Chaim Bloom on Jews in the Lou

In this episode of Jews in the Lou, we sit down with Chaim Bloom, President of Baseball Operations for the St. Louis Cardinals, for a wide-ranging conversation about leadership, culture, identity, and what it takes to build a winning organization in Major League Baseball.

From growing up in a Jewish household in Philadelphia to leading one of baseball’s most iconic franchises, Chaim shares his journey through the game and the philosophy behind building long-term, sustainable success at the highest level.

We discuss:

• Balancing long-term planning with daily competitiveness
• Leading in a passionate, tradition-rich sports city like St. Louis
• The importance of honesty, accountability, and culture inside an organization
• How tradition evolves in modern sports
• And the mindset behind his philosophy: “paint the wall.”

This episode offers a thoughtful and often humorous look at baseball leadership, personal identity, and the responsibility that comes with shaping a Major League Baseball organization.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Now we're seeing like the outside culture of the fan base. Like maybe we should be doing this interview with our shirts off. Yeah, I didn't ask you guys if I should have come with a shirt on or not.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

I decided to take the chance and wear a shirt.

SPEAKER_04 0:12

Hey guys, Alex Rich, and Foremba. Hey, we are excited to let you know that we have episodes of our podcast, Jews in the Lou, dropping every other week, and you're not going to want to miss. We have some great guests lined up.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

Amazing. And while I have you, I want to thank the St. Louis Jewish Light for their incredible partnership and support of our podcast, uh, the St. Louis Jewish Light doing amazing work for our community, keeping us informed, uh uh with stories, with updates.

SPEAKER_04 0:38

Um visit stljewishlight.org, subscribe to their newsletter, they'll keep you up to date on everything going on.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 0:45

Well, see you soon.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Some some looking at the same time. So are we are we so we just this is on?

SPEAKER_04 0:50

We'll just tell you straight up. We are totally um just organic and we're just gonna talk about whatever. Great. This probably we're very minimally about today, Alex.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

Whatever.

SPEAKER_04 1:01

He's mad that we have the real microphones.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

Yeah, mad that we have the real microphones. What did you want to have? We usually have like little things that we clip on the coffee, but Alex, um, to borrow uh a line from from a recent uh comedian uh has Schmutz in his pants right now because Alex is a huge baseball fan. I'm a baseball guy, but I'm not like yes, you are, and the prospects of having you on the show has been has been a big deal for him. Just look at the camera and tell the camera that's the case.

SPEAKER_04 1:32

We got Heimblum, president of baseball operations for the St. Louis Cardinals joining us today.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

And here's the thing I know nothing about baseball.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

I've been accused of that from time to time, also.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

You're right. No, so we I want to say you've done a little more preparation for this one.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

I really haven't, though. Honestly, I mean, obviously, I know your baseball background, and I think a lot of people do know a little bit about how you got your start, but I think really um we just want to get to know Haim and Haim in St. Louis. And talking about Haim, when you tell people your name, do you throw a little in there?

SPEAKER_01 2:09

I'll be honest with you, it depends on the audience. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

You'll say chime? No. No, but I bet you can call it chime all the time.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

All the time, chime, chain. You name it, I've been called it. Again, I've been called worse, so it's fine. Um, I usually will just say chaim, uh, but I will, I'll admit to sometimes dialing up or down the chud based on how much I think the audience can handle it. I mean, it makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Well, tell you about this thing though. So this got rolling because he and I would meet and it was over Hanukkah, Hanukkah, Hanukkah.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

See, there you see there you go.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

Uh I have it naturally, so I don't have to pretend.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Right, but but you didn't really lean into it.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Well, Ben's from Israel.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

You gotta tell him a little bit about you.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

I mean, I can tell. Yeah, okay. He can already tell. He knows. I know the I know the accent. I had actually had recently I was on a trip, went to a birthday party out of town, and ended up having uh Israeli Uber driver where you can just sort of tell. Yeah. Yeah. Um so we ended up getting into conversation. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

Yes. Anyway, but it's a very organic thing, meaning we don't really rehearse for this. We don't really um uh read your Wikipedia page. I have just this morning, right? 15 minutes before I walked in, just to kind of know.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Those are the best conversations when they're gonna be.

SPEAKER_04 3:29

I think you're the second person with the Wikipedia page that we've had. Maybe the third. We had Josh Schertz, slew coach, great guy. Yeah, I'm sure you've met Coach. I actually have to I'd really like to great guys. He was uh one of the original eight on Jews in the Lou. We had Phil Rosenthal, creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, and somebody feed Phil on Netflix. We had him on, and then uh Heim Bloom.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

Yes. I mean we had other dignitaries. Scott Rosentblum.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

Scott Rosenblum, big attorney in town.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Yeah, there's big names. Susan Sherman was on our show. Uh, but the idea is to present uh our audience, mostly Jews, mostly living in the loom, with uh kind of a um we're not talking about Jewish things particularly, but we want to present uh a more uh diverse picture of Jewish life in St. Louis, meaning we have people from different backgrounds, different age groups, uh different occupations, uh and we talk about what they do. Uh their Jewishness could be central to what they do, it could inform a lot of what they do, but it could also be just a footnote, and we've had that too, you know? So we will ask you about Jewish things uh because you have such a Jewish name, like and I also read that you keep kosher, so I want to come investigate a little more of that. But um so St. Louis, how you you've been here officially what, a year now, a couple years?

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Well depends where you uh where you uh sort of draw the line of being here. So I started working for the Cardinals in January of 24. Okay. Um and I was in that advisory role for a couple years. The first year was really, I was almost basically like a consultant.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Where my job was to really get to know in particular two departments or player development department and the performance department.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

Um they need consulting in the performance department to find the same thing, no.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

It depends what performance department.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah, we don't know what the talk about what performance actually means. Like I think people could hear that and they could say, isn't the whole thing the performance department? Um, but we could talk about that. Um and then in the fall of 24, the advisory role continued, but then we formalized a this succession plan uh where I would slide into this president job at the end of the 25 season and also start to implement some changes in those two departments throughout the 25 season. Yes. So that was the point where really it was, you know, we uh I we we basically decided to come together and do this, started planning the move. Um, but you know, really I would say I've been living here more than not, I think, since the president job started in October.

SPEAKER_03 6:16

When did you move your family here?

SPEAKER_01 6:17

They haven't moved yet. They're coming at the they're coming at the end of the summer.

SPEAKER_04 6:20

But this will be home. I mean, that's a lot of people they'll take a job and they'll commute back and forth. This is going to be home for you and your family.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Yes, yes, yeah. We got everybody teed up in schools, and uh, we're you know, we're figuring out exactly how to navigate that and obviously still have a lot of family back out east and um different things, my wife's career, et cetera, that yeah, will take some navigation, but this will be home.

SPEAKER_04 6:44

How do you feel so far that St. Louis has embraced you, not only the the overall community, but the Jewish community here in town?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Oh, it's been amazing. Both. I mean, you know, not I don't take that for granted. I mean, you you I got to see the place a little bit, obviously, before really um, you know, becoming more visible and moving into this role. So I'm not surprised just getting to know some people around here because it's just a place where people are incredible. Sure. Um, but really on both fronts, uh it's been great. And the this has happened really everywhere that I've moved. I moved a couple places, you know, for my career, and I'm always blown away by the embrace and the hospitality from the Jewish community. Uh, here it's just been both. Um, you can as an East Coaster, you don't really appreciate until you're here just how much baseball matters. You know it's an amazing baseball song, right? You know that. Like everybody in baseball knows that, but you sort of have to feel it uh to really understand it. And you can just tell, especially being in the jobs that I've been in here and am in now. Yeah, you you just feel it going through every day. Yeah. So it's been great. I I keep joking every time we win a game that I get a little 24 extra hours on the honeymoon period. You do whenever that ends, because I know how this works. Um, but in all seriousness, like people have been amazing.

SPEAKER_04 7:59

Yeah, and I think that um I think that speaks a lot to like kind of just the community that I think we always talk about, we are, is just everybody kind of feels like you know everybody. And I'm sure that you get approached, like people have known you for their entire life and they come up and have a conversation with you, and you're you seem like you're an approachable person where you're willing to have those conversations that maybe other people in your role, regardless of the team, don't necessarily have. I think a lot of people may not be ingrained in the community, may not be part of what the actual city and uh the team means to us. And I think that everything that you're kind of saying right now, I think really hits home for me personally. Um, I think one question that I've always kind of wondered was um, and maybe this goes back to your start, but why baseball? And we can kind of go back even further. I don't necessarily want to go back to your childhood and upbringing unless that plays into it. But why baseball?

SPEAKER_03 8:57

I actually kind of do, but it's okay.

SPEAKER_04 8:58

We can. I mean you want to go back in the old way around?

SPEAKER_03 9:00

I want I I want to hear a little bit from Chaim about his hometown and what does his hometown mean? Uh I know you're from Philly. Um Philly in sports, I mean, that fan base is known to be uh very aggressive. Um how does it inform and then of course Philly had a very strong Jewish uh community, um a very uh loud Jewish community. So I want to know this world of Heim growing up, uh sports and Jewishness, and when those worlds collide and when those world uh those worlds uh have tension, you know?

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Yeah, well so they are kind of related. Yeah um because I've been passionate about baseball ever since I was pretty little. Um I was never any good at playing it. Uh so that that was also apparent. That was also apparently.

SPEAKER_04 9:53

My claim to fame is I was actually Kyle Schwarber's backup catcher at Indiana. I was we were in a room together on the roads and stuff. So well, that'll be a sidebar conversation, but uh maybe if you serve him a few brews the night before a game, he might probably have a little bit of fun.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

That's uh that that that's not shocking to hear that guy. Um he was, I mean, I as you know, I was around him for a few months in Boston and he's an incredible, great guy. Um and he can hit too. Um, but yeah, so I I just I wasn't a very skilled player, but I loved the game, loved everything about it. Loved watching it, following it, um, loved the history of it, and just became obsessed with it from a young age. It wasn't until I'd say kind of the end of high school, beginning of college, when I started to understand this whole world behind the curtain, baseball ops. Uh, that was a time. So I graduated high school in 2000.

SPEAKER_04 10:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Um, and that was a time when doors were starting to open up in baseball for people with backgrounds like mine. And, you know, it's just you you realize like, hey, there it is at least theoretically possible to do this for a living. So why don't I try to do it and see if I can scratch and claw my way in? And was able to do that. Um, you know, but both by working hard and hustling and also being in the right place at the right time a couple times. That's what it takes. So uh that's that's why I say they're kind of tied together because I was just passionate about it uh as a kid. It just I don't know why. Like I don't have a good answer for the why. I can tell you all these things that I love about baseball. We can get really lyrical and romantic about it if we want, and I believe those things, but at the end of the day, you like what you like. I don't know why it captivated me the way it did. You know what I've come to, I mean, I I followed a lot of sports as a kid, whatever, as a Philly sports fan, like we talked about. But baseball was always number one, and I can't I again I could tell you all the lovely things about it, but it wasn't like I sat there with a pros and cons list and said, which sports should I care about the most? This just was it.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:48

Do you and speaking of like baseball and your Jewish background, obviously, uh kind of one thing I've noticed is in the front office of baseball specifically, and I didn't do any research on this at all. This is just my observation, but I've noticed that baseball specifically tends to typically have um more of I would think Jews in the front offices or in the ownership groups or a very uh keen love of baseball amongst boomers, Jewish boomers, right?

SPEAKER_03 12:27

No, no, it's why is that? Yeah, I mean I don't know why it is. It could go back to the history, the pride in uh what's the famous uh Jewish uh player.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Well, there's a few of them, right? You can go and go back to the same go back, so you go back further to Hank Greenberg.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

So that so I think there's some plan today, kind of uh collective uh community pride, and I think that you know you you grow up in uh and I think it's a East Coast thing too, possibly, you know. I think growing up, you know, Jewish community in the East Coast, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, I think there is this this love of the game too. And uh I don't know, but so tell me about tell us you grew up in a in a religious household, you grew up in a observing household.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Yeah, so I was born in Philly, my folks moved out to the suburbs when I was five, and uh that was what summer of 1988. Yeah. They still live there, same house. Um and uh so my mom is actually from the Midwest. Okay. Uh not here, but from the Midwest. My dad's from Boston originally, so she was born in uh Minneapolis. Okay. Um, but some of her childhood in the Twin Cities, some in Chicago. Uh my dad's from Boston. Okay, actually, uh, and still a lot of family, extended family there. But they met in New York and then they uh I um I'm my brother and I were born in Philly, and that's where they're still there, so that's where I grew up. And uh yeah, observant, uh conserved a Jewish household, but uh fairly observant. Yeah, kosher home, went to Jewish day schools, um the whole deal.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

Speaking Hebrew?

SPEAKER_01 13:56

I did reasonably well at one point. Like, but when I finished high school at that point in time, like my Hebrew was pretty good, like at least conversational, and probably if I had actually immersed myself in it, I could have become fluent. Now, uh, not to say my Spanish is that great, but whenever I try to speak Hebrew, it comes out Spanish. Um accent-wise? No. The words that yeah, but I could still understand it reasonably well.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

So let me ask you this: when you take a new job with a place like St. Louis, you know about St. Louis or you don't, or I don't know what degree you what you're getting into. Do you does the Jewish aspect of it important to you? Like were you seeking uh a congregation? Were you looking whether there's a school nearby where you're gonna live? Were you is this were you is this important to you, or you say the job is the job, I'll find my my community around me once I do this. But or is that really like a part of the decision-making? Definitely important, definitely important.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

I mean there's there's an aspect of it where I mean we're we're a sport that's played in you know fairly major places where there's a Jewish community everywhere that there's a major league baseball team. I mean, you know, I my my boys were born uh in St. Pete, yeah, and you know, we lived in the Tampa Bay area for a long time, and I had no concept of what Jewish life was like in Central Florida. When you think about Jewish life in Florida, you think about the East Coast, you think about South Florida, and by the numbers, it's not a very large community, but we built a wonderful life there, found an amazing community, still have lifelong friends within that community. So, you know, wherever you are, that's one of the great things that you can you if you if it's something you want, you can build that community. But at the same time, when you're thinking about this as a choice, especially now having kids and you know, having a family and looking at this as home, it matters. And so those were things, you know, when you look at uh I think this is true about family life in general in St. Louis. Like just it is amazing how many people you talk to, and I have some friends who have lived here. I had not spent much time here previously, even in baseball. Just I was in the American League, we wasn't here that often. Yeah, um, people love raising kids in St. Louis. I haven't found anybody who has had anything negative to say about that. Yeah, so that was very appealing. Obviously, for a city, you know, again, you don't take for granted just a city of this size having such incredible culture and such a premium on education and such a culture around that. And I think the same thing's true in the Jewish community where it's a pretty committed community.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

Did you find that congregation?

SPEAKER_01 16:27

I think we got a we got a lead on one, but we haven't made a formal decision. I know you would be surprised that's actually like a thing. People want to know what shoulder you're gonna join. So until it's locked. You're gonna have a press conference, you put the hat on and everything to uh to do a decision.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

I think we do maybe we maybe we'll not that's not that big time, but it has it has been a it has been a thing.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

Uh you're going to no matter what you do, you're going to cultivate a fan base, and then you're going to cultivate a hate base because uh people are gonna people are gonna be upset about you, about which which are you're gonna choose.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

I'm used to that. You know, if if nobody hates you, you're probably not doing enough things, right? If the only thing you're willing to do is things that are not controversial, you're not doing enough.

SPEAKER_03 17:10

You know, if I'm universally loved, I uh I feel I don't feel comfortable. I need uh I need a good dosage of uh of animal uh directed towards you. You'd be very at home in my field.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

How do you handle that though?

SPEAKER_03 17:23

Honestly, that's a it's a real question because he's the most soft-spoken person I've ever met. You know, when you think about people who run operations like like yours, there's so much emotions. Fans are completely irrational. I'm a basketball fan. I know that I'm completely irrational. I'm the most hateful fan you could have, you know, self-hateful. Like if my team doesn't win, I just everybody, right? Uh so we're not we're we're irrational humans, uh fans, sports fans. And but for you, it's much more than just fans. I mean, you make decisions, you build I mean, it's you build an organization, you build community, you build culture within a community. So you're very pleasant, dude. Thank you. You know, you barely know me. I love that you're you're self-spoken, you're quiet, you're collected. You know, um this is probably important. Is this like part of your personality, or do you have to kind of uh embrace that like uh poker?

SPEAKER_01 18:24

No, I I mean there's there's some of that. I do think generally speaking, it's my it is my personality. Like I don't I I don't try to invent, you know, a personality.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

You don't see confrontation.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Um, you know, you learn over time this business, uh it's gonna find you. So sometimes you need to go find it on your terms, right? And when you don't do that, sometimes you learn that the hard way.

SPEAKER_04 18:45

You step out and look for conversations.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

I mean, I don't try to pick fights, but at the end of the day, you know, if there's something you believe in, something where you think you need to put your foot down or something has to be the way it has to be, and you don't do that, you may live to regret that. And so you learn those lessons over time.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

Yeah. So I want to talk about food because that's my world. Uh, and you keep kosher. So like glad kosher, like you were looking at the or you just you know, it's funny.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

So we should get into detail on this. One of the things, this is actually a conversation I have so many times within baseball, because there's so many people that are curious about it. And in some cases, I might be the first Jewish person or certainly the first observant Jewish person that's like.

SPEAKER_04 19:23

But we always talk about like I at school even was like the first Jewish person that many people met, and it's like, oh my God, like you don't realize because I grew up around so many different Jewish friends and everything, but you you don't realize, and then in your role, it probably is exponentially greater than that.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

You eat with people all the time. So it always comes up. Yeah, right. So that's the answer. So what I will do, so I I will eat food that's not Hector. Basically, when I eat out, I essentially am vegetarian plus fish. Yeah, so I won't eat non-kosher meat. Uh, we keep a kosher home, separate dishes, don't mix dairy and meat. Yes. Um, so we are uh the best way I could describe it is we're ingredient kosher, yeah. Uh, but uh any meat has to be kosher.

SPEAKER_03 20:09

Just like my parents, like my mother more specifically. So my mom, this is a this is a Jewish deli, but it's not kosher. Uh obviously we don't serve any pork or shellfish. Uh we will add cheese to a sandwich uh if we must, if somebody pigments it.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

But um is the meat that you serve kosher?

SPEAKER_03 20:28

Some of the meat is kosher. But of course the religious community won't eat here because it's not extra delay. Uh but uh so we're not approved or anything like that. But you know, if you if you navigate that the way you have, uh you should be fine to come have uh egg salad sandwich at the deletion. The egg salad's a famous egg salad.

SPEAKER_04 20:48

I would crush that. You would crush that. Absolutely. Well probably you probably got some around here you could say, don't you think, at some point.

SPEAKER_03 20:54

Uh maybe, maybe we can go grab some. Yeah, sure. Um so you haven't had the chance to eat uh St. Louis style pizza?

SPEAKER_01 21:00

No, not yet. That's still on the list. I actually maybe I shouldn't say that on the record because I haven't done that yet. But I haven't. Uh I will at some point.

SPEAKER_03 21:08

Yeah, yeah. What are things about St. Louis and let's not talk about oh the community some specific things you said. I like this place, or this is this is gonna be a challenge for me. Like, is it things that jumped out at you? Like I can tell you mine. I've lived here for 32 years. The fact that there is not really a lot of people walking still bugs the fuck out of me. Like, where are the people? Why people are not walking. So that's still a point. Like it's a pet peeve of the world.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Where did you live before this? Israel. You came from Israel to St. Louis. Yes. Where in Israel?

SPEAKER_03 21:42

Uh a place called Nestiona.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Where is it near? I don't know it.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

Do you know Rihola?

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

You know Risha? Uh we're sandwiched between.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:52

Yeah. It's a small community.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Got it. Yeah, there's Again, I've lived in some Different places. So obviously wanted to understand the organization and what what the job would be. And I I think within baseball, this organization, like it's there obviously a ton of success, but also it's just been very consistent the way that the organization has operated, uh, which I think is a good thing. And was appealing and gets a lot of respect within the industry. I don't know, like I when you talk about St. Louis again, I didn't know that much about it in specific, but more in the abstract, it's there's not a lot of uh I I would say most of the cities of this size in the country are just not as distinctive. They don't have the history, they don't have the culture uh that this place has. Obviously, when you're yeah, we're close today. You think he's sorry, you think he's thinking like that you're obviously not. I mean, if honestly when I walk in.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

We could have I would have probably got up and and make a sale. Because you're here, I'm uh I'm joking. That's fine.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Um I didn't have any specific negatives. It's just obviously like especially with small kids, um, you know, my wife's from the Boston area, so that's a big deal to uh move out of it, obviously with a lot of her family being there. Um but it was there I didn't have any negatives about here that I knew of. Um probably after a couple years I'll have some for you.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

How do you uh like uh so your kids uh how how old are your kids?

SPEAKER_01 23:29

11, 9, and 4.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

Eleven, nine, and four. And it's all boys?

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Uh two boys and a girl.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

Two boys and a girl. Um so slightly younger than my kids. Uh and he's got a September, all right.

SPEAKER_04 23:41

The first one. Oh boy, so yeah, sleep now. I that's what I'm hearing.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

So your kids hopefully are going to be St. Louis fans, Cardinal fans.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

They already are. They already are. My boys are huge baseball fans. It's actually kind of funny because it's very much like a kind of a Twitter talk radio vibe.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

So I promise you, um, there is nothing, no matter how angry you get watching sports, there is nothing that I think you could say or scream about this team or the work I do that I don't hear within my own house. It's actually helpful because obviously in this job, you can't really listen to the media that much, right? Like, I'm not driving to work listening to sports talk radio. That's just like the dumbest idea. You can't do it. Sure. It's bad as job. Sure. It's just not good or bad, right? It's not something you should listen to. You should disregard both, right? You can't just say, oh, I'll listen to all the praise, but not any of the criticism. Yeah. No, you really should disregard both. But or at least not just necessarily disregard it. But you shouldn't have that stuff in your ears all the time to do a really good job of it.

SPEAKER_04 24:45

It's kind of like the outside noise of like you compare yourself to like the players when people are talking negative about you as a player, the last thing you want to do for your own, I think, mental well-being is probably hear what they're saying and let that.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Yeah, it's just, you know, it's obviously it can it it's it's not necessarily a healthy thing to distract you. So that but so there's two things here. One, I think it's still really important in what we do, especially in a place like this. You want to be connected to the fans. Like, I actually care about that. Yes. And you need to know just so you can function in your job, especially as a leader and understand what everybody else is going through. Yeah, you need to be aware of what's out there. Yeah, you just don't want to have it in your ears all the time. I've realized as my boys have gotten older that uh intentionally or unintentionally, like I don't think they're on Twitter, but they probably have eggs because like it's amazing the type of things that they will say. Um, so I I think through them and their them riding a roller coaster of emotions through baseball season, I stay pretty connected to like the uh the dark side of our fan base. Sure. Um they're they are my toughest critics for sure.

SPEAKER_03 25:50

That's so there's so many parallels to the food world, I gotta say.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:54

You know, uh food critics, the the the official ones at least, you know, I of course I read and I listen, but they don't play a bigger as big a role as you know, my guests. I listen to guests' complaints. But even the guests.

SPEAKER_04 26:09

But his guests are Cardinal fans. And if you listen to, look, the reality is like we are the best fans in baseball, right? That that's the name that we've officially given, I guess, ourselves or or the baseball world's given us. But like if you do listen to those guests, like Haim said, like, you can't, there's not not a single possible way that you make everybody happy. Like with the trades that you have to make and the things that you have to do to line the team up for success down the road. Like, how do you how do you how do you stay focused in your own mind where I'm in this role and this is my decision?

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Yeah, it's you know, I will say this, like I actually do really enjoy interacting with fans. Like I felt the same way in Boston, and that's obviously a very uh it's a baseball town as well. I really enjoy the interaction. I've had a blast with it here. You know, sometimes during games, I'll like walking around the ballpark just to sometimes people notice you, sometimes they don't, but just to get people for it. That helps too, right? Well, there were ups and downs, right? Like there was there was there were some success and there was there was plenty of adversity too. So you kind of get it all. And people are always gonna be more polite to your face than they will be behind a keyboard. Oh, I know the nature of it.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Um I was gonna say my kids are the best the best critics I have, my children.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Because they'll be honest with you, they'll just say things to your face. Yeah. Um, so you know, I I think it it on one hand, um, you know, it really just comes down to knowing yourself and understanding what it is that you're trying to execute on. I think it is really important to pay attention to people within the building, right? Because whether it's your ownership, your teammates in the front office, your staff, your players, like you do need to be in tune with how they feel. Like I just believe you should always be listening to them. I do think it it helps to be able to both get some quiet time at times just to stay in tune with yourself. Uh also, you know, just make sure you're kind of taking the outside view sometimes on what you're executing. Write things down, hold yourself accountable to your own plan. This is something where things unfold over a long period of time, but there's this daily up and down. It has a lot of potential for that to distract you from what you're trying to execute on. Yeah. So the clearer you can be with yourself about what am I trying to accomplish, how do I want to do it, the easier it is to stick to that. And then just understanding yourself. You know, you're talking about uh the ups and downs, the emotions that you get watching sports. I mean, we have all those same things, and you you have to train yourself to separate those from decision making. But what I think is really important, I actually think this is really important. Like if you know, I was gonna make a joke when you said, you know, I'm so pleasant. I was just gonna say, oh, you know, all those emotions, I just internalize them. It's totally helpful. Um but it's really true that like I don't think the answer is just blocking them out or shutting them off because we're human, right? If you if you're not in tune with your emotions, you're still gonna have them, you just won't realize it. And then they'll seep into other things that they shouldn't. So I actually think it's really important to feel what you feel and then just understand, understand, you know, be in touch with that, identify that for what it is, and then be able to separate it when sometimes you need to look past that and make the hard decision.

SPEAKER_03 29:14

I I have to say something. It's a thought that just came to me. You know, if I just met you, knew nothing about you, your mannerisms, um, I go back to just your just your vibe. You're very much a Midwestern guy. No, I'm I'm serious. You know, when I think of someone.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

I'm laughing because I'm obviously not, right?

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Yeah, you're obviously not. I'm looking to become one, but I'm definitely not. But I think I think that there is a that there is a reason why you're here. I mean, I'm I'm a big believer in uh in things happening for a reason and in you know, whatever, however you want. I'm a superstitious guy, I also believe that there is anyway. My point was I think it is no accident that you're here um in charge of maybe one of the most important cultural pieces of St. Louis. You talk about St. Louis culturally, the Cardinals Cardinals are important pieces, right? But you know, when you think about someone from the East Coast, someone that grew up in Philly, that managed a team in Boston, you think of people that are very I mean, at least in my mind, eccentric, yeah, uh loud, uh a little more aggressive, aggressive, and you just give me a very Midwestern vibe, which is what I like about this. You know, it is politeness, it is uh even a little bit of intellectual reflection in a lot of what you say. There is a lot of um it's not the things that you just say, the things that you probably had some time to think about and um you know um compose your thoughts, or you know, so um I think you'll just you'll do just fine here. I mean I think that you have you have what it takes to win people over here. Uh I don't. I'm just telling you this during years. Yeah, I I want some people over, but um I I'm coming at it from the from the perspective of I'm I'm just I'm a little older than you, from the perspective of uh um what does it take to navigate you know St. Louis in St. Louis? And I think you have it. I think you you're going he's gonna be and I think it will uh it will pay off. I mean I think uh your personality at least from the five minutes or the 15 minutes that I met you is gonna pay off. Uh how do you people really re uh respond in St. Louis in the Midwest, but in St. Louis specifically, people do respond to this. Uh and I think it's it's gonna be a huge, huge tool in your in your box uh when you when you're handling people here.

SPEAKER_04 31:52

Well, and talking about your demeanor, like how do you feel your I guess specifically your Jewish upbringing and your Jewish traditions that you were raised with and how to treat people and treat others how you want to be treated yourself? Like, how do you feel like that has like ultimately, yes, gotten you to where you're at today, but helped you overcome all the adversity like you mentioned in the role that you are in? Yeah, really good question.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

I I have thought about this a little bit, like, you know, I you don't have the alternate universe, right? I don't know what the non-Jewish meaning would have looked like and how he would have navigated all these situations. But what I what I can say, I think it's two things. One, just growing up uh religious, growing up Jewish, uh, the idea of being part of something much bigger than yourself and connect and valuing being connected to something much bigger than yourself. Like that is just part of who I am. And maybe that has something to do with why uh Jews connect with baseball so much because it's very clear when you're in baseball, like this thing is bigger than all of us, right? It was here way before us, it's gonna be here long after us. We're really all just passing through. You want to make your mark, yes. But we're all just passing through this. And it's bigger than us, it's gonna move on past us, right? It's it's it uh, you know, you experience these ups and downs, right? We need it more than it needs us, right? It's gonna chew us up and spit us out. So really what you do take from it is uh the impact you have on other people, and so much of that comes with relationships and connections. So it's really, I think, those two things. One just having this awareness of being part of something much bigger, which any role in an organization, uh certainly including mine, even with this level of responsibility, authority, power, whatever you want to call it, you're still part of something much bigger. Sure. And the goal is to get this much bigger thing to move in a certain direction. And you know, I think being aware of that really helps. But ultimately, just how you treat people, I think matters.

SPEAKER_03 33:46

Yeah. One of the things uh what you're saying is um it reminds me of a conversation we had with one of the more um important Jewish figures in St. Louis is a guy named Michael Steinberg, uh a self-made uh billionaire, a guy that is uh an entrepreneur, uh big supporter of our show, a big supporter of our show, uh big supporter of all Jewish causes in St. Louis. The guy steps up every time you you ask him uh to, you know, really uh kind of a glue to the community here. Um Michael, who grew up poor and really built an empire with his own hands, uh said something to me or to us in our conversation here, and he said that when you get to be in any organization, when you get to have to say influence, power, cloud, there's two things you can look at it. You can abuse it, or you can feel the responsibility of having it. And that responsibility is if you take that responsibility seriously, it motivates you to do the one thing is that is the single most important thing is to build relationships. Relationship building, connecting with people at all levels is what that power in the cloud and influence allowed him. And it's kind of a self-sustaining, and that's how you build a culture. At the end of the day, that's that's how you build a culture. And I think uh what I hear from what you just described is that the using power and this this authority uh is something that would allow you, you take it seriously. It's it's it it you feel the responsibility of it rather than just uh the the influence of it, right? You uh there's there's two ways to look at it. I got here, I uh you know, you're saying I got here and now I gotta make sure that I I have the responsibility of making sure that I pass it down, that I build those relationships, make those connections.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Yeah, well it's both about obviously like how you how you treat people as part of who you are and your legacy and how you want people to remember you, but it also to me should go hand in hand with what we're trying to accomplish. The whole point of this is to build and sustain a winning organization. And I feel like that type of connection, um, that type of impact you can have on the people around you, because we all have to do this together, like that is hopefully that's some sort of superpower on the way to doing that. I think as I've gone more and more in my career, what also comes with that, and we were talking about it a little bit, just uh having that positive impact on people isn't just about making them laugh and smile and saying nice things, it's also about honesty and candor and challenging people. And you know, I think that's certainly true within the organization. You know, part of what comes with this role is a lot of tough decisions, tough conversations. And the reality is if you don't have them, if you know they're necessary, but you don't have them, you're probably hurting those people, and you're definitely hurting your organization, right? So it doesn't mean you're gonna get them all right, but the importance of having those is real. And then, you know, outside uh with that, I think actually really relevant to this, particularly I think for this fan base, like one thing that was very clear to me, and I wanted to try to set that tone from day one, and it's something that I'm I'm saying this in part because I want our fans to continue to hold me accountable to this, right? Is just being very candid and honest with our fans about where we are, what's going on, good, bad, ugly, whatever. Um, the like you can do that when you have a really passionate engaged fan, but fan-based like we have.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

So, where are we gonna be this year? Tell me you guys.

SPEAKER_04 37:23

Well, I I mean let's just call it what it is. The success right now, there's been a lot of things. Like, look, we're not here to talk about like all the things that the sports writers are writing about, right? But like certainly the team has surprised a lot of people right now. And you're an open you're like you said, you're an open book where you're talking about these things. The team has been very surprising based on, I guess, the plan of this is what a a three, five, seven-year plan, right? In I I guess the grand scheme of things, but it seems like it's moving a little bit quicker than maybe you even had thought uh it yourself. Well, hopefully not seven, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:59

That's but um the but look, uh I tried to be really blunt and really open that I think we had to view this as a multi-year thing, and also that uh we needed to prioritize this long-term goal of being a consistently uh championship organization year in, year out, uh, which obviously is what our fans are accustomed to and it's where we need to be. We needed to prioritize the things that push us toward that goal over short-term gratification. And when those two things, what feels good right now and what pushes us towards that goal, when they're running in opposite directions, we got to choose the long term. So, you know, you go back to the offseason, made a bunch of trades, that was basically what was behind those. And it's not because that we thought that the players we were moving weren't good players, it's because we felt that doing that was going to position us closer to that goal. Now, all that being said, at no point were we looking to concede anything in the here and now. And I think culturally, what is happening within this group, you know, that was the mindset we wanted to instill in this group, whether it was staff or players, is we're gonna be willing to come by this honestly, right? We're going to build this the right way, we're gonna build it to last. Um, but we're not gonna concede anything. And in fact, I think one of the biggest mistakes you can make when you are undertaking a long-term project is somehow, even subconsciously, and I think this is probably more true for your staff than for your players, but it's true for everybody. You don't want people to start thinking, well, because this goal is somewhere in the future, I don't have to be great today. Yeah, like you cannot let that mindset take root because at the end of the day, the only way you get where you're trying to go is by being consistently excellent. The reality is, even when you, if you're you've been in first place for the last decade, most of the people in your organization, most of your staff on any given day are working on things that don't have anything to do with that night's game. Sure. They're doing things, whether it's in scouting or development or working in the office that are designed to bear fruit over a long period of time. We have to have a mindset to where even though we're might be working on some of those things that are longer term, you're still competing against the 29 other people who are lucky enough to do what you do for different teams and you got to kick their ass.

SPEAKER_02 40:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

Whatever it is on your plate that day. And if you do that and you bring that every day, you probably get where you want to go a lot more quickly. And I think when you are willing to make those hard choices and stay focused on that long-term goal, you you set yourself up sometimes for some positive surprises in the short term. And I think some of that might be what we're seeing now. That I think to the extent that we do have kind of a different vibe and a different culture, I hope we do. It's something we spend a lot of time talking about. I think just our willingness to commit to this has hopefully made that easier. That we now have a group of players, by and large, they're in similar places in their careers. They can all kind of move together and start building something that's theirs. Yeah. We know the standard in St. Louis here is exceptionally high. The Cardinals have always set that standard. Um, our players now are feeling that this is their chapter to write, it's their standard to set. And you know, I think that only happens when you're really committed to the bet.

SPEAKER_04 41:08

Yeah, how's your relationship? Because you're a younger guy. Um, how's your relationship like with the players? I know you're a hands-on guy. You you know have that connection. Talk about that culture that you just kind of talked about a little bit. Now we're seeing like the outside culture of the fan base, like maybe we should be doing this interview with our shirts off.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Yeah, I didn't ask you guys if I should have come with the shirt on or not. I decided to take a chance and wear a shirt.

SPEAKER_04 41:33

People are waving the you didn't see this? Google it. You read about this weekend.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

It was really cool.

SPEAKER_04 41:37

Oh, it's it's uh it's a whole new trend.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Spontaneously, we we had it was actually it's it was it was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 41:43

Tell me about it. You want to let them know.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

We're sitting at Friday night's game. Um from his perspective, I like this from your perspective. Yeah, I'm sitting in the box. Uh we had you know solid crowd Friday night, first game of a series uh against Kansas City.

SPEAKER_02 41:58

Great weather.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

And uh the game ends up going on, and as the game goes on, you notice you know it's starting to get a little rowdy in right field in that right field deck. And eventually there's like a whole crowd of uh what looked like college kids just with their shirts off, getting really into the game. And we played 11 innings, it was a really dramatic game, like back and forth, easily could have won it at points where we didn't, easily could have lost it at points where we didn't. You know, eventually we walk it off. Uh, one of those one of those games that probably takes a few, at least a few seconds off your life. Yeah, right. Hopefully a long time from now. But this it started to take hold and it was very spontaneous that eventually there were a few sections of these dudes just waving their shirts. It was like it was like sort of almost more like something out of a soccer crowd. Uh you find out after the game it was a like a club baseball team from Stephen F. Austin that was just up here for a tournament, and they all came to the game. So, you know, we end up inviting them back the next day, and it people, you know, this is a baseball town, right? People notice these things, they got more people to jump in. They came back on Saturday and they got a bunch of people to jump in. Yeah. Uh Ollie, our manager, like bought some tickets and we did like a thing where anybody wanted to sit there. And so it was a thing again on Saturday. We went on Saturday, and then you know, yesterday, uh, by the end, actually, those guys couldn't even make it yesterday because they had like a five o'clock game or something. They couldn't come. But there were other people in there that did the tarps off thing, and by the end of the game, there are four sections of shirtless dudes out there just getting into everything. Yeah, you know, just it was cool energy, right? Like it our players noticed, like they noticed and they took energy from it. But you come back from the West Coast, no off day. You know, you got a a weekend series, X trainings, you got a day game the next day. Like, I think our guys were a little more jacked up for those games because of what the atmosphere in the park is.

SPEAKER_03 43:48

Yeah, super important, especially given the fact that you are talking about kind of long term goals and multi year stuff and building, and yeah, no instant gratification, but I think. Energy of the here and now is so important, right? Like that was you because you can you can get lost in this idea that you're part of a process, and the process could be very, very boring because oh, we're just part of that process, we'll get there. You know, um years ago I had I had this uh well actually let me tell you a funny story. Um there's this thing in my company, you know, uh we had a manager that used to always say we're gearing up, we're gearing up. And someone I said, What the fuck is gearing up? Or are we gearing up? We're doing it right now. And I tell them the story of my dad, who my dad was born in a uh survivors camp in Germany immediately after the war. And he was born to a very educated mother, and his my grandfather, and my grandmother, my grandfather was came from a sted in in Poland. Very unlikely couple. My grandmother was an urbanite, educated, grandfather, huge gap, but they made a vow that if they survive it together, they'll marry, and they marry, they immigrate to Israel, they're all like so. My grandfather, my grandmother was this very ladylike uh professional lawyer, but my grandfather was a painter. And during uh a summer job, my dad worked for him uh painting houses. And my dad was 14 or 15 years old, and he would um my grandfather dropped him off at his house today, I'll come get you lunch at noon, whatever the timing was, uh paint this, blah blah blah. It was a complicated job. My father was now you know a retired IT engineer, it is an incredible plan, this process. He had a spreadsheet, we'll paint this first, this is the amount of paint we need, this is this, this is that. I was very excited. Comes home, comes home. My grandfather comes to the to the job site, and nothing's painted. And my father is like so excited. He said, Dad Love, we're gonna show you this. I calculated this is the amount of paint we're gonna need, we're gonna do this thing, we're gonna start here, we're gonna go here, we're gonna do this. My grandfather looked at him and said, Ah, very nice, very nice. He took the bucket of paint, he spritzed it on the wall, walked around and says, Paint the fucking wall top.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

Sometimes you need some of that. But that's that's exactly what I was talking about. So, you know, this like I felt and still feel strongly like the strategy needs to be a long-term strategy. But the strategy and the standard are two different things, and the strategy can be long-term, but the standard is like it doesn't matter if you're scouting teenagers in Venezuela, or if you're building a player plan for pitcher and a ball, or if you're putting backtracking data into uh our draft model in the office, like kick someone's ass today. Paint the fucking wall and that's the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 46:58

So that's what we do at our company. We we have this thing paint the fucking wall. Paint the fucking wall. Get it on. Like just let's let's do it. Yeah. But uh this is so I I'm actually um I just heard something that uh intrigued me. Scouting young players in Venezuela. Uh I know from the little bit that I read about you on the your Wikipedia page, how passionate you are about youth baseball, about just youth sport culture in general, and about building something. Um now we're talking about strategy, uh recognizing the importance of instilling um um the mentality, the foundation. So talk about your work in that world of of youth baseball, just youth in general. Like how central these is.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Just being honest, I wouldn't necessarily say it's about youth baseball so much. It's just that's how you win consistently in our game, is through young players. It's how the Cardinals have always won. Yeah, and that's part of why the Cardinals have been so successful over the last hundred years is because they have always led the way and always set the standard in building teams from within. And the best way to do that is usually with the players that you sign and develop. Obviously, there are others that you might acquire and trade, and then you build around that, right? You can bring in veterans through trades, through free agency. It's not just young players, but the core of consistently successful baseball teams is almost always grown from within. So when we talk about youth baseball, like this isn't like little league or high school or whatever, that's where we're getting our players. But it's really just about having a system that gets that where you can acquire talent better in the competition and get more out of it than the competition does. That's really when we talk about scouting and player development. That's what we're trying to do. You got 30 teams trying to find and develop the best players. We have to find ways to do that better than the competition, and the race to be great at that has gained so much steam over the course of my career where it's not optional to really grind at that and really do everything you can to kick ass in that in that area. If you cannot, uh if you're not excellent at that, you're not going to be able to win consistently, and that's that's how the Cardinals have always won. It's just that the standard for what it means to be great at that is consistently moving forward because we are in a zero-sum competitive industry. There's one trophy, or so everybody's always looking for ways to beat each other, and it just keeps moving forward. And that's one thing that you know I've spent a lot of energy both within the organization and and to our fans talking about is like you look at the Cardinals, what has set the Cardinals apart is the Cardinals have always set the standard for that. You go back a hundred years ago, the Cardinals literally invented the farm system. Brand Tricky invented that here in St. Louis. And then you can fast forward another 40 years to George Kissle is a legendary instructor who changed the way people thought about teaching the game. And there's those are just two examples, but there have always been ways throughout history that the Cardinals have set the standard. But the standard's always moving forward. That's what happens. You set it, people follow you, now it just becomes what the industry does. And now to get a competitive advantage, you got to go set it again. And that's really our job. That's when we think about what we're doing as a baseball operation, it's trying to move that forward and set the standard and be that organization that everybody else is going to follow.

SPEAKER_04 50:15

I was gonna say, I don't, I know we don't have a ton uh much more time, but um I guess that goes to my thought of like tradition and looking at like college sports now specifically and the NIL and everything that goes into that. How much because cardinals, the cardinal organization we talk about, is built on tradition years and years and years back of tradition. How important, and and it ties into our Jewish conversation as well, but how important is exactly now we're gonna be talking fiddler on the roof. How important, and and how do you feel like tradition is changing just everything in general? I mean, and as an Indian agreement.

SPEAKER_03 50:56

What's the Hebrew word for tradition? What is the uh oh boy, um I should know this. Yeah. You should know this. Do you know it?

SPEAKER_01 51:08

Would I would it be Morashah? Is that it?

SPEAKER_03 51:10

Moorshah? Oh, that's legacy, but that's also tradition. Masoret.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

Okay. Yeah. Close. So if I extended family and some of my Hebrew teachers listen to this podcast, they are gonna be a good idea. What is it?

SPEAKER_03 51:22

Moasha is tradition in the grand, I mean, it's tradition and legacy mixed in.

SPEAKER_04 51:28

Yeah. So how do you feel like that's kind of played in? Like, where where do you see tradition?

SPEAKER_01 51:32

Well, I think it's one of our biggest competitive advantages is that we have this amazing legacy. I mean, I'll I'll give you what my view is on it. And I and I kind of just talked about it where I think the danger that comes in when you think about tradition is when you think about it as something, well, it is the way it is, right? Like the the answer that we can't accept for anything uh in the organization, in my view, is uh to as to why are we doing something is well, this is the way we've always done it. I think our tradition is one of setting that standard, it is one of moving things forward. It becomes tradition in our field because it works, it's it beats people. And then everybody wants to do it, and now it just becomes part of how you operate.

SPEAKER_03 52:12

And when you doesn't, you have to change it.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

Right. So our tradition really is moving things forward and setting that standard. That's that is the tradition of the Cardinals. It becomes tradition because it works, it takes hold, and it just becomes part of what we do. But so I I think that when we step into that legacy, when we step into those shoes that you get to step into when you are a member of this organization, the best way to honor that is to try to keep setting that standard. Not to settle for just this is the way we've always done it, but how do we need to do it now in order to win?

SPEAKER_03 52:41

Yeah, this is an unbelievable um finish to this conversation. I would say Well, I want to throw a couple like yeah, just quickly before I think this is the most Jewish thing you've said in the entire conversation. Because I think if you look at our tradition, the Jewish tradition, uh it's empirical, it's not aesthetic. Uh Jews have changed the way we do things in order to adapt, to grow, to survive, uh, and to inspire. Those are the things that always happen. Um so it it's traditions are not sets of principles that you just can't break. They're actually a mentality that allows you to grow beyond what's there. And you just articulated it so perfectly. Um so I mean, I'm I'm I'm I'm inspired.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

What you just said was inspiring, but I think that's that's really true. And I I, you know, that is a kind of a connection between religion and you know what I get to do for a living is like when you know who you are, where you come from, where your feet are, I think it becomes a lot easier to move forward.

SPEAKER_04 53:48

Absolutely. Last things I want to touch on favorite Jewish food that you grew up with that you still continue that that is still part of your life today that sticks out to you. And then we always like to ask uh Yiddish, Yiddish word that kind of sticks out to you that maybe you find yourself using every once in a while when you're in a conversation, or that you've kind of snuck in, like Scott Rosenblum told us he snuck something in, you know, in in a courtroom one time when they were finding a guy not guilty, right? It's like, what what what is it for you?

SPEAKER_01 54:19

Uh well the first one, um, you know, being someone who does not eat non-kosher meat out, um, a lot of people that I'm around, they would think or assume that I'm a vegetarian. It's anything but um, I mean, like a there's a lot of things that I could definitely go for. It's really hard to find kosher ribs because obviously there are always going to be beef ribs, but if you find good kosher ribs, man, those are those are the biggest.

SPEAKER_03 54:42

No, that's probably a problem in St. Louis is we don't really offer, we don't have a lot of kosher options. It just doesn't exist here.

SPEAKER_01 54:49

You know, I found that like St. Pete to some degree was the same way, and you can you can get it if you really want it. I'm talking about a restaurant where you can just go sit down and yeah, but um, you know, that's that's okay. Um, but yeah, good so that or like I mean like a great like a great hot corned beef sandwich. That we can help with that you can that lay out with. I want to know about it is sure. It is sure. Um one more I'll throw in there, by the way, on the food front is cholant, like a good cholent, huh? Yeah, that's you know what that is.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

I don't know if I do, no. A cholent? You don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_01 55:25

It's like a traditional sort of like Shabbat after that. It's like a it's like a beef and bean and potatoes.

SPEAKER_03 55:30

Okay, well it's the the interesting thing about this is uh that you find it in different Jewish cultures all around the world, and it's kind of similar. It's basically on Friday night before Shabbat comes in, you prepare this hodgepodge of things, typically things that require long cooking, and you put them on a on a plate, on a hot plate, which and it cooks slowly overnight, and uh it's brown and it's satisfying, and um but you find it everywhere in the in the in the there's a different version of chonet in all the different cultures. My mom is from Morocco, she makes uh what we call very similar thing, but yes, I love that stuff. It's one of my favorite things in the world.

SPEAKER_02 56:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

And so yeah, you I keep going back to the food topic because I'd like to eat. I'll try that. Um, I mean there's other things I could do. We could I'm also getting hungry for lunch. We could talk forever about food. Now I'm getting even hungrier talking about it. Yeah. Um man, a good Yiddish word or phrase. Now you're asking for one that that like sneaks into Yeah, it could be, or something that's um you use often.

SPEAKER_03 56:35

Yeah. It's like part of your day-to-day vocabulary.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

Um I don't know how often I use it. I I'm gonna get this wrong, but so my my mom has some Yiddish and grew up in like a Yiddish-speaking house, so she'll have some pretty good ones. Um as I think about them, I think a lot of them were probably just more polite ways of saying go fuck yourself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:59

Which is usually what most of them are. Like my dad's been using schmendric a lot. Schmendrik. Schmendrik, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:04

Uh my one of my favorite uh ways of uh the Yidish ways of uh telling someone to go to go.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

Should I not have said that on this? Yes. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 57:13

You just say whatever you want on it. He's uh go take a sheet in the sea. I don't know how to do it.

SPEAKER_01 57:18

Yeah, she's a dreser deinka, which means I don't even know what it means, but I understood it as go off yourself. Um and I'm probably mangling it.

SPEAKER_04 57:27

Um I mean, there's some of the obvious ones that have kind of gotten into uh into like will you ever be talking about a guy at another organization and be like, that guy's kind of a schmuck. Oh, yeah, yeah. But that's that's almost not Yiddish at the end.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

I had somebody a couple years ago, I think this is when I was at the Red Sox, I can't remember which organization I was with. Somebody, I want to say it was a staff member, but it could have been a player, came up to me and was like, Can you tell me about Chutzpa? Chutzpah.

SPEAKER_04 57:58

Chutzpah! I love this. This is right up there with Chanuka. Chanuka, that's a good one. You see that. Smokey Robinson's on Chanooka. Chutzpa, that's fun. That's good. What was your response?

SPEAKER_01 58:10

Um, well, my I did take a little beat and I said, but do you mean Flutzpa? And he's like, Yeah, yeah, sure. What is it? Like, all right, let's have a conversation about this. Um, because I didn't I didn't know that. There is no straightforward entity. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 58:26

Audacity, but no, it's far thing. That's the thing.

SPEAKER_01 58:28

There Yiddish is one of those languages. There's a lot of terms where like you can't just give a translation. You say, all right, sit down, let's have a conversation.

SPEAKER_03 58:34

You should uh everybody in our audience should probably many of them have already should own a book called The Joys of Yiddish. Leo Rostens. Uh this is an incredible book of the just the world of Yiddish and uh how it finds its way to English, you know, to English, so to speak. It's no more than just about terminology and it's also about um uh you know uh the way you say things, the way you pronounce things, where you're putting uh yeah, where the emphasis goes, you know. Uh the big thing is like uh Larry David can ask you the same question five different ways, and it means five different things, right? Uh did the cardinals win last night? Did the cardinals win last night? Or did the cardinals win last? It depends on where you're in the middle.

SPEAKER_01 59:25

Yiddish really trains you to be good at that. Yeah. One that I my mom would sometimes use that. I think Giddish has a lot of words that sort of like you don't even need to understand them. The way they sound tells you what they would say. They're feeling they are feeling. One word that she would use that I think means like sort of like bent, broken, or twisted is Oisgeboygen. Oisgeboygen, yeah, exactly. And uh, you know, sometimes, I mean, if you're writing Oisgeboygen in a scouting report, it's probably not somebody you should have. But if someone did, I would understand it. But then I probably wouldn't have interest in the play. Oh, too.

SPEAKER_03 59:57

Any any anything else outside of baseball? I'm sure food now you've you've told us your food. Uh what are other passions, interests, hobbies?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:05

I used to be more of a well-rounded person. Uh now it's really just work and family. That's mostly it. Like I do like to cook in my spare time. Uh I used to read more books. Yeah, I was gonna ask if you uh I had uh I still read, it's just more articles and stuff. I had when I came into some free time in the fall of 23 when the Red Sox got sick of me, uh, I started reading some books again. But uh, you know, that's like I said, I have three kids, this job, like it's really it it really most of my time is spent one or the other. And frankly, you're always making trade-offs there. Yeah. Uh so you know, I've I'm probably less of a well-rounded person than I than if I you had asked me that question 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:42

That's great. Uh is there is there anything else that you want to leave people um of again outside of baseball with?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:50

Well, keep in mind that the majority of people watching these are middle-aged Jews. So the non-Jews watch.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:56

We got others watching as well. Yeah, some people. But is there anything that you want to leave um leave people with that we didn't maybe necessarily talk about, I guess, in regards to the Jewish community or just in general, like about Heimbloom?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:09

Nothing that I can think of in particular. I'm just excited to really be here. Like I people ask me, how's it like living in St. Louis? And I say I don't really know yet because I won't feel like I live here until my family's here. But we're just like I said, the welcome to the community has been so amazing. We're just excited to really become part of it. Yeah. And uh just get to put some roots down here and and really integrate into this community.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:30

What I'm excited about as a transplant, as someone who's not from St. Louis, someone not from this country, but I've lived here most of my life is that I'm a big city of St. Louis uh proponent. I love this place. Uh it's my adopted home. So I I feel like I have an even bigger responsibility to represent as well. And I think when we get to have people like you uh to become ambassadors for the city, it's a it's a huge plus. And when they have a name like Heimblum, it's even a bigger plus.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:05

He's given St. Louis life.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:06

Yes, and he's also making sure that people everywhere know that you know uh this is a this is a selfish thing, but that the Jewish community is contributing to the to the enrichment of the of the of the cultural uh fabric of St. Louis. And so this is one of the biggest wins for me. Um now you just have to you know provide the receipts, right? Now you just have to get results.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:33

That's the whole point of this thing. Absolutely. Heinblum, we appreciate it. Amazing president of baseball operations with the Saint Louis Cardinals. How about that? Unbelievable, you were awesome. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Thanks, man. Amazing conversation.