.png)
Sports Live! With Steve and Justin
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
Baseball Is Broken!
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
A perfect game into the eighth inning gets ended by the manager, and the bullpen nearly blows the whole thing. That moment sends us into a bigger question: why does modern MLB feel like it has less stamina, less action, and fewer players who can truly carry a game from first pitch to last?
From pitch counts and the vanishing complete game to the way strikeouts and “three true outcomes” baseball shape what we watch, we dig into how the sport’s incentives changed. We talk about what older generations considered normal workload, why 300-win careers now feel like a relic, and how analytics can turn smart ideas into rigid rules that make the product worse for fans. We also get specific about the New York Yankees, roster depth, and why it’s hard to accept a premium payroll when the on-field lineup doesn’t look premium.
Then we trace the problem backward to the youth pipeline: travel baseball, year-round schedules, early specialization, and the obsession with velocity and spin rate. We argue for basics that actually protect arms and build better pitchers, and we ask what happens when access depends on money. Finally, we look at how teams like the Rays keep winning through player development and farm systems, and why looming CBA tensions could push the game into an ugly labor fight.
If you care about where baseball is headed, hit play, share this with a fellow fan, and leave a review. What do you want MLB to fix first?
Welcome From Maine And Sports Rundown
SPEAKER_02Hello everybody and welcome to Sports Live with Steve and Justin. Hello, Justin. Good afternoon, Steve. I am on location, believe it or not, in Maine. Not that there's anything to be on location about, other than rest and relaxation. Not that I ever rest or relax, but how how's things back at the homestead there?
SPEAKER_00We're holding down the fort. We're doing all right considering the weather and everything else.
SPEAKER_02Yes. When I left, you know, there was no power in lots of places, and some places still don't have power. But whatever it is. And and today, well, I'll tell you that story when Keith's here. But uh a lot of sports stories, a lot of I'm trying to keep my voice down a little because I'm in this little inn where everyone's quietly reading the paper. Some interesting stories, and we could talk about them with Keith. I'm certainly interested in his viewpoint about LeBron. And there's big new trades that's gone on. You know, I and uh there's a nice F1 race this week and tons of soccer. I watched England take Mexico City, Mexico in Mexico City down to the wire. I thought Mexico was gonna score at the end of the game, but they didn't. And Mexico's a tough team. If they can go head to head with England, that's pretty good. Right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're very tough. I mean, that's you know, pretty much their national sport, right? Like they're they're into it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So let's bring uh where do you go? There he is. Let's bring
Pitch Counts And Vanishing Complete Games
SPEAKER_02him in. Hola, mi amigo. Yeah. Look at you. I like that. Baseball is strange. Every time I turn a game on, I turn it off.
SPEAKER_00It's it's getting worse and worse. It's and that's just the local teams. I mean, it's it's I think it's bad everywhere. It's uh listening to some of these podcasts and listening to guys like Ed Randall have guests from yesteryear. He had yesterday he had on Leo Mazzoni and Tommy John, and they were talking about pitching and how you know whoever came up with the 100 pitch mark, you know, should be re-examined, and how pitchers today just don't have it in them to go more than five or six innings. And they're trying to figure out, you know, how we got to this point because you're watching something that's, you know, 30 years ago virtually unimaginable. And uh, you know, Leo Mazzoni probably caused the greatest pitching staff ever, you know.
SPEAKER_02If you couldn't do a hundred pitches, you were either a relief pitcher, which there were very few of, or you were in the minors.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Tommy John used the word par, meaning I thought this was very interesting. He said if you threw 15 pitches in inning, you were on par that you should be able to finish the game no problem at 15 pitches per inning. Yeah, if you have an at-bat in there where somebody's fouling you off or just a tough, you know, tough out, that might increase your pitch count. But that 15 pitches per inning on average was par. And if you were even close to that, you were finishing the game. And if you had gotten to the ninth inning, it was no question, unless you were in big trouble, that you were going to finish the game. And you know, Leo Mazzoni backed that up and spoke about, you know, the difference between pitchers from even 15 years ago versus pitchers today. He mentioned Russell Russ Ortiz, who said he said it took him six innings just to get warmed up.
SPEAKER_01He was and that he used to throw like 140 pitches every single time out. And it was unreal.
SPEAKER_00So I can remember, you know, watching games where pitchers looked like they were gonna get shelled early, they'd give up three runs maybe in the first or second inning, and then they would just get stronger as the game went on. And I think now you're not, you know, we don't see that anymore. We don't see anybody last more than six or seven innings. And when they do, it's like, oh my god, this guy's a Hall of Famer. And meanwhile, guys, guys that weren't even close to being Hall of Famers 30 years ago went nine innings every every week. Every five days they went nine innings.
SPEAKER_01I mean, you think I'm not 300 game winner ever?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'd I the way it the way it is now, uh, you know, you'd have to have it so many things would have to fall into place for somebody to get 300 wins now. You're talking about somebody who'd probably have to be on an offense that averages six runs a game to begin with and scores all those runs in the first five innings. You know, things like that just don't happen. And, you know, it used to be when you got into the bullpen that you were facing lesser pitching than you were in the starter of that game, right? Your worst starter was still better than every guy in the bullpen, except maybe your closer, which 30 years ago, or maybe more than 30 years ago now, but you know, yesterday closers, you know, the gossips and the Eckersley of the world, you know, they came about with people like Billy Martin who instituted those kind of tactics, if you will. But, you know, yesterday's bullpen was guys who couldn't cut it at stu as starters. Now these guys are built for the bullpen, whereas the starters, and we're we're watching an era where guys are getting paid top dollar, $40 million a year plus to be starters, and they can't go six innings. And and then you have things like strikeouts don't matter, and they talked about that too, and how a strikeout, if you strike out, that means you didn't do your job. You either didn't get on base or you didn't move the runners or you didn't sacrifice and knock somebody in or anything. If nothing happens, that's less than what you wanted to go up there for. So to think that strikeouts don't matter and hear an organization like the Yankees say strikeouts don't matter, but then you pay a pitcher $40 million a year to strike people out. And then when you consider that everybody strikes out, now it's either a strikeout or a home run. How do pitchers not last these in these games and strike out 15 batters a game?
SPEAKER_02Well, I I mean, I personally see it like this. I mean,
Why Young Arms Break So Early
SPEAKER_02human beings aren't different, right? In every other sport we see men getting bigger and stronger and faster and and long except baseball. Baseball, we don't see that. We don't see it in pitchers, for instance. And why is that? It's because we have children, in my opinion, throwing sp fastballs, and y you have to make your bones at sixteen so you become a phenom. Nobody's a phenom at sixteen. Nobody should be doing the things we d make kids do as children now. They are not developed or whatever, because people are just listen, we see it. It's not like it's it's not like it's a fallacy. We know that people are blowing out their shoulders. We know that people are blowing out their elbows.
SPEAKER_00We know growing into their bodies. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And they're not growing into their bodies and they're weakening themselves right out of the gate. And I apologize for the sound in the background, as you know, I'm in an inn in in in Maine at the moment, and people are just driving past, as they say.
SPEAKER_01It's as if we've taken the mattle of David Clyde and, you know, like run it all across baseball, where you just, you know, a guy at a young age pitches an enormous and just blows him out. You know, it's like we we've we've turned everybody into David Clyde. So, you know, uh I don't know. I mean, like you I think some of the best arms of the generation probably are people who, you know, you know, lit literally burnt themselves out at 16, 17 years old. I think you're absolutely right on it.
SPEAKER_02And that's that's what I see. And for some reason, we continue to do that. We continue to you know, it's one thing if you have no interest in going pro and you want to blow your out in college because you want to get a free ride. That's at least there's a goal to it. But you can't be throwing like that at that age. You can't. No, and there's also a money factor to this
Teaching Control Over Velocity Hype
SPEAKER_02as well. What you should be teaching them is control. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00The the mechanics of control. You want them to have the proper mechanics. As far as arm strength goes, you should, you know, I'm a big believer, you shouldn't be having these kids throwing at high velocity and worried about spin rate and all those other ridiculous things. Can the kid point his toe towards home plate where he wants the pitch to go? Does the kid know how to hook the rubber, right? Is he does he in a consistent landing spot every time he releases the ball? Because that you don't see that in Little League. And even in some of these specialized areas where these parents pay crazy amounts of money for their kids to go to these specialized tutors, if you will, they're not learning those things. And as a result, like you said, Judge, we're seeing it now. And I and I think money has a lot to do with it too, because you know, parents that get crazy about their kids playing sports are not doing their kids a service, and they're really hurting overall the level of play across the board with the specialization. You know, little league was enough, right? No one was playing little league that was going to be a major leaguer that no one saw play. Whereas now, some kids, little league has been destroyed almost in some areas. They have these traveling special teams, right? Everything should be. They're playing on three teams, and they're playing, they're playing on two or three different teams, plus they're going to see their specials.
SPEAKER_02Right. Whatever else.
SPEAKER_00Your high school team, and maybe your summer league team. And if you were really good, maybe you played fall baseball, you know, maybe you were on that on that late fall team that was exceptional because you didn't play a fall sport like football or soccer or whatever the boys played at that at that time. But you played other sports. You didn't just specialize in one sport. And even if baseball was your only sport, you only played it in season. Now they're playing it all year around. These kids are just not, they don't have time to grow. You know, I remember, you know, when we were in high school, hitting the gym was a big thing, right? That was like a new kind of like the gym was always there, but now everybody was working out. You know, one of the things that yeah, one of the things that you learned, of course, everybody had one of those.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, but not everybody. When I was in eighth grade, we didn't have one of those. And when we got to high school, I didn't even know what the thing was. And now everybody's gonna be. What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00You just moved the metal thing and you Yeah, and they've got everybody working out, it's not just the football team, right? It's the girls' basketball team, it's the lacrosse team, it's the soccer team, it's this. Whereas a hundred years ago, they just had practice and you played and that was it. Yeah, and I don't know that much has changed in the game, that these kids need to be working out six days a week. Now, listen, if they're a health nut and they want to take care of themselves, great. But one of the things you learn when you work out is that if you're lifting too much weight at a young age, you can stunt your growth. It works against you. So you have to allow your body to grow in time correctly before you start lifting all these crazy heavy weights. And I don't think anybody's out there watching these kids. I don't think the parents really understand that, especially the ones that have money and can take their kid and put them on a special unit and say, this is the best of the best, and my kid plays with them. And you know, how much baseball is coming out of that? How many players are coming out of those, you know, systems where they're turning into major leaguers? Because if it was that simple, everybody would be doing it. Well, and I go back to CC Sabbathia saying that if he was a kid today, he would have never become a major leaguer because they wouldn't have found him where he was, he wouldn't have had the opportunity to play where he did because that doesn't exist anymore.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's funny. Go ahead.
Travel Teams And The Burnout Problem
SPEAKER_01No, I was gonna say just being out of New York and being down in Georgia. I mean, you know, again, uh Jordan Walker, who was uh the went to Decatur High School right up the street. East Cobb Little League, the East Cobb baseball program down here is like nothing I've ever seen. I mean, it is year-round, highly competitive. And they're they're I mean, this area, you know, again, there are certain areas in the country really where you see this where like we're seeing like, you know, we're seeing like like Georgia Tech, for example, has two top ten picks coming out of this area this year, you know, like so you know, those are just those, you know, we have high school kids coming out like that. And I mean, I I had never seen that in New York because it was it was, you know, it was a seasonal thing. Here it's all year long and it's intense. And you know, they got these high-level coaches working with everybody, and it's it's it's a little bit nuts, you know. It's like you got to decide by eight years old what what professional sport you want to play. And that's not Friday night lights.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Friday night lights and everything. And by the way, Bobby Jones, the greatest golfer ever in the history of the universe, went to Georgia Tech. Yes, he did. Around the corner.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, uh, but it's it's down here is I mean, I, you know, again, I grew up, you know, growing up in New York, I I I I saw a lot of things that I thought, you know, like, you know, I saw I think people were playing, you know, season to season, anything like that. Down here, you see people who are like, I got kids who who are volleyball specialists. I got kids who are basketball specialists. You know, it's like the idea that we've specialized at young ages is bizarre to me. But that's kind of where the where things are going. And so you're seeing a kid, you know, you're seeing a lot of kids get burnt out of sports. You're seeing a lot of like, you know, kids get to like 15, 16 years old and it's a chore. You know, they don't love playing anymore. You know, it's it's like it's their ride. And it, you know, the whole culture of youth sports has become, I mean, not that you can't find great stuff out there, but the level of competitiveness, you know, is unrivaled in some places. Also, when I was out in California, I saw that up and uh I was up by uh outside of Los Angeles. And like the area I'm I'm I'm I'm hanging out in, like, you know, like guys like Kristen Yellich are coming out of this area, everything like that. And like these high schools are producing like two or three major leaguers. So it's, you know, like the level of competition is insane in some places in the country. And, you know, so so it's it's you know, it's kind of weird. It's it's it's we've we've become almost like sort of a little league has become a feeder system to the major leagues, which is a bizarre idea, but that really is kind of where it's at. And I think that's why you're not seeing any workhorse pitchers anymore. How many pitchers are gonna throw 200 innings, right? They've already thrown 200 innings a bunch of times in their life, but it was before they were out of high school.
SPEAKER_02Right. It's funny, it's a different, it's a total different animal, you know, and and baseball used to not be that animal. Used to not be where you worked out. It was pure talent. What did you do? You know how you became a baseball player? You hit more balls, you threw more balls, you caught more balls, you ran the bases. Now it's a whole thing.
Training Culture And Getting Older
SPEAKER_02I remember the Yankees in, I don't know, the nineties, I want to say, that when they used to come in, I remember Susan Waldman, who's the, for those of you who don't know, who is one of the radio announcers at uh at Yankee Stadium, and she was given an interview and she said, These guys are bigger and stronger than anyone's been. And, you know, when they come in, they have creatine shakes on the table and everybody grabs one. I mean, it's creatone is i is like an amino acid or something that helps muscle growth. It's totally legal because it's not a it's not a steroid or anything like that, but it is, and I I used to take it too a hundred years ago when I worked out. You used to take a certain one, you used to buy it at some muscle head shop, and you took one before you went and one before you left, and it was helped to make your muscles, you know, um, recover when I used to work out like a mad person. I know that's hard to believe. Matter of fact, it's you think it's hard for you to believe, it's even harder for me to believe.
SPEAKER_01When was the last time you were seriously into working out?
SPEAKER_02Like how long ago? My last surgery knocked my knocked me on my ass. I was at the gym every day on the treadmill. And when I had my last surgery, I got I did something stupid, and that's all I'm gonna say about that is is that instead of resting the day after the surgery, I felt so good that matter of fact, when when the doctor called me, he was like, uh, how are you feeling today? And I said, Oh, I'm eating a pastrami sandwich and I'm gonna go have a cigar. And he's like, What? I was like, I feel great. He goes, Do you need to rest or whatever? And I was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel great. Well, the next day I still felt good. The day after that, it was like somebody ran hit me with a truck. I was down for the count, probably for a month. And I've never then a bunch of things happened after that became uh became a mess. But what are you gonna do? Uh I hope to get back there. I doubt it, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's not an easy thing to do, and it's it becomes age.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I'm old and I'm falling apart. I mean, some pieces.
SPEAKER_00The other end of the spectrum was if you don't if you don't use it, you're gonna lose it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, some pieces work better than others, but you know, not the not the ones you want. Not the ones you want.
SPEAKER_00No, it's you're on sports live with Steve and Justin. We're
Pulled Perfect Games And Analytics Baseball
SPEAKER_00here with the rab, the basketball rabbi. Please like, subscribe, and share with your friends.
SPEAKER_01Did you share you share with your enemies too? Anybody, you know, cousins, that's fine. But did you see the other day uh Yuri Perez had a perfect game going for the Marlins into the eighth inning and they pulled him? And the final score of the game was eight to seven. I mean, like, you know, I was thinking about it. You know, we I was talking like I can't remember the game. They pulled him from a perfect game. They pulled him from a perfect game going into the eighth. A young pitcher, you know, they don't want to mess his arm up. Okay, I kind of get that. He had thrown a lot of pitches. Like, there was nothing wrong with his arm. You know, what is this guy? You know, if he has a good career, his great moment will be having a perfect game, and he had it for seven innings. But the kicker is the bullpen came in, almost gagged it. They lost an eight to seven. I mean, they give up seven runs in, you know, in the last two innings.
SPEAKER_00And this is a guy who's baseball is just a terrible thing to watch these days. It's just not, it's not a good product, and it's across the board. When you're watching the New York Yankees play, and there's three guys in the lineup every day that are not major leaguers, okay? That's inexcusable. And they've got what, the second highest payroll in baseball, if not the highest, because the Dodgers don't pay Otani but $2 million a year, which is another whole nother story.
SPEAKER_01Crazy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You're you're not you're not seeing a full spectrum of major league ball players. I don't know if that's because analytics has taken away from the game some of its stars. I don't know if it's because, you know, the elder statesmen aren't able to get contracts and play into their late 30s anymore because no one wants them or they don't want to pay them or what have you. Whereas teams like the Yankees could afford to have guys like that on the bench 100 years ago. Whether you like the Yankees or not, whether you like that system or not, it was good for the game of baseball because the product was better. Period. Now you're inside this bubble, which is an analytics constraint created by nerds, and it's about spin rate, OPS, and things you never even talked about that don't matter. If you're not moving the runner, if you're not putting the ball in play, then why are you what are you putting? What is the product that you're putting out there?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they look at us, and when they say us, I mean Gen X and above, and they call us old heads and they call us dinosaurs and old school blah, blah, blah. But the product itself, okay, and here's an example of my generation being part of the same thought process, which is before our time, the mound was higher, right? What the ball was was different. You know, little things like the you know, the bases, which just happened recently. But what I'm saying is that certain rule changes you didn't know existed until you were far into watching the game of baseball, and you learned about it kind of retroactively. Absolutely. And to think how they've done that to the game over time, they've lessened the product, okay? And you know, there are people younger than us that say things like, oh, Babe Ruth played against plumbers and doctors and and you know, shopkeepers, but there were also 16 teams back then, right? So how many baseball players did you have during that era that could actually play this game at a high level under those rules? And now you've got twice as many teams, you've got a team virtually in every city, so you're playing against watered-down competition because the reality is there are only so many men on this planet that can play a professional sport at that level, and we're not seeing it right now. We're just not. I mean, you have teams out there, the the Mets can't get out of their own way, and they've got a guy in the lineup who's worth $800 million. And this is I'm not knocking the Mets.
SPEAKER_02What I'm saying is this is a this is across the board.
SPEAKER_00So payroll is even it's kind of out the window. You've got really bad teams out there. The Yankees just lost 10 out of 12 or whatever it was, and they're still only four games out of a wild or out of the division lead with the Rays, who they play this week. So the Yankees aren't out of it, although I have no faith in them right now because of what it looks like on the field. I think their manager's terrible, all of those things. That being said, the brass at Yankee Stadium, they think that they can win these four games and that there's they're right in it. And that if they lose all four games or however many they're gonna play this week against the Rays, that we're not that far off. We got guys out, guys are hurt, you know. But what happened to next man up? That doesn't count anymore? Well, because it can't be both ways.
SPEAKER_01What I don't get with the team, and again, I'm a Mets fan, so it's like I've I've seen this as well.
Payroll Myths Farm Systems And A CBA Fight
SPEAKER_01Like, you know, consistently, you know, the Mets have had a few good seasons in there, you know, whatever, but like the Rays are good every year, and the Rays are basically the Rays payroll right now is is is one year of Bobachette's contract, right? Like, and they're they're you know, how are the I mean, you know, I've I've read different things about this over the years, and you know, I think there's a lot of but how is a team like that good every single year? You know, I mean with some exceptions, right? But they continue to produce a high quality product for one-sixth of what a major market team pays, right? With nobody going to see it. I'm utterly fascinating.
SPEAKER_02Because they run their they run their team old school, all right? It's not analytics, it's not hiring the biggest name or or whatever. They use have a farm system and they use it and they develop players. Every team sh needs to do that. That's the thing of the fast. You know what farm systems became? Another way of making ra revenue. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, it's like they saw what's the what's the one in North Carolina? They saw Bulldorum. Yep. They saw Bulldorum, they saw the movie, they saw this team who really makes money, and it was more than just a farm system. It became a moneymaker. So they do it at all levels.
SPEAKER_00We can capitalize on these players at a younger age before they make make the major leagues, make more money off them exponentially at the lower division because no one knows who they are, and then we don't have to share it with them when they get to this level.
SPEAKER_02And basically, this is the thing. Basically, well, we understand that our tickets are too expensive for the average guy. Let him go to triple A. Let them go to triple A. And that's just not the way it works. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, because Well, something's gonna change because they're headed for a CBA, you know, lockout or whatever you want to call it, strike, and all these things have to get And they are a long way off from settling anything. And I think we're just not going to have baseball next year at all.
SPEAKER_01Well, we we might not. And the the you know, I agree with you on the CBA. I think something's gonna have to happen because it's fascinating. It really seems like revenue is almost the enemy of winning in a lot of cases, right? Like teams are able to be consistent the way the way things are set with the six years of controllability, everything like that. These teams are, you know, like teams like the Braves that are locking in guys, you know, at you know, you know, very early on for long, you know, for long-term contracts. I mean, what they have uh what they have Acunya and Albies at right now is unreal, right? Yeah, same with Austin Riley, Strider's had some problems, but you know, the Raves do the same thing. A lot of these teams lock in early with guys, and I mean the Rav granted, the Braves have like they're carrying about $200 million payroll right now. But you can keep, I mean, it seems as if being a small market team these days in a lot of ways is an advantage. Like if you don't, if you go spend $300 million, you're assuming you're wasting about a hundred million of it.
SPEAKER_02Like the dollar, you know, and they're you know this is exactly what we're talking about. Look at this. Can you read what it says?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, how many how many players in Jersey? Yeah, it's it's it's it's unreal.
SPEAKER_00It's the the the youth baseball from as soon as they can swing a bat through high school, it's an enormous group in New Jersey. It's a pretty well-oiled machine, and there's a lot of kids in that system. But yeah, well, everybody, if you have money, your kid's gonna play.
Little League Decline And Stickball Memories
SPEAKER_00It's just that simple. And that detracts from a lot of kids who come from families that don't have the means. And it's absolutely destroyed little league because you can't play both. And you want, you know, if you have money, you want your kid on the traveling team. We had kids that played travel baseball, few and far between, but they were pretty much good athletes back then. If they missed the little league game, it was like, well, he's not here because he's on the traveling team. So everybody else got to play. Whereas now they barely have enough to field a little league team these days. Absolutely. They have to play out of ten. Like we had the, you know, our little league had eight teams, right? In every division going forward, and then one year, I think it was our last two years, we had two less teams and we had to play teams from next town over. We had to play over at Trinity Field, right? Yes, we had to play at City Park, right? So, which was cool to travel from pound to Nurshall and just go play a bunch of kids that you kind of knew. Maybe you didn't know some of them, but you know, we knew each other because we played at Sixth Street Park and you played stickball against each other with guys like Joe Collins and whatnot. But now that doesn't exist anymore. Drive by Sixth Street Park and see if you find anybody playing stickball.
SPEAKER_01They're not there. Do they is stickball still a thing up there?
SPEAKER_00I mean, like, I I probably spent I don't even think Pelham Village Wine has a stickball team anymore.
SPEAKER_01Really? Like I that was yeah, I remember being up there being like that. I didn't think there was anything else but stickball outside of like school or work. So yeah, is that we played every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00We played almost every day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I grew up in New Jersey in the middle of nowhere back then. It's not today. And my neighbor moved in from the Bronx, and I don't know if it was the Bronx or Brooklyn, but I think it was the Bronx. And he goes, he had a well, I forget the name of the rubber ball.
SPEAKER_00Spaulding?
SPEAKER_02Spaulding. He had a spaulding ball. A spaulding ball and a and a broom handle. And he's like, and he's walking up, he goes, You guys want to play stickball? I'm like, stick ball? That shit my dad paid off the stoop in the Bronx. And he and he's like, no, no, no. And he taught us how to play, which isn't that complicated. But and then we started playing in the street all the time.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. There was the old school, so the like there was the old school stickball where you're like bouncing it and it's in the street. Then there was the one where you get the wall and you'd paint the you'd paint the target up on this. This is what this is what I think my my adjustment generation. You paint the target. That's old school. And like you hit it in a certain area, it's a single, certain area, double, you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_00You could find a pretty a spray painted X in a box on virtually every brick wall in Pelham at one point. Yeah. Any parking lot, any school facility, anywhere there was a backstop, there was a spray painted X or a painted black box, whatever it was at the time.
SPEAKER_01I threw probably 700 pitches a week up at Professor Hill Elementary School into that stupid little box.
SPEAKER_02And that's why you can't play the you know National Major League Baseball. You hurt your arm playing stick ball.
SPEAKER_01I I had nine pitches I could throw. My arm was hanging off me like that. I looked like the hunchback of Notre Dame halfway through it. You know, but it was like I could, you know, like I I Justin caught me, so he understood. I like I knew I threw nine pitches, none of them correctly.