No Crying In Baseball

Pottymouth 0:00
Music.

Patti 0:17
Hi and welcome to episode 392 of no crying in baseball, the bocce is my spirit animal episode. My name is Patty. I'm here with my friend Patty, about, hey,

Pottymouth 0:26
potty mouth, hey, I think that's a good decision. That's a good choice for a spirit animal. Yeah, you

Patti 0:30
know. So we've been talking a lot about coping mechanisms. And the intern and I went to see a bocce the school system, the montgomery county school districts, bocce tournaments. And bocce is a corollary sport, which means it's inclusive. The only way you can't be on the team is if you already played varsity sport. So it's, you know, there's adaptive, you know, tools that work for there's kids in wheelchairs and kids with, you know, it's really, it's great. And one of my dear friends is a coach for the interns alma mater, and my brother in law also coach for a neighboring school, and they were playing each other. And so we went up and we were watching, I don't know if the unit is a match, if it's a game, I don't know, but it is. It's like, it's like, serenity, man, like I every we were, like, hyper focused, yeah, and it, you know, it didn't matter in, like, the big scope of things, but it sure did matter right then. And it was so fun to be invested in it, and to just focus in these kids. And oh, my God, if I was ever going to be a coach, I'd want to coach Bucha as a corollary sport, because it was just about getting every kid to do the best that that kid can do from where they are. And everybody was having fun, and everybody clapped for everybody. And, you know, we make fun sometimes about you get an award for just showing up. But God damn it, this was great. That's so

Pottymouth 1:46
cool. You know, very funny. My somebody who I work with, her son, is on the bocce team for another high school because he's in like that. They have this Best Buddies program, I think, is what they called where, where kids team up with kids who are in different special ed programs, and as part of the program, he and his buddy play bocce together,

Patti 2:06
bocce with a buddy, bocce with a buddy. And just big congratulations to my friend's team, which is the division one champs, and my brother in law's team, which came in third, which surprised the heck out of them. And everybody played great, and it was so much fun. So Bucha is my new cupping mechanism.

Pottymouth 2:20
Yeah, that's, that's my alma mater. If you count my teaching there as an alma mater, and my kids alma mater for sure, in the same way. Yep. So, yay. All right. So onward and upward. Happy February. Here we are. Did you know what the groundhog did today?

Patti 2:34
I don't know, but it's also my mother in law's birthday, so I really focus on that. So happy birthday, grams

Pottymouth 2:40
and happy birthday, Leo. We're gonna have your birthday party here, actually, soon, very soon. After recording, I heard I saw today that there are two groundhogs. Apparently, New York wants to get in the action. So there's paskatani. What's his name? Phil in Pennsylvania, but apparently there's a Staten Island. Of course, there is a groundhog who was at odds with Phil, and I don't know which one went which way, but this way some groundhogs the winter. And so

Patti 3:09
it's either going to be winter for a while, or winter for a short while, right? Or hell

Pottymouth 3:13
freezes over, or island because, you know, Staten Island, sure. But also being February, it is Black History Month, and we will continue to celebrate it, no matter what our fucking federal government says. It is Black History Month. And I just wanted to remind folks that we need to focus on the intersection of baseball and all of these issues. The participation of United States in Born African American players is on the decline. 1991 18% of MLB players were African American, and 2023 went down to 6.2 I saw a YouTube interview with Mookie Betts who had a lot of good things to say, although I'm not sure I agree with him 100% because he was saying it's on us to be better. Like he said, it's, it's we need. He said, In the 90s, there were some amazing African American role models that people looked up to. And he said, We need to be that good. And I'm kind of like, well, I think that's probably part of it, but they're also assuming Mookie is saying Mookie like me, yeah. So they're black players and players, okay, we need to be so dynamic that kids watch that and say, oh, I want to do that instead of play basketball or play football or something. But I think, I think it's like the, you know, just a little bit of the surface. I think it's

Patti 4:26
multi pronged. And I think that's absolutely one of them, absolutely one of again, you'll see it be it, right? Oh yeah, on today's show, another old guy gets a contract. We've got the arbitration scorecard, we've got new boyfriends for Detroit and the hammers. We've got winter ball transitioning to the Serie A the police blotter features the Padres soap opera, and we've got conspiracy theories and 11 year olds, cheers, cheers.

Pottymouth 4:51
And I realized I did fuck up that Instagram video right now because I had been going over to the side so I could see all of your shirt, which says hammers, the. So if you're looking at our Instagram promo, just know that Patty's shirt actually says hammers, and it might look like another logo that you're used to from the Atlanta team. So there's a reason behind that Absolutely.

Patti 5:11
We'll talk about that in just a minute. But first the old guy, one of our favorite old guys, the one that I find is scary as hell, but he's still my favorite old guys, Max Scherzer. He's 40, so you might remember that a week or two ago, we talked about how Toronto totally missed out on Roki Sasaki, right? And they were and there was a lot of oh no, oh no, oh no. So they've decided to go the other way. Instead of the young phenom, we're going to the old, tried and true ace, Max Scherzer. They signed him for a year for $15.5 million if case you missed it. Max is a three time Cy Young winner, two time World Series championship with Texas and with the Washington Nationals. He's 11th in all time strikeouts. He's nine strikeouts behind Justin Verlander, who's the only other active player on that list of all time strikeouts, who's 10th. And this is Max's fifth team in five years. So we're definitely getting to that part of the career where he's kind of seen as a little bit of a rental. It's like we need that veteran guy. We need that help for right now, and we'll see what happens later. So good luck. Max. My San Diego boyfriend from 2023 has on Kim just got signed for a two year contract with Tampa Bay for $29 million in weirdly, this surprised me. This is the most the Tampa Bay has guaranteed a position player since Greg Vaughn in 1999 really? Yeah, yes, a position. So, wow, he's got an opt out after one year, which is kind of interesting, because he'll, you know, he'll be going at your free agency again, but next year, there'll be far fewer really good infielders like Bob Bucha and somebody else, and that's, that's it. So he may be able to negotiate with Tampa, no no no, as in the free agency class. Oh, okay, so, so there'd be less competition, so he may be in more demand. So he may be able to get a higher annual than he's getting right now, which is still pretty darn good. He had shoulder surgery. He'll he's gonna be back in May, so he's gonna start a little bit late. He's, you know, Gold Glove as a utility player. He's probably gonna start a shortstop, but he's also lots of time at second and third base. And he's kind of a problem solver for for Tampa Bay right now. He's like, the long term problem is Juan de Franco Out, out, out and good riddance. But they've got a prospect, Carson Williams, who's looking good to be the next shortstop, but he's not ready yet, so this, like one or two years of pass on kid, might be just what they're looking for

Pottymouth 7:31
there. All right, yeah, I was wondering about that contract compared to Juan de Franco, it's a difference like apples and oranges. Yeah, I think so. Okay, a baseball boyfriend that I picked last year with the mariners is staying with the mariners. And I was kind of surprised Jorge Polanco, so he was superstar with the twins for 10 years, went over to the mariners theoretically, theoretically, to solve their problems, and had a shitty year, and I saw it on my fantasy league because I was super counting on him, and he apparently was suffering from knee problems throughout the season. He had surgery in the off season, so Seattle's giving another chance, although, notably, they declined his $12 million option in November. So that can go one of two ways when that doesn't work out. You know, either the player is trying to play the field, so to speak, and maybe they can get more of what their previous option would be, or in this case, new deal with Seattle for less money. So he's got a $7.75 million contract with 7 million base salary for 2025 plus a 750,000 buyout on a player and or mutual option for 2026 so I think the mariners are sort of, you know, cautiously saying, well, let's give this another chance. And you know, he has been playing for 11 years. He's getting up there. But who knows, he might, he might bounce back.

Patti 8:57
It's the arbitration window we talked before about, you know, the players who were tendered contracts and then those who could not come to an agreement, and are now in that arbitration couple of weeks, which ends on Valentine's Day, which seems to be a weird day to end, because this is not a loving it's not an affectionate process that they're going through. Right now, the teams are up three to one over players as far as decisions, which is kind of interesting, right? So the Yankees won. They're using one and lost a lot. Won over Mark Leiter Pittsburgh was decided in favor of the team versus Dennis Santana and in favor of the team versus Johan Oviedo. The players, the only player who's been successful so far is my former angels boyfriend, Mickey maniac who who won versus the angels, he's getting $2 million versus the 1.5 that the team was offering. Now, other players who look like they were going to arbitration have settled in the meantime, including Alex fascio with the Dodgers and Jorge Matteo with Baltimore, and Michael King with San Diego, and William Contreras one. With Milwaukee. There's still five to go before that deadline. Three of them are with St Louis, Brenda, Donovan, Lars, new bar Andre polante and Washington. Nathaniel, oh, loud guy, forget which is which. You know what I mean. And with the angels, Louise, rengifo, Ren hippo, they did that, right? I think I did that right. So for context, when you hear the numbers that are agreed upon or suggested offered the union, the MLBPA does a study every year, and they study, they base these numbers on salaries, bonuses and prorated shares of signing bonuses that exist on August 31, of a season for players who are on the active roster and on the on the injured list. And this year, that was 1033 players. The league minimum is $740,000 the average salary is 4,000,006 55 366, and I really think that is pulled up because of a couple of those really extraordinary ones. This is, it's like, just like, two point something like, some change percent higher than last year. So the the rate of increase is not, you know, cost of living based at all, if we count that when we get to numbers this big, but that's where we're at. Yeah,

Pottymouth 11:08
maybe we should be looking at median, average, or things like that. Yeah.

Patti 11:12
Hey, one of your old boyfriends, Adam and Jones, your original Baltimore boyfriend, wow, yeah, is, I'm returning to Baltimore as a special assistant to the General Manager, Michael Ayas and community ambassador. And I really think for him, community ambassador is the thing. He's so beloved, so beloved in Baltimore. Four time Gold Glove winner. Five Time all star. And importantly for us here, three time Roberto Clemente, nominee, wow. And what he said was, I'm happy to be a resource for the Orioles organization. Will offer everything I've learned from past experience to help the team succeed. Baltimore has always meant so much to me, and this unique role will allow me to continue giving back to the community I love. This is a special opportunity, and I'm eager to embrace it fully. His first official duty is going to be as a guest coach in spring training.

Pottymouth 11:56
Oh, really, yeah, that's very cool. He did a bird bath last year, didn't he? He did all right? And I and that's going to be back in even better this year. So if you want to go to Baltimore and get wet, you can sit in the

Patti 12:06
bird bath two two sections this year. Wow, double the bird bath, double the fun. Yeah,

Pottymouth 12:11
in my little advice is to wait until like, June, July, July, August. You really want it, but maybe not so much. In April,

Patti 12:18
so much. Hey, we're drinking these cocktails that I don't know. They're fine, they're not to taste that I think, I think I'm not a coffee cocktail person.

Pottymouth 12:26
It's yeah. So I've been delaying drinking this because usually we are drinking in the evening, and this has coffee in it, so it didn't seem right, but I think it fuck What was it called Dirty Chai, espresso? I

Patti 12:36
think something to that effect, yeah and yeah. I think it's just not my style of cocktail. I think it's good for what it is. It's just not what I want. What

Pottymouth 12:42
I want, yeah? So luckily, well, not, I mean, it was fine. It's also gone, at least my glass. And then we have our backup beers here, and we're gonna have a mold cider in a little while, starting my

Patti 12:54
backup beer, which is, it's a wrap to Hellbender. I think we're gonna we're doing them hell spender.

Pottymouth 13:00
There we go. Anyway. Yeah, me, maybe, oh, sad to lose hell. Bender. All right, we're gonna look positive toward the future. We're gonna be picking our baseball boyfriends this week, the new guys that we have this year, because they're cool. We've been going through one guy per team, one Al, one NL per week, and we are up to Detroit, and sometimes I have a theme. We talked about that, like whether I pick the theme or it sort of comes out organically. And this week, I've got a couple of guys with a lot of experience. They're not young, but I don't think they're going to help my fantasy baseball roster. So, Mr. Potty mouth, and I were having a discussion about my Detroit pick, because I almost picked somebody else, and who seemed perfectly fine their first baseman, shit, Keith is his last name. I'm trying to remember the first anyway. Look up Detroit first basement. Seemed like a very nice guy. But then I also found Andy Ibanez from Cuba, and Mr. Ponty mouse said, go for the Cuban. And I'm glad I took his advice, because there was a lot of stuff to talk about, the Detroit Tigers being this high is a little ouch for me for last year, because we've already done Red Sox. They kind of came out of nowhere at the end of the season, bunch of young guys, or a bunch of just not flashy players, and they, you know, beat Houston and then the wild card game, and we're moving ahead. So they kind of dashed my dreams last year, but I'm excited for Detroit fans, because there's a lot of hope, and it has been a long time. Andy banyos Second basement utility player. So this is where it's a little tricky for the fantasy stuff. 31 years old, and I figured we haven't had a Cuban defection story in a while, so it's time for us to remind you what Cuban players go through in order to play baseball and MLB. So when he was a kid in Cuba, he didn't have any access to watching MLB at all. The first MLB game on Cuban TV since 1961 was in 2013 and it was on a two month. Lay and there were no Cuban players in the game. Importantly, you know, to not give that sort of impression that you too can do this. Apparently, it's starting to change now. And plus, there's social media, even though a lot of it's blocked in Cuba. But there are highlights here and there that you can find. But baseball still was always popular in Cuba, even throughout this MLB band, because there's a Cuban national league and kids played baseball. He said his first trainer was his dad, starting at age five, when they just play in the streets with whatever they had. They'd find, you know, bottle caps for balls that the bats were taped together if a bat broke, he kept using it, and just used big, you know, duct tape to put it together. And he said, Now that he's here in the United States, he said, and this is sort of a quote with my running translation, as I'm looking at it, I compare those things that we did there with what we have here in the United States. And I realized that Cuban players, we're superheroes, because we trained like that, and we went ahead and with with very little, and here we are. Now. He this took me a minute, because he's from Isla de la COVID dude in Cuba. And I was like, Isla, that's an island. Cuba is an island, so I was trying to put it together. Apparently, there are little islands off the coast of Cuba, also part of Cuba, and one is called Isla le COVID Dude, which is island of youth, which is plays into his story in just a minute. And he also played for the Isla de juventud team. Because in Cuba, you don't, you play for that where you're from. You don't sort of get, you know, recruited by, say, you know, Cleveland, even though you're from the southwest, but you play from for where you're from. Being from youth Island makes sense, because in 2013 he was the youngest player on the team to be in the World Baseball Classic at age 20, went over to Japan and his eyes open just getting off the island, getting off the little island, getting off the big Cuban Island, and seeing professional players from around the world. And that's when he first thought, you know, maybe I will go off the island and play in major league ball. So Cuba stayed in Japan for 2013 they played, got past the first round, made into the second round, and then got knocked off when Japan and the Netherlands moved on. So a year later, 2014 he flew to Haiti, and so this part of, like the Cuban defection stories, is starting to get a little muddled in my brain, especially when I was looking at players who played in the 23 World Baseball Classic, because some, like, snuck out, like on a boat, kind of snuck out, and some flew with permission, but to another country and then left. So when he talks about sort of like less hard feelings about Cuba, he says that he had permission to fly to Haiti. He didn't have permission to then cross into the Dominican Republic. But there are these, what they call street agents, or street trainers called bus COVID, which literally meet Cuban players in Haiti, bring them to the DR train them for a while, and then get them seen and get them signed. And so he trained with a buscon for eight months, and then he got a minor league contract with the Rangers in 2015 at age 22 with a $1.6 million bonus. So he was pretty good coming out of Cuba. He debuted in 21 and then he was claimed off waivers by the Tigers in November of 22 this past November, he signed a one year contract for $1.4 million so he's sticking with Detroit for next year. He said about this whole experience of leaving Cuba, one of the toughest things is you're leaving your house, you're leaving your island, you're leaving your country. You don't know when you're going to see your family again. That was one of the biggest burdens I carried when I was leaving home. So imagine having that while you're slugging through the minor leagues and trying to, you know, make a name for yourself. He did play for Cuba in the 23 World Baseball Classic, which was the first time that players were allowed to play for Cuba. And we were there, and we saw the protests, and they were mighty, and Cuban players MLB Cuban players were very divided. So there were the players like arodis Chapman and Diaz who wanted to form a Cuban team not affiliated with the Cuban Government and the World Baseball and Softball Commission said no. For WBC, you kind of have to have a country. It was a nice try. But there were a bunch of players who went and played with Cuba, including Johannes, esperez, Johan mancado, Luis Robert and they did it for, for various reasons, you know. And I think it basically comes back to connecting to your heritage, connecting to your family. For for my guy, for Andy bananas, it was actually a really tough decision, because at that point, there's a crowded infield for the Tigers, and it took him out of that spring training time to do that battle for third base, which he didn't really get. And who knows if this had anything to do with it, but AJ Hinch was understanding. AJ Hinch, to give him credit, said we fully support it for him to be able. Represent his country, for him to represent his ancestry. It's such an important aspect for these players, non baseball life. And Andy has a Cuban flag tattoo in his arm. In 2024 it was only the second time that a Cuban team was in Williamsport at the Little League. Did I say that? Right? I always get that wrong. Little League World Series and Andy Ibanez, not only like just visited to say hi to the kids, he spent the whole day with the Cuban team. He took the bus with them. He walked to the ballpark with them. He watched a game with them. He gave them all tigers hats and gear. So he's really, I mean, I love it when the guys are not only putting their money in a good place, but putting his whole body and his feet in the right place. So update, MLB still can't sign players directly out of Cuba, thanks to I wrote fuck face here. I think that's being kind. But in 2018 the guy who was president then, who's president now blew a deal that was controversial, but in hindsight, I kind of feel like they should have that deal with any country. The deal was that Cuban players would be able to sign directly if the Cuban national league got money for it. And so what our government at the time said is we don't want to be giving any money to Cuba. Well, if it maybe we should be doing that everywhere. Maybe we should be investing in Dominican baseball, like giving the money back to the country that the kids are coming from to develop the next generation. That doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. So we'll see what happens with that. But I don't think anything for the next four years. Unfortunately, there's gonna be a lot of rafts. And you know, going through Haiti Ibanez is in the lineup a lot against lefties. He's a good lefty hitter, and he pinch hits, hits with lefty relievers. Last year, he was in for 99 games. Not too bad. But he really ended the season with a bang, because Game Two tigers, Astros, wild card, which is, you know, the game they needed to take it, which they did. The Tigers were down two to one top of the eighth, bases loaded, two outs. Hater pitching one of our, you know, least favorite relief pitchers. There are a few, but he's really up there, and he gets to pinch hit. I mean, talk about like a pressure situation, and he hits a Grand Slam. So the Tigers won the game and moved on. Andy lives in Miami now with his family in the off season. His parents are here, and he feels really fortunate. He said, I have my family, my mom, my dad, live here and can see me play. I feel completely blessed. I couldn't quite figure out who his sweetie is. It seems like he has a sweetie. Seems like he has a son. More on that, maybe someday when I figure it out.

Patti 22:37
My Detroit guys, a little brother, Jason, 24/3 base from San Antonio, Texas. You may be familiar with his older brother, Josh young, oh, wow, yes, yes. And he they used to play so much wiffle ball in their backyard that the backyard turned to dirt that lawn was gone. He's been following his brother Josh through all of these different levels of baseball. He's three years younger, so they were almost never they were on the same team, but not the same time, multiple, multiple times. For instance, as kids, Josh Young was part of a team that won a youth baseball tournament in Cooperstown. Oh, wow. Three years later, guess who did that? Jace Young did the same thing, right? High school was the only time that they were on the same team at the same time, because Jace was a freshman, Josh was a senior. They both went to Texas Tech, but again, not at the same time, because Josh got drafted, you know, after junior year. So freshman year, Josh was all for Jace. Josh was already gone, but to like leave a little bit behind, Josh got him shin guards for Christmas that said little JJ on it, right? So both of them are first round draft picks. Jace was drafted by the Tigers the first round in 2022 for a four and a half million dollar signing bonus. Spent the rest of that season high a in 2023 with high a, double A, and started the last season in triple A, didn't get called up until August. But here's what's cool about that, all right, so the comparisons started happening right away between him and Josh. So his call up weekend, they combined them because there's a staff for everything. And said between Jace and Josh, they had seven hits and 25 plate appearances and three walks. Jace had all the walks. Josh said he chases way less than I do so. So two weeks after this debut, Josh's team checks into Chicago in advance of a game, but Detroit's there, playing right there. So he finally gets to see as a fan, he gets to watch his brother Jace play, which was pretty exciting. And Jace and that occasion, went to two for five with a Go ahead single. They still talk every day, and they share intel on pictures. We. I think it's kind of hilarious, because they are not on the same team. So he spent two months in the majors, right? Because he came up in August, he did make the playoff roster. Didn't have a lot of time the playoff roster, but that wasn't enough time for him to lose eligibility. So he will be a rookie this year, and I may have my eye on him. There's a lot of talk that he may have a little more juice. Jace may have more juice than Josh, right? So he might kind of overtake Big Brother sometime soon, but he just came out of the Detroit just had their rookie career development program last week, and they as as a group of rookies, they cross trained at a Red Wings game. This was cool. Chase's first hockey game. He had never been there. He doesn't know how hockey works. He said he told, I told, I told everybody else, you got to tell me when it's time to cheer because I have no idea. Although he sounds like he could be a hockey player to me, because, like so he had wrist surgery in October. He had an injury mid season, and he played through it, which, you know, I have mixed feelings about it. And his response to it was, I would have done anything for the team, anything they needed, if that was to run on the field and do some crazy tackle of somebody, I would have done it. Which makes me think he could play hockey, sure, right? Crazy tackle. So there's other questions for it, because he's a third baseman, and Bregman doesn't have a home yet, right? Alex Bregman doesn't have a home yet, and Detroit is one of the teams making noise about that. So there were these, like sort of veiled questions, like, you know, you may be the starting third baseman unless, but Detroit is kind of looking for a veteran third baseman, which they mean Bregman when they say that. So how do you feel about that? And Jason, I don't really worry myself too much about it. At the end of the day, I can only control what I can control and the Tigers, if that's what they want to do, that's what they want to do, I can't control that, but I can control how I show up to the field and how I go about my work. He has a dog tag that he wears. It's got his initials on one side, and on the back it says, My dear grandson, always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you know, and smarter than you think. And that was the gift from his grandmother the year before she died. And so he really treasures that, that relationship, and he points to the sky for her after every home run.

Pottymouth 27:10
Wow. Yeah. Well, you know, there's a ton of Bregman rumors out there. And in general, I just, I just shutting down the rumors. You know, there's rumors with him in Toronto, room is with him in the Red Sox. And so I don't know. I think hopefully Jace will be,

Patti 27:24
yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't want to have picked him too soon, but I'm hopeful. I'm very hopeful,

Pottymouth 27:31
right? And then there's also the elder statesman thing, and who, you know, maybe it's good to have somebody like you were talking about with Hassan Kim. Maybe it's just good stuff to have somebody who can, you know, show you the ropes and get you in there. The other story that I just have to say, because I thought of it when you mentioned hockey. There's a great clip online, and I hope I can find it to put it in the notes of Kike watching a hockey game. Oh, no, so he's See, so he's Kike. And also, side note, on the side note, the rumor that I'm fucking ignoring is him going to the Yankees. Apparently they might be interested in them. And that would just be, he could not do that, but him at a hockey game is amusing. So first, very animated, like he knows what he's doing, and he said, icing, icing. I just know icing from a Cinnabon. So, yeah, who I adore. All right, back to back to boyfriends. Current boyfriends, Atlanta. We're on to the hammers. And I said I wasn't gonna pick any more catchers, but looking through the Atlanta roster, it was no choices left. It was hard. There was one starting lineup choice that I looked into, and he's in, I can't remember who it was, infielder into hunting. And I was like, you know, hunting and fishing, and I liked Charlie Blackman, and I kind of, like overlooked that for him, you know, because the outdoorsy thing I like, but then I just thought, I gotta just look a little bit deeper and find maybe I should, you know, not think about my lineup and think about this fun podcast and character. And there's Chadwick Trump, catcher, catcher, backup catcher, also. So not good for my lineup. 29 years old, but he's from Aruba. And there are so few arubans in major leagues, there are two Xander bogarts Who we can't pick is the other one. So I like Aruba, and I had a whole bunch of Curacao ones the other the other year, a couple years ago. So I figured, let's talk about Aruba. Let's go international. Talk about Chadwick, Trump, signed by the reds in 2013 and then let go free agent, minor contract signing by the Giants in 2020 and then in 2021 Atlanta claimed him off waivers. So he was, you know, didn't play a lot of games. Didn't have anything too outstanding for a while, but when he went to Atlanta, that was a good match for this Aruban. So because growing up in Aruba, there were two options, two more options than there are in Cuba, but two options to watch Major League Baseball. One was Atlanta on TBS, and the other one was the Cubs on WGN. And of course, at. That time when he was growing up, Andrew Jones was on Atlanta, so that's who he watched. And he he Andrew Jones, notably, is from Curacao, so the ABC islands. But Jones's father was actually a Reuben, which I didn't know. I do not know that. So the big connection here for for Chadwick, he met, got to meet his idol before working together at the World Baseball Classic in 2017 when Chadwick was on the Netherlands team. And now it's a lot easier to hang out with him, because Andrew Jones is special assistant for baseball operations. By the way. Andrew Jones, I have very mixed feelings about because all sorts of great play, and I know you have your your past resentment against Atlanta with him, it's his eighth year on the Hall of Fame ballot. He didn't get it, but he just missed 66.2% there's also a very credible domestic assault allegation against him from 2012 that that we'll link to, and you can look into if you want. So as far as being an I don't, I don't know, I don't know, but there it is. Just to

Patti 31:08
be clear, my beef is actually with chipper, the other Jones, yep,

Pottymouth 31:12
the other Jones, yep, two Joneses. All right, I'm Jones and too much. So Chadwick debuted in 2020 but since 2020 he's only played 59 major league level games so far last year was the most since 2020 he had 19 games last year and had 24 in 2020 last year he did pretty decent, 250, average, 624, ops. So average, decent, better than he had before. But his minor league stats last year took a huge leap over anything that he had done since 2015 so in triple A, he was batting 303, with 835, ops, he's showing his stuff and showing him being ready, because that's his best since 2015 when he was 3027, 62 his stats for 2022 are hysterical for Major League Baseball, because it shows him with a 750 average at a 2000 ops for the season. But he played one game and went three for four with two doubles and three RBI, so looks like he had a great 22 but yeah, that's why

Patti 32:17
they have a number of qualifying. You know, played appearances before these count exactly

Pottymouth 32:21
because it could that can go the other way and look really ugly. So when I did the scandal search, which we tend to do, to try to not pick assholes, this is kind of why I also wanted to talk about him. Because the scandal is that when he went to Atlanta, he was given number 45 his last name is Trump. So there was an article in, I think it was the athletic that said Chadwick Trump is about to sell more jerseys than any backup catcher ever. When he changed from his previous 48 to 45 he it wasn't his idea. He asked for 14 or 60, and he was given 45 by fun, some fucking asshole. I'm like, I'm so pissed. Some asshole in the Atlanta clubhouse or in the Atlanta I don't know who makes those decisions, somebody that's unreal. Fucked with him. That is unreal, right? Absolutely fucked with him. He's from Aruba, and he's, you know it. I don't know apolitical is not a thing, but he's trying to be so. And I think being a player in Atlanta and under these circumstances, wow, he said he doesn't play it. Pay attention to American politics. He did not endorse, nor unendorse, whatever the opposite of that is the that's it the president. But fuck those guys who gave him that shirt because it's led to, Oh, great. It's led to a whole bunch of fans chanting trom 45 like, whenever he's up and like, he just kind of brushes it off, like, Oh, it's a nice number, but What the actual fuck so I am genuinely pissed off about that, but at least they can't change him to 47 because that number has been retired for Tom Glavin. Thank God So Sean Murphy is the clear and solid starter. But I, and I'm gonna call him tradwick, because I can't even fucking say his last name, because it's like that, that like play, that people said a

Patti 34:16
little bit like, like LA cross player. But I'm okay with that, given the choices of what we can call, yeah,

Pottymouth 34:20
I think of Black Panther, yeah. But you know, okay, there's that that's much better, sure. So he could finally be the first backup, because last year, Travis Dennard, who to know, I always fuck up his last his pronunciation went to the angels, and because last year, that solid month was when Murphy was hurt, and so Chadwick was the backup catcher to Travis Dennard, and he did really well in the month that he was up there, no errors, no passballs. Caught five out of 12 attempted steals on base brought down the era Fernando Lopez, who had been not 1.99 over the season. So pretty fucking good. But when, when I. Chadwick caught him. It was 1.42 in those games. So he was in the World Baseball Classic of 23 we would have loved to have seen him, but Netherlands didn't make it out of pool. A which was one of those weird things, the whole pool was tied two and two. So it had to go down to the tiebreaker rule, which was runs allowed divided by defensive outs recorded. Some mathematician did pretty well over there. So that was when we saw all those Netherland guys.

Patti 35:30
They were like, great. I loved them. Yeah. Great shirts. Yeah. All their shirts had their favorite quotes from baseball movies. On the back, they all had different quotes. And of course, it was us. We did have a picture taken with the guy who had, there's no crying in baseball in the back

Pottymouth 35:43
of his shirt. Yay. So yay for World Baseball Classic. I think he's all in for that. And what I love, love about him is that he's dedicated to giving back in Aruba, especially to the kids. He said, quote, I'm very, very involved, which is something that I really take to heart, because that's my home. He has a non profit called high rise sports venue building, which is currently right now, Building a facility with two baseball fields, a gymnasium, meeting rooms and a playground, oh, and beach tennis courts and more. And he also works around the tiny island on other youth baseball baseball fields, and gives motivational speeches saying, I think they don't see it because we're such a small island. So I think I'm living proof that everything is possible, no matter where you come from. And I love his. What do you call that his? At on on that x place and Instagram, it's tropical storm, nice with an O tropical storm. Hey,

Patti 36:41
I don't think we explained why we call them the hammers, right? So, you know, we have our guidelines here for our podcast, and we do not use racist names for for teams. So this, we could say the Atlanta baseball team, we've chosen to go with the hammers because, you know, they want to lean into their association with, you know, Henry Aaron, yep, hammer and Henry Aaron, and so we think they should call them the hammers, yeah, and

Pottymouth 37:08
as and as your shirt, like, well, shows it's an easy fix. It's like the Cleveland thing. It was an easy fix, easy

Patti 37:13
fix, easy fix. It can happen. So I picked that, that, that clear and steady guy, Sean Murphy, the catcher. He's 30, good choice. He's an Ohio boy, which is also was nice. He's from. He went to Centerville High School. He was a walk on at Wright State University, which is very close to, that's in Dayton, which is very close to where I went to college. So I'm very familiar with Wright State he didn't get a full ride anywhere. He was a walk on because he was small. He hadn't grown into, what did we say last week, his man body, something like that. He hadn't done that yet as a freshman, he was five, five. He's now six, three. Wow, that's a lot of growth. It took him a while to get there, right. So he said, so he was, like, overlooked, even though his fundamentals were good, it was like they just couldn't see him, right? He said, It was just one of those things where I just kept working, kept grinding. I always thought I was good enough. And it was one of those things where I was undersized and I was just waiting for my growth spurt to kick in. So I was like, I'm waiting for it. I'm waiting for it. I'm still waiting until then. I was just gonna keep working on the fundamentals and those baseball skills. So when I finally did grow, I had a good foundation for the strength that I was developing, and it absolutely worked. So he walks on to Wright State. His pitching coach said this guy was born to catch they said he could do things that nobody else could. There's a story that and practice, he backhanded a ball that was in the dirt and he side armed it, and he threw out the fastest player on the team by 20 feet, holy shit. And the guys on the team are like, that's not like, normal, right? So he was like, you know, he was this quiet, unassuming guy with these mad, mad skills, right? He was drafted by Oakland in the third round in 2016 he debuted in September of 2019 with one of those fairy tale debuts. His his first hit was an opposite field home run, wow, during the same game where he caught his shut out.

Pottymouth 39:01
That's the debut. Yeah,

Patti 39:03
yeah. He got he had Gold Glove in 2021 traded to Atlanta in December. 2022 has since signed a six year extension. He was the starting catcher for the all star game in 2023 I'm glossing over all this. I want to tell you four quick stories. Cool, right, all right. First one, when he was five, his mom tells the story. They were eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches together, and mom says, What do you want to be when you grow up? And he says, Mark McGuire Sure. And she said, you know you can't be him, but you can be like him. And he said, that's what I'm going to do. And his mom said, Great, have another sandwich. Second story, his dad, Mike, says you don't learn about your kids, and this involves whether they play sports or not, until you hear stories from other people later on. So he was told this story by the JV baseball coach at Centerville High School. Tells tells Sean's parents that Sean, as a varsity player was. Brought donuts every single day for the junior varsity team, every single day Sean reports, and they were just going in early. And I was a little bit older, so I was yelling at the car. I think I would just get donuts, because it was always cool when someone brought me donuts. And I thought it'd be cool if I brought them donuts. So every single day and bringing them donuts also meant hanging out with them and talking with them and like building these relationships and all of that. So that was very cool. Story number three, while he was in the wider leagues. Okay, so, you know, he's 30 now, right? So, so do some math, he had to give up his 2004 Ford Ranger, which he did not want to ever give up. His friends say, I think he replaced the starter six times. We think there were holes in the floor of the car. He loved his car so much. He's like, it keeps going. Why would I buy a new car? Finally, his mechanic says you cannot drive this car anymore. It is no, I cannot keep this car safe for you. So he buys a new car. His new car is a 2009 Silverado. Apparently, he was still driving the Silverado when he got traded to Atlanta, really, I don't know what he's got. Now, it might still be that Silverado, but he was like, it runs, why would I throw money around when I have a car that I love? And it runs last story, when he was getting married to his now wife, Carly, they said, no gifts, please. Please donate to St Vincent de Paul's home shelter. So how do we not get this guy as a boyfriend sooner? Because all of these things are like, absolutely mad, mad boyfriend.

Pottymouth 41:27
What else here? It might be just the right thing at just the right time. Might be you never might be really good. I was just thinking that, like those kids who were in JV now, can say, I remember when that guy brought me donuts. Yes, yeah. How cool, yep,

Patti 41:42
and he had this terrible car.

Pottymouth 41:47
Good donuts. Yeah. All right, it's, it's, let's continue on the happy for just a minute. It's nice to have good news for a change. It's been a fucking rough couple weeks here, folks, we're here with you, but the Royals. Kansas City Royals make February free at the Negro Leagues Baseball museum. And I didn't realize this is the fourth year that they're doing it. So you can go for free for the month of February. Even cooler is usually the Negro Leagues Museum is just open on weekends, but for February, there are hours on Mondays and Wednesdays, so if you are heading into that area, check our show notes for the details, and you can go hang I would love to go, but, man, February is tight. Yeah, a little bit Kansas City in February, that's for sure.

Patti 42:33
Yeah, nope. That's the whole thing. That's the whole thing. Hey, so moving from that great news to soap operas back to the Padres ownership, there's been one, one change with the Padres ownership soap opera, upheaval in finally, family drama. So Matt sailor, the, you know, the one of one of the many, many brothers of the the late owner accused shield, the widow of the previous owner of tanking the rocky Sasaki, you know, the whole negotiations because of how she timed the lawsuit. Wow. And you know what, they're not, he's not, wrong, right, right?

Pottymouth 43:07
Like Sasaki basically, you know, sort of in inferred that, boy, it's a shit show over there. But

Patti 43:11
the kids said, you know, one of the things about the Dodgers is, like the stability, right? And his agent said, we knew it was an issue, the timing of it appeared oddly strategic, but they also haven't done another damn thing, including all of the time in the off season before she filed this lawsuit. So I mean, okay, this one, sure, but what have they been doing all of this time? They've made no meaningful additions, no changes, no anything, and all of this time. So I think that's a little suspect.

Pottymouth 43:42
I really feel for Padres fans, because they were so long suffering. And then there were, like, a few years of real promise and excitement and spending money for a change, and now they

Patti 43:53
sold out all of them, all of their season tickets, you know, well in advance, because they were hopeful from this past season, and now they're kind of getting screwed.

Pottymouth 43:59
Oh, man, all right, I'm gonna go down to the warmth and wrap up Dominican ball, Venezuelan ball, and head us into the serie del Caribe, which is happening right now. And I just want to do my little happy dance, because my teams in both the Dominican Republic and in Venezuela pulled through and got the championship. So the Cardinals de Lara won in six games over the Bravos de Margarita, I think, and the Leones de la cogido won in game seven in the most exciting way over the Tigres de lice. And even cooler, on each of those team a baseball boyfriend was MVP. So woo hoo for potty mouth. Points here. So in lead on in Dominican Republic Junior Caminero, who just go back a few weeks when I picked him for Tampa Bay, I think like talking about Tampa Bay's future, it's big with him. He i. Am so excited to see him. He is gonna make my lineup. I hope. I think so. He's the one who was key in the Leonese winning game seven, top of the ninth. He hit the Go ahead home run. They were down. I think it was tied five to five at that point. He went ahead six to five top of the ninth, he had a 56 second tour around the bases. So he flipped that bat like, so high, so high, like, high fived all the teammates then ran to first base, did like a little strut, had like a dabbing incident at third base. Finally made it home, and one of his teammates was, like, pointed to home plate. Like, step on it, step on it. Like, don't forget, this part was

Patti 45:46
not a walk off. This was the top of right. So this is really a thing. So it's

Pottymouth 45:51
huge, because they're in the Lisa stadium full of Lisa fans, like, you can see a couple of escojiro fans in there. So I'm thinking, oh my god, the and I was watching, the other team is going to be so pissed off, and they're going to come back in the bottom of the ninth. So sure enough, bottom of the ninth. Tigrays were putting in some challenge. They had two guys on second and third base. Bottom of the ninth, two outs, serious hit into right field. Socrates Brito made the play of the fucking game, and he didn't get MVP Junior Cameron Arrow did for the for the for the home run or the selling. Oh, my God, right, probably both. But holy shit, that catch was like, if he had missed that catch, that would have been a walk off. Wow, that would have been a walk off. And they would have laughed in junior cameras face. And he was like, so, you know nothing, there's definitely the MLB celebrations that people go, Oh, well, that's a little too much. This was over fucking top. It would not happen here. So Junior Cameron arrow, not only got MVP of the finals, but also of the season. In the finals, he batted 417 in the playoffs, with 20 in 22 games of the playoffs, with four homers and 20 RBI. And there's some great clips of him dancing in the parade, in the streets with the people. He's got some rhythm. I've got to say a little What the fuck to Kevin cash? So I don't know. I think I thinking about a little bit more. I think Kevin cash has a little PTSD from the whole situation with wander Franco, because apparently he's on speed dial constantly with junior camineri. Like, how you doing, how you doing? Like, while he's in and there I saw this interview of coming arrow with a Dominican reporter, and he literally gets the He's telling him in the interview, if Kevin cash calls me, he doesn't want it to go two rings, I have to pick up on the first ring. And right then Kevin cash actually, oh my God, and he picks it up, and he shows it to the interview guy, and he's like, yeah, he's here. And Kevin cash is saying, Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt, but apparently Kevin cash told him to dye his hair back so it didn't have the little blonde streaks at the end. I don't know what the fuck like. It's still like a pretty decent length for Q heart. But is that necessary? I think he's just being a little

Patti 48:14
stressed. Yeah. I mean, this is not the Yankees we're talking about here. Why are we doing this?

Pottymouth 48:19
Yeah, I don't know. Calling him every few minutes. We'll see. I hope he does well. So the leonies have now moved on to the study of the Caribbean, and they get to do reinforcements, because Junior Cameron narrow, see afore mentioned, Kevin cash, being being paranoid is not going he is not playing with the team right now, but they got Robinson canal, who is just the Energizer Bunny, and he's going on forever, a little, by the way, on the, on the whole playoff situation in the Dominican Republic. In the Tigres dugout during game seven, was Juan Soto, and we had talked about him a couple weeks ago being in the tigrays game, supporting that kid who had, you know, had that really emotional video, very, very poor in the Dominican Republic, and he showed him around Tigray. Juan Soto took him around the tigrays game, and the dugout. Go back a couple weeks to hear that, but apparently Soto just stayed like he didn't go back to New York for amazing day with the Mets. And there's not a really clear story at who's at fault here, but the Mets publicized that he would be there. Oh no, and the Mets said that he had flight difficulties while he was partying in the dugout for the tigrays. So I don't know who said what to whom, but it's not a good look for starting off a big new season with the Mets. Oops, I'm just gonna assume the best for Juan Soto, and you know, we'll go from there. All right, Venezuela il de Maro Vargas was the MVP of the finals. I picked him a few years back. Shit. I think when he was with the D backs, he's with the D backs. Now he was with the Nationals for a minute. But. No longer. He batted 556, with 15 hits and two homers in the finals. He was the veteran leader. They called him El Capitan, and the batting coach said that he was a combination of discipline with enthusiasm. He's actually listed as a non roster invite right now for spring training for the D backs. I thought he was a for sure thing. He is playing in the serio de carribe, which is really weird for an MLB player. So, hmm, we'll see what happened the first game of the Serie A was an emotional thing for me, because it was the carnelias against the Leones, my Venezuelan team against my Dominican team. The Leones shut them out two to nothing. Saturday night, the Leones played the Japan breeze that would they didn't get to play the first day. They played the second day, and it was not pretty. They lost 12 to one. They have lovely pink uniforms and logo. And Alex Ramirez, their their coach, manager from Venezuela, I think, is doing his best. He actually, on his Instagram recently showed one of their players already signed in the Mexican League. So that's his deal here. He's trying to get his Japanese players, you know, connected with other leagues, so that there's maybe a little bit of an interchange. So we'll see what happens. The schedule is going on all week. You can watch baseball this week. Final game is 10pm Eastern, Standard Time on Friday. Check the show notes for the schedule. Last bit of international news corrections department. Thank you. Tom in episode 390 I mentioned Joseph dang from the Sudan being signed by the Dodgers as the second African player after the 2024 pirate signing of Armstrong lahozi from Uganda, and the article that I read was wrong, because gift no go pay from South Africa was actually the first African born player to reach the majors with the pirates in 2017 and he played with Toronto in 2018 and apparently that's as long as his MLB career went. Also Taylor Scott from South Africa, who's a white South African pitcher, is active with Houston. I tried to find if there were any others. Please let us know. If you know of any other African players. I would be very curious to know Interesting.

Patti 52:14
Interesting. We're going to follow up last week's story about the 11 year old in Los Angeles, finding the the skeins debut hatch card, because now there's conspiracy theories, and I do love me a conspiracy theory. I don't have enough, right? Okay, so I don't think I was clear about this when we told the story, the unnamed 11 year old did not actually pull the card itself. There was a redemption card, right? This redemption card that you use, you redeem, to get the very expensive, very valuable, right, right? So he redeemed it on january 3. Remember, he got it for Christmas. Okay, so on january 3, they redeemed it, but the delivery of the card was delayed twice because this child's family had to evacuate their home two times because of the LA wildfires, their home is fine. Oh, but they had to leave their home multiple times so that all the suspicion because people on, you know, social media, nothing better to do. And they thought this is too much of a fairy tale. There this kid opening this on Christmas, and He's 11, and they were suspicious because the announcement was delayed by a long time, because, remember, we didn't hear about it until much later in January. And usually someone either is opening these packages on a live stream, or they are, you know, announcing on their own social media right away, and they didn't believe like any of this, oh, this 11 year old were protecting his anonymity, and the only communication was through tops, including sharing this kid's journal entry, which, oh no, that's gotta be fake, whatever. So fanatics collectibles, which is the auction house that's been, you know, contracted with, said, are there some things that, with perfect hindsight, we would do or not have done to dispel conspiracy theories? Yes, but I'm proud of the fact that we protected the anonymity of a father and an 11 year old boy, right? So the athletic interviewed this boy and his family, and the mom said there's another reason why they weren't being vocal about, not just like because there's this very valuable thing happening with is it's been a really hard time in the community. It's not the time to be walking around and saying, I got the golden ticket. Yeah, right. So they're also being careful about, you know, their context, right? And then she told the story that I just just love that's such an 11 year old kid thing. Said the first stage, this is the mom again, telling the story. The first day, he said, I want to split it evenly with my brother for college education. And we're like, Oh, we're so proud of you. That's so sweet. And then the next day, he was quiet, and he said, Mom, do you think it might be possible that I take a little bit before we start saving education, maybe buy some more packs of cards? Sure. So that's how I know this is a real story. Yeah. So the um, the actual auction will be in March, so of course, we will report back to the class about how much they're actually splitting before or after they take a little off to buy just a few more cards. Yeah. ALL Yay. What's happening this week?

Pottymouth 55:01
So let's see. We're recording on February 2, February 5, everybody is National Girls and Women and Sports Day, and find a way to celebrate. I suggest giving some money to baseball for all, because they're doing all sorts of cool stuff. Or is find your local girls League, or local Little League that has girls playing, and just encourage do what you can to help girls play baseball, because that is the future. Grow the game.

Patti 55:29
Also this week, there will be a couple of beers cheered for our intern, happy birthday. Intern, happy

Pottymouth 55:35
birthday. Intern, Oh, and if you're still partying at the end of the week, Friday night, 10 o'clock serie de Caribe finale.

Patti 55:43
All right. All right, hey, so again, I recommend Bucha as a coping mechanism. Please feel free to share your coping mechanisms with us and on the Corrections Department. Of course, you can always find us on social media,

Pottymouth 55:55
sure look to the blue sky or the dark X and write in either one of those places where n, C, i, b, podcast, Facebook and Instagram and no crying and B ball, join the fun on Patreon. Thank you. Patreon friends, you really keep us going. That's P, A, T, R, E, o, n.com/no, crying and be ball. And we're putting stuff like our transcripts up there, but transcripts are free to everybody. We're posting them with with an open link. But also, you know other ways to hang out and connect with us and just show some appreciation. So thanks. Thanks, guys.

Patti 56:28
Hey, get boosted. Fight the man is the right thing to do now more than ever, send your game balls to Meredith and until next week, say, Good night potty mouth. Good night potty mouth. You

Pottymouth 56:54
it looks so much better than it did before.

Patti 56:56
Well, looks can be deceiving, but not this time. This time looks are everything okay. We're gonna say it makes me feel like I should fluff my hair a little bit. My hair a little bit. Everything.