Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 158 | A Different Side of the Front Office

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

We got to look at a different side of the baseball world, chatting with Venika Streeter, Authentics and Retail Sales Manager of the Minnesota Twins, on the process of authentication, her path to her current role, and advise for anybody trying to break into the game professionally. 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.

Welcome to talking baseball. We have a different conversation for you today. We talked with an MLB authenticator. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to talking baseball. My name's Jimmy. I got Jake here. I got Trev here.

We just wrapped up a conversation with Trev's colleague. Were you ex-colleagues? Is that even a thing? I don't know what you would say. We both worked for the twins. Yeah, Vinikas was a mainstay. She works in the front office with the twins, still keep in contact with her over Twitter. And we always, you know, we are always racking our brains for, you know, who can we talk to?

Let's mix up, you know, the kind of monotony of talking to players. And one of the first people I thought about was V because memorabilia is hot right now. Everybody's into it. And then the authentication of all these items is kind of a new thing in baseball. So it was really cool to pick her brain on what can be authenticated, what can't be authenticated, you know, what are some stories about some of the stuff? She shared a ton of awesome info. And then at the end, we started to, we got into some stuff about how to get more women in the front offices.

She provided some good information and some resources for anybody looking to get into the game. Yeah. And it made sense very quickly why you wanted to have her on. She was great. Some good stories about the gig and stayed till the end for even better stories. I mean, that felt like we cracked the code and we entered a whole new realm. We entered a whole new podcast with her for a little bit. But that was a lot of fun.

And, of course, just a little bit of Yankee love at the end. Just a little bit. A little bit. I love this stuff. I love, like, getting into other people's, like, every profession has. as little nuances. Inns and outs that only other people's. And I love learning about those.

So, like, her saying that sometimes she just has to sit around and wait for players to take their shirts off because they have to authenticate it. And she's just, like, waiting. She's like, oh, I think he's about to do it. Ah, shit, he just sat down. That part's so cool. So there's tons of little details like that in this interview. So I'll just throw it right to that. Here you go.

We are joined by Vanneika Streeter, the manager of Authentics and Retail Sales for, your Minnesota Twins V. How you doing? I'm good. Thank you guys for having me on. This is pretty cool. Thanks for coming on. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm kind of locked in my house right now. I go into the ballpark a couple of times a week. I was in yesterday. So today I'm staying home and doing this podcast with you and was answering some emails and stuff before this because the job never stopped. But yeah, just hanging out at home right now. I love that you ended up coming on.

Obviously, we have a relationship dating back to my time in Minnesota. They call talking baseball the most well-rounded pod in the land. And lately, we've been just doing so many player interviews with everybody at home. We were talking, like, we got to switch some stuff up. So with kind of how the memorabilious side of things has been heating up a ton, you were one of the first people I thought of because you have a hand in that amongst many other things that I found out

since asking that question but we yeah we're definitely excited to have you want to kind of just talk about I mean the front office perspective the memorabilia perspective even coming from the woman's perspective in a male dominated industry so there's a lot of great things that we want to get into today

but again thanks for thanks for coming on Yeah, I'm excited. Am I the first front office person you guys have had on this pod before? I think so. Really? I think so, yeah. That's a lot.

I don't think any other front office person that's going to. We've tried to get Sam Fold on here a few times. We're a big Sam Fold proponent. Trevor mentioned Sam Fold like way too much and we're like you have to stop. He doesn't come on yet though. He won't, yeah. Why is he ducking you, Trevor? What if you do?

I'm the bad boy of Twitter right now. Everybody knows that. Everyone's ducking me. You have the courage. I love that. Yeah. It takes a woman to be like, let's do it. So let's go.

Let's go. Jimmy used to be the bad boy of Twitter. In the off season, you know, I'm sure that you saw this. You are, we see each other on Twitter all the time. Jimmy, during this off season with the whole Astros thing, became the number one bad boy of Twitter. Yeah. It's a short rain. It's over now.

Yeah. And Trevor took over it. So it's funny. actually have connection to the Astros too because I interned there for my very first job in baseball. I didn't know that. Yeah, I interned there in 2007 during Craig Vigio's 3,000 hit year. So, yeah, that was my first gig in baseball. Were you in memorabilia then? Because that's a pretty big year for memorabilia. No, it would have been nice. I actually was in community relations.

So totally different spectrum. That's kind of what I thought I was going to do in sports is working in community relations or marketing. and then totally ended up on a whole other end of things. I don't even think that was 2007, so I don't even think Authentics was that big of a deal as far as businesses with teams back then. I know they were probably collecting things, but as far as having like stores and online shops and things that the teams ran,

I don't even think that was a thing that as big as it is now back then. So I mean coming out of college, I didn't even know it was a job I could have. And so I kind of fell into it here with the Minnesota Twins on accident. That's kind of pretty much my entire. story is everything that I've done with the twins I've done on accident like my

job I got my job with the twins on accident and fell into authentics on accident and yeah so that's why I'm still here but so what what's like that I mean this might be diving in real quick but what's the like the day to day like can you explain like you know I know memorabilia and authentics but what are what if you know if mom or dad say what are doing today? Like what is the day to day of authentication? Um, well, for me, it's different than I would say for a lot of other people in my position because I don't just do authentic. So I'm in charge of parking and transportation for the, for the organization. Um, and then I'm also the liaison between the Polad family and the front office when it comes to like community relations needs and

things like that. So every day, it's kind of different for me. But in general, I come in on a game day, say it's like a Monday, the first home first game of the homestand. We always have a staff meeting at 9 o'clock in the morning on on a game day on Mondays. So I come in at 9 o'clock, have our like hour long staff meeting. And then I try to go answer emails because there's always people who are asking about some random piece of memorabilia. Hey, do you have the lineup card from this day from five years ago? Do you have, do you have this guy's pants? Do you have that?

So I try to answer emails. And then usually in those emails, I'll get someone who wants to buy a bat or something. And then they'll ask for pictures of the item. And that usually requires a photo shoot because it's never just, can you just take a snapshot? It's can you turn the bat 20 degrees this way and then get deep into the lettering here? And then can I see the pine tar here? And so it takes forever to do that. And then I'm doing parking and making sure that everybody who's supposed to be a guest for the day is on the list.

So I'm getting that out to the parking people. Meanwhile, typically, when I'm not at my desk, it's the worst time of the day because I can never get from one place to the other without having to be stopped to do something. You know, people ask, I'm kind of the, I kind of get asked to do a little bit of everything. And then I get back to my desk, answer some more emails, try to put up an auction, which requires a lot of photos and getting a spreadsheet put together to send to Major League Baseball to get that up. And then if I have any orders that have come in over the weekend, then I have to process orders, and then I have to get those boxed up and packaged and shipped out before the game start. And then usually around 5 o'clock, or 4 o'clock, I send my intercourse. turn over to the kiosk to start getting set up for gates, because gates open an hour and a half before game time.

So we got like an hour and a half to kind of get things ready. And then I'm running around. Trevor, you can probably remember probably seeing me outside sometimes in the parking lot waiting for players when they came in. Or you'll see me in the clubhouse running around to see what jersey guys are wearing that day because that's always a question that fans asked me. And then, yeah. And then once gates open, it's a mess.

So then I'm already tired. I mean, you're just to do a full day of so many different activities. And then it's the game. And then it's the game. And God forbid we have a delay or we have, you know, rain delay or any other kind of issue. Like in general, I can have 12 to 15 hour days, five to seven days a week or, you know, in a row. So homestands are really, really, really long. I'm the only full-time person in the authentic department for the twins.

So I work every single home game. I haven't missed a home game for a vacation or for my own pleasure in six or seven years. I've been at every single one of them. The only games that I've missed, I've missed because I was doing something for work in another part of the country or something. But yeah, I'm always working. My mom didn't realize how crazy it was until. In January, I had my consul taken out, which is the worst time ever because it's twin sets for the twins. And I helped run that.

And she didn't know how crazy my job was. And I actually had to put my mom to work because I was so busy and I was so messed up from my tonsillectomy that I was like, I know you came here to take care of me. But here, I need you to tag these jerseys. And I need you to hang this stuff up for me and help me get set up. So, yeah, it's crazy. My job is a lot. It's a lot. We talk about this, you know, right now, obviously, there's a labor dispute going on between players and MLB,

but this is just one instance of, like, there's so many people that do all sorts of jobs to get that game going. Yeah. And to make Major League Baseball what it is. It's not just the players and the owners. it's everybody doing all their jobs to put together this big production and I mean you you're a deal in authentic but like you said you're kind of like a jack of all trades you do everything yeah what's up with that where's can we get an intern can we get can we get can we get like some help yeah I got an intern my first intern three seasons ago so that's nice but the only problem is that they're only allowed

to work 40 hours a week even with game I work 90 hours during a stand. So my intern, so it's helpful, but it's not as helpful as I would like it to be. Just because, like, on a game day, they can't come in until 3 o'clock because they have to work the entire game. And because we don't have time limits in baseball, they could be there for nine hours, even though they came in at, you know, three o'clock. So I'm trying to get more help, trying to convince Dave, Peter to get me to get me more help.

Let's go. Yeah. Dave. It's crazy. We're trying to make it work. We're hiring a lot of people in the baseball department right now. So we'll get down to me eventually. Okay.

Yeah. But it's crazy. Yeah, it's, I know that, but it's not, I'm not the only person dealing with this in Major League Baseball. I know a lot of other teams, it's the same way. It's one person. And then they get help on game days when they have a part-time person or an intern come in. But it's like that for quite a few teams where we're doing a lot of work.

And I think, I think someone. the reason behind that is because the business is so new. Everybody knows what marketing is. Everybody knows the community relations and baseball communications is because it's been around since the beginning, right? But this is so new that I think people maybe in an executive position don't realize how much work goes into it. And because, you know, I think the people who do it, at least the ones that I know are really, really productive and we take pride in what we do, so we get our stuff done. So even though we might be killing ourselves to get it done,

we get it done. And so maybe people might not realize just how much we're actually doing and how stressful it can be just because we make sure to get stuff done. So I think it's just a learning process to kind of getting maybe senior executives to realize, you know, just shipping out orders can take four hours. And that's half your day, you know. So I'm not to send a text of Dave St. Peter. That's good.

I would appreciate you. that privilege Trevor of being a former player. Do it. I like it. Is this something every team has now? Does every MOB team have an authentication department? So, yeah. So every team has authenticators that work for their games, work their games.

As far as selling products, 2019s do. The White Sox do not sell. They don't have a program where they sell like we are. I think they're trying to build to what most of the other teams have. but for the last couple of years they have not had like an actual like kiosk where they're selling things and doing like what I do and what the other 29 other teams do. But they're trying to get there. Interesting.

And then the one question I have, I have so many. That was so interesting. But I've got to start with this. When you say people email you asking for random things. Yeah. Can you remember the last time someone emailed asking for a Trevor ploof something? You know what? People actually really like.

Don't say my email address on the air. I know what you were trying to do, Jim, and I don't like it. No, I just want to know, like, does V have, like, a stack of Trevor Pluth used cleats and pants somewhere? Can we go picking through it? So I don't have stuff anymore because you left, like, you left a while ago. So any of the stuff that I did have, I sold already. So I don't have anymore. If you want to do an autograph signing for me, we can work that out, though.

Ooh. Does each player have like a one buyer? Like there's like one guy out there that just owns All Treff stuff? Yeah, there are people like that. Like there was a fan who was a super super Kurt Suzuki fan like huge Kurt Suzuki fan to the point where like he was buying, he was like, I need pants, I need the jersey, I need the hat,

I need the cleats because I want to do a mannequin in my basement of Kurt Suzuki. Yeah. So, you know, and we don't typically sell pants. but I was like, you know what? I'm going to make that work. So I went and I was like, I went to our clubhouse manager. I was like, I need some Kurt Suzuki pants and you figure out a way to get something for that guy. But yeah, there's, and then there's always, like, fans who you would think that they'll be into, like, the Max Kepler's and the Byron Bucksons, but they're into, you know, the guy that's not really the big name.

They just kind of want to have something from the end. And it's because that stuff doesn't sell as much, you know, as the bigger name players do. like, you know, we sell some jerseys for three to five grand. There are other jerseys that don't sell for as high as that. So then you'll have fans that'll latch on to that one player. And then once they get one item from them, then they want everything from that one guy. So, yeah, it's interesting when you do, and when you do meet that one person who's like obsessed with the one guy.

And it's like, you know, whatever you get, you're going to be able to sell it to that fan. Yeah. Yeah, there's a man out there with a Kurt Suzuki mannequin. basement fully dressed. Yeah. I'm like I have that image in my head right now and it's a little strange. Yeah. Subscribe to my only fans to see that if you're interested.

How tough is it at an event like Twinsfest when you have, you know, I'm sure you have some of the current players. From what we saw from Bert Blylevin, I'm sure he's hamming it up. And then again, you have someone like Trevor Plouffe where it's like, please stay to the side. How is managing those kind of situations? Twin Fest is actually not difficult to manage. It's a well-oiled machine at this point because we've been doing it for almost 30 years.

So it's pretty easy. And a lot of the guys, I will say I think our players, twin players and former players, are actually really easy to work with when it comes to that kind of stuff because we plan their day to the T. Like they get a schedule of everything that they're going to be doing. so there's not a whole lot of just randomness and them kind of flying all over the place. So it's pretty easy. I mean, when we do schedule and we start scheduling the lines, we think about personalities

and we're like, okay, Bert talks a lot. So we cannot put him with Tony Oliva because they both talk a lot. That's so funny. Yeah. They met both of them in spring training. Yeah, it's like you'd never be able to get through the line with them because they talk a lot and they want to know everything. Just a bottleneck right there.

Exactly. You got to kind of like put person like, okay, we're like, you know, Bert talks a lot. Let's put him with, you know, a younger player who may not talk as much and who's new. And let's do that and see how that works out. But sometimes you can't avoid it. If you're doing like a Hall of Fame line, you can't help. You know, Jack Morris and Bert Blyleven, you know, they're going to talk.

But we kind of plan everything out and think about those kinds of things so that we don't have to worry about. we're like Trevor gets along with this person and Trevor's got a good personality so we can put him with these people. These guys don't speak English that well. So let's put him with this player who does speak English so that they can help push the line along and things like that. There's a lot of planning that goes involved with making sure that our twin stuff kind of run smoothly. You know what I'm doing right now? I'm going back in my head thinking about who I've been set up with and I'm trying to think about what that means, what that says about. Yeah, I don't remember who you were with this year.

It's weird. I think it's different when you come back as an alumni player, but I don't remember. I was, I had a pretty good crew, you know, it was like me and a bunch of the, like, kind of, when I played, it was the elder statesman. So I was with Nathan and Moreno and somebody else. And it was just like the good old boys club, I guess. Except I was definitely the least, like famous or. You still got juice. I got juice.

My personality is okay. My baseball stats weren't as good as my personality. But some people, you just got to figure it out. Trevor, who's got the most juice? Who's got the most juice? Yeah, who's got the most? That's a good question because we have a lot of famous alumni that participate a lot in the twins stuff. Yeah, our alumni is awesome.

They come to almost everything. Who comes? Yeah, who comes first? Who's like, we got to get it done? I mean, you always want to have Rod Caroo. Rod Cruz. Oh, okay. How's going to say Rod?

Tori. Yeah, Tori, too. And the fact that Rod still comes to stuff, even after he's had heart surgery, and he makes it a point to be at, like, almost every event that we ask him to come to is huge. Tori's a really, really, a really big player for us, too. Just because, you know, it's Tori, a huge personality, has the stats and stuff to back it off. You know, he's the guy who came behind Kirby. So everybody, you know, everybody loves Tori.

And of course, Joe, Joe, but it's weird, though, for me, I don't, I thought it's weird. So when Joe played, Trevor, you know this. A lot of fans would, like, talk about how he didn't have passion or how he was too quiet, or he didn't, he wasn't a good leader and all these things. But Twin Fest, his line is always the longest, like fans show up and they love them. So it always, it's always funny to me. It's like, you guys talk a lot online. And then as soon as he's a person, you guys are like, this is the greatest person ever.

But, yeah, and Joe's really good. Like, he shows up to a lot of our events, too. And especially now that he's retired, he comes to a lot of different things, too. I think it was harder for him as a player, especially being from Minnesota. It seems like everybody has a Joe Mauer story. Everybody knows Joe or is related. or their family yeah exactly in some way so it's like he never really had it i don't i don't know if it would have been different if he would have like played somewhere else but it's it kind of felt like

all eyes were always on joe like there's nothing he could ever do so even if you would have a charity event like you know the celebrity waiter events and things like that i don't think he would go to those because if he went to those the focus would be taken away from everything else that was happening and all the other players that were there and then just be so on him. So he did as much as he could do, probably more than a lot of people would expect somebody of that caliber to do. But he's always been, he's always been really, really great. Like I said, all of our alumni show up and do a lot of different things. Like, I will say this year we had a, we had a, what's those things called? An escape room. We did an escape room at

Twinsfest. And we had an alumni player that was like, I'm not doing that. You're not walking me in a room. And I was like, I was like, we're not really locking you in a room. It's like, you're the window. You can actually see outside. You're not really in a room by yourself with a couple of people. Like we think about these things ahead of time. But other than that, guys are usually pretty good about stuff. Yes.

It's, I love the crew. Like, I don't know how it is. I mean, I played for a few other teams, but as far as alumni coming back and really pitching in and doing stuff, not just like kind of, showing up but the guys go to spring training a ton you have rod you have tony you have bert you know nathan more no all those guys are doing all that stuff now and it's really special to do it i've somehow weaseled my way in that crew i was going to come back for morneau's uh twins hall of fame ceremony i was going to come back for the legends game i don't know

look i'm i don't know how i'm getting in this stuff but talking about stuff but i don't know if people new, but that's the thing. Oh. I don't know if that was fair or not. I don't know. Can that still happen? Because I was really looking forward to that. Yeah, I might have to edit it out. I was too. I don't know if I don't know how anything is going to happen with pregame stuff. And, um, because you know, Trevor, we do like batting practice buddies where we bring kids onto the field and they get to meet players before game. Yes. I don't know how that happens anymore. Um, I don't know how you do first pitches on the field. anymore. There's a whole lot, I think, just from the business side of baseball that's going to change and not just what's happening with the players and how they play games and stuff. Like we, that's how we make a lot of money and things and a lot of, you know, for the community and donations and stuff is giving people the opportunity to come on the field to meet players. I don't know how that happens, you know, and so it's going to be, it's going to be interesting to see. I don't even know if we're

going to do like theme nights because if there's no fans in the building, I don't know. know how you do like the same type so yeah what so okay i mean look we're going all over the place here yeah um two part question one all the the promotions the promotional giveaways those are already ordered right like did you were you able to cancel that or are you just or do you now just have a warehouse of 20,000 rally towels that you're just going to give away eventually yeah some stuff has been ordered not everything um we do have we have a storage unit across from the clubhouse. There are, I think, five pallets of pocket schedules for the 2020 season that we have no idea

what we're going to do with now because they're completely obsolete. Like it's thousands of pocket schedules. So we have no idea what we're going to do there. But yeah, not everything has been ordered. Like there were some cool bobbleheads that we were going to do. I think we're going to still try to do them. But they haven't been ordered yet and they haven't been shipped to us. luckily but there has been some stuff that has come through i have an idea for the pocket

schedules yeah you burn all of them besides one and then auction that one off for like two million bucks because in 50 years yeah if this is the only schedule yeah remaining for the 2020 season that's true that's a lot of money i'm sure um our archive is Clyde um i don't know if trevor has ever talked to you guys about Clyde deafner before he's the twins archivist and i think the only one in Major League Baseball. He collects everything. So I think we were playing on giving him like a box of the pocket schedule so he can have it for the archives. And then we're the greenest team in baseball. So we can't burn them. So we'll have to like recycle them or something. But we're going to figure something. That works too. Yeah, because it probably will be a collector's item for sure. Because one, they hadn't been released. We just had released like tentative scheduling. And I think these are the ones that have like the promo scheduled. It's like the full pocket schedule. So they probably will be a collector's item at some point for. I didn't, I didn't even think about that. Like all the opening day merch that probably was there and yeah. Well, the special occasions. Yeah. Well, for us, this is our 60th season. So we have so much

merchandise in our team store that says 60th season on it that if we don't play this year, I don't know if we count 2021 as the 60th season. Yeah. Just run all the merch back. Yeah. Just like cross it with a Sharpie. Yeah. So it could be. come obsolete, who knows. And then we were supposed to have special baseballs this year with the 60s and the logo on the ball for all of our home games. So hopefully we can actually play so we can actually use those baseballs this year because otherwise we spent thousands of dollars for baseballs that are kind of just sitting

there in storage right now. All right. Well, Jim, you interrupted my line of questioning. I had two. You let me ask one. So I'm going to go back for question number two. It's my bad. It's okay.

What's up? So, V, we have a segment on the show. It's called Trevor's Tidbits. I try to give general information about what's going on in the game. Obviously, we all know I've been famously wrong about one of my predictions. Bigly wrong. Yes. Bigly wrong.

I was right, but I'm wrong. It's a weird situation. No, just wrong. We can say just wrong now. We can say wrong. Okay, whatever. Yeah. Just wrong.

I want to do. we have a front office guest on now. V. We need some V's tidbits. We need to know if you got any special privileged information about, I'm going to get specific because I don't want to get into trouble. Okay. Fans in the stands, do you have anything about that?

Have you heard anything about it? Because we know in Texas, they're already up to 50% capacity. Yeah. LA is opening up everything except nail salons. Everything's coming back. As long as we avoid a spike, we'll see. Do you have any information on that? Okay, so I have not heard anything official about fans being at the games.

I do know, I think the Rangers want to have, because of that, the state allowing, you know, 50% capacity. You know, they've got a new ballpark. it would be really terrible to open up a season, your first season, and not have fans there. So I know that they want to have fans. But as far as anything official, there hasn't really been too much talk. I know there's there, I think they've been planning for different numbers of maybe 2,000, 5,000 and so on. But there hasn't been anything official. But I don't know, but at the same time, I don't just per like my opinion, I don't know if you, it's fair.

for the Rangers to have fans in their stadiums and then no one else to be able to have fans in their stadiums. That kind of gives them home field a fan compared to what other teams do. So that's just my personal opinion. I don't know. I wish I could give you something official but because I'm in the right department.

We talk about that stuff, but there really hasn't been anything official out there. How about a prediction? Yes or no fans the stands for a Minnesota Twins game. I don't think we. I don't think we'll have fans.

Because just, okay, so this is also my personal opinion. How do you decide which fans get to come in? If you only... I don't know. That's a great question. I haven't thought of that. Yeah, if you only allow two to 10,000, you know, like we have, I think we have 13,000 season ticket holders or something like that.

How do you say you can't come in, you know? It is strange. So that would be really difficult. I think it'd be just personal opinion. Again, it'd be easier to maybe, maybe. not have fans this year and then just go full force next year. But I just, I think it'd be really difficult to decide, oh, the Rangers can have fans, but yeah, if you go play in Oakland, you don't get to have fans there.

And I think that would just be difficult to do that. So that's just my personal. It would also be good because every home run ball, you guys can just grab. Yeah, that's honestly. Okay, so from the authentic business side, I'm super gung-ho about not having fans in the say in the fans just for that because we can't authenticate balls that get hit the fans. So we can't authenticate home run balls that a fan touches. So if there's nobody in the outfield, I'm just like, we could literally just put

authenticators in the outfield and just have them shag home run balls and the amount of money that we could make. Like no one has, I don't think anybody has to show Hey, O'Connie home run ball. That would be so clutch to be able to get one. That would be really, really, really good to get one. So why can't you what are some more gems like that? Yeah, I was I was going to say you know that. You jump to the show Hey, Otani ball.

Are there other like mythical things out there? Like, Byron Buxton's left cleat or, you know, Oton. Everybody wants that kind of stuff. The reason I know about that I'm pretty sure about the show, Hey, Otani is, well, we can't authenticate balls that a fan touches for the simple fact that by the time the authenticator gets out to the fan or the fan gets to the authenticator, that ball could be switched out, and then they're not authenticating the actual baseball. So the only home run balls that leaves the target field that we can authenticate as a home run are balls that are hit to our batters eye because fans can't touch them. No one can get to them. And we used to be able to do balls in the bullpen, but even now, major league baseballs, we can't do balls that get hit more.

What? Yeah. So they stopped doing that. And it was always difficult to get them anyway. especially if they were hit into the visiting bullpen because they didn't want to give you, because they were one mad because we just hit a home run off their guy. So they didn't want to give us the ball anyway.

But, you know. What about off the pole? If it bounces into the playing field and it doesn't, and a player picks it up and tosses it back to the dugout, then yeah, we can do that. But if it bounces off the pole and goes into the sand, we can't do it. We can't touch those.

But, yeah, Shohay Otani, I mean, I think his first couple of years, he had some injuries. So I don't think he's played like a couple of full seasons. I know, I think it was last two years ago, the Angels came to Target Field for the first time with Shohei, with Trout and with pool hosts, all playing at the same time.

And I was super hyped for it. But then, of course, I had to go to Boston for retail meetings. So those are the only three games that I missed that season. And I was just, I was like, you know what? I guarantee you, Shoah is going to hit a home run ball. I just know, I'm like, he's going to hit one, and I'm not going to be there, and I'm not going to be able to get it.

And literally the first game of a homestan, he hits a home run ball. And I'm like, I could have. Where to? It went to the bullpen. And at that time, we could have authenticated balls in the bullpen. So I could have gotten it, and it would have been the first one, but I wasn't there. So I couldn't get it. And in general, you can sell like a Shohei Otani baseball for like $2,500.

and that's just like a base hit or a double. What? So a home run ball that no one else would have been able to get could have gone for quite a bit of money. So I was so upset that I missed that. I was crazy. I have a weird line of questioning or thought process on this. So if there's someone out there that caught, like someone's listening to this and they have an Otani home run ball at their home. Yeah.

It's kind of like a, it's like cool. Not authenticated. not authenticated so it's not worth anything. Yeah. So catching a home run ball devalues the thing you just caught immediately almost. What if like I catch a home run ball like this? Hold it. My hand up.

And I just never put my hand down ever. And on camera, you know. Run onto the field right away. It's pretty clear, you know. Yeah. Just always up. And then the authenticator authenticates it. Yeah.

If that was allowed. Authenticator! Just screaming for him right away. If that was allowed to happen, would that fan then be able to sell that ball with the authentication? If they, yes, if it wasn't, okay, so if it wasn't like a milestone home run that we asked for back for the player. And if we were able to authenticate it, then sure, yeah,

they caught it free and clear. It's a ball that they can have. I can't take a home run ball from someone, even if hypothetically we were able to authenticate it. I couldn't take it from them. So, so yeah, they could go and sell it if they wanted to. And I'll be, and I'll say this too, there are fans who do still sell things that aren't authenticated. And that and, but it's, it's a really kind of.

Sounds like a racket. Yeah, it's a really kind of touchy thing to do. That hologram sticker means a lot to a lot of buyers now. So they look for that kind of thing, you know, and even if you have video of it, because there's been fans who've done that to you, like, you know, I've got. video, and even things that I sell that have hologram stickers on it, the reason that fans ask for the photo shoot of the bat is because they literally go back and watch the game and they look at where the tape is on the bat and they look at where the pine tar and just to match it up

just because they want to catch us sometimes and say, oh, what you have is and what you really have. So fans, when it comes to, man, yeah, so when it comes to memory. So weird human. It is. They've gotten really smart about it. And they're, uh, they're, really on top of things. So, but the sticker is really pretty important to a lot of collectors nowadays. The certificate is really important to a lot of people nowadays. I have so many questions. I don't even know where to begin.

Okay. Okay. I'll begin for you. The authentication stickers. You're done. Get out of here. Let me ask one. Trevor.

Yeah. Don't change the subject. First, there's, I mean, we're going to use so many different baseballs this year. because you can't touch, you touch it once you got to throw it out. So you guys are going to have an influx of baseballs for sale. Prices got to go down. That's just a statement. I'm not going to ask a question on that.

My question is, smart. Sure. When is, okay, you can't authenticate balls when they go in the stands, but you can't pre-authenticate balls. Like, we just watched the Sosa-Maguire documentary when they were chasing the home run record. Obviously, they pre-authenticate those balls. Those guys get to use special balls, I guess. So it's not authenticated. It's got a stamp on it. It's a mark, yeah.

A mark so that you know this is a ball that was used just for their at bat, but it's not an authentication. That would not come until after. But you could authenticate that. Those obviously get authenticated after the fact. Why not do that for more of the big name guys? When Trouts up, when Otani's up, you know, guys, big money, guys, why not just mark those balls? And are you going to start doing that? No, I don't. So because the authentication that we use is like a little silver sticker. And so it does stay on. It's pretty much tamper-proof. But to try and use it in game, I don't know how pitchers would feel about that. No, but I'm saying mark it. Mark the balls. Yeah. And I'm sure they would look into doing that. Baseballs are expensive. I think people think that teams get them for free, for one. No, we do have to pay, it's like $1,5,500. $35 a dozen for baseball.

They're very- And we order a lot. And we order a lot. So it's very, very expensive to do that. But I think it could be something that we look into doing maybe for this season. But I don't know if it could work out because I don't want a lot of teams have already ordered their baseball. So then you would have to order new ones just for those at bats and things like that.

What's the mark? Is it just like a pen mark or what is that? You order them specifically, marked? No, so it just depends. So like with the Sammy Sosa and stuff, they put, I think they put like, they put like a number on it or they put like a letter, a certain letter or so on the balls that you know if it does get caught by a fan, if you look at it, it's got like a specific mark on them. It doesn't. And then, so we could do that. I just don't know. There's some pitchers, right, who don't like to toss baseballs out of the game.

There's some, so that would be the other issue too. So like if you had an Albert pool who has come up to bat and a pitcher just got an out with the baseball and the baseball's still good, they're not going to want to toss it out to get another baseball just to throw it to Albert. So I think it's all about trying to make sure that you don't interrupt disrupt the game too much just because you're trying to sell memorabilia. That's a good point. Yeah, you don't want to do that. And that's the thing that we have, that I have to kind of explain to fans too because there are times. and they're like, I want an uncracked bat from Trevor Pluth. I want an uncracked bat from Joe Maurer.

And I'm like, that's great. But if Trevor is on a hot streak, I'm not about to go into the clubhouse and be like, hey, so Joe Smith really wants an uncracked bat. And I know that you're using the same one for the last week and a half or so because you've been hot. Can I take this so I can sell it? Like I'm not going to put myself or the player in that position just to sell things. So authentic is kind of, it's an extra.

We're not trying to disrupt what's already happening in the game just so that we can make sales on the side. But I think you just give the home plate on one of those stamps that has like 30 sides and he'll just stamp it, say trout. Yeah. But then again, that's us asking the umpires to go above and beyond and we need them to call balls and strikes. So I don't want to add extra things for them to do, especially to like the games are already long enough as it is. So now we got to, we're switching out baseballs for certain guys when they come up to bat. It's easy to do that when it's like one player on the team going after a milestone. But if you've got a trout, a poolhole, and a tonny, and on three, on, you know, on one team,

that's a lot of switching in and out to make something possible like that happen. Do you guys have a master list of milestones? Yeah. Every year before the season starts, Major League Baseball reaches out to each team to ask us what, what team milestones we're looking for and then what player milestones are coming up for the year. And that actually gets sent to all of the authentic people. So I'm not just keeping track of what's happening with my guys. So if a visiting team comes in and the guys up getting close to 100 home runs or 500 or whatever,

I have to keep track of that because I'm the one that chases down those milestone home run balls. So we do have to keep track of that information. Yeah. And it's a... Do you ever have a guy like stuck? You're like, come on, man. Just hit this home already? Yeah.

There was somebody. There was somebody on our team last year. I can't remember what the milestone was. But it was just like they needed like one hit or one home run to make this milestone. And they kept like they was like an entire home stand. And they had him, it was a Joe Matt. It was Joe Mauer like his final year. I think it was for his 2000s hit.

Because I'm pretty sure he got that on the road. in Kansas City. But he was home and he got up to 1999 and we were just sitting there like, okay, Joe, like you hit base hits all day. Why is this taking you forever to do this? And then he did it the first game as soon as they got on the road. And we were just like sitting there waiting for, because we were going to collect bases, we were going to collect dirt, we were going to get all this stuff and we were going to have

this huge moment. we were going to have, I think the grounds crew is going to run out and grab the base for him and be like, oh, doubles. And it was like, here's your double, Joe. You got the record, have this big thing on the field. And he wouldn't hit the freaking double. He was hitting singles and home runs. And we're like, Joe, like you hit doubles all day. And he hit the first at bat, I think, in the next game on the road.

He got it. He probably knew that was going to happen. You know Joe doesn't want that fanfare. Yeah. And that's what I said. I was like, Joe. probably heard somebody talking about the fact that they were going to run on the field and grab the base and he was like I'm good we're winning I'm just going to wait and wait till we get on the road and I'm going to do it there where no one cares and that's what happened he's the next the next game so yeah stuff like that is interesting I actually remember I saw Trevor you see that Eddie Rosario posted a video on his Instagram of his very first home run very first homer yep I'll never forget that because I had to go get that baseball and I had literally just sat down to eat dinner. It was the first time that I'd eaten all day. I literally had just put my

plate on the table. And then I looked up and I was like, you gotta be kidding me. And I had to, first pitch. First pitch. And I had to take off running. Like I was booking it through the hallway. And everybody's like, where are you? I was like, he just hit a home run. And they were like, oh, okay. So I had to run up there and find the fan. And I remember the fan was kind of giving me a hard time about what he wanted in exchange for the baseball. And it was against the Oakland athletics that he did that. And I was actually, I guess the Oakland camera crew actually saw, had me on camera talking to the fan. My emotions are all over my face. I do not hide my emotions very well. And so I'm talking to the fan and he's asking for like all kinds of stuff. And I just like,

roll my eyes on camera, not meaning to do it, not knowing I was on camera and my counterpart in Oakland called me right after he's like you know you're on camera rolling your eyes at that fan right and I was like that's so funny my bad didn't need to do that but yeah the guy was asking for like season tickets and um helmets and a bat and all kinds of stuff and I'm just like can you just take this autographed baseball and call it a day yeah but we did do you do you bring security with you like do you bring Thomas or Dan with you or you just out there in the streets by yourself yeah I'm out there by myself. So typically what I'll do is I have a I have a radio so I'll radio out to whoever the guest services supervisor is in that seating section and I'll say I need you guys to go down

and find the fan for me. I will be there. I'm running down the hallway. I'll be there in like two minutes. So they'll go find the fan and then they'll usually bring the fan up to the top of the section. It didn't happen that time but usually they bring them up to the top of the section and then I'll run up there and I'll meet them and introduce who I am, tell them what I do. and then kind of explain why the ball is important. Because sometimes fans don't even know. They just know they caught a home run ball. Exactly.

So I explained to them what the reasoning behind us wanting it for. And then we're able to trade it. And there's only been one time that a fan would not give me the ball back. And it's only been, and it was Justin Murnaud home run. And I think he either tied or passed Kirby on the home run list. And the fan was asking for dinner with Justin. And he wanted Justin to take him out. And I called the clubhouse manager and I was like, Rod, this guy wants to go to dinner with Justin.

And Rod's like, Justin doesn't want the ball that bad. So we're good. So I was like, okay, you can keep the ball. Go ahead. You can keep it. So. Yeah. That's a weird ask.

Yeah. It's usually it's just, you know, can I get an autographed baseball? Can I get ticket, things like that? I think we. And it's always interesting, too, when Joe played, when Maurer was still playing, when, even if it wasn't his milestone ball, the fan would always say, can I get a Joe Bauer autograph something? And Joe was always really good about it. Yeah, Joe got it. So he would say, yeah, I know, I get it.

So he would always be really good so that I could get the item back for the player. So I did that more than on more than one occasion. We have a buddy who caught Judge's 50th home run. in his rookie season. Yeah. And I actually had him on our show because I wanted to ask about the whole process and everything. Yeah. He's a musician.

He was like, I wanted to ask if I could sing the national anthem at a future game or something. And I was like, that'd be cool. But I don't think he did get that. But he got to meet Judge. Yeah. And I think he got like nice tickets to a future game. Yeah. We've done a couple of meet and greets.

We try to do it in the middle of the game, actually. So I've actually brought guys or fans down in the middle of the game. had the guy come out of the clubhouse, take some pictures, shake hands, talk to the fans for a little bit, and then then go right back in and go on to the field and play. That's kind of cooler than waiting and doing it afterwards, I think. It's like a. Yeah. But that only works.

Yeah, they took time for you. Yeah, that only works, you know, if the milestone happens in the middle of the game, though. I've had some instances where it's like ninth inning and something happened. And then it's like, yep. And that's always frustrating, too, because players take forever to leave the clubhouse. Like there's some guys that'll get in, get out, like they're ready to go home. But then there's other guys who will take, they got to work out after the game. So it's like an hour workout.

And then they got to eat dinner after the game. So then you have to wait for them to eat dinner because you don't want to mess up their process after the games. And then they got to go see the manager or they got to go see the clubhouse manager or they got to play cards after the game. So then you're kind of just standing there with a fan just like. Those athletes. Yeah. Treve, what was your routine? Were you a lingerer, Tre?

I was in between. When I first got up, they. taught they tell you or the veterans told me at least like don't you dare rush out of here after the game like hang with the boys a little bit like obviously talk to the reporters that they want to talk to you um but if you were the guy that was just like in and out like they would look at you like like let's go like yeah just relax a little bit you you know Olivia can wait I've got that on many occasions from you know Matt Gurree or Jesse crane those guys so yeah I wasn't a lot and take a long time. I wanted to get the heck out of there. Yeah, you weren't, you didn't take a long time,

but there were some days where you drove me crazy because it took you forever to take your jersey off. That's like the worst is guys who sit around in their jersey after games, because we can't authenticate a jersey until the authenticator literally watches the guy take it off and then gets handed to jersey. You should just told me. I would have just been all right. No big deal. So, you know, again, not wanting to disrupt whatever you guys have going on. So we're just like standing there, just waiting for guys to like get undressed and it's like it's awkward one because i'm a girl um and i'm standing there in a locker room with an authenticator just like okay i think he's getting undressed so let's just stand here in the corner and not be awkward and then it's like nope he's sitting

down to get on his phone and so then you just kind of sit there all day but yeah you don't want to just need to be like let's go yeah you got you got you have enough credit like you've been there long enough guys yeah now but when i first started this you know You know, you can't, you can't just kind of walk in there and be like, guys, let's go. But guys know me now. The ones who've been around long enough kind of seen me around and they're like, okay, I know what he's doing. So, but some guys just are oblivious to what's happening in the clubhouse. Yeah, you need to be like, hey, I've been here since 9 a.m.

Yeah, yeah, that's the other thing. Like the game ended at 1130 and I'm still sitting here waiting for you to take your jersey off. Just you can play cards in your shirt, your undershirt. You don't want your jersey to do that. So that's always. And then like even authenticating things like locker tags, because we have to wait until the game is over to do that. So if a guy,

we don't want to go walk into your locker and take your locker tag while you're still there. So it's like sitting there waiting for guys to leave. So it could be. They don't think they got cut. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So yeah, it's easier when that happens, but then you feel bad. But, yeah, so it's a lot of sitting around and waiting for guys to decide that they're ready to go home before we can do our job sometimes. Vinique, I want to try to do two things I'm bad at. The two things are ask questions and be serious. Okay. Oh, wow.

Serious? Serious? Serious stuff going on in the world right now. You are in Minnesota and you're a person of color. And I think the other thing that you're a woman in baseball. And you mentioned, I mean, I mean. You know, you said you started off with Houston. Again, I'm almost framing it as not a question,

but I want to hear both of those stories, and they kind of need to be out there because we need more women in baseball. We need more people in color in baseball. And, I mean, you're in Minnesota right now with George Floyd stuff and everything going on. So I don't know where you would like to start. And like I said, I'm bad at doing questions.

So wherever you would like to start and go with it, please. No, yeah. So, yeah, I'm a black woman in baseball. And there's not very many of us. It's actually, you know, a situation where when we do go, when I do go to like industry meetings for major league baseball and things of that nature, and I see another black woman, it's like, oh my gosh, we need to be friends because there's, I don't know anybody else, especially who does what I do.

You know, I'm the only, I'm the only woman of color who does authentics. I don't, I think everybody else are, the majority of our, our, white men, and there's a few white women who do this job as well. But it's always, it's interesting because I don't think we know how to get into this industry, right, especially, and it's not just baseball, it's sports in general. It's really not about what you know. It's about who you know to get into this industry, and it's difficult when a lot of times, the who you know might are more than likely going to be white men.

And it's hard to kind of make those same connections that you might make with someone who looks like you or who's had the same experience with you when you don't see people who look like you in these positions to hire and things like that. I got my job on accident and it was because I just so happened to meet somebody at a job fair for major league baseball in the minor leagues who just so happened. to know Dave St. Peter, the president of the twins. And he told me, he's like, the twins are looking for young hires. I think you'd be good. I've only talked to you for about five minutes, but I think you'd be good. You took the effort to come to our judge to this job fair. So I'm going to

send your resume off to Dave St. Peter. And then a week later, I was out in Minnesota for an interview. So it was really, you know, happenstance that I ended up getting my job because I don't know if I would have ended up in Minnesota had that not happen. And it was the same thing with my internship. It was just with the Astros. The person who was going through all the applications just so happened to know the person that I was doing my hockey internship with.

I didn't even fill out the application. I thought I was just looking at it and it submitted my application to the Astros. And it was blank. It just had my name and where I lived. I didn't even have a resume. It had nothing on it. And so she reached out and she was like, oh, you're from Virginia Beach.

I used to live out there. And we started talking. And she's like, oh, I know those people. I'm going to have you come out for an interview. Send me a resume. And then I sent it out. I had the credentials to back it up. And I was able to get out to the Astros and do an internship in their community relations department.

So, you know, that being said, that's kind of how it is in baseball. A lot of the women who work in this or even in any industry in sports. A lot of the women who work in this industry work in community relations. They work in IT, or not some in IT or they work in HR, right? You don't see a lot of us in the baseball department. You don't see a lot. Like I said, you don't see a lot of us in Authentics. You don't see a lot of us in positions where we're dealing with the players on a regular basis.

And that was actually a struggle when I did take over Authentics. they weren't sure if they were going to be okay with having a woman do this because I'm in the clubhouse on a regular basis. And I was going to be around a lot of stuff that doesn't get seen by the public. You know, I'm in there when guys are really comfortable and just lounging and chilling out in the clubhouse. And I'm around around a lot of stuff that a lot of people in the front office don't have access to. And it took a season for me to get through a whole season for them to be like, okay, we know you can continue to do this because we can trust you. We know that you're not going to go on Snapchat or Twitter

and talk about what's happening in here. And you can carry yourself well. You can carry yourself around these guys and they don't feel uncomfortable with you around. And it's unfortunate that it took a year for them to do that. I had already been working for the team for about five or six years at that point. So you would think that people would know my character and know the kind of person that I am.

But I think just from that good old boy mentality of like women in the clubhouse, you can't do that. Like that's weird. Guys are going to be uncomfortable. And so they had to actually get a year under the belt of seeing that. And that's still the case all around baseball. Some of my female counterparts don't get to go into the clubhouse. Their clubhouse manager will not let them go in.

Yeah, even if they need to go grab jerseys, like they'll make them wait outside and they'll bring the stuff to them. because they it's just their mentality is very old school and you know women reporters is one thing but somebody that's in the clubhouse on a regular basis they're not too sure about it you know so it's a lot of having to get people to unlearn that thought process and like I said it's unfortunate that you know we have to prove ourselves that we can handle being around players and we can handle being in that atmosphere. It's ridiculous that we have to do that, but it's something that, you know, people are asked to do. But even after it happened, after my first year, you know,

our clubhouse manager was like, you know what, I feel really stupid for even having thoughts like that because he's like, I knew you. I know what kind of first. Yeah, Rod's awesome. And he's like, I knew, I know who you are. I know what you're about. And I should have never really even had those thoughts. but, you know, now that we've got a year under our belt, it's like, it's like, whatever, it's not even an issue anymore. So much so that I can hang out in the clubhouse during games and stuff. Like, guys see me all the time and it's just, oh, there's a... I was going to say, I can't imagine having it any other way.

Yeah, it's just like, oh, there's a big deal anymore. But it took a year for them, for it to be official, because I don't even know if it wouldn't have worked out or if somebody would have been uncomfortable after that first year, I might not still be doing this. So, you know, I had to kind of walk on eggshells a little bit and just carry myself a certain way, even though I know myself and I'm not going to be like, oh, that's so-and-so getting untrust, let me watch. Like, I had to prove to people that that's not what I was about.

And it's still happening in different places, like I said, with other teams or girls are still trying to get that same access and still get that same respect. So it's always been a little bit difficult. and, you know, and then on the flip side, the other side of being a woman of color, there's, like I said, there's not many of us in this industry or any sports industry at this point. So it's always a big deal, like I said, when we find one another so that we can link up and kind of create a network and just try and bring up people behind us. I'm always looking for interns of girl.

My intern this year is a female, and I was super excited about that because, you know, I'm trying to bring people up behind me. I'm trying to be that representation that they didn't know was here. And then try and bring them up into the position with me and kind of leave a legacy behind me. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. So, yeah, let's give some advice because there's going to be a young girl watching this that maybe wants to get into baseball, maybe doesn't know how.

You said it's hard. It happened to you kind of randomly. Yeah. So what advice do you have for young girls who want to get into the game of baseball? How do they do it? You know, who should they contact? What should they be looking to do? I think it's really important that that's an issue that I feel very strongly about.

Like there's no reason why you should be, you know, one or two women in authentics across the league or just in the representation in the front office in general is very low for women. there's no reason this should be that way. Yeah. So what is some advice that you have for young girls watching this? So I would say for sure you have to do the work. So even though I came into my positions on accident, I had the credentials to back it up. I had done the internships. I had done the volunteer work.

So if, you know, if this is what you want to do, you need to find opportunities to volunteer wherever it may be just to get some experience under your belt. And then one of the other things that I was really big on, doing is I would go on certain industries and things that I wanted to work in. I would look on their website and look at their front office list and see how many women that they had in their organization. And if there was a woman in a position that I wanted to work in, I reached out to that person. I love that. Yeah, our emails and stuff are you can you can typically find our emails on all the front office pages. And I reached out and I just kind of was like, how did you get to where you are? What did you do?

made that connection and let them know that I wanted to be there because like I said, it's all about who you know. And all it takes is just one opportunity to, you know, an open position. And this person who's in a position to be able to hire to say, oh, I remember that girl who reached out to me, she might, and she seems like she might want to do this, let me reach out. So I would say, you know, I'm always open to people emailing me at my job if they're interested in this position.

I love talking to people about this job. and I love trying to help girls out. And I can say that the case for pretty much all the women that I work with is that we're all about getting girls in this industry. So if there's something or someone that you want to reach out to, don't be afraid to reach out to people. That's great advice. Yeah, don't be afraid to find out just to get your name out there.

It's really all about networking. You really got to be comfortable with going out and getting your name out there and being comfortable with talking to people. I kind of got my position too. Teamworkonline.com is a really, really good website for sports jobs. And they hold a job fair every year at the winter meetings. And that's how I kind of got to where I am as I went to that job fair at the winter meetings in Nashville.

So if this is what you want to do, find every opportunity to get your face in front of somebody. You've got to make those connections with people. Reach out no matter email, phone calls, don't be obtrusive about it, but just put your name out there, send the email, and when people have time, they're going to respond back to you because every woman in my position is all about trying to bring somebody up behind them. So just make those connections, but also put the work in, go and do your volunteering, try and get internships, just try to get some

experience under your belt, too. And you don't have to have a sport management degree. I do, but I think I'm the only person at the industry in my at the twins who has that everybody else has like communications or marketing you don't have to work in sport management to have a job in sport management you don't have to have a degree in that so know that too well we're going to clip that and send that out because I think that's a great piece of it or great advice for anybody trying to get into the game I think that needs to be out there so we're going to clip that if that's okay with you you're and they have an influx of emails.

Yeah. Hopefully. Yeah. I like it's tangible. Jake and I went to winter meetings once and we've been to winter meetings a couple times. I'm going to winter meetings is awesome and the job fair is really, really a big thing. Wow.

We walked into one lecture or talk at one point and it was. I wasn't great. It was an older gentleman giving like not a tangible advice. Like, you know, find people that have jobs you want, email them. Yeah. Say how to, like that's good advice. It's getting touch with people. But yeah, it's, and the window, the job fair is crazy at winter meetings.

Yeah, I actually left there with six jobs. So it was. That's awesome. Yeah, it was, and they were all minor leagues. It's a flex. Yeah, I mean, it was a minor league. It was just coming out of college. But it was still pretty big.

And I actually accepted one for the Kinsden Indians. And I was going, yeah, because my family is from Greenville, North Carolina, Kinsen area. So I was going to go a little bit of my grandmother for a year and just kind of I was supposed to be the director of marketing, I believe, just out of college. So I was like, cool, let's do it. Kinston, North Carolina, I don't know if I've ever been there. It's like middle of nowhere. It is not it.

But literally like a week after I accepted the job with them, the twins called me and offered me a job here. So then I had to call the Indians and be like, sorry about it. Sorry. Yeah. Like, I know you guys ordered my uniform shirt and you guys. And then the funny thing is like a couple of years later, I found a book that had like all the phone numbers and job listings from different minor league affiliates and stuff. And my name was listed for the Kinsen Indians. They'd already printed it with my name.

And then I had to call them and tell them I couldn't go. So I was like, I printed that out. It broke their hearts. I put on my desk. I was like, yeah, I got called up. But, you know, got to go where the jobs are. I'm like, Minnesota's a lot better than Kinsen. Sorry to anybody that's from Kinsen.

Sorry to all our Kinsen. Yeah, my family grew up there and we got out of there because it's the middle of nowhere. It's nothing. I don't think I would have been able to do it. So thank God for the twins, giving me a call after that. All right. A ton of great info. I have a zillion more questions, but we are, I mean, we're already at an hour.

I got one more about the authentication. sticker. Okay. Once the authentication sticker is on an item, does that mean it can't be used? Yeah, so, okay. I know where you're leading with this question, Jim.

I know where you're leading with this. I love it. No. So baseballs will take out of play once it's been authenticated and it has a sticker on it. We can actually authenticate bats. We'll put the authentication sticker in the cup

and then the player can actually continue using the bat. but some players make it difficult and they see the authentication sticker and they're like, I don't like that. So they take it off. And then it's like, so it makes, so that could be difficult. Yeah, you did. So they're like, I don't want this up here.

And so again, like we try to make it to where we're not messing up the guys flow in their games. So we try to hide it. Well, we'll put an authentication sticker in a helmet too because we want to. the guy hits a home run in that helmet. It's worth, you know, more money. So we'll try to hide the sticker. But, you know, you've got guys standing on the on-deck circle kind of looking in their helmet, you know, playing around with it.

And they'll notice it. And then, you know, then you don't have a game in this helmet anymore. And then, yeah, and then there's a, with jerseys, we have a way of marking a jersey as game used and letting a player continue to use it. We actually have a special fluid. We have secret sauce that we're able to use that is invisible unless you have a certain light to be able to see it. So we can put that fluid on a jersey and then it doesn't wash off.

So the jersey can go on the washing machine. And then a couple of days later, if you want to pull that jersey, you could just look for the mark. Go back to your notes to see when that jersey had been worn and then you're able to authenticate the jersey as whenever it had been originally marked. So, yeah, there's a lot of different ways that we can do things to make things being used, but still be able to players to use them in games. But baseballs are probably the only thing that we, once we market it's done. All right. Makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. I know he was going. There was an instance with the Astros. Okay. An authentication sticker fell off. Allegedly. People thought it might not have been a sticker.

It might have been a buzzer. Oh. But I think that. Well, not a buzzer, but it was something. It bounced off the catcher's helmet. That's a good question then. Yeah, those are stickers. They're flimsy.

They shouldn't, if they fall, they shouldn't really be bouncing, right? I mean, maybe you can tell us to. Oh, God, you're trying to get me in trouble. I don't know if I have one here. I might have one somewhere, actually. They're little, it's like a little silver sticker. I don't think they bounce. they shouldn't

but they're not they shouldn't but I also don't know if they would be putting an authentication sticker on it was you said it was on a helmet no it was on his bat it was where you said in the cup oh okay yeah

yeah so we debunk the myth that's fine I'm okay with that I'm okay with that are you mad right now no I still don't think it was not but I had a different authentication person tell me it wasn't a sticker so I was okay but if you've seen it it bounces

off the helmet it's weird you know what we're talking about V I don't think I've seen that video I'll probably it's a Robinson Cherinos with the Astros and he swings it falls off it bounces he picks it back up I think he puts it in his pocket he tries to but it gets stuck to his finger it's stuck to his finger I don't know it's there was a lot of conspiracies going on so it's not like a thin sticker It actually has a little bit of like texture. Like if you were to bend it, it would, it doesn't. It's not something you just bend easily. So it requires a little bit of pressure.

So yeah, it could have been. It probably was a sticker more than like it. If it was in the cup, it was a sticker, you know. So that's the only place. I like that we got to the bottom of that right now. Yeah. That's the only place where we're allowed to put stickers, especially. And this was like, what, two years ago or last year?

Last year. Yeah. So definitely would have been a sticker in the cup. That's where we're told to put it. it. We've kept you for a little while. I've got one last thing that spun through my head when you started looking around your apartment.

Yeah. What, do you have anything authentic in your apartment? What does the authentic care? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Because that's like, that's a power move. You would think, but it's, because I'm around the stuff so much, so it's just like,

right. You know, I've got, I mean, I have stuff that's autographed. It's actually not even authentic. but I have, hold on. It's like when a chef comes home, he doesn't, he's not cooking himself a chef. Exactly. Right, but that's why I'm wondering. I mean, you.

I've got this, it's Joe Mauer's final game where he caught the final pitch. That was awesome. Which actually have a really cool story about that. But this is our holiday gift from the twin, but it kind of sucked for me because I was the one that sat with Joe when he signed all. 2,000 of them. So I was like, it's not even a surprise. I was there with Joe. He signed all 2,000 of them.

But I've got that. I've got a Tori Hunter autographed jersey that he autographed for me and put a little note on his final game. And I've got some All-Star game stuff because that was a really big deal too. That's cool.

That's the only ring I have is I have my All-Star game ring, hoping they get a World Series ring at some point. Come on, Twins. I know. I thought we were going to do it last year. I thought it was going to be. the year.

Look, in this shortened season, because we are going to get a season. Yeah. Oh, boy. Twinspot. It's anyone's game. Yeah. But here's the thing. We're going to get a shortened season and people are going to be like, of course the

twins win. They can't do it when they have 160. They can only do it. Well, I will say this about that. The regular season hasn't been a problem for the twins. No. It's the post season. So the post season is going to be the same and possibly even longer.

So if they win it this year, Yeah. We just got to get past the Yankees. Like I thought last year was going to be the year that we were going to do it. These guys are big Yankee fans. Are you? Okay. Just get them out of this.

So I will say this. Before I started working for the twins, I was a Yankees fan. Jeter was my guy. Like big, big Yankees fan. I actually have a Jeter bobblehead on my thing over here. All right. I'm out of here. But once I started.

But once I started working for the twins, a wrap on that because the Yankees and the Red Sox seem to have their own set of rules that the rest of us don't have to follow. And we're not about that. So I'm all about the evil empire and the rest of us. Like, no. So it's crazy how much it flipped because I was like deep into the Yankee fandom. Like I was on message boards during games and stuff. Yes. Oh, no.

Yes. Yeah. I was really big into it. And then I started working here and I was like, and I saw them like wielder suitcases across our field one day. And I was just like, oh, you are so rude. I'm glad you're bringing it up to these guys. They don't know.

They, you know, they do. They go by their own rules. They think they can do all these things. But you know what's funny? They look dumb because they have to shave their face. Yeah. They can have facial hair, long hair. Yeah, I will never, like, yeah, when I saw them, like, wield their suitcases across our field one day, I was just like, okay, like that's, that's, that's too much. So, yeah, I'm, uh, down on the Yankees, but I will always, Jeter will always be my guy. Jeter.

I went, I went from Cal Ripton. Yeah, I went from Cal Ripton to Derrick Jeter. Like, those are, okay, those are my bad. That's not bad. Yeah. Yeah, Cal's the reason. Cal was a much better player than Jeter. He was. Well, Cal's the reason. that I work in baseball, actually. So, yeah, he was my guy, him and Ken Griffey Jr. So, but yeah, big Jeter fan, loved all, you know, loved, you know, the core four plus Bernie. They needed to figure out a way to get a number with Bernie in there because Bernie was a really big part. Bernie was very important. Part of my life battle. Yeah. Bernie was a big part of all that. So I need to figure that one out.

And I just think Jorge Posada should be in the Hall of Fame too, but that's not going to happen. Wow. Jake. Trevor, you're off the show. Yeah, you're out. We're doing JJV from here on now. If you guys love V now, we haven't even asked her about wrestling. I mean, this is a wrestling encyclopedia right here.

I love wrestling. If I wasn't working in baseball, I would love to be working for the WWE because I love all of that stuff. Gold Dust was my guy. people are like why gold dust love gold dust gold dust at the end of the end what you're doing now is you're setting yourself up

for interview number two okay because we just I feel like I have so many more things to talk about yeah yeah wrestling is that's my stuff yeah I've been to all kinds of shows I got into it in Japan

when I lived there for a couple years and one of the only current things we had on TV was wrestling. So if you didn't watch wrestling, you had nothing to talk about at school the next day. And that was when like DX and The Rock and Stone Cold and all that was like really, really, really big. So like, you know, everybody was walking around saying suck it and all that stuff. So I got a lot of kids in trouble with their parents. Yeah. In trouble. It's especially like because I went to school on base. So it was like the rules were a little bit more strict there. So if you're you know, say and suck it to the MPs and stuff out there, it was just.

not it was not good. It was such like a powerful thing too because it wasn't just like suck it. It was like the yeah you had to do the move and everything. Very yeah very gratuitous too much. Yeah and then I lived like 20 minutes away from the scope from when DX infiltrated WCW when they drove the tank down the street and like drove it up to the W so yeah see this is like real deep. Deep cuts deep cuts deep cut stuff but yeah so I I didn't live that far from there. And I ended up working in that facility a couple of years after that. So yeah, crazy.

Yeah. Awesome. It's awesome. Well, thank you very much for joining us. Part one. Yeah. I'll be back. Next, you're going to be on talking Yanks.

That's the next podcast. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If we talk Yanks pre 2008, I'm good. After that. Okay.

Oh, my God. You got out right before 2009. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. I, yeah. At a year. Just add one year.

At a year. I know. I just, I had to get off that train once you, once you work for the twins. It's impossible to like to be a fan of the Yankees. I mean, I don't, I like the only cool stories that I have is I remember their cheater having girl problems. And for some reason he told me about them. I don't know why. Wow.

When I was in the clubhouse one day and I was like, you date models, buddy. How do you have girl problems? I don't know. And you're Derek cheater. Like, really. So, but other than that, no other cool stories of the Yankees is because they're not cool. Not cool. Not cool.

Not cool. All right. Well, we'll have you back on talking Yankees. Talk about how cool. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. That was awesome.

All right. We are back the ins and outs of the authentication world. Like I said before, I am, I could have asked questions for probably like, you know, another hour just on like have any players refused to give you a bat have any player because I know I had a neighbor who would like hit the first interleague grand slam and they took his bat for the Hall of Fame and he was like pissed about it he was like I wanted that I used it so I think I wanted to ask about Dr. Meredith wills too because she talked about all the all the new balls and authentication and stuff going on we didn't even get there and then at the end yeah I mean

it just felt like she casually mentioned she loved the Yankees, Derek Jeter, and Bernie Williams should be part of the Corps for, and Posada should be in the Hall of Fame. And it's like she just she did a research project on me without even knowing it in the final five minutes. Yeah, I thought she was great. Again, I feel the same way I thought we could ask a ton more questions. And I know her. You know, I saw her every day. And I knew she was going to be good. I think she kind of, she kind of was better than I expected. And we didn't even really get to ask about a lot of other stuff.

You know, we did a lot of authentication stuff, but the merchandising stuff, the liaison for the poll ads to the twins, like that's so interesting to me. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't even talk about that.

That's crazy. No, well, to have her back on. Yeah, she was great. I think she, I think she would be someone that we would have back on here again,

because she encounters a lot of unique situations. You know, not a lot of people get to do. The Kurtzizuki mannequins, pretty weird. Yeah. And, you know, it's cool because she's, she's down in the dugouts during the game off to the side because she's getting these things authenticate. She has a great view to a lot of incredible moments.

I mean, her job is to document incredible moments. Yeah, that's cool. We have a guy to ask her about, like, you know, big home runs and stuff like that. That's really cool. Yeah. But, all right. I think we'll just, that was, went long. We thank you guys very much for listening.

We appreciate you. We'll be back on Wednesday with another episode, Thursday after that, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday after that. Hopefully we get baseball soon. We'll see you then. Thanks for tuning in. Goodbye.