How to SAVE MLB for the next generations

How to SAVE MLB for the next generations

One of the things they need to do desperately is build a new fan base. I feel like baseball has easily slipped to be well behind football, behind college football, behind the NBA, it’s probably number three. The analytics that have taken over every sport, starting with baseball, um have worked to make those games more interesting and more exciting. Whereas for baseball, it makes it more boring. There was 3 minutes and 52 seconds between balls put in play. So all my friends who said nothing ever happens in baseball, they were right. Baseball has to see that somebody else is having a lot of success with their game, their sport. It’s easy to fill an NFL stadium even with 80,000 seats once a week. Once every other week, cuz you don’t play at home all the time. That’s right. Um baseball has a bigger challenge. It says here, I know how to fix it. You’re not only bringing up the problem, you’re not complaining. Like, you’ve got solutions here. That’s the whole point. Yeah. I know what’s wrong and I also know what’s right. Let all kids accompanied by an adult age 10 and under in for free to every Major League Baseball game. Every Major League Baseball game. How does that work? I said, I learned that people really want to love baseball, but they want to be loved back. But the fans are the ones who are burdened with for the rest of their lives. They don’t know what to do with their A’s hat anymore. Manfred actually waved fees that you usually have to pay in order to move from one city to another. So, they were greasing the skins. They wanted baseball out of Oakland. A lot of the owners these days don’t get into it because they love baseball. You know, in the past there were family teams were familyowned. The key buzz word here is competitive balance, but really it’s competitive imbalance. not spending it is it’s stealing. Let’s put let’s call it what it is. It’s stealing. And nobody ever tries to actually, you know, win baseball games. You have to have a salary floor. I hate the gambling. It is a really bad look for an industry to spend a a century saying we’re the sport that doesn’t do gambling and then whoops, now there’s money to be made, so we’re going to change on a dime. You’re important to me and that’s the thing that baseball really needs to work on. Jane, congratulations not only on the career but anytime somebody puts out a book and it’s titled Make Me Commissioner, by the way, available everywhere. That is something to be discussed. So, congrats and thanks for joining me. I appreciate this. Little Hooksville, huh? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Right from the start. You know, I want to talk about baseball in a sense of just my lifetime to start with. Um, I felt like when I was a kid in the 80s, baseball was right up there with football, maybe even above basketball, certainly above hockey, and just interest in conversation and what people were paying attention to and participating in. At some point, I feel like baseball has easily slipped to be well behind football, behind college football, behind the NBA. It’s probably number three. And I think hockeyy’s actually competing with baseball these days. What do you think? Well, the numbers show that you’re right. And um even though Major League Baseball has, you know, belatedly started to take steps to try to remedy it, they were so late um to make to start to make changes. It was like it’s like turning a a gigantic line boat around without any any little tugs to help get it into port, right? It just doesn’t move fast. Um and and you know, it’s understandable what worked worked so well for so long, but they had the field to themselves. There was no NBA, there was no NHL, there was no NFL for most of the time that baseball was asserting itself as the national pastime. And when the other sports being younger had the advantage of being able to adapt to the present and change and make new rules without people going, you can’t do that. It’s, you know, it’s sacrian. um you know so the NBA installed a three-point line and the NFL discovered that analytics means that you should go for it on fourth down. So the analytics that have taken over every sport starting with baseball um have worked to make those games more interesting and more exciting whereas for baseball it makes it more boring and it made it glacially slow. In 2021, before they started doing anything to fix it, before they hired Theo Epstein as a zar of making baseball fun again, they there was 3 minutes and 52 seconds between balls put in play. So all my friends who said nothing ever happens in baseball, they were right. That’s what happened. I think other sports are more digestible and everybody is talking about how football is king. I don’t deny that. But you talk about your team, your football team playing one game a week, typically on a Sunday where most people are not working or a Thursday night or a Monday night where they have the opportunity to watch their team. It’s just so much more easy to consume, I think, than other sports. Now, that’s the and defined and that’s the that’s just the inherent nature of other sports versus baseball. So, how’s baseball supposed to break away from that? How can baseball become more digestible? Well, I don’t never thought of it as digestible, but okay, I’ll go with that. I I think there’s two things. There’s there’s baseball has a couple of institutional things that are that hamper it. One is the length of the season. Yeah. And I have to say, you know, it’s 162 games. Um, and it seems to go on forever. And now, you know, the the the World Series will end in either the last day of October or the beginning of November. And it has endless inventory, numbers of games and seats. So, it’s easy to fill an NFL stadium even with 80,000 seats once a week. Right. Once every other week, cuz you don’t play at home all the time, right? Um, baseball has a bigger challenge. And it it also has lost the attention, as you pointed out, of of kids. You know, now the thought that you were like a little kid in the 80s is sort of daunting to me, but okay. It’s all right. It’s all right. I forgive you. Um, I like these little young boys. They’re so cute. Um, anyway, so u uh you know, one of the things they need to do desperately is build a new fan base by showing how exciting the game really can be. MLB took some really big steps, big for them. Yeah. the pitch clock that they put in in 2023 where you know the Alzheimer’s were going, “Oh no, you you know it’s got to be timeless. Baseball’s always been timeless. Baseball had become endless.” And so they have hastened the game and the pace of play is better and you’re home at a reasonable hour or even a kid could stay up to watch it for mo to most of a or most of it for a reasonable hour. But they still have lost a whole generation of fans. the one you’re talking about, your generation. Yep. So, my my first solution is, and no one owners are going to like this, but you know, I’m commissioner for the people, right? Um, let all kids accompanied by an adult age 10 and under in for free to every Major League Baseball game. Every Major League Baseball game. How does that work from a from a from a business sense, a sense, and a logistics sense? Like, you’re serious about this. How does it actually go? And of all my ideas, you know, some of which have been derided, you know, widely, which is okay. Um, I’m trying to be provocative. Um, you know, this is the one that everybody likes the most. Um, there you you turn on any ball game with the exception of last night’s Yankee Red Sox game or any of the playoff games and there are swaths of empty seats, right? It’s not a good look, right? you know, so okay, so maybe not every game they, you know, as it is, they they hold back certain games they call premium, which it usually means when the Yankees come to town, but um there are empty seats and, you know, and an audience that needs to be built. a friend of mine who’s an economist um specializing in sports, particularly baseball, uh who’s a professor at the University of Wisconsin Lacrosse, took Cubs menu numbers for me um in 2023. I I should have had him update them last year, but anyway, um they’re they’re not that different. It’s just gotten more expensive. Um, if you took a kid, a 10-year-old, and bought him a hot dog, small kidsiz hot dog, not the jumbo, you know, um, and a small soda and maybe Cracker Jacks and even a a youthsiz cap, it would have cost the Cubs in 2023 $4 million. Now, that’s not bupus to me. Right. Right. But it is buckus to every one of the 30 major league owners, even those who refused to spend money on players. And that same year, the Cubs spent $31 million paying Jason Hayward to play for the Dodgers. So, I don’t want to hear that they don’t have the money. And even if it costs them a little bit, it’s a 12 billion industry. It’s also marketing, though. I mean, how much do they spend on commercials and promos and putting themselves out there? $4 million to bring it like not even advertising to fans to literally get them in. And Jane, I think you you might be missing something, too. If if you’re spending a little bit on the kid, that’s cool. Isn’t mom or dad or the parent also buying a ticket, paying for parking, buying merch for themselves? Like, aren’t you drumming up more business that way, too? And and interest. Yes. Exactly. And I would even, you know, we know all know that baseball’s gotten crazy expensive. Yes. Um, and most people can’t afford it. If you’re a a a lower class earning family, whether you’re white, black, Hispanic, I don’t care what you are, you know, it’s damn hard to afford to take a family of four to a game. You know, a beer is $18, right? Yeah. I mean, God knows a margarita is way worse, but um but um so I would have a section at at those games where you first come, first serve. Everybody gets in free in that section and gets food for free. That is a that is a direct steal from the Savannah Bananas who used that technique to build the crazy audience they now have. Do you think Major League Baseball should ever try and associate with the bananas? Try and buy in the bananas, put them under their umbrella. I know that that’s not something that the Savannah Bananas Savannah Bananas want to do. They they’ve vehemently said we are our own thing. No chance, but like baseball has to see that somebody else is having a lot of success with their game, their sport, and baseball to that to that degree is not. Well, Jesse Cole, who created Savannah Bananas, who who found himself as an assistant coach in the Cape Cod League, which is where this book begins and ends, um, sitting on a bench in a town called Katouit. And he said, “I was sitting on the bench in Couit and I was bored. I was bored watching baseball.” And to which I said, Jesse, everybody’s bored in Couit. It’s not a place you That’s not baseball. That’s where you’re at. That’s Kou It. But um you know he saw something that Major League Baseball either didn’t see or didn’t want to admit that they had lost the affection of the American sporting public at exactly the time where the appetite for sporting events and entertainment had grown so diverse um so that people had so many choices. It wasn’t just baseball in the summer anymore. Um, and he realized, I actually said this, you know who Morgan Sword is? I don’t actually. Okay. Morgan Sword is the executive vice president um, in charge of everything that happens on the baseball diamond for MLB. Okay. And I came I’ve talked to him a lot and he was incredibly helpful and thoughtful. And I came back from a game at a minor league ballpark, Polar Park in Worcester and I said, “You know what?” He said, “Well, what have you learned?” I said, “I learned that people really want to love baseball, but they want to be loved back.” And he said, “Pause for a second.” He said, “Who wrote that? Who said that?” I said, “I said that?” He said, “What are you, a writer?” And I went, “Yes.” Yeah. Yeah. All right. You can quote me on it. It’s my quote. This is what Jesse recognized. And um you know, baseball addressed the pace of game. tourists will still say, you know, that they cut too much out da da da. And some of the other ideas for making it even tighter in experience, you know, um are to them, no. Um I’m not um somebody called me a kmagin because of this book and I went no like I’m all for changing stuff. It’s the difference between changing it methodically, right, thoughtfully, or just letting it happen to you, which is what baseball did. It says here, I know how to fix it. You’re not only bringing up the problem, you’re not complaining. Like, you’ve got solutions here. That’s the whole point. Yeah. I know what’s wrong and I also know what’s right. Yeah. And um so, what was I saying? What were we were talking Well, I want to stick on loving the fans for a second. Baseball doesn’t maybe love the fans. So, it’s one of my biggest criticisms of Rob Manfred as commissioner. And by the way, if you’re going to be commissioner, I’m I’m glad to know that that you’re you’re mindful of the fans. I’ll give you I’ll give you a situation. The Oakland A’s depart after 57 years. And we can talk about the ownership of the A’s. We can talk about the city of Oakland. We can talk about all the things that that didn’t happen to make that connection continue. But the fans are the ones who are burdened with for the rest of their lives. They don’t know what to do with their A’s hat anymore from around here in Northern California. Like baseball has literally turned a shoulder on millions and millions of A’s fans. And I know people will say, “Well, there’s not that many anyway. Have you seen attendance?” They decided strategically to stop coming because of the way things were going and how poorly they were they were treated. How are A’s fans supposed to feel in all of this? And what’s your perspective from the other coast on this situation? I think it’s atrocious and and Manfred actually waved fees that you usually have to pay in order to move from one city to another. So they were greasing the skins. They wanted baseball out of Oakland. And you know those low statistics of how you know 9,000 per game which is basically nine or 10 a year uh at each game has been uh routine the last couple of years in Oakland. You know to show up at that crappy stadium that had been left to in disrepair. That’s a that is love. That is that is 9,000 straight up love. And there wasn’t a better fan base, a more fervent fan base who would have turned out, you know, in droves if given a chance to go someplace that wasn’t a dump. And I don’t know John Fischer. I I knew the guys who owned the team before, you know, who really cared about it. Um, you know, he’s a wealthy man like so many of the others um in in baseball. uh it took money uh from the collective um bargaining agreement luxury tax system, never spent it on players. One of the reasons that they started buying some people this year, and I hate to put it that way, but it’s what they do, is because they were going to be threatened with grievances that have been pending for years. Absolutely. So, um you know, a lot of the owners these days don’t get into it because they love baseball. You know, in the past there were family teams were familyowned. And I’m not saying that they were not baronss of business or that they treated baseball players, you know, fairly in the years before Marvin Miller came along and, you know, formed a baseball players union, but they really cared about sport. And you have that less and less. How do you explain Bob nutting in Pittsburgh? It’s it’s a it’s a difficult one right now. and especially coming off a bad season and saying we’re going to stay the course on payroll and front office. You could say you want to win, but you have to implement change. And actually, I’m I’m glad you brought up the Pirates, Jane. There’s this other conversation around baseball and and the key buzzword here is competitive balance, but really it’s competitive imbalance. I’ll simplify it like this. You’ve got a lot of teams that are trying, at least they’re spending and trying, and it could be the Yankees or Padres’s or Mets or Dodgers, whoever else. Then you’ve got a lot of teams at the bottom who are not paying. The Athletics, um, the Pirates, several others, but it also feels like there’s a bunch of teams in the middle where you can’t tell if they’re even trying or not. It’s almost like they just want seasons to go on so that their team valuation increases, the owner gets a little bit richer, and nobody ever tries to actually, you know, win baseball games. How do you see competitive imbalance? Do we need a salary cap, like a hard cap? Do we need a salary floor? What do we need to do? Um, again, you’re dead on right. Um, Roy Eisenhart, who ran the A’s for his father-in-law, Wally Hos, when they were at their height in the 80s and, you know, with the Bash Brothers and and all those good guys um said to me because he now teaches law, sports law at the University of San Francisco. Um, you know, that’s the problem. Basic you by April you know that half the teams are done they’re just done and so how is that a way to cause somebody to tune in what are you giving them you know a reason why what reason are you giving them to come to the ballpark and the answer is not many in Pittsburgh it’s Paul skins and you know and pray they don’t trade him yet right you know sell high he he’ll be a Yankee or a Dodger is what on and I’m I’m not saying that out of enjoyment. That’s what most fans are already projecting. I saw Yankees jerseys and they don’t they don’t do names, but somebody put a sk name on on the back of a Yankee jersey already. Anyway, sorry. So, no. So, you know, they’ve got an intractable problem. the the the free agent system that was created by Marvin Miller for the major league ba baseball players um players association um you know it not only made the players rich, it made baseball rich and it and it made other players in other sports rich and it it has worked incredibly successfully particularly now for the players at the top. the amount of money that is, you know, the way it’s allocated, it’s a 12 billion dollar industry these these days, um, what I call, you know, wealthy but not healthy and not healthy for exactly the reason you’re saying. So, I went looking and searching for ideas, um, and I asked my friendly economist for an idea and he came up with one that’s basically a hard cap. Well, I don’t think the union’s ever going to accept it. I mean, you know, Bryce Harper, you know, hit them upside the head again, right? Um, as he as he greeted Manfred in the Phillies locker room. Um, you know, another friend, Daniel Oakrint, great baseball writer who actually created Rotisserie League, which by the way is the reason for analytics. He’s the bastard you want to go. He meant he meant he meant well. It’s his fault. He came up with one that’s sort of a variation on the theme, but gives um the big in big teams, the Dodgers, the Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox, the teams with so much more income from television because they have uh packages that pay them, in the Dodgers case, $ 8.3 billion over 25 years. Compare that to the Kansas City Royals who were making 40 to 45 million a year. So, it’s just like not fair, right? Yeah. So, he came up with a system that is similar to what my economist did, but rewards the big franchises with bigger shares of the whole pool of money to compensate them for, you know, what they invested because it costs them more to buy a team, right? Um, you know, and I talked to Roy Eisenhardt about it a lot who said, “Gee, I thought they would have solved this years ago. It’s like, you know, a married couple that’s been fighting over who picks up the socks off the floor for 30 years.” I say it’s actually more like Edward Albi characters, George and Martha, you know, and and who’s afraid of Virginia Wolf screaming at each other. So, I would institute here’s what I would do at least to start because I think if you don’t call it a cap, you got a prayer of doing something. You have to have a salary floor. Mhm. And you can achieve a salary floor of 100 million or 120 million, which would be respectable compared to some of these guys, um, by increasing the luxury taxes and attaching to those luxury taxes real penalties if you don’t spend that money, which a lot of them have just pocketed it. Okay, you lose draft choices one year, you lose five guys off your 40man roster the next year, right? I mean, there three strikes and real penalties. Real penalties because not spending it is it’s stealing. Let’s put let’s call it what it is. It’s stealing. And it’s another reason why every time this subject comes up, the players union and the players understandably don’t trust anything ownership wants or proposes. It is it it is so institutionally baked in that you can’t trust them. And when they’re doing stuff like that, yeah, who blames them, right? Well, I hate to say it, but if we make you commissioner, Jane, like right now, you’d be facing almost an inevitable lockout, I think, in in the 2027 season. Um, I’m not not if I’m Commissioner, you would save us. You would stop it. The one thing that Manfred did this, I mean, you know, a lot of this is not his fault. This took generations to develop. So, let me be clear about that. Um, but to go to spring training, uh, or it was actually at the mid January and to say, you know, you really better expect a a lockout December 2nd, 2026 because, you know, um, it’s actually the new norm and it’s kind of good because it’s like using a 22 rather than a nuclear weapon. How in God’s name is that a way to say to fans, we want you to come to the ballpark, right? in a ballpark. Get involved with the with the sport, you know, learn to love it and to understand it and to love a team and a player. And them, by the way, will lock you out, too, because they’re not just locking the players out. They’re locking the fans out. And so, that’s one thing I wouldn’t do. I’ I’ve yet to run across anybody who says, “Oh, no, that’s not going to happen. They’ll figure it out.” And I guess I’m going to add your expertise into this and say you probably agree it’s going to happen to some to some to some length or duration. I’m afraid so. And you know the and it’s not just an imbalance between teams, but um the the minimum salary in baseball is much lower than it is in the NBA and the NFL. And there was a big, you know, chasm between what the richest players wanted uh last time around and what some of the younger guys who were getting the minimum. The minimum I think was 760 either last year or this year. Um and I’m again I’m not insensitive to the fact that a lot of people work really hard to make $70,000 a year. So that sounds pretty good. But in a 12 billion industry, it should be better. if there’s got to be a better way, a fairer way to share it. Jane, as I told you before, I literally just got the book. It it recently came out within the last month or so. Yes. So, I I’m going to give this the full dive. I’ve cherrypicked a little bit. You mentioned the free games for 10year-olds, 10 10 or or younger, right, at Major League Baseball games. Is there any one other thing that you could either sell me on or tease me on here real quick before I dive into this book and for anybody else who may want to pick this up? Yeah, there’s a lot of things. Um, but let me start with this. Um, if you want kids to have purchase on the game, which is what you want, right? Got to get them down there to feel what the grass feels like and what the dirt feels like. How many years has it been that baseball has invited the children of season ticket holders to come run the bases? No. Everybody gets to run the bases. Not all at one time, but after every game. What’s it going to kill those grand grounds keepers to wait a little bit, right? You think they’re size six PF flyers going to wreck it? I mean, no. So, that’s that’s one thing. For which reason, I would change how there were commercials. Instead of doing the two minute and 15 seconds every half inning, it would be we go back to the 95 it used to be. Um, but have longer periods of breaks between the 3rd and the fourth and the sixth and the seventh where you could do some of those goofy banana things, right? Calling attention to themselves and the, you know, let the babies crawl on the baseline in their diapers. I love that. Let a kid run with the presidents or the sausages or whoever they are on the outfield track. And it was there was a thing I saw at a bananas game where at a party animal, you know, those are the guys in pink and they’re really buff and it’s not all familyfriendly. You know, somebody told me the other day, I mean, the party animals don’t keep their shirts on, right? And they are all really, really cheesecakey. And apparently it’s very popular now for bachelorette parties to go and Oh, okay. This guy goes into the stands and he sits down next to this little boy and the kid is like, “Whoa.” Now he’s young enough. He doesn’t know the difference between a pink party animal and a, you know, pinstriped Yankee. All he knows is this is a baseball player. And he came over and sat down next to me. And the next thing he does is he hands this kid a pen and he says, “Would you sign my jersey?” Wow. Now, the bananas do that. from a distance. I didn’t understand this at first. At a distance, a lot of their uniforms look dingy like you know your mother’s laundry if she wasn’t paying attention. Um and uh but they do this and think about the difference that that says you know you’re important to me and that’s the thing that baseball really needs to work on. Other thing I had a grandfather whom I never met. He died fairly young who was a bookie and a rum runner. So I come from very good stock. Right. All right. All right. And and he serviced uh the polo grounds. Um for which reason my father uh long dead now was the water boy for the New York football Giants in 1927. Wow. A lot of people think other things happened in 1927, but in my family, Morty, little Morty was the water boy. Okay. Um, I hate the gambling. I understand why it was inevitable. It is a really bad look for an industry to spend a a century saying we’re the sport that doesn’t do gambling and then whoops, now there’s money to be made, so we’re going to change on a dime. Um, and I think the real PR hit. So just imagine if they called a press conference and said, “You know what? We now have this extra revenue stream and it’s and it’s not a it’s not small change, right? So we’re going to take in my in my wildest dreams all of it. Okay, let’s take we’re going to take half of it and we’re going to establish major league baseball trainingmies in every major league city where there is currently not one. There are six now with equivalent facilities, coaching and uh um and opportunities that they that they provide in the Dominican Republic for the players who are now basically Latin American now about 30% of all major leaguers. Let’s find a way to repair the fact that they’ve allowed the amount of black American major leaguers to dwindle from near 20% to 6%. Never forget why you wear your hat backwards. It’s not cuz Babe Ruth did it. It’s not because, you know, uh, Randy Johnson did it. It’s because Ken Griffy Jr., who was everything, did it. And when baseball lost its black core, um, one, it lost some credibility cuz you could celebrate Jackie Robinson every April 15th if you want, but what are you really doing? Um, they’ve started, you know, to to make efforts. I applaud them for it. It’s not enough. It’s all about the money. Makemies in each city. let inner city American kids learn the game as well as kids outside uh outside the country. You know, it’s amazing. You started off by pointing out one flaw of baseball, but it expanded into so many other areas and regions like this is not just a surface level problem. There are so many things that are deeply entrenched like in this game, in this sport, in the culture of baseball. And so, Jane, that’s why I’m glad you’re addressing this. I’m glad there’s a book on this. I hope everybody checks it out. I can’t wait to to give it a full dive, but thanks for even talking about this stuff. Um, my pleasure. We know it’s out there, but it’s sometimes like it needs the conversation, too. So, you you brought up the pitching, right? And and it’s the one thing we haven’t touched on. Anybody who watched the Yankees Red Sox game last night saw something that is so rare now in baseball, a young stud hurler being allowed to pitch his game. Cam Schlitler careful. Yeah. Uh pitched eight shutout innings um striking out 12 for the New York Yankees. And it’s at one point the ESPN guys, I can’t remember whether it was Buster Ol said, you know, when he came back out of the dugout when Aaron Boon, the Yankee manager, allowed him to come back out for the eighth inning because people thought he was done after seven because oh my god, somebody went seven innings. The average number of innings that a starting pitcher goes now because of analytics is 02, right? So for somebody to be given that kind of, you know, they call it a leash. I mean, I call it freedom, you know, to to show how good you can be, right? Um, and he did. And so when he came out, the the reception from the from the stands, it was overwhelming. It wasn’t just because of the quality of what he was doing. It was because he was allowed to do it. Yeah. Uh, you know, and they’re tearing arms right and left. You know, now this is a kid who used to throw 93 in the minor leagues. And now suddenly, two years later, he’s throwing 98 100. He threw six 100 mph fast balls in the first inning. So immediately I’m thinking, did he go to drive line the um data driven test center where my book begins, right? He went to the Yankees gas station, which they call their pitching facility, which is totally up todate where which was designed by a drive line guy. So who knows how long his arm will hold up. Yeah. The fact that they haven’t figured out how to address it. Lowering the number of innings that guys are throwing isn’t doing it. If it was doing it, there wouldn’t have been 70 more guys needing Tommy John’s this year. But it’s not just unhealthy for those guys. Yes, a lot of them can come back. You know, let’s look at Otani who’s had two and has come back. I’ll be interested to see how many innings they let him go. Right. Um, but it’s unhealthy for the game because what did you used to want to go out to the ballpark for? Oh, a good matchup like two pitchers or pitcher batter and you know I want to I want to see Dave Stewart or Randy Johnson go a complete game maybe. Maybe you know you want to see a perfect game. I would love to see that. Yeah. You I was talking to Dave um uh Roberts the other day, well two weeks ago I guess in the in Baltimore when the Dodgers visited there and Otani substituted for Glass Now who was called called in sick that day. His back was hurting and he threw 11 11 100 mph pitches in three I think it was 3.2 innings, but don’t hold me to it. I have might have that wrong. Um and he was what we all say we want in a player. He was like, “Give me the ball, coach. Put me in, coach.” He’s that kind of guy. But there is an argument that he shouldn’t be pitching at all. I agree. Which Dave brought up and said, you know, you know, Barry Bond says he shouldn’t be pitching at all. You know, what happens if he goes for number three? It’s it’s the surgery is vastly improved. Um, but it isn’t just what they’re doing in the Max heaves in their starts or in their warm-ups. It’s what they’re doing as little kids there. It’s craziness what’s going on in Little League. There’s a guy from Driveline who runs their youth thing um who has a an ex account in which he, you know, about bad things that happened in Little League. Two kids. one kid who was allowed to stay in the game for I think it was two and a half two two innings and gave up 20 runs and you know I mean just throwing and throwing I mean why they they start abusing their arms early and that’s to baseball’s credit they’ve just instituted another rule which is to put some limitations on how many days a year scouts can look kids in showcases and tournaments because if there’s a scout, they’re going to show up. Yeah, Jane, you make so many great points. Man, Fred is on the way out eventually. So whether this was just a title or if it’s for real, I’m good either way. But thank you so much. Thank you so much for this conversation and I can’t wait to see uh you know your thoughts and ideas in your book at a lot more pub down the line. Thank you so much. Call me anytime. Thank you.

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Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It

“Make Jane Commissioner… Leavy has a voice demanding to be heard—and Major League Baseball should listen.”— THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

A New York Times bestselling biographer and lifelong baseball devotee takes readers on an epic journey through the game that baseball has become— a heartfelt manifesto that’s perfect for lovers of the sport.

Jane Leavy has always loved baseball. Her grandmother lived one long, loud foul ball away from Yankee Stadium—the same grandmother who took young Jane to Saks Fifth Avenue and bought her her first baseball glove. It’s no coincidence that Leavy was covering the game she loved for the Washington Post by the late 1970s. As a pioneering female sportswriter, she eventually turned her talent to books, penning three of the all-time best baseball biographies about three of the all-time best players: Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle, and Babe Ruth. But when she went searching for a fourth biographical subject, she realized that baseball had faltered. The Moneyball era of the last two decades obsessed over data and slowed the game down to a crawl, often at the expense of thrills, skills, and surprise. Major League Baseball has begun to address issues too long ignored, yet the questions linger: how much have these efforts helped to improve the game and reassert its place in American culture?

Leavy takes a whirlwind tour of the country seeking answers to these questions, talking with luminaries like Joe Torre, Dave Roberts, Jim Palmer, Dusty Baker, and more. What Leavy uncovers is not only what’s wrong with baseball—and how to fix it—but also what’s right with baseball, and how it illuminates characters, tells stories, and fires up the imagination of those who love it and everyone who could discover it anew.

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