No Crying In Baseball

Patti 0:17
Hi and welcome to episode 451 of No Crying in Baseball the Oh My God, It's Season 10 episode. My name is Patti. I'm here with my friend. Pottymouth. Hey, Pottymouth!

Pottymouth 0:27
Hey, you know that just that makes me, like, bittersweet, sad. I think, oh my god, like Jose Iglesias song, oh my God. Remember that?

Patti 0:35
Yeah, I do remember that.

Pottymouth 0:37
Two seasons ago,

Patti 0:38
I'm just thinking, you know, like, we've been, we were friends for like, a decade, like a decade, at least, before we start, more than that, before we started the podcast. Like we didn't podcast forever, but Right, yeah, and this has not, you know, driven a spike in our friends. Matter of fact,

Pottymouth 0:53
we're planning an epic road trip. So, yeah,

Patti 0:56
but you know, two weeks sharing, you know, a car and all that might be, but, yeah, no. So, so big. Thanks to those of you who have been with us. With us from the start, and thanks to those of you who have joined us recently. It's a labor of love, and we're glad you're on the ride with us.

Pottymouth 1:09
Woohoo, woohoo. And we're going to talk about what we did yesterday.

Patti 1:13
Can you remember, fairly, it's hard to remember, barely, mistakes were made. We bid

Pottymouth 1:18
farewell to a local drinking establishment, because that's what you get to do on their last day of business. It's, it's, and then you put it out there that it's like, well, we're the kind of folks who say we should keep we should go here, and then we haven't been there since their last

Patti 1:32
big party. Yeah, yeah. So we say goodbye to chat shows, which is a local distillery, which, apparently the distillery is going to continue on, but the bar, the tasting room, which is really lovely. It's just not within easy walking distance. We have walked there, which is why we hadn't gone there enough, yeah, but it was big fun. And what their tagline should be is when tastes are actually shots. Because here's what happened. I did bad math and like, I'm so responsible. I had two cocktails, and I stopped. Oh, I also had some tastes of, you know, some of their distilled spirits that I hadn't tried before. And because it was, and it was because it was the party or their last day, yeah, their tastes were actually entire shots, right, you know, and I sipped them, I didn't, like, didn't take them as shots. Was like, Oh, that was actually basically two more entire drinks.

Pottymouth 2:17
Yeah, I had, I completely lost count. And I remember I was thinking, I'm just gonna go for a drink. So I had my one drink, and then you're like, do you guys want to split a drink? And so then I had a half a drink, but Mr. Potty mouth is driving, so I think he gave me, like, the lion's share of the one we split. And then I when I got home, I'm like, I'm so toasted. And then I realized I have no clue how many tastes I had. Like, no, like, I tried the smoked, I tried the original, spicy old fashioned.

Patti 2:46
So they were very great. Oh, man, yeah. So there was an accidental nap last night for me, so there's that, but very delicious. And we're sorry to see you go chat shows, and thank you for letting us have to go

Pottymouth 2:58
bottles, yeah. And maybe, can we put the the link in the show notes so that you can order the mail order?

Patti 3:03
Yes, you sure can, if you are, if you are allowed to receive adult beverages for delivery, some states can. Some states can't. That's on you guys.

Pottymouth 3:11
We highly recommend judges and

Patti 3:13
just about everything they make on today's show. It's a wrap on the World Baseball Classic, new season, new rules. We've got terrible predictions. It's that time of year, the police blotter again, with the gambling. We've got the wbpl at Fenway south. We're cross trading with the WNBA, and we've got some quick hits and fun facts and happy opening day. Cheers, yes. So I'm wearing my senator's jersey, which belonged to my late husband, and it's my traditional opening day, where, when I'm not actually going to a game, or if we go to a nats game, I wear it because, yeah, Senators. But this opening day, I will be at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, so I'm going to wear, oh, stuff, and not say red, white and blue, senators, things. But I thought, You know what this is like opening day, observed,

Pottymouth 3:55
it's so perfect, and it's such a classic jersey. I love it.

Patti 3:58
It was purchased at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Wow, there's that. Yeah, so good. Yep. It's a lovely thing. As we go into this new season, it's time to talk about the new rules.

Pottymouth 4:09
Oh, boy, oh boy. I knew you'd explain this to me. Yeah, that's what

Patti 4:13
I'm here for. I love that you are actually the teacher, but you seem to somehow just kind of give over some of the teaching response. And I'm fine with that. I have been a professional trainer in my past, and that's a little trait. Will count it

Pottymouth 4:25
as that. It's knowing where to specialize, really.

Patti 4:27
That's it. So the new rule that's actually being implemented in Major League Baseball this year, you are probably aware of because it's been it's been used in spring training this season, and you saw it in the minor in the minor leagues last year. It's the ABS challenge rule, the automated ball and strikes. Challenge rule, which means a team gets to challenge up to two calls at home plate, so two calls made by the home plate umpire per game. And like other challenges, like when you put your hands over your ear ears to have New York look at it, you lose. A challenge. In this case, if the ruling is in favor of the of the umpire, like if they were correct, you lose the challenge. If you they were incorrect, you keep your challenges. You you reset your challenges when you go into extra innings, and each each inning allows you to you're never going to have no challenges left in extra innings. Oh, now here's the tricky part, who can call the challenge, the pitcher, the catcher or the batter? So it's actually a lot of work on the part of managers, and they've been doing this all spring training to decide who can be allowed to make that call. So they were kind of like taking a lot of notes. All of them were all the managers were during spring training, like, okay, who's doing a good job of this? Who's terrible? Chris sale was actually hilarious. He's like, Yeah, I don't, don't. Let me do I think everything I

Pottymouth 5:46
throw strike, right? I thought he was perfect

Patti 5:48
on that, right? And Terry Francona even said, I do think we probably will be hesitant to allow the pitchers, because every pitcher thinks every pitch is a strike, yeah. And then Dave Roberts was talking about batters, and I want to know who he was talking about, because I love his quote. He said, I'm not going to say any names, but I do think there's a self evaluation on who knows the strike zone, who doesn't, and who gets emotional?

Pottymouth 6:11
Oh, yeah, who's interpreting that? Which way

Patti 6:15
I know. So I think every team is going to have their own. Like a lot of them think the catcher is probably the best person between pitcher and catcher, because obviously the closest to where the where the pitch lands. But they're not all going to be regular, so that's like a whole level of complication on top of things. All right. So now that's the only new one for the major leagues this year, but the minor leagues are once again being used as a place to test drive possible new rules. None of these rules are presented as they're absolutely going to the major leagues next year, which is different. The pitch clock was definitely seen that way. It was like, we're going to just kind of like, get it right in the minors, and it's going to happen. That's not what's being said about these rules. And these rules are not being implemented across all the leagues all the time. They each have their own little test market. So I'm gonna try to go through that. There's a couple of areas that they want to do. One is, encourage more base stealing, right? Remember, they made the bags bigger, right? And that did encourage a little more base stealing. And that's kind of evened out again. So there's a couple things that, well, the thing they're going to do most about this, oh, actually, two things. One is, did we talk before about second base not being quite in alignment? I don't think like if you draw a diamond, yeah, first base and third base are absolutely in the diamond. Second base overlaps that corner. It kind of goes through the middle of second base. Okay, and so, and I don't like

Pottymouth 7:39
the running in a straight line, they need

Patti 7:41
to adjust it. Well, it's still a straight line. It's just not an absolute diamond, right? So it's not quite like the 90 feet. It's like all those things. So they're going to try to in. This is where in the second half of the season, in the international league only is the part of part of AAA league only. They're going to move it so it is within the diamond, which gets it nine inches closer to first and third. So you've got, that's a lot that, plus now the bags are bigger, so it's now like, more than a foot closer, if you combine the two, like, moving that like, so it's within the diamond, and with the bigger bags, it's more than a foot closer than it used to be, like, two

Pottymouth 8:19
years ago, our pitchers pissed, so

Patti 8:21
I don't know yet, like, because we haven't tried it out yet, but here's what pitchers are going to be pissed about in triple A, they're only going to be allowed one disengagement before there are penalties. You know, now one one because, you know, clearly it's just

Pottymouth 8:37
two has been crazy. Like, That's bizarre.

Patti 8:39
I don't know it's like, maybe that's been enough to, like, tamp down on stealing, and maybe there will be more stealing. Yeah, the pitcher can only step off once Exactly. He steps off a second time and does not throw the runner out. It's called, it's a bulk, so you don't want that to happen. So that one, I think, is going to get more, a lot of stealing. More. Yeah, more, more, more complaints. The other thing that's getting looked at are check swings, you know, when, like, the third bit. Well, actually, either of them, you know, base umpires calls a check swing. We're all looking at it like, no rules about it, right? It's totally in the eye of the holder. It's what does it look like to you in the moment? So two things are going to happen. What is they're actually going to define what a checked swing is, wow. Which is basically that 40 like, if it crosses that 45 degree angle, okay, which kind of what we've all been doing when we look at it, oh yeah, that cross, like more than halfway or or whatever, but it's only going to be, it's in forest, is a weird word for it. But in triple A Pacific Coast League, again, not all the AAA, but the Pacific Coast League, you can challenge a check swing call, but it's then, then they'll go to the technology to see it across that, across that that, you know that line, the 45 degree line, but it will count towards an ABS challenge.

Pottymouth 9:51
What that's like apples and oranges

Patti 9:52
isn't but it's a challenge, and it's stopping play, and you're questioning an umpire call. So you just

Pottymouth 9:57
have a bowl of fruit. You've got to bulk it

Patti 9:59
out of your apples. White. Never your check swings, you've got, yeah, you've got your your balls and strikes. So it's going to be lumped in with basically challenging an umpires call, okay? And it's a call at home plate, even though that those calls are made usually by the first or third race umpire, yeah, or at least verified. But it's something that's happening in home plate, and I think they just didn't want to have to keep track of one more thing, so they're just going to count it towards that, yeah, because what they don't want to do, they don't want to do is delay the game anymore, because it is really good job with the pitch clock of cutting time down by a whole lot. And now

Pottymouth 10:30
they're doing like, all this stuff that goes against that, which is pretty funny. So here's

Patti 10:34
what they're doing about pace of play, because we're not done yet with pace of play. So pitch clock's been working last season. Average time has creeped back up, but just by a couple of minutes. But they want to nip that in the bud, because Heaven forbid we go over $3.03 hours for an average game. So it's only up two minutes. So what was it gonna what they're gonna try in low A this is gonna be horrible for people. Gonna be mad about this. No timeouts for batters. Oh no, none. No. Injury thing, if it's a brush back pitch, maybe, like, it's one of those also, you know, in extreme circumstance, injury things, of course, but they can't just say, oh, I need to do my car Grove and, like, readjust everything. None of that in high a they're going to limit it to you can have a timeout if there's a runner on base, and then in double A and triple A, you can have your your battered time out, but it's going to be shorter. They're like in currently. If the batter is a timeout, the umpire largely waits till they get back in the box, and then they start the pitch clock. If they call the timeout, the pitch clock is going to start immediately. So they can take a few seconds to step out and do a thing, but they've got do a thing, but they've got to be back in place by like eight seconds left, which is like the deadline for a batter, so they can have it, but it's going to have to be super short. The other thing to cut down the pace of play issues are for mound visits. There may be a timer on mound visits so they're shorter, okay? And it would be like a pitch clock violation if you run over. And also, there's, you know, often one thinks, is there really a problem with your pitch com technology? Are you just taking a minute, right? So to get around that, a pitch clock adjustment mound visit is going to count towards your

Pottymouth 12:16
mound visits, right? Yeah, those are kind of suspect, because they're sure to, like, you know, there's no way to verify that. Besides, oh, it's working. Now it's all right. I just shook it for a minute, right?

Patti 12:25
Yeah, yeah. I just went, Oh, dunk. And then it's okay again, yeah. So again, these, these that I just talked about, are all happening in various places, in the minor leagues for various periods of time, just to kind of see how

Pottymouth 12:36
they go. That's so interesting, right? Just

Patti 12:39
to see how they go. And if things look they're effective, they will probably have another year of experimenting with them more widely in the minor leagues before anything happens. And again, any of these rule changes have to go through the union. So that's not like, immediately, boom, we're going to do this. It's a process. But a lot of these, like, well, I don't know what do you want to do? Let's try this. This will piss them off. It'll be fun. It's funny, though,

Pottymouth 13:00
because it does take, like, just a little while of having a rule to try to figure out the workarounds, you know, right? Like the two minutes are creeping up. So that means there have been people who've been figuring it out, and the pitch calm thing. So, you know, rules are meant to be broken.

Patti 13:15
Rule, yeah, accommodated, yeah, in a way that's beneficial to you as the ruler.

Pottymouth 13:21
That's right. So you know these rules, not having them in the World Baseball Classic led to all sorts of angst, and especially that that last, the last pitch of the Dominican Republic that was a ball and was counted a strike and ended the game, if there had been abs, then that would have been challenged, and things would have been a lot different. So then, you know, the next question is, does what goes to the World Baseball Classic, and who makes those decisions? And I don't know, but I think the ones that are popular, like the ABS thing, maybe it will be pitch clock. Yeah. So I don't know why they didn't, I don't know, and that pitch clock was a problem

Patti 14:01
for a lot of teams because they don't use them. They don't use that for players who aren't

Pottymouth 14:04
playing in the MLB, right? Yeah, yeah, that takes huge adjustment, yeah, um, so I just wanted to say a few things about the World Baseball Classic, because last time we talked, I actually like thinking about predictions. I predicted the winner. I said I wanted Venezuela to win. Of course. I said it was going to be Venezuela against the DR and that didn't happen. But, yeah, you did. I'm pretty fucking excited about that. And so I'm just going to spend a good amount of time talking about how awesome it is that Venezuela won the World Baseball Classic for so many reasons. Reason number one, they got a day off of work. We wouldn't have gotten a day off of work. So right after the game, the president Dulce Rodriguez, who, you know, mind you was Maduro is vice president. Is very much of the same party and the same philosophy is still in power. Yeah, here's another Oh, Beer break, beer talk. What did we just what did we just drink? We just drank poly dribbles, which was a mango pineapple, I think, sour from Nepenthe in Baltimore, which is awesome. Awesome, awesome. So we are now the magnet there. So we brought out a bottle, which usually I don't trust myself with a bottle, you know, stick to the aluminum,

Patti 15:10
but I'm pouring, yes,

Pottymouth 15:13
we are trying to clear out the beer from the fridge. So, because Passover is coming soon, so it's time to get rid of all the comments, which is, you know, anything made with wheat and the other prohibited grains that I can't remember off the top of my head, but beer definitely counts. So here to help. We're getting beer out of the fridge, and this is we're about to drink a tiding cross training.

Patti 15:31
I can't believe, Oh my god. This is perfect. This is hilarious. This is

Pottymouth 15:35
a holiday beer that has somehow made it till whatever March 22 in our fridge, but in

Patti 15:42
both of our lives, you know, opening day, right? It's a holiday, so we're celebrating that. And the fact that you're clearing the beer out for another holiday altogether is just a little bit

Pottymouth 15:51
ironic, and it's very funny tidings to you. Cheers, cheers, yeah, I love this beer, but I can't believe it. I think it just got lost in the back of the fridge. Anyway, back to President Dulce Rodriguez. Thank you very much. You know, for the people of Venezuela that she decreed the next day, a day of a national holiday, no work, with the exception of essential workers. And what I love about it is that she said so that the youth can go out to the plazas, to the parks and to the fields to celebrate, so we wouldn't have been able to do that. Reason number one why Venezuela really benefited more than the United States would have from winning. And the next one is even bigger, which I'll get to in a minute.

Patti 16:33
But can we say the other president? Thing that the bad president?

Pottymouth 16:36
Thing? What bad president? Our bad president?

Patti 16:39
Oh, our bad president was, you know, you know, once hearing not that, not the Venezuela win over the US, but an earlier ones, like, Yay for Venezuela. 51st state, right? Like, oh, you sucker. I mean, I have ideas for a 51st state, possibly, let's say the District of Columbia, right? What the heck are you talking about? Just crazy shit. Just crazy,

Pottymouth 16:59
absolutely crazy shit. And they wouldn't get a day off because he wants to limit those holidays and take away things like Martin Luther King Day and Mike lights.

Patti 17:09
I'm sorry. Distraction. Sorry. Go on. I distracted you with fascism. Again. I always do that.

Pottymouth 17:14
There's so much fascism around Omar Lopez, the coach for Venezuela, played for no salary. He was willing to coach the Venezuelan team for the World Baseball Classic without getting paid. And this is because Venezuela has, I mean, been totally fucked economically, especially since the US invasion, and even right before, I mean, for years, they've been in economic problems. So he's doing this. He said, I'm not getting paid, but my country is celebrating. And now he said this before the wind too. So this is important. He said it's extremely happy. It's in the streets. They're drinking right now, and that makes me happier than any man in the world. And I was like, Hey, I appreciate somebody, you know, happy about the people out there in the

Patti 17:54
street party like baseball, boyfriend material

Pottymouth 17:57
right here? Yeah, I love him. He is still not talking politics. I talked about this last week, like at the beginning of the beginning of the interviews, he's like, I'm not commenting on this, but he is talking about bringing joy and hard times and how important baseball is, especially when things are shitty, because it distracts you and you get to have fun for a little while. He said, it's the only thing I can do with my country, for my country. So he's been with the Astros since 1999 most recently as a Venezuelan scout and bench coach, but super important in the winter League. Man, this guy doesn't rest. He managed the congrejos de santorse in the Puerto Rican league to be the champs of the League of the Day Baseball professional Roberto Clemente this year. So he and Yadi switched in the off season. Yadier Molina, Puerto Rican, went to Venezuela to coach, and Omar Lopez went from Venezuela to Puerto Rico. I don't know. I think it's pretty cool that they were both in the World Baseball Classic. It was popular. I mean, if you were watching, you were not alone. And what I kind of regret is that I wasn't able to find worldwide stats. It's really easy to find Fox viewing stats, US viewing stats, but the global stuff was a little tough. Anyway, they said that there were 10 point 8 million Fox viewers for the final game, which is more than twice from the US Japan game three years ago, which is fascinating, because that game was huge, super pumped up, but that it's grown so much in the past three years. They said that the home viewing overall for the tournament, and again, this is us feed is up 156% from 2023 that's Fox Fs one and Fs two combined, they did better than the 26 Olympics overall as an overall average him, Bryce Harper, right? Wasn't he the one who made the Olympics dig at the Olympics, at the Olympics? Well, more people were watching than were watching the Olympics in the United States. That is also attendance. 24% increase in overall in person attendance since 2023 so i. Feel like I'm excited that we got to go three years ago. I really want to go next time. It's going to be I feel like we got ahead of the crowd,

Patti 20:07
kind of, yeah, this is absolutely due to all of the extra marketing done by MLB. Yeah. I mean, they really pushed it this year, as opposed to it being an afterthought and a distraction, yeah, in previous years, and now it's like, no, we can embrace this. I mean, granted, I probably made him a boatload of money, so good for that, because it brought, it brought really fun baseball to a lot of people. Absolutely, I'm

Pottymouth 20:30
okay with that, yeah, and but that is, like, it all comes down to that for motivation, right? It's all about the money. So Netflix wanted to get into on the cash, and apparently they monopolized Japanese viewing, so they bought streaming rights to Japan. But people in Japan aren't signed up for Netflix, and they didn't sign up for Netflix just for this. So viewing in Japan, like plummeted since 2023 when everybody was watching. So that super sucks for people in Japan. I mean, they didn't get, you know, as far as they'd wanted to the article that I read said that bars weren't even sure that they could stream it because they didn't understand, like, the fine print of the agreement

Patti 21:12
and and on the other side of that, what Netflix paid for those rights, I think, fed into the salary that were paid to to to people who participated in the in the class,

Pottymouth 21:23
absolutely, because that was based on percent of revenue. So from the get go, each team was guaranteed at least 750,000 split between players and whatever Federation from their country and the coaches and the staff pay get comes out of those Federation dollars. So if you advance, you get more money. And yeah, all of that is based on percentage of revenue Venezuela. And so here's the part where Venezuela needs money more than the United States. Venezuelan baseball absolutely needs more more money than the MLB. And MLB is getting money anyway from this. Yeah, so Venezuela ended up with 6.7 5 million. That means that the players got about 112,500 each, and that's half of the total prize pack goes to the players. So that means Venezuelan baseball Federation gets $3.375 million that is huge. That means stadium upgrades. That means fixing fields. That's a big fucking deal. What I don't understand, and we'll link the article. Please. Somebody tell me if you understand this, after the prize money was distributed. So again, the prize money was based on a certain percent, a mysterious percentage of revenue that MLB will not divulge. But after that gets distributed, the rest of the profits were split into thirds, 1/3 to the MLB, 1/3 to the MLB Players Association, and 1/3 combination the World Baseball and softball. Thank Confederation. Thank you very much the ones who sponsor all these international tournaments, especially the qualifiers and the KBO and the NPB, the Japanese baseball league, huh? Like, what about everybody? I don't get that. I just, I why KBO and MPB?

Patti 23:11
I wonder if it's part of who hosted and expenses for hosting?

Pottymouth 23:17
Well, Japan hosted, and then the Korea did not the US did. Puerto Rico did, and they're not getting anything unless they get a cut of us, which they never do, in terms our classifying Right? Exactly. It depends on where you file Puerto Rico.

Patti 23:33
Interesting, yeah, I will look at that more closely, but yeah, I don't know, yeah.

Pottymouth 23:38
So if anybody has info on that. Please write in, as we'll explain later, more cool things about Venezuela. I'm just going to keep saying cool things about Venezuela. Winning the president of the Venezuelan baseball Federation is a woman, artice Leon, and she had a great statement where she, you know, basically said that, you know, due to our hard work, yada yada, but that they're not stopping here, that they're, they're qualified for the Olympics, and they're going for that Olympic medal. So that is awesome. It's always a good day when I can say shit about Derek Jeter, and he famously said on TV with with his compadres there, I think that people who say it's bigger than the World Series never played in a World Series. Nina. Nina, well, he's full of shit because Salvador Perez, you know what? He played in a World Series. And not only did he play in a World Series, he played in one that probably mattered a lot more, because it was in Kansas City, as opposed to New York. Who's, I mean, they'll never let us live it down that they have 27 How many did Kansas City? No, have? I'm not sure. It's just a handful, if that much. And so he said, you know, despite being like the hero of Kansas City way back, it's more than that. It's un poquito Masaya. It's a little more than that. You know, where you come from. He talked about the sacrifices, and importantly, everybody on the Venezuelan roster was a ncib baseball boyfriend at one point. So we know. Know that all of these guys worked their asses off to get where they were. They did not have travel baseball. They did not have parents who could drive them around as many players in the US team. I mean, amazing players, Bobby Witt Jr, but he grew up in baseball, right? A lot of the US players had the resources growing up. These Venezuelan players did not and especially Salvador Perez. And he also said, we were representing 30 million people, and that's not even including the 7 million Venezuelans in the essential diaspora, the ones who have left Venezuela. So that is a lot more than your team in the World Series. And then he said. And the good thing is, it motivated us. Contreras of the Red Sox also said the same thing. And he also won the Cubs World Series, right? Like talk about well deserved and people freaking out that the Cubs finally run about that one. Sorry, sorry,

Patti 26:00
sorry, sorry, go.

Pottymouth 26:02
Historical purposes. It meant a lot more than the Yankees winning when Derek Jeter did three years in a row like, yes, that's a big fucking deal, but it's not as big as the Cubs winning, and it's not as big as Venezuela winning from where these guys came from, by the way out of the three lovely gentlemen on the pre game Post game show. You know, a rod and Jeter and big Poppy only. Big Poppy only. David Ortiz picked Venezuela to win sure the and he came really close to, he said four to two. And I think it was three to two. So super close. So just think about that. The other thing about the Venezuelan players, they have to leave. They when they make that decision to play baseball, they're leaving home at 16 years old. They're going to an academy. Yep, they're going hours away from their family, probably going to the

Patti 26:50
Dominican Republic. Yeah, doing exactly

Pottymouth 26:53
Academy there. And then they're coming here and going through the minor leagues with no family, because family can't come over in visas, right? And they're and they're getting by with basically nothing, having to send money back, no visas for their parents to come, you know, visit them and watch them play. And so all that these guys have had to go through makes this so so incredibly sweet. And just by the way, this has gotten worse. I didn't realize that since last December, their visas now are single entry, which means if a player has some sort of emergency during the season and has to go back to Venezuela, they have to go through the whole process of getting a visa again before they come back. And that's not easy when there's no American Embassy in Venezuela. So the whole thing is really, especially for Venezuelan players, really crazy impressive that these guys, yeah and, and I love seeing them in their jerseys with their home teams. They don't want to take their jerseys off, yeah, yeah, right. They don't want to take it off. They don't want to take their medals off. They're wearing them in the clubhouse. You know, there's actually a really good shot of the US players when they got their civil silver medals going into the dugout and taking it off immediately. And I'm wondering if it's just because they were about to get changed, maybe it wasn't a big deal, but the Venezuelan players kept their gold medals on like they were on. Luis arayas doesn't have his medal. How come he was asked? He said, quote, I don't have it. I'm gonna cry. I swear to God, I'm gonna cry. I gave it to my mom. She's the one that deserves it. I'm so

Patti 28:24
glad they won. Isn't that amazing? I'm so freaking glad that they won. Yeah, no, this is huge. This is huge. It was the right thing at the right time. Yeah, I think we all needed this. Oh, yeah. And, you know, it's not for nothing that they're all all past boyfriends of ours too. It's like exactly, you know, we know these guys are working so freaking hard, harder than other people, to get where they are, and they deserve this. Yeah, and fuck that 51st state. They are a country. Thank you very much. Exactly. Celebrate it exactly.

Pottymouth 28:53
Wow. Yeah, big, wow.

Patti 28:55
Okay, all right, I'm gonna do a quick little police plotter for you again, again. Your favorite people, Emmanuel Class A and Luis Ortiz. We told you that their trials are being moved to November now. Both of them want to separate and do separate trials. I understand, but the thing that has happened is they were this is important for it's important for the Guardians. They were moved from paid to unpaid, non disciplinary leave. Big deal, and that's an agreement between MLB and MLB. Pa, they're very clear. It does not imply wrongdoing, even though everything is leading to the fact there was wrongdoing. But that's not what that means. What I think it means, and no one has said this straight out, is that Cleveland is probably not on the hook for their salaries this season, which is almost $7 million between two of them, because I think Class A is like six point something, million dollars. And even if, even if, Ortiz at the league minimum, that's three quarters of a million dollars, right? And they were on the hook last year when they were put on admin leave, probably in the season, they had to pay that salary the whole way through it. That's not available to them. But Cleveland does not have a large salary. You know, their their payroll is. Not that big, and so to get almost $7 million available to them is a big difference. So anyway, on a related note, okay, so we firmly believe that. I hope I'm not speaking after that. MLB is complicit in this. By partnering with all of these sports better things, they're making everything worse and making this and they're like, oh yeah. Well, now we're gonna, you know, limit prop bets to only $200 so players won't have these temptations. I'm like, Well, you know, screw you. But you guys know that. You know. You know how we feel about this, right? So MLB says all the time, oh, we want to make sure everyone's doing this responsibly. We want to protect our players. Why did they then create a new partnership with an organization called poly markets.

Pottymouth 30:43
Oh, my God, with the devil. They made a deal with the devil. Poly

Patti 30:46
market is a prediction market. It's

Pottymouth 30:48
evil, and I believe it's got some Trump. So

Patti 30:52
kids, whether it does or does not, you find you find that, but the bad enough things, it's gonna pay MLB $300 million over four years. And the thing that makes it different than, say, a Draft Kings or something, is it's a prediction market, which means it's buying and selling of contracts, kind of like it's more like a stock market than it is an individual betting thing. So Rob Manfred immediately tries to defend this by saying how it's going to help MLB, like suss out a foul play. It's like, okay, foul play that wouldn't happen if betting wasn't a thing. Yeah, baseball. But anyway, he says protecting the integrity of the game on the field is our top priority. By engaging in this community, we are able to work together to create clear boundaries with the goal of mitigating risk while providing fan engagement opportunities. I'm engaged watching a damn baseball game. I don't need to put money on a damn baseball game. So this whole prediction market thing is not it's unclear in the legal world whether it's it should be considered sports betting or not sports betting. So it may turned out, turn out to not be legal for sports betting, in which case this will be null and void. But as long as it remains legal, poly market and the Commodities Futures Trade Commission, that's the feds are. They are committed to sharing information with MLB to catch suspicious activity, which is what man Fred said, Oh, well, we want, like Draft Kings and others to to be involved, because they'll catch things that are suspicious, which, again, would not be happening at all. It wasn't. Now also Okay, so sports betting wasn't, you know, made legal by MLB. This is true, but MLB sure is capitalizing on it. So this is another case. Okay? So the difference between these prediction markets and, you know, like a straight up betting, like MGM or drafting, or any of those, is that they don't get paid like a percentage of winning of winning bets, right? They get, like, stock brokers, they get fees for transactions. So if there are a lot of trades, they'll make money on the fees for the trades, not whether those trades end up being successful, as far as, like, making money for anybody, right? So it's a different category, but you're still betting like the stock market is betting. The stock market is clearly betting. Yep, right. So it's a matter of but the bottom line on this is, if it's legal and it's happening anyway, MLB is like, why the hell not if it's going to be happening anyway? Why shouldn't we make money off of this? Well, you know, I have a long list of why, but that's what it is. All right,

Pottymouth 33:35
so I just quick Google. Days after Donald Trump Jr joined poly markets Advisory Board, the company received federal approval to launch in the United States.

Patti 33:45
Ha, well, there's that too. See here fascist and chief Junior is involved in that. So, yay. How exciting, yeah. Hey, let's have some fun and talk about a terrible, terrible prediction, which you know we weren't that terrible this last year. We we were moderate.

Pottymouth 34:03
Well, I'm gonna take my World Baseball Classic win and just like, head out the back door. Now I'm gonna give some predictions. So I absolutely did these off the top of my head, after I got back from chachos yesterday. Oh so perfect. These are heart predictions. These are whatever the fuck

Patti 34:21
I thought almost the same after

Pottymouth 34:23
a few shots of, you know, jalapeno. Taste, taste, taste of jalapeno. A guardian there cane sugar. I don't know magic. Al east, so I picked Boston pitching. I'm a Red Sox fan. I have to pick Boston for Al East. I didn't last year, which was kind of, you know, remarkable restraint on my part. Oh no, I did last year. I didn't restrain. No, I think I did fuck any I just got to do it again. Actually, I think, I hope they have a chance this year, although I'm not really happy with their spring training performance so far, but we will see anyway. Al Central, I'm going with de. Detroit, because Derek squeable, plus framber Valdez, who I really love. So there's that Al West Seattle, they were so magic last year. I think they're going to get really far. Al wild cards. I'm going with Toronto, just because they came really close, and Kansas City, because they have a magic team. And Bobby Witt Jr is going to do great things. And I just, I think the A's are gonna do it. They have young kids, and we don't know what the fuck they're gonna do. So I also picked them as my fun team, because, you know, it's a bunch of young guys who don't give a fuck they're in Sacramento, and they're just gonna do, you know, play their little hearts out. So that's my al prediction.

Patti 35:37
So I spent way longer than you working on this, I actually spreadsheets, and I slept off through a nap. And then, you know, a couple hours overnight, my shot shows, and then first thing this morning, sitting on my deck because it was weirdly beautiful out. So I was sitting outside about doing this, and my predictions are almost identical, regardless.

Pottymouth 35:57
Great minds. So honest

Patti 35:59
to god, I considered Boston, and I thought, I just can't, yeah, understand, because you are right, and we need to have some difference, because as I continue, you'll see we have very few differences. So I went Toronto, because Toronto, you know, are they made it to the series last year? Yeah, I think that I know, and Vlad is hot right now, and I think they're motivated, and let's see. And all of the kids want their dads to play for Toronto. So okay, maybe not the best reason, but I'm going Toronto. I'm absolutely going Detroit, yeah, for Al Central. I'm absolutely going Seattle. For al West. We, clearly, on purpose, are pretending the Yankees don't exist, right? We are absolutely pretending the Yankees don't exist. I have got Boston and Kansas City as wild cards again, so I'm like duplicating teams that you have picked, and I can't dis Baltimore. Yeah, they did terribly last year. They are they they're stacked for pitching this year and the whole Pete Alonso thing. And I think they're fired up. I think they want it back. I think they're pissed. I think they're motivated. So I want to get them at least to wild card.

Pottymouth 37:07
You know, I totally agree. And I think if I had done this sober, I might have picked Baltimore. I picked so I was just having buyers regret because I picked them last year and they didn't do well, and I had not looked at the pitching, and then I saw the headline this year, that they're this year today, very much, that they're putting Dean Kramer down, starting in triple A and

Patti 37:29
I was like, what the because their rotation is freaking good this year. Yes.

Pottymouth 37:35
So then I saw that, and I was like, oh shit, they're gonna do well.

Patti 37:38
So yeah, so pitching is the thing they didn't have last year because everybody was hurt. Yeah. And if they've got pitching right, they might have a thing. So I'm not ready to say woo hoo. They are back, but I'm willing to say they are. They are something to watch. They're competing fun to watch. For me, the Royals, because they've got team Italy stars on there. Oh, my

Pottymouth 38:00
God, Vinnie pasquintino, that's right. Well, yeah, and, and more.

Patti 38:04
And Jack, he on a Yeah, who's, you know, one of my guys. And, yeah, so they're super fun. And, and Bobby Witt. I adore Bobby Witt. And I think they, I think they will have some of that team Italy excitement that carries through. And I want to see it happen, and we're gonna go see them when I can. So happy. We're gonna go see them

Pottymouth 38:25
in their home stadium. You know, they're auctioning off that espresso machine. That's my

Patti 38:29
later fact, sorry. So yes, I

Pottymouth 38:31
know that that's okay. You can that's a teaser. I don't read your notes. We'll call that. I know you don't.

Patti 38:35
Should we pour?

Pottymouth 38:37
Oh yes. So we just finished the tidings, and now we're moving on to something from liquidity Ale Works, and I believe it's a Munich it's a

Patti 38:46
bergsteiger Munich lager, all right, because we're feeling quite International, right? I haven't had this before, but we had other Ale Works, things that I like very much.

Pottymouth 38:56
So we actually had that as our second backup beer slated up last week, I would have didn't get to it shocking. Well, you

Patti 39:02
know, clearly today we are just barely, well, we have motivated to get the beer out of your house. That's exactly it, don't you do not yet I'm still okay.

Pottymouth 39:12
I'll talk about the National League, and at least I'm going with the Mets. They've done so much. I think they're gonna need some time to gel, because they've got a lot of new faces from all over, but got to go with the Mets Central. I This is where I think my alcohol got involved here, because I'm going to go with this insanity reds, which makes very little sense. Hunter green just had his major injury. Is going to be out for a while, but he will be back eventually. I'm hoping soon. But Eugenio Suarez, I love got the winning RBI for the base World Baseball Classic. And I just kind of feel like that, like I keep replaying when they won, and he runs out with the flag and drops to his knees and looks to the sky and holds it up, and it makes me cry every fucking time. So he should get more, so he deserves more. I feel like he's just. Got it in him. Now, do that. No West. I really hate saying Dodgers out loud, but I almost didn't, and then I was like, you know,

Patti 40:09
pretending the Yankees don't exist, also pretending that the Dodgers don't exist. So true. So true,

Pottymouth 40:16
wild card. So I'm picking the Padres over the Giants, which is silly, because I think I should have picked the Giants, but my boyfriend, Ramon loriano, is on the padres, and I don't have a Giants boyfriend who's probably playing. I think my guy is sort of like bench and maybe not even. So I'm going with the Padres because they're also fun. And then Pittsburgh is my other like, I was drinking a lot, and Paul schemes, and then I looked at and, you know, it's like, you know, they could do it. Who knows?

Patti 40:48
So dark horse from for some folks,

Pottymouth 40:50
there we go. And Milwaukee, because Milwaukee beer, yeah, yes, yeah. And for fun, I agree with you. And you'll, you'll say, All right, yeah.

Patti 41:01
So we agree on the Mets for NL East. I picked Milwaukee for the central I mean, they were amazing last year. I don't see why they wouldn't be amazing this year, and we'll get to go see them with their ballpark this year. So that'll help Dodgers, exactly what you said. It was like, well, shoot, you can't, right? You know, if we're gonna attempt to not have terrible predictions around to at least pick the Dodgers, I had a harder time with the wild card. Sure. You know, it feels like both leagues, I'm I'm heavy on the east, and sometimes I wonder, is that because I live here, or is that because those, those conference, those conferences, are just loaded? Yeah, both leagues, they

Pottymouth 41:36
really are this wild card's hard, I think. Yeah.

Patti 41:38
So I picked Philadelphia, Atlanta, and actually Chicago, sure, the Cubs for the wild cards there. So we'll see. And fun to watch. I picked San Diego because of the guys who were in the World Baseball Classic, because they were so freaking fun and exciting and great. And now they have Dick Castillo. So they've got, you know, like, yeah, all of the World Baseball Classic good Juju. And they've got, you know, the guy who with the two jerseys that looks like

Pottymouth 42:03
more, who has something to prove

Patti 42:04
at this point, he does. He does. And so I think that's going to be a lot of fun.

Pottymouth 42:09
All right, so World Series, if I'm going Boston, I'm going big, and I'm going silly. So I'm going to say Boston, Pittsburgh, because why not? By the way, talking about the World Baseball Classic juju, Boston has five Venezuelans on the roster. Three are from the World Baseball Classic, plus two more so, which importantly the catcher, Carlos novayas And that one of the new utility kind of guy that they got from the Brewers, along with my, my baseball boyfriend, pick of Caleb Durbin. I think that's

Patti 42:38
his name. He's got a lot of behind him right now,

Pottymouth 42:43
and this backup guy has been doing really well too. So I think I'm gonna go for the Venezuelan.

Patti 42:48
Does that mean you're picking Boston

Pottymouth 42:51
to actually win? Yeah, sure, yep.

Patti 42:55
Okay, all right. Why not? I'm going Seattle, LA, which is not that much of a reach. The reach part is, I'm going to pick Seattle. That's good. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pick, like, maybe the witch will come in handy again. Maybe there'll be some other magic for Seattle. And I just, I want this for them. I want it for them. And so we'll see what happens.

Pottymouth 43:16
Yeah, yeah, I did. You know, if Boston can't have it, I would want it for Seattle or Toronto, really fan bases, all right. So the awards this is so influenced by awards fatigue, I'm just tired of saying the same names. So well, of course, for rookie of the year, you're gonna go different anyway. But I'm also, like, very heavily leaning into baseball boyfriend picks, and very heavily leaning into, I don't want to say Shohei atani again. So Al Rickie of the year. Is Carter gonna be Carter Jensen, which is kind of an interesting pick for the Royals, you know, because he's behind Salvador Perez for catcher, but salvi's getting up there, and I'm thinking maybe he will get play time and at least batting, you know, when salvi's Catching, and I I just think that he's promising. He's he's a

Patti 44:02
pretty good pick right now, I've been reading a lot about that. There's, they're thinking, oh, yeah, no, okay, this is actually a good pick based on research, not just based on shot shows. No, it really is. Because they're, they're the the general, like, expertise, knowledge guesses out there are salvage gonna be playing more first base, yeah, which means that Carter is going to get a lot more plague time as catcher, which means much more opportunity to show just how good he is, yeah.

Pottymouth 44:29
And what like a catcher to train under? Right? Be working that's

Patti 44:33
right there. Yeah, magic, right?

Pottymouth 44:34
And like to give salve, like, such credit for the World Baseball Classic, because he caught it, man, you know, yeah,

Patti 44:41
yeah, no, for sure. For sure,

Pottymouth 44:43
yeah, okay. Al, so should I do all these Sure? ALS, Al, Cy Young, I tried crochet last year, and I kept the phonetic pronunciation, phonetic writing it out, because last year I didn't know how to pronounce his name. I sure as hell do now, but I'm trying again. He came close. This last year. So I figured maybe, maybe this time around, and then al MVP going for Roman Anthony, which is probably super crazy, but I kind of feel like, again, I just looked toward the World Baseball Classic with my Red Sox goggles, and he came out of nowhere. He wasn't an original pick for team USA. He replaced Corbin Carroll, and he got the Go ahead. He won against the Dominican Republic. It was his Go ahead. So that's a big fucking deal. So I'm gonna go and say that

Patti 45:30
maybe, who knows, it's a solid pick. It is a

Pottymouth 45:32
solid pick. He's so funny. He is solid. He's

Patti 45:35
shown up. He showed up on a couple of, like, the Dark Horse predictions, like he's gonna, like, come out of, like you said, kind of come out. He's not expected, because he's the new guy, okay, but he's got a lot of potential. So you did very well. I think Yay. I'm going with Chase to Lauder of the guardians for my al Rookie of the Year. I feel like I didn't give him enough love when I was picking my fantasy team, but he had a kick ass spring training and got a lot of attention. So he's not at the top of anybody's list for Ricky of the year, but he's like three or four or five on a lot of lists. So anything can happen. So I want to show a little love to the guards. I can't, not pick Google, yeah, for the Cy Young, I just can't I get it. And I'm going with Bobby Witt again. I'm with you on the award fatigue, and I think Bobby Witt could do it. I think he's fired up. I was impressed to see Gunnar Henderson show up at like five or six on a lot of these lists, because he had a bad season last year. Well, he had not as good as his 2024, season, and all this stuff. People are writing like, oh yeah, no, he's he's back this year. He's back this year. So I'm kind of interested in that, but I'm going Bobby Witt. He also

Pottymouth 46:41
showed up for the World Baseball Classic, big time run before Roman Anthony.

Patti 46:45
So yes, there's a lot of, hey, why were you having Bregman play when you could have had gunner play? Because gunner played great and breckman did not,

Pottymouth 46:53
which feeds into me not picking the Cubs for anything, because I'm bitter about Bregman in general. But there's that.

Patti 46:59
So yeah. So Chase the latter. Check school, Bobby White, Jr,

Pottymouth 47:03
all right, National League. I gotta go with baseball. Boyfriend. Justin Crawford, you know it's he's my guy. So I can pick him. He's got as good of a chance of anyone. I think Cy Young, I'm totally going off World Baseball. Classic impressions, Christopher Sanchez had an amazing outing. His numbers overall aren't great, but I just, I don't know. I'm just gonna pick him. I have a feeling Philadelphia. And then an L, M, V, P, another one, Ronald de CUNY Jr, who has been the bounce back man of forever. Like, awesome. Out, awesome, out, awesome, you know, like, I think, and then World Baseball Classic, talk about being pumped up. So, yeah,

Patti 47:43
that's my guy. Yeah, I think those are all very solid picks. I enjoyed watching Christopher Sanchez last year. Said Philadelphia is my pitching flock, yeah, and it was. It's great to see he's getting a lot of play this year is pretty exciting. Okay, so I picked a guy who's not yet even on the the active roster for St Louis, JJ, weather hole, but he's getting a lot of play for rookie of the year, and he is my boyfriend, and I hope it ends up on the opening day roster. He's not there yet, so he's sitting on my bench in my fantasy league. I think Yamamoto this year for the Cy Young again, because I'm trying. I didn't want to go last year for both of them, so I figured I'm going to bump schemes for Yamamoto and just see what happens. Okay, there. And I just have this, like, one Soto feeling. I kind of think there's going to be some, like, Mets Magic II, yeah, whatever happening here. And it, honestly, it was almost flipping a coin between Soto and Acuna. So it goes, guys, so I think you picking a Kuna made it, made it easier. Okay, well, let's give it both a little

Pottymouth 48:39
bit of play, little bit of balance. Yes, yes. A solid, solid pick. Yes. If you want

Patti 48:42
to share your your picks with us, we'd love to hear them. And hopefully you're not as terrible as we are, but we'll check back in at the sometimes we check in partway through the season to see how we're doing, but definitely at the end of the season to, you know, either back, you know, bask in our glory, or kind of like you have a little shape, but yeah,

Pottymouth 49:03
tail between the legs and, all right, all right. I'm going to take an opportunity to say good things about the Red Sox in the name of women's baseball. So it's like a happy Venn diagram for me. Yeah, women's professional baseball league, I think I mentioned last week or the week before, at some point I said that they were going to be doing a couple days at Fenway south, that is the spring training for Jet Blue Park, I think is what it's called in Fort Myers, Florida, and this happened just a couple days ago. So on Thursday, they played a seven inning exhibition game with players from all four of the women's teams, sort of mixed around, followed by a fan fest, and that was before the Red Sox twins game and an important like holdover. Till then, Monet Davis threw out the first pitch to Jason Varitek for the game. And she hasn't been on the mound for a while, because she's actually a position player now, so fun to see her back on the mound throwing out a pitch to, you know, one of my heroes, actually, I was wearing his T shirt earlier today. Why is this happening? So I was wondering. Ing, like, why Red Sox? And why not more of this happening when this was announced? Because we have been waiting for announcements about when and where are the women playing. Are they barnstorming? And then when you know, we know that they're going to be in Springfield in August. But what's the deal? We want to get some fucking tickets. Well, the reason why they're at or they were at Fenway South was because of Donna Cohen, who is involved in the Red Sox women's fantasy camps, like one of the organizers, advisor for the fantasy camp, but she's also on the women's professional baseball League's advisory board, and so she, just because of her crossover reached out to the spring training General Manager, Sean Smith, who's a father of three girls, who said, That sounds lovely. Let's do something together. Kelsey Whitmore, you know, one of the absolute heroes, first pick in the in the draft, said, quote, I'm very grateful that the Red Sox are giving us this opportunity, but we deserve to be on a field like this. We deserve to be in an environment like this. And I'm very thankful that we are, of all the teams that there are out there, they're the one that's willing to take the chance and give it to us. So I'm thankful for it, but I think the key there is she is appreciative of this opportunity, but saying, like, it should be there,

Patti 51:24
right? It should be a favor, yeah, yeah.

Pottymouth 51:26
So I like, it's nice that she thanks them for it, but it's something that should be happening. She they should be on these fields in February. They got a chance to use the batting cages at Fenway and do some training there. So let's see some other teams step up. So while they were there, beyond playing, they got to get some coaching by some pretty impressive former Red Sox, including including Keith folk, who very famously closed out the 2004 World Series, huge for the Red Sox. He led up one run in 11 postseason games that year, and Doug meant whose name I can't get out of my mouth, who was with the Red Sox only for the second half of 2004 but that was a very important half, and did super in the postseason. So to have those two guys representing Red Sox coaching these women is a really big deal. And I love to see that folk has actually been active in the women's fantasy camp for years. They asked Alex Cora what he thought about it, and he referred to the fact that there's been a women's league for years in Puerto Rico. Sure where he's from, so he said he knows girls who play there. Maybe should have said, What young women. But he said, It's good baseball, and he's looking forward to see you know, the good things that are happening in Puerto Rico spread to United States, mainland cities, big by the way, Justin Justine Siegel, who has been on this podcast before, to nobody's surprise, has been named the commissioner of world, the women's professional baseball league. As a reminder, the one of the many accolades that she has is she was the first woman to be a professional coach with the A's, but there's been so much more since then. And she said, and I love the way that she's just so soft spoken and chill about everything. And she was very clear that this isn't the beginning of women's baseball. Women's baseball has existed for a while, and she said, we stand on the shoulders of the all Americans, and here we are beautiful. Yeah, I

Patti 53:28
can't wait to see them play in Springfield. I hope we do. Give us tickets. Give us tickets. Well, we'll buy the tickets. We buy them to be available. Let us know how to buy tickets. Right, right. Cross training. I just added a second cross training, because my phone just told me that that Alex Ovechkin, we're cross training. Alex Ovechkin just tied with Wayne Gretzky as the only two players ever to have 1000 goals between regular season and postseason play. So that's pretty exciting. 1000 regular season comma play off goals, the only two ever in the NHL.

Pottymouth 54:02
And you know, the NATs announced their mystery sports bobblehead for your birthday. It's a vegetable. Oh, fan, yes.

Patti 54:09
So excited. So

Pottymouth 54:10
for Patty's birthday game at the nationals, that's the bobblehead we get. Oh, hooray. Says a lot about the Nationals for this year. But, well, no,

Patti 54:19
they did. They said, of the DC sports I didn't say it was a nationals,

Pottymouth 54:21
yeah, yeah, no, I'm just saying that. That's fantastic. A lot

Patti 54:24
of the other cross trained, the one that I had planned before, my phone just rudely interrupted with, Oh, hey, history was made today. Wow. History was also made with the WNBA. They just they finished their negotiations with for the next collective bargaining agreement. It was agreed upon on Wednesday. The details specifically will follow, because it's not all signed and everything yet, but everybody's agreed to it. But here's a couple of highlights. It's a seven year CBA, which means consistency for a long time, which, if everybody agrees to it, is a beautiful thing if you're good with it, if you're good with it, there's an app out, opt out after six years. Good. No. Work stoppages so good, right? That's the thing that we're all worried about with, with with MLB, is that, you know, there's going to be a lockout, right? The salary increase is ginormous. It's almost, in some cases, it's five times current salaries. Wow. Finally, these women are being paid what they're worth. And a lot of the articles are like, No, this is a reason. This is a correction. This isn't like a pay raise. This is correcting what the pay scale should

Pottymouth 55:27
have been. That's an important take.

Patti 55:29
So the minimum is now $300,000 the average pay is $600,000 and the superstars contracts start at $1.4 million and the $1 million mark is the thing that kind of legitimizes a league once you have players earning more than a million dollars, that is, like the big the big step to be, okay, you're for real. You're and they've been for real for a long time, but now they're also financially for real. They also are now they have revenue sharing available to them, which I don't know how much, because they haven't shared the details. I We The belief is it's probably less than what they asked for, but it's more than what they've had. So, you know, compromise is part of labor negotiations. So congratulations to the WNBA for super successful negotiations. Thank you for fixing, for correcting the pay scale and paying these women what

Pottymouth 56:21
they're worth, right? And sort of setting the pace for the other women's leagues that are coming up. Everyone watches women's sports, baseball,

Patti 56:28
Soon, everyone watches women's sports, and they should get paid for it too. Okay? A couple of quick hits, some fun facts, the Tampa Bay Rays. You know how teams now have sponsored patches on their jerseys? Right? Kind of ads on the jerseys. There's one patch. The patch they have is actually from an organization called webl, or we will it's an online investment platform. But the important thing is, it's actually made from the spoils of the old fabric roof of the trop. I'm just like,

Pottymouth 57:00
picturing somebody going out to this, like destroyed stadium and cutting out.

Patti 57:06
I can't wait to see this. So their sponsor patches on the jerseys they have parts of the destroyed roof, and what the company who's sponsoring this patch says, it's a message of resilience and strength and just how strong our community is. Well, once they have a which, I like rebuilt stadium, I like the message, but yeah, they're still trying to find a new home and all of that. But they did. They are coming back from a hurricane, right? So I'm okay with this message of resilience and strength. And I also like the investment in the team from an outside source. Yeah, an outside private source is not all public funding, because the city of Tampa had to pay bazillions of dollars for the repair of the trap, for like, one year of use, or two years of use, as you alluded to before, it's a bunch of World Baseball Classic items up for bid, oh, and the MLB auctions, including the team Italy lavazzo espresso machine, which is now over $1,000 I thought that would be more, huh?

Pottymouth 57:56
You know what is by the time I recorded. It could be, I

Patti 57:58
mean, but I think that you are like you are like you all could pull your money get that for me for my birthday if you wanted to $1,000 the bigger ticket big. The biggest ticket item is Otani. Is jersey from the game versus Taiwan, in which he had a grand slam, which is now at $200,000

Pottymouth 58:12
so interesting that that's more worth more than the espresso machine. I'm kind of disappointed.

Patti 58:16
Well, Ohtani wore it. I mean, it's so tiny man, and the Dominican Republic home run jacket is now at $2,500 also, I would think that would be more.

Pottymouth 58:26
Yeah, it's got to be more. That is a piece of art like that was so

Patti 58:30
so, so cool. So these are all being auctioned for charity for the Southwest autism research and Resource Center. That's amazing. So one more quick hit. Thank you, Mr. Potty mouth, for making sure I was aware of this. The O's had an all women training staff for the spring breakout

Pottymouth 58:48
showcase versus Boston, which they won,

Patti 58:50
which the O's won. But that's not the point here. I'm okay with that, but at the point here, so Maggie Hunt, who works for the O's organization and as a trainer in their single a and Brianna Moscow, who works in the O's Florida complex league team as a trainer, were the two traders for this showcase. Maggie hunt said, Now, just knowing this becoming normalized, more women, more women, should be willing to get in it and wanting to get in it. There's space for them here, and they need to know that they need to take up space, not just in athletic training, but in all fields, coaching, strength and conditioning, everything. Yeah, so that's pretty cool and pretty inspiring. So yay for that.

Pottymouth 59:30
That's awesome. All right, maybe that makes it worth it that they won. It's a big week.

Patti 59:35
It's a big week here MLB, baseball. And notice we never said baseball is back, because baseball has been here, right? MLB is back this week. So Happy new season. Happy opening day. Week. What are you doing for

Pottymouth 59:46
opening day? I'm not going with you guys because I have to proctor testing, which sucks. But, you know, I don't know what time is the game three. Okay, by the time the game starts, I should be somewhere where I can actually. Watch it.

Patti 1:00:00
I hope so. I'm going with the intern to opening day at Orioles park at Camden Yards. You won't see us on television because we're way up in the nosebleeds, but we don't care. We're in the building, and we are freaking excited about opening day.

Pottymouth 1:00:15
That is so cool. I'm just excited to watch MLB games like crazy, starting on Thursday, and each of the beginning games just feels like it has this huge weight on it, until things kind of like settle down. So I'll be on pins and needles, but I'm very, very excited. The other thing I want to encourage folks to do this Saturday is to get out there and protest. It is no kings day on Saturday, and let's make this one bigger than ever. You can go to No kings.org and find the protest near you. There's about a bazillion near us for every time of the day, which is really cool because our localist one is in the morning, but we have a commitment, so we can find another just a little bit further down the road, one for the afternoon, and I think

Patti 1:00:57
that's what we'll do. Less important for the state of the state of the world, and very important for no crying in baseball, is our fantasy league is kicking off. Thank you for all of you who have joined and set in your drafts that the drafts are locked in, your rosters are locked in. The only thing you gotta do between now and opening day is set your opening day lineups. I have sent out instructions for that so you've got your list. You just gonna need to assign who's your catcher, who's your first baseball, all of that. And then we will be closing every show every week with, here's here are the

Pottymouth 1:01:24
standings, yeah, and for you newbies, make sure you do that, because after opening day, it counts about ads to your team, and you don't want to lose those ads, right?

Patti 1:01:33
So you're actually assigning people you already have right now. So that's fine. And yeah, you can, you can rearrange your roster every single day with no penalties if you add or drop people, that's what counts against your numbers. Woo hoo. Woo hoo. All right, oh my gosh. This is all very exciting. So we hope you have plans for opening day, whether it's going to a game, going to a place to watch a game with friends watching on a screen while you're supposed to be working, we celebrate all ways to consume opening day. We hope you have a good time with that. We're glad you're with us. You should tell us more about what your plans are for opening day. Find us on social media.

Pottymouth 1:02:11
Yes, you can tell us on blue sky. That would be ncib podcast. We will check Twitter messages there as well. Facebook and Instagram are in a crying and B ball. But the very, very best way to find us is on Patreon, P, A, T, R, E, o n.com/no, crying and beat ball. And you know what? You can follow us for free, or you can give us almost free, which is dollar a month or more than that. Check it out, and just rest assured, knowing that it's all the folks on Patreon that allow us to keep this going. So if you want us to keep it going, see if you can find a buck a month to make us do that. You're gonna

Patti 1:02:47
be going to ballparks. There's a lot of people there, so make sure you get boosted. Stay healthy, to protect you and your friends. Fight the man. It's the right thing to do. Send your game balls to Meredith and until next week, say goodnight, body mouth.

Pottymouth 1:02:59
Good night. Party now.

Yeah, and actually the I should probably say this on the show. I'll say it on the show so that, yeah, I'll just say it on the show.

Patti 1:03:24
Don't forget, I will. I know you will. That's the worst part. We're gonna stop play the slate. I know. Yeah.