No Crying In Baseball

Patti 0:18
Hi and welcome to episode 440 of No Crying in Baseball, the The More You Play, The More You Know episode. My name is Patti, I'm here with my friend, Pottymouth. Hey. Pottymouth.

Pottymouth 0:25
Hey, Just as you said that, I realized what I had wanted to prep for my intro that I totally spaced it. It's because when I was writing it down. So it's nothing like potty mouth, you want to start over again or anything, or should we keep going? What do you think I'm gonna wing it? Okay, when I typed 4440 it's cuatro cuarenta, which is a group from Dominican Republic, led by Juan Luis Guerra, who, Mr. Potty mouth and I listened to an awful lot back in the old days. And our wedding songs, wedding season, where I went to wedding last night. So you guys weren't speaking of it, but I was very recently. Anyway, our wedding song was a Quattro Quentin song. So I was like, Look, Episode 440 I can go back and I was gonna sing a bar, but I don't remember. I'd rather go to a bar than Singapore, yeah. So listen to me singing a bar

Patti 1:14
for sure. So you're saying that, like, 440 is not just for the Cleveland area code anymore. Oh, it's one of them. Yeah. It's like that secondary one. You know how one gets too big for one gets too big for one area code. They had another one. That's the secondary one. Used to be just 216, okay, when I lived there, you know, when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, it was 216, now it's also

Pottymouth 1:31
440, all right. So it has a lot of personal meaning. It really

Patti 1:35
does your wedding, my land of my birth, sure. There we go. That's all good. But also Happy New Year,

Pottymouth 1:40
yes, yeah. This is our first episode of 2026, and who, boy, has it been eventful first few days of a new year?

Patti 1:50
It really, it certainly has. Um, yeah, we've been a little distracted by things that are bigger than baseball, although I gotta, gotta say that I focused immediately on baseball, like we thought last week was confusing about Venezuela and baseball, and then, you know, buckle up buckle up buttercup. Should we just, like, move forward to get there? Or did you want to say anything else about the whole Happy New Year situation?

Pottymouth 2:13
Just that, I'm very proud of us for staying up past midnight. You know that that's getting a question questionable as things change over the years, but we stayed up past midnight. We had a fun online get together with people from in various parts of the country. That was pretty cool, yep, and yeah. So do that New Year's thing. Keep doing it, yep.

Patti 2:34
So, you know, I staying up was funny for me, because, you know, I napped first, so I got again. So thank you for the remote part of of the evening, because that was really nice. It was to be with everybody without having to leave my house because I'm old and tired, yeah, but it was really fun. I'm glad I got to do that part. So yay for that. On today's show Florida boyfriends, we've got Tampa Bay and Miami on the same day. We've got the rant about Venezuela that you knew was coming. The police blotter is not big enough to contain Lenny Dykstra, and we're cross training with salsa basketball and Olympic hockey cheers. So, just so you know, potty mouth is wearing her Venezuela t shirt from the World Baseball Classic, so she's representing. And I appreciate that.

Pottymouth 3:17
Ready, ready? Here we go. And I don't know I that just sounded so lovely. Your intro. I was like, we are so much fun, but we have great stuff coming at you, the weird, the wild and the depressing, but we also have some Florida men. So that was like, Holy shit, talking about Florida men. We got Florida man, these guys are nice, though I am super excited about both of my Florida picks for

Patti 3:39
this week. I think none of them are actually from Florida. So not can they still be Florida? Man, if they've relocated, I don't know. Well, I discussed amongst yourself, report back to the class. Okay, what you got?

Pottymouth 3:49
Absolutely, I've got Jonathan Aranda first base, which I am also, what are we talking about? We are talking about the Tampa Bay Rays. Oops, sorry. American League is coming first. Oh, and also, we're talking about our baseball boyfriends. I didn't say in case you're joining us for the very first time. So much is happening. This is what we do in our offseason. We each pick a guy per team. We do two a week, one Al and one NL, and there's something cool about them. So we let you know. And then at the end of this process, we will make a fantasy team, and you can join us in fantasy baseball. So stay tuned. So yeah, American League. Jonathan Aranda, 27 years old, first base. First important note about him is he has great Q hard that's quality hair above replacement. Stat, thanks to our friend Ollie, he has this, like bunch of curly locks just on the top of his head. So we sort of shaved around the sides, which leads to the ability to do a lot of really entertaining hairstyles. So he does the one where there's like, just the band around his head and just the poof, you know, the it's like the beaker, you know, just the poof on the top beaker had straight hair. But you know what? I mean, it's like all coming out top, or to have, like, the cool braids, and then the side shaved. But overall, he gets grooming points. And I haven't been. Giving out grooming points for a while. So I would like

Patti 5:02
to do that. And I do enjoy that you used hand gestures to illustrate every single one of those haircuts. Yeah, y'all could follow that. I mean, I understood all of them. I hope, I hope it translated well. Me too, the

Pottymouth 5:12
other so the sign that I always look forward to, like, why am I supposed to pick this guy is he's best buddies with a prior baseball boyfriend, pick of mine, who I adore. My 2023 blue jays. Pick Alejandro Kirk and they are both from Tijuana, Mexico. And Jonathan is six months older, but they have known each other since baby they played together in Little League from the very start, when they were in the best fucking name for a five year old team that you can you can think of the glue, glue team. So there, that's the team name or the league. So this it gets better. So the team name, how is that possible? The team name is glue, glue that the league is La division, which means the baby bottle League. Yeah, it's really cute. It's adorable. Cheers. Wow. And when they were kids, they played in national tournaments together. The other adorable part about this so also drinking game, adorable means you get to drink so we get to do that hang on, is that their fathers are buddies. Neither one was a professional athlete in any way, but they were both those involved dad coaches. So alejandro's father was the manager of their little league team, and Jonathan's father was one of his coaches. Actually, the sports prowess, like the skill part, comes from mom. I don't know where she played basketball, but I saw an interview with her when she talked about how she it was in their blood athleticism, that she has a lot of family members who are the athletes and that she was a basketball player. So there's that, not only as kids, but also as adults. Starting out in in baseball, they played in the league of Mexicana de baseball for the Toros de Tijuana. That's the Mexican league that that happens at the same time as MLB. And they are godfathers for each other's daughters. They work out together every day in the off season, meaning right now. So there's a lot of them hanging out right now on social media together. They have similar scouting stories. So I don't know if you remember back when I talked about Kirk that he was not the guy that the scout was looking for, and not a guy who would give scouts much attention to begin with, because of his small, stout stature, not looking like the typical baseball player that folks are scouting, but he brought their attention. Same thing happened with Jonathan. Jonathan, and here's where, like, there's a little bit of Team weirdness. So the raised Scout went to Tijuana to see Randy Ross arena, who is not Mexican, but moved to Mexico from Cuba, and as a Rosa Reina, didn't actually show up for that tryout. So they were looking around, and they saw Jonathan Aranda, and were impressed by him. Arrozarena, even though he's with the rays right now, he was signed by the Cardinals and then traded to the rays. So now the guys are teammates, but not because of that. Scout both Kirk and Aranda spent a lot of time in the minors, and Aranda a little bit more. He was drafted way back in July of 2015 and went really slowly, but in a measured way, climbing through all of the levels. He debuted in MLB, June 24 2022 and only played 32 games that year, but it was an important year, because he got to face his buddy for the first time on the field. And his Instagram post there is just adorable. And it's just sort of Yeah, it's it's just dripping with sentiment that makes me all teary eyed. They talked about the 20 year, 20 plus year friendship at that point, and he said, that's that dream that we had when we were little, of seeing each other on a campo de grandes Ligas, a baseball field of the big leagues. It's an emotion that's so big to to to share, compartir to share with you. I love you brother, so they think of each other like that. Aranda is a very skilled player, so it took him a little while to sort of burst out. And 22 to 24 were a few games in the majors and mostly in the minors. But AAA, all star with Durham both 22 and 23 he had a really good year with the Durham Bulls. In 23 he was batting 339, with a 106 2o PS, but then in 23 played a few more games at MLB, just 34 didn't do great. He had a really strong spring training and 24 so it looked like he was going to make opening day roster in spring training. He was batting 371, with a 992, ops, but right before the start of the actual season, he broke his ring finger March 27 so he ended up only with four. 44 games at MLB level that year. However, 25 he was totally ready for the breakout, and it was a breakout. He made opening day roster. He was an all star with his buddy, Alejandro Kirk and so all that emotion around that he said, it means a lot. He's my best friend since I was a kid. On the season, he was batting 316, with an 882, ops, which was the best average in ops for first baseman with 14 home runs and 59 RBI. However, if you do the sorting on the stat pages, it doesn't list him as first, because he doesn't quite qualify. He only played 106 games. He was limited to one six. Here we go with my injury thing again, due to a wrist fracture, August 1. And you know, I showed the video to Mr. Potty mouth, and I said, Can I swear at John Carlos Stanton? And he said, of course, you can, because this is my Red Sox husband, who says, of course, at any any point you can do that. So Stanton, he had his hand out to tag Stanton as Stanton was running to first base, and Stanton plowed in. Stanton's a big man. He's a very large he plowed into his arm and fractured his wrist. So I know Stanton was aiming for first base, not for Jonathan's wrist. However, it was a very unfortunate incident, and it was out for the rest of you know, for most of the rest of the rest of the season, until the end of September. But he said, quote, I'm just focusing on what I can do. This is Jonathan Aranda, waiting on that time, staying positive, controlling what I can control, and being there for the team in any way that I can. And he kept working out. Minus one wrist, he was able to play again September 26 which was too late for the rays to be doing much. But who knows what's going to happen this year? He is planning on being in the World Baseball Classic with Alejandro Kirk. They played in 2023 and reminder, Mexico was a surprise in 23 because they when I first saw that, they were in the division with Venezuela and Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico is like No, no way, but they beat all of them. And then in the semis, they only lost by one run to Japan, and that, you know, prevented them from getting to the finals. So he's married, has a daughter who's adorable. Cheers again, boy, although babies and adorable do go together.

Patti 12:20
Technically, it's if he's in the sports context, the baby context is fine.

Pottymouth 12:25
Okay. Baby was born January, 2024

Patti 12:30
cheers, cheers. Hey. What are we drinking? Is this the delicious

Pottymouth 12:36
ripe pa that we had last week from tree house brewery in very, very various locations in Massachusetts.

Patti 12:42
And I'm about to move on to my backup beer. Which is, which one is

Pottymouth 12:46
more local? Oh, Manor Hill. Manor Hill, you know, koozie. But you have the manor Hill, the manor Hill coach, which is gonna be lovely as well. I have a manor Hill beer too. I have the fest beer, yay, because we got so much in it,

Patti 12:59
and it's very delicious. All right, my guy for Tampa Bay. I picked because of a San Diego connection, because I lived in San Diego for some of my launching as an adult formative years. And I, you know, I believe in this. So Carson Williams is the shortstop. He's 22 one of my goals was to try to find guys possibly younger than our intern as often as possible. So thank you Carson Williams for being an excellent choice and also fitting that that you know little goal that I had going on there. So he committed to UC Berkeley, but ended up signing with Tampa Bay right out of high school. He turned 18 two weeks before the draft. He went to Torrey Pines High School, which is listed to San Diego, but I believe it's in La Jolla, California, where I actually worked for a little while. And as a senior at Torrey Pines High School, he hit 495 with 11 homers and 34 stolen bases. He was also a two way player, so when he was getting scouted for the draft, they were a lot of teams looked at him for pitching, but the rays looked at him as that's some arm strength there. So they took, like, the skill they wanted from him being a pitcher. It's like, Yeah, but we really want your bat. So thank you for that. So he was drafted in the first round of the 2021 draft by the Tampa Bay Rays, and he was signed with a $2.3 million bonus. So in 2022 he was in single A, and defense is sexy, he earned a Rawlings Gold Glove for best defensive shortstop in the minor leagues. First, you know, first full season in the minors. 2023 he moved very quickly from high a, double A, triple A. 2024 he was in double A all year. He was, however, the minor league Defensive Player of the Year. Baseball America called named him a Minor League All Star and a double A, all star. And this designation I had not heard before, but I won it, and I want to, like, find more guys who have this he was named the most. Most exciting player in the southern League. He led the southern league in runs, RBI and triples. He was also the minor league player of the week in April, because he had an ops of 1.380 he had a four hit game and stole four bases that week. So yeah, that gets you that kind of accolade that year. He was also named to Team USA is wbsc, Premier 12 roster, and that was the bronze medal team. So that's also pretty good. So he went into 2025 as Major League Baseball pipelines, top rated shortstop prospect. So in the minors, he went 2020 for three straight seasons, which is pretty good, if you don't remember that, there's 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases. Even though the first two months of AAA in 2025 were really hard for him, he struggled quite a bit, and yet he still managed to, like come back from that, and his ability to deal with just a horrible start and kind of and figure out how to address that and make changes and come back for that was was very impressive to his manager there, but also to the raise. His manager also said he was raised really well. He's a nice human being. He's polite. He does the right thing and wants to do the right thing. He's not a Showboat. He very much is head down doing his work. It's not about him. He's just a really good person. He has a huge heart. He's somebody that you would trust to babysit your kids. Now, I've heard they like date your child one, but babysit your kids, I think is probably even more of a thing. So how about that? So he debuted in August of this past season, 2025 because Tampa Bay was out of shortstops. They were out of shortstops because Hi Sung Kim was on the the IL, for the second time in a month for back injury, they ended up DFA ing him. Taylor walls was on the the IL, starting August 12, with the left groin strain, ended up having surgery. Oh, wow. Like he's like, their guy, right? And Jose Caballero was traded at the trade deadline on July 31 so it's like, Well, looks like you're getting a chance, you know guy, come on, come on up and let's see how it goes. So he was at AAA, so he had to, in order to get to his very first game, his debut game, he had to fly from Allentown, Pennsylvania to Charlotte, North Carolina, and then to Tampa. And like every he said, every flight was slow and small and, you know, like you're tense, and the whole thing, he got to the rays dug out in the second inning of his debut game, right against the Cardinals, he said, I'm pretty excited. There's nerves, there's excitement. It's a whole whirlwind of emotions, and it's all amazing. So how do you do on his debut? He first at bat, he reached out an error, then he had an RBI single, you struck out. And his fourth at bat, in the seventh inning, they had been leading seven to one over the Cardinals that league, that lead shrunk to like seven to six, so they were gaining on him. So he hit a, you know, 410, foot two run homer over the center field fence. Because, yeah, and so he said, Yes. How did I feel? Because, you know, of course, you're gonna say new guy on your debut hitting this home run that, you know, let's helps your team win. He said, How do you feel? So I don't even know. I just freaked out. I blacked out. I guess I hit it. I was like, Oh my gosh, I've got to run. I started running. I was just, go out, go out, go out, and the ball went out, and I lost it.

Pottymouth 18:25
I'm just thinking of the like, this is a guy who is just squished on little airplanes, and he just shows up. And how do you do that without, like, stretching. I'm just old. Like, how

Patti 18:34
do you do that? I don't know, but I think part of it was his family there. Okay, so first, Ninth Ray to home run his debut. Second to have three RBI in a debut game. The other was Juan de Franco. So we don't really want to compare him to that, but he had 20 friends and family members, including his little league coach, flew from San Diego to be there so that I saw watch one of those little videos where they interview, like, you know, the parents and everything, and they're like, oh yeah. So he made the plane reservations. She got the hotel reservations, and this guy called ahead to the team store because, of course, there weren't any jerseys yet to have them custom make his jersey so they could all wear the, you know, the jersey with his name and number on it, which was pretty damn cool. The other thing that happened was Yandy Diaz, before the game started, said, you're going yard. Wow. And so his response was, yeah, and he said, I was gonna hit a home run. Now I got to do something for him. Brandon Laos said is probably the best debut I've ever been a part of. So then the rays, like, kept him up there through the end of the season. Because if you remember, like, Junior Caminero had that kind of call up where he was there for, like, the last six weeks of the season, and it really did him a lot of good. And it's like, you know what? Maybe this will also happen here, because what happens that last six weeks you can identify what needs to be worked on for spring training. And so William said, the opportunities are the only thing you can ask for. The more you play, the more you know, the better you can. Be. So the thing that's that's going to decide whether he's on the starting lineup in the new season is Taylor walls health, right? How's he going to do and getting his his strikeout rate down, because that's been his big problem. He hits pretty hits. He is for power, but he also strikes out a lot, so that's got to stop for him to like, claim that spot, but he certainly made a big splash, and people are rooting for him. And a lot of folks, you know, there's been a lot of crap happening with Tampa Bay, the wonder Franco stuff, the stadium stuff, all of so many things. So they really need, like, exciting young somebody to root for things. So hopefully these guys can help provide that. There's been a little bit of Rookie of the Year buzz because he started so late that he's eligible this coming year. So maybe, well, that's pretty maybe, well, we'll see if I'm, you know, if he shows up on my questionable predictions.

Pottymouth 20:51
Well, these guys, plus my guy from last year junior, coming at all, like, that's a pretty solid I mean, of course, like, this is Al east, and neither one of us really are cheering for any other, at least team. However, you know, these are some nice guys, but yeah, cheer for the guys, but yeah,

Patti 21:04
but he and in common here are, like, the double plate, you know, so that they're, they're both good, and they work together, and they're fun to watch. So, you know, yay for that. That's awesome. I'm opening my

Pottymouth 21:14
second year. Awesome. All right, I'm ignoring my phone that's buzzing with patriots news because I don't care about football. I'm trying to convince myself that, but the end of the season, I'm just a sucker. I'm a sucker for sports, but baseball, here we go, Marlins, Jacob Marcy center field, 24 years old. I'm super excited about this guy. And I was just thinking Jonathan Aranda did not have a good debut story. However, Jacob Marcy has probably one of my favorites at this point, because it has to do with defeating a team that shall be disclosed very soon. He's from Dearborn, Michigan, and it's cold there. Yeah, he played a lot of sports as a kid. He's one of them hockey. Not one of them was not hockey. Unfortunately, what the weather

Patti 21:57
wasn't hockey? Was there another one that was hockey? No,

Pottymouth 22:01
all right, it was your typical baseball, basketball, football, he has two other brothers. He's the middle guy, so he looked at as he was always sort of chasing his older brother to sort of compete with him to be better, and then he felt responsible for being a role model for his younger brother. And actually, he talked about how when he left home for the first time, when, oh yeah, my beer, when he was drafted his he was sad about not being able to watch his younger brother continue to grow up so very close family. He ended up playing varsity football with his older brother because of this motivation to compete. And he talked about the cross training being important for baseball, and this is what I love. Like that whole you know, argument about kids specializing too early is super scary because it leads to injuries, it leads to too much pressure, and sports are supposed to be fun and healthy. So that's the idea. But he looked at it through a baseball lens. So he talked about football as a center fielder, helping him to track balls and how to catch something that's thrown really, really far. Now, granted, it's a lot smaller, but you know, there's definitely transferable skills there, and basketball helping him with speed and agility, which seems to have worked. I couldn't figure out what the injury was but he missed his senior year of high school with an injury, and then freshman year of college had to deal with covid. So had to, sort of like deal with this down part. And he has a really positive attitude. I think both my guys have this, like, just gonna stick with it and think positive attitude. He said, You never know when you're gonna play your last game. So you just because you know had this injury, had this covid, you just got to take every day as it comes. And his experience in college, he stayed in Michigan. Central Michigan University had what seems like a fabulous coach and a really tight team that helped him focus on having fun, enjoying the game and building relationships. And he said, even when you're not having a good day, you still have to be there to pick up your teammates. I love that attitude. Super baseball boyfriend stuff. Also, he's really good. So in his three seasons at Central Michigan University, he walked more the struck out. He has really good discipline. He said, I mean, it's not like I'm up there trying to walk, but if you're not going to throw me a pitch to hit before I get four balls, I'll take my walk, which like logic right there. He was drafted by the Padres in 2022 and in 2023 was in the Arizona fall League, MVP of the Arizona fall League, and the manager of his fall league team, Morgan ensberg also happened to be the AAA manager of Durham Bulls. Now that's the rays. So this is getting a little like Florida. Confusing, but he told the raise general manager at that point, Peter Bendix, you got to get this kid, Marcy. Then after the fall was over, Peter Bendix moved to the Marlins. Yes, and he got Marcy. So it didn't work out the way ensberg wanted it to, but it worked out really fine for Marcy and for the Marlins. He he got Marcy in that big trade for Luis arias. So when arayas went to San Diego, and San Diego opened that closet full of prospects, and four of them popped out. He was one of those four prospects where we used to talk about that just seemed like they had so many prospects that just kept coming out. For these big players in AAA, in 2025 this past year, he led the miners with 47 steals before the end of July, because he debuted on August 1. That's 47 steals before the end of July. So he debuted August, 1 in a series against, of course, the New York Yankees at Marlin stadium. So his first impression of Marlin Stadium, which is hysterical, because I don't think it's like this on the regular I was like, dang. I can't believe how packed these games get. Well, we see this phenomenon in DC when the Yankees come to town everywhere. Yeah, they just go to those games. But he really pulled through. He doubled in each game of the series, and he tripled in game three. So game one, not only did he get that hit, but he also walked three times. So that means he is the only Marlins rookie to get on base four times in his first game. In his debut game, he also walked in game two. He is the there's only one other debut player in MLB history with one or more doubles and three or more bases in their debut game, and that was Ray more heart, way back in 1924 with the White Sox and the fun like, sort of like frosting on the cake or cherry on the old fashioned whatever it is, Marlon swept that series against the Yankees, whoo due to, I think you know, my guy's heroics, sure, then he did A little bit of damage against Cleveland. So sorry. On the 13th of August against Cleveland, he went Four for five with two home runs. So this is his 13th day of being in the major leagues. He had seven RBI to himself in that game, which tied the Marlins record, which was set by Adam Duvall in April of 2021 he also stole a base and made a super sexy sliding catch in center field. So beyond being fast and being good with the contact, he loves playing defense. He said, just because our pitchers jobs are hard enough, I want to make it easy on them any way I can great team player attitude. He is the first player in MLB history with six or more bases and 10 or more extra bases through his first 13 career games, and then in his first 24 games, he had 10 double doubles, three triples and four home runs. The last person to do that in his first 25 games was Joe DiMaggio in 1936 speaking of those Yankees. He remained hot as hell through August, which is appropriate for Miami. His August average was 352, for the month. This is his debut month, 1058, OBS, which was the highest at that time in all of MLB for 30 or more games played. He was the NL lorky the month, and the first Marlin to do so since 2021 like what you were just saying with your raised guy. What helped him was quote his traveling pack of family members, friends and his girlfriend, who went to all these key games and were were cheering for him. Unlike your guy, he is, even though he debuted in August, he is not qualified for rookie status for 2026 because one needs fewer than 130 at bats and fewer than 45 days on the roster. He had 55 games and 209 at bats. Overall, the end of the year with 292 average, 841, ops, five home runs, 33 RBI and 14 stolen bases in his August and September. So he's got to be fun to walk. I am so excited. Yay.

Patti 29:06
So Connor Norby, because former Oriole, that was an easy pick for me. If you remember, last year I picked Kyle Stowers, because he and Connor Norby are joined at the hip. So more about that in just a minute. And that went well. That went well. So I'm hoping that kind of Norby will also go well for me. So third base 25 just misses the cut off, but that's okay. The other one was much younger, so I think averaging I'm still okay. So Connor was born in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, so I get to talk about hockey for a 10 for 10 seconds. Oh, good. Okay. So he says I wanted to play hockey so bad I couldn't stop I never took hockey seriously. I never took lessons. I just kind of skated like pond hockey, boot hockey. I was always basketball in the winter, then I was baseball in the spring, summer, football in the fall, and then I quit football because I wanted to play more baseball. So I think he just juggled a lot, a lot of sports and finally settled. But like you were saying, I'm glad that he tried them all. It's. So the family moved from Minnesota to North Carolina, and he went to high school in North Carolina and then stayed there to go to college at East Carolina University, where his brother Ethan is currently as a pitcher, kind of following in his big brother's footsteps. So while at ECU baseball America named him first team all American when he was a sophomore, he was a 2021 Bobby bragen collegiate slugger award winner. He led all of NCAA d1 players with 102 hits hit it had a school record with a 56 game on base streak. So the O's picked him up in the second round of the 2021 draft. So 2022 he went high a, double A, triple A, you know, through that season, and then he started and they stayed in triple A all the way until he got his call up in 2024 and I love his call up story, so it's good family story, like he and his brother both did really well on the exact same day. So this is pretty cool. So the O's call him up to Toronto to replace Jorge Mateo, who's on the concussion list, right? And he said it's what you dream of from the first time you pick up a baseball. There aren't enough words. So it's a Sunday night. He's watching some streaming thing to see his brother, who is pitching a game as a freshman at ECU and an NCAA regional tournament, and he strikes out nine and gets the win, and gets a standing ovation, and the crowd is shouting, nor be like, This is huge for his little brother. Yeah, he gets the call while this is going on, saying, Hey, we're going to Toronto. You're getting your call up, you know, you go in the show, bud. So he calls his parents, who are in the stands watching his brother with nor be, nor be, being yelled in the background, to tell them, hey, guess what. I got the call up man. So his little brother Ethan, goes into the the locker room. And remember so Conor went there as well. So he knows the coaches. So he was also calling the coaches to say, hey, guess what? So they call Ethan into the coach's office, and he's like, what I this? I've had this great game. I just really want a shower. He's like, No, you got to come in here right now. Wow. And his parents are in there, the coaches are in there, and his brother is on speaker phone saying, but I'm going to the show. So this is huge, huge day. And so, so both brothers are having this incredible thing. And Connor says I wasn't trying to one up him, and he knows that, but it was a really good day for everybody. The downside was his parents, I don't think, don't have they didn't have passports, or they they they were expired, or whatever it was. So they could have done some crazy expedited thing. And Connor said, don't stay with Ethan, because he's got more of this tournament to play, which was really pretty cool. You don't want to break up, like, a good luck streak, right? It's, yeah, it's like, stay. No, he needs your support. It can't be all about me, and it's too much. It's a lot of work, a lot of stress. Don't do it. Don't do it. So his girlfriend came, but that was it for, like, you know, you're here for your your debut. Things, it was his first time out of the country. Wow, this little trip to Toronto. So to get there, though, oh, first, first, he called his barber and said, Please, please, please. It's Sunday night at nine o'clock and you're closed. But I have kind of this big deal thing happening, and it looked terrible, and he had to go to his barber. And so his barber, like, opened up the shop and gave him a haircut so he didn't look Shaggy and bad for his debut, which I kind of left. Well, I hope so. I hope so now he can afford to Right, yeah. So at 4am he starts a 200 mile drive from Norfolk to DC, wow, to get on a plane to fly to Toronto, to arrive on the field at about 230 so he is the last of this gang of, like, the young people that are best friends in the like, from the O's minor leagues, right? So you know, Kyle Stowers, Jackson, holiday, Colton cowser, silent, j so they're all there to welcome him. So that's pretty cool. So like, you know, you've got this extraordinarily long day with this drive and this flight, and you're leaving the country, and I've never used my passport before, and oh my god, and here I am, and my friends are all here to welcome me. So that's pretty cool. When he talks to he said he was talking to other people later, other players about their call ups, and he said, day one is so hard. Your mind's in a million different places. Your heart's racing like it never has, like your adrenaline's beyond what you even thought it would be at the time. And there's so many emotions. It's hard. It's so hard. But I said day two is when it starts to feel like baseball, and every day after, starts to feel more and more like baseball and like a normal day. And that actually played out for him, because on his dB, he went over three on Monday, on his first game, and then he started Tuesday, also, oh, for three until the eighth inning, when he had a two run homer for his first hit. And he said that was the coolest thing I've done playing baseball for sure, sure. And he said the ball is going to his parents. And I thought, Oh, what a nice gift. He's like. So he does. Lose it.

Pottymouth 35:03
Okay, so he's a young 25 so

Patti 35:04
he's a Yeah, so his parents and Ethan saw him when they returned to play in Tampa, and they were joking. They said, Well, we missed your international debut, but we're here for your American debut, which I think is pretty cool. But he was, he was up for four games, and then he was sent back down, and then he came up for five games, and then he was traded to Miami at the deadline in 2024 with Kyle Stowers for Trevor Rogers. And he said, you can never expect to get traded. But thankfully, stow was there with me, and we went through it together, and we kind of leaned on each other, and that's all we've done since we've leaned on each other. So he started this past season in triple A Jacksonville, and then on August 19, he got his call up to Miami, and he started his Miami life with a 10 game hitting streak. Wow. He was the third player in Marlins history to record a double digit hitting streak to begin their stint with Miami. It's the longest streak by a Marlins rookie since Ozuna had a 16 game streak and a 10 game streak and Christian Yelich, who had a 10 game streak in 2013 it's tied for the longest hitting streak by any Marlins hitter in 2024 with Josh Bell, his 29 runs scored his first 36 games to begin his time with with the Marlins, is the second most in club history, behind Ramirez, who had 34 so he started 2025 on the IL with an oblique strain. Then in July, had ham eight surgery, which may turn out well for him eventually, because that that creates superpower. So we'll see how that leads into next season. An important thing for many of you out there is he's got six, six tattoos, the first one he got during covid When he was in college, and realized his mom was paying attention to his ATM receipts, and she was not pleased to see that charge on there. But he's gotten more sense. You know, he's a grown up. His mom doesn't look at his ATM anymore. He does say that one of his one of his tattoos, is actually for a childhood friend who actually committed suicide. He said, I got the date in Roman numeral so his parents still reach out. I've seen them a couple of times. They come down once every year to see me. He always wanted to play professional baseball, so it's like having him live the dream through me, so I thought that was something I could do for him. Super important. I think is pretty, pretty sweet next week, or you got boyfriends from Texas and Arizona

Pottymouth 37:31
who All right, so stay tuned later and let us know if you have any suggestions for Texas and Arizona. Yes, I don't have anything jumping to mind right now.

Patti 37:41
The bright side, we have fresh beers because here we go.

Pottymouth 37:43
Yeah. All right, shit. I feel like every week for the past several I've been talking about winter ball, mentioning the Venezuelan League, and saying, Please don't bomb Venezuela. Please don't bomb Venezuela. So we're recording on Sunday, January 4. Chances are two days later. You're going to know a lot more than what I'm saying right now. So I'm going to try to, I don't know, keep it general, because you might have heard that the United States did, in fact, attack Venezuela yesterday morning in the wee hours, or, I guess, Friday night in the late hours, one or the other, and kidnapped the President and his wife, and brought them to New York, where they are awaiting trial on an interesting array of charges that actually does not mention oil in its specific way and doesn't even talk about it. Definitely doesn't talk about fentanyl, which is what's killing most people in this country, but there's a lot of shit there. And basically, you know what I want to say to start out here is that both things can be true. Maduro is a dictator. Was a dictator, whatever verb tense, terrible, horrible things have been happening in Venezuela. There are hundreds of 1000s of Venezuelans who have fled Venezuela in the recent years. You know, interestingly, the United States, despite feeling that this dictator was so horrible that we had to go in and kidnap him, was very recently saying, oh, Venezuelans can go back to Venezuela. They are deportable because I don't know they were ending, you know, temporary protected status for no fucking good reasons. But now we have this situation where there's a lot of MLB players there, and so what happens to them? What happens to the Venezuelan League? What are people around baseball saying about it? And as of right now, on Sunday, it's really hard to find statements, and it's really hard to find decisions, because people really don't know what's what's going on. What I'm floored about though, like we've been saying this for weeks, like boats are being attacked, Congress didn't do anything, and MLB didn't come up with a fucking plan. Like they didn't have a statement ready to go in case Venezuela was was invaded. They didn't have any escape plan for all of these major. Players. We're talking acunas. We're talking Jackson chaudio. These are big name players that teams are very much depending on, and they didn't have a fucking plan. Are you kidding me? So things are quiet right now. Again, as of Sunday, players are silent. So I made a spreadsheet, folks, and you have access to it. It's going to be in our show notes, and it's all the Venezuelan players that I think played at least last year in Major League Baseball. And I started going player by player and looking at their social media, and there's nothing, or I couldn't find anything. So power to you. You give it a try the and then I just started looking through, you know, baseball, and trying to find who's saying anything. And I really didn't find much. I mean, there's, of course, the reporters, but just because we mentioned him recently, Texas congressional candidate, former Yankee mark, to share a had the esteemed quote of saying, grateful for President Trump's leadership and for the brave men and women standing up to Narco terrorists like Maduro. Well, you know that Trump did just pardon an actual convicted Narco terrorist from Honduras not too long ago. So it's not really about the drugs folks. It is that oil right now, the airport is not working in Venezuela. They're shut down. There's also a lot of power outages, communication outages. So some of this lack of communication could be just physical, like people can't get the word out. However, lead on, the Dominican league came out with a statement, I believe it was yesterday, assuring, and this is directed to people in Dominican Republic, assuring them that all Dominican players in Venezuela were safe. They said that they were in communication with the president of League of venezola No, De baseball professional, the Venezuelan league. And they expressed solidarity. And I think they did it in a really lovely way with the Venezuelan people, el pueblo venezola No, but MLB didn't have a statement like that, so all I could find, and again, we're two days old, so maybe there's been an MLB I hope to God, there's been an MLB statement by now, but it seemed like they're leaving it to the teams that seem to be scurrying to figure out what the fuck to do about their players. The only teams that I could find actual articles about were the Brewers, the Giants and the reds, and it wasn't a lot. It was just we are reaching out. We're figuring things out hour by hour. Nothing nearly as reassuring as what lead on put out. So this is not unexpected. It's also not the first time. So in 2019 under Trump version 1.0 the United States banned MLB players, theoretically in August, of 2019 from playing in Venezuela because of the sanctions that Trump had put on at that time. So there's a lot of articles from August, September, about this ban. And then I looked into the rosters, and I was like, Wait, there's players on there. What happened? And there's this very low key announcement by the US Treasury Department in December that allowed quote transactions with all but two of the Venezuelan teams, the Tigres de Aragua and then navagantes, except both Jose el Tuva and Luis arayas played for the navagantes that Year, and a lot el tube was in for 124 games, and arias was in for 92 games. So there was some behind the doors deal. I couldn't find much more about it, but the ban didn't actually happen, despite the fact that the sanctions definitely were happening. The Venezuelan League of Venezuela website has nothing political. And of course, they're in Venezuela. What are they going to do? They played games on Saturday. And so just for a little like fun replay of what happened on Saturday. Wait, no, today's Sunday, Friday, Friday. Saturday was the invasion, right? They played on Friday. And also, like, this is a corrections department thing the Caribbean, swatigi, I'm really happy to say that they actually won their wild card game. I had prematurely declared them losers, but that was only after one game of the wild card. Apparently there were a few. They won the last game in exciting extra innings, but on Friday, they lost to my cardinales de Lara in the 10th inning. So for my cardinales, the Aguilas beat on the navigantes five to four, also in 10 innings. So for a last day for baseball, at least it was a pretty good one. And in that game, the Aguilas won thanks to back to back home runs by Jackson chorio and Jose Perella, who you had picked in 2019 as your Padres boyfriend. So a couple of boyfriend actions there, Jackson chariot went Four for five, and at that point was saying that he wanted to be on the World Baseball Classic team. But that was two days ago, and who the fuck knows what's gonna happen with Venezuela getting ready for the World Baseball Classic? So they were going very day by day, and it. Was like at the last minute. I actually checked this morning and the games were scheduled for tonight, and then I checked this afternoon and it said postpuesto otras resones, which means postponed for other reasons. So they couldn't say it's a rain delay, right? So both yesterday and today's games were delayed, and then they just announced, before we started recording, that the games are going to resume on Wednesday. There's no other details about how, what, why, where. There's a lot of confusion about what's actually happening, but they need to play because they need to finish the season and they need a champion of the league. Because usually what happens at that point is the champion goes on to the serio de Caribe. But we know that the Serie A Caribe, which was supposed to be hosted by Venezuela, isn't being hosted by Venezuela. The other teams had actually paid attention and said, We're not going to go there. And so it's going to happen in Mexico without Venezuela. But Venezuela really wanted to prove that they could host a series, and they'd invested so much so that they were supposed to be hosting the serie de las Americas on February 1. So the organization that that deals with the serie de las Americas, which is all of a year old, this is their second annual serie, is kind of spinning because they had just moved it from Panama to Venezuela, and now maybe it'll go back to Panama. We're talking a month, and we're dealing with multiple countries sending teams. I'm just thinking like, logistics, like, you know, this is wedding planner to the 10th degree. How do you deal with that many people coming in and how, you know, beyond the ticket sales, but just like dealing with that many people coming to the to the country, and, you know, Venezuela is in a state of emergency without a functioning airport, so I don't think they're going to be hosting. Colombia and Nicaragua are already said, like, if this is still going on, we're not sending people. Yeah, Panama said they're on standby. Apparently, the Panamanian League has been really depending on this event, and I so I don't know how they gave up the hosting to begin with, because they're in financial problems. So that's gonna happen. The last little footnote is, beyond the MLB players there who are Venezuelan and Dominican and other countries, 10 about are US born, hanging out there trying to figure out the fucks going on? Yeah. How do I get home? Yeah.

Patti 47:17
So, like, just to be clear, you know, these are, talking about MLB players who are either in Venezuela, because they're from there and it's the off season, and they're spending time in their homes with their family, yeah, or either they're born there or elsewhere, and are playing in winter, playing winter ball in Venezuela. And I am floored that Major League Baseball just went,

Pottymouth 47:38
Oh, listen to our fucking podcast, people will be saying for weeks like, this is looking a little dicey. Something's gonna be happening. That's what the fuck

Patti 47:49
I mean, you probably didn't have, you know, kidnapping of, you know, heads of state on the bingo card. But still, clearly bombing boats is like, you know, it's

Pottymouth 47:57
a bad sign. Yeah, it's a bad sign. It's a bad sign. All right,

Patti 48:01
wow, that's just so many things so fucked

Pottymouth 48:04
up, and like so much more is fucked up by the time that you guys hear this, you know, can't wait to see what happens so and

Patti 48:11
that's not even the police blotter, right? That's so much bigger than the police blotter, right? Okay, the police blotter is really focused on Lenny Dykstra, who you may remember from the Mets or the Phillies from the Mets, he's, there's not enough police blotter for all the things that have that Lenny dykster has been has done or allegedly done, or it's all bad. Yeah, no, it's all bad. So, so we've got a new one. The new one is he was a passenger in a car that got pulled over in Pennsylvania on New York day, on New Year's Day, and the troopers who pulled him over found drugs and, quote, paraphernalia in dykstras possession, so not his car he wasn't driving, but in his possession. It didn't say in the trunk or whatever they said in his possession. So his long line of police blotter activity includes the following. This is not a complete list. He has served time for bankruptcy fraud. He had a three year sentence for pleading no contest to Grand Theft Auto and providing a false financial statement in April of 2012 because this is a long, long history, he pleaded no contest to exposing himself to women he met through Craigslist.

Pottymouth 49:26
Craigslist, oh, man, is he not know how to spell only fans. In 2012

Patti 49:33
a judge dropped a drug and terroristic, terroristic, I've not heard that phrase, terroristic threat charge against him after an altercation with an Uber driver. And this is really my favorite one in 2020. A New York Supreme Court judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit that Dykstra had filed against Ron darling. You know, former Mets teammate, alleging that that so that, alleging that darling had made rue. Racist remarks toward an opponent during the 1986 World Series, and Dykstra is like, oh, that's, you know, that's defamation. You can't say that about me. The Justice Robert Kalisch said that dykstras reputation, quote for unsportsmanlike conduct and bigotry, had already been so tarnished that it could not be damaged further. So there could be no defamation, because it's already basically in the toilet. They said also he was infamous for being, among other things, racist, misogynistic, anti gay, as well as a sexual predator, a drug abuser, a thief and an embezzler. So I mean, even if he was eligible, he would never, ever be a boyfriend. But this is just again, another in a long line of how, how did this guy ever make it to the major leagues?

Pottymouth 50:45
Yeah, and win a fucking World Series, so that I have, like, a bit of a grudge against Dykstra because of 1986 Mets. So I just looked up the title of the book that I will again recommend, because I don't think I ever said the exact, complete title on air. It's called, quote, the bad guys won a season of brawling, boozing, bimbo chasing and championship baseball with straw duck Mookie nails. Nails is Dykstra, the kid and the rest of the 1986 Mets the rowdiest team ever to put on a New York uniform. And maybe the best, it is a good read, or I think I listened to it, but holy fuck, like they won the fucking world series. Well, all sorts of shit was going on. And yes, character matters, right, right? What a cross train? Sure. So I have a quick cross training, and it's the tagline, or I guess the conclusion I'm making is that I'm about to be a breakout basketball player. So they were in here first Exactly. The Celtics are doing well, and it's super fun to watch, despite the fact that star Jason Tatum isn't there. So we're cross training with basketball, but also with salsa. Yesterday, Jalen Brown, who is a wonderful human being, and I've talked about him before in the podcast, just because he's such a good guy, friends with Bill Nye, the Science Guy, such a good dude. He became the third Celtic in history yesterday, with multiple 50 plus point games. The other two are Jason Tatum and Larry Bird. So I've heard of those guys. Good, good company and and his presser afterwards, and also on Twitter, He credits his salsa lesson that he took the previous night, and then I did a deep dive, because salsa lessons, sure, and he had a little streaming of him dancing salsa. And he is, he's definitely learning, but he's good, and I'm thinking that there's something there. There's like the rhythm, and you get into the rhythm and you're shooting the basket, and you've got the rhythm going, and I think it all tracks. And I am not an expert currently at basketball or salsa. However, my favorite workout these days is Apple fitness, dancing with John. And I feel like, first of all, maybe when Jalen retires, it could be dancing with Jalen. Sure, I would love to do dancing with Jalen, but I think that I'm improving. So if I keep dancing with John, then I should be playing basketball.

Patti 53:10
Are you salsa dancing with John? Yeah?

Pottymouth 53:12
All, yeah. There's definitely a lot of salsa involved, but there's also a little bit of merengue bachata. I think that's gonna all like add to it.

Patti 53:19
Okay, so I just want to clarify, because I ate three different kinds of salsa Friday night. Is that the same thing? Do, I know, quality, not the same salsa?

Pottymouth 53:28
You know, I feel like you should get credit, though, because i is, i felt

Patti 53:33
like i was rewarded because it was very delicious. I think that it's very delicious, you know, it was, you know, a little award winning restaurant down the street. So that was a nice thing. Very good. Okay, we're also going to cross train with Olympic hockey. Congrats to 36 year old Hillary Knight, who was named to her fifth Olympic hockey roster, which is the most for any US player on men's or women's Olympic teams,

Pottymouth 53:54
five times four is 20 years that's holy, yes.

Patti 53:57
So she won gold in 2018 and she won silver medals in 2010 2014 2022 the US team is favored to win gold in 2026 I'm knocking on not wood, but I mean the wooden she currently plays for the Seattle torrent in the professional women's hockey league. Three of her teammates have also been named to the roster. But actually, the Minnesota Frost has the most players named to the roster. They have six of them, including Kendall coin Schofield, who is going to her fourth Olympics. So she's following in those footsteps. This reminds me very much of women's professional baseball and the women who are on the national team. It's like there's a small number who have been sticking with it for so long that we all know their names, and they all keep showing up. So good, yep. Just a reminder, the professional women's hockey league takeover tour, which is when, with our barnstorming, is happening right now. So look to see if it's coming to a place near you. On January 18, I will be going to their game in Washington, DC, to see New York versus Montreal, and I'm very. Excited about it. You should go see that. Because one of the things that's happening with these barnstorming tours is they're evaluating other cities for expansion teams for the Women's Hockey League. So I'm gonna go be loud. So they think that Washington, DC, DC is a very good place for women's hockey.

Pottymouth 55:14
You know, it's worked really well for the women's soccer and the women's basketball. So I think, damn it, that we deserve a hockey we go

Patti 55:21
see women's sports here in Washington, DC. So I would like to see that happen. I'm very excited about that opportunity, and I have a new quarter zip from our intern to wear. Oh, so there's that nice, there's that okay? So we got this whole week coming up with no holidays in it, and my biggest concern is I have to remember to go to work tomorrow, because I haven't gone to work in two weeks. I haven't taken two weeks off. And I don't know how long it has been super nice, and I like my job, but I don't know if I remember how to

Pottymouth 55:49
do it. I had almost two weeks. I worked that Monday into well, work in very air quotes, but I worked. I went into work that Monday and Tuesday, and so I don't know what's in store for tomorrow. There's nothing sadder, really, than a room full of high school students the day after winter break. It's, it's maybe, maybe the teacher's lounge. Yeah, is that sadder? It's, it's all pretty low. And so I do vaguely remember me thinking that I came up with some sort of, like fun activities, but, you know, fun also air quotes for the start of class. Like, it seemed

Patti 56:19
like it seemed like a good idea at the time, but when you get there, they're gonna look at you like, Oh, please, yeah.

Pottymouth 56:24
I mean, I know the plans are there. I haven't looked at them very recently, but before I left, I know that I left plans all right, yeah,

Patti 56:32
I believe in you. We can do this. We can do this. We can we can rally. We can be good at our jobs, which we love early and we have to get up early. I just turn my alarm back on. Oh, my alarm back

Pottymouth 56:44
on. There we go. This is good that we're talking about.

Patti 56:47
It really is because I have been sleeping in to like, 15 minutes past when my alarm would have gone off. I mean, so that's that's a slippery slope, right there. Yeah, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Okay, friends, so I hope that you remember to do the things that you need to do, and this first non holiday week for a little while. I also hope that you find some recommendations for us, for boyfriends, the rangers and also the Diamondbacks. And if you have ideas for that, please. Or if you want to rant about Venezuela, because we always want to do that, please find us on social media.

Pottymouth 57:13
Yeah, rant about anything really with us. We love ranting with you. Blue Sky, ncib podcast. You know, fucking Twitter is a fucking hell hole. You know what the most embarrassing Twitter dive that I did today? And I'm trying to avoid Twitter, except for when I'm looking into stuff for the podcast. And you know, I was thinking, especially for Venezuela, that that was where to go, and I looked at the official White House account. It's why would you buy? Because Venezuela, it was fucking vile. Anyway, if you're on X, Twitter, whatever, and you want to contact us, ncib podcast, I'll look at that, I think. But no more White House account, Facebook and Instagram, no crying and B ball. You know slightly better. But the very best place to find us is on Patreon. P, A, T, R, E, O, n.com/no, crying to be ball. And we have really fun people there. And, you know, I think I'm gonna put a picture of my Venezuela shirt on there. I think I should, yeah, so maybe we can get Mr. Potty mouth to take a little picture tonight. And, you know, we'll just put, we put things on there to, I don't know, liven up the place. You can reach us, you can have conversations. And the best part of being on our Patreon is it keeps the podcast going by grassroots organizing. It takes $1 a month. You can get nothing for $1 a month, but you can get the the feeling that you know that you keep no crying in baseball going. So thanks. Thanks, Patreon folks.

Patti 58:38
We appreciate you. And Happy New Year to all of our friends there. So you've come back from your trips. I hope nobody came back with it. Boy, there was a lot of flu, yeah, but yeah, so maybe loop that in with your vaccinations. And also please fight the man. Oh, my God, now more than freaking ever, send your game balls to Meredith and until next week, say goodnight. Potty mouth. Good night. You. Now.

Pottymouth 59:18
All right, you know, if I'm not, your shirt says ass ceiling instead of glass ceilings.

Patti 59:24
Maybe I'll rotate a little. Maybe I'll rotate out of my ass so it says glass is that the right thing? Is that what you were hoping for is this? Your wildest dreams come true. So much better. I'm so glad. All right?