a better colise or, you know, a better, better field. They absolutely deserve it. That place is atrocious. And I mean, they've, they've deserved it for years. They've been a consistently good team. It's going to be interesting to see what happens with them now without Bob Melvin, and I'm terrified to see what happens with the Padres with Bob Melvin. Speaking of the A's, their three Pete is in here. There you go. Go get that book. Hold that book up again, Evan. They won five ALS titles in a row from 1971 to 75, and that every single ALCS is in this book here. And, you know, before that atrocious monstrosity, Mount Davis went up,

Cleveland Alameda County Coliseum was a beautiful stadium. Yeah, I remember seeing the whole pictures of it. It's dated. It's beyond showing its age. Stop making baseball stadiums so big. Nobody likes baseball this much anymore. Stop making them so big. Let's be honest.

When that was built, that was during the time where cities were building stadiums for teams for the first time. Before then, they were all privately financed. And since the cities were building them, they're like, look, we want to save money here. So we're going to build a stadium that you can play both sports in. And that's why they did it. And then we found out, and those aren't the best idea. But that's why they did it is because it was publicly financed.

Yeah, I get it. That makes sense. It's not right, but it makes sense. Evan, where can they get your book and tell them what the name of the full name, a complete history of the major league baseball playoffs?

The full name is a complete history of the major league baseball playoffs, volume one. You can get it. It's available for pre-order right now on Amazon and on Barnes and Noble. Those, if you go from those sites, it will you'll be able to get it starting December 3rd. However, if you want it now, go to store.

Dot bookbaby.com. Oh, all right. Bookbaby. All right. There it is. I'll keep a bigger cut and you'll get it right away. That's where, okay, so that's where you forget those other two sides you talked about. But here's the thing.

Here's the thing. If you do that, do me a favor and go ahead and go visit the Amazon page anyway and just look at it. Because that way Amazon will stock more copies of the book. There you go. Help Evan out and get that book, especially if you're, you're a big fan of the history of baseball. Get it. It's, look, I still like books.

I told, don't even get me started on the Bob Page book. Don't even, I'll start screaming about how much I hate it, but I'm still reading it because I love books. Go get that now. Thank you, Evan so much for bringing your expertise. We'll have to have you back on. Just a fact check us, I think, is mostly more than anything. We'll need you here to keep us, keep us right.

You can get Evan on Twitter at L-W-O-S-Ev-T. you can get me on Twitter at cap underscore caveman with a k and of course you can get jesse at jesse n friedman uh you can get this podcast at dbacks underscore or wait phnx underscore dbacks but forget all that all roads lead to at p hnx underscore sports uh go there on instagram facebook and twitter sign up for notifications on youtube if you're watching this right now on youtube subscribe to us here uh go find us on your favorite audio podcast we just put a link up that will direct you to whatever podcast you to whatever podcast you use for or whatever app you use for podcast. It'll take you directly there.

So jump on there. Subscribe to us there. Leave us a five-star review. We can't tell you enough how much we appreciate it and how much it helps grow the show. Thank you guys again. Thank you, Evan, so much. And I'm so, once again, so proud of you for getting this book done.

I know how much you've been working on it, especially lately. So I'm always excited to see people achieve their goals. And, man, it's a really great book. I've had a chance to take a look at it. And it's just incredibly thorough. I think you guys as a baseball of Fictionados are really going to enjoy it. But on behalf of Evan, Jesse, and myself, we thank you guys so much for joining us. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you bet on it.