PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Hat Club 4 Life

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

On this episode, Jesse and Derek welcome Benjamin Christensen from The Hat Club to discuss how they flourished during the pandemic due to the popularity of their limited edition releases, his personal journey through MLB via his love of baseball hats, and who he sees making the World Series. 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 the PHNX network. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as the mayor of PHNX. And of course, this show is brought to you by the Draft King Sportsbook app. Download the Draft King Sportsbook app now, which is America's top-rated sportsbook app, and use our code of PHNX to get yourself $100 in free bets for betting $1 on any NFL game this weekend, as long as they score one point in the game. I think that's something that most teams are going to manage to do. So go and use our code and get those $100 in free bets.

Thank you guys so much for joining us. I am joined, of course, by my co-host and sometimes occasionally known as my friend, Jesse Friedman, aka Thunderstick. Jesse, how you doing? Well, we're friends today, Derek. I love your change of town. Well, you know, I slept on it a little bit. I'm not as mad at you. I know you didn't hit that home run,

but Josh Van Meter and I still have a lot of ground to make up in order for us to become friends again. But I am joined also, we are joined also, by a very special guest this week, somebody who I consider one of my favorite friends from the internet that I've met, from the Hat Club, from former MLB journalist, former employee of the Oakland A's,

but most of all, just a fantastic social media guy. it's Benjamin Christensen from the Hat Club. Benjamin, how are you doing, buddy? I'm great. How are you, gentlemen? We are great. Jesse, Jesse, you got it. You have to answer to it.

It's not just me. It's two of us here. You know, I'm just like, I'm pretty good, but I'm also a little intimidated because obviously this is an audio podcast, so our audience members can't see. But behind me is a very blank, plain wall. Yeah. And behind our guest, Benjamin is like, like, maybe. 60 hats.

Every, every, every, every, every, every hat known the man. Oh, there's, yeah. I'll give you an accurate number on that. There's a, there's a hundred and twenty seven exactly behind. 127. Yes. So Benjamin is making me feel a little insecure, but other than that. Yeah, of course.

That's, that's part of his stick online is to make everyone feel insecure about their hat collections because his, of course, is, is a mighty one. And, and Benjamin, so let's talk a little bit about your role with the hat club, because I know I've seen you be a big part of what they've done over there and what they've been doing. Thank you. What you guys have been doing has been incredible. I mean, the popularity of your hats, how quickly they go, there's a little bitterness there in my voice about that. How fast they're all sold out is mind boggling to me.

So let's talk like talk about how much. you love hats and being involved with this because obviously you are an incredible hat guy. I mean, I, to say I love hats is really underselling it. I've been a huge fan of hats. I mean, realistically throughout my entire, my whole 38 years on this planet, but I really got into it, you know, when I was a kid, and especially in high school, I worked for, I was a bad boy for the Bakersfield Blay. So that was like really when I started getting into. Fitted hats. You know,

shout out, shout out to the Blaze who no longer exists. Right. So all the lost minor league teams that are no longer with us in Memorial. But,

you know, they were affiliate with the Giants. Unfortunately, I'm an A's fan, so, you know, got the Blaze hat, got the Giants hat. Kind of expanded my collection

from there with a lot of retro's, old maroon fillies, the pinwheel Expos, which I feel like are staples to any hat collection. Absolutely. But really when I was in college, so about 2010, I was two years away from graduating the first time. And then I literally woke up one day and it's just like, you know what, I'd be awesome.

If I just had like one of every on-field hat for MLB hats and maybe a couple of Meyer League. And so I went that route. And then after I acquired all of them, then I realized, you know, maybe I'll want all of them. So that's where the quest took me was just obtaining every single. single on-field hat that's ever been worn historically in baseball history. And then, you know, parlayed that into a job with MLB by some miracle. And then after that, worked for New Era for a couple of years as a consultant for them because I wrote a blog about the history of hats and hat culture at the tail end of my

college years. And they really loved me. And so they brought me on board with that. And then I moved back to Oakland, California, which is where I was born, got a job. but the A's. And so it was easy for me to wear a hat to work every single day. Not having to be told to take it off. There you go.

And then, you know, as a side gig, because I only worked home games across the bridge in Daily City, the hackclubs store there was looking for an assistant manager. And, you know, I rose my hand. I'm like, hey, I can do this. And, you know, it took them a couple months to hire me. They had to run through my credentials despite the fact that it's like, I mean, I worked for a new era for three years for Christ's sake. It's got to be worth something.

Got some experience in the biz. But no, they hired me, and then a year later, they asked me to run their Twitter account as more of a lark just because everybody was so entertained by my personal account that it's like, hey, let's bring that to the corporate realm and see what you do with that. So I've been doing that for about six years now. And then it just kind of exploded. It's weird to say that COVID really helped out the business just because of, you know, all the awful things that obviously COVID brought the world. Sure.

But at the same time, I mean, from a business perspective, you know, Hack Club was probably one of the biggest benefactors of that shutdown. Everybody indoors, you know, on their computers, just, you know, gathering information, learning new things, learning about all these different companies. And, you know, Hack Club is this little independent mom and pop shop office. operation that's been going since 1992. I still call it Danny Aege's Hat Club, by the way. Yeah. I still call it that. That's the one little tip that I was like to go back to is like,

Danny Aange started up Hack Club. And then, you know, when he went to Boston to go BGM, that's when he sold his shares off to the, the Staschel brothers who have owned the companies for the last, what is it, 20 years or so now. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, the online market exploded. and we just started just selling hats like crazy.

The New York store, you know, was already kind of doing crazy, we're doing really well with that. Justin Farnham, who ran the store, who was one of our lead designers, introduced the pink underbill to the world, which, you know, everybody on the West Coast was really confused by it first,

but on the East Coast it just took off. And so that was really the starting point for us. And then just the color combinations, he and John Wynne, our other designer, have been coming up with over the last, you know, year and a half or so just, you know, took over the game, baby. Mind blowing. They're mind blowing.

Like, I've never found myself looking for a particular underbill of a hat in my life. And you guys made that happen. And like, and what's wild about that is like I started realizing the value in it, especially, like, I don't know, when you start realizing how you in particular wear a hat. And you're like, well, like, I kind of do wear it up where you kind of do see the underbill even more than you see the logo on top when I wear it, right? Just like that guy right there with the baby blue underneath. That looks beautiful, right?

And I also think it's incredible that I, and I don't mean to undercut you because you are a brilliant guy. And I know you are, you're fun. You are a great interviewer. I've seen your interviews from back in the day. We spoke before we got on air about some of them. And like, I've always loved your mindset about interviewing people. And I've always thought that you were a great and, you know, just you interacted really well with players and such. I think, though, that it's kind of incredible how your love of hats has taken you on this journey, right?

I mean, obviously a lot of it is, is you and, you know, your choices and decisions to do these things. But you've lived such an interesting life, especially your employment, as far as it all being hat related, you know? Yeah, and that was that was kind of the interesting, you know, point for me just because of the fact that it's not only, you know, me just kind of thrown my opinions out on a lot of things. Like, like most Twitter managers, I'll stick with that more primarily, you know, still have to go up the flagpole, get approval to say certain things, et cetera, et cetera. But because of the fact that I've had so much experience in this realm, like, it's rare for me to even talk to anybody at the office to ask like, oh, hey, you know, what's going on with this? because it's just like, nope, I already know from a manufacturing, from a production, from a sales perspective, like all the little facets. I mean, even like approvals and stuff as far as like what we can and cannot do with

the hats that we, that we release, that we want to release, what customers are asking for. You know, I'm able to turn around information on a much quicker basis than a lot of other companies do. And I don't mean to say on that in an arrogant way, but it's just like I've just got to been a fortunate position where I've studied the job and been, you know, ingrained in the, in the hat culture for so many years that it's just like there are very few people who can do what I do on a daily basis. Benjamin, I want to ask you about our beloved Arizona sports franchise, the Arizona Diamondbacks,

of course, on Arizona Diamondbacks podcast. This team has taken quite a bit of flack over the years, more so for their jerseys, I think, than their hats. But there was a time when people sort of laughed at the Arizona Diamondbacks uniforms. They really tried to go, you know, very progressive with kind of a new agey design. They had a lot of colors and tons of different options, tons of different uniforms. But I'm curious your take. When you think about the Arizona Diamondbacks logo, some of the things they got going on hats

these days, how do you think it sort of stacks up against the competition? What do you think of the designs they have going right now? all right so i got i got two interesting points on this the the first one being i missed the classic copper and teal and purple colorways i thought they were some of the best god damn we all do we all had to offer and in fact that it took them you know three years from you know becoming a franchise to winning a world series and that's what they're donning on the field as they i'm not going to say eviscerated, but they definitely did a number on Mario in

Veron in Game 7. And to me, that's still the staple of what the Diamondbacks culture is. It's those colorways. So when the owners decided, you know, hey, you know, we're going to switch things up. We're going to go with Sedona Red and Black with a little bit of tan. It's just

like, cool. You look like every other fucking team that has played baseball in the last hundred years. So the identity shift for them, I always that was kind of strange. But, you know, over the last couple of years as they've become, and I think there, somebody in the front office actually tried to coin this term,

or really said this quote, was the Diamondbacks are becoming the, you know, the Oregon Ducks of Major League Baseball, all these different uniform combinations. Yeah. Bringing back a few of the old colors. Like, I'm glad they're adding teal back into the mix of that. Some of the combinations work really well. Some of them don't. But the second point that I was going to do.

going to make that's really interesting and this actually ties back in the hat club is one of their hats in particular is actually a hat club design whether they know that or not it's it's irrelevant but the fact that they did and it's actually so they're all black hat with just the snake head with the teal outline uh john win uh our lead designer actually you know had assembled and and dropped that as a hack club custom about four years ago no way years later, and down back to corporate into their uniform combinations. It's like, what the fuck?

That's incredible. It's not our fault, Benjamin. Don't blame us. We have no part of that, I promise. No, I think it's really more of a badge of honor than anything. Because like the day they introduced it, like, I hit John up. I'm like, dude, you see this?

And he was kind of ecstatic about it. Yeah, sure. That's, I mean, it's to a degree, it's an honor. And then also it's like, oh, the streets are watching. Like, what? All right. Well, just as a reminder, we want to let you guys know to go download that Drafking Sportsbook app and use our code of PHNX to get yourselves free $100 in free bets if you just bet one dollar on any NFL game.

And if they score a point. The last zero zero tie in the NFL was 1943. So I don't know. I think maybe that we're not going to see a tie. what game you choose. I would say choose the Arizona Cardinals just because they have a big matchup with the 49ers this weekend. And I know, I know that Kyla Murray in this offense isn't going to go scoreless. So let's go put your money on the Cardinals. But just remember, drafting customers can also get their skin in the game with new same game parleyes. I'm Mr. Parlay. I earn that title after my first time ever betting on a parlay and winning it. So that's the way that works.

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if either team scores a point for just betting $1. on any NFL game. Reminder, this is 21 and over only, Arizona only. Gambling problem, dial 1-800 next step, new customers only, eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And just again, as a reminder, we are, go PHNX, and we need you guys to check out the website and see everything we're doing. Jesse and I both have some articles up. We had the last media appearance from Hazen and Lovolo, and we talked about that in an article this week, as well as just some wrapping up the season.

You know, we're going to have a report card. We're going to be issuing the Diamondbacks, their final report card of the year. That's not going to be pretty, Derek. Grades aren't looking good, Jesse. The grades aren't looking good. It's a good chance. We might have to repeat 2021.

Oh, my God, what a terrible idea that is. Okay. And then Jesse's also going to give you some takeaways. I'm probably positive. Jesse's probably going to be positive. I get to deliver the bad news about how they get an F in, lunch. Who gets an effing lunch? The Diamondbacks do. We're going to talk about that. So go check out the Go PHNX website and sign up. You can get yourself a year membership and you'll

get one of our free t-shirts over at phnx locker.com. Or if you sign up for the month-to-month subscription, you'll get your first month for just 50 cents. So again, we appreciate you guys supporting us and we are doing this with your help. We appreciate you guys being a part of the family. I want to talk to you, Benjamin, about these drops that you guys have started doing because, holy shit, man, it's become a thing where, like, first of all, it's part of your guys a staple. People just know that when you guys drop these colorways, these combinations based on all sorts of great designs, like, you know, this cotton candy, it's like a light blue and a pink or a watermelon with the green and the red under, you know, UV visor, it just all sorts of great colors and again my favorite part about these hats is a lot of times they have some unique patches on the side as well from inaugural seasons or world series seasons or whatever they're great but you know I was thinking about this business model and how well it works and what I have to ask is is this more of a not getting stuck with stock situation or is this more of a situation where it's about creating this demand because

Because it, I'll tell you from a consumer standpoint, I, I, I, you know, other websites where I know this stuff's going to be in stock, it's easy for me to not have to make that decision, right? But when your guys' hats drop and I see it and I love it, it's got to be, it's got to be right then. You make that decision right then because there is no tomorrow for these hats. And I mean, I personally just think it works so well. So again, not to tread all over your answer, but, you know, how well is this worked out for you guys?

No, it's great. And it's funny because the mentality, if there was a metaphor that I could use for this, which is going to be god awful. But if there was a gun to your head style of selling a product, we have definitely, you know, dominated that market. Congratulations, Venture.

That's really something to be proud of. So proud of you. Yeah, what a, wow. what a badge of honor that is. Hey, it's, it's the truth though, right? I mean, it's, it is the feeling. It's the feeling of like there, there is no, and it's, you know, it's also the fact you guys do so many different combinations that, yeah, yeah, you might come back to one that's like this hat, but you might not ever see this hat again. Plus, let me, let me throw on the icing on the cake as a, as a customer.

There's the satisfaction of getting the hat and knowing it's sold out and knowing no one else going to have it. You're like, yeah, maybe 50 people across the United States ordered this hat. And most of them probably aren't here in Phoenix. So I am not going to be running into some other dude wearing the exact same hat as me. No, it's weird because that like, that wasn't the intention that we started out with. This was just something that over time just became an actual thing. Because I still remember years ago that, you know, there were hats that I, I thought were amazing. A lot of collectors in the community thought were amazing as well. And, and, we always joke about it. It's just like, yeah, it's going to sell out, but it might take a week to do that. So I'm just going to throw it my cart. I'll think about it for a day or two. I'm getting paid on Friday. I'll just buy it then. No big deal. It's still going to be there. So, you know, going back to the COVID shutdown and, you know, how everybody's online now and everybody sees what we're doing. And the one thing I always give credit to John and Justin are designers for more than, you know, I'll ever give credit to myself for anything that I do.

is the stories that they tell with the hats that they make completely blow any other company out of the water. Because as you were saying, like the cotton candies, the watermelons, pink lemonade, icebergs, you know, et cetera. You know, it's one thing to just, you know, make a cool colorway, put it on a hat and sell it. It's another thing to, you know, have the story to tell that goes along with it. You know, we put these colors together specifically because of this reason and we chose these teams because of this reason, et cetera, et cetera. And so the detail that goes into it, like, you know, that sells themselves as it is. And so, you know, even though these other companies have started, you know, following what we're doing, and they'll try their own color

combinations and et cetera. But the storytelling aspect is not there. So, you know, for these other websites, yeah, you know, they'll sell their hats, whatever. But on the Hack Club website, it's just like, yeah, you've literally got 30 seconds before the drop to make a decision and you've got less than 60 seconds to actually, you know, successfully, if you're lucky, pull the trigger and actually make the purchase. So that part of it is not what we are expecting. But, you know, that's just the way it is over the last year and a half. It's just like, yep, two minutes, everything's gone. I'm going to tell you when I fell in love with you. And we've been friends for a while.

but when you won me over and you made me fall in love with you, was when there was an instance that you found one of your guys's drops immediately for sale on eBay. And you located the seller based on his name and cross-referenced with the email addresses and such that you guys had in your database. Oh, yeah. And you canceled his order. And I just can't tell you.

You can't tell you how much I appreciate that. Because the guy, the same day the hat dropped was all. already listing it for like four times what you guys charge for it. And you guys already, you know, you guys aren't cheap, but your hats are such good quality that I always say it's worth it, in my opinion. And hats, hats in general, I have gotten to be pretty expensive. So to take it and quadruple the price just because he knows that it's going to go to somebody that really, really wanted it and missed the opportunity to buy it is really just taking advantage of people. And I was, I was so happy to see a business doing that. Like, I,

I think at times people might say, oh, is that, is that going to win people over for you? Yes. Yes, it would. Actually, that one action makes me want to shop with you that much more. So if two people walked away because of it, I will cover the money they would have spent on hats with how much I am more dedicated to a website that tries their best not to let people do that to other people. Yeah. And so, you know, going back to what we were just saying as far as like why stuff sells out so fast, I mean, because, yeah, there's a large, there's a large, there's a large part of the population of the hack community that wants to buy them for themselves.

But then you have to worry about resellers. You have to worry about people using bots. You know, this has gone beyond the Nike realm of, you know, trying to get a pair of sneakers. And you got dudes that are just like, oh, yeah, I'm going to resell this for like five or six times the value. Right. Somehow, Hackleb hats have hit that echelon, which to me is still a little bit strange. But at the same time, it's like it really, you know, adds more value to the company. Yeah.

So, because you don't see a lot of these hats, you know, go. going for a top dollar from other companies. And it's not to knock them. But they're readily available. You know, that's the thing is, is like, it's really about the exclusivity, right? And I mean, at times, it's tempting to someone that really wanted one that bad. Like you said, you guys tell stories. And sometimes those colorways and such coincide with the teams or the region of the country or stuff like that.

And that means something to people. And they really wanted that hat. And as much as they hate to pay it, sometimes people will just be like, all right, fine, take my money, you know. Yeah. And to me, it's like, I it's it's crazy but I don't mean crazy in a sense where I think somebody's like terrible for doing like like somebody paying that amount that amount of money like I feel bad sure yeah exactly exactly so

with the amount of people that are you know complaining about bots complaining about resellers and whatever it's just like cool well I'll I'll do what I can yeah and so as as you told a little bit ago you know as as a hat drops if I see it on eBay the same day so before it ships out yeah I'm to do something about it because the fact that there's so many other people that miss on this drop that really wanted this hat for themselves not to make a buck on it and it's like yeah i'll do whatever i can to do that and then you know i'll i'll do some trivia on on on twitter or i'll do some trivia on on our instagram lives and it's just like get the answer right i'll send you the invoice so you can just buy the hat without you know having to panic buy it or anything like that so i love it i love

Man of the people. Man of the people. I feel like I'm like third wheeling on a date right now or something. You're just like madly in love with Benjamin. I'm just like sitting here watching this. We got a history. It's much different than you and I, all right? I don't know.

I'm mad at you. Sure. All right. I know my place. I know my place. Yeah, no. But we definitely want to talk MLB playoffs. But before we get there, it's Jesse's favorite time of the show because it's time for me to tell you guys

about how you need to make sure that you're taking care of your field for the playoffs. That's right. Playoff time is here. Playoff time is always here. And as long as you are in the action, you've got to make sure that that outfield grass is trimmed. You're taking care of your strike zone. And you're taking care most importantly of those balls. And I'm talking about Manscape. And Manscape has an amazing package for your package. The below the waist grooming leaders have a fourth generation performance package.

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This is just unnecessary adding on. No, the light's invaluable. It's luxury. You're not just getting that, Jesse. You're not just getting that. Again, young man, you're going to understand this one day, but you're also going to get the weed whacker ear and nose hair trimmer, the liquid formulations and two free gifts. And yes, yes, I'm 40, and I need that weed we'd whacker, ear and nose hair trimmer.

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Go on there and use our code. Once again, P.HNX. And for betting $1 on any NFL game, if you will get $100 in free bets if they score just one point. So again, go Cardinals. Let's talk baseball playoffs, Benjamin. I want to talk about there was an exciting game last night between the Red Sox and the Yankees. Nathan Nealvaldi had an amazing night on the mound for the Red Sox.

Now tonight we get another treat, a one-game playoff between arguably the hottest team in baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals and the arguably best team in baseball with the Los Angeles Dodgers. So what are you excited about with all of these one-game wildcard games? I'll say the one thing I'm not excited about tonight is the fact that Clayton Kershaw is not there because I feel like his presence alone anytime the Cardinals and the Dodgers play, whether he's pitching or not, plays a significant role in the in the, you know,

the onslaught of what the Cardinals usually do the Dodgers. You just want to see Sad Kershaw on the bench bent over with his hair down over his face. He got his ring last year. So let's go back to this and, you know, making fun of playoff Kersh. and how terrible he is. No, but I mean, he's bona fide in Hall of Fame. Don't get me wrong. But no, I figure for tonight it's going to be interesting because of the fact that,

you know, Dodgers are still without Max Muncie with his arm issue that, you know, picked up in the last year of the season against the Brewers. And as you said, the hottest team in baseball right now is the Cardinals. But what's really weird is the fact that the second hottest team is probably the Dodgers. And so they're kind of going in with this, this equal, you know, this equilibrium of intensity and of dominance. And it's hard to say, you know, how the outcome is going to be. But I would say, you know, top the bottom, I feel like the Dodgers have, you know, the better

bats. They have the better pitching rotation, even though this is going to be for just one game. And the Cardinals were so mediocre for the vast majority of the season that, you know, the the Dodgers have the edge. I think it's really what's going to come down to tonight. But in regard to the Yankees and the Red Sox yesterday, I just laughed at the fact that, you know, a couple of years ago,

Nathan Ievaldi is a member of the Yankees. And as much as the Yankees like to retain and throw a lot of money at dudes, Nathan Yovaldi was not one of those guys. And, you know, he ends up in Boston. And then, you know, we see what happens. And this is what you get for, you know, I'm not spending the right money on the right players.

Am I the only one who's a little disappointed that we didn't get like the mad chaos that could have happened? No, I'm, uh, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, no, I'm thinking about like how it is possible.

It, like two days ago, it seemed possible and maybe even likely that we have like a crazy four way tie. Like we might have to do like like two rounds of, of pre playoffs before anything got started. And sadly, you know, things went down. the way that they did and the Red Sox and Yankees wound up getting the two wild card spots straight

away. But I am just so sad because there was there, I mean, there is nothing like must win baseball, right? And Jesse, Jesse loves when they have to force MLB's hand to deal with like some rule they haven't really thought of yet, you know? Yeah, yeah. I love the craziness. I do. Go ahead and figure this out now, you know, like, where's your deep rule in your rule book that says that how this is supposed to play out? I'm sure there is one, and I'm sure they have, you know, an idea. But sometimes you just have to wonder if they end up having to make up something on the spot if they've never considered that outcome. I know, like, we were talking about with the Diamondbacks and the Baltimore Orioles having

tied for the worst record in baseball. And it would go back to next year's record, or last year's record, but last year record, they tied too. So it has to go back to the 2019 record. I still want my idea implemented of making the two teams play each other. and whoever loses gets the number one spot. That's how I see it. I say relegation, baby.

Kick them down to Triple-A. You can bring up the Triple League. Honestly, that is the one element that's missing from American sports that is so great in Europe, in South America, in Asia, is relegation. Max Scher would be in favor of relegation for sure. He would have relegated three quarters of this league if he could have this year. All right. So who do you got for, who do you got winning the World Series? Who got in the World Series? And who do you think is going to take it?

So I've been, I've been, I've been stuck on the Tampa Bay Ray train since the beginning of the season. But I was, I was dead certain the San Diego Padres were actually going to do something this year that I, I had the raise and the Padres in the World Series. But my fallback team for the National League, the last couple years, could actually happen again. So the Milwaukee Brewers, I think are going to take it. nice all right i like that so yeah so brewers versus the raise man america supposedly would hate that but i bet they'd be more into it than baseball thinks they would be but that's awesome i like that hey if america hates this then they just they just hate winner they like they hate teams who have never won anything is really what it comes down to it just it makes me think of uh the bucks

versus the sons in the NBA finals and how they would have thought oh this wouldn't be and it was one of the highest rated, you know, series in a long time. I think that people are into seeing teams that they are, that they don't normally see. And yeah, I mean, sometimes you're missing out on a huge fan base by their team not being there. But I mean, come on, man, sometimes, especially for baseball, the best thing that could happen is to have two teams like that, that people didn't expect to be there, be there. And they're both sneaky good, right? You know, Tampa Bay, your division. And that's a really tough division to win. They weren't expected to win it. And Milwaukee just ran away with their.

division, which was another kind of crazy thing that happened. I think it's weird that they ran away with it and they just kind of like stopped caring because that was the primary reason why the Cardinals got as close as they did. Because because. Because. Because. Because the second wildcard spot. Yeah.

It was the tortoise in the hair basically is what it was, right? Yeah. I'm going to stop running now because I don't need to. And then what is it? Devin Williams, their relief pitcher who was rookie the year, I think what last year for the national league, you know, in the post game celebration of them locking up the central division punches a wall and breaks his hand he's out the last year yeah that was so god damn stupid why dumbest thing didn't uh didn't jd martinez of the red socks i don't i didn't ever

like officially confirm this but i heard that he like tripped over a base or something and that's why he was unavailable yes yes that is unbelievable wow i mean it was bad enough that like 75% of the team had was on covid protocol for like the last two months on top of which too But, oh, my God. But, yeah, the fact that they, the Yankees and the Red Sox squeaked in, quote, unquote, and we didn't get the chaos baseball that we all wanted. Personally, for me, I would have preferred the Mariners and the Blue Jays lock up those wild card spots. Yeah, yeah.

We were just so close. I would have, too. I would have too. Hey, man, I can't thank you so much. I can't thank you enough for joining us. We need to have you back as the playoffs roll on. Hell yeah. Talk some more baseball.

You can get Benjamin on Twitter. he is at Shaka Brody. That is at S-H-A-K-A-B-R-O-D-I-E. His website is Hats and Tats. Dotts.orgSpot-C-com. And, of course, the Hat Club. That's where you need to go. You need to follow them.

Sign up for emails. Do all of that stuff. Because I'll tell you, if you are a fan of hats, the way we are fans of hats, they make some beautiful designs that you're not going to see anywhere else. So jump on there.

Make sure you sign up. Get your email. alerts. That's the only way you're going to know what's coming. If you don't get the emails, you have no idea what's coming. You know, follow the, follow the Twitter, maybe go on their Twitter and set the alerts for them because that might help you out. But anyway, thank you again, brother, for joining us on behalf of Jesse. I thank everybody for checking out the show. Make sure to go over to PHNX. If you're listening to us right now on, on the YouTube, sign up and subscribe on whatever podcast app that you do that on. And again, let me know which

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Big shout out to my man, Benjamin. Thank you again, sir, for joining us. We appreciate everybody for tuning in and remember kids. Baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you bet on it.