Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 121 | Jack Flaherty is Searching for a Hobby

Episode Date: March 23, 2020

Jack Flaherty discusses how the Cardinals are coping with the suspended season, his twitter lists, and his search for a new hobby. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 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.

On today's episode of Talking Baseball, we have old friend Jack Vlarity sit down with us and get a little chummy and we talk baseball. How about that? What's going on, everybody? Welcome to Talking Baseball. In these trying times, we hope you're all doing well. We hope you're not touching anyone or anything. Don't go near anything. Stay safe.

And welcome to the show. My name is John Boy. Sitting next to me is Jake. And on today's episode with Trayorke. with Trevor Plouffe and Jack Flaherty. We talk a lot about baseball. We asked Jack how he's doing through these troubling and no baseball times.

What else do we say, Jake? It was awesome. Hey, Jim. Jack's an awesome dude. Make sure you tweet at him. We're going to have some of the good sound clips and stuff, also out on the internet, so don't be shy with those. Jack's the man, and I think it's just funny to see,

like, a young dude whose career is, like, fully, on pause and he's like what what am i supposed to do um and i think the the better part in what what you and i like is we came into this with no questions we we asked a few along the way but it's just a conversation we've we've met jack he's a real cool low-key dude and uh he's he's one of us going through this freaking virus yeah well our job hasn't been put on pause is put and put on accelerator. We have paws. You have paws about having pause. I have pause about you having pause. I was talking about the dog that you talked about getting last night. I did not. My girlfriend, Caitlin, said that. Now people think we're actually getting one. We're not. I'm excited for you guys.

You're going to love it. Not getting a dog in the city. You're going to love it. No. No. All right. Well, on that note, we talked to Jack for a long time, so it's the full episode, basically. Yeah. And here it is. I'll play the classic transition into it. Here we go. We are joined by now recurring guests of the program. Jack Flaherty, hashtag don't think. Jack, what's going on, brother? You know, just enjoying the time, home, trying to spend some time with the fan.

Yeah. You now live Ploof's life. No baseball. Yeah, pretty much. We're living the same life now. Our life is just a little different. I don't have kids Oh wow

How was this process for you Like where are you at with this I know that you were taken to Twitter a lot You've been active there But your life kind of Is putting you on something You've never done before Yeah it seems like all my time

Has been spent on Twitter Doing anything Any kind of list or whatever it is That seems like how I've spent most of my time Do you want to talk about Accidentally putting Clay Thompson And you're starting five? What are you're accidentally?

It seems like that was a mistake. Why is that a... Well, I mean... I can just... I mean, I can justify it. You could pick anyone from basketball. No, I thought it was top five clays. Just for a team, I needed somebody who could play defense, shoot threes, and had no ego.

Oh. And I think that was Clay Thompson. It's honestly a good sleeper pick, but like when you put Clay, you knew you were in for Twitter arguments. Oh, absolutely. I knew I was in for it. But in my head, pretty... creating that team, he was the guy that fit the role. And then I have Durant cut.

Durant, it was, Durant would have been the other starter. But I'll just take him off the bench to put up 20 points in about eight minutes and then go right back. Plouffe, your counter. I don't pretend to know anything about basketball. I love the Lakers. The LeBron to the Laker thing has been difficult for me.

So keep me in your thoughts and prayers. but I do know that putting Clay Thompson in an all-time great team is probably not right. It was for a series. I had to make one team. You know what list I liked a lot that you had on your Twitter was the all-time wiffle ball stances. There was a couple that had to get left off just because, just like Luis Gonzalez was definitely one. There's only one must for me.

and it's Craig Counsel. Like everyone ever has done that. Everybody did Craig Counsel. And Wiffleball. Just to be like, what the fuck's this about? Euclis. Euclis. Oh, Sheffield.

Yeah, Sheffield. Another one. Everyone's done. When you had the Wolfball bat where you could do as fast you could. Absolutely. Do it as fast as Gary Sheffield did with a fucking wooden bat. With a real bat. What a sicko?

Probably 35. What a sicko? Trevor's pretty. good friends with his son now, but we'll come back to that. Eichro also really good. Itiro, you start off the game, you know. Yeah. A little jersey flick. Let's

do some baseball shit. We're a little slap happy, and then we'll just get right into the weird stuff. But are you like, do you have a throwing plan and stuff? Like, I don't know. We're trying to, I'm trying to stay in as best shape as I can. We don't really have a timetable. but we can't just go back to zero and not do anything.

Right. You know, if something great happens and, you know, in a few days, we're told, hey, we're going to play soon, which doesn't seem likely, but you never know. So we're just trying to stay. I'm just trying to stay in the best shape as I can. Are you searching for hobbies? I'm reading this book.

I am. Yeah, called the Cup of Coffee Club. And it's all about whatever. It's a book I'm reading. And, like, there was a whole paragraph about the mindset that it takes to become a major leagueer and there was a lot of quotes and it said you can't have any other thing in your life besides like a family like you can't have another hobby and make it to out of the mind of league about that that's not true in fact I would encourage people to have hobbies well what what counts as a hobby

though I don't have any I don't fish I don't golf I don't you don't think I don't know yeah yeah we're going to continue with that I just want to take some breaths on reading the book. But right before you hopped on, I was like, yo. Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say. I am the biggest don't think person in the world. So it's kind of a shot fire at me and now I'm offended because I've never thought. Yeah, but he's.

No, you just say it. You're ruining the brand. Oh, yeah. You're tearing it down. I'll stop. I'll get away from the brand. That's very true. Yeah.

That's very true. Trevor, what were your hobbies in the minor leagues? I mean, I guess you don't have like a chance to like really pursue a hobby, you know, but. you know in spring training we've talked about this guys go fishing almost every day those are the pros yeah so guys can do stuff you know

especially now it's like gaming is everybody's hobby yeah if yeah I guess that counts as a hobby are you a gamer? Not like heavy with everything but so you're currently searching I'm searching you know trying to figure it out you need something to get away from the game

every once in a while we have a family that's what that is and before that, it is anything. If you want to just sit down and get into a movie and completely forget about the day, like I think that's really healthy. That's how I spend my day. I'll watch movies and I'll nap. What have you been watching? You've been

deep in any Netflix? I just re-watch Goodfellas yesterday. One of these days I'm going to sit down and watch Parasite when I'm in the mood to read everything. Yeah, I haven't done that yet. Are you a casino fan? Yeah. I like Casino more than Goodfellas. which I think is a hot take,

but then I think there's a whole contingent of people that are like, no, I agree. Jake, do you have any thoughts on that? I watched Parasite, and I liked it. Okay. I can't get into the Italian movies. There's too much recent. I don't know why I don't believe you for some reason.

I'm like, there's no chance to watch Parasite. He did. He had to change the settings to times point in half. He watched Parasite slow-mo. Okay. It's going to be like that. No, I've actually got like a pathetic American stuff. about Parasite.

Me and my girl, whatever. We went up to Aspen, whatever, and we were just having this nice couples weekend before we moved, and there was this, like, small, cute movie theater, and we were like, hey, maybe we should hit this up, and we looked at it, and the flyer was for some, like, Korean movie that we'd never heard of, and we were like,

who the hell is going to see this? And then a month later, it won every award, so we're like, wow, we're bad people. So I watched it pretty good. But, yeah, like, you can't have your cell phone out. Like, you've got to focus, and that's not my strength. Yeah. Have you been watching any old sporting events?

Jake's crushing old games right now. Like all the... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's pathetic, man. Yeah, we've been watching World Series games from 1972 to 77 and watching them and posting them on YouTube, like watching and commenting on them.

Have you guys ever dived into, like, a full game from that error at all? Because we hadn't, and it is bizarre how different baseball is. Jack, almost every batter faked a bunt during the at-bat. I have not dove into all those games and tried to watch them. It's weird. That's not even exaggeration. I'd say 75% of the batters at one point in there at bat fake lay down a bun. Yeah.

Do you ever get the dumb questions that people are like, so Jack, do you really appreciate how Bob Gibson pitched? And, like, how do you dance around those? You just, you, you say that I never really got to watch him pitch. I can go watch highlights or something, but you just hear everybody talk about him and the way that, you know, they just kind of revere him as a pitcher. And that you just kind of go behind that. It's been, it's weird because, like, you know, even the Yankees we were watching

and I know a lot about Thurman Munson, but all I've ever seen were his highlights, not like the mundane moments. And he had this big double to tie the game or to take the lead. in the ninth inning of the World Series game, and he got to second base, and as soon as he got the second base, he just folded his arms and just stood on top of the base. Like no fist pump, no scream, no high-five, just nothing.

We both lost. This is usual. Yeah, it was wild. He just slapped. That's funny. And then hit and runs, if there was a guy on first base, it was a hit and run, and they were trying to score from first, almost every time. It's crazy.

It's a different game, that's for sure. Do you wish, you got a different rate? As a pitcher, do you wish more hitters were trying to be like sloppy and bunt and hitting runs? Or would you rather that or how hitters kind of are now where it's like true outcome? Like I'm trying to hit a whole wrong. I mean, you kind of get a mix of each, but those guys didn't strike out as much. Yeah. So they're putting ball in play.

And, you know, you get all those jam singles, those bloopers or, you know, somebody just shanks one in the infield. But, you know, they didn't strike out as much. So those guys are, you know, kind of more annoying. to pitch to sometimes what's going on what was your so i think everyone we we started asking around and everyone's like corona moment was like NBA canceled and it's like oh shit it's it's going down what um and outside you know your career being you know push back a couple months or we'll see what happens but what's what have you seen in society that was like your first god damn like that was that was definitely it so it was that was that was a well

Wednesday. And once I saw that, I was like, wow, we're done. I said spring training's definitely over. We're going to play tomorrow. And then who knows? And, you know, we went in. We had a meeting in the morning, went out, had the game, came in, and fifth inning. And by that time, they had already canceled everything. So it was, it all happened really quick. It's going to be so interesting with baseball because baseball's a disgusting sport. Like everyone's licking their hands. They're spitting all in the dug out. You know

you lick your hand, you touch the ball, you throw the ball to somebody else. They lick their hand. Yeah. And you call us grass trap. I know. I've really been thinking about things lately. And we're going to have to figure some shit out. Yeah. I mean, our high five is going to be done. Handshakes are going to be over. Handshakes are done.

Elbow season. No more handshakes ever. Handshakes are completely. completely gone. I don't know why society like ever accepted that. Baseball invented them, you know. Well, we're going to cancel them. It was the, uh, the gay player on the Oakland A's. Whoa.

A handshake? Hello. High fives. Well, I mean, he was, he was gay and then they like ran him out of the league. He was on the A's. He was on the A's. He invented the high five. And then they like ran him out of the league because he was openly homosexual. and then he just went to like a gay softball league in San Francisco and just crushed people. Is it his name, Billy Bean?

Oh, yeah. It might be. It's not like Billy Bean, the GM. Not the GM. I thought you were taking a jab at him. No. No, first of all, there's nothing wrong being homosexual. I'm just saying, his name is Billy Bean.

I think you're right. You guys think high fives are done forever, like in society? I don't know. High fives, fist, buzz. Because people don't need fist bump anymore. Fis bumps, I mean, even that, like it's skin-touching skin. I was, I've been doing a lot of research on this virus and how it's six-year-skinned. So are butt slaps gone in baseball?

No, that's not touching skin. Glenn Burke. There's no skin. Glenn Burke is the man who invented the high-five. And it was like in the 70s. Interesting. Yo, high-fives aren't gone. I don't want to live in that world.

That's all I have. You're not a high-fiver. He's going to be some changes, man. I'm just a toucher, man. Yeah, yeah, Jake's super touchy-feely. I'm like... He's doomed. I'm kind of having...

I'm having a bad time with this old Corona thing. It's really affected. I'll be honest with you guys. I'll be honest with you guys. How long do you think until let's go erases itself from the sports world? Until let's go. Excuse me? Let's go.

Oh, never. That didn't... That wasn't around until like 2010s. Right. If you go back to like the early 2000s, no one was screaming, let's go. Like they were screaming like, like the early 2000s, it was like, get some. That was like the 2000 to 2010 thing. Interesting. It's weird.

I've never thought about that. But now everyone says let's go after everything. There's a lot of things, a lot of baseballisms. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like the Hun House, I guess let's go is one. No one really says, what was the other one you said? Get some. That's from like the early 2000s.

Yeah. Like, I think that was Iraq war that came from there. Oh. Are you like being serious? I can't tell it. Yeah. No, I am. Yeah, yeah.

Like, you ever seen Generation Kill or Red Generation Kill? There's a whole chapter called Get Some. They yelled it a lot. I'm being very serious. There's been a lot of humble bragging by you about how you read books. I read a lot of books. It's not a brag. It's not a book right here.

Jack, who on the Cardinals? I'm trying to ask some silly questions without being rude. Who was like glad the seasons pushed off? I was going to ask that. I was going to, I was going to phrase it like this. When the team gets told who had drastic reactions, happy or mad? Like who had reactions that were different than the pack? Nobody was like happier mad.

It was just, all right, I'm out. I'm going home. Like right away. Some people were like, it was like, there's no reason to be here. They're not going to send us. is St. Louis, I'm going home. I'm not naming names, but me and one other guy were on a plane right away out of there. Just gone.

Let's get home. Yeah. Who's like nicked up on the Cardinals that might have missed the start of the season and now they might be in the clear? See, now that's a better question because I can actually answer that. Thanks, Jeff. No, because we had guys. I mean, Miles, he was going to miss part of the season with. Yeah.

And then who, I think Drew, Andrew Miller was doing a little bit of stuff, but he'll be good. But Miles was the big one. You know, he was going to miss some time. I hadn't thrown yet in spring training. And then Jordan Hicks, too. He's coming back from TJ. Oh, yeah. He should be depending on, you know, when everything happens.

But he'll be ready to go real soon. That's crazy. Yeah, so it works out for us a little bit, but I'd still rather be playing. Yeah. Has, have you ever, has Miles ever eaten a lizard in front of you? No, you know, we've tried to get him to do some things, but he's no longer doing that. So got some. It was a one-time thing.

Hate when he does that. Don't eat a lizard. Don't eat a lizard. I've got, I've got something that I'm starting to get excited about and get your guy's perspective on it. Maybe Trevor's two, if he wants. if this does become a shortened season, whether it's a buck 20, 100, 81, whatever, you know, the early numbers and everything on that is that, I mean, the season becomes crazy. Like I read something that, you know, over a buck 62 games this year,

the Dodgers had a 98% chance to make the playoffs. And if it's down to 81, that goes down to 71%. Like, does that get you juiced up at all to see what a shorter baseball season looks like? or does that just seem fundamentally wrong? Or what's that seem from your guys' perspectives? Especially in your division, too, which you got a lot of talented teams. Every single game matters. You can't give anything away.

It's going to be a tight race. And all it takes really is one team to get hot for a month or one team to get cold. And it could take you, it could just take you out of it. Or some team you may not expect, they get hot for a month. And next you know, you're looking at different standings. Yeah, we were talking yesterday about the Rockies. If you were to go back to last year, 81 games into the season, the Rockies were the fourth best team in the National League.

Wow. So like you said, man, you get hot for a couple months. Especially a lineup like that. They can get. Right? The whole season. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's why, you know, 162 games, things even out over time. Yeah. Eventually they even out. You figured out. but you get it like that. Every single game matters. There's no games off. Like, guys are going to be playing every day.

Well, you ended last season with incredible numbers. Jake can rip them off right now. You were really good. I don't care anymore. Like, what if this season... Not going to think about it? You could do a full season of just that. And then, you know, 40 years from now,

when we look back at, like, what did Flirty do in 2020? And it's like, oh, shit, he had a 1-9 ERA. Oh, yeah. You could cook the books this year. will be like that was the corona season it was only half. That dude was good. That would be crazy to do something like that

and shoot man. I just want to play. That's all I know. I'm kind of losing it over here. Trying to find hobbies. Trying to figure out what to do. You're a list guy now. What are you doing?

What are you doing to like throw right now? Because we obviously don't know when they're going to start to season up. So you don't, you can't like, are you continuing bullpens? Are you just playing catch? Are you, what are you doing? Playing catch, some bullpens.

just here and there. We're trying to try to figure out a schedule as best you can, but with no real time table, you know, you just try to don't go all the way back to zero. Yeah. But not, we're not ramping up anymore to get ready for something to happen in two weeks.

You know, it's just trying to stay sharp as sharp as you can. You know, it keeps throwing a couple of bullpens. You know, you never know, you might get the chance to come standing. Whoa. I need it. I know you.

on it. Where a GoPro? Where a GoPro, Trev? Right on the head. I actually ducked Jack the last time I had a chance to face him in spring training. We were on a two-day trip on that side of Florida. And I played, they gave me the option that either play against the Cardinals or I guess it was the Marlins. Unbelievable.

And I played against the Marlins because I knew Jack was pitching. I didn't want him to straighten out. Because at that point, I was horrible at baseball. Who was, who'd you face on the Marlins? How'd you do? I don't remember, but I do know by, oh, I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure my last professional bat, which was in spring training last year,

I got a hit off Jordan Hicks, and that's a pretty, like, I feel pretty good about that. Yeah, that's pretty good. He still catch up to it. Oh, no, well, he was tipping his pitches. Oh, wow. Whoa. Yeah.

That's good to know. Thank. Trevor Ploos trying to make headlines. I got it. Jack, is that just that sentence? You're doing constant, like, fear when you hear, like, another pitcher's tipping his pitches? Do you live in constant fear of that, or you kind of set with your delivery? You got it all in lock.

I mean, we have guys watch and look out for that and try to see every single thing that you do. So, you know, as starters, you throw a bullpen whenever you're pitching in game, the other starters are looking and watching and just try and constantly to see if you're tipping something or what. and even guys out of the bullpen, we're watching them just to see, you know, if team is on, if is on a guy, you know, we're checking to see, hey, is he tipping his pitches today? It's something going on. Or are these pitches just over the middle and these guys are just, they're hitting it because it's over the middle. So it's hard to just immediately go to, hey, I was tipping my pitches today. Normally it's, well, you know, those pitches were all over the middle of the plate, you know, you're giving them a good chance. So. I'll give it to you right now. I mean, I thought I did, but maybe I didn't. He was coming set, and his, I'll try to get in the picture here, like, his glove was, like, turned up like this on a fastball and flat on an off speed. And it was really easy to see because it was right on his belt line. Yeah.

So you could see his belt on a fastball, and he was, like, covering it on an off speed. So I got two fastballs in a row. They were nasty. Yeah, he throws pretty fast. And I knew they were coming. I still, like, didn't even swing at him because they were so disgusting. And then he flipped me over a two-strike curb bowl. I got a base hit.

Just waiting on the off speed, huh? Dude, you're on 104 or something. It makes it a little easier. You know, it's coming, huh? Yeah. Yeah, so just tell him that, you know. Let him know. Who's the dude on your team that's like.

Waring a buzzer. Who's, you don't, you don't have to. Who's the guy in your team that's like, the best at picking up pitches. Like who's the guy you'd go to, whether you're doing or you just hear them seeing the other guy on the other team? Goldie? Goldie and Weeders.

Yeah, Goldie's always looking for something. Whether it's us or the other pitcher, he's always looking for something. He's catching on to something. That's the guy. He's pretty good at everything. Yeah, we were blown away. We were doing our,

we ran through like every team getting ready for the season and it turned out being a big kind of fuck you in our own faces a little bit but uh dude it's goldie so much work for nothing goldie's nuts man gold like last year was goldies like worst season as a pro and he's still pretty much raped like that dude's silly he's legit dude he was really really good yeah it was uh you could call it a down year just because of his expectations way up here right and he was still probably above league average and everything

is what I was expect. There was one year with the Diamondbacks where he started out so poorly. That was 18. And I was like, don't sleep. This guy is about to go on fire. 18 and he got crazy hot. Yeah.

He's another good wiffle ball stance guy. You know, with like that like... Yeah, he definitely could be out of now with that. You got some guys in the league now that could definitely be added to the woofell ball. I don't know about YouTube ploof.

I look back at my career and I'm like, my swing was not that good. I had so many holes. Let's get emotional. I battled. I battled. Keep digging, Trevor. How long did you do it for, Trevor?

What? How long did you do it for? How long do you play? I mean, I got drafted no fours in the big leagues. I have seven, a little over seven years. Showtime, my dad. Get emotional. You know what's funny.

we're talking about those hair it out the all time list and um everyone was putting like the all time like it was like a do or die one game this is the these are the guys I want yeah and Lane Adams

who was hilarious on Twitter was like if you've never seen a 92 mile hour slider like get the fuck off my list yeah you're not making the list yeah because that's what's going on nowadays.

So like, you know, go ahead and put. It's not on my do or die list right now. Yeah. He's not wrong. We were watching the World Series

in like 76 or 77 and the announcer said something like, if you want to catch up with a 94 mile of hour fastball, you're swinging out of your shoes. And we're just like, that's slow now. That's,

yeah. I got so much for having Jeter on my team and I was kind of confused about that. I was like, did I miss something? Dude, don't get Trevor. going. It'll be the first

time he'll get his nerdy defensive stats out. Jeter couldn't play good defense. He's the worst offensive shortstop of all time. That's because he... I mean, statistically he is. That's because nobody else last as long as shortstop as he did. He was playing out there with German Shepherd hips at the end.

Yeah, take out all the talk out, take out like the last three years or however many you need to do to butter knife it up and you're good. I don't think that's the case, Jim. In his prime, he wasn't the worst, Trev. Yeah. Okay.

All right, cool. Great. Trevor, didn't you want to talk about these? No one's putting 38-year-old Jeter on their list. Jack's putting 25-year-old Jeter on his list. Gets bag out the door, Jeter. Jeter's not on my do or die. Like one name.

Why? Why? I mean, he's one of the more like timely come-thrues and timely moments hitters. Best hitting shortstop in the past, I don't know, 200 years, something like that. I would put A-Roy. above him. I mean, and yeah, guess what A-Rod's defensive stats didn't get shattered because he moved to third base?

What did Cal Ripkin do? He moved to third base. Yeah. Yeah, Jeter and his prime. You've always been such a big A-Rod fan because he never cheated the game, too, so that's perfect. A-Rod. A-Rod moves off shorts to third base.

Kyle Ripkin moves off short to third base. Another prominent figure who moved from short to third base. Trevor Ploof. I got you. All the same. All the same. I was a horrible shortstop, and I was probably better defensively than dare cheater. Oh, I love that.

I'm going to, can we edit that up and put it on just a quote board and tweet it out? They would just have everyone coming for. Defensively, we're about the same, and I was horrible. Oh, BBD's taking notes. Who is better looking? You were Jeter. That's tough. It's personal preference.

Okay. Good answer. Yeah, I'll throw myself in the mix. That's another 25 versus 38-year-old Jeter situation. Yeah, that's true. When he went full, when the hair left, he whole changed. It got weird. He got mixed up.

Didn't you want to talk about the USA team Stroman talked about or something, Plouffe? No. I think Jack should be mentioned, like, Stro, like, let's go, man. Like, get our boy J-Flare on there. Stro. Appreciate it. Why, who did he have? He didn't have you on the team? I mean, he didn't have everybody. I think it was like the guys that were on the team.

Oh, okay. Trabb, do you have a weird country that you could have gone and played for? Like, could you go play for Team France if you wanted to? I don't know. I really haven't looked into it. That'd be sick. I think you could. Like, the team Italy was like Servelli and then a bunch of Americans.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Yeah. I wouldn't be serviceable. for any country right now. Would you be excited to do that, Jack, to go play in like the World Baseball Classic? I think it would be cool. Just watching the last one that went on and, you know, you actually get a group of guys to come out and do it. Just those atmospheres are completely different than anything you kind of experience.

You've done it before, right, U.S. team? Yeah, I mean, high school is not the same, but it was really cool. It's a different... Yeah, yeah. It's different when you have that USA across your chest, going against different countries. But it'd be definitely something to be cool to partaken. I guarantee you're going to be on that team.

If not, we're riding. Like you're on the team. I mean, I should manage. Wow. Just throwing that out there. You put your name in the hat to be the manager? Player manager. I mean, you don't have to have any experience to manager anymore.

Check. Yeah. You check all the boxes. You are. very friendly. Everyone likes you, Treve. Do you have a hard-ass side, do you? Can you tell people when they need to be told? Not really. I mean, like, younger guys that they do something really stupid.

Great first base coach. Yeah, first base coach for me, for sure. Third base is too much pressure. I don't want that. First base, I just get the batting gloves and that's it. I don't know why anyone would ever want to be a third base coach. Just so much, you just get called bad all the time. Yeah. They used to say you have to coach third base before you can become a manager. Just so you can face the music of making the wrong call every now and then?

It's one of those things. They wanted to put you through the ringer and make sure you're ready for it. But now it's just like, hey, are you young? Are you going to do what the front office tells you to do? Okay, you're in. You're hired. I have a question that you're not going to want to answer, Jack. Here we go.

How many coaches and slash people, in the clubhouse and the dugout do you look at and be like, what are you do here? Okay, I will say this because Is it five? Is it ten? It's kind of a running joke on the team, but

we just added a run creation specialist. Whoa. And it's a compacky. And every time we scored a run, we'd say, all right, dude, well, your job is done. It's got your one run. A hell of a job.

Thank you. Great job. That's funny. No, it's just, there's so many different positions being created. You kind of wonder where do they all fit in. When you Google run creation specialists, it's like MLB, it doesn't, not even a thing. They create new names, but you just kind of wonder how it all. Yeah, like the Padreys manager, Tickler?

Tingler. Tingler. Tingler. Same thing. Tickler. He was the quality control coach for the Rangers, which no one knows what that is. that's a new thing yeah as I was searching

for our spring training ship like looking for the PR guys I was going through the front office of all these teams and the way each team is structured is all completely different they just make up names and the reason they do that is when they're trying to poach guys

from other organizations the only way they can get a permission to interview or talk to these guys is if they offer like a bump. Like it has to be like a a raise type thing.

Like a, what do you call that? A promotion, sorry. So they started creating all these things, these names that, and they're just names, but they're just titles, but they had to do that so they had got permission to interview these guys. We should start doing that.

How about that? Yeah. We make up our own job titles. Jack, have you looked into any of the like, what's going on with C. BBA stuff yet, because I mean, Trevor is oddly locked into that stuff. He's closer to coming for Tony Clark's job than managing the U.S. 10, but, like, do you...

Yeah, Trevor, I saw your tweet today. Oh, he's running hot, dude. That's definitely a big topic. Dude, service time is a crazy thing because it affects everybody. It affects Jack. Yes. It affects everybody. But your mooky bets, that was the big thing I was hung up on was, okay, if it's not a full year.

so what the Dodgers get him for a year and a half? Is he a free agent in the middle of next year when he hits it? Jack, that is genius. That is genius. That's funny. All-star break, you get to decide where you want to go. That would be the coolest thing to happen in Major League Baseball history. That's hilarious.

That would be weird. The latest thing that is out there is that MLB is proposing that, as of right now, 130 days would constitute a full year instead of 170. I don't know. It seems like an arbitrary number to me, but that's what's being floated out there right now. Yeah, it's just going to be choose a number and hopefully agree on it. No, if you can't.

It's just got to be based on however many games we play. Exactly. That's going to be a full year. Pro rated. Who are the player reps on the Cardinals? Andrew Miller and Paul Goldschmidt handled pretty much everything. So those are two pretty trustworthy guys. Can you? But I try to ask them.

Yeah, I would text them every morning and be like, so what's the deal? Sometimes I do, and I think Drew gets a little bit annoyed. He's like, man, dude, you kind of stop. Chill out, bro. Miller's awesome. He answers any question that I have, but. Yeah, they're good. They're well-informed.

They're guys I can trust. There's an article out there today detailing all the shortened seasons. Jake sent it to me. It's actually a good read. And as an ESPN. and won in like 85 or 81, there was a strike in the middle of the season from June to August. And what they did was, they said, all right,

before the strike was the first half. So if you were in first place, you won the first half. And then we're going to play the second half of the season. And if you win the second half of the season, you play the first half of the season winners, and that was the playoffs. That's pretty cool. Pretty wild.

I think that's what's going to be the, interesting. If you were the first half winner, you just didn't care about a thing. I'm asleep. That's true. He just got ready. Oh, yeah, you got three months to get ready for the playoffs. What if one team won both halves? I don't know. Don't ask questions. We don't know the answers to you, Tray. Come on. It's not a math fun. I think that's the interesting thing to me is if when when baseball comes back, which I think it's going to is are they going to try to get like crazy creative and get outside the box? Are they just going to be like, uh, we're not changing the schedule play ball?

There's a lot of things floating around. I don't know what's going to be decided on. Do the Cardinals have a nice second half schedule or a hard one? The only thing I know is we don't come west in the second half. So we were supposed to have all of our West Coast trips. Yeah, but you're getting a lot of West Coast time now. Exactly. We were going to miss our LA trip, so I'm kind of soaking it in right now.

That's another interesting thing we talked about. Yeah. Like the strength of schedule is going to be strange because of if we just go by the second half schedule or whenever we start the games, you just can keep the schedule. Like there's going to be disparity big time amongst all the teams. Yeah, it looks like you guys got a lot of pirates in the second half. Which could be nice. We play a lot of our division come down the stretch. Yeah.

You got two series with the Royals in there. That could be nice. Giants, D-backs. It's pretty balanced for you, for the Cardinals. I got a question for you, Jack. Jack or Jake? The pro baseball player. Okay.

I'll sit this one. Would you allow MLB to mic you up during the regular season? am I pitching when you're pitching they would have to be on a complete tape delay you could not do it live yeah like like the way the NFL sounds does it like they would get your permission and release it the next day which I think would actually be really cool where it was like that because I one I couldn't have a conversation with somebody and try to pitch two you wouldn't be allowed to air half the things that come out of my mouth I'll just read your leg just yeah it just you would have to mute it the whole time But if it was an NFL, like a sounds thing where it was, you could do it, you know, little bits and pieces here and there.

It's insane. It's insane. It's insane that the NFL has been doing that since the 1960s. Yeah. And MLB has never done it. Yeah, the NBA will do it. They'll mic up refs and then when they have a conversation with the player. The home plate um should be miced up and then you should just roll that the next, like, Monday or whatever.

You know what I mean? I'm sure they have some great conversations at the plate. Who's your favorite mic? Like he's behind the mound and you're like, all right, I like this guy. I'm going to look up. Um, um, bump. Wait, what? But also you can, you can say.

If you have a favorite friend named Mike either. Or a favorite microphone. You can answer that as well. My favorite um, behind the play, all of them. All right. I'll tell, I will tell you your actual favorite ump. Good answer. For you.

Have you ever been ejected? No. Is that something you'd like to do before your career ends? Yeah. In an honest question, like, if you're, you know, 60 and looking back at your career, and you see zero ejects and you're like, damn. Should have someone. I think I'll probably look back and be like,

how did I not just one time? Yeah, but you'll have that extra money in your pocket. You know who never got ejected once in 20 years? Who? Derek Jeter. Oh. Wow. Boy.

One of his more impressive stats. That's what that is. His glove ejected ball. Oh, boy. Sorry, DJ. You're always really nice to me. He also signed a jersey for me, so thank you. Thank you.

Do you had him sign a jersey and now you're doing new stuff, dude? Damn, dude. He's always really nice to me. I just, it's funny, you know, some guys get a pass on their play. He's one of them. I mean. Your favorite ump is Tim Timmins. He's also one of mine because he's got a great name.

Tim Tinton. You can't, your parents named you Tim Timmins. It's tough. You got to overcome a lot right away. Are you saying that because he is the most friendly to Jack? No, Jack has the most starts with him behind the dish. Are they good? Yeah, and you have 30Ks in four starts, so that's pretty good.

Yeah. 266 ERA. Your second favorite, um, let's see, is that you actually have games behind. Ooh, Scott Berry. Do you guys know these names? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I know Tim.

I don't know Scott Barry either. But two games with Barry, 0.84 ERA, 10 innings. Pick him up. He's like a middle-aged guy. He's not a young guy, but he's not a old guy. Not a lot of strikeout. though. Dude, Jack, Hunter Wendlestead, 20Ks

and two games. I'm gonna keep going on a list. We're just going to keep cranking that. Yeah. I'll tell you your worst. It's list season. No. It is list. It is definitely a list season. Don't give many bees. What list have you been sitting on? Hey, Gabe Morales, Jack.

You see Gabe Morales. Tighten your game up. Don't say it, Jack. No. Take the cheese. It's awesome. What's... what's the list that you've typed out in your Twitter and then you've deleted and you're like I can't do that

yes there's been nothing that I'm like I can't do that oh you're just off leash right now there's just there's nothing yet you know we're about to do uh you know pick your MLB team to play you know in a basketball game and the football as well football could get very interesting because there's so many ways to go yeah Who's your, if you have, who's your quarterback? This is all time? Baseball guys. No, current.

Current. Oh, baseball guys? Yeah. God. If you had to make a team, if you had to make a team, who's your quarterback? Joe Mauer was like the number one football recruit in high school. Who's, what's? Todd, Todd, Todd, Todd, Todd, Tilton used to play.

Yeah, I think current, I mean, I mean, Tibo's a hell of an athlete. I don't know why you guys are laughing. I've got a list for Jack. That's tough. Jack, who, like, who even comes to mind for you? It's got to be a pitcher. Is it you? I don't know.

What's this list? It could be, but I don't know. I'm trying to think of guys who played. Mike Moustakis was Chatsworth High starting quarterback, and he can throw the pigskin around a little bit. I played catch with him before. We're making a football team. I missed a list.

Baseball player. football list. Oh, I mean, Arod and Doug Benkavich were a wide receiver. We're out on the old guys. We're live. You and Trevor with the old guys. Mike Talkman picked off Garapolo in high school, and he runs in the outfield like a safety. There you go. Like

Stanton would be on the team. Judge would be Gronk. Judge and Gronk are the same size. Yeah. Judge bigger than Gronk, I think, actually. Which is just what's... Stanton and Judge out there. Damn. Who's like the slot receiver? Harrison Bay. He would definitely find some touches.

He's returning kicks. Oh, I like that. Yeah. He's like a Julian Edelman guy. Yeah, he's a Julian Edelman. Okay. Who would be the quarterback on the St. Louis Cardinals? Kirshah.

That's once he gets traded then. Early trade. Early trade. But no. On our team. Yeah, who's, be Jack? Myself. Myself for Daniel Paul and Staley-Lohn.

He played quarterback in high school. What would Yadi be on? the football team. Center. Center. He's reigning everything. Long snapper? The feisty long snapper.

Long snares. The feisty long snapper. I mean, that's the guy you trust. You're a quarterback or a Yacht to be center. He's coordinating your protections. I like that. I have a real tough list for you. And then, I mean, we're running.

Tough list with a wrap. Top three Trevers to ever play baseball. I'll give you some options. Yeah, I need some options. All right. You got Trevor. You got Trevor Hoff. Trevor

Khill Trevor William Trevor Bauer Trevor Story Trevor May Trevor Richards Trevor Pluth So just top three

Well Trevor Williams Yeah Trevor Williams Trevor Williams yeah Trevor Hoffman Trevor Hoffman Yep one You're just

What is this Top three My favorite three Trevor? No no no no Best Trevor Trevor Story's better than me.

I'll say that. You'll say that one. Me and Bauer, I don't know. He kind of did owe me, so I have to put Bower already. I'm going to take you. I'm going to take Pluth. Wow. That's love.

Plufe. I didn't realize your name is very much of your birth year. All the Trevers in MLB history are from two, like, in playing now. There's no from like the 60s or 70s. It's just Hoffman, yeah. Do you ever try to go by Trey or anything like that? No. I'm picturing 17-year-old.

Cali Trevor Plouf being like, you know, this senior season, I'm going by, what was your nickname in high school? I'm going by Trey Plouf. I'm just straight up like abbreviated Trevor. Trev, a lot of people say that. Treve is, I don't have a cool nickname. Trey's not bad, though. If you wanted a bad nickname, you could do Trey for sure.

Trey, that's just the, that's a bad name. And Trey Wingo, like, I saw this one video clip of him one time and like, I'm off of him. Sorry, Trey. That's so random What's not going to wear that came Quick tray ring Tray Wingo roasted that He wasn't yelling at somebody for something

And it just like I was I'm off this guy Damn So sorry All right you got any questions for us Jack Are you guys gonna make a new list Once this season or whatever you guys did As preseason stuff? Yeah we're gonna do top guests

You're up there right now First repeat guests I meant on your whole baseball preview That you guys said you did reason. We did, we did like 20 minutes on every single team. Yeah. That's good. Did you guys pick, uh, did you guys pick winners and everything? No, so our audience ranked them from worst to best and we released them in our audience's ranking. They did like a pretty good job. Pretty decent. It was, it was a little scary given the

people power, but they did good. Cardinals were up there. Yeah. They were, they were the top central team. Yeah. Who would you guys have, uh, what were your predictions? God. Dodgers. are my number one. You know what they're talking about. No, Dodgers, I think, should be, I mean, they added Mookie and Price, and Bruce Starr-Graderol, if he comes out of the pen for them, like, later in a...

Throwes 100, dude. He was the best pitcher... Get out of here. He was the best pitcher. Train-ins. Train-in's the one. Train-in, they added... They upgraded every aspect of their club. So, that was probably my number one. I mean, I've always been Cardinals. No, he's lying.

So that's just what that... You can see it in his face. Oh, yeah, I'm lying. No, we said nice things about the Cardinals. I think there's a clear... The pitching and defense are great. We said that if, like, Goldie were to get hurt, the lineup looks a little different. I think that was our overall take on the Cardinals.

Don't respond. My guy. I don't know. No, I think there's a clear top tier. It's Dodgers, Yankees, Houston. And then I think that second tier is a mix of... everyone like fucking gnats cardinals um who else is good braves so

cubs that's the beauty of sports are good that's the beauty of baseball babe i got in trouble for saying the white socks yeah trebs's a white socks hater he doesn't realize he is and the white socks fans are not happy with him they really blew me up yeah you don't give them a chance to i don't really care because i used to go in there and just rake

So suck it. Jack, after you... Nagee fans too. You got the microphone now, so you're your show. But like, are you sitting there right now and being like, well, after I collect my tent Sai Young, like, I'll just go into media because if these idiots can do it, anyone can do it? I've definitely thought about doing it, but not just because you guys can do it. You guys are funnier than I am.

No. Jee. Maybe a little bit. I'm very interested in who, like, whose stock ups and whose drops in a shortened season. Like you kind of said earlier. It's just crazy. I think that whole middle class of baseball that had this huge offseason, like so many teams went in this offseason.

And now everyone has a chance that, like, if it is 100 or 881 or whatever it is, like Jack said, I mean, every game, like matters. And let's be honest, in baseball 162, that's not true. No. But like in an 81 game, see, I mean, that's the only thing keeping my soul all right for now. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm excited. It's going to be high stakes every time out.

Oh, I have one more real question before we go. I know this is dragging on. Did the balls feel different at spring training at all? Yes. Cool. Noted. Noted. BPD, you write it down.

Balls felt different. I like that. Dude, Jack, appreciate you. And yeah, man, if you're getting bored and shit, we can do. do this. Jack is the best friend of the pod. Schedule. Yeah.

Right. Thanks, man. Pretty easy schedule at this point. Be good, dude. Watch some movies. Enjoy all your free time. I will watch a lot of movies. Lists.

And that was Jack Fertie. Sat down with us and Trevor Plouf joined the show. Hope you enjoyed it. Some relaxed talk. Oh, I asked him some hard hitters, dude. Yeah, you did. You were tough. I asked him to out the.

employees in his franchise who he thought did nothing. We had a stretch of hard hitters who wasn't excited or who was excited that baseball is over. That was a tough question. Any of your teammates just cheer? Hell yeah. The Clay Thompson thing. Yeah. So go follow Jack on Twitter.

If you want to see a bunch of lists, I'm interested. I'm hoping he lets his weird knob come up a little bit. He just starts doing lists of really weird stuff. As soon as baseball is back and he's. back and before he goes to spring training, we need a list of his favorite lists. List of lists. Yeah. So that's good stuff.

Thanks, Jack. We, uh, we kept, we kept him for a while. So thank you, Jack. Appreciate you. Don't think. You know what? We didn't do. We didn't drop.

You're not thinking, quote. Oh, wow. That's what, this. We should have dropped this on him. I'm not thinking. I'm never thinking. I mean, I need to do that, like, soon. Yeah.

It's a famous... Because there was a second where Jack thought I was, like, mocking him, and then he's like, no, if I've met someone who's never thought in his life, it's this little fucker. I'm not thinking. I'm never thinking. Yeah. Yeah. So we should have dropped that on him.

It's a failure all around. Yeah. Scrap the interview. We didn't need to do it again. Thanks, Jake.