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Sports Talk Live! With Steve and Justin! NFL Offseason Analysis: Team Moves and Super Bowl Predictions. A Recording of our live Youtube Sports show every Monday Night 5pm EST.
Sports Live! With Steve and Justin
Sports Talk Live! With Steve and Justin: Yankees Analytics and NFL Streaming. Is Technology Killing the Soul of American Sports?
The blinding faith in analytics has reached a breaking point in professional sports, and nowhere is this more evident than with the New York Yankees. Steve and Justice dive deep into how the Yankees' obsession with data-driven decisions has fundamentally altered the team's identity since 2005 when George Steinbrenner first acquiesced to this approach. They reveal how Assistant GM Michael Fishman's 20-person analytics department dictates everything from daily lineups to player acquisitions—and almost cost the team Aaron Judge, saved only by ownership intervention against the analytics team's recommendations.
The conversation expands beyond the Yankees to examine how youth sports development has changed dramatically. Specialized travel leagues have replaced traditional developmental paths, pricing out many potential players and narrowing baseball's accessibility. The hosts reminisce about legends like Bob Feller who pitched complete games routinely, contrasting sharply with today's specialized pitching approach where starters rarely go beyond six innings despite commanding enormous salaries.
Technology's influence stretches beyond analytics into how we consume sports. The hosts dissect the NFL's recent streaming partnership with ESPN and how Apple walked away from Sunday Ticket rights when they couldn't include it in their standard subscription. They explore how cryptocurrency has entered the sports world, with players like Russell O'Connor, Aaron Rodgers, and Odell Beckham receiving portions of their salaries in digital currency, while NFTs create new revenue streams for teams and athletes.
Perhaps most troubling is the ethical shift in sports, particularly around gambling. The hosts contrast today's environment—where team owners invest in betting platforms and odds are integrated into broadcasts—with an era when Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were suspended merely for appearing as casino greeters after retirement. As technology increasingly replaces human officials with automated strike zones and digital first-down markers, we're left wondering: are we gaining precision at the expense of the human elements that made sports compelling in the first place?
Tune in every other Monday at 6:00 as we continue examining how the business of sports is transforming the games we love. Have thoughts on analytics or streaming deals? Share them with us and join the conversation!
Well, there we go. Hello everyone. I hope you saw that music and I hope we're live. This is Steve and Justice, again with Sport Talk. I hope some of you and I know some of you have, whether it's on the regular podcast, a better life.
Speaker 1:Uh, new york, uh, sports talk, or you've heard it or saw it on youtube. I know we've had some followers, even though, once again, I haven't been able to uh advertise it ahead of time. I don't know why. I just hit the wrong buttons and I was busy today so I couldn't do it. Justin, how are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me, steve. So we got great response from our last one and I know with vacations, I'm away, he's away, kind of things. We haven't been doing it, but we're looking to do it every other Monday at 6 o'clock for a half hour 45 minutes during the football season. Maybe we'll do it a little more, but we'll try to get it up on Facebook and other places so it can be advertised and seen. I don't know what topics you want to start on tonight, but I know what has been something we've talked about and it's been in my craw is this unbelievable abuse. I won't even say use. I'm going to change it to abuse of analytics with the New York Yankees?
Speaker 1:It seems like a joke. I'm disgusted. It seems like some computer is spitting out what to do and they're not so what do you think of all that?
Speaker 2:yeah, you know, um, this started in 2005, uh, with the analytics for the yankees after they lost in 2004. George acquiesced and figured that they needed to switch or at least head down the road of analytics and get away from what they were traditionally doing, which is using the eyeball test and spending money and getting players in and shipping off the ones that can't play. And in the last 10 years you've seen the culmination of that with Michael Fishman heading that department who is, I believe, assistant general manager as well. He's got 20 people working for him and the product on the field. It's not what we're used to seeing as Yankee fans and it dictates who plays, when they play, how much they play. And also, you know, the Yankees almost lost Aaron Judge because of analytics. The analytics department, you know, has their threshold for money and I guess you know, with the structure of the fake salary cap in baseball, the luxury tax actually that they have money that they allow for certain time for players, for length of contract and all that stuff. Their number was less than what Judge got paid and Cashman stood firm on that. And it was Hal who came in at the last minute and made the deal happen, otherwise Judge would be playing out West right now for San Francisco most likely analytics then you have to stick to it and the Yankees don't do that and I'm not trying to justify it because I can't stand it. Does it have its place? It certainly has its place.
Speaker 2:But you could look at the Yankees lineup. It changes day in and day out the top six guys in the lineup leadoff hitter. It changes every day who's hitting in the two hole. It changes every day. Judges you three hitter. When he's healthy, stanton's batting fourth or fifth. It fluctuates, it's up and down, who's playing what position?
Speaker 2:And it's all analytics-driven, it's metrics-driven analytics and it just doesn't pass the litmus test for me. Because one they don't have enough talent to be who they are supposed to be and analytics is telling them to go get these guys, that these guys. Look at the guys they just brought in. I mean analytics said, yeah, these are the guys that we need. So they brought seven guys in. Five of them, I think, are on the roster, which means that you know 20 of your roster was no good. You had to get rid of five guys and bring five new guys in and you wanted to sell us on this team returning to the World Series. To me, that's, you know, it's egregious, it's embarrassing, it's you know, it's unfair to the fans that you know have season tickets and pay all this money. They expect to see a winner. We're not, you know, to see a winner. We're not the Miami Marlins, we're not the Arizona Diamondbacks, we're not Cleveland. This is New York.
Speaker 1:So it starts if you take a step back. And this is going to be an issue next year because I believe the Major League Baseball contract is up in 26. And there's a lot of talk that Major League Baseball is the only team out of the big three let's put hockey aside for now that does not have a hard salary cap. For instance, the New York Mets are spending $323 million where the Miami Marlins are playing $67 million. So I mean, and there's a ridiculous disparity in Major League teams, major League Baseball teams.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and excuse me, in major league teams, major league baseball teams. Yeah, and it's partially because of this tax system. And what's even weirder is that there's a tax system so people that are spending more over the limit whatever that limit is for this year are paying a tax, and that tax is paid to the league, and then the league channels that money to weaker teams, to weaker market teams. Obviously, the television contracts in New York City are different than the television contracts in St Louis, right, correct? So the money is made. It's not like the NFL, where all monies are pooled. Yeah, there's no revenue sharing.
Speaker 1:There's no revenue sharing in Major League Baseball. So there's this tax system and the money's going to the lesser teams and the intention was for those teams to spend it on payroll baseball. So so there's this tax system and the money's going to the lesser teams, and there's the intention was for those teams to spend it on payroll and, in essence, a lot of teams are putting that money right in their pocket. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a profit that shouldn't be allowed. Also, they're spending money to make it look like they're spending money. Like you know, oakland signing Severino to a huge contract who nobody else even wanted the guy. So you have a clear faulty system that has to be changed. It has to be addressed. You also have, in the middle of all this, they're still looking to expand and looking at the product on the field you already have guys that can't play this sport.
Speaker 2:You know it's one thing when you have a team, that's a small market and they have to bring up their young guys and they're trying to, you know, develop talent so that they can compete, but other teams not having the ability to fill out their roster. They're talking about expanding the roster so they can have more arms in the bullpen. And you know it's all about making more money and you know that's a whole different avenue to go down. But right now baseball on the whole is a terrible product because of the way it's structured. And you've also got veteran players that can't get paid or that don't last. Look at someone like Anthony Rizzo. You know he's only 33 or 34 years old. He's not an old ballplayer. All right, maybe he's past his prime, but let's not forget he got hurt. He came back from the injury.
Speaker 2:The Yankees, you know they completely mishandled that, but someone like that should still be playing baseball.
Speaker 2:I can't imagine that he's unhealthy to the point where he can't play baseball better than some of the options you see out there right now, and that's across the league. So they have to do something about it because if they're going to expand, the product has to get better. It's already watered down, in my opinion. You know when you see, or you know when you do the math, you figure there's only a few hundred guys on the whole planet that can play that sport at that level at any given moment and they're below that that line right now with the level of talent some of these guys are putting out on the field true, true, and that's going on in a lot of places in baseball and um, this idea, and maybe we should bring, bring more players in from the dominican republic, from south america, from other places, because those would be great, and also in japan you raised a good point because you know I was just in the dominican last month and they have about 20 or 22 facilities there.
Speaker 2:Major league baseball has facilities there, major League Baseball has facilities there. They're clearly trying to cultivate a pipeline, I guess, of talent. I think you're also dealing with things like specialization at the lower level here in the United States, at the lower level here in the United States. So when you have a little league and you know your town has 100 players or so many players, you have a few little league teams. Maybe you have to play crosstown, depending on how your municipality is set up. Whatever, a lot of kids are not playing baseball that were playing baseball 20 and 25 years ago and you know, I think it was CeCe Sabathia that mentioned, you know, someone like him wouldn't have the opportunity to play today that he had all those years ago because you know the specialization has taken kids out of the programs that were there and moved them into. You know, let's face it, you got to have money to play travel sports, right. They create these leagues for whatever reason. You know, one guy wants his kid to get more playing time or they just want to win games and feel like they're somebody, but it's taken away from people that don't have access to the sport anymore and you know kids that used to be able to play baseball in the cities. Baseball is dying on that level and that's why Major League Baseball is moving out and branching out and looking for other places to get athletes from. And at the college level, most of the kids that get scholarships and move up from high school to college have played in these travel leagues and you know, uh um, specialized leagues where you know they get the best players from the three or four surrounding towns and they make a super team and they travel to play teams from other towns and other counties and other States and a lot of talent is being. You know, just it's not getting the opportunity to play. So you have a disparity now where kids that are not necessarily talented have been through the program and paid their dues but they're not really good ballplayers. They're just not, and it shows. You could see it on the field today. You could.
Speaker 2:Somebody like Anthony Volpe, who I still can't believe won a gold glove. He's beyond struggling. He's hitting below 218 or 214, whatever he was at. You know he had this little run where maybe they let a fire under his ass and he hit like five home runs in a week or whatever 10 days, but he's clearly not built to play this sport at this level for a long period of time, whereas years ago maybe he catches on as a utility infielder, he's a bench player, he's a role player and I know he won a gold glove, but the guy can't hit worth a lick. And we went from all these foreign-born players just 25, 20 years ago and you saw all these shortstops coming through that were Nomar Garcia-Para and guys like Riyo Ordonez A-Rod, I mean Omar Vizquel. The list goes on. You're not seeing that anymore.
Speaker 2:So, you know, I think it's a combination of Major League Baseball trying to save money at certain areas, but also they're funneling these players through because you know they don't want to pay these high salaries. They want to make more money. They have shareholders. Now you know the Yankees are essentially a portfolio that they have to answer to their shareholders. So where the Yankees were spending money in the late 90s and early 2000s, you know they were paying guys like Tim rain, cecil fielder, daryl strawberry they went out and got canseco for that last run in 2000, which they didn't need him. But you know they had guys coming off the bench that were veteran players making money. They don't have that anymore and it's. You're not going to see that across.
Speaker 1:They had that older player talent I mean, whether it was Daryl strawberry, was, it was um and not just not just hitters, you also had pitchers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they could go out and get arms and bring guys in. They brought in, you know, veteran arms for their bullpen, for their playoff runs, that other teams, you know they scrambled to find arms and yeah, that kind of created analytics because teams like Oakland had to go find a way to compete and they did a good job. But with everybody on analytics now it's kind of watered everything down and the Yankees that have the money to spend, regardless of whether they want to go over that threshold or not, they're not spending the money the way they used to. I think that also tells you that they don't believe in their own product, because you know, we did see them go out and get Rizzo and Gallo just a few years ago and I think that they thought that they were on a run. I think that's their model now to see where they are and then maybe they'll make a splash in the free agent or at the trade deadline. But I just think year in and year out you're not going to see them.
Speaker 2:I mean, judge has been on the field for 10 years now. You know he's played. Yeah, he's played nine seasons the first year when he came up in September, if you don't want to count that. But he's been a Yankee for 10 years and they've only really made one big effort to go out and put a team on the field and surround him with the talent that he needs to take the next step. And you know I'll probably take criticism for that. That's fine. This is not the same Yankees that they were even 15 years ago.
Speaker 1:That's true, but you know. So some of those things have to do with the changes in the game, right? Oh yeah, changes in the game. Pitchers are trying to throw over 100 miles an hour. Everybody has multiple Tommy John surgeries. It's a different thing. And when you think about it, there are guys back in the day Bob Feller is one we've probably talked about before Warren Spahn. Those guys, they pitch complete games almost every time and they threw 100 miles an hour.
Speaker 1:And they threw fast. They tell you they didn't throw as hard. The radar guns were different.
Speaker 2:It was different. It's explained in the movie or documentary, fastball. If you do the math, those guys were definitely throwing as hard as guys can throw today.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's hard to believe that people throw harder now than before because baseball was such a science. You lived, eat and breathed baseball back then you traveled, traveled teams back then right.
Speaker 1:you were traveled on trains, not airplanes. You didn't fly first class, the money wasn't as good. Maybe it was a little bit better than certainly playing football at the time. But in that bob feller year I always say bob feller because one I met him a couple of times and he had so many wins he used to laugh at what Prima Donna's pitchers were, and when he was alive the pitchers were less of a Prima Donna's than they are now and they pitched on three days rest.
Speaker 1:They pitched on three days rest, complete games. They're actually three days rest.
Speaker 2:Complete games.
Speaker 1:Vastly different approach these days, and I'll give you that certainly in their era the pitching mound was six inches higher right. It was reduced in whatever, in 66, 67? In the 60s, for I mean basically for the dominance of what is this.
Speaker 2:They wanted to create more offense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know. That went on and on and on. And now I think the ball, though it may be being thrown harder, it has less motion than ever before. People are more concerned with throwing the ball and the ball is totally different, matter of fact. It's different all the time. Certainly every year it's different. Whether it's different during the season is a whole other story. I have no idea, but I hear those stories, stories, as everyone does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's it's. It's probably harder if you compare the two, but you know it's still. The hardest thing to do in sports is hit a fastball. You know, regardless of those, that six inch difference. But you know it's so specialized today and you just don't see the grit and toughness in guys battling For me.
Speaker 2:Call me a purist or a traditionalist, but I want to see a guy that can go nine innings. Those were the most exciting games back in the day. I mean, jack Morris pitched 10 innings in a World Series game. If I remember that was game seven, and what could be more exciting than that? Can this guy finish? Can he get there? Can he drag this team across the finish line? I want to see that. You know now you pay somebody 36 million dollars a year and the guy can't go past the sixth inning at that point why even pay to have a starter? Just put 15 guys in the bullpen that can throw hard and just see what happens. Let them pitch three innings apiece. You can pay. Pay him $4 million a year, that doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't really have an understanding of where pitching's going. I mean you get high school and college kids that are having Tommy John surgery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's. I think that happens because they have some talent. I mean, there's probably a number of factors, right, some of them have parents that think that they're going to be the next Nolan Ryan or Tommy John, I guess, and they, you know, they want the kid to have the surgery. Go ahead, throw your arm out, we'll get surgery. You'll come back even stronger. To me that's an abuse. The athletes that I played with growing up the really good ones. They played multiple sports. They played football, basketball, baseball. They ran track, they could throw. They could't having Tommy John surgery. They weren't, you know. They played through injury, even in high school you know now, and I understand that that's.
Speaker 2:you know there's a different book on that. Now to the betterment or for the for the health of the kids, like that I get. I don't expect kids to be walking around with, you know, concussion If they're banged up. They're banged up. They got to get them off the field, but some, you know, it feels like they would. There was a toughness then. That doesn't exist now. And if you just have raw talent, you don't have to be tough. You can just be talented and not have to play by the rules as everybody else and because they don't put the work in or the time, or they don't have that toughness. You know it's the same thing. Everybody on that level has talent. So what are you going to do to make yourself better than the next guy? Stand out so you can get that contract? And now it just seems like there's too many fallback crutches for players at that level and there seems to be a matter of factness about it that didn't exist before.
Speaker 1:Right. So you wonder? I mean there's certainly more traveling teams and extra teams than there were when I was a kid. There may have been one traveling team, but I think you had to be older to be on it.
Speaker 2:You know, when I was in grammar school a travel team for every age group and middle school.
Speaker 1:I played baseball, high school, whatever you want to say. I mean, I played baseball and football and I wasn't good. Well, I was good at baseball but I wasn't good at football at all. I couldn't even remember the place, considering I have a photographic memory. Um, it's pretty interesting, you know, and I was an offensive tackle which was pretty coveted at the time, but the you know, it just seems that everything all at once plan is really just not working. And I, and I think that when we're talking about back to analytics, when we're talking about analytics, I mean, listen, we've all seen money ball, we've all seen how he made a team, or read the book, how he made a team out of nothing and how that is. But realize, at that time none of the other teams were using analytics, nobody else was doing it, they invented it.
Speaker 1:They invented it Well, I think, mit guys. It was already there.
Speaker 2:They took a page out of the fantasy baseball page and applied it to real-life baseball and it did work to an extent.
Speaker 1:It did, but it doesn't work on short, on playoff and I think.
Speaker 2:They also had three young talented arms in their rotation that they hadn't yet paid.
Speaker 1:So Hudson, mulder and zito all went somewhere else that's correct, and they're all really good. I mean any team would take, any team would take either one of them, right, it did absolutely it did absolutely so. Uh, I, I, I just looked briefly at something you told me about and I I wasn't aware is not to move to another topic, but teams moving into cryptocurrency, and it seems to be on multiple levels. People can fans can buy things with cryptocurrency. People are paying players somewhat with cryptocurrency.
Speaker 2:Some teams- yeah, some players have requested part of their salaries be paid in crypto. You know Aaron Rodgers, odell Beckham had it done. I know Brady was involved with FTX and there was a scandal there because there was what was that guy's name?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I forget his name.
Speaker 2:We all know. We all know what you mean.
Speaker 1:The crazy hair.
Speaker 2:And I think the first guy to do it was Russell Russell O'Connor. He, he, he had part of his salary paid in Bitcoin. He probably made out on that deal because back then Bitcoin was still, I think, in the teens, so that guy's super loaded now. But the Dolphins, I know, I think, were the first ones to allow their fans to buy merchandise with crypto, and they, I think, did that 2019 or 2020. I'm kind of shocked, though, because some of these owners are the same players that you would expect to hear their names among when you talk about things like BlackRock or entities like BlackRock, when you talk about things like BlackRock or entities like BlackRock and these giant corporations that move tremendous amounts of money through Bitcoin and through the crypto market, and it's kind of and I know that, I think it's is it Topps, one of the companies is producing, you know, forgot what they're called, not ETFs, but you know NFTs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they create NFTs with the player's likeness or their signature and you can buy it, just like trading. I it's cool, I mean, I, I, I I've seen some of it, I've actually bought some things but it's kind of it's harder to wrap my head around that than it is around cryptocurrency, because, again, you're buying something that's not tangible, you can't really hold it, you can't see it, you can't display it anywhere.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty good at this stuff and I don't understand it at all. I mean, I really don't understand it at all. I mean, you have a digital thing. You can't hang it on your wall. I don't mean to sound stupid, but you have this digital picture and who was in it? Tom Brady was into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think he did his autograph and had signed virtual signatures on certain pieces of art and pictures and whatnot, which, again, I think it's a cool thing. I think it opens the outreach. That's why I'm a little shocked that the NFL hasn't used that as a means of creating more revenue, because they want to expand too. They want to expand too. So maybe instead of expanding teams and playing more games, this is a way for them to go, because each team could have their own app. You know, the NFL could have its own app for these NFTs and you could probably create and trade these things the same way they do all these other ones, create and trade these things the same way they do all these other other ones.
Speaker 1:So I have to tell you we keep losing you, so I can't hear you right now, can you?
Speaker 2:hear me. Other people are doing it and other NFTs have sold for millions of dollars.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I think they could probably generate some interest there. Maybe it starts with just season ticket holders. You know you have the option to buy into this thing and you know what a great way to start, because then you're automatically excluding people that might want to get their hands on it and you create the market. So I don't know.
Speaker 1:So just to let you know, your audio seems to drop out every once in a while.
Speaker 2:You know what my phone was ringing, so I'll just have to sorry about that All right.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's a great point. About NFTs, I don't really get it. I don't really see it going anywhere. But we all know, as the NFL is going to keep expanding, and expanding, and expanding and you keep saying when it's going to stop. But I have to be honest with you. I thought it was going to stop some time ago and it's never stopped no, no, they too, have ruined the product.
Speaker 2:You know the the products that the product on the field suffers, and they're. You know they're going to create even more rules to make the game safer, but it's all about, you know, making the product more watchable or more attractive to tertiary markets and expanding overseas. And I, you know, I think we're going to get to the point where we're watching two hand touch. You know that it just seems like it's headed that way. In fact, a former NFL coach told me that he expected it to go that way. So that's a little scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I mean now the most recent transaction, which was very interesting, is that the NFL has reached a deal with espn right where they sold the rights to the nfl channel, uh, red zone.
Speaker 2:And I want to say one other thing that I can't think of but to espn for 10 of espn's business yeah, that partnership is is kind of scary um, because I think it's really all about the streaming um and they're gonna expand the market, which it's gonna shut some people out. It's gonna turn some people off. You know to me why wouldn't you want your product out there? You know you have the revenue sharing in nfl, so it's going to turn some people off. To me, why wouldn't you want your product out there? You have the revenue sharing in the NFL, so it's there for your taking. But it could mean that ratings were so low or heading in the wrong direction that they had to do something to step up the watchability. It sure is To partner with ESPN, because they were very standoffish with one another for a while and there seemed to be, you know, like a you know, contest between the two entities of who did it better.
Speaker 2:But the NFL did need to sell its product and espn got in there and you know, listen they espn does a good job. They've got a lot of talking heads. Every show talks about the nfl. The nfl is so popular that just talking about it is relevant and people want to absorb as much content as they can about the nfl, especially when it comes to their own team.
Speaker 1:So it's funny that, when, um, that it would seem to be that the Sunday ticket is going to be on ESPN, right, that's what's coming our way is that everything? Everything's going to be ESPN Also? What I find interesting is that, you know, apple tried to buy the Sunday ticket before they sold it to YouTube, and part of the reason they walked away from the deal is because Apple from my understanding and I could be wrong, but Apple, I wouldn't say implied, but at least wouldn't guarantee that they wouldn't offer the Sunday ticket for free. You signed on to their service and you got the Sunday ticket and the NFL said whoa, you got to charge for this, yeah. And Apple said well, we're going to pay you. It's not that you're not getting paid, but we have more money than you believe it or not. We have billions in suitcases over there. We have the greatest cash reserve in the world for any company. We're going to pay you. We're not doing that, but you're not going to tell us how we're going to charge our customers, if at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah they were subscribing to Apple streaming to get that. If you're going to have somebody broadcast your product, you want to know what that's going to look like and how people are going to be able to access it, because you want your product to grow.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:That's why this switch. Now we're in the streaming era and right now I don't think it's a very good product. Could it be a better product? Sure.
Speaker 1:I think if Apple would have bought it and put it out there for just an additional thing on their Apple product, they would have made more money than ever. The NFL. Oh, yeah, can you believe it, because their audience would have went from this the people that are going to pay for it to this, the people that are gonna not have to pay that exorbitant amount of money. They're gonna become fans, they're gonna buy tickets, they're gonna buy jerseys, they're gonna buy hats, they're gonna have it on tap on their phones.
Speaker 2:I mean so you know? I don't know the numbers, but I know apple has baseball, because once a week you can't watch the yankees if you don't have apple tv. And I refuse to acquiesce, especially since the yankees suck and I'm not going to watch that but I'm not going to pay to watch it. Um, but I have seen it. I watched somebody the other night showed me on their phone. Apple has you know the broadcast, but also you have the option to listen to the Yankee broadcast.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Which is great. I've always said that there should be a way to you know. You know how you have the SAP button on the microphone if you want to listen to another language. Why can't they do that with baseball games and the broadcast? I don't want to listen to Joe Buck. I want to hear John Sterling. I don't want to listen to Troy Aikman. I want to hear the Giants radio announcers. I don't, you know. Whatever it is, you know I'd rather listen to Carl Banks than listen to the guys that are on Fox most of the time, because you're going to get more insight. Whatever you, troy, whatever you want to listen to, it want to listen to that. It's available. How many times as a kid did I find myself turning off the broadcast and hooking up my stereo so I could listen to the broadcast on the radio and still watch the game?
Speaker 1:I used to do that for the New York Rangers all the time when I watched the hockey games. The radio broadcasters I don't remember who they were, it was so long ago.
Speaker 2:They were so much better than the television broadcasters yeah, I think they have the ability to make that happen and apple figured it out, so that's. That might be something that is a draw, um, but you're, I think you're make. They're making the market smaller, but the revenue may go up because people have the money to spend on it. I'm not going to spend the money on it. I get it. I get enough channels to watch as it is. I'm going to pay for more. You know it's gotta. It's gotta come back to reality.
Speaker 2:You know you used to be able to come home and turn the game on. I want to come home and turn the game on without having to worry about you know I had to watch. You know the bar. I have to hook up Amazon so we can watch when the Yankees are on Wednesday nights. We don't have Apple at the bar and you go on and you have to click.
Speaker 2:You know six or seven things to find the broadcast and to turn it on. Do you want this? Yes. Do you want that? Yes. Do you want to watch the Yankees? Yes. Do you want to watch the live broadcast now? Yes, is this what you want? Like, just I want to turn the game on. I just want to flip to a channel turn the game on. That part of it is a little annoying, but I think over time that'll probably get better. I just don't like that. They've headed down this road and have essentially left out, you know, a whole generation of fans that are used to one way and expect them to just acquiesce or they're willing to lose that part of the fan base to reach more people. There's something about it that just doesn't sit right with me. Maybe it's because I don't understand it, but I know at the bottom line it's always money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, sooner or later the NFL has to come back to reality a little bit.
Speaker 2:I think they will, because they have to look at what the Marist did, offering the revenue sharing all those years ago. That's driven them all these years. That's what made this sport so watchable and entertaining. And the gambling we haven't even talked about that. You're probably going to see partnerships now. Once this goes through. If it works, you're going to have Apple TV, whoever's streaming the game. You could do your betting right on the side, right there. They're already giving you Apple gives you odds. I don't know if they do it for football, but I know the other night when I was watching on my friend's phone.
Speaker 1:UFC too.
Speaker 2:It says each pitch, it tells you the player's home run probability. So there's, there's, and again, that's analytics right. So it's, it is going to be, you're going to, you're going to have the ability to have this information on tap, which is going to drive the gambling even more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, gambling is an interesting part of it. I mean, it always exists, but not to the extent that it is now.
Speaker 2:It's on tap, it's on your fingertips.
Speaker 1:And you have major owners, especially in the NFL right that own whatever it's DraftKings or FanDuel you have. Jerry Jones and Kraft, who are both deeply invested into these gambling.
Speaker 2:I can't believe that we're living in that era. It's like coming and watching the movie Last Boy Scout in real time. You know ratings dropped. They needed something for fans, so they legalized gambling and you know everybody's making money, which I understand. Making money, oh, it's good for the economy. But there's a certain ethics to this that before existed. It just doesn't exist anymore. There were certain things that you just didn't do. You didn't question it, you didn't push it. You know, it was just understood. This is not how we live in this country. This is not how we do things here. It's an ethics thing and we have lost that completely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I mean the, and I think we might have mentioned it last time. I remember the day when Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays I forget who the third was they got suspended for being either a greeter at the from Major League Baseball after they retired. Mind you, they're not even active players. Yeah, they get suspended from Major League Baseball after they retired. Mind you, they're not even active players. They get suspended from Major League Baseball because there were other greeters at our casino or were playing golf with us.
Speaker 2:I think it might have been.
Speaker 1:Duke Snyder, it may have been the third. That was my thought, but I wasn't sure. And you know three of the greatest players of all time no longer in the game. Maybe they go to spring training every year.
Speaker 2:They don't talk about that story. Nobody really knows that story, but yeah, they. I mean you're talking about. You know base baseball then still had integrity for what it's worth. You know, uh, I know you know people can bring up stories about players off the field, but on the it was. You don't do this. This is not acceptable. You know it was. You know.
Speaker 1:The commissioner of baseball is the worst and I apologize if he ever hears me, but I think he's the worst. I don't think he has any integrity into the game.
Speaker 2:He completely mishandled Pete Rose and they did nothing to really promote Shoeless Joe Jackson in the wake of that or before that. You know, it was just clearly, and not that Pete deserved any sort of break I don't think he did. But this commissioner and the last commissioner and you know the media is culpable too. Right, you know we went through the steroid era and they're keeping these guys out of the Hall of Fame. We went through the steroid era and they're keeping these guys out of the Hall of Fame, and what they've done is they've created this kind of a vacuum where. Look at who's getting into the Hall of Fame. Ichiro deserves it, clearly one of the best players ever and CeCe before this era. You could make the argument he did or didn't deserve it.
Speaker 2:But there are guys getting into the Hall of Fame now that are not Hall of Famers, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that they're keeping a whole generation of players out of the league because of steroids. But they knew it was going on. They put all three managers that had the biggest steroid users. They put Joe Torre, cox and La Russa. Those guys were at the epicenter of the whole thing and you put all three of them in the Hall of Fame. You can't tell me those guys didn't know their players were on steroids. They know they benefited from that.
Speaker 2:So how do you? Where do you draw the line? Mike Piazza gets in, but this guy doesn't get in. This guy gets in and that guy doesn't get in. I mean, harold Baines got in not accusing him of steroids, because if he was on steroids it's even worse but he's not a Hall of Famer and I'm a tough judge and it has nothing to do with my Red Sox bias. But Jim Rice is a Hall of Famer and Dom always says he was the best hitter for 10 years in the American League.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, but is he Aaron Ruth or Mays? Is he Mantle DiMaggio or Ted Williams? I just don't see that. So you know you want to expand the sport, you want to make more money. You know where do you draw the line? There used to be a clear line, there used to be ethics and integrity in baseball and it is gone. Now it's completely gone and you throw in the gambling and you throw in the money from the streaming and all these other entities and you've got a terrible product on the field. So in another 30 years you're going to see guys getting the hall of fame. How's that guy a hall of famer?
Speaker 2:and the generation kids watching now won't know any better.
Speaker 1:It's being designed on the back of an envelope. You know what I mean. It's really fun, and the only guy that could do that is Abraham Lincoln. He wrote the Gettysburg Address on the way in the train.
Speaker 1:But beyond that nobody can, and it really is whim without reason. It's a trend and it's, these are all, and pretty much that's the theme of our show, and where there's all these trends, um, that we believe are detrimental to the, uh, the ethics of the game, uh, the professionalism of the game. I mean, I saw I wish I could remember his name. I saw an umpire the other night call a pitch right down the middle.
Speaker 1:Oh, don't get me started Right down the middle. I mean down the middle, I mean the television guys were like huh.
Speaker 2:Did you see? I think it was. Was it last night or the night before the first female umpire?
Speaker 2:had her first game behind home plate and the first pitch it wasn't even close, it was six inches inside. She called it a strike. The announcers didn't know what to say and then they saved the baseball. They took the baseball off the field and saved it and I just it was like it was. It looks so. They must've said no matter where it is, call it a strike, we're saving the baseball, we're going to. You know, we're going to put it up for auction, you're going to sell it. Something's going to. I couldn't believe what I was watching when I saw it.
Speaker 1:I mean, does it really matter whether it was a ball or a strike to save the baseball? It doesn't.
Speaker 2:It certainly doesn't. It shouldn't. It shouldn't matter that she's female either. Can you call balls and strikes? Because if you can't see, ya, I mean, I think they did it because they know what's coming. They're getting rid of umpires, right, you're going to have an automated strike zone. It should already be in existence Today.
Speaker 2:I saw, because I hadn't watched any football preseason anyway I saw what they're doing with the first down marker and they've taken the guys with the chains off the field completely Really. Yeah, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it Because you, you got to figure those guys have to be there anyway. But instead I'm I'm assuming there's something in the football, maybe there's a chip in the football, but it's an animated screen where the football is placed on the field at at whatever mark, and then it shows you the distance to the first down. It says 9 inches, 10 inches, and that's how they're measuring for first downs. Now, I couldn't believe it. I could not believe what I watched, and you know, that's a cool thing. I guess I don't know why they had to take the guys with the chains off the field, although there was some discrepancies with the chain gangs the last couple years where people were doing videos on them. You know moving the yard markers and not being in the right position, so maybe the gambling has something to do with it.
Speaker 2:To make it more precise, right but I was shocked when I saw that. But the more I I you, I saw it like three times and it made me realize if you're going to do that, for you know it's. It's no different than balls and strikes, and they can. They have the technology to do this, so why not utilize it? You could still have an umpire behind home plate for calls at the plate. You can still have an umpire behind home plate to. You know the pitcher balked, the. You know whatever it is, the pitcher balked, whatever it is, he's got to call all the other stuff. They don't have to call balls and strikes.
Speaker 2:It's funny to listen to people argue about how baseball didn't include XYZ back in the 30s and 40s and the players today are so much better. But then when you say I want an automated strike zone, they lose their minds. To me, if all this technology was available when Abner Doubleday invented baseball, we'd be using it. Instant replay, whether the guy touched the base or not, balls and strikes, everything, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You want to get the call right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So you know, look at Works in tennis.
Speaker 1:Works in tennis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so why not use it for baseball? They're so far behind and it just makes you wonder that they don't want to spend the money on these things. They haven't figured out how to monetize it, so they're not going to make it available, which is just. It's so silly.
Speaker 1:Maybe they don't know how to control it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I wonder sometimes, because when you watch it on TV you see the frame right, you just see the frame outline of the strike zone and home plate has depth. Right Home plate is 18 inches across and I think it's 18 inches deep, or maybe it's 22 inches, I can't remember the dimensions and then you have where that volume of space fits, according to where the batter is standing in the batter's box as well as the size of the player. But it seems to me that they've got that narrow depth, that they've got the size of the strike zone pretty much intact. So if they have it, then why not use it? Just eliminate all this. You know other stuff and take the error out of it.
Speaker 2:You know I don't expect umpires to be perfect, but some of these guys miss calls that are just I mean, you can't miss calls right down the plate, you can't miss that. You know. Maybe all right, the catcher was setting up outside, which you don't really see that a lot anymore. The catcher set up outside. The umpire is behind the catcher and the ball was to the left and even though it was over the plate maybe it looked outside to the umpire. To me it's inexcusable. You can't miss, you can't miss, can't miss and it takes. You know the catcher framing the pitch, he brings it up, he brings it down.
Speaker 1:You just take all that away and if you question him, he throws you out and if you right, you can't, you can't, no, no, no questioning balls and strikes.
Speaker 2:Well, wait a minute. If you're gonna make that rule, then use the automated strike zone. Then we won't question anything, we'll just all agree to it and then that's it all right.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we covered a lot of ills of the world and many different sports that we're talking about now.
Speaker 2:Um, I know you wanted to get back to jerry yeah, well, we'll do that.
Speaker 1:I think we'll save that for another night. I mean, more is going to happen, uh, and he's talking about jerry jones and football, but on our next show, which is two weeks from now, the third week in August, you'll see that, you know this might have been traded by then yeah, maybe alright, everybody.
Speaker 2:Justin, thank you very much.
Speaker 1:We'll be back. I'll play our theme song on the way out and thank you very much and. I'll see you soon. Alright, see you soon.