No Crying In Baseball

Patti 0:17
Hi and welcome to episode 422 of No Crying in Baseball, the Hair on Fire episode. My name is Patti. I'm here with my friend, Pottymouth.

Pottymouth 0:24
Hey, Patti. How's it going?

Patti 0:27
It's great. I'm in such a good mood that's that's a really good thing.

Pottymouth 0:31
I mean, especially these days like mood enhancers are, yeah, this

Patti 0:35
was a very like, healthy, you know, clean living mood enhancer. Okay, there was beer involved, but that wasn't why my mood was enhanced. I cross trained yesterday, the intern and some friends and I went to see the pwhl. We saw women's hockey on their their takeover tour. They've been doing this barnstorming tour, going to 16 cities that don't already, like, you know, have their own, their own hockey team, and this was at Capital One arena, which is where the capitals play, and it was sold. Freaking out. It was Packed to the Rafters. In fact, we were part of history. The attendance of 17,228 was the highest attended in arena game in US Women's Hockey history. And if DC doesn't get a team out of this, I don't know what they're thinking. I don't know what they're thinking. It was so much fun. Everybody was completely into it. And I had the same feeling some of the time that I did going to the women's professional baseball league tryouts, there were girls, young girls, in the audience seeing women play the sport they love professionally. And you know, see her be her, man. It was fantastic.

Pottymouth 1:43
So cool. There were a lot of, like, famous folks there, like, I saw that because Seattle was one of the teams, right?

Patti 1:49
No, no, no. It was New York and Montreal, in fact, okay, it was the New York sirens, okay? And the Montreal Victoire we're playing, and New York won. And I gotta say, I was rooting for Montreal, but the sirens were kind of winning me over, because they had a cheer that was really, really annoying, but showed some creativity. What was it? Can you Okay, so when you do like the let's go team. So let's go sirens, yeah, instead of like, any clapping, they would go "weee oooo weee ooo". I was like, What is going on that? I'm like, Oh, good, okay, I gotta give them points for this. That's really I have to give them points for this, I, you know. And I was seeing these women play, some of whom I've seen play before, whether in Olympics or, you know that the national men's hockey or whatever. But it was, they were they were athletes. They were going all out. They were playing hard. They were playing with skill and with passion, and it was so freaking much to see. The other thing that happened that made it different from going to see an NHL game, other than my seats were really good. The intern scored as, like, seats, like, just like, I don't know, like, eight rows back from the glass where the caps were usually in the four hundreds. Yeah. So there was that, but that's because he moved quickly. Apparently they were still like, so inexpensive. They were way less than what we pay for the 400 and NHL game. But when they pan the audience and look, look for signs, they were embracing signs that were embracing the, let's call it the diversity of the fan base, like pro lesbian signs and like all of this stuff, you know. And they did a thing where you where they had, you know, the audience clap for which was their favorite sign. And they framed multiple signs in a shot. So one frame had, you know, give us a team, or we want a team. So the implication was, when that one, that's why it won. But the other sign, which was actually much bigger, actually said cottage after this queens, which is an absolutely heated rivalry reference, and got quite the quite the round of applause. And there was a lot of that happening, and it was just being embraced. It's like everybody's here. We welcome everybody. Come play our game. Come watch our game. This is a safe space. Have a frickin good time.

Pottymouth 3:59
That's awesome. I thought Seattle, because I saw something with Sue bird and Megan Rapinoe being there.

Patti 4:04
Oh, were they? Yeah. So there were members of the spirit there. There were members of the mystics there. There was like a ceremonial puck drop with, you know, with a former mystic and with, with, you know, a current spirit member. And what I what I was missing, was I wanted the shot of caps players watching. And one of the Montreal players is actually the daughter of a former caps player, really. So they may have been there, but that didn't get a focus. But yeah, there were a lot of people in the house, and I was so glad that I was one of them. No, for sure, we earned a damn Team

Pottymouth 4:35
All right, caps players, you have homework. Get out there and make some noise so that we get a women's team here, because that would be pretty awesome, especially if they can play in that center, like, oh my gosh, so, so cool, so great. All right, I'm still like reeling, or fan girling or whatever from our interview last week. I just want to point out that we are recording today on Martin Luther King Day. So if you have not heard it yet, we dropped a. Special interview with Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. That's nothing short of amazing, like we if the parts of the interview, I feel like that, we're not laughing along with him. It's because our jaws are on the floor, because we're just so blown away by what he's saying. So please go back and check that out if you haven't already

Patti 5:19
such a good storyteller, that one dropped on Thursday, if you have to look back on that. And I'm just so glad we did it, and I'm looking forward to talking with Bob more in the future, for sure, on today's show, the hot stove features bats, the police blotter features a suspension. But from what exactly we've got boyfriends from Kansas City and San Francisco, we've got World Baseball Classic roster news, a swag alert, winter ball, and we're moving more walls. Cheers. And we're also drinking a very delicious beer.

Pottymouth 5:47
We are, and my computer screen just went off. So let me just fix that. All right, that's all fixed our beer. Actually, mine is past tense. My beer already good for you. I was thirsty. I told a long story about hockey. I had to, you know, do some idiom. Brewing Company Frederick, Maryland has a very nice Dunkle wisen, which I don't know if I mean, I've heard of Dunkle and I've heard of Hefeweizen, but it's a mix called monkey's uncle. So it does have a little bit of that banana Hefeweizen and that multi Dunkle. And I like it. It's different.

Patti 6:19
I like it too. And we're about ready to move on to a backup beer. Do you want to start with that backup beer? This backup our intern gift. Our intern gifted us two, two West Coast IPAs from Nepenthe brewery in Baltimore. So which one are we starting?

Pottymouth 6:35
This one is called the arrowmancer, West Coast style IPA, and it has some really cool label they have

Patti 6:43
fantastic label art. So why don't I pour us some beer while you get started with Wait, but you start? Do I start? Yeah, oh my gosh, then you should be pouring beer.

Pottymouth 6:54
So I will pour some beer. Oh my gosh, oh shit. Except for just it, you know, it might have gotten just jostled

Patti 7:00
on your way. The commute was long, man and cold,

Pottymouth 7:03
yeah, all right, I think it's under control. It's going into the glass. All right. Mine's very fun.

Patti 7:08
Okay, hot stove. Some more bats came off the table, and they came off in a very particular order, first, first, the Dodgers took Kyle Tucker, surprising no one with a $240 million for your contract. Kyle was my Houston boyfriend in 2022 so he was in Houston, and then this past year, he was with the Cubs, and he fizzled the second half, and we found out later, oh yeah, he had a fractured hand. He was playing with the fractured hand, playing injured. So there's that. But so the Dodgers took him, which, of course, is going to give more fuel to the fire, as they talk about as the CBA negotiations happen about salary cap, because look at you Dodgers, spending willy nilly. So then the Mets, who wanted Kyle Tucker, said, Okay, if we can't have you, we're taking boba Shep, so, Boba Shep, my Toronto boyfriend from 2020 has gone from Toronto to the Mets for three years for $126 million so Toronto had offered Bo a qualifying offer, that $20 million for a one year contract that you can offer to your you know, your players who are going to be free agents. And Beau said, Thank you, no. And then someone else signed him, which means that Toronto gets a compensatory draft pick. Wow.

Pottymouth 8:21
Well, at least they get something out of it. I imagine there's a lot of broken hearts in Toronto with this.

Patti 8:26
Yeah, I think so. One of the interesting stories about the Kyle Tucker thing is, you know, everyone's saying you guys are spending so much money you're buying up all these free agents. That's because, because they they're doing well, they don't get draft picks that are high enough to build up their farm team. So they don't get those guys that they can, they can't, like, grow their own players, so they kind of have to go shopping. It's a very interesting thing. So what part of this is broken? Like, like, try to figure that out, because that's actually that's in effect, is what's happening. They don't have their prospect, you know that they don't have that farm team, like, say, the Orioles have, because the Orioles have done poorly for so long, got so many draft picks that were higher up. Yeah, so, yeah.

Pottymouth 9:10
Well, it's, I mean, so far, the Dodgers have been doing pretty well. But let's see what happens in like, five years when a lot of these contracts start petering out, are they going to, like, be able to keep this up? You know, if they're going to use the money, they're going to use their money

Patti 9:23
and as a reminder, when they spend too much money and they have to pay the luxury tax, as they call it, that money, part of it goes to get split between all the teams and players, and the other part of it goes to basically the pension fund for players. So it's not like that money is just going to line a pocket somewhere, that money is going to do some good, so good or bad that I just want to make sure you have the fuller picture, that that's where that goes when a team overspends.

Pottymouth 9:49
I'm very pro pension at this stage of my career. Yeah, I'm pro you're getting a pension soon too. I plan for you and your retirement. All right, all right with so we have been talking about. Baseball boyfriends already. Just a heads up for anybody joining us the first time. Hi, we talk about these guys that we pick in the off season. We're about to pick four more today, because we do one guy per team, Al and NL each week, and then we keep track of them like you with Kyle Tucker and Bob a shet and me with Jorge Mateo, who I picked last year as my Orioles boyfriend, and I picked him, knowing that he wasn't going to be playing a lot, but I just really like him, and I like his character, and absolutely best for him, he was a really positive part of the team, and I am happy that he has found a very short, albeit landing place for next year in Atlanta. He's got a one year contract, and it kind of came out of the blue for Atlanta, because they suddenly had a need for another infielder, because your baseball boyfriend picked from San Diego, from 2023 Hassan Kim went to Korea, and so there was talk about baseball in Korea, and maybe that's what hurt him. But no, that wasn't it. He slipped on ice and needs hand surgery. He tore a tendon in his right middle finger. For me, that would be a major injury

Patti 11:11
that would really put a damper on your daily activities.

Pottymouth 11:14
Yeah, absolutely. My heart goes out to has on Kim. But you know, ice can happen anywhere, even in Atlanta, you know, they are definitely not ready for it when it happens, because I don't have all that

Patti 11:25
equipment to say, better watch his staff, of course. You know, he's been in Baltimore for a while, so he's had some practice. And, you know, winter,

Pottymouth 11:31
yeah, you know where else he's been to not practice winter, though, he has been in the Dominican Republic. And I'm wondering, and we're gonna talk a lot about winter leagues later, I'm wondering how much his experience there caught Atlanta's eye, and that's maybe why they found him. Because he's on the first team that clinched to be in the finals, the Leones del escogido, my team, the best team. And maybe because of that action, you know, he's causing some attention.

Patti 11:58
One quick police plotter. You may have heard that Max Kepler, who's potty mouse, former boyfriend from the twins, has been banned 80 games for violating Major League Baseball's drug program. He tested positive for for PDS. So the interesting thing about this, I mean, this happens, we announce it when it happens most of the time, sometimes we skip one. But he's currently a free agent, right? So he spent the last year in Philadelphia, but he's a free agent. He hasn't signed with the team. So what is he being suspended from? Yeah, exactly. Does he, you know, sign? Apparently, MLB has identified this as a possibility of this happening. So there is a negotiated agreement that if a free agent gets suspended for whatever. I don't know if it's for whatever reason or if it's just drug policy specific. That was not clear to me. If they're not signed with another team, they can credit the games that their former team has played. So if he's not signed with the team by opening day, okay, and the Phillies play 10 games before Kepler gets signed somewhere else, those 10 games get credited towards his 80 because he didn't play for that part of the year. Okay, fair or not, I don't know, but isn't that weird?

Pottymouth 13:08
It is. But I wonder if that makes him less attractive as signing something, the thing

Patti 13:14
that makes him less attractive is, no matter where he signs, he's ineligible for the postseason. Oh, so he's got that against him. So if someone needs his bat or whatnot to get to the postseason, maybe he's a rental. Maybe he's a rental, but they need to not count on him for the postseason, because he doesn't get to play there. Oops.

Pottymouth 13:33
Yeah, all right, that kind of sucks. Oh, well, boyfriend's gone bad. I'm hopeful that my boyfriends I'm talking about this week are not going to have drug problems. Let's let's keep our fingers crossed. We're going to start off with the Kansas City Royals. And I chose Carter Jensen, who is catching and DHing depends on what's happening with Salvador Perez, I believe, only 22 years old. And yes, it's because last week I picked Danny Jansen. And so I get to go from a Janssen to a Jensen for catching. And I always have, like, really sound rationale next week,

Patti 14:08
but there's Johnson, yeah,

Pottymouth 14:11
oh shit, I might have so I thought I was going to be done with catchers, but if there's a Johnson catcher out there next week, well, we'll see. It gets even more fun, though, with the word play. He debuted last year pinch hitting against closer Kenley Jansen. Jansen, which was just last September 2. So he hasn't had a lot of major league time, but it's been some pretty valuable and powerful Major League time. He played 20 games at the end of the season with a 300 average and 941, ops before his debut, he'd only been at AAA for just a couple of months, 43 games in that time, 43 games, he had 14 home runs, so he was kind of on the fast track, moving up, young guy, more things that he got done in that first. 20 games in the big leagues last September. His first home run was an oppo against Seattle on the 16th of September, and two innings later, he hit his second home run. So got those out of the way on one game on the 28th of September, he hit the longest home run by a royal in the Statcast era. It was 482 freaking feet. That's far. Yeah, that's crazy for me two years old. And the most cosmic part. And so here's where it goes into like, if he had been an asshole, I wouldn't have continued, right? Like, I the name thing was fun, the pinch hitting is fun, but he's also a really cool guy. And Salvador Perez was my very first Kansas City boyfriend. So I love the Salvi connection. He is from Kansas City Carter. So his dream his entire life has been to play for Kansas City Salvador Perez, of course, was his favorite player growing up, and now it's his mentor. When he got called up September 2, he got to go home and stay with his parents, beginning of his call up, and his mom looked back into the Wayback Machine Records, and 10 years before, she found that she had posted that she and dad surprised the kids and brought them to a game. Exactly 10 years before his call up, his dad said, since he was drafted, would watch them at every level. We've gone, everywhere we've seen him not only grow as a baseball player, but as a person. And so this is another thing that I love about this guy, young guy, but he still has this sense of maturity and and purpose. And I think he gets a lot of it from parents, which, you know, sure, parent we love taking credit for shit like that. Carter started T ball at age four, and he was so good that the opposing team's coach reached out to his dad after the game about the next season, his dad said, I mean, it's T ball. We're being recruited. So, you know, played little league all through through childhood, tried out for the Royal scout team that they have for high schoolers, and he tried out ambitiously before freshman year in high school, and didn't make it, but used that as motivation, incentive to work hard to make it the next year. And then he stayed on through high school, and he feels that that kind of exposure with the Royal scout team is what led him to be drafted out of Park Hill High School in Kansas City in 2021 in the third round, 78 overall coming out of high school. He turned down LSU, but you know, it's his dream to play for his home team. So what are you going to say? No to that? It's crazy. He was a non roster invite to spring training in both 2024 and 2025 and was in the futures game in 2025 he's currently ranked number one Royals prospect looking good for him to making opening day. He's number two for a catcher prospect, after Orioles, Samuel basayo And both of them, I think you know, are destined for big league time this year. The very cool also, another very cool thing about card is from October 15 to November 6, he played nine game was with the Aguila sivana's The Dominican team. And actually, there's, I'm going to be talking a lot about the Aguilas later, and so maybe this will sway which way we're voting for the Aguilas. He nothing stellar. I mean, it was nine games. He got six RBI, nine games. Batted 207, with 627, ops. But his attitude about it is really cool, just for a young kid to go down to the Dominican Republic try it out for a while. And he said, quote, when fans yelled bad things at me, I might not be able to understand some of it when he's getting some like and it was a mile away. It wasn't his first time there. And like credit to the royals for this in 2022 the Royals had sent him and some other prospects to the DR just to get to know the culture and where his teammates come from. I would love, Yeah, isn't that? I see

Patti 18:53
more retirement jobs opening

Pottymouth 18:55
up for you? Be a little bit of a commute. Not a bad idea, though, but when it's a field trip, yeah? Like to lead groups that would be great. That's a field trip. Wow, sure. All right, I would love to see more teams do this, like, yeah, or at least to publicize it more. And when he was there, he actually saw a game of the Aguila sabenas Play the Tigres de Lisa. So he was just down there for a little while, a little experience back in time for Thanksgiving, which is a good thing, because he was the Royals rep for their distributing Turkey thing for Thanksgiving, distributing Turkey meals and books for Kansas City Urban Youth Academy, which is about two blocks from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Woo hoo. So crediting the parents for raising him right. He said, I try to put others above me. Make sure everybody else is good and take care of them. And what I love ending on here is his message for Thanksgiving. And I think we all need to take this to heart today. Martin Luther King, day and every day, and considering everything that's going on in this fucking country right now, he said quote. Quote, everybody. Love everybody. There's too much hate in the world. It's sad to see. But you know, if everybody could just love everybody, I think this world would be an amazing spot. 22 year old prospect with some words that I think we all can learn from.

Patti 20:18
I love it. What a good pick. What a good pick I picked. So my two guys are both two way players, or they were two way players. Oh, wow, that was kind of interesting. I didn't know that until I started like, digging. Wait a minute, I picked you because you're both outfielders, and I needed outfielders. And you guys looked really interesting to me. They're more interesting than just that. So for Kansas City, I picked Jeffrey Allen caglione, who goes by Jack for j, A, C for the acronym. It goes by his initials, who right field, first base, 22 years old, from Tampa, Florida. So his athletic family, his sister Samantha, played college volleyball. Remember this for later, his dad played college baseball, and they made a big deal of the fact that his dad was not pushing him into baseball, even though he was kind of like chomping at the bit because he was a player, right? Yeah? Said, yeah, the kid who was playing Legos and doing, you know, doing whatever. And all of a sudden he got interested in baseball. And what he said, What? What Jack said is, my dad would never force me to go hit. He would wait for me to ask him to go hit. So the day I finally did, he was so happy. My mom told me that years later, because my mom knew it was killing him. So like, props to the dad for like, Okay, I can't push my stuff on him, but when he's ready, I am so so ready. He went to the same high school in Tampa that they boast both Wade Boggs and Pete Alonso. Not bad. So that's okay, but he really left his mark on this high school. As a junior, he was MLB Network, serious XM, two way Player of the Year, which is the thing for high school players, right? Because high school players play, you know, they don't specialize so early, right? As a senior, he batted 371, had an era of 2.44 in the postseason, he tore his UCL and had Tommy John just coming out of being a senior in high school. So when he started college of Florida, he was a gator, you know, he kind of went in as a two way player, but that first year as a freshman, he was going to register like because he's recovering right from Tommy John. And they said, if you want to DH? And he said, you know, yes please. So he DH his freshman year, but then when he was fully recovered in his sophomore year, he was both the starting first baseman and the starting pitcher. Wow. He broke Florida's single season home run record at 27 and ended with 33 home runs for that season. So big bat as a junior, he hit home runs in nine straight games, which tied an NCAA record. Because he's a two way player. Sometimes his nickname was jacktani, and he got referred to more than once as the collegiate Ohtani, right? So that's the thing that's gonna happen, right? And in 2024 the Royals picked him in the first round with a $7.21 million signing bonus. So started 2025 in double A went to triple A in May. So like not that long in double A went to triple A May, he hit six home runs in 12 games, including four consecutive games, because when he starts hitting home runs, he can't not hit home runs in consecutive games, apparently. So he was called up on June 3 right, and he was playing in they were playing in St Louis. He went, oh for five, but he kept hitting the ball, and the defense was killing him, right? So he said things like, he hit like a really hard liner towards the third base of the Cardinals. So he said, off the bat. I was like, possibly. But then halfway in line was like, well, that's platinum Glover, no, and aeronaut, it was third, so probably not. So yes, guys, he's pretty, pretty funny. Actually. He said he was stepping in the box behind Salvador Perez. He said that was really cool. Said, I grew up watching him. So that was a full circle moment. And then Paris, after this guy's debut where he went, oh for five, but he kept hitting the ball. Paris said, I just told him, baseball is the best sport. Tomorrow, he's gonna have more opportunity. I thought he did a pretty good job today. He put the ball in play. He hit the ball hard, right? So when you have Salvi saying, you know you're okay, this is gonna be fine, right? So it only took to June 8, when he had his first multi hit game, where he went four for four versus the White Sox. So he kind of like got over that his first home run was until June 19, but his second home run was also on June 19. So that was his first multi Homer game. So before that season started, the Italian American baseball foundation named him, right? Remember Jack caglione? Right? The organization's official ambassador. So he's the baseball ambassador, which is to help grow the game, both in Italy, but also among you know Italian Americans, to kind of encourage more people to play the game. So a lot of a lot of press time, and a lot of the. Kind of publicity has been like playing up his Italian background, which is on his dad's side, which, you know, because, yeah, right. But also, his mom was born in Puerto Rico, so he's gonna play for Puerto Rico for the World Baseball Classic. Well, he was, he was invited. He was invited. I've seen him on Italy lists, so he was not on the Italy list when I just checked, but he was, in fact, invited to put the Puerto Rico. So maybe he's, you know, juggling off, because last time I looked at Italy, he was not on it, even with a name like caglia, right? So also, another thing I really like about him, this goes back to his sister playing volleyball. He respects women athletes. He's engaged to Ellie mckissock, who's a professional volleyball player. She was just signed with the Atlanta vibe, wow. And she holds school records for career digs and since played at Florida. So my guess is, you know, they met in college, and both athletes, both athletes, now they're both professional athletes. So that's pretty dang cool. That's a commute, though, and yes, yes, indeed, he also has a his hand in fundraising and philanthropy. He's he works with a Florida based organization called food for kids, which tries to end childhood hunger in the state of Florida. And he's done some Ronald McDonald House fundraisers. So I love these guys, like you said, who are starting young and are not shying away from that. They're not waiting until they're veterans and can, kind of like, lean back and rest on their laurels and say, Oh no, I can give back. They're giving back now. I love that about these guys.

Pottymouth 26:26
So good. All right. Another young guy, actually should. I didn't write down his age, Casey Schmidt must be young, although he's been playing a couple years third base, I think. Oh, so we're talking about the Giants, sorry, National League giants. And I just got to say, actually, before I started talking about Casey was a wonderful guy. Wonderful guy. I totally won over by this guy looking at the Giants lineup. It just makes me, like, kind of sick to my stomach to see Rafael Devers his first base, like he's gonna be first base next year. And there was just the whole like, he got so pouty when the Red Sox wanted to move him to first base. So yes, I am resentful. Sure. I, you know, wish the best for Casey Schmidt and the rest of the giants. So I'm not quite sure if or where Casey's going to be playing. He's listed at third by MLB fangres says second. Last year he played first, second, shortstop and third. So, you know, anything could happen, and maybe I can get a lot of credit on Yahoo fantasyball For sure, that would be really great. He's from San Diego, and I picked him because the MLB article that said he quickly became a fan favorite due in part to his contagious laugh and self described goofy personality. Don't know why that's resonated with me, but you know, for those of you who know me, I think, um, this, this has got to be my guy. So here's the other T ball baby story. So at age 5t, ball, he this reminds me of, like, watching our kids play soccer than when they were little. No matter what position he was at, he ran after the ball on defense. He was just like, always that kid after the ball. And I remember playing soccer like watching little mob of like the amoeba, yeah, three year olds just like, following the ball all over the field. His mom said, though, and so here's, like, the character stuff in Little League, he was friends with the best player on the team, and he was friends with the worst player in the team. He never wanted anyone to have that less than feeling. And I, what I really admire about him is continuing that through his experience in sports as he got older. And, you know, being that Joker personality, but also having empathy and feeling for other other people on his team when he was older, and he played in a pony league that was a lot more diverse, and he realized other kids on the team didn't have the stuff that he did, and he asked his Mom, can I bring the rest of my stuff to share? Because other kids didn't have like, you know, cool cleats and things like that. He's also been affected by a lot of tragedy in his life. At age seven, his father fell head first off of a ladder and got a severe brain injury, and he didn't remember Casey. So I just like, you know what the family has been through to recover from that? You know the good news? Spoiler alert, Dad did recover. He's doing fine. He's there today and able to watch him play. But Casey, at age seven, decided to dedicate himself to helping his dad recover. And his teacher blit like, Yay for the parents, yay for the teachers. He brought home extra homework packets for his dad. Oh, and his teacher graded both of them. Oh, god, yeah. Like, I'm getting all teary eyed, like, as the teacher his dad said, I think that was inspiration to him to say, You know what, I'm going to make you get better. And he did. That was one of the things that helped me through my rehab. I wanted to see him go to high school. I want to see him play in college. Wow. So Casey continued to excel. You know, for his dad, as a junior in high school, he was, his average was 500 while he was also the team closer. So he was a two way or in high school and a joker in high school, and he and his close friend Micah patella Wiggs, who was a year behind him, were sort of known as the jokers on the team. Micah was on the and Casey, Casey and Carter today. Man. Casey just missed this, but Micah was on a Little League World Series team that won the US division in 2013 but they were known for sort of like being distracting sometimes, but also both really good players. So Casey went to and I'll get back to Micah in a minute. Casey went to San Diego State, and he was the first San Diego State freshman since Stephen Strasburg in 2007 to be named First Team All American by baseball America because he had an O point to 8e R A so mind you, he's, you know, now, a position player, but was playing two way then and made it to Cape Cod 2019 phoned home and said, Mom, these guys are so good. I think they're going to send me home. You know, that intimidating, because Cape Cod Elite League, but he ended up as the league postseason MVP. Despite that, he was drafted after shortened 2020, season, when he was batting 323, with an 837, ops and a 375, era, at the same time at San Diego State. So his friend from high school, Micah, was about to follow in his footsteps at San Diego State. He'd been playing a couple years at other colleges, but tragically, super sad, another difficult event for Casey. Micah died in a car accident in January 2021 so Casey, being one of his closest friends, helped start a scholarship live like Micah. That quote supports high school seniors who embody the same qualities that made made Micah who he was. These students make a positive impact in every setting, whether it be in the classroom, at lunch, at practice, or in their community. So we can link to that scholarship, because there's a lot of stories about other people's impressions of Michael, who sounded like an amazing young man. And just, you know, left left us too soon, and Casey continuing on. You know, hard to get past that and continue playing when you're losing a friend like that. So going through the system, he was in single a Modesto nuts, and he gets hit in the face while turning away from a fastball. So luckily, he turned away and it just smashed his nose, but it didn't give him a concussion. But he didn't want to miss time playing, so he put off surgery, so he's like, all taped up in his face, still playing back on the field five days later, and his first game back, he got two hits. His season ended early anyway, though, because he got hit on the wrist, and so at least that gave him time to get surgery on his face while his wrist was healing. You know, kudos to the Giants, because he got to work with the Giants mental health coach to get through that anxiety, because he started bailing on pitches, because you get in the face that's going to affect your reactions. They taught him to close up his stance, and his numbers improved a lot. So coming back in single a, he was batting 247, 724, while he was struggling with this in 2021 triple A, at the end of 2022 he was batting 333, with a 913, ops. So he gets called up in 2023 he got the call up. And so extra bonus points here, especially in our family. He was in the theater watching Guardians of the Galaxy, so he missed the first call. Understandably, he did check his phone during the credits, you know, waiting for that after at the end of the credits thing, and went out to talk at that point, maybe he missed that bonus, but he got to debut may 9, 2023 as a shortstop, and he was miked up for part of his debut. He homered in his second at bat, and his whole fan club was there, including Spanish speaking grandma, grandma from Mexico. It was her first time out in three years because of covid. And, you know, went there. It turns out that Casey's mom's mom is from Mexico. So I don't it doesn't say about it mom's dad, but Casey speaks Spanish because of this. So extra credit points. Here. He is the fifth giant ever with two homers in his first three games, the first short step in MLB history to begin his career with three multi hit games with extra base hits in each he's the first giant to hit grand slams in back to back games. June 13 and 14th. June 25 at Dodger Stadium. Both of those were Dodger Stadium. Scent. That's insane, right? For a giant like, for it for a giant rookie like this is so, so so crazy. Actually, that wasn't his rookie year. That was couple years later, but still, his first one was against Yamamoto. The Giants won that game six to two. His second one, even cooler for me, was off Kiki Hernandez, who was pitching in the top of the ninth, because the Dodgers were winning 11 to zero, but that Grand Slam brought it 11 to five, and they had to pull Kike and bring in Anthony Banda, because it started right. Poor Kike didn't even get to finish the game. It was the fifth time in giants history that the team has had grand slams in back to back games. Little. In a single person, along with Hall of Famer Willie McCovey, he is the one of only two giants with eight hits in his first three games, and had a five game streak in that time. So overall, those three years, 2324 25 were a little rocky. He was up and down. He wasn't just, you know, solid up for the whole season, some injuries, but very utilities. So he gets to plug in when there's a place to plug in. So I'm wondering if there's space for him next year. I'm really hoping the bad news is, of course, I found out after doing all the rest of this research and totally fall in love with this guy. He had wrist surgery on December 2 from an injury at the end of last June, which probably led to the problematic dip in his production last year. So it's unclear if he's going to be ready for the start of spring training, or if the giants are looking for a big name for the infield. So we'll see.

Patti 35:55
We will see. Wow. Okay, so before I start on my guy who sounds like very similar to your guy. We're about ready for our second backup beer. These are little beers, so also from Nepenthe, also a West Coast style IP. This one is the cryomancer. Oh my god, the label art is just freaking incredible. But I'm gonna let you pour sure, because I'm gonna talk about drew Gilbert for the Giants. Drew Gilbert, center fielder. He's 25 and he's five nine, which may or may not be a euphemism. I don't know five nine. Sometimes it's a code. It's code for a shorter, but we're rounding up. Sometimes it's not anyway. Drew was born in St Paul, Minnesota. His parents Andy and Cindy were both athletes in college. His dad played soccer at Bethel University. His mom was a gymnast at Ball State, but Cindy also worked in Major League Baseball. She worked for the Minnesota Twins for almost 20 years running the player's family room, which is basically babysitting players kids during games. So Drew would hang out and help. That sounds like another good retirement job, right? So he would be in this room, so you get to meet like you play with the kids, but then meet the players when they come to pick up their kids. So he said, as a kid, I was starstruck, but as you grow up and get older, you realize they're normal human beings. So his situation was, he had six surgeries while he was a second grader, he had intestinal blockage, even the Mayo Clinic couldn't figure out what the cause was, but it's something hereditary, because his sister Molly had a similar experience. So for a couple of years that was kind of his life. It all cleared up. No no. Nothing else ever happened after seventh grade that was related to this. But he said it was something that held me out of school for most of first grade through fifth grade. Kind of felt like I wasn't a normal kid. Taught me how to be tough, and it gave me an edge that I've carried with me. Kind of felt like you've been given your life back. All right. So in high school, he's playing baseball for Stillwater High School, who as a junior, he takes to the state championship. His contribution was as a pitcher. He threw a complete game. Shut out 115 pitches. He struck out 15. He finished his junior year batting 400 with a with a point 063, era. And as a senior, he got, you know, the local newspapers give you like the sort of like the metro area designations, but he was also Minnesota Mr. Baseball. He and senior year, he struck out 97 gave up only one run in 49 innings pitch. That's insane, while hitting 370 so he was drafted by Minnesota in 2019 but didn't sign. Okay, this is a little bit different than, like, your guys, okay, this is the hometown team, right? It's like, Okay, nope, gotta go to college. Gotta go to college, Tennessee. He was a volunteer, you know, testing volunteers. Freshman year, he had 10 starts, but then they got shut down for covid, and then it doesn't, I couldn't figure out why, but he started his sophomore and junior year, he was the starting center fielder as opposed to starting pitcher. Nothing says why the switch? Nothing says why the switch? But he hit a walk off Grand Slam in the first round of the 2021 NCAA tourney as a sophomore, and his bat flip and tossing the helmet and his celebration got him, like, this, nickname of the bat flip King and T shirt started showing up. But, you know, this kid did. This kid said, Okay, let's have a charity bat flip for kids. Oh, wow, he's in college, right? He raised money to buy toys for kids that were in the hospital. Remember he that's how he spent a couple years of his life and gift cards for their families and caregivers. And while all that was going on, he was, you know, an All American for this three years of college, his coach said, you could argue he's the most important player we've had in the program in 10 years. That's kind of the impact he made on the field and off the field. For instance, it'd be a random Monday, and he grabbed a couple teammates to go down to Fort Sanders Medical Center of UT medical. Center. So he takes some gifts and meet some of the kids. Just do it on his own. So it wasn't like one of those do it for the publicity. It was like, I got some time. Let's go. Let's go hang up, hang with some kids who are in the hospital. So he was drafted by the Astros in the first round. In 2022 signed for two and a half million dollars homeward in his first at bat for the Florida complex league Astros. Right? It's very first minor league thing. In 2023 he played in the futures game, and then moments later, he got traded with another player to the Mets for Justin Verlander. Not a bad trade, not a bad guy to be traded for, right? You and one other guy equals Justin Verlander. Okay, that sounds pretty good. So he finished the season in double A for the Mets, and then he started. He played all 2024 and triple A Syracuse and started 2020 Syracuse, and started 2025 in triple A Syracuse. And then at the trade deadline, he was part of a deal that brought Tyler Rogers to the Mets and sent him to the Giants. So his call up, it's a lot of movement, yep, his call up was on August 8 as a starting center fielder, where he went zero for four, but that's okay. That's okay because he got his first home run on August 17, and then, and then in early September, he had a two run homer versus Colorado, and then hit singles in his next three straight at bats. So he got over whatever that little slump was, and then his teammates were starting to notice that, like every time there was a hit or a home run, he would go crazy in the dugout, as if it were a collegiate dugout. The TV stations, like, if something great happened, they focus on him, like, what's he gonna do to celebrate this thing? Like they were joking about him being the official hype man. He was so excited about playing major league baseball that he said, it was said, that he applauded all the way from first to second when he had he was advanced on a bulk. Sure, I wouldn't you have a great time. So Dominic Smith said he's a lightning bolt, like if you put a lightning bolt in a little ball, and then your guy, Casey Schmidt, said he's like a little ball of fire just waiting to explode. We love it. It's a good fire. And then Matt Chapman said he's funny. We like him. And so. So the his, his response to all this is, well, shoot, when I work this hard, why wouldn't I play like my hair is on fire. So I am pretty, pretty darn excited about drew Gilbert, center fielder for the Giants. Next week, we're going to have Detroit and Cincinnati.

Pottymouth 42:20
Wow, we're moving up. All right. We just keep on going. Yeah, we could definitely use some suggestions. If anybody has some matchmaking to do for Detroit or Cincinnati, please let us know. So not too far in the future, we're gonna have the World Baseball Classic. So excited. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Team USA is the only one that's solid and, like, I really wish I took better notes, because there's, there's a reason why USA is more solid than the other teams, and it has to do with the levels of verification, of qualifications. And USA gets streamlined because, you know, it's USA, it's pretty obvious. But for our 25 picks, we each have somebody who signed up for team USA. That's Ernie Clement for me, and Pete brown Armstrong for you. And you know, a whole bunch of the other guys are past picks, but those are our recent guys.

Patti 43:09
So I saw that Clayton Kirsch house like I want to play. Do we know if he's playing, or is he just talking about I

Pottymouth 43:14
really want to play? Don't know. I haven't seen anything other than Put me in coach. Yeah, right, yeah. And they're they've got a pretty lengthy, like, seriously lengthy, roster at this point. Things are popular. So if you want to go to see a game, you better look fast, because stuff is selling out. The tickets to the Porta to the group stage in Puerto Rico sold out in December. So don't even think about vacationing in Puerto Rico for World Baseball Classic unless you want to pay some serious StubHub you know rates. Most of Tokyo is also sold out. Every game that Japan's playing is sold out in Tokyo. Every game that Taiwan is playing is sold out in Tokyo. You can still get a little bit for the the games between Czech Republic, right, Australia and Korea, like the combination of those, are still slightly available. As far as the Texas games go. US, Mexico sold out. In Texas, sure. And in Miami, Venezuela. Dominican Republic is sold out. So get busy if you want to go. Note that, as opposed to 2023 when there was this crazy knockout round in the group stage because Venezuela, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico were all there, and only two could go on now, Puerto Rico is hosting, so not in the same group as Dominican Republic and Venezuela, but Venezuela has been in the news lately. There's a lot of questions. You know, what happens to your baseball team after your country has been, you know, pretty much slightly invaded, and the standing President's been removed and is currently in New York City. Well, they're moving forward. There is no official list at this point because of details, but there was recently in a sea of. Love, yeah, see about but there's recently an interview with the manager who said, anyway, that Salvador Perez, ronio Jr, Jackson, chaudio, Michael Garcia, William rayu and Eugenio Suarez are casi sem por ciento, almost 100% sure. Jesus luzardo has turned it down officially. He's pitching entering a contract year and just doesn't want to fuck it up. So understandable. I don't think that has to do with the politics. There was a lot of like, you know, at first blush saying that players are defecting. Nobody's going to want to play for Venezuela. But I don't know. It seems like it's, you know, at a new day, page turned. Who knows? We're an invading Greenland now, so maybe Venezuela is not going to be in danger of that. Italy is kind of interesting. Adam motovino has said that he's going to be playing for Italy. I just love Adam motovino Because he is one player that I know who's played for the Red Sox in both New York teams, both Yankees and the Mets. Huge respect for him, speaking of the Yankees, Jorge passada announced this week that he's going to be coaching for Italy. The manager of Italy is one of my, I think, yeah, 2019 was that our first year original boyfriend's Francisco cervelli, and also your 25 pick, Sal freelich and my 23 pick Vinnie pasquintino, are theoretically going to be on the Italy. I was

Patti 46:25
pretty sure I saw Mike Piazza as the coach for a team Italy when I was looking for Jack.

Pottymouth 46:30
Maybe he's on the coaching Yeah, I think cervelli is managing and maybe piazzas. I Yeah, I'd love to see that.

Patti 46:37
So somebody coming off of a roster former boyfriend, Freddie Freeman, is out of Team Canada, and he says it's for, quote, personal reasons. He played for Canada for the last two World Baseball classics. He is an American citizen, but his parents are Canadian, so he plays in their honor. Team Canada still has Josh Naylor, who they were. They were gonna like, you know, platoon with with Freeman, like first base and DH and now Josh could be like, the primary first baseman. So they're not they're not going to be, they'll miss his bat. But there's a lot of speculation about why he what these personal reasons might be, and part of it is, well, he's 37 Yeah, and maybe, maybe there's health things, or maybe he wants to rest up and protect himself going into the Dodgers season. So that's not it's unknown what's happening there, but no Freddie Freeman in the World Baseball Classic. Okay, okay, so swag alert. I haven't checked to see if they're sold out yet. Oh, but the Orioles added a two pack Shakur bobblehead for the May 8 game against the athletics fascinating, and also eBay. Maybe there are speculators on there already saying, I will guarantee you a bobblehead for $700 seriously. So I'm thinking maybe we should try to go, because we might need to do like into some retirement planning things like that. Maybe we do it via bobblehead. So you might be saying, Why? Why Baltimore? He's like a West Coast rapper. Well, glad you asked that question. You asked that question, right? So he moved to Baltimore from the Bronx when he was 14 years old. He lived in Baltimore from middle and high school, including,

Pottymouth 48:17
wait, you moved to Baltimore from where? From the Bronx, the Bronx, from the Bronx,

Patti 48:20
and he lived in Baltimore for middle and high school, including studying acting, poetry, jazz and ballet at the Baltimore School of the Arts. Even better than that, he and a friend won a youth rap contest in November of 1985 held at the Enoch Pratt Free Library with a song they wrote called library rap that is the best. So I'm pretty dang excited about this. I heard a rumor from the intern, who I we haven't backed this up, that the athletics are like, well, we should be doing it because, you know, Oakland and also Vegas. Of course, Vegas was not a good place.

Pottymouth 48:55
So I don't know, but hey, Baltimore on May 8. I think we should maybe consider this. I think we need to look into that. It's a school day, but maybe I don't know. I didn't look all right? I haven't looked at Orioles tickets at all. Yeah, we need to get busy spring. It's so exciting. Yes, and meanwhile, there is baseball you played right now south of the border, international baseball, Lead on. There's so much excitement going on down there. Folks in the Dominican Republic. My leonos del escogido, as previously mentioned, have clinched their way into the finals, which are going to start this week. However, there has been some scandal this past week, because the Torres del Este and the aglesias previously also mentioned from from my guy above, they theoretically would be tied at this point, but on the 16th, the Toros after losing, mind you, they waited until after they lost, they protested the game that the Aguilas won. This is the second to last game of the freaking season, because the Aguilas had nine imported players on the roster, and only eight are permitted by Lee. Um rules. So it went to the higher ups and lead um ruled in favor of the Toros and said that they had to replay the game, which is happening in an hour and a half. So I cannot tell you who won, but you guys can look it up. It's a big deal, because if the Aguilas win this game, then they will be tied, and they have to play another game tomorrow to figure out who's going on to the finals against the Leones. If the aguas do not win, it's the tortoise de last day. Now also to make things even. Mur the ayulas Don't even and they went dragging into this game today. They want today's game to be counted as a tiebreaker. They think that they are already tied because they said that everyone got their roster five hours before the game and approved it, but they broke the rule.

Patti 50:49
Like, sure, but I think they do have, they have reason to argue that. It's like you all saw this. That's what they're saying. Why are you calling on this after the fact?

Pottymouth 50:58
Yeah, basically, somebody didn't do their job, right, you know? And, and the Toros pointed it out, yep. And, and the Toros waited because, you know, if they had won it, they wouldn't have been a big deal. So in order for us to ascertain who we should be rooting for in this Aguilas against tortoise, I did a little bit of baseball boyfriend. We have three on the aguiles and four on the Toros by three and four, you mean three or four? What baseball? Boyfriend, thank you. But I don't know if it's an extra weight on the aguas, because also my guy today had that I less experience, but two of the three from the aguas we picked just last year. That would be Gerard prodomo, you picked for Arizona last year, and Ezekiel Duran, adorable guy I picked for Texas last year. That plus Aledo Tavares, who you picked in 2021 for Texas on the Toros we have four guys, your 24 pick from Miami, Brian De La Cruz, my 2019 pick from Minnesota, Eddie Rosario, your 2020 pick from the White Sox at Loy Jimenez and my 21 Detroit pick, jamer Candelario. So all very nice guys, maybe we can just celebrate whoever's going on. Just hope everybody has fun. Yeah, and I want the Leon is to win anyway. So there's excitement in Dominican Republic. There's even more excitement in Venezuela. First of all, yarde Molina, one of my original baseball boyfriend picks, gets manager the year. Yay. Good for managing the Navegantes de magayanes. No, I always pronounce it wrong. Magayanis, I listened to that Maga Yanis many, many times on Saturday because we actually watched a game of the Cardinals de Lara, which is the team that I wanted to win against the Maga Yanes. And unfortunately, it was a crazy ass game, and I got way too invested, you know, like, as soon as you pick a side, yeah, and the cardinales were ahead seven to nothing. And then it was eight to one, and fucking Yadier Molina managed his way out of that game, it was his starting pitcher that he couldn't really pull. You know, his three innings when the damage was done, he pulled the guy as soon as he could, and then he absolutely out managed the Cardinals. They went to 10 innings, and the Navegantes ended up winning, which was sad to me, but it was amazing to watch Yadier Molina do that. The the other super cool thing about that game, also embarrassing as a cardinales fan rugnan odor playing for the Navegantes stole home, home. Stole home before the it was a pitcher had just been relieved. They had just switched pictures. The Cardinal is the guy was getting ready for his first fucking pitch, and rug no door, steals home base like 107 years old, right? Exactly. Wow. Absolutely deserves that award. So also, this game on Saturday that I watched was the first game where he didn't have yasio Puig, so another blast from the past. So he had to leave before the game on Saturday because he had to come to the United States for a court date sure he did on that betting scandal that we talked about way back in 2022 when he was charged with lying to federal agents that were investigating that gambling ring that included ohtani's translator that was at that whole like to go back and go through those weeds, because there's a lot of mess back there. And at that point, he originally pled guilty and then changed his mind. And just kidding, right? Actually, I'm not guilty. And so when he changed his mind, I got say that, yeah, and he got more charges that way. He ended up with two counts of false statements plus one count of obstruction of justice because of that which all of that together, if he is guilty, could be up to 20 years ago, Jesus. So we will see what happens. That should be happening any day. But you know, he did get three home runs in nine round robin games that he played. Had a 1.024 ops. And so that irony isn't lost on anybody. His teammate is tukupita Marcano, the minor league player who is banned for life for betting on his own team. Right? So in that I can't tell you how many ads there are all over that fucking Stadium in Venezuela for betting. I feel like this has been why can't you? Yeah? So you know, calm, which is, yeah, triumphette.com and my favorite say to parle.com,

Patti 55:44
oh, my God. Oh, it's just oh

Pottymouth 55:46
my really, really rough. So the Venezuelan league is behind everybody else because of that gringo invasion. So their round robin is going to the 25th but in another weird thing that happened after the whole kerfuffle, when everybody was really worried about the safety of the players in Venezuela. Jason chorio, Jackson's little brother is back with the Islas, so he and he left the country. Well, I don't do he actually left. All I know is that he and Jackson stopped playing after January 2, because the whole situation was January 3, when the US forces went in, but the 18th, he played again. So I'm not quite sure if he was just hanging out elsewhere. I don't know where Jackson is. Jackson's theoretically playing for the World Baseball Classic team, so maybe they're both just there and they were just laying low for a little while. I have no clue. I do want to give huge credit to his teammate with the Aguila stasulia, Andres Chaparro, yay, my last year's very, very hopeful pit for the nationals. You know, he didn't play a lot, but in the 10 round robin games, and Andres has been, has been playing, he is leading and batting average with 487 he's hit six home runs, and he has a very impressive 1.509 ops. So to give more baseball boyfriend credit your guy, who you picked last year for the Mets baby, okunia, is raking, and I'm wondering how this is going to affect the whole Mets Shakedown. Because now that they have Bob achette, they have a very crowded infield, right? They and it's all new guys. Well, old new guys, which is the funny thing, they're all like experienced players that they pulled for the in. They have Jorge Polanco, who they're putting at first base for the first time in his career. He's only played like one game at first they have Marcus Simeon, who they're giving second base. They have, you know, Francisco Lindor is not moving from shortstop, and then boba shit they're putting on third base, and he hasn't played third base before. And then the outfield they have Juan Soto, Tyrone Taylor, and another position that maybe a prospect's going to but maybe it could be open for baby Acuna. Baby Acuna, right now with the Cardinals de Lara is playing center field, huh, right? So I think this is a situation where you use the winter leagues for what you need the winter leagues for, and that is, maybe you need to learn how to play outfield. He had a killer play in the game that we saw like a smashing against the wall. Make a catch, glad you're not hurt by it. Kind of filled play and and he's a good guy too. There was one game where he didn't run it out to first, and it was he could have made it, because there was some sort of error situation, and the next day, when he was being interviewed for his stellar game that day, so we had a great game. The next day, he stopped the interview and said he wanted to apologize for the day before, especially to the kids out there, because he said, I don't you know you shouldn't be learning that from me. As you can see today, I gave it my all, and from now on, I'm going to recognize that error and basically be better. So that's the thing to do, that's totally like it all right, a little bit I'm going to try get through this quickly. Venezuela is hosting the serie de las Americas. So this is where, this is the spin off from the serie de Caribe. When the serie de Caribe, which is the series that all the winners of the winter leagues, used to play at, and Venezuela was supposed to host this year. And then a whole bunch of folks bailed, and so Venezuela said, Well, we're not going to go to Mexico. We want to host the serie de las Americas. Then the United States went in. There was that whole military operation. There was a lot of like, who's going to host? Can we still host? Is it going to Panama? Because it was supposed to be in Pana to begin with. Well, it's back to Venezuela. I don't know who does the logistic planning for this shit, because I'm thinking flights, you know, hotel reservations, what? There's so many countries going but apparently they're going to Venezuela. I just hope they have like that, like, switch on, on airline. Deal February 6 to 13th, the winner of the Argentinian league is going along with winter league champs from Colombia, Cuba Nicaragua and Venezuela, the national team representing Corozal and the Panama thing got settled in a really weird way. So this year's champs from Panama, the Aguilas metropolitania metropolitanas are going to the No, wait, I got it backwards. The the federales de Chiriqui won this year. They're going to Mexico. So the like established series, serie de Caribe, they're sending their actual champs too. But the Aguilas metropolitanas from Panama, they not only won the Panamanian series last year, but they won this first annual serie de las Americas last year. So they're returning as returning champs. That's how they kind of settled this out. So they're sending two teams, one to each, right? Syria, yeah. So the team that won this year is going to the Caribe and the team that won last year and won the serie de las Americas last year is going to Venezuela, but the serie de las Americas will not have any MLB players because it's not covered by any of those agreements. So they just can't go to that. And I don't know, watch international ball. It's gonna be an interesting time for all. I'm really curious how they're gonna pull this off in Venezuela in February 6. That's not long.

Patti 1:01:30
That's not far from now. That's just crazy. That's just crazy. I'm gonna bring us back home to the middle of the United States, back to Kansas City. We haven't been there for several minutes now Kauffman Stadium, where the Royals play, they're moving their outfield walls around. They're doing the opposite of the Great Wall of Baltimore. They're bringing in much of their outfield by up to 10 feet. Because what they say they want to do is they want to bring home runs hit in that ballpark, kind of to the league average. Okay, so right now they've got a very deep outfield, and they're going to keep like, like, straight up deep center at its 400 whatever feet it is, but they're going to taper in like, they're going to make it very symmetrical and taper the rest of it in up to 10 feet. And they're going to shorten the wall height from 10 feet to eight and a half feet, because then you get many more dramatic like home run robberies. Because right now, because, because the size of the outfield, it favors a lot of extra base hits. There's so many doubles and triples that get hit, because there's so much outfield to use for that, but they don't have a lot of the Homers. A side effect of that might be, we're getting close to where Salvi really needs to get up to 400 home runs. Oh, right. And this will help. This will help in very cool, Bobby Wood Jr should really be hitting 40 home runs a season, and hasn't been because of his home ballpark. So that might help. But they don't say that's the reason. They say. We just want to be average, of course, so the walls are moving, and maybe we'll go see those new walls.

Pottymouth 1:03:06
Oh, that would be so cool. I don't know we can move walls.

Patti 1:03:09
We can't or we can at least see walls that move. So yeah, so my plan, actually, for the upcoming week is to maybe try to figure out how to plan an epic road trip that involves somewhere between six and nine major league ballparks and a stop at to see Bob at the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City, for, I don't know, part of the month of August. I don't even know how to begin laying that out, but I'm going to play with it, and there's going to be some color coding and maybe some Google Sheets. Yeah, I was going to say, we think we need a spreadsheet for this. Yeah, we're gonna, we might need, like, a three dimensional spreadsheet for this,

Pottymouth 1:03:47
but we'll figure it out. I noticed that Omaha was on the way, because the Omaha storm chasers to

Patti 1:03:51
make that well, yeah, if we're gonna add, boy, we could add so many minor league Yeah, there, and I kind of want to go to, like, to the Ozarks, because I was parasailing there once. I'm just saying, really, yeah, you want to go parasailing. I've been parasailing multiple times, and once was there. I'm just saying, I know, yes, you're like, you're drawing, oh yeah, you're drawn to the floor. Because I am not currently athletic in any way whatsoever. But, you know, glory days, there we go and all that. We should try it again. All right, hey. So if you think we're just tossing this around, if you think it would be good idea to maybe like if we do this epic road trip, but you maybe want to meet us, oh, I don't know, at a certain Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, let us know on social media, and maybe we'll kind of do a thing early days, early days. How do people find us on social media to talk to us about this?

Pottymouth 1:04:35
You can find us on blue sky and, I guess Twitter, at ncib, podcast, Facebook, Facebook and Instagram. Are no crying and B ball. You can also find us on Patreon, and we can do some, you know, really good planning together on Patreon. Sure we can have lots of chats there. That's P, A, T, R, E, o n.com/no, crying and B ball. And for $1 a month, what a bargain. You can get exclusive access. To road trip planning with us. And, you know, I think if we talk to Bob, that he might be able to arrange some sort of tourist

Patti 1:05:07
we'll see what. We'll do a little bit of that on our end. Yeah, that's pretty exciting. Do you have anything else going on this week, other than it's a short week? It's a short

Pottymouth 1:05:14
work week. So glad it's a short week. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah, yeah. All right, work.

Patti 1:05:18
That's pretty good. And then we will also figure out who we're going to talk about from Detroit and Cincinnati, both of which may be stops on the epic road trip that are kind of theoretical right now. So please send us your suggestions for that. Otherwise, get boosted. Flu is everywhere, my friends, when I say get boosted, I mean, get your flu shot too. I don't know if it's going to help, but it might help. It's helped in the past. I don't know. I don't know. Fight the man. It's the right thing to do. Send your game balls to marathon until next week. Say goodnight.

Pottymouth 1:05:44
Potty mouth, good night. Pie mouth, you

the spam risk is calling you.

Patti 1:06:06
I'm gonna, like, let that go to, you know, nothing, because they never leave a message. So I don't think it's important. All right, yeah, they just do their thing. I you know, I want to, like, cut it off, and they gotta pay the wrong thing that I'm on the phone with the spam risk, and I don't want to encourage them. Yeah.