No Crying In Baseball

Patti 0:00
You. Hi and welcome to episode 411 of no crying in baseball, the army 21, fence nothing episode. My name is Patti. I'm here with my friend, Pottymouth. Hey, Pottymouth.

Pottymouth 0:27
I'm hoping that that's a good score, and I'm anxious to hear about it.

Patti 0:31
I think, I think you will enjoy it. Hey, before we go anywhere, Happy Father's Day. To those who celebrate,

Pottymouth 0:36
yes, Happy Father's Day. We like to record on all the holidays. It seems like we've recorded on a whole shit ton of holidays.

Patti 0:41
Yeah, we, we really, really do, wait a minute. Is what? What's today's date? June 15. Okay, so we missed Flag Day, but we're going to talk about flag day a little bit. I

Pottymouth 0:50
think, yeah, yeah. That's Yes. It's yeah. So it's been a week. So here we are, June 15. I'm hoping that no other major catastrophes have happened between the time of recording and the time that you're hearing this, because it's been a second week many Yeah, and I just want to acknowledge that for folks, and to say that we are going into, you know, some very related details, but we're in hard times. We're in crazy times. So we're here for, you know, in I was going to say enlightenment, it's not enlightenment. I meant like lighting, levity, instead of environment, but maybe both, they both must have the same root all

Patti 1:25
the things, all things I want to tell you a very brief story that relates to some of yesterday's activities, but 50 years prior. So if you remember, I remember 50 years ago, like, yeah, like I was only 11, like I was in Romper Room. Okay, yeah, I could almost been babysitting for you, that would explain a lot. Really, I don't know. I don't know. Okay, so anyway, you may remember the part of yesterday's festivities were because of the Army's birthday in 250 years. I dislike that because, as a former member of my high school marching bands, flag core, Flag Day was always very special to me because of the flag part and how I could interpret it to be the flag that I, you know, twirled, sure, not the other kind. But anyway, so there was a baseball thing 50 years ago for the Army's 200th birthday at Shea Stadium. There was a 21 gun salute with cannons which were loaded with blanks. You're already making the absolutely appropriate face that concern is well deserved. It's well deserved. So there were blanks in the cannons, but small space, as far as cannons are concerned. So sure enough, they blew out part of the left field wall and started a very small fire. Very small fire. They only delayed the game eight minutes in like, you know, extinguishing things and replacing the wall and all of that. But my favorite part about it is the story about this that I read had a video clip of Walter Cronkite, and maybe four of you will remember Walter Cronkite, who was like, everybody's like dad, as far as news broadcasters were at that time, 50 years ago, who told this story and closed by saying, the final score, Yankee six, angels, four, Army, 21 fence, nothing. Wait. You said Shea Yankees. That's where it was. It was at Shea Stadium. But, but Yankees? I It was at Shea Stadium. That's all I know. I'm so confused. No, you just broke you just talked right over my punch line. Oh,

Pottymouth 3:17
yeah. Well, did I talk over it or after it? Say it Say it again, and then I'll talk, and then I'll comment, go ahead, but you didn't think it was funny. Oh, it's very funny. But I'm confused about it not being the Yankees and not the Mets at Shea seed.

Patti 3:30
That was the Yankees. It was a Shea Stadium. I can't explain it. I was 11. It's not my fault. The point is, major Cronkite was completely serious with a straight face and told a joke.

Pottymouth 3:39
Yeah, that's awesome, yeah, and especially, no, I do think old people think it's funny. That's fine. I was also, like, very concerned about like, that much gunshot or big gun noises near LaGuardia Airport, because that's just right there, right there. Can't explain it. All sorts of all sorts of crazy things, wow. Well, okay, so you know that was gonna be my high point, but it's gone. Now. It's fine. I'm fine. I think

it's move on, just like a plane at LaGuardia Airport landed just very smoothly. But also maybe it just provides a good segue for the Yankees die. Yankees lose. So apologies sincere to any Yankees fans who can handle listening to my voice once in a while, the Red Sox just finished sweeping the Yankees moments before the show, which makes me oh so happy, but happy too. So all of our al East fan friends are happy about this, because the Red Sox are low enough that you can be happy that we win instead of the Yankees. And yesterday was it? Yesterday? No Friday game. Friday night game was the beginning of the fun where Garrett crochet was pitching a stellar game. And between that game and when he had pitched the week prior at Yankee Stadium, he had struck out Aaron judge six consecutive times. And so when the announcer said that, I got like, you know, my little giggly self, and I immediately opened the note. Document and put it in, and right after that, they bring in Garrett crochet for the one too many batter. Yeah, well, it was the ninth inning, and he was pitching a shutout, and judge was coming up, and I knew, and I'm sure everybody else watching knew, like he had already struck Aaron judge out three times last this is the fourth time he's facing him. How long can this last? But at the same time, can you deny him the opportunity to try to pitch a shout out against the Yankees in Fenway Park? What was his? What was his pitch count? It was around that shit. I wish I'd written down the number I know is around 100 like it was definitely around the number where number where he it was doubtful, but he had no runs. And anyway, it didn't go well. Aaron judge hit a home run, tied up the game, and then everybody felt all sorts of bad. But who came to the rescue was Carlos Narvaez, the catcher who's replaced now, at this point, my once and forever almost boyfriend, Connor Wong, actually, he's not even a forever boyfriend. He's just my Red Sox boyfriend for this season, and apparently, only this season, but Narvaez, they got in a trade which never happens, like the Red Sox Yankees, exchanging players. But nervous came from the Yankees very like subdued acquisition in December, and here he is winning the game at Fenway over the Yankees. And then so crochet did have those three strikeouts against judge on Friday, yesterday, Hunter Dobbins, famed Yankees Hunter, like he's definitely come out saying, I do not like the Yankees, which Boston fans go crazy over. He struck out judge three times yesterday, then today. And this is Aaron, Judge, who's doing like astronomical things I've heard today. Brian bail struck out judge three times, which means judge struck out nine times for number 99 at Fenway Park. I think that's bring it

Patti 6:58
back to numerology. Yes, good. So you're starting your second beer. I'm having another accident, but we another party fell, but we're talking about our first beer very briefly. We've already had our our pre beer, which was a coals from ale wife in Queens, New York, and it's, it's called Caddyshack. What that was thematic for Father's Day? Yes, potty mouth is especially excited because the Gopher is flipping the bird on the label. So she's making me show you that in our in our little Instagram, you're

Pottymouth 7:27
gonna have to go really carefully. Gophers have very small fingers,

Patti 7:31
yes, but the important thing is, I am also dressed thematically. Yes, I am wearing I'm finally got it. Thank you, intern. My payment for watching the interns cat was the Orioles bowling shirt, which I believe is actually water repellent and possibly made from a petroleum product, but it looks good, and

Pottymouth 7:48
it's a happy bird, and it feels Father's Day ish, yeah. I'm just saying, Yeah, we're doing, you're repping bowling and golf. How much more father's day can you? And we're talking about baseball like you've really got the trifecta,

Patti 7:57
though, I just got to start scratching in appropriate places. And you know, we're all good. We're all good on today's show, our boyfriend's featuring the IL, which is way more robust than either of our benches right now. We've got a little Kiki, a little Manny, and we've got some brotherly long balls. We've got a little stat talk. We're cross training with softball and with soccer. Our police blotter features sports betting and a little wander, and you thought the official Pope hat was good. Cheers.

Pottymouth 8:26
So good cheers, that you're gonna have to focus, like, look very closely for that little finger on the on the Gopher, or just trust

Patti 8:34
us that it's there. That's fine, too. So I'm on my, like, you know my backup beer, which is from the beer farm, and it's, what is it? It's a it's a filter. We believe it's named for Phil, the pig. We're assuming that the pig's name is Phil, because the pig is prominent and not flipping anybody the bird. So I'm the cat. I prefer. I prefer. Well, he's got hooves, yes? Well, actually, I mean, okay,

Pottymouth 8:55
right. So who knows? Who knows?

Patti 8:58
Who knows? Oh, my God, I'm

Pottymouth 9:02
back in the Ponzi scheme, which is also sort of appropriate here I'm drinking.

Patti 9:07
It's gonna be one of those shows, folks, one of those shows. I just

Pottymouth 9:11
want to notice, before we go off your the Instagram thing that I'm happy that we still have the pride flag behind you, because I in normal times, I think we would be talking a lot more about, yay pride this episode. But damn, we have a lot to talk to talk about. But yay pride just always a proud year round, but especially now. So we always kick off the episode talking about our baseball boyfriends, the guys that we picked in the off season, because there's something super cool about them. Ideally, they like they play baseball well as well, because we make our fantasy teams out of them, and my team is just gonna be in the gutter this year. I keep really trying hard, though. Like, I check my lineup, I see that everybody's on the IL well, like, there's a bench full of IO. Do

Patti 9:56
you get one of those little alerts from like, every day from Yahoo saying, you know. You've got some serious issues in your life. I know. I know I can't do anything about it, because we only have a very small pool of players to draw from, unlike everybody else in the league, right?

Pottymouth 10:09
Because we have to pick the guys that we talked about in the off season. So that's what we get. We get what we get, and we don't get upset, except for when I get every week well, and whereas I get the alerts that say, oh, a new guy is on the IL like, there's that I got two since I did the notes. I'm not gonna mention them because they got hurt too late for the episode. So

Patti 10:29
my story about who's hurt is full now,

Pottymouth 10:32
no more space. I'm talking about two injuries and two injuries only this week. Actually, I'm gonna start off with a happy I've been trying to be positive I really have Xavier Edwards. Miami mylons has come off the IO a couple weeks ago, and so far so good, yeah. But the weird thing for me is he's now playing second base, and I drafted him as a shortstop, which I very much need my shortstop. So I am pleading to Yahoo, please keep that short. So as of right now, he's had enough appearances at short. He's showing up as short and second now, and I would very much like them to keep it that way, please, pretty please, because at this point I only have one other shortstop, and he is on the Il. That would be Ezekiel Tovar of the Rockies, who just went back on the IL again with an oblique strain. And like, these are two. I was hopeful. These are young shortstops on, you know, kind of underperforming teams, shall we say, with the Marlins and the Rockies. So I kind of thought that these guys would be like the superstars this season. And, Welp, I don't know, but hopefully Xavier will. I love that name too. Xavier is great. Hopefully he will stay healthy. Since his return on the 31st of May, he is batting 359, with an 868, ops, so yay. But I have a rules question for you, because last week, there was an issue against Tampa where he got ejected after arguing this call. So he was shit. I didn't write down the name of the first the first baseman for, I think it was Tampa. Yeah, it was Tampa. He was blocking the base path with his glove. So, so Xavier ran into the glove. And so they, at first, they challenged it. He ended up being, oh no, yeah, he ended up being out. So running into the glove is that the same as tagging somebody out? That's how they ruled it. But Xavier was pissed off, and so was the new manager, Clayton McCullough, got thrown out as well.

Patti 12:34
If it was just his glove and wasn't body blocking the base, he was tagging the player. Yeah, he's just tagging the player. Maybe I should have you look at the video. Yeah, okay. I mean, if you can't body

Pottymouth 12:45
block, right, but you can hold your glove where the guy's running,

Patti 12:49
yeah? I mean, that's how you're gonna tag him out. How are you gonna tag him out if you don't put your glove where the guy

Pottymouth 12:53
is? I mean, that's they were probably saying there was more body involved. I it didn't go well, unfortunately. But you know, Xavier is doing all right, except, oh yeah, and actually, except for, you know, my love for the home team, it's, it's a little bit painful, because the Marlins just swept the Nationals on Friday. Xavier went three for five with a walk and an RBI. They sat him on Saturday, which was kind of mind boggling, because apparently he had really good stats against that picture. But whatever he they still won, and he went one for four today with a walk. So happy for Xavier Edwards, not so happy that another young guy who I had really high hopes for this season, Jackson Merrill, of the padres, is back on the aisle again. And this one is really a shitty one. I mean, every aisle is shitty, but he, he and the the player who shall not be named to you gonna name later. Anyway, Manny Machado. They were trying for a double steal, and when Jackson Merrill was sliding into second, Quetta Marte tagged him on the head, I guess, pretty forcefully, and it jostled his helmet. And he's actually on the seven day concussion protocol right now, ouch. So it's unclear how long he's actually going to be out, because concussions just suck, and it really depends on how you know how the recuperation goes. He was out for a whole month previously with a hamstring from the sixth of April to the sixth of May. He'd done pretty well in May, since coming back to 98 average 777 ops and basically, okay, in June, 260, average 701, ops. So yeah, that's a big hit for my lineup.

Patti 14:28
I'm very sorry to hear that. We're gonna start with the PCA report, because there's always something to say about Pete crow Armstrong, who is my cubs boyfriend. When he hit his 18th home run on Thursday, it was. The pitch was eight inches above the top of the strike zone. Holy shit. Apparently it's like the ninth highest pitch hit for a home run this season, which is weird. I can't Why people swinging at that, right? But he also currently has the record for hitting the lowest pitch for a home. Run this season, which was almost six inches below the strike zone. So Ryan Presley, who's a relief pitcher on the cub, said, I have no idea how to pitch to him, because apparently nothing to save. I want to see that balls for home runs right

Pottymouth 15:14
after the episode. I'm going to look at the you know that the little heat thing that they do on MLB to see where his hot spots are, because, holy,

Patti 15:20
all of it, all of it is a hot spot. All of it is, I'm gonna tell you this story about James Wood because, because we go to nats park, you can picture exactly where. This is his 17th Homer versus Miami on Friday was 451 feet to dead center. So you know where the bullpen cart is parked in that little area. There's a garage door behind it. It bounced off that garage door. Wow, that's far. That must have looked really pretty. That's pretty far. Also, like all of everything is far that he hits right so he flied out to left field. So far out into left field, it would have been a home run in 10 ball parks, holy shit. So, yeah, he's still hitting balls very, very, very far so South relic from my my Brewer's boyfriend. I saw a headline which I think is a question to me, to which I say, yes. The headline is, is it time to try Sal frelek in the infield again? Oh, you would love that. I would love that because my outfield is loaded and I have my infielders are all like, sent down or on the IL or whatever. So here's the thing, Milwaukee has a couple of players coming off the aisle who are outfielders. So their outfield is going to be very crowded, but, but Sal is a Gold Glove outfielder. He has, you know, the current stat for like, you know, run save, you know, the whatever, like, the outfield assists. He's like, very good in the outfield. I would like him to be very good at, say, third base. In fact, when I profiled him, I told the story because it would make you happy that in spring training, he worked on third base with Dustin pagio. So he's, he's played some third he they've been, they had been training him up for that, and he was, you know, back in the NFL, because they had guys on the aisle, so I don't know what's gonna happen, but currently, he knows bat is hot, so they need to keep him in the lineup. They're not gonna take him out of the line, okay, keep him the outfield or not. He stole his 13th bag on Friday night, so he on the brewers. He's second and stolen bases and second and hit. So they're gonna want to keep his bat. Wow, happening? You picked? Well, I picked my outfielder as well. That's for instance, Wyatt Langford of Texas. This week, Texas had they scored 17 runs twice in three days, both versus the twins. Holy Wye Langford, he hit a three run homer, which is one of tech with the Rangers, six home runs in their 16 to three win over Minnesota on Thursday, six homers in one game as a season high for the Rangers. Yeah, it's Langford, 13th home run, and he scored all of 16. He hit all of 16 home runs all of last season, and he's at 13 pace very briefly. Adley, Richmond has five multi hit games in June. So yay for that. Zach Wheeler from my my Philly's pitching flock, we talked last week about old pitchers not retiring, but kind of hanging out in minor leagues. And all that Zach Wheeler has announced now, which I think is absolute click bait that, you know, he's got another year and a half on his contract. He plays through the 2027 two and a half years. He plays for the 2027 season, and he says he's planning to retire after that. Oh, so he's giving away heads up huge. And, you know, he's always in the running for Cy Young's and all of this. And so they're asking, oh, he'll be 37 when the contract comes to comes to an end. He's doing great. He's still doing great. And so he's being asked, you know, I know you want to stay home with your four children, but what if you get like, a monster free agent offer, would you stay? And he's like, doesn't matter. No, it'll be easy to walk away. Wow. So I guess some guys are like, Yep, I've done what I needed to do. I mean, it is, you know, it's years away. And I think it's hilarious that everyone, there are so many articles about him retiring, like he's not retiring for the foreseeable future. It's like

Pottymouth 19:14
one of those things they're gonna be able to pull up whenever the news is kind of low. Hey, let's talk about this coming up. I was just thinking, you know, know when to hold them, know when to fold them, yeah,

Patti 19:22
yeah. And no one to hang out with your kids, yeah. All

Pottymouth 19:27
right, sometimes we check in on our former baseball boyfriends, guys that we've picked in previous years that we can't hang on to, because, hey, we have a show to do. We got new guys to talk about in the off season. But in 2021 I picked as my Phillies boyfriend Andrew McCutchen. And I think at that point even felt kind of weird, like this is a pirates guy, but you know, at least he's in the right state. He just this past week passed the Roberto Clemente on the pirates all time home run list. It was a Wednesday game against the Marlins. And so that means. In 12 seasons that he was with the pirates, he has hit 241 home runs. He is behind only two others. I don't think he's gonna catch up, but miracles could happen. Willie Stargell had 475 so no and Ralph Kiner had 301 he was actually the second pirate after Star goal to get the Roberta Clemente Award, which he got in 2015 and what he was happiest about with hitting this like record breaking home run, is that it was done at home. And he said, So pirates fan caught it. And he said, If I had done this in Chicago, I might never have gotten the ball back. And he got in a win, and he said, the win is the important thing for the team. He then followed it up with another home run yesterday, Saturday, against the Cubs, making it 242 now. So he still has a way to go till 301. He has 17 total years in the bigs, including time with the Brewers, Phillies, the Yankees and the Giants. So Mark that down for your immaculate grids. That makes him 326 home runs overall, which, you know, makes it kind of sad that he didn't get to do it all with the pirates. You know, that's politics of baseball, but that puts him as number 127, on the all time list, and there are nine active players ahead of him. The one who's closest to the top is Giancarlo Stanton, which I was actually, I would not have predicted that one my very favorite past baseball boyfriend to talk to, to talk to, of course, that would be a dream to talk about on the show is Kiki Hernandez, just because there's so much so cool about him. And I'm gonna talk about two super cool things that happened with him this week. One is that he pitched again, and he seems to really enjoy pitching. So he was back on the mound on a Tuesday night blowout against the padres, and he blew his perfect era by letting up a run, but he did get his first strikeout looking with an 87 mile an hour pitch that was in the zone. Wow. So like this pitching like, hey, he did better than the starter, Matt Sauer, who led up nine runs over four and two thirds innings. So, you know, maybe they need to start starting Kiki, I don't know. He plays everywhere. He is super utility. And one more thing to put in his utility belt is good guy. I mean, we've known he's a good guy, he's funny, he's personable. He's done really positive things. In general, he's been on a soap opera. He's been on another series. He wants to be a stripper someday, but yesterday, Saturday, at this point, he is the first and only Dodger to speak out about the LA protest. And I'm gonna go into this a lot more later, but he put a bilingual post on Instagram, and it started off with a little thing about how wonderful Dodgers fans are and how much they've supported him in his time there. And it ended with this quotation, I cannot stand to see our community being violated, profiled, abused and ripped apart. All people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and human rights. So a lot of people have been saying, Why don't the Dodgers say anything? I'll talk about that a little bit more later, but I hope that more individual players can have the guts to do what Kiki just Yeah, because it's important for the people. It's important. Yeah, absolutely.

Patti 23:17
I want to talk about that more later, when it comes up at the team level, but I do think the key case got it right. I think individual players have a lot more leeway to talk about it, though, yeah, owners or officially speaking for the franchise, unfortunately, yeah, but I want more of that. Yeah. I want more of that. So Manny Chad is not officially one of my boyfriends, but we have, we have an unofficial rule that is, if potty mop brings up Kike. I bring up Manny, just, you know, because I can so, just so, you know, this is a little nice moment that happened when, during that same series with the Padres and the Dodgers, Manny struck out in his first at bat against Dodger pitcher Ben kasparius, right, he swung at a 98 mile an hour fastball and kind of watched it go by, swung at it, looked at it, looked at the pitcher, kind of pointed and nodded like, you know, right on, good work. And it's kind of like gave him props for that, right? And kasperia said, I saw that he's one of the best players in the game. So it's pretty cool to back that up with numbers right now, Machado is second to Trey Turner in the National League for hits, and he is the fifth active player to hit 350 home runs. He did that last week versus San Francisco, and he will be the fifth player to reach 2000 hits. He's about 17 hits away from his 2000 hit. Holy

Pottymouth 24:35
cow, yeah, I need to I looked it up. I think the Padres like decimated the Dodgers in that series. But that's I should I should look up real numbers before saying shit. Why start now? There we go. All right, this, luckily, you did the research for me on this, so I really appreciate this. So these facts should be right, the contrari, that would be the Contreras brothers, right? Isn't that the plural? Sure? Or I was thinking the contrarian Contreras. Now that they're on different contrarians, there we go. That's easier levels. We're gonna calm the contrarians. I picked both of them I like to do, like groups of baseball boyfriends over the years. So in 2220 22 I picked Wilson Contreras when he was on the Cubs, which makes it super weird him being on St Louis. Now that was a whole to do, and I picked William Contreras when he was on the Atlanta team, which we refer to as the hammers, for important reasons. So Patty clued me in to the fact that they made history just yesterday. They were the first pair of brothers to Homer in the same inning facing each other since 1933 so it's hysterical that that actually happened before, and it was the ninth inning. So Wilson started off in the top of the ninth for St Louis, and William matched big brother in the bottom of the ninth for Milwaukee. St Louis won the game eight to five. With a lot of credit to Wilson for that. I just want to talk a little bit more about that in a moment. But first, all the way back to 1933 I think it's important to note that these are two teams near and dear of our heart to our hearts, Rick Farrell of Boston and West Farrell of Cleveland were the other aforementioned brothers who apparently homered against each other in the same inning, which seems like a really weird stat to have. And you also pointed out that, speaking of Cleveland, when Josh and Bo Naylor were both on Cleveland, they homered in the same inning in 2024 while they were on the same team. So different stat for that. But that happened on national Siblings Day, which made it just even much more special, although now Josh is on a different team. He's on the D back so I think the gauntlets thrown there now they can, you know, Homer in the same inning when they face each other, whenever that'll be look up on MLB, when Cleveland is facing the D backs. That game yesterday, though, was really eventful for William Contreras will no Wilson shit like their names, and I was trying to abbreviate them, and I was like, okay, can't do W, can't do W, I, L, it's just you gotta write the whole fucking name. Wilson the elder started the game off with a collision. So he plays first base, so Caleb Duran was running to first. And this one I understand Wilson the elder was, he says he was standing on the bag. But this is another case. This is kind of like the senator who got tackled and like, people say shit, but if you look at the video, you can actually see what happens. So why people argue against a video is pretty funny, but apparently Wilson Contreras is arguing against the video because he said he was on the bag, but he his foot was actually on the base path when Caleb Duran was running to first base and there was a big, ugly collision and somebody could have gotten hurt, there was lots of squabbling on both sides. Apparently, people from the dugout yelled stuff, but there was no kerfuffle or benches clearing or anything like that, but definitely some hard feelings later. I'm not sure why he was hit by a pitch, but Reese Hoskins also on the same team as Caleb Duran. That which would be, and I'm trying to get which, yeah, which would be St Louis. Right? Hoskins on St Louis, that makes sense. Got to first base on hit by pitch, and apparently started squabbling there on first base with Wilson about the previous collision with his teammate, and Wilson said, Look at my face. Say it to my face. Whatever you were saying from the dugout. He was looking away and said, Get off the base. Then I said, push me, Jesus. And he didn't. So all was good. So Wilson's kind of asking for it here, right? He really is instigating. Like, I really think it was his fault with a collision with a winner. I usually defend my boyfriend, but this is pretty, pretty egregious here. So then, shockingly, a few innings later, he gets hit, but hit by a pitch. Like, of course, that's gonna happen by former battery mate, Jose Quintana. So he said that they were battery mates for four years. And he knows Quintana very well, and so there's no beef. He understands that Quintana was doing what you do to back up your teammates, even though I am so not in favor of using projectiles to make a point, right? But it's kind of interesting that he was like, Okay, I don't hold any grudge against that guy because he was doing what he's supposed to, because he's on that team now, and I know he's a good guy and he's supporting his teammates, so go figure. So the funniest, like, bottom line of this, so there's all sorts of bad blood. So you can, you can imagine, like, baby brother will William being like, I know my big brother's pissing you guys off, but like, I can't he's my big brother, and what am I going to do? Both teams now are leaving and going to Chicago. The cards are going to play the White Sox, and the brewers are going to play the Cubs, and they're staying in the same hotel. So can you imagine, like running to each other at the breakfast buffet?

Patti 29:56
I think it's going to be a great time in the hotel bar. Oh yeah. Yeah, oh yeah. I think, honestly, I think when you get off the field, it's probably a whole different

Pottymouth 30:04
situation, yeah, and they're probably just laughing about the whole situation.

Patti 30:09
I hope so. But I agree with don't solve problems with projectiles, yes, so we throw around statistics, not so many, but some. And we should we? We've been, it's been a request to us that maybe we, every once in a while, maybe define those so we're gonna do so I thought, Oh, I'm gonna define ops. Because I, weirdly, today, did not talk about it, but often, when I talk about my baseball boyfriends, I talk about their stats for the previous week, and I always focus on ops today. I didn't mention it, but I'm gonna define it. It's like, I'll just define the one stat, and we'll do more later. But Ops is made up of several other stats. So as it turns out, you're getting a bigger bang for the buck, right? Ops is on base plus slugging, right? So it adds two other stats together. It adds your on base percentage to your slugging percentage, and gets you like, one number that reflects both. It's used more now than batting average used to be. Oh, they're batting averages, and that's how you could tell everything about a player. This is better because it talks about how often they get on base in any way. It's at a hit, it could be a walk, it could be hit by pitch, it could be a fielder's choice, it could be a drop third strike. There's things that don't show up in the batting average, but you are valuable if you get on base right, because you are then a potential run to score. And combining that with slugging percentage, which is the total number of bases per at bat, only for hits. And there's a there's a whole equation for it, like a single is one point. A double is two points, a triple is three points. And so all of that gets added together and divided by your at bats, but all of that together gives you a big up, like the full picture of how a player gets on base, plus their hitting power. So that's pretty important. So that's why we tend to go to with ops. We still mention batting average because it's kind of cool, but Ops is one that really gives you the better picture. Yeah? So just, just gonna, like, throw that out there,

Pottymouth 32:05
yeah. I just want to do a shout out to a new listener, Tessa, who especially asked for help with stats. And I said, Patty, you're the one who knows how to explain stuff. So thank you. And anybody else who's interested in making suggestions for content, you just listen up later, and we'll tell you how

Patti 32:22
absolutely we have a lot of cross training today. Oh boy, we had another special request. We have enough beer. We had another special request to talk about

Pottymouth 32:30
the new league. Oh yeah, I will look up who said that.

Patti 32:33
So, yeah. So the Athletes Unlimited softball league, the A USL just started a week ago. I had, I had like bookmark this to talk about it, but they weren't starting, and they weren't starting, so I was going to wait. And then I waited too long. I bookmarked it initially, because this is the new thing that Kim Eng is doing right? The former GM of the Miami Marlins, the first woman to have a GM gig. She's been very highly placed in the commissioner's office. She's done a lot of stuff, and now she is the Commissioner for this new professional softball league, which also has the backing of MLB. There is money behind this league. Is this one? There have been leagues in the past. This one has got a much better chance because of Kim, because of real money, right? And, and, and also like sponsorship support. So it's got an innovative format for a league that's just getting started. There's not specific cities, like teams representing specific cities. They've they've drafted four teams, okay, and their current standings are the bandits, the talons, the volts and the blaze. There's four teams. They are not attached to cities. They're taking the show on the road. Interesting, these four teams, there's a seven week season. They're playing 24 games in 10 cities. So what they're kind of doing is test driving cities as potential home bases. Like you turn us off, you get a team kind of, kind of, I think that, I think that, I don't know, but as soon as next year, they're going to expand to six teams, but they're definitely sort of taking the show on the road, seeing where it's working, and then some decisions will be made. Like, do we just keep having these floating teams? Because there's so few of them, because that way they could go to more places? Like, if you're like, if the Washington Metropolitan Area doesn't have a softball team in a regularly like a settled League, we would never see it, but if it's these floating teams, maybe they come and play two games at Camden Yards or nats park or something. So anyway, Rob Manfred said this is one of the biggest investments that we've made in an outside entity ever. Our goal is to get a softball league into the same position of stability that the WNBA has found. Those are big words. Yeah, that's a lot of big words. Um, MLB Network and ESPN are airing games also good, right? We talked about, if you're serious, you know, put it, put it. Put it where, like the established leagues are, right? Yeah. And in addition to Kim, and there are very few softball players that everybody knows, right? But they're all involved in this league. That's Jenny Finch, for instance, and Jessica Mendoza are both advisors to to this league. So I will link to the league's website, and you can read more about you can see on the teams they gave like, golden tickets to some college players, like, you're, you're on a team, and then they did a draft for other other players. So it was, it's kind of a big deal again, we're cross training, you know, because it was a different sport, but, but I just want to make sure that you are

Pottymouth 35:31
aware of this exactly. I flagged an article that I didn't read, so I feel bad about that, but I'll try to find it so that maybe you can pop it in the notes, because there's definitely concern, because the women's baseball league is starting next year. So where, how much is MLB putting into this? Where it could be going into that? Is this splitting resources, and is this another example of men, you know, with the resources

Patti 36:01
girls sports, instead of a girls League, saying

Pottymouth 36:03
that we're gonna put our we're gonna put our energy in here, instead of supporting women playing baseball. So I would love both, because they're both wonderful sports, and there are really talented women who play both, and we need both more more fun, more sports, more women, more frustrating. Yes, and actually that that segues in very well, because part of my cross training bent is that women seem to do it better for a lot of things when it comes to being outspoken, especially outspoken politically. And I'm really curious about why also, I mean, you know, one thing very side note about pride month is that there are so many out women sports players, like both basketball and and soccer, and so few out men. So why is that, and why also it may be related maybe not. Are women's teams being much more vocal about the current political situation. So

Patti 37:00
my, my take on that is, I think women athletes and women's teams have a much more WHAT THE FUCK attitude. Good. It's like, you know, what? We fight all the time. Yeah, right. We have to write for everything. So why? Why wouldn't we fight for this? Yeah, right. We're not falling into a very established, very sort of, you know, it's America's game sort of thing. Yeah, you have to fight for everything. And they're always fighting for equality and pay equality and attention, equality and resources. Absolutely, they're going to fight for equality and social justice.

Pottymouth 37:35
I think that. I think that's in take. That's really good. I like that. Well, they're doing it. They're doing it. So Angel City Football. What's the c4 Football Club? Football Club? Right? The Women's National Soccer. Women's National Women's Soccer League, yes, club in Los Angeles, has been very outspoken of right from the get go, about all the shit that is going down in LA so starting on June 7, when the National Guard was sent into Los Angeles, against the wishes of the mayor, against the wishes of the governor, against the wishes of the people that the National Guard was sent in. And this is, it's just chilling and horrible, horrible, horrible, what's going on. And my heart goes out to LA and I wish that, you know, I'm even wishing that the Dodgers would do well as a distraction, but I'll get to that in a minute. So Angel City Football Club first released a statement saying, in Angel City, we believe in the power of belonging. And then they referenced two positive progressive organizations, Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights and the Los Angeles County Office of Immigrant Affairs. Then they upped that and did a t shirt giveaway on Saturday. The T shirts say immigrant city on the front and on the back, they say Los Angeles is for everyone and Los Angeles is para todos. So same thing in English and Spanish on the back. Not only did, they did the giveaway for however many 1,001st people, but they wore them in the pre game stuff and during the game, the staff, including the head coach, wore it on the field. And players who were not actually playing the game wore the shirts. Oh, that's fantastic. So they also handed out cards that had an official statement that said the fabric of the city is made of immigrants. Football does not exist without immigrants. This club does not exist without immigrants. So for the women's team to be that outspoken is really amazing. So the men's team also has done stuff not quite as quickly and not quite as much. And I feel like it was spurred by the fans. Like this is all about the fans. So somehow, you know how, in especially in soccer, there's like a whole fan section that at the one end of the of the court, what would feel that's it. So apparently the fans got to get it is, I watched Ted. So I should know that. So at one end, they they took up six rows to have in poster spelled out, abolish ice, but that it seems like, was totally fan done, not done by the clubs. Finally, the men's la Football Club released a statement on Instagram that ended with La Football Club stands shoulder to shoulder with all members of our community, so good, but not as good as the women.

Patti 40:28
Can I tell you a very, very important thing, please, please. If you go to Angel city.com you can buy that damn shirt. Yeah, for 30 bucks, you can get Los Angeles, the immigrant city t shirt. Proceeds for the collection will go to Camino immigration services. That's amazing our community in this moment. That is 30 bucks, and I will pay

Pottymouth 40:49
it for that. Thank you so much, because I actually put the link in the bottom, but I didn't put it in the notes, so I would have totally forgotten to mention it, and I didn't know that the proceeds went to a good place. So buy that damn shirt. They

Patti 41:02
also have an iron on a patch that says, Go women, go gays, go Angel City FC. So there's that. It's part of their pride collection. But immigrant city t shirt, I think, is the thing to do for me.

Pottymouth 41:13
I was also super impressed again. Here's women collaborating across leagues, the Women's Soccer League player Association and the WNBA player Association collaborated. Women do this. They collaborate, they talk together, and they and they work things out. They released a joint statement on Thursday, and it opened acknowledging that this sucks. We have sports happening, but there's turmoil. But they acknowledged the turmoil, and then they said together, quote, we stand with all people seeking safety, dignity and opportunity, no matter where they come from or where they hope to go, every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. We know not every situation is simple, but offering compassion should never be up for debate. And the executive director of the Women's Soccer League player Association specifically mentioned the arrest of union president SEO union president David Huerta in LA who was injured so badly during his arrest that he had to go to the hospital before being arraigned in court like head injury. Horrific stuff happening on the streets, and it needs to be talked about. The only other men's action that I noticed was in Nashville, after there were a bunch of raids in Tennessee last month that a bunch of people didn't show up to the game. There were a whole bunch of raids. And that's a big part of the soccer community is Latino community, and they had a statement saying the fans did, saying, No, estamos todo sequi We're not all here because some of us are afraid to be here. So there's a little bit of thing happening from the men's and huge collaborative statements happening from women. And that's just really notable. And everybody's saying, okay, dodgers, what are you going to do? You've got this huge Latino base. What are you going to say? The executive vice president Lou Rosen said, quote, we're not going to comment on anything. Dave Roberts, being between the rock and the hard place, because he's middle management, right? Said, I just hope, I just hope that everybody wins, yep, I just hope that we can be a positive distraction for what people are going through in Los Angeles right now. Look shiny thing, yep, but I'm sure that Rogers, dodgers, dodgers ownership is going to be super happy to cash in on the Fernando Valenzuela bobblehead night on July 19. So they will use the population when they can, but they're not getting behind it now. And just, you know, a side note, get I hope that a lot of you were out there yesterday for no Kings Day. There's going to be more no kings days, because it's important to call out this horrific just it's insane what's happening in the streets, and it's insane what's happening to immigrants. And I've worked with hundreds at this point, at least, undocumented immigrants over the years, and I'm here to say that they are really good people. Huge majority of the kids that I've worked with are amazed. I'm just honored they work so fucking hard to get an education, to be in school, to work, to have a job, to make some money, to send money back, money home. Yeah, and these the countries that people are going coming from. There's a reason why they're coming here. They want to be able to live nicely in their home countries, and they can't for a huge variety of reasons. And if you look at the current travel ban against countries like Haiti, where there's fucking chaos, there's no government, people can't live in any sort of normal way there, and to be attacking people coming from places where there is just fear. And violence is unconscionable. Where I mean border, one of my students said to me, like, you know, what is this? We have the same blood. We're all people. Why are people treating me like this? People

Patti 45:12
suck. Yeah, we need to be better. We need to be so much better. Yeah, yeah. And I think part of it is, I'm not making any excuses. Part of it is, there's a lot of the population who has no relationship right with anyone in an immigrant community, which is not the case here, because we're, you know, we are a very immigrant, I might not say friendly, but immigrant full area. This is a place where we live, as a place where immigrants from several countries, many countries come to and I think it's easy, if you don't know anybody, to put them in a box, right, and say, Well, I don't know anybody. They must be bad. And boy, you could lay that on every single category of anyone who's ever been oppressed. Well, I don't know anybody like that. So it's very easy to believe there must all be bad and they need to

Pottymouth 45:59
go away, right? And that's how the fascists work, right? They're dehumanizing and they're scapegoating, yep, and exactly, and that's what's happening to trans folks, and that's what's happening to queer folks, and that's what's happening to immigrants, and we have got to, as allies, just stand up and use our privilege. So at the no kings celebration I went to yesterday, there was a kid I like, almost cried seeing it was holding up a sign saying, I'm here for my parents, yeah, because they can't be here. Yeah,

Patti 46:31
yep, yep, wow. How do I transition from that to the Pope's headgear?

Pottymouth 46:36
So because the Pope is a it, I'm very hope. Hope for the Pope. I'm very hopeful, because he did just, I want that T shirt. Hope for the Pope. He named a bishop. Did you see this? A Vietnamese immigrant bishop in the US who is leading other Catholic clergy folks? Is that the right word? I'm not really good at the so they're going to be accompanying people on June 20, for some is some special day. I'm not quite sure what, but accompanying people to immigration hearings on that day like across so if you get priests and bishops and folks like that going to immigration court with people like, what are what's ice going to do? Are they going to tackle a bishop the same way they tackle a senator? I don't know. It'd be ugly. So, yay Pope.

Patti 47:22
Yay Pope, and all the all the people that work for him. So the Pope has that amazing headgear, right, like in the formal. So the formal, Raymond, I don't know, it's called a miter, the big pointy hat, and that's a new word. They're the reason, like the pope mobile has to have, like a sunroof so the big pointy hat can come out the top. He's got a new hat. He's got a new hat. So people from your part of the world, Gary and Kelly, just DiStefano, from Massachusetts, got married. They spent had a 17 day honeymoon in Rome. The last day they went to the Vatican. Because apparently, sometimes the Pope does this big, sort of massive blessing for newly married couples. It's just a thing, right? And they thought they would just be like in this big crowd. Turns out you get to You're greeted personally by the pope if you are part of this group thing. So even though they're clearly Red Sox fans of wrong color socks, they had a Chicago White Sox cap with them. I was smart. And when it was their turn to meet the Pope, they said, after they actually said, we're from Massachusetts. We're actually red Scott Red Sox fans. But would you wear this? And the Pope has a freaking sense of humor too. He said, Yes, but you're gonna get in trouble. Not me. So good. So it was like the official, like, you know, 47 brand cap, and the Vice President of Marketing at 47 Patrick Cassidy said, yeah, he's the ultimate influencer.

Pottymouth 48:47
Oh my god, yeah, the pope jerseys are gonna go through the

Patti 48:51
so there are photos of him wearing a White Sox cap. Now I went for the first pitch.

Pottymouth 48:56
Oh my god, that would be so good. But, but also, like the biggest Red Sox, White Sox connection. I mean, there have been several players that have gone back and forth, but near and dear to my heart, my very favorite baseball boyfriend ever, Carlton Fisk, famously, the Red Sox fucked up and let him go to the White Sox. So I'm good about this. Like Red Sox fan, sure, bearing White Sox or stuff, sure, for the Pope, sure

Patti 49:17
I like it. Well, you know, it's the church of baseball, no matter how you look at it, right? Police blotter, you know, we talked for for weeks

Pottymouth 49:24
we haven't been doing police water. So

Patti 49:27
we talked about like, you know, McCullar, getting McCullar as a verb for getting, you know, threats because threats to baseball players and their families because of their performance in games, not necessarily related to sports betting, but often it is so the athletic does these anonymous player polls every once in a while and they asked the question, has legalized sports betting changed how fans treat you or your teammates? 78.2% said, Yes, it does. Holy fuck. And it was so part of it was this context. We're aware of now, right? All of these social media threats and all of this that happened. There's also like people yelling from stands, like from the stands to players on the field, you know, I bet on you to Homer and your next bat. Oh, my God. Players have been getting Venmo requests from fans who have lost money on bets on them saying, Pay me back, dude,

Pottymouth 50:21
the definition of a bet is you're risking your money and you might fucking lose. Like, that's, that's what betting is about. You're, you're, you're risking this money, and you might lose and you probably

Patti 50:32
will, right? You want to, like, a regular way to get money out. People work for that, right? Have a job? Yeah. So one again. So all of these responses were anonymous, right? But they're all from Major League players. One of them said it's the worst thing has happened the game since I've been up here. Someone else said they're worried about the athletics moving to Las Vegas. Sure. They said, I thought, Oh, I said, I think there's going to be a security risk or personnel risk. Someone's going to lose a bunch of money and track down somebody in a parking lot, especially if the A's end up moving to Vegas with live betting, it can get pretty serious. And another player just said, People suck, dude.

Pottymouth 51:08
I mean, that sucks. That totally sucks. I mean, there's, you know, walking into nets Park, there's the big betting thing right there, right fucking gates,

Patti 51:17
right there. And other players mentioned that there's a lot more people who seem invested in the game, but only because of the bets. They don't care about the team. You know, it's not like I'm rooting for my team, and I want this player to do well, and I want my team to win. It's no, I want to make money on

Pottymouth 51:32
this. And this is not even like old fashioned bookies where you just bet on your team. This is like, every fucking play and somebody is being threatened by it. Yep, yuck. All right, I'm gonna just put a quick addition to the please bladder. Last week, I talked about Wanda Franco having his extra day in court this week, and indeed, he did not have any more days. It was just Monday, so apparently they did schedule the concluding statements for this Tuesday, and this is on his sexual assault slash kidnapping charge of a minor. But also what happened this week is that the arms charges him having a weapon without a license, and also being on parole and all that he shouldn't have had a weapon, and that formally started this week, so he's going to have a whole nother set of court case stuff to deal with at the same time or right after, To be continued.

Patti 52:28
We have this ridiculous fantasy league where nothing is happening for the longest time. Everyone is locked in, the top five are locked in in the same order. Wicked awesome is still ahead by a lot, and then bonus boyfriends in pandemonium, leftist field, dingers, dinos. It gets interesting only with Karen's crew and bring back renell They are having a smackdown. Oh, really, they have pushed me down to eighth, but they are West Coast going back and forth right now. Karen's crews in sixth and bring back rinells In the seventh, separated by a point and a half. It's close. They're interesting. The rest of us, not so much.

Pottymouth 53:06
I'm holding in that still place as stars I can Yep, but it is still fun. It and I'm still invested. I think it's absolutely still fun. So you know, Beau and pandemonium and leftist fields and dinger, if you guys want me to knock out the knees of wicked awesome team just like, let me know. Oh, just kidding, just kidding. Wicked awesome. No, projectiles for sure. No, my projectiles are not that on target. All right. We have a marathon of an episode, but it was, it was fun, yet, you know, reality creeps in. There's that. There's the

Patti 53:40
old reality creeps, that's like a team name that's a beer League. That is a beer League. Yeah, yeah. What do you got going on this week?

Pottymouth 53:48
So the Mr. Potty mouth sister and her husband are in town, and they said, How about we go see baseball? So we just chose a night, and we lucked into the night because it's the Nationals against the Rockies. So at face value, it didn't look totally, you know, like crowd drawing, but they're having a Negro Leagues night, and not only are they giving away a Josh Gibson bobblehead for the first, however, many 1000 people Wednesday night, but they're having a pre game panel with Sean Gibson, the great grandson of Josh Gibson, and currently the president of the Gibson Foundation, Dr Damian Thomas, who is the sports curator for the National Museum of African American History right here in DC. And Dr Daniel Nathan is going to be the moderator. He is a member of the American Studies faculty at Skidmore College and a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Negro Negro Leagues. Researchers and authors group something that I didn't know anything about, but I hope to find out a lot more about, because I'm going to, I mean, Wednesday is my first day without school. I know this is like, that's

Patti 54:59
okay, you know? I am happy that this how you're that's how you're spending your time. That's spectacular.

Pottymouth 55:03
So I'm going to do that get there on time on Wednesday as my first day of my off season. I've also signed up for a couple of detention center visits, so more info on that after that happens.

Patti 55:14
Good work. I have nothing interesting to the general public happening this week. I've got a lot going on generally, but you know, you don't need to know that. But I want to say a big thank you to our local distillery. Oh yeah, shows who had their fourth anniversary party on Saturday, which was the day of a lot of things happening in a lot of places, and by late afternoon, we really did need very, very delicious adult beverages in a neighborhood distillery where, gosh darn it, they should know our names pretty soon.

Pottymouth 55:42
Yes, it's, it was so good, lovely. And look up chachos folks. It's, um, it's, did they even classify it just aguardiente?

Patti 55:51
It's, yeah. That's, yeah, it's a jalapeno. Tell me aguardiente,

Pottymouth 55:57
yeah. So it's got a kick. And there's a couple versions of it. You can get the, it's the Diablo, right? Which is Diablo double the jalapeno, yep.

Patti 56:03
And I like the barrel aged, because I'm sort of a whiskey burbiddy girl.

Pottymouth 56:08
I love their roulette concept. So you can with a if you have a group of five friends, you can get five shots.

Patti 56:13
They don't require you to have five people. That's you just get five shots.

Pottymouth 56:18
We could go and just get five shots. And three of them are normal and two of them are extra jalapeno. And then you watch the faces of the people who take those

Patti 56:26
shots. And for the record, in almost any group we go out in fatty middle is really the only one who's as Pro shot as you guys must be shocked by this. Yeah, no, it is. It's quite a thing. It's quite a thing. Oh my gosh. So, um, please check in with us. Let us know how you're doing. There's just so much happen in the world. We're hoping that you're okay. That you're okay. Please alert us to things that are going on. If you think we need to know about them, you can find us on social media.

Pottymouth 56:48
Yeah, absolutely. Blue skies seems to be a good place to be. That's ncib podcast. We're also, I still will check our Twitter messages, and I'll insist on calling it Twitter, because Damn it, just damn it, just Facebook and Instagram are no crying and bball or for $1 it's $1 right? Just a buck a month. I mean, people are welcome to pay more. Yes, whatever you're comfortable with, yeah, whatever you want, but starting with $1 join our Patreon, fund, P, A T, fund and fund P, A, T, R, E, O, n.com/no, crying and B ball and, and that's a place where sometimes we throw some extras, and you can chat with us, and I will be more likely to see it quickly things like that, like Patreon is a fun place, and honestly, it really, literally keeps us going, because we are a shoestring operation here, and every penny that you put into Patreon goes directly into producing this humble podcast. Sure

Patti 57:50
enough, sure enough. Take care, everybody. I hope, I hope all is well and peaceful and safe where you are. So until next week, get boosted. Fight the hell out of the band. It's the right thing to do. Send your game balls to Meredith, and until next

Pottymouth 58:07
week, say goodnight. Potty mouth, goodnight.

Potty mouth, you it begins well and ends well, then really the middle is just for

Patti 58:30
fluff. It's just filler. Yeah, it's just plot. I mean, who needs that, right? We need the big finish. We need the setup, but the plot, character development, we're well developed, that's why the shirt doesn't fit.

Truth, truth.