Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 86 | Baseball is Burning

Episode Date: February 17, 2020

We had a hell of a weekend. First the Astros owner Crane, held a press conference that was a total failure. Big name players like Kris Bryant, Cody Bellinger, spoke out in distaste for the Astros and the commissioners ruling. Carlos Correa defended his teams honor in a WWE promo interview. The commissioner then held a press conference himself, which was equally a disaster. 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.

Baseball is burning. We got WWE promos. We got players talking shit. We got commissioners doing press conferences. It's all bad. Let's talk about it. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Talking Baseball.

We hope you had a fantastic weekend. And are ready to recap the wild weekend that happened in baseball. My name is John Boy. I'm coming to you from the Bronx. And I got my good friend and co-host, Jake. He's coming to you from. Park City, I think, believe. Are you still in Park City?

Nailed it. Park City, baby. Safe to stay PC, bra. 47 goons. This episode of Talking Baseball is brought to you by Jared McFarlane. Nelly H. Nate Gilman. Timothy Fure, Johnny Shaw.

Words from New Jersey. What up? Andrew W. Harrow and Raquel de Simone. So thank you very much. Those are most recent Patrions. Patreon.com slash John Boy Media gets you access to the live show. We got a gang of people hanging out with us right now, Jake. We got, I don't even.

I don't even. We got Richard, Mark, Quentin, Derek, Noah hanging out. Watching live, they also get some other perks. Behind the scenes footage, special Q&As, giveaways, all that good stuff. So anyway. Wild weekend for baseball. Felt more like wrestling. Felt like Vince McMahon was pulling the strings a little bit.

Except Manfred is a terrible Vince McMahon. We don't talk about other sports. Stop talking WWE to open up the show. WWF World Wildlife Federation is what I was referencing. Well, I'd love to talk about that. And thank you. Yes. Yeah, man.

The MLB is really pushing the limits on the no no PR is bad PR. And I think I think the people online that are still giving me that argument, they're driving baseball purist nuts. Yes, it's kind of cool people are talking about baseball, but not this topic. This sucks. Oh, I still think it's good overall for baseball. No, see, I'm not. I'm not there. I'm not because, so, you know, I'm out here in Park city, some friends. They're already headed off for the airport. And, you know, they're not really baseball guys, but everyone's asking about this Houston stuff. And it's, it's, yes, it's cool that they're asking about baseball, but like the answers in the conversations aren't good. Well, so manfred,

basically they're like, so there's buzzers. And I'm like, ah, well, let's, let's not even. Let's, we'll talk about that. Manfred's involvement in his press conferences, bad for overall look. Bad for human beings, I think. You didn't think it was fire? No, actually, like, I think he, I think, I think he has set the sport back. I do, I do think that. Like, I think that press conference was more than bad. But I do think, like, the controversy in general before Manfred, so he can't, maybe he was the twisting point for me. Because I told Plouf, like, people are asking, what did they do?

How did they do it? and in the response, they are getting knowledge about the intricacies as baseball. So I do think that is good in a way. And I think the WWU promos between like Bellinger and Bryant and Correa is also still like people like dumb drama. Manfred calling the commissioner's trophy a piece of metal is an inherent is a terrible, terrible look for baseball. It's named after his position. Yeah. It's the ultimate goal.

I know there's some people that get blowback from like the baseball purists and that romanticize the past and everything. And it can be a little hokey at times in baseball. But to go the full opposite and be like, oh, we're just playing for a piece of metal and not like the pride and the joy and the. and just the winning, like the winning, like that's the fucking goal, man, Fred. Yeah. So I do think that's bad. Except at the same time, he played that card earlier when he was like, well, no, no teams ever, you know, had the World Series taken away from them. And I believe in the president.

So he was playing the baseball history angle at some points. At a lot of points, he was playing the Jake angle, saying, um, and cracking a bad joke. and I mean that was the biggest thing I was offended by because if you're going to go up there and blow smoke up my ass, do not try to make those jokes because they were bad. I mean, that's what Jack Farity, dude, you know, Jack Farity, guest of the program, he tweeted out like, I'm glad he thinks this is funny.

Well, you have all baseball players. So I want to walk through it kind of in chronological order, but good that we got our gut feeling out there. because I thought it was awesome that baseball players were finally speaking their mind on something. And if you're not to- Manfred forced their hands. I know for a sport that's so buttoned up and the players never give interesting answers and they never actually talk about it.

I mean, they're reporting the camp and I still think not everyone has reported the camp. So we're going to get another round of guys coming to camp this week. but, you know, Bellinger says he lost any respect for all of them that Altuve stole the MVP from Judge, that they stole the World Series from the Dodgers. Chris Bryant says, like, it was weak, everything was weak to just fine him for that. Like, this is terrible.

Like, Chris Bryant spoke out on it. There was a bunch of other people. I listened to, I tweeted out, like, oh, here it is. Kenley Jansen said it was worth. than gambling, worse than steroids. At least back then, everyone had to be on steroids. It was fair game. Will Middlebrook said, let me get this straight.

MLB will punish players who throw out Astros players for cheating, but refuse to punish for the cheating. Got it. And that's the part in this cron pod that is unreal. Like if you're Manfred, if you're any human, how can you not take a step back in that moment and say, Here's the situation we've created. I have to sit down with teams and tell them not to throw balls at that team

because that's how bad the other teams feel about this whole situation, a situation I'm supposed to be in charge of. Yeah. He has no. But Manfred's just a puppet for the owners anyway. His job is to go out there and take shit. So the rest of the owners can then fire him or pin it. on him or whatever.

He's like, do get that aspect of his job, but I just wish he could take shit a little more competently. Yeah, and I don't know if you dove into this at all or if you want to dive into this, but I, well, I'll come to you with what facts I have and I'll see if you've got anything back for me. But it's, nothing's going to happen to man, Fred. From, from everything I've heard is his contracts through 2024 and there's no way that the owners would get rid of him before the new CBA.

So there's not any actual fire or chance Manfred is going to be leaving from everything I heard from my research on this topic, which you know was me seeing three and a half different tweets and piecing it together. Yeah, I think, I think he's doing his job. He's going out there and being the head of this. And that press conference was almost tongue and cheek. Like, okay, it's all my fault. Come y'all at me.

I'll give you the bad answers that you know you're going to get. That's my job. Yeah. Keep the owners safe. I don't care. That's why he's cracking jokes because he doesn't care. Yeah. Revenue's up.

And yeah, I think it's, I think it was Colin Cowherd who had another tweet that was like, oh, so two years ago you all hated Roger Goodell. Before that, you all hated Gary Bettman. And it's like, hey, maybe this commissioner job ain't easy and it's basically just to be a target. Yeah, but people do like Adam Silver, right? Kind of, but almost by default. It's a, and yeah, I mean, it's, it's just because he does basic stuff.

And I mean, the All-Star game was a big win last night as far as little things for commissioners go. But yeah, he's also grown the game and made it hip and stuff like that. But I don't know. All right. So going back to the Kron pod. well, we fucked up the Kronpod because before all the players were talking shit, or actually at the same time, Jim Crane and the Astros did their initial PR, and this feels like such old news, but I had to rack my brain to see if we talked about it,

but Plouf and I recorded last episode right before this happened. So the first day of spring training, the Astros barricaded the parking lot, kicked all the media out, had a team-only meeting to go through what words they were going to say, what words they were going to avoid, how they were going to do it, and all that. and then the next day is when they hold their press conference and my God was it awful and I it's it's passionate it is it's hard to do these things right like you know everyone saying everyone saying no matter what they say you're going to be upset I get it and I kind of try to check myself because I am but I did think there was a lot of good answers in the clubhouse

afterwards. So then I was like, okay, I can, they can do some things correctly. Like, there is answers that they can say that I can be like, cool, good. You owned it. Yeah, at least faked sadness a little bit well. And you said, sorry. Like, there's some, like, you know, Altuvae I thought was better when he was in the room. Reddick was good. Yeah. They should have, they should have opened with Altuve and Correa in the locker rooms. And I, I do think that the whole press conference would have come off differently, instead of the owner Jim Crane saying he didn't think it affected anything. And then the next second saying, they asked him something about the Yankees, like, do you think you, you know, you beat the Yankees and some other teams in the playoffs.

Well, how do you feel about that now? And he's, well, from our opinion, this didn't affect the game. We had a good team. We won the World Series. Get over it. That might be his exact quote besides to get over. part. And that's and then like the follow-up question was how can you say this didn't affect the game. Yeah. And he said, I never said that. It was it was the office episode of Michael Scott getting the

transcript read back to him with the that's what she said joke and just looking like an absolute clown. Basically, Jim Crane was asked waiting tasks to go to the bathroom. And it, it was it was so pathetic, man. And it's, it's the whole, it is the whole root of this and why everyone is so angry, because there's no, there's no remorse. There's no anything. And it ties into this top down, like systemic, um, just, they made a cheating team. Like, they had the reporter in the, in the locker room when they were going to the World Series, the guy in their front office that was yelling at the female reporter. They had, I mean, there's just so many touch points. with this Houston Astros organization that the whole culture was toxic.

And when you see Jim Crane come out, the press conference to apologize after all their punishment, quote unquote, and he says, we don't think it affected the game. This is the problem. This is the exact problem. Yeah. I mean, and like someone said, I think it was actually Correa. I was like, well, Jim Crane doesn't know baseball. of course it affected the game.

He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's an owner. He's just got into this for profit and loss, not baseball. And that's true. So like, do we care how much Jim Crane actually knows if this affected the game or not? I care that he doesn't know enough to not say it. But, like, I honestly don't think he knows. Like, I don't think he has any idea what this means, what it is, and all that.

Yeah, no, it's, we're, you know, we're starting to get into Hollywood world and stuff. like that, which is pretty cool. But a lot of people high up in the world, they like having their ego fluffed and like having their ego and they don't like apologizing and things like that. And this is a huge example that, yeah, maybe Jim Crane doesn't know the baseball part of it, which shut up. He owns the Astros. It's got an idea. He knows what a double play ball is. it's just the fact that Jim Crane can go around and still have his ego fluffed and not be in check at all I mean that's that's as much part of the problem as anything he he was not punished Jim Crane was not punished no not at all and they're using the commissioner's report which I've detailed so many times on past episodes

and YouTube that the report is just a fucking farce the only thing that they got punished for is the one thing got caught red-handed doing, the banging. There was irrefutable evidence. So of course they admitted to that. And of course they got punished for that. If they didn't, it would have been a mistake. They didn't go any deeper. And maybe that's because it would open up a web that would take down the entire MLB.

You know, maybe it is for the greater good of the sport that they don't go deeper. And it's like, then all the owners start pointing out other owners and teams start pointing I don't know. Maybe like the Astros did fall on the sword here for the greater good of the sport that it doesn't just get completely tarnished. But the commissioner's report is their pillow that they're laying their head on in every interview. Well, the commissioners report did this. It's like, well, the commissioners report did that. It's a far.

So the players come out. So that press conference happens. They had, oh, dude, the Astros PR guy is so bad at his job. Yes. Did you see when he walked through the bush in the opening? No. Oh my God, you didn't? So they're like, I tweeted it out.

They're setting up the scene and he makes sure the podium's good. And then he leaves the podium. And instead of walking around the bushes to the pathway to go back into the clubhouse, he just walked straight through the bush. So Harry Reynolds goes, oh, bush leak. And then like Verscher- Oh, I did. Vasjurzans like cutting corners can't just take the real path.

It just like opened himself up for layup jokes. It's like, dude, you are the head of making sure people don't say bad things about you. And that's the thing that's, it's more of a big picture thing for the end of this. But it's, you know, when does this stop? Because MLB and Houston thought it was going to stop. And every time, I mean, they're, they're stepping. on the flaming bag of dog shit. Like they're just, they're, they're not letting the fire burn out and they just give more dog shit on

their foot. And we like repeat cycle. This will not stop until it's all out there. I mean, it might be 10 years from now and a tell all. Like, like some stories take a while. But I mean, there's people, you know, the bullpen catcher using an earpiece with his hand up and down. I mean, I don't know about buzzers is just a rumor. And I've heard rumors of it.

but like the bullpen catcher having that. I've heard that from many, many people that that's like, no, that's what they did after the banging, bullpen catcher with your piece. So until that comes out, this ain't over in my brain. Yeah. Like there's stuff out there that I know about that isn't out yet. So, and like everyone in the walls of MLB also knows this stuff.

So when commissioner comes out and talks and so that's like, well, you, like the commissioner knows that other people know this. stuff and he said that in his press conference basically so i mean we'll get there but like it's just really embarrassing yeah and jim you're right i i don't know when this is going to go away and i mean that's the commissioner's biggest point the guys are going to have to live with this for the rest of their lives so that's bullshit he said commissioner said that you know the biggest punishment was the embarrassment because the public knows about this so he didn't feel like he needed to punish them anymore. It's all bullshit. All right. Let's, I mean, so they all do that. Correa is the next step.

And he cuts a WWE promo for the ages with Rosenthal. I wish I had some audio of it. I might try to pull some up because it's so bad, man. It's so bad. He was good. Like he denied the buzzers. He was awesome in the first. And then he cuts this. If you don't know what you're talking about, you shut the fuck up you don't know the facts Jack Florida's like tell us the facts then apparently Correa thinks there's more out there that we don't know we're all ears buddy let it rip and his biggest point was

his biggest point was Altuva didn't use the banging he didn't like it here's some audio from it with me that's when you say false statements if you don't know the facts if you're not informed this is America can

but Cotty Bellinger's job is to look for information get informed know the facts for sure before he stands in front of cameras to talk about other players you should get informed you should be informed

before you talk about other players if you don't know the facts then you got to show the like I said before all right so first off Corre has always been a weirdo I've documented that for a while He has always kind of like, I mean, there's no nice way to say this.

He's always been weird. I'll just stick it out. He's always been a weird out of me. Yeah, you guys don't see eye to eye. He proposed on the field after winning the World Series. Apex Predator comments, some of his workout videos, always been like, what are you, what are you about? Yeah. He's an idiot, man.

You know what this is? You know what his whole press conference with Rosenthal is? And if you haven't listened to the whole thing, go listen to the whole thing, because he, And I tweeted this out. Anyone knows anything about lying is bullshit is in the details. And Correa flooded everyone with details. He went through the World Series. Like Bellinger says we stole the World Series from.

What about in game five when there was a runner on second base? So they're doing sequences and then we get this single. And what about in game six when there's a runner here and they're doing this? And what about when there was a runner on first and second? And then we had this. And what about when Bellinger threw the errant throw? And what about when Bellinger? And it's like, dude, you're doing too much?

You're doing way too much. You're suspiciously loud right now. Too loud. I compared it to one time in high school, my buddy slept with my other buddy's sister. Sure. And it was my best friend and just my buddy. And then my buddy came to like kind of beat up

or interrogate my best friend. And I stepped in the middle and I just vehemently lied on his behalf. I was like, you don't know what you're talking about. Get the facts right. He was at my house that night. He didn't even see your son. sister, like, shut the fuck up. You have no idea.

Just, you know, just lying to protect my friend. Sure. And that's exactly what Correa reminded me of protecting Altuve and the MVP trophy. Yeah, those are some interesting data points. I can't confirm the girlfriend sleeping with the friend story or whatever else. No, wait, it was his sister. My buddy slot with my other buddy's sister. It's buddy sister.

Yeah, I mean, I think the bigger thing for me, because, yeah, you start going into, you start going into details. The bigger thing, I don't know if it's lying or not caring because this is another reach out by the Astros like looking for empathy. Like can you believe they're talking about us in the media? Yes,

dude. Yes. Catch the net. Everyone should be. Like the fact that you somewhat feel offended by this is a bigger joke. And that's where all this Houston stuff, it really has hit a weird

tipping point where it's like, do you guys really not know what's coming this season? Like the booze and the hate that is going to come from every ballpark you play in and even your ballpark because there's teams planning on coming and visiting you and getting loud. Like Houston's going to be a mess. If the commissioner of baseball, and I know, you know, we're going to depict him in a not great light, but he's coming out and saying, I've had to sit down the other 29 teams and tell them not to throw pitches at you guys. Like, it feels like these Astros have no idea what is coming, and it's still unbelievable.

And maybe it's because of the non-punishment or who knows the full-on disconnect, because there's so many of them coming out of Houston at this point. But, I mean, this is just setting up. Like, the snowball is just rolling downhill. picking up more snow when the Astros and the commissioner think it's just about to stop and slow down. It's like, no, man, there's more mountain coming. That's a Park City reference, guys. Yeah. It's almost like the, the Barber stric sand effect. Do you know what that is? Ooh, it's when you're very popular and your talent. You could sing. You can act.

Famous nose. No. The stricand effect is a phenomenon. My bad. Yeah. My bad. You blew it. It's a phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely.

Barbara Streisand didn't want pictures of her house out there. And then by publicly saying no one take pictures of my house, they like made postcards of pictures of her house. And it was everywhere. Right. So every time the Astros and the commissioners say like, we just want to play baseball, we're going to put this behind us. It's like, well, what are you hiding?

Yeah. Because now we're going to search harder. You guys are idiots. They've handled this so poorly. And it's frustrating. I mean, Manfred, how many examples of things that he said that were dumb? He said that the public humiliation was enough punishment. New segment.

He said the commissioner's trophy was just a piece of metal. And taking away the championship would be a futile, like whatever. That would be pretty futile. he there was more oh he he was like snarky and upset with Jared diamond and his Wall Street Journal article that like helped out the truth yeah so he's like congrats you got that article you got it found my letter you found my you found my private letter good for you it's like yeah dude he he found what you were hiding from the public yeah trying trying to reveal the truth truth. It's so stupid. And why are they let him talk? And I guess this is the part that I don't know

about. And there's obviously so many things going on behind the scenes that, again, we, we just kind of have to sit and hope that in 10 years it does come out. Or you and I do really good. And, you know, Rob Manfred retires and you and I and him go to a bar in Montana and he lets the big dog eat and tells us everything. I'm not saying that's going to happen. I can't speak on that. I can't speak on your buddy and your other friend's sister. But you're not allowed to. Why don't why don't they have a commissioner who can who can speak good? Like shouldn't that be requirement number one? Yeah. I don't know. It'd be smart if he could be like eloquent and put together thoughts and not backtrack backtrack on things.

Like, I don't know. We didn't take away. We thought, he said, we thought about taking the title. It was one of the action points in our boardroom or in our notes session. And a lot of minutes talking about it. We spent a lot of minutes talking about it, but there was no precedent. Oh, whoa. Hey, dude, there's no precedent of a team having a systematic cheating operation to help them

win the World Series. So, oh, we didn't even get the dumbest thing, he said. So we've talked about some dumb things he said. The dumbest thing Manfred said was he admitted that the buzzer rumors were around before the investigation, which the Astros people that tweet at me every day are never going to accept. They still think I'm the only one talking about this and I'm the only one that talked about the buzzers. It's very, very annoying. So he said the buzzer stuff was out before the investigation.

he doesn't know why the players with immunity would be honest about the banging but not honest about the buzzers. Right. There was another point there, but I forget it. Oh, and they asked him, are you 100% sure they didn't use buzzers? And he said, no. Yeah. So, okay, the buzzer rumors were around before the investigation even started. I told you guys that.

Anyone that listens to the show knows that. I told you that. Yeah. Manfred, who did the report. and Correa and every Astro player and Astro fan is citing the report saying he didn't find buzzers. Now Manfred's saying, well, I'm not sure. Not a Hyundai. Not a Hyundai.

No promises. We don't really have the resources to look into something like that. No, we just trust the criminals. So the Astros admitted to cheating with the banging scheme in 2017 because they couldn't not. The evidence was irrefutable. And because of that, he's like, thank you for being so honest and admitting to what I caught you red-handed doing. Now, what about these buzzers?

Like, no, we didn't do that. Okay, I believe you. What, dude? Yeah. You can't. That is, what did I say? It's just negligence. Like, hey, we caught you robbing this bank red-handed.

We think you may have caught this bigger, rob this bigger bank. Did you? I did not rob that. You have full immunity. You won't control. Nope, didn't do it. It's like so stupid. I robbed the other bank. The one that I, the one you caught me robbing, I admit, I'll be honest. I did rob that one. That bigger one with the bigger score and the more money, not me. And you got to believe me.

Because the one you caught me on camera, I'm being honest, that was me. You're right. And now I'm reliving the interview and you see pain come over my face to a degree. You do. I guess the podcast listeners don't. but check us out on YouTube, huh? Anyways, Manfred, man, and like the reporters were asking, like, the questions you'd think they would.

And the fact that he was still so befuddled, and like, I think someone asked the question, they're like, so, you know, you offered the players full immunity, like what happens if the players were lying? Like, are they open to punishment? And Manfred was like, yeah, we told them that, but, you know, no reason to believe they might.

It's like, dude, what? Yeah. Dude, it's, oh, he also, the other annoying thing was he downplayed all of the complaints. He said they didn't get complaints until the end of 2018 season, and I know for a fact that's a lie. And so does everyone that complained in 2017 when Danny Farquhar stepped off on the mound and had suspicions. You don't think they ran that up the line after Farquhar did that?

Like, we're not fucking stupid, Manfred. Yeah. To say there were no complaints until the end of 2018 and that they weren't official complaints. They were just kind of rumors in here and say, no, dude, there were teams sending you pictures of setups. It was official complaints. And like, those people know that. So, like, it's weird to just go up there and lie about something that there's a handful of people listening that. that Manfred knows they're listening

and knows that he's lying and they know he's like what are we doing and I think the bigger thing there and I hate to correct you Jim is the fact that we are stupid but we still know this and can figure it out and maybe that's the problem yeah maybe we are stupid

and you're still stupider than us in this moment tough it's bad man don't be stupider than us put that on a shirt Did you see Phil Hughes saying they should be a work stoppage? Yeah, and yeah, and I love our guy, Phil.

And I think, you know, that's a lot easier to say when you're out of the game and you're raking in that YouTube case like Phil is with Phil's pulls. Go check that out if you have in our guy. But yeah, and it's, I guess that's something I don't know. Because off the top of my head, I mean, that seems ridiculous because you got to I mean, MLB players union, blah, blah, blah. And I think Phil did introduce it innocently enough, kind of saying, like, has there been any conversation about this?

But no, I think to get the MLB players union involved in that. And it is going to be interesting to see how this ties into CBA stuff. I know that that must make our other dude, Trevor Plouf, all sorts of excited. Hey, maybe this gives the players leverage. Well, and that's the manfred thing is like, you know, he's not going anywhere and he's supposed to be the one at that negotiating table. So, and if they were to fire him, it'd be a huge sign of weakness, blah, blah, blah. I don't know. There's there's not going to be any labor stuff.

There's too many guys who, I mean, you're going to get a full team of dudes. I think that's the part we forget. A lot of the high profile name guys are speaking out. And it's pretty cool. That's really cool. Bellinger, Flaherty. I mean, guys, again, they don't have to. Brian.

Chris, Brian, he's got some issues with the league right now. But it's really good. But you also have to figure out that, you know, the other 15 to 20 guys, on the baseball roster are guys trying not to ruffle feathers and trying to play baseball. Because guess what? It's a really difficult sport. I think Trevor said that that like a lot of guys are locked in when we were talking about

players union stuff. I asked our dudes interested and he's like, you know, some are and we try to keep them educated. But we also kind of get like, hey, this is the hardest sport to play. So people dedicate their lives to that. So I don't think you're going to see a disson. sent from the ranks that heavy, but people are big mad and they're going to continue to be mad. Yeah.

Yeah. Someone said that every team should forfeit games in Houston. That way Houston can't make any money from home games. And it'll send them, it give them 81 wins, and they probably have the best record in baseball, and MLB just looks like a shit show. Anarchy, baby. Anarchy. Yeah.

Hey, so did you see that thing that got sent to me that I tweeted out about Altuvae in his undershirt? I did. I did. And. So if anyone doesn't, if anyone doesn't know,

I mean, let me, yeah. Okay. Okay. Someone sent this to me. And, you know,

the buzzers and the walk-off home run for 2019 is all big, big rumors, no facts, no facts supporting it besides rumors and oddness. And someone was like, hey, Al-Tubei was wearing an undershirt in the top of the ninth inning and then wasn't wearing one when he came up to bat. So I looked into it, checked every inning to see when he put it on. And he put it on.

It's so weird, man. I face-timed with Plouf to ask him, like, what could this be? Because I didn't know, I didn't have a lean either way. I just straight up was like, what the fuck is this? We have a piece of information. We don't know what it could. I had no, I didn't have a lien. So he had no undershirt the entire game.

At first I was like, maybe he just doesn't wear an undershirt while batting and wears it in the field. That'd be fucking bizarre if he's switching it up that much. But no. He wore undershirt all game. And then in the top of the ninth inning, when they are winning four to two and their three outs from going the world series, he puts an undershirt underneath his jersey.

And then the Yankees tie it up. Now he's got a hit again. So he takes the undershirt off to hit. And then does the whole don't rip my jersey off. I'm not wearing a shirt underneath. Then goes into the clubhouse to change into his shirt. Plouf and I discussed this. I was like, is this normal?

Do guys do like one or the other? Is this a superstition? He's like, I never heard of that. Like, what could this be? Plufe and I were just baffled. A lot of comments came in and people started talking about it, which is why I enjoy Twitter because I was like, hey, can anyone make anything of this? Like, what is this?

Right. And someone said, you know, well, if he truly didn't want to change out of Jersey into a American League champs T-shirt after they won, then he put on that undershirt so we would never have to be topless on the field. If he truly has a bad tattoo, as Correa said, then he would cover up the tattoo and he thought he was about to celebrate and three outs away from celebrating. So he put an undershirt on. that kind of lends credence to those the reasons that Altuvain Correa gave us but it's just so weird man

it's it's bizarre and again like you're you're right and you do have to be careful to a degree because your mind wants to wander and say oh yeah he took his shirt off to put a buzzer on done problem solved

but you do have to dig in a little more but it's so weird. And again, just think about everything we're saying, all the momentum's around this, the fact that the rumor was about buzzers around baseball before it got to any of us. And then to see another weird thing happen like that, Jose Altuve, never too shy with the shirt,

fighting it like hell. And yeah, hey, maybe it is this perfect storm on the Astro side that they're talking about. The bad tattoo, Altuve's wife was, mad at him. They're not cheaters, even though they are cheaters. I don't know. But I mean, there's so much smoke around that one incident. I had one fan fiction tweet when this was all going awry that, you know, Araldis, because there's that picture of Altuve jogging past Chapman that just like, with that smile on his face, just like ripping the jersey off if there were

wire. Imagine. What a scene that would have been. But yeah, I don't know. There's, there's no, there's no proof. There's, uh, there's just a ton of smoke around that incident and a lot more. Yeah. It's very weird though. I was like, what?

Isn't it weird? I mean, like, Astros fans were like, it's so irresponsible for you to tweet this out. No, it's fucking not. That's weird. That's weird. Either way. It's interesting, whether it's related to, buzzers or not, if a guy only wore an undershirt for one inning in a game, I would say, why did you do that?

And honestly, I'd need to know the reasoning. It's so weird. I think, you know, we're friendly. I saw you tweeting with Marley Rivera and some other friends within baseball. Marley's the best. She asked the best questions of these press conferences. The goat. The goat. We, I would love if someone gets access to altuvia to be like hey why'd you why'd you change your shirt before on your undershirt before that at bat in the ninth inning and i i'd almost with how tone deaf the asteros would be i'd almost expect altruva to say i didn't change my shirt and then be like okay that like let's spark the fire again let's do the whole song in it no i didn't mean i wasn't wearing a shirt i meant jim crane meant he didn't affect the game because he's the owner so oh these fuckers man yeah

anything else? I mean, I asked you this before we started recording. Like, is there any actual baseball news? I'm sure there's a bunch. But in what I'm also getting frustrated with is the people saying, like, can we get over it? Like, no. We quite honestly can't. We're in the middle of it.

Yeah. We're nowhere near the end. And like, we made this podcast to talk about baseball, not talk about this controversy, you know. So I get that some people are. like, well, I want to go back to just baseball. Me too, man, but this ain't going to end. Yeah. We'll sprinkle it in.

We're doing the everyday episodes, the TPPs. Thank you guys for listening. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I think you said Clevenger got hurt. I mean, do the Indians, do they just fold up? I don't know. I heard a report now that they think he may be, like, good to go pretty early on.

Okay. So, I mean, over that. And then, yeah, I don't know. I joke joke tweet is there a term for that a tweet joke a joke I just called a joke a mock tweet um yeah I was just saying which what should we talk about because clearly we had to address this whole situation on our hands um the one one person did did take normally an angle you and i love and they were like hey let's let's talk about a little bit of baseball and they're like what's I forget how they phrased it.

What's a sleeper team you like or something like that? It's like, hey, I appreciate you hunting that out. I think we got to cover the other stuff first. But yeah, I don't know. What's a baseball team you like, Jim? I like the Yankees. Can I, can we, I mean, we're going to do this on talking Yanks tonight, but can I let the baseball fans across the world know a crazy story going on in Yankee land right now?

Sure. Brett Gardner has a stalker. Oh, yeah. Not Tyler Wade, handsome body, handsome face, not Aaron Judge, not John Carlos Stanton. Brett Gardner has a legit stalker named Gina DeVasham. And she is banned from coming to the stadiums. She says that Gardner looks at her during games and humps the air and makes sexual advances in that she's his future wife.

And yes, it's funny on the surface and terribly sad below the surface. Because, like, I find myself laughing and then I find myself thinking, damn, like, there's mental health issues. And, like, scary, man. Like, you know, again, easy jokes, but, like, if you're Brett Gardner, like, there's actual fear. Oh, yeah. But, Jake, she has a tweet about me. Nice.

That our dude, hoody Glaber just found. And I was, I was just, it just, it literally just tweeted one minute ago. She tweeted back on July 27th. I looked up John Boy and he has a talk show and the media company. I'm making money off the yank out of the Yankees. I think I deserve a few $100,000 for our relationship. I certainly expect to get VIP ticket for your postseason this year at Camryards. I will email Cashman.

So if she wins that case, does that mean I get $100,000? No, I think it's coming from you. I think I deserve a few hundred, a few hundred thousand dollars. So I don't know what the total is there for our relationship at Yankees. That's cool. So that's good. That's good. So sorry, Gardner.

That sucks. Yeah, that's tough. Yeah. I don't know. hopefully we do get some spring training baseball news i mean we're not it's going to be more teams and players coming out and saying this is a nightmare and we'll run the gambit again and yeah um that'll be exciting dude um but yeah go i think i believe the tattoo theory tattoo theory's got also has some smoke and fire to it because that that picture of him like

shirtless if you zoom in it's blurred out like his chest is blurred out and then there is that picture that I found. Someone sent to me where you can see the start of a tattoo. It's got an M. And then maybe that's why I didn't want to change from shirt to Jersey on the field because of the bad tattoo. And so I tweeted this out. I think people thought I was like jokingly. Like my joke was that I don't believe it. My joke is that if that's honestly, it gets, he's so embarrassed of the tattoo. Right. That he blurs it out in pictures and that they were about to go to the world series and his thought process. is, oh, no, we're going to have to change on the field. Oh, I can't have my tattoo out there. I got to go put on an undershirt to hide it.

Like, I do think that logically adds up. But if you don't find that hilarious, I don't know what's wrong with it. Like, that's so stupid. Why'd you get such a bad tattoo, man? Right. And I think that's why you do believe that, but you also don't believe that because that sucks. No, I mean, it just makes Altuvae and I'm like part. in my words here because they're not like kosher anymore, I don't think, but just makes

Al-Tube look like a little bitch. You. Yeah. I mean, if he's about to win the World Series, but he doesn't want people to see his bad tattoo and like that's on the forefront of his mind. Like, dude, what's going on in your head? Yeah. Go deal with that tattoo, maybe.

You're very wealthy. Put some tape over. it. I don't, well, that would actually look terrible. Yeah, no, see. Can't do that. Oh, the tattoo says Melanie. He just exposed it to everyone. Not Marley.

That's yours. Man, now it's now like the So that's the stric sand effect. The lengths that Al Tuve went to cover his tattoo and make sure the world doesn't see it has now exposed it to everyone. And we know he has a

Melanie tattoo. That's tricent effect to a T right there. Yeah. Yeah. I think it just okedoked us. I think he thinks it's a sweet tat and he wanted the world to see it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's cool. I might get a tattoo, hide it from everyone for three years and then be like, okay, this is what I was so embarrassed about. And people are like, it's not that bad, man. It's genius. Yeah, that is smart. All right, I think that's all we got, right? Yeah, I want to give Timothy Davis some credit. He was the one who asked 2020's most underrated and overrated teams based on projections. If you think you might even be interested in that question, go check out the TPPs. I'll, I'll just feed the beast a little bit. I know a fun one

that we did that I don't think is out yet is the Texas Rangers. They're a wild roster this year. Their projection is either really low or really high. So if you're into that kind of thing, go check out the TPPs. So we have a lot of fun with them. And again, if you want to hear us talking about baseball, that's where you could go find it right now. This is awesome. Everything. I'm very excited for baseball, even with all this controversy.

And the TPPs are good. We're getting good reviews on them too. So like Jake said, go check them out. Huge. I got to pull up the outro music And then this show will end As the outro music plays You guys know how it works

And here we go Thank you very much for listening Go leave a five-star review if you'd like Tweet at us so we know what baseball stuff to talk about next