No Crying In Baseball

Patti 0:17
Hi and welcome to episode 399 of no crying in baseball, the podcast combat episode. My name is Patty, and I'm here with my friend, Pottymouth

Pottymouth 0:27
,Hey there. I'm clearly very curious to hear about the combat, but I also feel like 399 sounds like a price, like we're getting a bargain, right? Exactly? Yeah, yeah.

Patti 0:38
Next week the price goes up to a flat for four bucks? Yeah, no, that's for sure. The combat references, for those of you who've already seen ephes, I went last night with, with, with the intern and and my brother in law, and the audience was definitely of a type. In fact, we got there before the movie started, and other people who are waiting looked at us and said,

ephes, like, yes, were you dressed for the part?

I just think we have that, that that look, just that, that look. Yeah, I had a lovely time. Try to make time to see it, understand the pace is very slow. It is like an afternoon of watching baseball. Well, that tracks, because ethos is very slow. Yeah. I mean, that it was named for a reason, and it's lovely, and I had a great time, and it was funny and it was sweet, and I'm very worried about one of the older characters getting home safely, just because he's a sweet old guy and he's dark out. I mean, that's how invested I was. So, yeah, I hope, I hope you all can find a time to go and looking forward to watching it again sometime. Oh, that's excellent.

Pottymouth 1:41
So you had a much more exciting weekend than I did. Weekend than I did. Not a lot happening here. I did catch a couple of the Dodgers games last week, and then the next day, felt very sad to not be able to turn, like, turn on and have breakfast baseball. So I think I need to, of course, you know, go back to CPBL and watch some tiny Taiwanese baseball, because it was really fun. I just like watching baseball first thing in the morning when I'm not feeling too excited to be getting up and going to work. And yeah, I note that you refer to them both as Dodgers games. That's terrible. That is so, I mean, they ended up being Dodgers games, yeah. But I'm like, huh, right, right. It was. I mean, oh boy, I feel very guilty because there were folks around and I, you know, I have zero hard feelings against the Cubs. They're lovely, and they put up a good fight. But, but, yeah, that's about it. But, and I talked to my dad, hi dad, and he agrees with me that the Red Sox should trade Raphael Devers for a pitcher. So let's see if they listen to us.

Patti 2:41
All right. Well, if Bob wants that, I think it's a go. I think so too. On today's show, we're shopping and watching in Tokyo, Ron lays down some rules. That's not what dei means our starting lineups, and we've got fun cup fashion and fanatics collect

Pottymouth 2:58
cheers, cheers, and we are finishing our first, our starter beer.

Yes, well, I'm finishing mine too.

This is the one from Blue Jacket. This is the hoppy pilsner, I think. And then we're gonna split a couple others. So we're in the fun part of the season where I clear out all the comments in the house, because we're between Purim and Passover. So all the what in the house, the comets, the stuff that you can't eat during Passover, basically. So beer counts because it's good, it's good greens in it. So we've got to clear out the beer. If you got to do it, you got to do it, and you're such a good friend for helping us.

Patti 3:33
I'm always here for you, and I support all of your rituals. But I'm wondering if we could be drinking silly yak brewery.

Pottymouth 3:44
Oh, well, not if it has,

Patti 3:47
because free, but not, not in the right way.

Pottymouth 3:49
I think it still has some wheat in it. I'm pretty sure. Okay, so not that I'm trying to bend the rules. I mean, we're doing fine, right, right? And, you know, we do have the there's a few ciders actually, that the intern brought last or whenever the intern was here. Thank you very much. That I didn't realize we're in the refrigerator until I just started cleaning out the refrigerator, and I didn't know that happened either. This is exciting. Now that's that's going to be our Passover beverage. I think, perfect. There we go.

Patti 4:13
Perfect. We really should give him a raise. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. Hey, back to those Dodgers games that were actually the Tokyo series. So the breakfast baseball that potty mouth referred to was actually the opening, opening games in the MLB season this past, Tuesday and Wednesday, the Dodgers versus the Cubs and the Tokyo Dome. Dodgers won both. But the things that I'm most interested in are not, however, the game itself and who did what in the game? You know, shocking. Oh, tiny Homer, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, sure, but the Tuesday game, the first game, averaged 25 million viewers in Japan alone. In Japan alone, that was the most watched MLB game in Japan's history, right? The souls, the Soul series, you know, the Preview. This year averaged 18 point 7 million viewers. So there's but also we had, you know, we had Japanese pictures starting against each other, yeah? I mean, there was a lot. There's a lot invested, yeah.

Pottymouth 5:12
And how cool for Roki Sasaki to be able to debut as an MLB pitcher in Japan, right? Crazy. Also,

Patti 5:18
back to the printing money theme from last week, this event had the most merchandise sales of any international MLB event, up 320% from the London series, 320% and they claim they sold 500,000 items. They were doing 1000 transactions per hour. And of course, the Otani jersey with the Tokyo series patch on it was the most sold single item at one point. The line to get into the store at the Tokyo Dome before the second game was about 1000 people long, and they were standing out in the snow. Oh, right. It was fanatics says. And I don't know if all of what their county was on site, or if it was like Tokyo series related things, it's all online. It wasn't clear about that, but this event raked in $40 million in sales just this two game Tokyo series, most ever for a special event, and that'd be like Super Bowl or All Star game, or even, like, World Series, which is obviously a multi day event, but this was just outrageous, just outrageous,

Pottymouth 6:27
you know, just, I think, like, the stars just all aligned for that. You know, with the Roki Sasaki debut and the Otani fever, and having three out of the four pitchers being Japanese, there was, like, so much going on. And the the play was fun. I mean, I didn't get to watch all all of both games, but I saw some of her breakfast, and then went to work, and then watched a little bit at work, and got to show my students a little bit about this. Is actual baseball happening now. I'm not going to be able to show it to you on a regular basis, because this is a time zoney thing. It took them a little bit to compute that, but I'm, I'm motivated to continue. I have opening day on the calendar, on the classroom. Yeah, you do. So I am motivated to continue the baseball education for my not yet baseball loving students, but they will be, they will be highly All right, um, speaking of classroom, I I want to recognize Ron Washington and nominate him to become principal of one of the schools in my school system, because he's doing what is really all the rage in education these days, which is banning cell phones. So anybody who has been in the front of the classroom as I have, knows that. You know it's just a new time we were not students when cell phones were out, and we as teachers really don't know how to deal with them from that kind of perspective. So we've tried all sorts of different techniques. And Ron Washington has a technique that we cannot use in the public schools, which is, define them for $500 every time they use the cell phone in the clubhouse. So this is angels Ron Washington as the manager. Angels cannot have cell phones in the clubhouse. They can have them outside of the clubhouse. But what he's trying to do, which makes a lot of sense, is to establish camaraderie. Because if you got a whole bunch of guys sitting in front of their lockers looking at their phones, they're not interacting with each other. So this is this forces collegiality, and it sounds like the players are actually behind it, at least the veterans. So Mike Trout and now Kyle Hendricks, there are both all behind Ron, and they're, you know, are they the cell phone police? I think so maybe I need them to be like teachers assistants in my classroom, or that would not be distracting at all. So great. Apparently, this is a tried and true thing that he did the same with the Rangers way back in 2007 to 14, and they made it to the World Series twice in that time, 2010 11. So there

Patti 8:54
was nothing on the interweb then, though, no one cared about using their cell phones.

Pottymouth 8:58
Maybe he's got something there. I know. Yeah, things were boring way back then. So I do have a system in my room, though I can't find my kids $500 but I do provide what I call a free charging station. So I tell them that I provide, provide this service to them at no cost. I've got a shoe rack where everybody has a number and a little pouch of school supplies. And so we do in exchange, they get their pouch of school supplies, they give me their phone. I plug in their phone at the end of class, their phone is charged. They got supplies to use during class. Everybody wins. You're brilliant. So, yeah, well, you know, I probably saw it somewhere on the inner web, but, but it worked, not in 2014

Patti 9:39
because there's nothing good on the interweb.

Pottymouth 9:42
But not but now, you know, there's stuff out there, and it has been successful. So if this $500 thing doesn't work, you know, Ron, you can borrow my shoe rack. Because actually, next year, I am going into a newish position where I don't think I'm going to be I'm not going to have my own students. It's going to be a shoe rack. Freeze out. Yeah. Okay, so I will be helping other teachers establish their cell phone. Maybe somebody else will need it, but, you know, Ron, if you want it, I've got the cords. I've got the charging station. All is good. One thing that I hadn't been paying enough attention to the angels. I am curious to see how they do this year, they've got a bunch of new veterans, including Kenley Jansen, who, you know, wanted to be a little bit on the other side of Los Angeles, but you know, probably the angels is good enough. They also got, you say, cucuci, Jorge Soler, Tim Anderson, JD Davis, Kevin Newman, Yon mon carta Kyle, Hendricks and Travis. Dart dar No, which I finally actually looked up how to pronounce. Because I, oh, this is another one that, like, I've seen plenty of games with Travis darneau. I've had, we've read about him and talked about him enough on the show, and I always fuck up the pronunciation. It's those French guys that get me. I think it's him and him and crochet

Patti 10:55
a type, yeah, it's like, is a craft, right? It's a, it's a, it's a paper craft. Should

Pottymouth 11:01
be able to but that's like, the, it's my favorite craft. Yeah, there you go. And it's also the like, Is it, is it the same way, or is it a mind trick? And it's the opposite of what it should be that, oh,

Patti 11:10
yes, you're looking deep. You don't need to. I get tricked. Okay. I mean, it's kind of fun for me that you do. Fact, we switched beers. Um, yes, while potty mouth was telling you about um principle to be run in Washington, we are now. We just split a hell Bender turtle frog, which is a hazy IPA from a brewery that we sorely miss, but it's, it's a delicious, delicious beer. Yeah, this

Pottymouth 11:36
is the last turtle frog. Um, sigh, so Oh boy, yeah, I'm gonna have to drink for

Patti 11:42
this. You are okay, hey, potty mouth pop quiz. What does dei stand for? Oh,

Pottymouth 11:48
well, you know, it depends on who's No. I mean, for real, it's a Diversity Equity and Inclusion. Thank you. Thank you. And if everybody had to say the words every time they talked about it, we'd all be a lot better off. Yeah,

Patti 12:02
no, I think so. I think so, because that would remind us, yes, these are not bad words. This is not we'll get to an alternate definition, which is wrong later. So this week, there was a little bit of mayhem, based on the administration's directive to basically scrub any evidence of diversity, equity and inclusion from everything, including the public face of the government, which is all government departments, websites, right for the Department of Defense, that meant scrubbing Jackie Robinson's story of his experience in the army, yeah, from their website, his story included things like his refusal to move to the back of a freaking army bus, right, which led to a court martial for which he was, you know, he was acquitted, but it was really, it's important, it's important, and It's also not about again. It's not a dei strategy to help demean people from different demographics who don't have all the privileges of some demographics. Like, that's that's my di is often that it's like, Let's hear more voices, let's include people. That's not what this was. This was the story of, basically, the oppression of somebody who signed up to serve his country, right? That's not like a DI strategy, right,

Pottymouth 13:25
right? Just, I mean, they've just expanded this beyond belief, yeah, and it's affecting so many sites. So

Patti 13:32
thankfully, people paid attention, yeah, and they noticed, and they said, basically, what the fuck? Right, you can't do this. You can't take down Jackie freaking Robinson. Story, and it wasn't just his. There were also related stories. There were, there were items about Navajo Code Talkers there. The story about a black Medal of Honor winner. Stories about Japanese American vets. They were all taken down. And then the administration said, later, oh, you know, blame. We're going to blame artificial intelligence. It was an automated process. We'll put those back. So the Jackie Robinson store was down for basically one day, and it went back up, went down Tuesday, came back up on Wednesday. But on top of all this, John Elliott, who was the Public Affairs, which I think he was actually the press secretary for the Pentagon, for a hot minute, was, and I quote, sidelined after this all happened, because he was the front man. He had to speak to speak to this when all of these people were rightly horrified about this action of removing the Jackie Robinson and other related websites. So he will likely be put in a different job. He's not fired. He's just moved around to some place where he's not in front of the public. But when he got up in front of the public, he was praising the Swift removal of this content, you know, at the administration's directive. And he didn't get it right. He his, he thinks that dei stands for something else. He thinks it stands for discriminatory equity ideology. And, you know, only the equity part is right there, right? So he needs a little bit of base. Sick education, so I can see where he would be reassigned because he shouldn't speak in public because he got it wrong. And stop being smarmy. Yeah, stop being smarmy. They

Pottymouth 15:09
are being super creepy about it, and I can't think of it off that top of my head, but Pete, Pete hegseth, you know, the asshole in chief in that area, has his own terms for Dei. And so they're they're fucking with people because they don't want to use those words, because they're actually good words. And Pete Buttigieg had a really good thing like, well, what are the opposite of those things? So the opposite of diversity is uniformity, the opposite of equity is inequity, and the opposite of inclusion is exclusion. So are you for universe? Uniformity? Inequity and exclusion like that just sounds shitty, but that's what you're doing. That's exactly what you're doing.

Patti 15:47
And they are, yeah, and I don't think they would see that as a slam. That's the thing. Well, of course, we are. In fact, you know, the person who just sidelined said that this discriminatory equity, ideology, whatever the fuck that is. Quote, divides the force, erodes unit cohesion and interferes with the service's core war fighting missions, full of shit. Everyone else who has a brain and is thoughtful and is thinking critically and knows what dei stands for and is not afraid to use those words say, no, what you're doing is scrubbing history. Yeah, you're removing important parts of history. Briefly, I'm going to cross train with the Golden

Pottymouth 16:25
Girls. Oh, I love the Golden Girls. That's so cool.

Patti 16:28
One of the sites that got scrubbed was that devoted to Bea Arthur, oh, my God, who was actually one of the first women to serve in the Marines. Really, she signed up five days after women were allowed to to enlist in the Marines, scrubbed scrubbed. So one would think that MLB would be up in arms and very vocal and fighting back, and they were pretty quiet about this whole thing. And then upon further reflection, turns out that the MLB site's getting scrubbed. Yeah, the MLB has. They still have this program. You can't find it on their website, their diversity pipeline program, which is when MLB said, hey, look, everybody in all front offices are they're all white, right? We need to do something about this. We need to make this equitable achievable, we need to do better outreach. We need to, you know, find a way to make our front offices better reflect the people that we serve, the people our teams. You know, all of those things, all of a sudden, all the there's no link to apply to this program. That name of that program doesn't appear in the site anymore. When you look, when you go to the career page, it still lists inclusion, the word inclusion as a value with a very weak definition. It's, you know, they lost the D and the E. There the person who has been the director of the diversity pipeline program since like 2016 since it started, is still in place and says the program is still functioning, but I don't know how you find it. So Rob Manfred, back in February, when he was speaking to the owners meeting, he said, you know, because this is what all of like, the, you know, the the executive orders started in all of this, you know, anti Dei, because we don't understand what that means, things started happening. He said, about major league baseball, our values on diversity remain unchanged. But another value that is pretty important to us is we always try to comply with what the law is. I don't think scrubbing your website of that employment program is against the law.

Pottymouth 18:35
No, it's, it's, it's so fucking insane, because these are, I mean, we're talking about executive orders that are not laws, and yes, they have to be theoretically followed, but they're being challenged. And there's so much precedent saying that corporations, no, no, this is the government. Yeah, that's the thing. They don't apply to MLB in any way, right? And well, and that's, you know, a lot of companies are starting to cave too, and that's where it's like, you know which way the wind blows to where these sponsorships are. It's really sad. It's really sad. But that's where, like, look at your latest list, and maybe we can find one to share of companies that have not caved and do your shopping there, because so many have, and it's ridiculous, because you're right. There's no reason for them to do it. There is not a law that says that you cannot be diverse and equitable in your private company.

Patti 19:26
Yep, yep. Damn it. Let's do a fun thing.

Pottymouth 19:29
So baseball is a really good distraction, and I think that that's a positive thing. I think that, you know, this is a very stressful time that we're in. We need a good distraction, and we will guide you through, looking at the positive things and the positive guys that we have this season, starting with our drum roll, please. Oh, man, I have the drums right here. Drums right here, but they're they don't they're not loud, they're just electric. I would grab my sticks and do a drum roll, but

Patti 19:57
some missed opportunity, I'm still. Wearing exactly on a missed opportunity right there.

Pottymouth 20:01
Yeah, absolutely. I can't even, oh, the sticks are over there. Anyway, here we go. These are our fantasy baseball boyfriend lineups. So we're about to kick off our fantasy league. Thanks to our esteemed Commissioner across from me right here, who has it all organized. And these are the guys that we will be watching over the course of the season that will be, you know, helping our teams win. So, so to speak, I feel actually pretty good about my lineup. So starting with I picked my catcher, Connor Wong. I know that's a shocker. I had to have a Red Sox player on my lineup. He is it. And I hear, you know, I started getting a little nervous. I was reading about how he's been doing in spring training. It's definitely not as good as previous spring trainings, and his defense has always been the issue he has been practicing. I really hope that it carries through. So let

Patti 20:51
me interrupt very briefly because of what you said. Well, I had to have a Red Sox player. For those of you who are new, we have terrible, terrible rules for our fantasy teams in which we are only allowed to have one position player from, like, per team, one guy from the Red Sox, we couldn't, you couldn't have a second one. You know, one guy from the or else, I couldn't have a second one regardless. And so it makes it way more complicated for the commissioner, but it makes it also more entertaining and a little bit more interesting. So so the guys that we've been profiling all season long are the ones off season. All off season long are the ones, you know, it's boyfriend season. Yeah, we're the ones that potty mouth and I were able to draw from to set up these starting lineups, which means we're sort of releasing the other guys to the men.

Pottymouth 21:37
Oh boy, yeah. And most of my release guys were not released by my choice, but by the team's choice. So there's that. We picked these guys, you know, in January, February, some of them, and some of them didn't make the cut, so we had to work with what we had at the time being. And my first base guy, I am hoping all my fingers are crossed that he is going to be on track for opening day. The Astros are saying that he's on track for opening day. This is Christian Walker, first baseman who has not played since March 2 because of some oblique soreness. Theoretically, he's going to be playing in some minor league games this week to get ready because he missed a lot of spring training. But I feel good about Christian rocker, and I'm hoping that that all goes well second base got ended up being a little complicated for me and like so the other thing that that affects us is Yahoo rules, because we do this through Yahoo. So whatever position Yahoo says this guy plays, that's what we get to plug them in on, despite what they're actually playing or what we know that they have experience playing because of the research we've done right and I believe

Patti 22:43
that Yahoo has some algorithm that says they have to have played that position a certain number of times for it to make them eligible to play that position. So if they switched, like during the off season, in spring training, and started learning, you know, coming in from the outfield, learning third base, or whatever it is that may not have clicked in to make them eligible on Yahoo, yeah, which may be a problem.

Pottymouth 23:03
Okay, well, this that explains like three quarters of my issues. There's, there's one thing that I think they slipped up on then. So I was gonna pick Nick York from the pirates, but he, first of all, might be playing first base due to Spencer Horowitz getting an injury, and he's very shaky, so it's not a sure thing. So I didn't feel like he was starting lineup kind of eligible. I'm hoping nobody else on the league picks him, because I'm hoping I can keep him in my back pocket, pocket in case somebody else gets injured. So Yahoo has him as just second, despite the fact that I think he should get outfield credit. So that's a thing that I think Yahoo might have screwed up, but he is a rookie, so maybe that part doesn't count. Maybe it's just MLB that. So that would make sense. So I'm going with Michael Massey of the Royals, although here, ironically, he might not actually be playing second base. He might be in the outfield, because of their acquisition of Jonathan India. Yahoo just has Michael Massey is second base. So that means I can put him in second base. He might be in the center field version of second base, but we'll, we'll see what happens. I actually have a real shortstop. That would be Ezekiel Tova. I'm very excited about him from the Rockies. He had a really solid spring training 991 ops. And I love the the article that I read about him talked about his strategy in the off season was to hit soft, squishy balls in Venezuela all winter. What does that mean? Apparently, like, there's this some, you know, there's always that new fangled machine to get you into whatever technique you have to do. And he had issues with breaking balls last year. So there's some machine that shoots soft, squishy balls. He bought one. He played with it over the winter. Let's hope that it helps him. It sounds like it's it's been working in spring training. If you

Patti 24:47
had unintentional innuendo on your bingo card,

Pottymouth 24:52
let's see our patreon for that. More on that later. Third base, I am super excited for junior Caminero. He rocked the winter. Leagues and lead on with MVPs and winning the trophy and all that shit. And then recently, he's had some back issues. He's back. It looks like he's going to be okay for for opening day, also knocking on wood again. His Spring Spring Training averages are a little bit screwed, screwed skewed, is what I meant to say. But maybe it's also skewed. But he did manage three home runs, including two in one game three weeks ago, before the aforementioned back problems, one of my stars, my forever boyfriend, for at least the time being, the one guy that we get to pull over from year to year. This year, I chose to pull over Jackson chorio from the Brewers who rocked it this spring training. I mean, absolutely rocked it. And he is settling into his skin. He had a rocky start last season because of fucking 20 year old rookie like of course, he's going to be a little nervous. Just signed this mega deal before playing one day of Major League Baseball. But now he talks about how now he knows he's going to be playing. He's more comfortable 1.17 ops with seven RBI and six stolen bases over spring training. Jeff bezan said, and I don't know this was framed in that it was positive, but I think the wording is a little weird. He said, quote, multiple evaluators say, chaudio has a good as chance as anyone in the NL to unseat Otani as MVP well as good as chance in anyone means that anybody could do it. But I get where he's trying to say that he sure wanted he's got good tools. Yeah, and he's 21 now. He just turned 21 March 11, so he can celebrate in style when they win stuff this year. Jackson number two in the outfield, Jackson Merrill last year, he was he had the best rookie season in Padres history. Super clutch, youngest player in MLB history, with five game tying or go ahead, home runs in the ninth inning or later. And the link on him has him miked up in the game yesterday, and he's very smooth. He definitely another one who like second year, but seems like he's been doing this a long time. Made a great catch in center field with Don or solo just cheering him on. You know, the the announcer guy who I love because he used to be a Red Sox announcer. But anyway, Padres have him. Padres have Jackson. He's going to be great. My last great outfielder that I am also super pumped up. It is Lawrence Butler of the A's, the aimless A's, or the homeless A's or whatever the A's spring training 1006, ops, and he was number two on this list that MLB put out the article on MLB like yesterday the day before, of underrated players, they had this survey of over 100 anonymous, random current players, and had them list their underrated and he's number two. Jose Ramirez is number one for the second year in a row, which I think is fascinating, that he's underrated, like he's amazing, and he doesn't, he just doesn't get the press. I

Patti 27:56
think he's more of a workhorse. He's reliable. He always shows up, but he's not flashy unless he's, you know, knocking out Tim Anderson. But other than that, you know, he's not doing things that are like attention grabbing, other than playing really, really good baseball. He's so

Pottymouth 28:10
cute. Also Christian Walker. So my first base pick that I started this out, where I seconded this whole list with was also underrated, so that makes me feel better about him as well. All right, we get two utility guys. I'm excited about these guys. Ernie Clement, third base, also great. Spring Training, 405, average 1032, ops. Got a pitch to the face. Oh dear during string spring training, pitch to the face. A 91.3 mile per hour pitch by tigers. Pitcher Ty Madden to the face and manager John Snyder Blue Jays said that he's, quote, a hockey player at heart. And I was like, I remember talking about that. And so go back to the episode when I talked about Ernie Clement and how he grew up with both in northern upstate, sorry, upstate New York, with both hockey and baseball, and made that final pick at the end because he was hit in the face on march 3, March 6, he hit a home run back in the game, so that didn't hold him back. Unfortunately, that home run was against the Red Sox. So I'll just move right along to my next utility guy, Xavier Edwards, shortstop, who continued the camp that I talked about when, when I talked about him in the off season. This season, he did his camp again, with some help from Mark vientos, Tristan, McKenzie, Nick 40s, Griffin, Conine and Jesus Lizardo. They had 170 kid at kids at his old high school, fourth annual. And the cool thing is, it's not only a camp, but they bring in reps from local colleges to try to get these set up. These kids set up for their next step. So it's lovely to see like when you you know, you focus on the do getting doing good from a player, and it continues. All right, we got four bench play. Players quickly on the bench players. I'm picking Jake Fraley from the Reds for he's an outfielder, great. Q heart long like sort of strawberry blonde hair looking good. Number two practice. Patrick Bailey, I need a backup catcher, and it's interesting, with all the talk going on right now about what's going to be happening with the automatic strike zone, and if they're going to try the challenge system and things that they're trying out. And Patrick Bailey is not a fan, because, by far, he was the most effective pitch framer last year. And of course, he talks about it, the most important thing is to make sure that strikes are strikes. So he's trying to couch the little bit of like the faking out part of it, but like to ensure that when it's a strike that he's making, he's framing it so that it's called a strike. He also is good at catching stealing so that won't be affected by the automatic zone. But he did catch both Shohei Ohtani and Ellie de la Cruz stealing a base, and neither one of them actually stole a base under the watch of Patrick Bailey. So and they both combined, they had 126 deals. So that's that's showing some cred there for Bailey, third backup guy on the bench, Jordan Walker, outfield, Cardinals. He's been still with a little bit of knee problems from that sprinkler incident when he tripped on the sprinkler in the outfield, but he has been playing. There's a lot of conflicting articles about how well he is projected to be, but I'm gonna err on the side of believing in him, and he's gonna be on my bench, believing him enough to keep him on the bench. John kency Noelle, super excited, like so he had to battle for his position. He's probably going to be, you know, platooning. He won't be in the outfield all the time, so I'm going to have to keep my eye to make sure I'm putting him in at the right time. But his power has been just taking off, like the power that we knew he was going to have, and he's starting to actually hit more for average, and I'm super excited to see big Christmas out there this year. Andy Ibanez basically picking because he can. He's my one guy that has, like, a lot of utility, can play almost anywhere in the infield, all three bases. He's going to be tuning at third with Jack McKinstry on the Tigers. We talked about pitching last week. So I don't have to say much, except for the fact that I think that Tori lavullo listened to our podcast, because both you and I said, Yes, you should pick Zach Callen as the opening day guy, because he's the, you know, the guy that's been with the D backs. He's the fan staple over the new guy, Corbin Burns, who have, although we love and adore, pick gallon. He picked gallon. So that's it. Oh, I had some notable rejects. So why did I reject these guys? Alexander Canario is not on the Cubs anymore. He's now in the Mets, so I can't use him for the Mets if I keep my other Mets guy, which is Ronnie Mauricio, which I don't think I'm using, because he's continuing to have knee problems and is likely to triple A but I don't think either of them are too stable, but that just kind of shook things up a little bit for me. I made a huge, huge error with my nationals pick, because I didn't think Dylan cruise when I could have and he's going to be amazing this year. But, you know, I didn't need a shortstop, so I wait. He's outfield. Never mind. I am screwed. Anyway, I picked Andres chaparo. He's starting on the IL likely losing his bench spot because of the injury. And then lastly, a guy that I'm not using is the Yankees guy, because he's a Yankee guy. And I just appreciate the article by I think it was roto world. Ben rice keeps cooking because he put on a bunch of muscle in the off season, which has equaled power. He had five home runs, 943, ops, five of the seven Yankees hardest hit balls in spring training. But he's not going to be a potty mouth posse, because I don't know, no room, no room on the bench.

Patti 34:05
All right, surprising no one. My once and forever boyfriend, Adley Richmond is my starting catcher. Mlb.com did a piece on Spring Training stat lines that impressed them. You know, the to watch, whatever. And that piece said, quote, the real Adley rechtman is back, and the real Aldie Richmond is arguably the best all around Catcher in the major. So, you know, knock on all the things I'm hoping that's true. Last season was not his best work, but I believe in him, so yay. So I'm putting a lot of lot of hope there. My infield is a mess, because at the time, the guys that I was profiling were like in, they were in, and now they're not necessarily in. For instance, for first base, I really wanted Joey loperfito from Toronto. He's starting in triple A. He is not available to me, so I went to my second choice, which was zarenza from Houston, who is still. Is there, but he's not solid. Yeah, for opening day, because of cam Smith, their prospect is looking really good, so we don't know what's gonna happen

Pottymouth 35:09
for Wait, Houston Astros, because that's Christian Walker.

Patti 35:11
So they have, well, that's the other thing. They have him listed as right field. So he's classified as first base, but they're looking to put him in at right field because they have, oh, I don't know, Christian Walker, yeah, at first base. So it's one of those things where if Yahoo says they can play first base, you can put them in first base, even if that game they're in the outfield. It doesn't matter to Yahoo, as long as they're eligible for that spot. So first base is kind of a mess. I have some guys on my bench and utility that can play first base, so I may be moving people around in the next couple of days, depending Brett wisely, second base from San Francisco. Fingers crossed, all of a sudden, probably maybe we'll see. I'm rock solid on shortstop with I'm Brian Rocco from Cleveland. Oh yeah, who went, you know, 12 or 37 in spring training, and he came into spring training with a lot of confidence. Remember, he really shined in the postseason last year, and that has carried on like he's playing like a big leaguer right now. So hopefully that is the right thing. I do have backup tri stops, you know, around, but I really want real kid to be that guy. Um, another one of those tricky ones is for South really, from Milwaukee third base, but he might be looking at a center field position. Oh, man, so I there may be movement in my in my lineup here, got a lot of guys who can play the outfield, though I have Kyle Stowers from Miami there now, because, you know, I do adore him. You know, former Oriole guy looks like he should be a surfer, but his spring training was not great, so he is, in fact, competing for left field. If he loses that competition, I'm gonna have to swap some of my other guys. No, I can do it. I can do it. But I really, I leaned into my young guys, okay? And also I was loaded with young guys because of having done these profiles for so long, we had to continue. We had to pick people we haven't picked before. So that you that often means younger guys. So I'm very excited about my my Yankees pick Jason Dominguez. He you'll like this. Actually, he had kind of a mediocre spring training until they were allowed to grow beards. Beard and he turned into fucking Samson. That's so good, right? All the strength is in his beard, right? He had a three hit game on Wednesday versus Philadelphia. He's gonna start in left field, so I'm feeling pretty good about Jason Dominguez, thank you for Yankees for being a little less draconian than you were before. I'm very excited about our local boy does good, James Wood, so good from the Nationals federal baseball says this about him, this unicorn skill set makes James Wood the crowned jewel of the Nationals rebuild. He can simply do things that very few major league baseball players can do. Wood is on the precipice of something special. Wow. So yay. I hope that continues to be the case, and that's not just setting the bar too high. Yeah, you know, usually I'm of the under, you know, the over promise, under promise, under promise and over deliver, right? But a couple of these guys are, they're, they're, they're making some big promises. My two utility guys may end up having to move around into other roles based on what happens with, you know, the young guys above so Louis and hell Acuna from the Mets, oh yeah, is likely gonna start second base on opening day. Likely they're still, you know, moving things around. My other utility players. I'm sitting down in Rafaela from Boston. Hey, probably going to be the everyday center fielder. Yeah, maybe super utility, depending on how things end up on mass alive. They said my prediction is a 2030, season and a Gold Glove. Wow. Like, okay, yeah, okay, I don't know that's true, but okay, I'll

Pottymouth 39:01
take that super versatile, because, yeah, be brought in. So you

Patti 39:05
know, I'm looking at some of these guys down here on this utility through bench list to maybe plug in if things go wrong with my infield picks my bench. Peter Armstrong from Chicago. He had a huge spring training his his slash line was 519-500-1000, for spring training. Now we know spring training is fake, but you know what bad spring trainings get guys sent down, right? So maybe good spring trainings, you know, bode well. We'll see. We'll see. But I'm happy about that. Also on the bench, Wyatt Langford of Texas, who is coming, who just came back from his oblique strain where he was out, but he came back super strong his 27 at bats when he came back after his oblique strain, his Ops is 1.363 Holy shit. So he may be coming off the bench pretty fast. Yeah. I would think pretty darn fast. My backup catcher is Sean Murphy from Atlanta, who's recovering from a crap cracked rib, which you got February 3. He's treating it as a speed bump to be back in a couple of weeks. So, you know, knock on everything that Ali is good for, you know, for the time in paints. Um. JC, young from Detroit, is on my bench. I saw Kim was option to triple A, but still shows us available. So maybe that's not for long. I don't know what's happening there, so I'm, yeah, there's gonna be some fine tuning that I'm gonna be doing on this, but this is my hope. This is my hopeful lineup. And I talked about my Philadelphia pictures last week, so I'm just gonna like cruise on that for right now, but that's what we're looking at for our starting lineups. If you are a part of our our fantasy team, you've gotten instructions on how to submit your rosters. What the rules are? The crazy, crazy, possibly terrible rules. So that's underway. We're going to have between probably 11 and 12 teams. I think I'm excited. That's

Pottymouth 41:01
gonna be fun. All right, get those picks in, and now we're at the fun stuff. Well, some fun stuff, some sad stuff. This is the weird part of the episode. I'm gonna start with fun the fun cup. I'm I always love the fun cup. This has been several years at this point that Copa de diversion, which is the alter ego of many minor league teams this year, it's 92 it's not like a straight line, because a lot of teams have sort of doubled. It's kind of like the city connect situation that we're going to talk about a second, that they've done a different fun cup identity than they had before. So it's not all additions. There are eight, quote, new teams, but some of them are returning from an absence, and some just changing identity. And also, let

Patti 41:45
me bounce in there for a second. This is different than the alternate identities that we talked about last week, like the hooch pooches and all that. That's sort of like a weekly or whatever, sort of, you know, food related, or, you know, whatever a pun or something. This is very specific to Spanish language, names and culture and right,

Pottymouth 42:07
yeah, and we've talked about this in years past that each team has kind of their own twist on it. There's no, like, hard and fast rules for how many times you play as this team, or what dates, or even what you do when you have your Copa night. Some teams go all out and have music and other kinds of celebrations. And the idea is, hey, inclusion. Right to heard of that to make baseball more inclusive to fans who are out there, who might be attracted to having, you know, some Spanish culture that is reflected in their local team. So of the new ones, I just wanted to point out that two are in the Oriole system. In Aberdeen, they have the sensors in creiles de Aberdeen, which I didn't even know, sensoro. It sounds to me like sanicero, which is astray, but sensoro is actually cowbell. So cow bell, apparently in Aberdeen, they talk about the cowbells like Cal Ripken. So the cowbell cowbell sensor, oh, it all trickled down. So it doesn't even own the team anymore. That's awesome, though, isn't it still his the Cal Ripken stadium. I

Patti 43:15
think it's might be senior. That's okay, but he owned the team. It doesn't no longer.

Pottymouth 43:19
There's still, there's still some cow in there, and cowbells are it found very, very much in Latin music and some salsa, merengue, the cowbell Norfolk tides, in a prior iteration in the fun cup, were the pajaritos, which means little birds, which is appropriate for the Oriole system, but now They're caballitos del Mar, Del Mar, which is horseshoes. Little, little, yeah, little, um, yeah, their horse, the horseshoe fish, the horse. No, no, the fish horse. It's, damn it, like it, yes, that's it. It's like, I can't think of it in English, and it says Del Mar, which is little horses of the sea. So I should have been able to make that stretch. Yes, Seahorses, they're very cute. The descriptions page sort of like, you know, pumps up the connections and why these things are meaningful for the culture and for the area. And sometimes it's a little bit of a stretch. So Winston Salem is El UMO, which is the smoke Winston Salem, you know was cigarettes. So I

Patti 44:24
feel like that's, oh my god. They're the ones who brought gave us the hooch pooches there.

Pottymouth 44:27
Well, just toast to you. So never

Patti 44:31
in my life if I toasted Darjeeling. Okay, no,

Pottymouth 44:34
no, by the way, they're the high a of the White Sox, the grand Rose de Wisconsin, which are also known as the timber rat rattlers, Grange Oh, is like a farmer. And the image is like a, you know, one of those Mexican multi colored after the sugar skull, kind of image of a cow. So it's like a sugar stall designed cow with these other. Dollars that just kind of stick right out in the front. So I'm thinking, like the design person on that. I don't know, maybe it was a sign person who did the flying chunk, chunk clothes, which is the koozie we have today, which is the questionable flip flop design. It just it. I wouldn't get the hat, but I appreciate you know, the nod to the farmers of Wisconsin, the hat. The last one that I wouldn't get the hat, but also, you know, we can drink to, is the Stockton che Lalas, which is the A of the of the 80 H is that is that A's, that's the A's, it's the A's. Of the A's the eight, the I A, the AAS, the eight that the formerly known as Oakland Athletics, yeah, I should say the whole world. Oh, athletic, yeah. So apparently

Patti 45:50
you abbreviated athletics, yeah, there's no city, pizza city

Pottymouth 45:53
anymore, right? With the abbreviation was because the A was already there, so there's so many A's the chiladas. That's, you know, I feel like Michelob should get a is probably getting a kickback on this. This is that, um, you know, beer kind of Margarita you drink that has like a spicy tahin rim on it, and their logo is one of these drinks pouring itself. So I was

Patti 46:17
so fulfilling adult beverage, which sounds

Pottymouth 46:22
like a good, yeah, I don't. Anyway, that's the fun cup. We're gonna have fun. We, I definitely, you know, approve of the beverage related? Sure, fun in the fun cup. And maybe we will go over to, I hope, the chesap Chesapeake. What was it? The ghost crabs, the concretos, fantasmas, still exist. That would be fun. Yeah, they

Patti 46:44
I think they do. I you'll see in a few minutes, while I was on their their shop website recently, and they do. They are still there.

Pottymouth 46:51
I'm gonna pour the last beer. What's the last beer? It is the final gnome for the holidays.

Patti 46:58
All right, very exciting. I'm good. I'll need that because I'm gonna talk about the police blotter anyway. Blotter in which Julio Arias wins a prize. Oh man, Julio Arias has become the very first MLB player to be suspended twice under Major League Baseball's Domestic Violence Policy. He is what an honor. He is eligible to be reinstated after the all star break. July 17, he's been a free agent. I think his career is over. So in 2019 he had a 20 game suspension for domestic battery. Then he came back, played with the Dodgers until his arrest in September of 2023 from an altercation in a parking lot outside of a Major League Soccer game right at that time, while the investigations were happening, both the criminal and MLB investigations, he was put on administrative leave. And during that time, his contract expires, and he became a free agent, but he's not administrative leave, so he couldn't he was not eligible to to be signed by anyone, so he hasn't pitched a game since September of 2023 admin leave now a suspension. I don't think he's ever coming back. He pleaded no contest to the criminal charge and was given, like community labor, so many hours and like 52 hours of like domestic violence counseling and how to pay a fine. There's like a domestic violence fund to assist victims. So he was doing all of those things as well, and now MLB said, and on top of the criminal consequences here, MLB is suspending you after having you on leave for all this time through, like for half of the season. Well,

Pottymouth 48:45
let's hope he stays out. That reminds me that I need to announce next week my plan for donations for this season, because it looks like the Red Sox have a role this Chapman as their probable closer, which would super suck, as you know, known as the first guy to be punished under the domestic violence policy. So I need to find, and I started looking at it, just a shelter, some sort of support organization for battered women in the Boston area that I can donate to for every save. So I will be doing that. I did that last year with Jaron Duran. I donated to Bagley because of his homophobic splur, and that's an organization for gay and lesbian youth in in Boston. And I will, you know, you gotta, you just gotta do it. You gotta recognize the shit that's going on and try to figure out some way to make up for it, especially if the players aren't going to do it themselves. All right, no better time for fashion. A little bit of fashion city Connect. 2.0 is coming out, and I put $1 sign in front of that 2.0 because that's what it's all about. Print money again. Yep, they just want to sell more stuff. Houston released. There's this week. You might have seen it. It says Stros instead of Astros. I don't know, Marcus Stroman should go play for them.

Patti 50:06
This one's so much better than their space city ones. Yeah, it's

Pottymouth 50:10
actually really nice it but it's not new, because it's still a not, it's a whole nod to their space connection. So it's still like the same they're just doing it for more money. Well, they do it

Patti 50:21
for more money and a better design. Better design. It is. It is a better design. I like the hats a lot. I'm fine with it. I'm not gonna go shopping for anything. Says Houston, anything on it. But if I, if I, you know, at gunpoint, if I had to buy city connect, I'd buy this one rather than the older one.

Pottymouth 50:35
That's just short, yeah, no, I agree with that. You know, on the on the home side, though, the Nationals released theirs today. They had a big festivities. Last time they did this, we made sure that we were down there when they were released. It was a big party. And today I was like, I don't want to go. I mean, I like the last one so much. This one is fine. It's fine.

Patti 50:51
And I think if we if the bar wasn't set so high, like, we're really big fans of the like, inaugural city Connect for the nationals, the cherry blossom one. This one, you know, it's a blueprint of, you know, city streets and, you know, no, it's the metro. And just, it's, it's fine, but,

Pottymouth 51:09
and it still has cherry blossoms on there, and they just seem lame compared to the last ones, because they're like little drawings of the cherry blossoms. The last ones just have the nice print. I don't the coloring was just so much better. It was just it was different to have pink and gray. And you know what, though, the intern who has my old Soto one, it's coming around, because Soto Junior, the little brother of Soto, who's in the net system, is taking his number. He's gonna be 22 perfect 20. Soto 22 No, no, no, you got it? Kid you enjoy it. Enjoy it. Wear it. Well, the O's, what do you think about the all orange? I love the throwback. It's very prisony, looking to me, like orange, the new black or orange.

Patti 51:57
Well, one could say that, but I don't I mean, I I've seen it historically, and I like it as a throwback, all right. Well, they won't get lost. They won't get lost. Um, Kansas City has an all powder blue uniform that they're gonna pull. They're gonna, like, debut on opening day, and they're gonna wear for Saturday home games. So I think that might be like a little trend setting happening now with sort of, like, this whole solid, unusual color. Yeah, situation. I mean, like the Phillies in the past, we've done, like the all sort of, like blue thing, and we'll see all

Pottymouth 52:27
right, it's always fun to see uniforms, and I am actually kind of, I mean, to be totally hypocritical here. I'm excited to see the Red Sox new city Connect. I love their old one, which is now going to be an actual uniform instead of the special city connect, because they made that switch, and they're gonna have something based on green monster colors. So I'm kind of excited about that. Last week, speaking of fashion, we talked about the mishap with the hats, the miscap, the miscap with the Texas Rangers becoming the tittas, and we talked about how tits and ass went well together because of the ass hat that the A's had done the year before with the shadow s. So just the fact is, like, I mean, we often talk about how, like, I have 12 year old sort of level humor here, and I'm thinking that the folks who designed this shit really should just pass it by me, because I have the 12 year old outlook, and I can see it immediately. There's ass like I would tell them, this is not, you know, they're just too I don't know who these people are, but they just don't understand the common vernacular that I speak or view. In the case of our very own nearby Chesapeake Bay Sox. So they just debuted their new alt identity, which is, you know, not their fun cup, but just another alt identity that they were gonna have for this season, the oyster catchers logo. And if you have, which

Patti 53:55
is a bird, I mean, the oyster catchers are a bird which is thematic, and that is what a logos. But it's not the only logo now.

Pottymouth 54:02
And the Chesapeake Bay, that makes sense also, you know, you've got Bay socks, you've got oysters, it all makes sense. So they have the baseball, a little baseball which actually has fuzzy lines, which makes it even more kind of Inuit, the pearl? Yes, the pearl in a half shell, in an orange baseball, an

Patti 54:26
oyster shell. Very specific. Yeah, oyster shell, which is a very specific, right shape,

Pottymouth 54:30
right, right? So basically, it looks like a part of the female anatomy that I can't say the the slang word on because Patty really hates it's that word. But I would, I would otherwise, because it's used a lot in Boston. Anyway, it goes well, you know, if you're thinking of, what are you missing with tits and ass, you're missing the lower portion there, and you've got it. And the other thing about the logo, though, is that right next to this apparent part of the female anatomy, is that. Oystercatcher bird with a very long, pointy beak on top of a baseball bat. So there's a lot that 12 year olds like me can read into this situation. So I

Patti 55:09
first saw the image courtesy of the intern who turned his phone to me. And my first response was, fuck no. And my second response was, I need to buy that right now.

Pottymouth 55:23
Yeah, yeah, they're gone.

Patti 55:24
They're they are not on the website. The only things on the store are the bird and only, like, four shirts, like, you know, polo shirt, yeah, which is on for if they printed this stuff. It's got to be somewhere I got, there's got to be, like, a good alternate market, some sort of like, I in need this Latin

Pottymouth 55:43
America and Africa shifted abroad. Yeah. So they

Patti 55:47
are. They're making lemonade out of Georgia, O'Keeffe imagery, right?

Pottymouth 55:51
So they're there. A Twitter post said quote, some saw an oyster. Others saw something unexpected. We see an opportunity to turn viral laughs into positive impact. In celebration of Women's History Month, 10% of all oyster catchers merch sales will support survivor, which is C, E, R, V, i, v, r, O, R, which is a local organization for education and advocacy around cervical cancer, and it was founded by somebody from Upper Marlboro. So that's brilliant, and there have been a lot of people past this dude, but right away, remember that guy in blue sky posted that, you know, the tattoos in the in the A's should also maybe support breast cancer research and colorectal health with their

Patti 56:38
and so you very easily said cervical but earlier, you couldn't figure out how to express things without sending anatomically correct words. You wanted to go right to vulgarity.

Pottymouth 56:46
I did, I did, I did. I'm so disappointed, right? I could, yeah,

Patti 56:51
but not as disappointed as I am that I can't actually buy any of this gear because I so wanted. I mean, I, I do, in fact, have some Georgia O'Keeffe artworks up in my home which are not that different, say, an oyster shell in a in a baseball mess. So that's what,

Pottymouth 57:09
that's how they should market. It's really very classic. They made it a flower. It would have been fine, sure, sure. That's

Patti 57:15
it. Hey, let's talk about big money. Big money for little kids. That Paul scans debut patch card that we've been talking about went up for auction, the one that that little 11 year old boy in Los Angeles got for Christmas. And they decided, Okay, we're gonna go ahead and auction this off. It was, it's been an auction for two weeks. They had 64 bids over the two weeks for this debut patch card and the former employer of our intern Dick's Sporting Goods won with a bid of $1.11 million and their headquarters are in Pittsburgh, and they are going to display the card publicly and in a place where visitors and people who live in Pittsburgh can see the card. So the the pirates did not, you know, get their, you know, they had tried to, like, you know, entice whoever got it to, like, take advantage of their package. They could display it publicly, Dick sporting it's like, yeah, we'll buy that, and we will put it up in a place where people in Pittsburgh, can see this card, which is very cool. So, so the kid who founded and his family decided to work with fanatic collect to help, like, manage this whole auction process. So fanatic collect gets to a 20% buyer's premium, and if you remember, they are following through with what they promised at the very beginning with they are donating all of that 20% to LA Fire Relief Fund. Wow. So they're not getting anything out of it other than some really good press. Our 11 year old will get $925,000

Pottymouth 58:57
man, which is

Patti 58:58
more than Paul scans based salary of 875,

Pottymouth 59:03
wow. So I'm sure Paul scans. Does he getting a higher salary, sure,

Patti 59:06
but I do think that's some fun, social math. And these kids going to college. If he has any siblings, they're going to college. I have a feeling that they, their their lifestyle might get a little bit of an upgrade. They sound like really reasonable people. I don't think they're going to get ridiculous about I think they're really going to say, Okay, let's we have the same windfall. There are things we can do to make lives better. Let's do

Pottymouth 59:29
that. Oh so good. Okay, that's it. Is that it? Yeah, I think we're done. Oh my god.

Patti 59:35
So hey next week. Oh so good. We as our 400th episode. We're very excited about this, and we will be welcoming our friend Kat Williams, author who just wrote the book all the way which is about may be Blair. So my big plan for this week is to read the book all the way about Maybelle Blair. So I am ready to have an informed chat with cat Williams, and we would invite you all especially. You're on our Patreon site to submit questions of things you want to hear from cat Williams about her and her work, and also anything about maybe Blair you think that cat can help answer so you can find us on Patreon for that. That

Pottymouth 1:00:14
would be P, A, T, R, E, o, n.com/no, crime, B ball. And we have very reasonable Patreon rates. You can join for a buck a month. If you want to do more than that, that's totally fine, but you folks keep us going, and we super, super, super, appreciate it. I guess I can tell you where else to find us. Social media is a drag these days, but if you're on there, we will answer your messages. Bluesky is ncib podcast, as is Twitter. Although we try to annoy that, ignore that annoy it annoys me. Facebook and Instagram are no crying and be well and just drop us a line. You can just email us the old fashioned way at ncib podcast@gmail.com, and let us know how you are celebrating this exciting week coming up. Oh, for

Patti 1:01:04
sure. Um, briefly, I want to just jump in there and say one of the very happy surprises that I had this week was that the city, our hometown that I work for, announced that they're coming off of X. Oh, really, and starting a blue sky account. They're gonna have, like, a 10 day overlap as they make the switch. But they are cutting ties with x and are going to be blue sky based. Wow.

Pottymouth 1:01:24
Well, I think we could move in that direction. I mean, we don't do I don't try not to put anything on there anymore. I poke around just because of morbid curiosity. There's a lot of really, really, really shitty stuff on there, but

Patti 1:01:39
happy things. It is the week of hoping day Yes. And we're going, man, we're going to see the NATs on opening day, yes.

Pottymouth 1:01:45
And so we coined that phrase. We're going to take full responsibility or credit, whichever way for it, because it's full of hope. It's that one day where anything is possible. Anybody has, you know, equal chance at that point of winning the World Series, sort of, you know, we can we can hope. And we're gonna be hoping for the nationals and James Wood and checking all the scene out. Between now and then is the end of spring training. I was trying to figure out the deets on that. And there's some spring training. It's all over by the time you hear this. But there's some spring training days on Monday and Tuesday. There's some exhibition days. The Red Sox are going to Mexico. I had no clue. Maybe I don't know, like hopefully the wind in the sand will be good for them, but they're playing against the Sultan. Is the most for two days. Why? Not sure. I don't know. That seems all right, and I really want to go to fucking opening day in Baltimore. Me too, damn it. The so the quote I just wanted to add from the Orioles website is, quote, The only way to secure opening day tickets at the best value is to become a Birdland member. So I'm wondering, does that mean they're not going to sell them otherwise, which seems bizarre. And now, of course, like the StubHub and SeatGeek are going very expensive. If you live in Baltimore and don't give a shit about baseball, I would suggest buying a plan and selling your opening day tickets, and then you'd have season tickets for also, you know, it's like a good investment right

Patti 1:03:18
there. Yeah, last year, they waited a long time, and you and said this, they wanted to definitely sell a lot of packages, but then they did eventually open it, okay, and that's how we got tickets. But this is really cutting it close. I mean, the home opener is next week they start away. So the home opener is, you know, a week from Monday. That was the 31st Yeah. So hopefully by then. But so our the thing that the potty mouths and the intern and I are going to decide is, do we pay a stupid amount of money to buy, you know, resale tickets, or do we pick a brewery in Baltimore and go sit there just to be like, nearby and watch on on the big screens? And, you know, yeah,

Pottymouth 1:03:56
I think, I think we wait it out and see what the fuck they do. And, yeah, and then do Plan B. Please

Patti 1:04:02
tell us what your your hoping Day plans are. You're gonna find us on social media and all the places that Patty Mel just told us about. I hope you have a great time. If you're part of our fantasy baseball league, what are you waiting for? Get me your stuff. Get me your stuff. And wow. And remember to submit. If you're part of Patreon, submit your questions for cat Williams. Please get boosted. Fight the man. It's the right thing to do. It's the more right thing to do every single day. Send your game balls to Meredith and until next week, say goodnight. Potty mouth, good night. Bye.

Pottymouth 1:04:52
I mean, you know, knock on everything though, damn it, I don't have any fucking wood. Here's some wood there, knocking wood. I hear the knocking. Yeah.