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Bow Ties and Breaking News with Ken Rosenthal · Rosters to Rings Podcast

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rosters to Rings. I'm your host, Thad Levine.
0:08
Speaker 1: We have an incredible show.
0:09
Speaker 2: For you today.
0:11
Speaker 1: I am joined by one of Major League Baseball's most
0:13
Speaker 1: decorated journalists on air, talent, podcaster and insider, Ken Rosenthal.
0:18
Speaker 1: A graduate of Oyster Bay High School on Long Island
0:21
Speaker 1: and the University of Pennsylvania, Ken cut his journalistic teeth
0:24
Speaker 1: working for The York Daily Record and Courier Post before
0:28
Speaker 1: joining the staff at the Baltimore Sun. While working for
0:31
Speaker 1: The Baltimore Sun for thirteen plus years, Ken was recognized
0:34
Speaker 1: as the Maryland Sports Writer of the Year five times.
0:38
Speaker 1: Ken has also spent time as a lead baseball writer
0:40
Speaker 1: for Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, Foxsports dot Com, and
0:44
Speaker 1: now The Athletic. In two thousand and five, a step
0:48
Speaker 1: ahead of the industry trends, Ken expanded his media credits
0:51
Speaker 1: as he emerged as one of the foremost Major League
0:54
Speaker 1: Baseball TV talents, and Ken has been honored with two Emmys.
0:59
Speaker 1: He's an accomplished author and the host of Fair Territory
1:02
Speaker 1: and contributor on numerous other podcasts. Aside from his journalistic
1:07
Speaker 1: accomplishments and contributions, Ken is one of the most vocal
1:10
Speaker 1: supporters of the bow tie cause, a philanthropic endeavor that
1:13
Speaker 1: we will hear more about in our conversation with Ken. Ken,
1:17
Speaker 1: welcome to Rosters to Rings.
1:19
Speaker 3: That thank you. That is an incredible introduction. I appreciate
1:22
Speaker 3: it and wow, thanks.
1:25
Speaker 1: Oh it's my pleasure, Ken, thank you so much for
1:27
Speaker 1: coming on.
1:28
Speaker 2: Ken.
1:28
Speaker 1: Is a tradition on Rosters to Rings we ask everyone
1:31
Speaker 1: who joins us, how'd you fall in love with sports
1:34
Speaker 1: as a kid. What is your sports passion origin story?
1:37
Speaker 3: Wow? Well, like many sports writers, I am a failed
1:41
Speaker 3: athlete and I wanted to be a high school player
1:48
Speaker 3: in any sport. Basketball was actually my best sport when
1:51
Speaker 3: I was little, but as people have seen, I'm still little,
1:55
Speaker 3: so that was a problem. I played high school soccer,
1:58
Speaker 3: but I was terrible, or at least not really a factor.
2:03
Speaker 3: So when I started getting cut from teams, that's when
2:07
Speaker 3: I got into the newspaper at the high school. And
2:10
Speaker 3: I always love sports, So there was really no origin
2:14
Speaker 3: story of how I came to love sports. That was
2:16
Speaker 3: from the very beginning. But how I became someone who
2:20
Speaker 3: wrote about sports that is directly a product of me
2:24
Speaker 3: failing to make a number of basketball teams.
2:27
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Can you spend thirteen years with the Baltimore
2:31
Speaker 1: Sun covering what was my beloved youth team, the Baltimore Orioles.
2:37
Speaker 1: Throughout this episode, we're going to dive into what's transpired
2:39
Speaker 1: in Boston and Philadelphia with pretty demonstrative moves in their
2:44
Speaker 1: coaching staffs. But I want to take you back to
2:45
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight another firing that took place earlier in
2:49
Speaker 1: the season. An Owen six Baltimore Orioles team fire then
2:53
Speaker 1: Cawarpkin Senior their manager, and hire Frank Rubinson. They go
2:57
Speaker 1: on to lose fifteen more games, setting a Major League
2:59
Speaker 1: Baseball record of losing their first twenty one games. If
3:02
Speaker 1: the math is right, that was your second year covering
3:04
Speaker 1: the team. Yes, as you're establishing yourself in a marketplace,
3:08
Speaker 1: how do you go about covering what turned out to
3:10
Speaker 1: be such unfortunately a train wreck of a start overseas well?
3:14
Speaker 3: Not well? Is how I covered it, And I was
3:16
Speaker 3: overwhelmed at the time. I am twenty five years old.
3:21
Speaker 3: I'm competing against Tim Kirkton, one of the great baseball
3:24
Speaker 3: writers of all time, great television presences, and Richard Justice.
3:28
Speaker 3: Richard was with the Washington Post. Tim was with the
3:30
Speaker 3: Baltimore Son. Richard was also one of the premier baseball
3:33
Speaker 3: writers of his day. So recovering this team and this
3:38
Speaker 3: team keeps losing and losing and losing, and sometimes I
3:43
Speaker 3: go back and look at what I wrote, then it's
3:45
Speaker 3: a little bit painful because not of the outcomes. That
3:49
Speaker 3: was painful in its own right. But I was young,
3:52
Speaker 3: I was trying too hard, I was overwriting, and it
3:56
Speaker 3: was just kind of a crazy circumstance. But I have
3:59
Speaker 3: such vivid memory of a number of things that happened
4:02
Speaker 3: during that time, and Tim and I still laugh about them.
4:06
Speaker 3: We joke about it all the time. And it was
4:08
Speaker 3: a crazy, crazy period. And I don't know that any
4:11
Speaker 3: team will ever lose twenty one games to start the
4:14
Speaker 3: season again. It was an absolutely astonishing thing, day after
4:19
Speaker 3: day after day.
4:20
Speaker 1: You know, Michael Wilbon famously says, you can't win a
4:23
Speaker 1: championship until you have your heartbroken first. Well, every Baltimourials
4:27
Speaker 1: fan got their heartbroken there, and I'm sure you can
4:30
Speaker 1: attest to the same kindbine in my career. Sometimes it's
4:32
Speaker 1: those tragic moments that Galvani is a fan base even
4:35
Speaker 1: more so than winning a championship. It's remarkable, you know,
4:38
Speaker 1: the lovable losers in Chicago and the drought that the
4:41
Speaker 1: Boston Red Sox had that bound so many of those
4:44
Speaker 1: fans together in perpetuity.
4:46
Speaker 3: Well that you're absolutely right, and there's a great example
4:48
Speaker 3: of this from that streak. So they lose twenty one
4:52
Speaker 3: in a row. The night they win in the old
4:54
Speaker 3: Kamisky Park, Billy Ripton gets hit and Ahead goes to
4:58
Speaker 3: the hospital. So even on the night the street week ends,
5:01
Speaker 3: they have something bad happen. They go back home one
5:05
Speaker 3: and twenty two. The next night at home, they announced
5:10
Speaker 3: the opening of Camden Yards and the building of the construction,
5:15
Speaker 3: the idea of Camden Yards. The stadium coming home from
5:18
Speaker 3: that streak was sold out, a memorial stadium. It was
5:21
Speaker 3: sold out. It was they called a Fantastic Fans Night.
5:24
Speaker 3: It was like a thank you to the fans. And
5:26
Speaker 3: that was the night they chose to announce this new
5:29
Speaker 3: ballpark that was coming. No one knew what it would
5:31
Speaker 3: be like, and that to me was a classic example
5:35
Speaker 3: of a fan base galvanized by something like this.
5:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, so true, So so Ken, We're not going to
5:41
Speaker 1: go through every year with the Baltimorial, as much as
5:44
Speaker 1: I would love to do it, but I'm in a
5:45
Speaker 1: fast forward seven years kind of on the other end
5:48
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, you get to cover cal Rick and
5:50
Speaker 1: breaking Blugerrick's streak and becoming the Iron Horse, and just
5:55
Speaker 1: it goes on to play, I think, at five hundred
5:57
Speaker 1: more games after that. But what was it like covering
6:00
Speaker 1: that momentous event.
6:02
Speaker 3: Well that I covered Olympics, I've covered Super Bowls, of course,
6:06
Speaker 3: I've covered World Series for Fox and all kinds of
6:08
Speaker 3: amazing things over the year the years. I always say
6:13
Speaker 3: that night was the highlight of my career, And obviously
6:17
Speaker 3: the lead up to was really cool. But that night
6:21
Speaker 3: we had the president there, we had the vice president there,
6:23
Speaker 3: Clinton and Gore, we had Joe DiMaggio there, we had
6:25
Speaker 3: of course Cal's parents were there and other luminaries, and
6:30
Speaker 3: it was a celebration of of course Cal Ripken, but
6:33
Speaker 3: also of baseball, and really it was something that the
6:37
Speaker 3: whole country was into because this streak had such historical
6:41
Speaker 3: overtones with the tragic death of Lou Garrigan all that
6:45
Speaker 3: was involved with that. And I remember writing that night
6:48
Speaker 3: about his victory lap and the story ran on the
6:51
Speaker 3: front page of the Baltimore Sun the next day. It
6:53
Speaker 3: was and still is, the best selling newspaper in the
6:56
Speaker 3: history of the Baltimore Sun the day after. So when
6:59
Speaker 3: everyone what he says, all you guys do is look
7:01
Speaker 3: for clicks and look for negative headlines. No, the best
7:05
Speaker 3: selling paper in the history of the Baltimore Sun was
7:07
Speaker 3: off a positive event. And actually you can't see it.
7:11
Speaker 3: That front page is hanging on my wall. The front
7:14
Speaker 3: page from when he actually the front sports page from
7:17
Speaker 3: when he tied the record the night before, that's hanging
7:19
Speaker 3: on my wall too. It was just an extremely memorable night.
7:23
Speaker 3: And I tell this story all the time. I came
7:26
Speaker 3: home that night, drove home and my wife had watched
7:29
Speaker 3: She's not really a baseball fan, but everyone was watching this.
7:32
Speaker 3: The game was on ESPN. It was a big deal,
7:35
Speaker 3: and she said, Man, I'm really happy you got to
7:37
Speaker 3: cover that. That was such a positive, happy thing, and
7:41
Speaker 3: so much of what you cover is not like that.
7:44
Speaker 3: So it just stands out still and I'll never forget it.
7:48
Speaker 3: And it was just a cool, cool event.
7:51
Speaker 1: My father was there. He speaks of it as one
7:53
Speaker 1: of the best nights of his life as well. I
7:56
Speaker 1: think it's such a wonderful thing about sports that in
7:58
Speaker 1: the moment when you reckon, you're witnessing something that Trean
8:02
Speaker 1: sends sports, and this is just bigger. It's bringing people
8:05
Speaker 1: together across a just a celebratory platform. It was really
8:09
Speaker 1: remarkable and it's today's day and age, and we hear
8:12
Speaker 1: more in the NBA, but certainly you see it in baseball,
8:14
Speaker 1: this concept of load management, the concept of what he did, Like,
8:18
Speaker 1: I think we could both say we're never going to
8:19
Speaker 1: see it again. You know, there's certain records in sports.
8:22
Speaker 1: This one's not going to be broken a yet.
8:23
Speaker 3: I talked to Matt Olsen about a week ago and
8:26
Speaker 3: he's an I don't know, eight hundred or so, and
8:29
Speaker 3: I figured it out. I think he's thirteen years away.
8:32
Speaker 3: I mean, it's incredible to think of it like that.
8:35
Speaker 3: And yeah, that night was just very unique. And one
8:39
Speaker 3: of the unique things about it was we all knew
8:41
Speaker 3: it was coming. It was on the calendar, we could
8:44
Speaker 3: count down the days. We all knew that was the
8:46
Speaker 3: night September sixth, nineteen ninety five, and yet when it happened,
8:51
Speaker 3: it was still incredibly spontaneous and incredibly special. They dropped
8:55
Speaker 3: the number on the warehouse wall, and it was a
8:59
Speaker 3: very emotional for people to see that Lou Garritt's record
9:03
Speaker 3: was finally broken. It was just an incredible, incredible turn
9:06
Speaker 3: of events and ripken his durability. It was freakish. These
9:11
Speaker 3: guys would like fight in the clubhouse, play fight, you know,
9:14
Speaker 3: throw each other around. He never got hurt. He'd foul
9:17
Speaker 3: balls off his feet constantly, never broke anything. His brother
9:21
Speaker 3: Bill was a pretty good infielder and yet was always
9:25
Speaker 3: hurt the opposite. So it just as remarkable in so
9:30
Speaker 3: many ways what cal Verpcan accomplished.
9:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for the fans who don't know, he also
9:35
Speaker 1: was a six foot four, six foot five guys playing shortstop,
9:38
Speaker 1: which is a very demanding position, and he played it
9:40
Speaker 1: at a very high level up to a point. There
9:43
Speaker 1: probably was a point where he probably should have moved
9:45
Speaker 1: off shortstop or taken a day off, But during that
9:48
Speaker 1: streak he was a dominant presence both for the Oriels
9:50
Speaker 1: but for the game in baseball Ken in your time there,
9:53
Speaker 1: you ended up covering six guys ultimately go to the
9:55
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, which is pretty remarkable. It's Rick and
9:58
Speaker 1: it's Eddie Murray, Alamar Junior, Harold Baines, Mike Mussina, and
10:03
Speaker 1: even one year of Lee Smith. Can you take the
10:05
Speaker 1: listeners behind the scenes of how do you go about
10:08
Speaker 1: approaching the Hall of Fame ballot when you get a
10:11
Speaker 1: chance to fill that out as an exalted member of
10:13
Speaker 1: the BBWAA.
10:15
Speaker 3: Well, this is a complicated answer, a complicated question. I
10:19
Speaker 3: look first for ten year dominance. That is my kind
10:23
Speaker 3: of initial prerequisite, but it's not absolute. Nothing is absolute,
10:29
Speaker 3: So I kind of look at players' careers and remember
10:34
Speaker 3: what I remember. At this point, most of the players
10:36
Speaker 3: who are on about I've covered, and it's just something
10:39
Speaker 3: where you look at statistics. You have your own memories.
10:42
Speaker 3: Of course, you try to reinforce your memories with statistical
10:45
Speaker 3: validation and make sure what you were seeing or what
10:47
Speaker 3: you remember was actually correct. And we all have different
10:53
Speaker 3: standards and different ways of going about it. Some people
10:57
Speaker 3: vote for the players link to steroids, some people don't.
11:01
Speaker 3: Some people draw a line at certain points. That's kind
11:03
Speaker 3: of what I do a Rod and Manny because in
11:06
Speaker 3: their case the suspensions happened once penalties were in place.
11:10
Speaker 3: I do not vote for them, but people disagree with
11:12
Speaker 3: that and who knows. I'm not saying I'm right, It's
11:16
Speaker 3: just what I feel. And it is a process that
11:20
Speaker 3: people take really seriously for the most part. Sure, some
11:24
Speaker 3: people just kind of wing it, but most baseball writers
11:28
Speaker 3: look at this as an extreme honor. It takes ten
11:30
Speaker 3: years in the Baseball Writers Association to get the ballot
11:33
Speaker 3: to become eligible to vote, and it is a really
11:37
Speaker 3: painstaking process every year, and it's kind of something we
11:41
Speaker 3: all talk about all year long, too, Well what about
11:43
Speaker 3: this guy? What about that guy? And I talk to
11:46
Speaker 3: people also in the game and get their opinions, because
11:50
Speaker 3: those are the people most in the know.
11:52
Speaker 1: Well, and you guys cover these guys every day and
11:55
Speaker 1: you're looking at what they do on the field, but
11:58
Speaker 1: you also get to know them as human beings, which
12:00
Speaker 1: is something most fans don't get to do. And you know,
12:03
Speaker 1: you can sure if you choose to or not, like
12:05
Speaker 1: how much that factors in you hear the folklore about
12:07
Speaker 1: how certain guys are, Like, you know, I got a
12:10
Speaker 1: chance to work with Joe Maher for two years, and
12:13
Speaker 1: I think you could attest to the same Hall of
12:15
Speaker 1: Fame person as well as Hall of Fame performance. And really,
12:18
Speaker 1: when you look at the performance on paper, he didn't
12:21
Speaker 1: necessarily elevate to the level of maybe being such a
12:24
Speaker 1: uniformly voted for first ballot Hall of Famer. But my
12:28
Speaker 1: guess is everyone who votes for him wants to vote
12:30
Speaker 1: for him because he's a wonderful person. That's not the
12:32
Speaker 1: case for everybody that you cover. And how much does
12:35
Speaker 1: that factor into the decision. I'm sure you probably would
12:38
Speaker 1: prefer it not to, but like, it's got to creep
12:40
Speaker 1: in at some point.
12:41
Speaker 3: It's a good question that. And the ballot that we
12:44
Speaker 3: are given, of course, has this character clause that you're
12:49
Speaker 3: supposed to account for integrity and all of these different things,
12:53
Speaker 3: and some of us take that seriously, and some of
12:56
Speaker 3: us look at it as kind of okay, that's fine,
12:58
Speaker 3: but whatever. Eddie Murray is a player who I covered,
13:03
Speaker 3: who I did not have a good relationship with, who
13:05
Speaker 3: once threatened to sue me. I voted for him first
13:08
Speaker 3: ballot because he was deserving of a first ballot vote.
13:12
Speaker 3: He was one of the greatest players of all time.
13:15
Speaker 3: For me, personality and how I got along with a
13:18
Speaker 3: guy that doesn't factor in, and in my view, shouldn't
13:23
Speaker 3: factor in. It's what these guys did on the field.
13:25
Speaker 3: That's what matters, not how they treat us. And you
13:28
Speaker 3: mentioned that I get to know a lot of these guys.
13:30
Speaker 3: I get to know them in my job. I don't
13:33
Speaker 3: necessarily get to know them in a real world's kind
13:37
Speaker 3: of way. We have a relationship because of my job
13:40
Speaker 3: and because of their job and the interactions that take place,
13:44
Speaker 3: So I don't really account for that. Like this guy's
13:48
Speaker 3: a jerk, I'm not voting for him now. Now. I
13:50
Speaker 3: will say this though, on the positive side, when a
13:54
Speaker 3: guy has special character traits, Joe Maher is a good
13:57
Speaker 3: example of this. Can it swing you in a positive way?
14:01
Speaker 4: Me?
14:01
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, it will help. Now. I voted for
14:04
Speaker 3: Joe Maher on the merits. But when I look at
14:08
Speaker 3: players and I look back now at Dale Murphy, I
14:11
Speaker 3: didn't vote for him, and I probably should have because
14:14
Speaker 3: Dale Murphy is everything you want as a representative of
14:17
Speaker 3: the game, and a guy that you look at probably
14:21
Speaker 3: should be in the Hall of Fame. He was borderline,
14:23
Speaker 3: I get it, and I didn't vote for him because
14:25
Speaker 3: he kind of fell off in all the different reasons
14:28
Speaker 3: that you've heard over the years. But perhaps in that
14:31
Speaker 3: case I should have tilted it because he was such
14:34
Speaker 3: an outstanding example. When a guy wins Roberto Clement the award,
14:38
Speaker 3: that's something that elevates him.
14:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, So can I just want to say, I think
14:42
Speaker 1: it shows a ton of character that you separate the
14:45
Speaker 1: personality and the interpersonal dynamics you've had with players, because
14:49
Speaker 1: people who are in these positions where they have the
14:53
Speaker 1: authority to vote or not to vote, you could really
14:56
Speaker 1: wield the power in those situations, and you hear people
14:58
Speaker 1: talk about that openly. So I think it shows a
15:01
Speaker 1: ton of character on your behalf to do that.
15:04
Speaker 3: You know.
15:05
Speaker 1: The the question I would ask you is, you know
15:07
Speaker 1: one of the things I view is we all have
15:10
Speaker 1: to kind of reconcile what does the steroid.
15:12
Speaker 2: Era mean to our careers?
15:14
Speaker 1: And one thing that I've always separated out of my mind,
15:17
Speaker 1: and I will say I shared this with Ken david
15:18
Speaker 1: Off and he eviscerated me for it. So I'm running
15:21
Speaker 1: it back up the flagpole here, which is I view
15:24
Speaker 1: that guys like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, just to
15:28
Speaker 1: name two, I think they do deserve to be in
15:30
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame. I think over a generation they
15:33
Speaker 1: were the best players, and I don't know exactly who
15:35
Speaker 1: was tainted and who was not. I just don't know that.
15:38
Speaker 1: Where I draw the line is, I'm not sure they
15:40
Speaker 1: should be in the record books. I still regard Hank
15:43
Speaker 1: Aaron as the home run leader because I'm going to
15:46
Speaker 1: operate under the premise and maybe naively so that he
15:48
Speaker 1: did that purely. So I'm okay with those guys being
15:51
Speaker 1: in the Hall of Fame. I think that's emblematic of
15:54
Speaker 1: the fact that they dominated their generation, which is the
15:56
Speaker 1: criteria that I would hold.
15:57
Speaker 2: In high regard.
15:58
Speaker 1: But I just think I would keep them out of
16:00
Speaker 1: the records books. I would keep Hankering as the home
16:02
Speaker 1: run him.
16:03
Speaker 3: Feel in this particular case, in this discussion, actually, in
16:06
Speaker 3: any Hall of Fame discussion, whether we're just talking about
16:08
Speaker 3: a player's merits. As I mentioned earlier, it's in the
16:12
Speaker 3: eye of beholder, and I respect everyone's different opinions on this.
16:17
Speaker 3: And now I haven't heard what you just said. No
16:19
Speaker 3: one has ever mentioned that to me. Hall of Fame, yes,
16:22
Speaker 3: record books know. But you know what, you can make
16:24
Speaker 3: that argument, and it's problematic for me because, as you said,
16:29
Speaker 3: we don't know who did what and to what extent.
16:32
Speaker 3: So Okay, if we strike Bonds, who obviously was a user,
16:38
Speaker 3: who else do we strike because they perhaps were using
16:41
Speaker 3: and we don't know what they were exactly doing, but
16:44
Speaker 3: we think it's a slippery slope. But at the same time,
16:48
Speaker 3: I appreciate what you're saying, and I will say this too,
16:52
Speaker 3: just to kind of get my opinion out there. It's
16:57
Speaker 3: been out there before on this. But I start voting
17:00
Speaker 3: for guys like Bonds and Clements after I determined, and
17:05
Speaker 3: not through any great scientific process. It was pretty clear
17:09
Speaker 3: that we had elected players who had used performance dancing drugs.
17:12
Speaker 3: So again, where do you draw the line? Why are
17:15
Speaker 3: we electing these guys but not those guys who were
17:18
Speaker 3: even better? So it's a problematic question always, And as
17:22
Speaker 3: I said before, it's not wishy washy, it's just the
17:25
Speaker 3: way I feel the beauty of our sport is. There
17:29
Speaker 3: are tons of ways to look at it. There are
17:31
Speaker 3: tons of opinions that might be not your opinions, but
17:35
Speaker 3: certainly valid, And that's kind of how I see it.
17:38
Speaker 1: Ken shifting gears a little bit. You're in the business
17:41
Speaker 1: of cultivating relationships with front office executives, with league executives,
17:45
Speaker 1: with agents. How much more difficult has that become in
17:49
Speaker 1: this analytics generated error where people are coveting information. You
17:54
Speaker 1: have probably rock solid contacts with all thirty clubs, But
17:57
Speaker 1: for people breaking into your business right now, how much
18:00
Speaker 1: more difficult is it for them to cultivate these kind
18:02
Speaker 1: of contacts within the organizations to guide them, because ultimately,
18:06
Speaker 1: you're not trying to get your story out there first,
18:08
Speaker 1: You're trying to get the right story out there, and
18:10
Speaker 1: to corroborate that information is becoming even more difficult today.
18:13
Speaker 1: I would imagine that.
18:14
Speaker 3: I don't know that it has anything to do with analytics.
18:17
Speaker 3: It's just that executives today are reluctant to share anything.
18:24
Speaker 3: And it's kind of the culture of the game now.
18:27
Speaker 3: When I started as a national writer, this was in
18:30
Speaker 3: the year two thousand, it was a different kind of
18:33
Speaker 3: general manager that existed. It was more that old school type,
18:37
Speaker 3: and you could talk to them more about these kinds
18:41
Speaker 3: of things. Now everything is a state secret and we're
18:46
Speaker 3: talking about baseball here, We're not talking about world peace.
18:49
Speaker 3: It kind of drives me nuts sometimes, and I do understand,
18:52
Speaker 3: of course, the need at other times to protect information.
18:57
Speaker 3: It's obvious that's the yang of covering anything. We want
19:02
Speaker 3: information people recovering don't necessarily want to give it, that's understood.
19:07
Speaker 3: But I have found some of the newer executives are
19:13
Speaker 3: much more guarded than in the past. And it's just
19:16
Speaker 3: the way it is these things ebb and flow. I'm
19:18
Speaker 3: not saying it's ever going back to the way it was,
19:21
Speaker 3: but it's fine. It doesn't bother me. And for people
19:25
Speaker 3: breaking in, I don't know that they haven't any tougher
19:28
Speaker 3: than guys like me have it in a sense, because
19:31
Speaker 3: there's not much that these execs are willing to share.
19:34
Speaker 3: That's just the bottom line.
19:36
Speaker 2: You know, Ken.
19:37
Speaker 1: It's so true over my career, the version of that
19:41
Speaker 1: general manager when I started was much more like Oh MARMONYA,
19:44
Speaker 1: Kevin Towers and Jim Hendry, whereas today it's a very
19:48
Speaker 1: different dynamic, and it speaks to the evolution of the game.
19:51
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean it's better or worse, or it's just
19:53
Speaker 1: it's materially different totally. I do think it's noteworthy. Right
19:57
Speaker 1: now we probably have as many form more players running
20:01
Speaker 1: baseball operations as we've ever had in an era, So
20:05
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe we are seeing as another subtle shift
20:08
Speaker 1: that will take a more route as these organizations have
20:11
Speaker 1: become so fundamentally sound, and now we're inserting probably people
20:16
Speaker 1: at the top who have a little bit more fuel
20:17
Speaker 1: for baseball and maybe a little bit of a different
20:19
Speaker 1: risk profile. Dare I say, as you know, you see
20:22
Speaker 1: some of these guys making a lot more decisions than
20:25
Speaker 1: necessarily the people who are leading with exceptional IQ. But
20:29
Speaker 1: maybe they're so smart that they know exactly why two
20:32
Speaker 1: do and why not to do everything, and as a result,
20:34
Speaker 1: they tend not to do as much as the guys
20:36
Speaker 1: in yesteryear used to do well.
20:39
Speaker 3: That you're absolutely right that the current group, for the
20:42
Speaker 3: most part, is risk averse, and that is why aj Preller,
20:47
Speaker 3: in my view, is taking advantage of a market inefficiency
20:51
Speaker 3: ultimately because he is not afraid. He will fire. Now
20:55
Speaker 3: sometimes he goes overboard. I've written about this positively and
20:58
Speaker 3: negatively about what he's done, but to me, it's a
21:02
Speaker 3: huge advantage for him that he is not afraid, because
21:05
Speaker 3: so many others are afraid. Might not be the right word,
21:08
Speaker 3: but conservative. And he is a guy that we see
21:12
Speaker 3: this every single deadline, every single offseason. He will do
21:16
Speaker 3: things that many in the industry will say, WHOA, I
21:19
Speaker 3: would never do that. He does it. And the Mason
21:23
Speaker 3: Miller trade was a classic example. You're giving up your
21:26
Speaker 3: top prospect for a reliever. Well, that reliever turns out
21:30
Speaker 3: to be the best in the game. He's an absolute
21:32
Speaker 3: difference maker. How long he stays healthy. We never know
21:34
Speaker 3: any of that, but that trade right now, no matter
21:37
Speaker 3: how good Leodo rees turns out to be, it seems
21:40
Speaker 3: like a good trade for San Diego and that team.
21:44
Speaker 3: I've questioned them almost from the start of when he
21:47
Speaker 3: built them up. Again, I questioned a lot of different things,
21:50
Speaker 3: and yet he transformed the organization with of course the
21:55
Speaker 3: help of the late Peter Siler as the owner, and
21:57
Speaker 3: they just sold for three point nine billion dollars. Who
22:00
Speaker 3: am I to question what he's done? And it kind
22:03
Speaker 3: of shows that that kind of aggressiveness backed by resources,
22:08
Speaker 3: of course, can really make a difference.
22:11
Speaker 1: Well, you know, kind of. I think once again, ha
22:13
Speaker 1: would have not been that uncommon twenty years ago. He
22:16
Speaker 1: stands out now, he stands out with Jerry Depoto and
22:20
Speaker 1: Eric Neander and maybe Dave Dombrowski and others. I think
22:23
Speaker 1: we always, you know, we tried to scout Baseball's all
22:26
Speaker 1: about talent evaluation. We'd scout the other twenty nine general managers,
22:29
Speaker 1: and you know, Dave Dombrowski, for argument's sake, was a
22:31
Speaker 1: guy who always valued tonight's win more than he did
22:34
Speaker 1: tomorrow's prospect, and sometimes people would look down their nose
22:38
Speaker 1: at that. And the reality is he's going to probably
22:40
Speaker 1: go to the Hall of Fame for the number of
22:42
Speaker 1: teams he's taken to the World Series and one World
22:44
Speaker 1: Series with He has a very specific formula of how
22:47
Speaker 1: he impacts organizations, both positively on the front end and
22:50
Speaker 1: then sometimes leave some slightly bereft of talent and plowed
22:53
Speaker 1: it from a pair roll standpoint. But the bottom line
22:56
Speaker 1: is it does stand out in our game, and I've
22:59
Speaker 1: always looked at it through the lens of you know,
23:01
Speaker 1: for you guys in the media, inactivity is a lot
23:04
Speaker 1: more difficult to judge than activity. Every time we make
23:07
Speaker 1: a trade or player transaction, it's evaluated. But now we've
23:10
Speaker 1: become so intelligent that we can go tell our owners
23:13
Speaker 1: why we justify inactivity. And from an owner's perspective, I'd
23:17
Speaker 1: be more concerned about the general manager who's not making moves,
23:19
Speaker 1: because they're more concerned about covening their job than they
23:23
Speaker 1: are maybe about making the move to help us win,
23:26
Speaker 1: because in so doing they may make a move that
23:29
Speaker 1: helps us loose and as a result may cost themselves
23:31
Speaker 1: their jobs.
23:33
Speaker 3: Yes, and it is a push and pull within the game, certainly,
23:39
Speaker 3: And you're right, it's not just Ada. There are others
23:41
Speaker 3: who stand out for their aggressiveness as well. There are
23:46
Speaker 3: times when it makes sense not to be aggressive, and
23:50
Speaker 3: we all get that. And there are times when you
23:52
Speaker 3: look at teams and you say, what are they doing?
23:54
Speaker 3: Why aren't they pushing here? And some of it, of course,
23:57
Speaker 3: is related to payroll and the example of say Cleveland,
24:02
Speaker 3: they can't push. They don't have the money to push.
24:05
Speaker 3: So they do what they do and they do it
24:06
Speaker 3: extremely well, and they are by definition conservative, but look
24:12
Speaker 3: at them year after year, they're right in the mix here.
24:14
Speaker 3: So to me, yes, I like activity because it gives
24:18
Speaker 3: us more fun things to write about. But there are
24:21
Speaker 3: times when you don't have to do that, times where
24:24
Speaker 3: it's best to be restrained. Look at David Stearns right
24:27
Speaker 3: now with his manager Carlos Mendoza. He's not firing him,
24:31
Speaker 3: at least not yet. Maybe he does, but maybe the
24:34
Speaker 3: restraint here will pay off, and that should be praised too.
24:37
Speaker 3: So that's a different circumstance than team building, of course,
24:41
Speaker 3: but it's not always that frenzied activity carries the day,
24:45
Speaker 3: and it's the job of people like me to understand
24:48
Speaker 3: the difference when maybe it's a great idea and maybe
24:51
Speaker 3: it's not.
24:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think you're right. I think sometimes the
24:55
Speaker 1: best quality of a leader is patients and knowing when
24:57
Speaker 1: to be patient, but also knowing when it's appropriate to
25:01
Speaker 1: be bold and take action and trying to We're trying
25:04
Speaker 1: to thrive on behalf of your organization, not survive on
25:07
Speaker 1: behalf of your own personal interest, and that's really the
25:09
Speaker 1: focus of the position of leadership. Can I want to
25:12
Speaker 1: take you back to twenty nineteen when you and Evan
25:16
Speaker 1: Drelich broke what probably is the biggest story of the
25:18
Speaker 1: last I don't know how long, but at least.
25:21
Speaker 2: Decade in Major League Baseball, the.
25:22
Speaker 1: Whole Houston Astro's sign stealing scandal. How much research is
25:29
Speaker 1: going on behind the scenes before you guys feel comfortable
25:31
Speaker 1: bringing that to light considering the magnitude of a bombshell
25:34
Speaker 1: that you guys reported on.
25:36
Speaker 3: Okay, the background of this really starts with Evan. Before
25:39
Speaker 3: he got to the Athletic, he was working for an
25:42
Speaker 3: outlet in Boston. He knew about this because before that
25:46
Speaker 3: he had been the Houston Astros beat writer for the
25:48
Speaker 3: Houston Chronicle. He had history with both teams, and he
25:53
Speaker 3: came to the Athletic with this knowledge of something going
25:58
Speaker 3: on in Houston. I don't recall if he knew about
26:01
Speaker 3: the trash cans just then, but I believe he did.
26:04
Speaker 3: I think he knew the outlines of this whole thing,
26:07
Speaker 3: and when he came, he said, Hey, can we work
26:09
Speaker 3: on this together. It's a big deal. And I said sure, obviously,
26:15
Speaker 3: of course you want to work on that. And ultimately
26:19
Speaker 3: we got to the point where we were calling around
26:22
Speaker 3: and trying to get someone to go on the record,
26:24
Speaker 3: and Mike Fires went on the record and basically confirmed
26:27
Speaker 3: everything Evan knew on the record. Once we had that,
26:32
Speaker 3: we definitely had something big. Now, the question I guess
26:35
Speaker 3: looking back is would we have published without Fires? My
26:39
Speaker 3: guess is yes, we had a lot, and Evan had
26:42
Speaker 3: a lot in particular, so once we had Fires, that
26:45
Speaker 3: put it over the top. But this was for Evan
26:50
Speaker 3: over a year of working on this and knowing about it,
26:54
Speaker 3: and then at the end, yes, you had to talk
26:57
Speaker 3: to everyone involved, or at least give them the chance to,
27:00
Speaker 3: and you had to button it all up. And I
27:02
Speaker 3: was heavily involved in that, as was Evan, of course,
27:05
Speaker 3: and by the time we were ready, we felt really confident.
27:09
Speaker 3: It wasn't even a question. The story was the story.
27:11
Speaker 3: We had fires on the record confirming everything that Evan
27:14
Speaker 3: had heard, and that was how it came about. And
27:17
Speaker 3: a funny PostScript to that that you mentioned that it
27:21
Speaker 3: wasn't one of the biggest baseball stories to break, and
27:24
Speaker 3: how many years that day it broke with at the
27:27
Speaker 3: GM meetings in Scottsdale, and Evan and I are standing
27:31
Speaker 3: there and all hell's break on those of course, and
27:35
Speaker 3: Evan says to me, this will be the biggest story
27:37
Speaker 3: I ever break. And I say to him, oh man,
27:40
Speaker 3: we'll have something next week. I mean, not like that.
27:43
Speaker 3: I was so in the middle of it and just
27:46
Speaker 3: grinding to get everything straight with him that I didn't
27:51
Speaker 3: realize the magnitude of it. Should have but I didn't,
27:54
Speaker 3: and of course it was what it was. And then
27:57
Speaker 3: of going further, people always ask, well, was just the Astros.
28:01
Speaker 3: We also reported on the Boston Red Sox they weren't
28:03
Speaker 3: doing the trash can thing, but they were doing other things.
28:06
Speaker 3: And then later Evan wrote a book in which he
28:09
Speaker 3: detailed some other teams that were doing things as well.
28:13
Speaker 3: So it wasn't just the Astros, but the Astros took
28:16
Speaker 3: it to the extreme.
28:17
Speaker 1: I hope I'm not speaking out of school. But the
28:20
Speaker 1: Minnesota Twins acquired Carlos Kree, assigned him as a one
28:24
Speaker 1: year free agent, and one of the first things he
28:27
Speaker 1: asked us slash Roco Baldelli was in twenty nineteen, the
28:31
Speaker 1: Twins miraculously set the home run record as a team,
28:35
Speaker 1: and he kind of asked, how many of those pitches
28:37
Speaker 1: did you know we're coming And Roco said, to the
28:39
Speaker 1: best of our knowledge, none of them. And he was like,
28:41
Speaker 1: oh my god. You know, I think there was an
28:44
Speaker 1: expectation to your point, that a lot of teams were
28:46
Speaker 1: doing different things, and so, you know, I think obviously
28:50
Speaker 1: they were wrong in what they did, but there probably
28:53
Speaker 1: was a point in which they thought they were still
28:55
Speaker 1: operating in the gray when the rest of us, he did,
28:58
Speaker 1: is they're operating in the black. Because he thought most
29:00
Speaker 1: teams were doing something and they were just maintaining a
29:02
Speaker 1: competitive level. They weren't stepping out on the landline.
29:06
Speaker 3: Yes, that was part of what drove them, actually, the
29:09
Speaker 3: fear and knowledge and other teams were doing it. They'll
29:12
Speaker 3: try and came from the Yankees. The Yankees had been
29:15
Speaker 3: doing something not at that level. And remember they got
29:18
Speaker 3: their hands slapped with the Red Sox for that Apple
29:21
Speaker 3: Watch thing. And again, one of the things that always
29:27
Speaker 3: troubled me in the aftermath was we didn't get every team.
29:31
Speaker 3: We couldn't because after we reported the first one the
29:35
Speaker 3: Astros and then the Red Sox, it was increasingly difficult
29:39
Speaker 3: to get people to talk. But Evan did in his
29:42
Speaker 3: book outline kind of what the state of the industry
29:45
Speaker 3: was at that time, and there were other teams doing
29:49
Speaker 3: things along these lines. It's a different extents, of course,
29:52
Speaker 3: And I remember the lead of our story was something
29:57
Speaker 3: along the lines, and I don't remember it exactly, but
29:59
Speaker 3: it there's a problem in baseball that is going on.
30:03
Speaker 3: We knew that it was a larger problem. The illegal
30:07
Speaker 3: science dealing and the Astros of course, were the subject
30:10
Speaker 3: of the story. And I remember after it came out
30:13
Speaker 3: or some of our people internally said, Hey, why wasn't
30:16
Speaker 3: Mike Fire's the lead of the story. Mike Fire is
30:19
Speaker 3: saying the Astros, Yes, but people with the Astros were
30:24
Speaker 3: telling us this isn't just us, it's bigger than us.
30:28
Speaker 3: It was, but they were the worst offenders by far.
30:31
Speaker 1: I think in sports you're asked the question all the
30:34
Speaker 1: time of how far are you prepared to go to win?
30:37
Speaker 1: And the answer can't be as far as it takes.
30:39
Speaker 1: And I think in that instance, they probably slipped a
30:41
Speaker 1: little bit too far into that space, probably a little
30:45
Speaker 1: bit Unknowingly, I'm I'm gonna give them the benefit of
30:47
Speaker 1: the doubt. Can you you're reporting the facts here, You're
30:51
Speaker 1: not judging jury, but just curious your take on did
30:53
Speaker 1: the punishment fit the crime in your mind? When you
30:56
Speaker 1: found out what was levied against them, what was your
30:58
Speaker 1: expectation and how was it met by what actually transpired?
31:01
Speaker 3: Well, remember Major League Baseball granted the players and the
31:05
Speaker 3: coaches immunity from penalty because they wanted to know the truth,
31:11
Speaker 3: and they blamed the leaders. Jeff Luno, the general manager,
31:14
Speaker 3: was suspended for a year. Aj Hinch, the manager, was
31:16
Speaker 3: suspended for a year. The team, of course, lost draft picks,
31:20
Speaker 3: was fined, etc. The punishment to me was that, obviously,
31:28
Speaker 3: and fans always say, well the players got off, they did,
31:31
Speaker 3: and they didn't because to this day we're talking seven
31:35
Speaker 3: years later now al tuove is brewed in every park.
31:38
Speaker 3: Other members of that team, and al Tuobei was the
31:40
Speaker 3: one the players that was innocent. Other members of that team.
31:43
Speaker 3: Bregman a prime example, who's a rookie then he didn't
31:48
Speaker 3: necessarily know better. He was following the veterans. These guys
31:51
Speaker 3: all hear it pretty regularly. So they were punished. They
31:56
Speaker 3: were punished in the court of public opinion. Now it
31:58
Speaker 3: might not have been a technical punishment from Major League Baseball,
32:02
Speaker 3: but when people say these guys got away with it,
32:04
Speaker 3: I would suggest that is not exactly the case. As
32:08
Speaker 3: for Hinch and Luno and the team's penalty, I remember
32:14
Speaker 3: I was at MLB network the data announcement came with
32:17
Speaker 3: the penalties, and again I don't know why I was surprised,
32:22
Speaker 3: but when those penalties came down, I was like, wow,
32:27
Speaker 3: that it got to this, that this is what the
32:31
Speaker 3: judgment of the commissioner is. Of course, it was justified
32:35
Speaker 3: that these guys be punished, but it was still shocking.
32:37
Speaker 3: Alex Korra, of course, was also suspended, So it was
32:42
Speaker 3: just to be in the middle of it was kind
32:45
Speaker 3: of a whirlwind, and I wasn't necessarily thinking along those
32:50
Speaker 3: lines about what the penalties should be or shouldn't be.
32:53
Speaker 3: It was my job to report on the penalties and
32:55
Speaker 3: then of course right about whether they were just or not. Now,
32:58
Speaker 3: the one thing I will say, after the Houston penalties
33:03
Speaker 3: were announced, what did Rob Manfred say that we're going
33:06
Speaker 3: to punish the leaders. Actually he said that after the
33:08
Speaker 3: Apple Watch thing, we're going to punish the leaders. They
33:11
Speaker 3: didn't do that with Boston. With Boston, Dave Dombrowski and
33:15
Speaker 3: Alex Correr were not punished, and I always found that
33:17
Speaker 3: to be a little bit odd. I wrote that at
33:19
Speaker 3: the time.
33:20
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I think what listeners also should understand
33:22
Speaker 1: is there was only so much latitude the commissioner had,
33:25
Speaker 1: so he did penalize them, I think to the utmost
33:27
Speaker 1: of his jurisdiction. So whether or not we think the
33:30
Speaker 1: jurisdiction was enough, it is one thing. But he did
33:33
Speaker 1: the most he could do in that situation. I always
33:36
Speaker 1: found it fascinating Ken to your point of having worked
33:38
Speaker 1: with Carlos Korea for a number of years. Everywhere he
33:41
Speaker 1: went he also got food, including when he went to
33:43
Speaker 1: Detroit where A. J. Hinch is the manager and Boston
33:46
Speaker 1: were at the time Alex Cora was the manager. I
33:48
Speaker 1: always thought that was a little bit duplicitous that one
33:51
Speaker 1: side of the coin, they're their guy, the they're celebrating
33:53
Speaker 1: their guy and booing our guy, and they kind of
33:55
Speaker 1: for the exact same reason. Can before we go further
33:59
Speaker 1: in this conversation, I would love you to get give
34:01
Speaker 1: the listener a little bit of an understanding about the
34:04
Speaker 1: bow tie cause, your connection to the Honey Jones and
34:07
Speaker 1: the whole cause. Tell us about that. I know everyone
34:09
Speaker 1: gets a chance to ask you, why do you wear
34:11
Speaker 1: bow ties on air?
34:13
Speaker 2: Sure?
34:13
Speaker 1: What the listeners your passion behind us?
34:16
Speaker 3: Well, it starts with I believe it's twenty ten the NLCS.
34:23
Speaker 3: The head of Fox Sports at the time, David Hill, says,
34:26
Speaker 3: in his Australian accent, I want that guy in a
34:29
Speaker 3: bow tie. And I was like what. But he wanted
34:34
Speaker 3: me to wear a bow tie because he thought it
34:37
Speaker 3: would distinguish me and I did not like that idea
34:41
Speaker 3: to me. The work is what should distinguish me and
34:44
Speaker 3: not any freakish look. But he made me wear it.
34:48
Speaker 3: I wore it in that postseason and I had people
34:51
Speaker 3: tying the bow ties for me because I didn't know
34:53
Speaker 3: how to tie them, and it was what it was.
34:56
Speaker 3: So we get to the off season and I'd done
34:59
Speaker 3: this for two round that didn't like it whatever, And
35:02
Speaker 3: Deahani Jones, former NFL player, is the head of this
35:05
Speaker 3: organization called the Bowtie Cause. He contacts me and says, listen,
35:09
Speaker 3: we do all these different bow ties. We partner with organizations,
35:13
Speaker 3: charitable organizations, and we represent them in that way, we
35:17
Speaker 3: sell them, but it's really more for awareness and of
35:19
Speaker 3: course to raise some money too. So I thought to myself, well,
35:23
Speaker 3: I'm never wearing the bow tie again. That's we're done
35:25
Speaker 3: with that. But then I had a rare revelation, a
35:29
Speaker 3: rare intelligent thought, and I said, you know what, Fox
35:33
Speaker 3: is gonna want me to do this again. They're gonna
35:35
Speaker 3: they like this. This is what they wanted and this way,
35:39
Speaker 3: if I do this, I can get control of it
35:42
Speaker 3: and I can do it for a good reason. And
35:44
Speaker 3: that's how it started, and of course it continues to
35:47
Speaker 3: this day. We represent a lot of different organizations, and
35:50
Speaker 3: again it's mostly to raise awareness through Twitter and when
35:54
Speaker 3: they show it on the broadcast. And what's funny is
35:57
Speaker 3: I don't particularly like the way I look at them.
36:00
Speaker 3: My wife doesn't like me and them, but at this
36:03
Speaker 3: point there's no turning back. And my wife will say
36:07
Speaker 3: to me, oh, practically at the start of every season,
36:10
Speaker 3: why can't we stop doing this? Like because people like
36:14
Speaker 3: seeing me in these things. They like the whole thing.
36:16
Speaker 3: And every time I go to a ballpark and I'm
36:18
Speaker 3: not in the bow tie, what's the first thing I hear?
36:21
Speaker 3: Where's the bow tie? So it's been something that actually
36:26
Speaker 3: has served the purpose that David Hill intended for me,
36:29
Speaker 3: and it distinguished me and I thought it but he
36:33
Speaker 3: was right. And when I see him, I haven't seen
36:36
Speaker 3: him many years now, but after that I would always
36:39
Speaker 3: tell him, all right, you win, you were right.
36:43
Speaker 1: Well, Ken, for those of us who know, it comes
36:46
Speaker 1: across so classy, Like every time I see you, I
36:48
Speaker 1: always ask what's the cause of the night, and you
36:52
Speaker 1: always have knowledge about it, so it's always it comes
36:55
Speaker 1: across extremely classy. I love the backstory. It also shows
36:58
Speaker 1: some significant humility, but like I love the backstory here, Well.
37:03
Speaker 3: It wasn't so much humility that as I was an employee.
37:07
Speaker 1: What difference maybe difference over man enjoys to actually get paid.
37:15
Speaker 1: We would be remissily not asking your take on what's
37:18
Speaker 1: transpired to Boston and Philadelphia. And I know you've gone
37:20
Speaker 1: on the record with some very uh you know, colorful
37:24
Speaker 1: words about the Red Sox in terms of and I'm
37:26
Speaker 1: just gonna cite a few from your your own prayer
37:29
Speaker 1: territory where you talked about they lead the league in
37:31
Speaker 1: overreacting and scapegoating and dysfunction. Can you talk a little
37:36
Speaker 1: bit more about when you read that Alex Cora was
37:39
Speaker 1: being like, oh, not only Alex Cora, but effectively six
37:43
Speaker 1: member of his coaching staff, that they then had a
37:46
Speaker 1: press conference or a meeting with the team in which
37:49
Speaker 1: they took no questions from the players. And famously Trevor
37:53
Speaker 1: story was very against that, a guy who was very
37:55
Speaker 1: mild mannered for anyone who's ever met him, he's a
37:59
Speaker 1: very professional guy, buy a large, pretty quiet leader in
38:01
Speaker 1: his own rate. They're handling of the situation. What is
38:06
Speaker 1: your take on this whole thing that's transpired here in
38:08
Speaker 1: Boston over the last ten days.
38:10
Speaker 3: They do lead the league in scapegoating, and we've seen
38:14
Speaker 3: this over the years, and I went through in the column.
38:17
Speaker 3: I wrote, all the people that they've run through, managers, general, managers, players,
38:23
Speaker 3: and unseemly is not the right word. That's not the
38:27
Speaker 3: proper adjective here. But it's kind of not cool what
38:33
Speaker 3: they do. And in this case, Alex kra is generally
38:38
Speaker 3: regarded as one of the game's best managers. Now he
38:40
Speaker 3: hasn't been great, and they haven't been great in a while,
38:43
Speaker 3: but that's in part because they've changed direction a few
38:46
Speaker 3: times and done some unusual things there. He has been
38:50
Speaker 3: part of their internal politics. He was a guy that
38:55
Speaker 3: won a power struggle with heim Bloom, Greg Breslo's predecessor.
38:59
Speaker 3: And also, and I wrote this too, he didn't really
39:03
Speaker 3: diffuse the devor situation or didn't do it to any
39:07
Speaker 3: real effect. So with them, it just seems that they're
39:12
Speaker 3: always looking for someone to blame. And that's what I
39:14
Speaker 3: mean when I say they leave the league escapegoating, and
39:16
Speaker 3: here we are it's not even May and they're doing this.
39:20
Speaker 3: Phillies did it too, and in fact I wrote a
39:22
Speaker 3: column about it was about two weeks ago now where
39:28
Speaker 3: I kind of listed three guys that I thought were
39:30
Speaker 3: in trouble was Mendoza, it was Thompson, and it was
39:32
Speaker 3: Joe Spada. I said, Cora probably isn't because he's got
39:35
Speaker 3: a big contract. Little that I know, but it seems
39:40
Speaker 3: that the patience level is getting smaller and smaller for
39:44
Speaker 3: certain teams. And Richeroli has a good column. I don't
39:48
Speaker 3: know if it's out yet, by the time this airs,
39:50
Speaker 3: it will be out, and she's basically saying, the front
39:53
Speaker 3: offices are always asking for patients. Hey, let us implement
39:56
Speaker 3: our plan, let's go, let's give us some time. And
39:59
Speaker 3: yet when it comes to these guys, we're not even
40:02
Speaker 3: out of April and they're making these moves. So the
40:06
Speaker 3: Red Sox were kind of the hallmark of this. They
40:08
Speaker 3: were the first ones in this case. And I just
40:12
Speaker 3: don't understand the lack of feel that John Henry, the
40:16
Speaker 3: owner has and at times the president of Baseball Operations,
40:20
Speaker 3: Craig Breslaw, has shown it. This lack of feel for
40:23
Speaker 3: your people and that I'll bloat some smoke your way. Now.
40:28
Speaker 3: One of the things that people always said about you
40:30
Speaker 3: when you were an executive was you had a great
40:32
Speaker 3: feel for people. You were great with people. But they
40:35
Speaker 3: are almost robotic in the way they go about it,
40:39
Speaker 3: and it's just all based on projections and numbers, and
40:43
Speaker 3: that's all fine. That's part of the game, important part
40:46
Speaker 3: of the game. It's not all that. It's not the
40:48
Speaker 3: whole thing, and that's where I believe they fall short.
40:53
Speaker 1: You know, Kenn, and I appreciate your comment. It means
40:55
Speaker 1: a lot to me. It was the way I was raised.
40:58
Speaker 1: I think one of the shifts I've seen in the
41:00
Speaker 1: industry is just how much we're optimizing for IQ in
41:03
Speaker 1: the front office now, and we've kind of turned our
41:05
Speaker 1: back on EQ, and like this kind of sense of
41:08
Speaker 1: developing relationships and the humanitarian way to approach some of
41:12
Speaker 1: these things has seemingly gone. And we'll dive into the
41:15
Speaker 1: Philly situation a second, but before we do, what was
41:18
Speaker 1: noteworthy to me is just how early in the.
41:20
Speaker 2: Season these moves are made.
41:21
Speaker 1: Because, as you and I both know, when you make
41:24
Speaker 1: a move like this on April twenty fifth, you've been
41:26
Speaker 1: thinking about it for five, ten, fifteen days, So it's
41:30
Speaker 1: not like the move was just made that morning and
41:32
Speaker 1: they made that decision. In this case, in particular, they
41:35
Speaker 1: just won the game seventeen to one and they still
41:37
Speaker 1: went through with it. But also that you're firing six
41:40
Speaker 1: guys on the staff suggests just a lack of faith
41:43
Speaker 1: in the group and almost as if you were looking
41:45
Speaker 1: for a reason to make some wholesale changes. It doesn't
41:48
Speaker 1: sit well, and so I just did a little research.
41:51
Speaker 1: I vary infrequently and complementing the New York Yankees, but
41:55
Speaker 1: here we go. Since nineteen ninety eight, Brian Cashman has
41:58
Speaker 1: been the general manager of the New York Yankeys. He's
42:02
Speaker 1: going to go to the Hall of Fame without question.
42:04
Speaker 1: He's done an exceptional job. Over that time. Prame the
42:07
Speaker 1: Boston Red Sox, if you include the interim guys, have
42:09
Speaker 1: had ten general managers. That's second only behind the New
42:13
Speaker 1: York Mets. And I think the New York Mets are
42:15
Speaker 1: only number one because their owner at one time was
42:18
Speaker 1: embroiled at some legal issues. They've had three of their
42:21
Speaker 1: guys like either suspended or have legal issues as well.
42:25
Speaker 1: But for that fact, Boston would be number one on
42:27
Speaker 1: that list. That's an incredible juxtaposition between two story franchises
42:32
Speaker 1: with incredible success, and over that time, Prame the Red
42:35
Speaker 1: Sox have won some World Series, but it's remarkable, as
42:38
Speaker 1: you said, they're also kind of leading the league during
42:40
Speaker 1: that time in volatility in some of this turmoil, and
42:44
Speaker 1: it's really it's incredible to see and it's really I
42:47
Speaker 1: think driven home when Alex Cora his one word comment
42:51
Speaker 1: on how does he feel about the changes? He keeps
42:54
Speaker 1: posting happy, and I think that's a, you know, a
42:57
Speaker 1: little bit of an indictment of what was transpiring there
43:00
Speaker 1: and then just shift the story to what happened in Philadelphia.
43:04
Speaker 1: You know, as you've reported so over so many years,
43:06
Speaker 1: like sometimes one of these moveses make you see kind
43:08
Speaker 1: of a landslide, and so I'm hopeful that we don't
43:12
Speaker 1: see a lot more of these. But I'm guessing, as
43:14
Speaker 1: you referenced earlier, that Carlos Mendoza and Joe Spott and
43:17
Speaker 1: others right now are holding their breath hoping they're not
43:20
Speaker 1: being called into an office at some point. But Rob
43:23
Speaker 1: Thompson's response to what transpired seems so different. It was,
43:27
Speaker 1: you know that the organization from ownership to Dave Dembrowski
43:30
Speaker 1: treated him with such so much class he aspires to
43:33
Speaker 1: stay in the organization. I do think that's a reflection
43:36
Speaker 1: of some systemic problems maybe in Boston and maybe how
43:40
Speaker 1: well things are going in Philadelphia. Same action was taken,
43:45
Speaker 1: but it was received very differently by the two people
43:48
Speaker 1: on the receiving.
43:49
Speaker 3: It's a great point. And Rob Thompson is a guy
43:53
Speaker 3: and I wrote this in my calm about the Phillies.
43:57
Speaker 3: He spent twenty eight years with the George Steinberner Yankees
44:00
Speaker 3: I Brettam was the owner for most of that time.
44:02
Speaker 3: He gets it. He knows what the team looked like.
44:07
Speaker 3: He knows that a team playing like the way they
44:10
Speaker 3: were is going to get its manager in trouble. And yes,
44:13
Speaker 3: he had a very positive relationship with both Dombrowski and
44:16
Speaker 3: the owner, John Middleton. The owner there is kind of
44:19
Speaker 3: the opposite of John Henry. John Middleton is emotionally invested,
44:23
Speaker 3: he's financially invested. He is in it. He's a fan
44:28
Speaker 3: as much as anything. So yes, the relationship there was good.
44:31
Speaker 3: And of course Thompson showed his class and grace and dignity.
44:36
Speaker 3: Held a press conference or a zoom call with reporters,
44:40
Speaker 3: not typical of managers who are fired, and he was asked,
44:43
Speaker 3: why are you doing this, and he said, because I'm
44:46
Speaker 3: the leader, I'm accountable and I want to just express
44:51
Speaker 3: my gratitude and all that. So, yeah, that does show
44:56
Speaker 3: a difference in the two organizations. That's interesting you bring
44:58
Speaker 3: up the Yankees, because Yankee fans would say, what the
45:04
Speaker 3: Red Sox are doing is holding people accountable, and our
45:07
Speaker 3: guys need to be held accountable because we haven't won
45:09
Speaker 3: a World Series since two thousand and nine. So fans
45:11
Speaker 3: are always going to have different views of this kind
45:13
Speaker 3: of thing. But to me, right now, it's kind of
45:16
Speaker 3: difficult to be a Red Sox fan and root for
45:19
Speaker 3: what just happened because they gutted this thing. And Dad,
45:24
Speaker 3: you know this, it's one thing to fire a manager.
45:26
Speaker 3: When you fire six coaches in the middle of the season,
45:28
Speaker 3: that is almost unprecedented. I don't even remember anything like
45:32
Speaker 3: that happening one or two, yes, of course, but six
45:36
Speaker 3: and then that introduces a whole new level of disruption
45:41
Speaker 3: to your team. So we'll see how it turns out,
45:44
Speaker 3: but I'm not confident that the team Craig Wrestler build
45:48
Speaker 3: is going to be substantially different because they have this
45:50
Speaker 3: new staff.
45:51
Speaker 1: It's a bold statement to make as an executive. It
45:55
Speaker 1: surely implies that you think they have the right tools
45:59
Speaker 1: to win, and they're not deploying the tools in the
46:01
Speaker 1: right way to win. I think it puts the spotlight
46:04
Speaker 1: squarely in the front office, and we'll see how that
46:06
Speaker 1: ultimately transpires. But it will be fascinating to follow as
46:11
Speaker 1: those things unfold over the course of the rest of year.
46:14
Speaker 1: And I look at what has been done in Boston
46:17
Speaker 1: over the last years. Most general managers don't make profoundly
46:20
Speaker 1: bold moves. He's made one in each of the last
46:22
Speaker 1: two years, trading their star player and now firing their
46:26
Speaker 1: star manager. It'll be interesting just to see when the
46:29
Speaker 1: dust settles how this all works out. He boldly stated
46:32
Speaker 1: less er, we're going to win more games without devers.
46:34
Speaker 1: I thought at the time that was would be surprising
46:37
Speaker 1: if he prevailed on that. We'll see how Chad Tracy does, who,
46:40
Speaker 1: as I'm sure you know, is a wonderful person and
46:42
Speaker 1: his father was a tremendous human being and longtime manager.
46:47
Speaker 1: We drafted Chad in Texas. He is a wonderful person.
46:49
Speaker 1: I'm glad he's getting an opportunity. Wish it was in
46:52
Speaker 1: slightly less controversial dynamic and I hope he has a
46:55
Speaker 1: genuine opportunity there to secure the seat moving forward. But
46:59
Speaker 1: time will tell on that for sure. Ken you recently
47:03
Speaker 1: reported that you think there's a ninety percent chance we're
47:06
Speaker 1: going to have a work stoppage in the game. You've
47:09
Speaker 1: covered a lot of labor relations. When do you recall previously,
47:15
Speaker 1: like I assume this is your highest prediction in terms
47:18
Speaker 1: of a work stoppage. Why is that now? Why is
47:23
Speaker 1: that your level of pessimism so high this time?
47:26
Speaker 3: I think it was pretty high the last time as well,
47:29
Speaker 3: but it's high this time because the owners clearly have
47:34
Speaker 3: signals for I don't know about two years now that
47:38
Speaker 3: they want major change, they want a cap, and we've
47:42
Speaker 3: known that they wanted a cap since the nineteen seventies
47:45
Speaker 3: or maybe a little after that. But that's what it
47:49
Speaker 3: seems to me, or why it seems to me to
47:52
Speaker 3: be more likely. There is more saber rattling than there's
47:55
Speaker 3: been in the past. And the commissioner came out and
47:58
Speaker 3: said he views the lockout as a labor strategy, a
48:04
Speaker 3: lockout of your employees. He believes that is something that
48:08
Speaker 3: maybe accelerates negotiations or it's just part of it under
48:12
Speaker 3: the current labor rules in this country. To me, that
48:16
Speaker 3: was an unfortunate thing to say. I don't believe you
48:18
Speaker 3: should ever look at that in that regard. I knew
48:21
Speaker 3: what he was saying in a technical stamp, from a
48:23
Speaker 3: technical standpoint, from a negotiating standpoint, but what he all
48:27
Speaker 3: but announces that, yeah, a lockout is not a bad thing.
48:31
Speaker 3: You kind of got to assume that a lockout is coming.
48:33
Speaker 3: And we saw this the last time. They couldn't get
48:37
Speaker 3: it done by December. First they had to have the lockout.
48:40
Speaker 3: They had to have the threat of missing games to
48:43
Speaker 3: get anything done, and that is what I see coming
48:46
Speaker 3: this time.
48:47
Speaker 1: Can you've been through this so many times, You've covered
48:51
Speaker 1: so many labor relations. If you had the chance to
48:54
Speaker 1: sit down with the commissioner and then separately sit down
48:57
Speaker 1: with Bruce Meyer, the head of the players Association.
49:00
Speaker 2: What piece of advice would you give each of these guys.
49:03
Speaker 3: That's a great question that in the commissioner's case, the
49:07
Speaker 3: lockout is going to happen. I get it. A cap
49:12
Speaker 3: is just too much for this sport at this time.
49:16
Speaker 3: And you might tell, well, the other sports have a
49:18
Speaker 3: Baseball needs it. Look at the disparity. Yes, the disparity
49:21
Speaker 3: is a problem. Disparity needs to be addressed, the revenue disparity.
49:26
Speaker 3: But at the same time, I believe it can be
49:29
Speaker 3: addressed within the confines of the current system. So my
49:32
Speaker 3: advice to the commission would be, let's stay within the
49:34
Speaker 3: current system and get a better arrangement through that than
49:39
Speaker 3: starting a war, essentially a labor war. And to Bruce Meyer,
49:43
Speaker 3: I would say, you know what, if you don't get
49:46
Speaker 3: the cap, okay, but you have to acknowledge that this
49:48
Speaker 3: problem exists. And they have a hard time acknowledging any
49:51
Speaker 3: problem exists. The union does. So if the union acknowledges, okay,
49:57
Speaker 3: we need to do something here, more things, okay. And
50:00
Speaker 3: if the commissioner says, you know what, let's stay with
50:02
Speaker 3: the current system, okay, then at least you're talking the
50:04
Speaker 3: same language. Too often these two sides are not talking
50:08
Speaker 3: the same language. And one thing that has always bothered
50:10
Speaker 3: me here. This goes back to the last negotiation and
50:14
Speaker 3: even before that, the contempt that the two sides have
50:18
Speaker 3: for each other. The history here is so deep that
50:23
Speaker 3: it almost guarantees there's going to be a fight. The
50:28
Speaker 3: interest is not in necessarily getting a deal done for
50:32
Speaker 3: the benefit of the sport, a sport that, by the way,
50:34
Speaker 3: is thriving right now, even with all its problems. The
50:37
Speaker 3: interest is fighting and they would deny that. Oh no, no,
50:40
Speaker 3: we're trying to make a deal. No, you want to fight.
50:43
Speaker 3: And I just don't think that as healthy. Now. Certainly,
50:47
Speaker 3: if you're Bruce Meyer, your job is to fight for
50:49
Speaker 3: the players, and if you're Rob Commanford, your job is
50:52
Speaker 3: to fight for the owners. We all understand that. But
50:56
Speaker 3: the distrust is to the point where it's counterpart.
51:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally agree with you. I'm sure this is wrong.
51:04
Speaker 1: But on the front office executive standpoint side, we always
51:07
Speaker 1: theorize that when one side says sends an offer to
51:11
Speaker 1: the other side, their initial reaction is categoric rejection, curse
51:16
Speaker 1: words said. And then separately they say and by the way,
51:18
Speaker 1: somebody read this and summarize it for me, and it's
51:21
Speaker 1: in that order, because there's so much contempt. And I
51:24
Speaker 1: just have often wondered, when you're starting from a place
51:27
Speaker 1: of lack of respect, lack of trust, of how do
51:30
Speaker 1: you get deals done? And I think it's really tough
51:32
Speaker 1: to do. And the other thing i'd share with you, Ken,
51:34
Speaker 1: and I don't know where you feel journalists sit on this,
51:36
Speaker 1: but when I've talked to agents, I think agents in
51:39
Speaker 1: front office executives are a lot closer aligned. They're kind
51:43
Speaker 1: of centrist in this. I think we all see the
51:45
Speaker 1: betterment of the game and a path forward for it.
51:48
Speaker 1: It's the extremes that are representing sometimes as you as
51:51
Speaker 1: you noted that these guys have to fight for their sides.
51:56
Speaker 1: And then I think one things that listeners maybe don't
51:58
Speaker 1: really fully understand is it's remarkable to me that the
52:01
Speaker 1: union has somehow coalesced around this notion that the guys
52:05
Speaker 1: were making forty million dollars a year and the guys
52:07
Speaker 1: were making the major league minimum somehow are aligned. But
52:11
Speaker 1: on the on the ownership side, there's a pretty big
52:14
Speaker 1: demonstrative difference between how the big market teams are looking
52:17
Speaker 1: at this and the small market teams. So, yes, Rob
52:20
Speaker 1: is fighting for the owners, but he's also trying to
52:22
Speaker 1: galvanize the owners around the common cause, and that is
52:25
Speaker 1: a really difficult enterprise for him.
52:28
Speaker 3: And actually it's also difficult for the union to keep
52:30
Speaker 3: those extremes together. Too high pay players, low pay players.
52:34
Speaker 3: But the one point you made there about the agents
52:38
Speaker 3: and the club executives. I have always felt I've said this,
52:42
Speaker 3: I believe I've read it too. Give me two club
52:46
Speaker 3: executives and give me two agents. Okay, let's I'll give
52:50
Speaker 3: you names. I'll give you Andrew Friedman and Chris Antonetty
52:53
Speaker 3: on one side, and give me Joel Wolf and I
52:57
Speaker 3: don't know Casey Close on the other. Sit them in
53:01
Speaker 3: a room, tell them they got seventy two hours, and
53:03
Speaker 3: you know what, I bet we get a deal, and
53:05
Speaker 3: I bet we get something pretty fair. It's not going
53:08
Speaker 3: to happen that way, and that's just the way it's
53:11
Speaker 3: going to be.
53:12
Speaker 1: And there would be far less mud slinging and public
53:15
Speaker 1: innuendo associated with it if you went there. Ken, my
53:18
Speaker 1: last question for you, and you've just spoken to this.
53:21
Speaker 1: Throughout your career, I think you've been known as a
53:23
Speaker 1: tremendous journalist, but also you have incredible integrity, and that
53:28
Speaker 1: shows up in a lot of places. You write the
53:30
Speaker 1: story that you think needs to be written. You've always
53:32
Speaker 1: been factually based. You're not trying to curry favor with people,
53:36
Speaker 1: and so, as you've mentioned here, like you sometimes do
53:38
Speaker 1: take the commissioner to task when you think that they're
53:41
Speaker 1: saying things that is, you know, kind of a little
53:44
Speaker 1: bit untoured or counter.
53:46
Speaker 2: What you think is right for baseball.
53:48
Speaker 1: But also, you left MLB Network at a time when
53:52
Speaker 1: you were really on top of the game, but you
53:54
Speaker 1: felt it was the right time to leave. I just
53:56
Speaker 1: would be curious, is that something you've always had in
53:59
Speaker 1: your careers? At a conscious decision on your behalf, because
54:02
Speaker 1: I think when people talk about you, they talk about
54:05
Speaker 1: your in tech.
54:05
Speaker 3: Well, thanks that, I appreciate that. I appreciate you noticing.
54:10
Speaker 3: First off, when I left MLB Network, it was their decision,
54:13
Speaker 3: and it was based on the fact that I was
54:15
Speaker 3: writing things that they didn't like. At least that was
54:17
Speaker 3: my understanding of it. And actually, looking back, I was
54:22
Speaker 3: comfortable with that. I didn't like to lose the job,
54:25
Speaker 3: of course, and I enjoyed the people there so much.
54:27
Speaker 3: There's some of my best friends. But hey, if they
54:31
Speaker 3: didn't like what I was doing and they felt it
54:33
Speaker 3: was not proper for me to be on MLB Network,
54:36
Speaker 3: that's the consequence that I have to live with. When
54:38
Speaker 3: I was in Baltimore, I was a columnist. I was
54:42
Speaker 3: probably stronger in what I wrote even than I am today.
54:47
Speaker 3: I was not as polished. I was kind of like
54:50
Speaker 3: a guy throwing ninety five miles an hour all the
54:52
Speaker 3: time and not knowing how to throw anything else. And
54:55
Speaker 3: I had consequences with that too. A lot of people
54:57
Speaker 3: in Baltimore didn't like me. But I have in my
55:00
Speaker 3: mind a certain way that I think the job should
55:04
Speaker 3: be done. Now. It's not fool proof, and I'm not
55:07
Speaker 3: saying it's the only way, and I'm not saying that
55:10
Speaker 3: I'm right all the time, far from it, but I
55:13
Speaker 3: believe there's a way to go about it. And there
55:16
Speaker 3: is a role that we have as journalists to call
55:20
Speaker 3: out things when things need to be called out, to
55:23
Speaker 3: praise them, of course, when things need to be praised,
55:25
Speaker 3: but to give our readers and viewers insight that they
55:30
Speaker 3: might not otherwise have. And if it means being negative,
55:33
Speaker 3: then it means being negative. And it's not easy, especially
55:38
Speaker 3: in this day and age, to do that because social
55:41
Speaker 3: media is quite the animal and it is a situation
55:46
Speaker 3: where you're getting blowback all the time.
55:47
Speaker 4: I get blowback regardless of what I write, good, bad, indifferent.
55:51
Speaker 4: But at the same time, that's the job, and that's
55:53
Speaker 4: how I see the job. And at the athletic that's
55:57
Speaker 4: how we see the job, and all of our people
56:01
Speaker 4: kind of take the same approach.
56:03
Speaker 3: It's not just me. So it's a hard world right
56:07
Speaker 3: now where journalism is under attack all the time and
56:12
Speaker 3: people covering things a lot more meaningful than baseball or
56:14
Speaker 3: under attack. But at the same time, to me, it's
56:17
Speaker 3: the only way to do it well.
56:18
Speaker 1: And can you just said that you sometimes write negatively.
56:21
Speaker 1: I wouldn't look at it that way. I think you
56:22
Speaker 1: just always write honestly.
56:24
Speaker 3: Well, I see it that way through that, but that's
56:27
Speaker 3: the interpretation of it.
56:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, But as you mentioned, through social media and now
56:31
Speaker 1: you're supremely accountable to what you write. So the easiest
56:34
Speaker 1: thing to do is always to write from a exceptionally
56:38
Speaker 1: gratuitous and positive lens. You're writing honestly. And so I
56:42
Speaker 1: just want to say and Ken, thank you so much
56:43
Speaker 1: for your time and your wisdom. You know, I don't
56:47
Speaker 1: want to date you here, but you raised many generation
56:50
Speaker 1: of fans, myself included that in the eighties and nineties
56:53
Speaker 1: with the Baltimore Orioles, I was always reading your stuff,
56:56
Speaker 1: and I'd say one of the bigger compliments I can
56:59
Speaker 1: give you you're a hall of that's unequivocal. But more than that,
57:03
Speaker 1: you've turned casual fans into fans, and fans into fanatics,
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Speaker 1: and count me as one of them. You've been a
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Speaker 1: tremendous tribute to baseball. Thank you on behalf of fans, Executives,
57:13
Speaker 1: front office people around the world appreciate everything you do.
57:17
Speaker 1: Your professionalism stands alone with a rarefied air of people,
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Speaker 1: of quite a few of whom you've mentioned very magnanimously
57:26
Speaker 1: on this show. So thank you again. Ken. Please join
57:29
Speaker 1: us this Thursday and every Thursday on Rosters to Rings.
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Speaker 3: Thank you too, kind man, You are way too kind.
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Speaker 3: That was very nice. Thank you