Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 430: Dirk Hayhurst on Cheating, Beaning, and Clubhouse Race Relations

Episode Date: April 17, 2014

Ben and Russell talk to Dirk Hayhurst about doctoring baseballs, hitting batters, and the perceived effect of race on clubhouse chemistry.

She's the light, the sin that you love me. She's the light, the sin that you want me. Oh, what can I do? Good morning and welcome to episode 430 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectus presented by the BaseballReference.com Play Index. I am Ben Lindberg, joined today by the latest in a line of BP authors filling in for Sam Miller, Russell Carlton. Hello, Russell. Hello. We are also joined by an accomplished major league pitcher, broadcaster, writer.

You have hopefully- No, no, Ben, broadcaster, writer. You have hopefully... No, no, Ben, you already introduced me. Sorry, you've already read his trilogy about his time in the game, hopefully. The Bullpen Gospels and Out of My League, and most recently, Bigger Than the Game. You have seen his work on TBS or Sportsnet Canada. He is Dirk Hayhurst. Hey, Dirk. Hello, boys. So you have had a busy writing week. You've written some

things for Deadspin, some things for Bleacher Report, and we wanted to talk to you about those. So the first thing was sort of prompted by Michael Pineda and whatever he was using on his hand in his start against the Red Sox last week and all the controversy around that. And of course, you have been at the center of some similar controversy with other pitchers in the past. And you wrote a guide to doctoring the ball for deadspin, which is very, very thorough. I could not pitch in the major leagues, but I feel like if I could pitch, I could now cheat properly having read your piece. cheat properly having read your piece so can you take us through a little bit the various substances that are used or or what you used as as a major league pitcher well i'd love to uh first the the idea was kind of to create this diy cheating manual for the person who wants to put

crap on the ball and cheat and i i find it just ironic that last year around this time, Clay Buchholz was called out by me for putting stuff on the ball, and he was caught kind of rubbing from his forearm to put stuff on the ball. And when I noticed this, I hopped on Twitter and I shared my thoughts, and the immediate reaction was that dirk hayhurst should go straight to hell and die uh because what does he know and how dare he call out the red sox but then a year later you see michael pinata pitching against those red sox and it's so obvious that he was cheating but the red sox can't say anything about it because then

you start going down the rabbit hole of you've got guys on your own team, Red Sox, with Lester and Buchholz, that have been caught by the media at least doing it before. So that brings up a very interesting thing, I think, about baseball players is they just – there's so much hypocrisy on what constitutes cheating and what doesn't that if it's this acceptable form where well our guys are doing it so just because one of their guys isn't as good at it as our guys are we can't call them out because they'll call us out and then you know like there's there's honor among thieves in baseball i guess at least when it comes to doctoring the ball but ways to doctor the ball now that it seems to be this kind of like publicly accepted everybody does it at least according to some of the guys on the red socks of there's gripping agents it's kind of the most common thing that you would use if you got on the mound would be a gripping agent this is pine

tar or firm grip or rosman sunscreen um it's those kind of things that you would take out there with you some guys even use shaving cream although I don't really recommend shaving cream. It's one of those things that you get it on your hand and it fools you into thinking you've got some tackiness to your hand, but not really. Once you start talking about the kind of torque that's going to be on your fingers when you release the ball, shaving cream isn't going to hold up. It's just going to make it feel sticky in your hand. But what you need is something that gives you that extra grip at the point of release

where the ball snaps out of your fingers. That's when you're going to get those heightened revolutions on the ball if you've got good grip. So in order to do that, you need something like pine tar. Rosin and sunscreen actually makes a hell of a good gripping agent. You combine the two with sweat. The sweat kind of dilutes it, and then you can kind of mix it to your desire when you're on the mound, and you can do that right in the middle of a game. And then there's a substance called firm grip. And firm grip's kind of, I don't know, I think people don't really realize it

exists. If you're in football, you probably know it better. But firm grip actually reacts to abrasion. And the more pressure and the more friction you can put on it, the more it grips. So it's actually one of the best things you can use when you're pitching. And if you rub it into your jersey or into your hat, it kind of looks like dirty sweat anyways. So it blends in a lot more effortlessly. It's just not as ubiquitous as something like a pine tar. Dirk, I am shocked, shocked to find out that there's cheating going on here. But what I've always wondered when I read your article, and I've read some stuff in the past, do you guys just sit around and experiment with, you know, I wonder

what would happen if I put a little pine tar on it. Is this something that on the lighter moments of the road you're kind of sitting around talking about, oh, I use this or passing along recipes or things like that? Yes, we just sit with our grinding bowl and our pestle and we just grind stuff in together and we mix up potions to cheat with. Alchemy is a big pastime of most major players. We'll talk about it more often. It's funny how it kind of works out. I really don't know the origin of shaving cream. Who thought we should put shaving cream in the bullpen candy bag so the guys can put shaving cream on their hands while they pitch? Everything else seems to make

sense. Batters use pine tar. It helps you grip the bat. So obviously it's going to help you grip the ball. But for as much thought goes into a shaving cream, where is the thinking when you start putting pine tar obviously on the top of your hat on the mound, which is a huge violation of rules, but nobody ever calls them on it. I don't on it. I

don't get it. It seems like so much thought goes into where you will place something like a Vaseline, but no thought goes into something like a pine tar. You just accidentally stored your hat in the same bag that you store pine tar and that's your explanation. My hand was dirty. Everything else about me is immaculately clean as a Yankee. That's Michael Pineda's excuse for why he had pine tar practically all over his hands. It was just dirt. Everything else is pristinely clean. I'm clean-shaven. We're looked over before we take the field, but my hands are just filthy dirty. That's my excuse. It's so cliche. I just don't want to say to you, I know baseball players and they're stupid enough to think this would work and that'd be an okay explanation. I want to get to the

psychological root of it. Unfortunately, I'm forced to tell you I know baseball players and they're stupid enough to believe this stuff is acceptable. As long as no one's going to call them on it, I guess it is. You said that this is a universal or near universal practice, and yet it only really flares up and becomes a public issue and takes over Twitter maybe a few times per season. Does that mean that when we notice a pitcher has done something indiscreet, has applied something improperly, in effect, if we if we can see it does that mean that he has gone about this in a way that that he should not have it basically just means he's bad at cheating right uh it doesn't mean that no like he's the only guy doing it it just means that that guy is bad at it and it's pretty like very uh lazily cheated, you know. And that's really what bothers me about the whole thing. And, like, baseball's full of hypocrisy, right?

I mean, it's, 20 years ago, steroids were, like, everybody was doing it, and the long ball was starting to save the game. And now it's this incredible evil. It's almost as if Bud Seely created a disease just so he could cure it. You know, I mean, you could argue that narrative. But, you know, things come and go and people get upset about one thing and they're not upset about the other thing. You know, it's like Ty Cobb being one of the most celebrated players in baseball history. He was also one of

the most vile human beings in the world. Nobody remembers that, but now we can't stand Barry Bonds. He's a horrible human being. He should never be allowed in the hall of fame. He never did anything as bad as Ty Cobb, but we don't talk about that anymore so you know last year it was nobody was cheating clay buckholz wasn't cheating and i should be quiet and this year everybody's doing it's just accepted we should just all get over it oh but steroids are bad no one should ever do those that's cheating like it's so hit or miss it's such a social climate issue but to get back to the root of it, I mean, you noticed Pineda doing it. You brought attention to it, you, and rhetorically, you, public. And you were right for doing that.

And you challenged baseball, which needs to be challenged because there's a lot of glaring errors out there in its thought process. And if you're going to say that doing steroids is bad and you have to spend millions of dollars to track down leads and find guys that you suspect are cheating, then you kind of have to find guys who are doing it right in front of you and violating the rules. Do you not? I don't understand that. Dirk, you mentioned that one of the things that kind of the cardinal sin is kind of being too obvious about things. Now, other than that, is there anything where, you know, even if someone's, you know, it's just you're on the privacy of, you know, the hotel or the dugout when no one's there. Is there anything where you would look at somebody else on your own team and say, no, no, that's too far.

You just can't you just can't do that. own team and say, no, no, that's too far. You just can't, you just can't do that. You know, it's funny. It's a baseball players are kind of, um, see no evil, hear no evil, you know, speak no evil. It's, it's, it's like a Ryan Braun could very well have been caught with a syringe in his ass, honestly. And a lot of players wouldn't have said anything about it. Wouldn't have turned them in. Wouldn't have turned him in. Wouldn't have been upset. They might say something to him like, man, that's shady. You should stop doing that. But the kind of code of the locker room is that you won't turn a guy in. You know, I knew guys that I played with who, like they would put pine tar on their hands all

the time. That's always what they did. We would never say anything about it. I mean, it got to the point where one day the pine tar had been left on the bus and the bus reached this ungodly temperature in the desert sun and so when he went to squirt the pine tar in his hands it like gushed out in a river and he got it everywhere and it was hilarious you know he couldn't touch anything you know it was like that american pie episode where the guy gets his hand glued to his private. This is a not explicit show there. We don't got an explicit tag. But yeah, it's just one of those instances where we wouldn't say anything about that. And you catch guys doing stuff they shouldn't.

I mean, guys will cheat on their wives and we'll know about it. And nobody will say anything about it. It's a very silent culture and i think it goes back to the fact that baseball from the very beginning of it you know you come into the game and it's about you it's not about the guy next to you you're not there to help that guy yes you're on a team but at the end of the day you're still fighting for a limited amount of spots at the top and once you get to the top it's so ingrained in you that really all that matters is that you survive and that you win so that everybody can benefit from winning as a team individually you'll turn a blind eye until the powers that be catch somebody and that i think

is one of the biggest hypocrisies of the game it's like you know ryan braun i guarantee you there were guys that knew he was cheating just like i guarantee you there were guys that knew he was cheating. Just like I guarantee you there were guys that knew A-Rod was cheating or Bonds was cheating or whoever. I mean, you're packed in with these guys for such a long time. You know what's going on. You have a pretty darn good idea, but you're not going to tell anybody because you don't feel like that's your place and you don't do that to your teammates. And that is a really soft, weak argument, but it's one that ballplayers will live and die on. You mentioned in the piece that there's this distinction among players between lube or Vaseline and other substances because lube can sort of give you a pitch that you didn't have, whereas, you know, some sort of gripping agent, I guess, just gives you the best possible version of a pitch that you already possess. Is that, do you see that as a legitimate distinction, or is it sort of a false one? And I wonder, because, you know, it reminds me sort of of players who will say, well, I, you know,

I just took this substance to come back from an injury. You know, I was just trying to get back to the player I already was and drawing a distinction between that and taking something that can, you know, make you a player that you were not before, even when you were healthy. So do you see any, any distinction between sort of, you know, just being the best possible version of the player that, you know, genetics made you and, you know, and doing something that kind of allows you to go above and beyond that? Well, first, I think that a gripping agent really does make all your other pitches better. You have to have them first. I mean, some kind of form of them. But if you can learn how to use the gripping agent on the ball to get better revolutions on the ball, you're going to get tighter spin. You're going to get sharper

break. You're going to get later action. And that makes all of your pitches better. Remember, it's not the amount of movement that screws a batter up. They can track a hanging curveball or a slow looping slider. They'll hit that. But if they can't figure out what it is until the last second when it darts away, they can't make the adjustment, and so they fail. So in that sense, the pitcher is taking what he has already. He's making it better. Of course, I mean, it's not going to be like a massive amount better, but it'll be I got an edge on you better, and that's enough. Whereas the lube, if you know how to use lube and throw a spitter, instantaneously you've got the best splitter in baseball with a spitter or a spitball.

So it takes some time to master lube. I mean, I've tried it. Every pitcher has tried to do it. I mean, we're all fascinated with being able to cheat out there, mostly because putting something on the ball has kind of had this glory placed in it because you've got Gaylord Perry and some other greats who have used it. And it's become kind of this iconic anti-hero thing that you do. And it makes you quasi-famous if you can get away with it for a long period of time. And it gives you a great pitch if you can master it. Not a lot of people can, but if you could, instantaneously better. Steroids, I think there's just such a range of what can actually happen to

your body depending on what substance you use. It's hard for me to quantify if I took steroids, am I suddenly a great baseball player when I wasn't before? No, I don't think so because I think you still have to have a tremendous amount of skill to play at the major league level. You just do. I mean, it's not like you can just give a guy playing tuba in some high school band an assload of steroids, and the next thing you know, this guy's hitting 700 home runs

in the major leagues. Probably not going to happen. They don't just give you baseball talent. And my apologies to anyone who plays tuba in the band and is very offended by those comments, but hyperbole, you're welcome. I'll send you a gift basket. But I do think that the comment that I want to be the best version of myself is fair with steroids, because I think that you do add a bit of distance to the balls you hit because of the increased strength. You do add a bit of muscle mass involved in generating torque down the mound.

You do feel quicker out of the box because your muscles heal faster or they recover faster or whatever. I mean, the physiological chemistry involved. Don't ask me to break it down. I can only give you what I've read. But I think when guys say they want to come back from injury, I think part of that is from the psychological standpoint, they want to feel healthy again. Those drugs, either psychosomatically or physiologically, make them feel healthier again and bring them back faster, whether true or not. I mean, there's science that's shown that steroids don't help you heal faster. And there is science that shows that some growth hormone and whatnot does help certain

parts of the body develop and recover. So I don't know which it is, but I do think there is no grounds to say that steroids make you an incredible player. They don't, but I do think they make you the best version of yourself. And if that's cheating, it's still cheating, even if you think that's what the fans deserve, if you're going to argue that way. That's not apparently what the fans want.

Dirk, at what age should I start teaching my kids how to doctor a ball? Oh, well, just like everything else, as early as you can. You know, that's when there's a sponge and they just suck up all that knowledge. My daughter is four. Should I teach her how to add a little something to the wiffle ball? Don't teach her. Just put some on one ball and none on the other and see what she gravitates towards

naturally. It has to be her decision. That's good parenting when they feel like it's their choice. And as a way to continue that question, is this something that was – when you were pitching in high school or when you were in college that you learned to do then or even back – even further into Little League that was going on? When did you first encounter doctoring a ball as something to do did you have a doctoring mentor of some sort doctor doctor right there really wasn't a lot of stuff to put on the ball when i was younger you know i didn't i didn't grow up in like um a shantytown but I didn't grow up in a shanty town, but I didn't grow up in a high-profile environment where we had all these kind of chemicals around to test theories with.

I didn't really start putting anything on my hat or on the ball until I hit minor league ball and I started seeing other guys doing it. And I thought it might be something that would separate me. And then you'd even have coaches in the minor leagues that would tell you to do it and I thought it might be something that would separate me you know and then you'd even have coaches in the minor leagues that would tell you to do it I mean I remember playing for the Rays this is my last year in organized ball and I remember the coordinator out there uh just walking over to me and going do you know how to throw a scuffed ball I mean me like no and him saying you want to learn like hell yeah I want to learn how to throw a scuffed ball so he takes a ball over and he scuffs it on like a side of concrete and the next thing i know i get this mariona rivera

style cutter was awesome you know i must have i must have thrown it i'm just recovering from arm surgery but i'm out there just throwing this like a kid in the backyard like it was a wonderland experience for me and i was i'd be damned if i didn't want to use it. Look at the immediate results you got from that scuffed ball. You had to know where to put it on the ball and how to use it, but once you did, wow, it was awesome. It was incredible. You can hear people talk about the merit of it. You can go out there and experiment with it, but at some point, you do need someone, especially for the more advanced stuff like ball scuffing or spitball throwing, you need someone who's done it before successfully to try and show you the ropes on how to do it yourself. But with that comes the responsibility of also teaching you how to not get caught.

Someday we'll discover that Mariano Rivera was just the best ball scuffer in baseball. That was his secret the whole time. What if you did? What if you did? Would it all of a sudden change your entire opinion of him, and would you think he didn't belong in the Hall of Fame anymore, or would you still love him? There would be some hot takes on that.

Last question on this topic. So right now we have this situation where we have a practice that's prohibited but it's an open secret that everyone does it and now and then it flares up and becomes a controversy is this you know should we go on in this way where it's just kind of winked at or is the solution either to crack down and really enforce these rules or to just legalize them and say you know it's all fair game and hitters can use pine tar and now pitchers can use it too? Well, I don't think that the answer is to say do whatever you want out there because then people will bring belt sanders out there and they'll grind the ball down into Pac-Man shaped devices. And just I don't think that's the answer. But I do think the rules should be

changed i think it should be you know if baseball agrees that steroids should be outlawed well then obviously baseball agrees that doctoring the ball should be legalized at least in some capacity um the best hitters in the game are saying it's no big deal we've went up against this for years so why not just make that official in the rules? I'm not saying that you need to change the rules to say that like pine tar, Vagisil, Bardol, Jalapeno, all that stuff, Crisco, now legal. You can use any of this on the mound as long as you bring the can out there to get approved by the umpire before you put it on the ball.

I'm not saying that. But I am saying that say that substances on hats or whatever is legal as long as it's the ball. I'm not saying that, but I am saying that, you know, say that substances on hats or whatever is legal, as long as it's the following substance, even if it's a light change, just use it as a springboard to start enforcing it to say, Hey, we made it official. We're going to enforce it now because I think the real problem isn't so much that guys are doing it. It's that everybody's just accepted it, including the umpires and baseball, and everyone's now afraid to be the first guy to call someone out on it. To pivot from written rules that are not observed to unwritten rules that are observed

very closely, you wrote something for Bleacher Report about the grudge and payback culture in baseball and how pitchers are often called upon to hit batters. And my question from this is, you know, it can be confusing to those of us who have not played a game at the high level to keep track of all the things that are prohibited by some sort of honor code. And my question from reading your piece is how much confusion there is among players about these things. Because you tell a story about hitting Hanley Ramirez completely unintentionally, but Hanley was convinced that it was completely intentionally. And so I wonder, you know, how much misunderstanding is there even among players who have played the game at a high level and have internalized these codes to some degree? Well, it really comes down to how much of a douchebag is the guy you want to hit.

Because if he's a major douchebag, then he doesn't really have to give you a lot of excuse. And if you do it by accident, you can just say you did it on purpose and people will like you. I wish that was false, but unfortunately it's true. There is very little confusion amongst the pack because most of the time the pack is out for blood. Teams will find reasons to hit somebody, and they'll do it. I think that some teams, the quote grittier teams, this means more to them. It's kind of, I don't know, it's kind of like a sacrifice or blood

sacrifice. They get all whooped up about it. They love it. And other teams think that this is just dumb and they don't want to do it because then they know one of their guys is going to get hit and it's a Hammurabi's code and an eye for an eye makes the whole world go on the disabled list. But I think that there is not so much confusion. It's just this kind of willful desire to be led into these them's fighting words scenario. Guys will get hit, and if you get hit as a hitter, and you believe that it was done on purpose, not because it actually was,

but because you think you're a superstar, and people are out to get you because you're such a superstar, your ego is going to then take an accident and turn it into a bloodbath. And that happens in pro sports a lot, where guys cannot look at just the chaotic nature of the game for what it is. They have to let their ego get in the way. And unfortunately, when it comes to hitting guys, it results in a lot of people getting hurt.

Would it ever enter your mind that if you're pitching against somebody, that you would alter the way that you would pitch because you didn't want to come inside to this guy because, oh, you know, make a little mistake and it hits him because it would, you'd figure all the, I would just start something and I don't want to, I don't want to get into that right now. I don't want to set that all up and this guy's kind of a douchebag or he's a hothead or whatever. Would that enter your mind while you're out there on the mound? You know it has it has definitely entered my mind uh there are guys that i throw inside on and they get they get obviously pissed off at you about it like this

you know the all the demonstrative shoulder slump and really bro really hands wide stuff you could come in here and those guys have usually been hit several times before. And they think that it happens to them on purpose. Like Gary Sheffield had famously done that. You know, like, why would you come in here? They get really mad about it. They're super competitive. It's part of their mojo in the moment. They go up there to kill, you know.

And it's a personal challenge against them. And they're on top of the plate because they want to take away that down and away corner from you. And so you have to throw them inside to get them off your dish. It's just part of the game. And accidents happen. And so you know that there are guys out there that will get fired up about that. Now, the great thing is, if this situation does happen to you, if you were ever on the mound and you found yourself, guys, if this ever happens, if you're on the mound, and

you find yourself pitching against somebody who gets really mad at you for throwing inside his team has probably seen this act from him a thousand times by now and they are tired of it and so if he does get hit unless it's unless it's one of those situations where you throw inside he has a big. You give him a return big fit. And then his team's going to back him because now it looks like you're trying to do it on purpose. They're probably not going to retaliate because they've seen him get all pissed off before and they're tired. So they're just going to let you drill him by accident. If it happens, it happens. At least he's on first base now. They don't have to listen to him whining at the plate anymore.

Is it possible for a player to opt out of this system to just say, you know, look, you don't have to protect me. I don't want to protect you. You know, I just want to go out there, do my own thing, you know, give my total effort, play as hard as I can, but don't want to get caught up in all this back and forth and meeting out justice. Is it possible to do that? Or do you just, you have to go along with this to some extent just to earn the respect of your teammates? You got to do it. Sorry. There is there's no getting out unfortunately. It's especially if you're a younger guy because the choice isn't probably your choice to make. There are times where you're like I'm going to

drill this guy and maybe an older guy will say no but once the powers that be have decided you will execute justice yeah you're kind of committed to the task it sucks but you will get called every kind of euphemism for being weak and sissified that a locker room can think of if you don't is there ever kind of a uh a moment where, you know, it's some sense we're all kind of acting like five-year-olds at this point, and rather than this actually accomplishing anything, you ever have that thought and you'd be like, oh, how did I get to this point? I think it's just I'm trying to rationalize what you just said to me. We're talking about baseball.

Well, you know, you're all you're throwing fits and you're and he hit me first. And and you get into all you get into all that sort of thing. And I, you know, I've I got three kids and I I used to work in a daycare center. And I anytime I see this sort of thing, I like oh boy if i were if only i were at work i could put them all in time out i get it but we're also talking about a sport where grown men refer to fat women as a medicinal item you know to bust slumps and where they wear their hats inside out or you know i mean it's because they think it's going to help them win i mean the the kind of preposterous false corollaries that corollaries that guys get into um yeah the the kind of group

maturity thing like we would be smarter if we just slowed down and talked about this as a collective whole of mature individuals that doesn't happen in sports that's why they get into this kind of scenario if the standard for that was set a long time ago, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. There are times where some guys definitely wish it would happen, but it rarely ever does. I can't explain why except guys, groups of athletes get together and the IQ goes down collectively. Is this something that you think people, fans, analysts, dispassionate people sitting on Twitter and watching these back and forths and criticizing them and saying it's immature,

should we do a better job of understanding that it's in some sense a product of the temperament and the drive that it takes to get to this level? That you can't get there unless you are somewhat aggressive and competitive and have a chip on your shoulder. And, you know, this is a league of players selected for that quality to some extent. So in that sense, it's not surprising that maybe when you put them all together under the lights with thousands and millions of people watching and millions of dollars at stake that these kinds of things flare up from time to time. Well, think about it this way.

If you walk into any major league locker room, 25% of the guys in that locker room are probably suffering from some kind of readily diagnosable psychological profile problem, ADHD, aggression issues, obsessive compulsion issues, anxiety and depression. And that is a low number. I mean, if you brought a psychologist in there, I wouldn't be surprised if the diagnosis went back to 50 percent. And talking to one. So, well, then we need to get you in there. But I mean, it would probably be much higher. And that's not that baseball makes people this way. It's just that performing at that level requires a certain personality type in order to get to that level, does it not?

I mean, as a psychologist, would you concur? Would you concur? Well, you mentioned the number 25%, and that's actually in line with kind of the national estimate of adults in general. About 25% have some sort of diagnosable condition at any time during the year. Wow. Okay. Well, this is cool since we have a psychologist on. So the amount of athletes, especially baseball players, diagnosed with ADHD is on the rise, and the abuse of ADHD drugs among athletes and prescription drugs is on the rise. Not to get into a totally different

tangent, but I think it just goes to show you that this hypothesis that the personality type of players does yield towards the more violent and aggressive side, I think it's pretty well supported. I mean, you have to be extremely competitive, driven, and possessive of some kind of psychological qualities that maybe in another profession would be seen as a hindrance. But in sports, where you need that extra energy, you must have that extra competitive nature, that extra drive, that extra obsession, it actually helps you. And so, yes, the likelihood that there will be more fights or this is a byproduct of just this institution that we call Major League Baseball. Yeah, I'd say that's a very fair hypothesis indeed. Well, one other thing

that you've recently written was on racial dividing lines in baseball clubhouses. And, you know, one of the things, you told a story about talking or sitting next to a scout, and he made a comment, something to the effect of, I've never seen a team with this many Latinos win something or something like to that effect. win in, or win something or something like to that effect. You know, you go on to say that there are, there is some racism in the game, and that's something that is still out there. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about, you know, your experience of how that plays out in a clubhouse or in an organization, And what are the factors that you've seen that will affect a clubhouse along those lines? Well, first, the scouts comment that there's too many Latinos on this team to win. It's hard to hear a comment like that and not take it at its immediate racist value right but in some ways i mean this guy being in his late 70s could very well have said i've never seen a group uh of players with this many of one cultural background when a team win together because they tend to stick to themselves and

not gel with the rest of the team and they become kind of us versus them on the same club because if you would have said that then everybody would have been everybody would have been like yeah actually that does make sense you have all these people that come in into a team sport but with very individual agendas and then there's a there's a language barrier and an education barrier and the whites feel like well we're doing it the right way because this is in our country and it's our sport but the latinos come in and they don't have the same education as the whites but they're also productive and they feel resented because they're in the big leagues without being at the same edge

operating at the same education threshold so then you have these things start to break down and guys start to form factions and indeed that is what happens when you are first drafted you come into the organization for the first time you realized hey i'm not just part of this team i'm here to beat these guys and i resent the fact that i'm here with a guy that can't speak the language. He can't write his own checks. He can't use an ATM. He has to have somebody from the organization hold his hand. They signed him for millions more than they signed me. And he acts like a, you know, like a prima donna out on the field. He, when he falls down after a foul ball, it's the end of the world. When he hits a home run, he pimps it in front of everybody.

That's the wrong way to play, and I resent him, and I resent people like him, and they just happen to be Latino, and so the stereotype lands, and the racism kind of blossoms from that. So I've never played with somebody who comes into the game and says, I hate blacks, I hate browns, I hate Latinos. That doesn't happen. What often happens is, I want to get to the top, I deserve it more, because I'm not being a hindrance, and I don't disbehave on the ball field according to the unwritten codes of baseball.

So therefore, when this guy moves up in front of me, this Latino guy, that's BS. And those guys don't know how to play the right way. And that's where the division starts to really happen. And that's why you will have scouts say, I've seen a lot of the game, and I've never seen a team with this many Latinos on it win. And so it's weird because it's very thought-provoking. On one hand, that sounds incredibly racist. But on the other hand, what came first? Was it the racism or the resentment of somebody else getting an opportunity that you don't think behaves the right way? You know, in ESPN, the magazine recently, there was a during their their season preview issue. They had a scale that was developed by some research psychologists who are experts in organizational dynamics.

some research psychologists who were experts in organizational dynamics. And one of the things that they put in their chemistry measure was something along the lines of how much of a mix there was in terms of race, ethnicity, and then also whether there would be players who were kind of on their own. They were the only member of whatever group that they had come up with. It sounds as though some of those things that you're talking about with that last question really dovetail into their definition of what chemistry is or how chemistry might operate and in some sort of measurable way. I'm wondering if when you – hopefully you did read that. But when you read that, if you thought, hey, that was – yeah, that they did a pretty good job or there's something that they're really missing. No, I haven't been able to read it. I got to glance over it in a cursory manner.

to glance over it uh in like an accursory manner but i'm always always shocked at how baseball thinks that other major corporations where teams and groups functioning together as a unit to be productive has nothing to say to them as if it's this complete island unto itself where all the rules are different that's nonsense it's always been nonsense it's it's this complete island unto itself where all the rules are different. That's nonsense. It's always been nonsense. It's been nonsense because you have coaches who come in to coach a team, and the only prerequisite to coach is that they once played baseball. It's not like they go on and they learn how to better deliver coaching methodology or they learn how to speak to a group or leadership training courses.

None of that stuff's ever considered. Oh, you played once? Oh, and you were good? Be a coach. It's a totally different part of the process. And so when you have millionaires coming together to work together for a common group and nobody ever sits down to talk about those big elephants in the room, hey, the white guys get pissed when the Latin guys have the stereo. I wonder why that is. Oh, they just don't like that silly reggaeton music. Wrong. No, it is much deeper than that. There's a lot of reasons why. It's just like, why was baseball so slow to adopt big data? But now it's all the rage. There's a lot of things that baseball is slow to pick up on. It's willfully slow to pick up on.

It's hard to sell stuff that you can't immediately quantify to baseball. It's been a problem for a long time, and the players are totally on board with that problem. And it does stuff like this, and it's going to keep doing it. Well, so my last question for you is, you know, how do you how would you recommend breaking down these barriers? Is it is it a matter of bringing in certain guys who have a reputation for being able to kind of go between groups and maybe have a background in one group but have have some commonalities with another? And is it important to to have that person who can sort of bring those, bring those people from different backgrounds together? Or is there some other way to do it? You know,

some other way to institute a policy or have team outings that force people to, to get to know each other a little bit. How does, how does that work? Well, it's, it's unfortunate.

I mean, you're always going to, let's just say this, as long as there's racism in the world, there will be racism in baseball. Baseball is not separate from what the world does. As long as there's racism in the world, there will be racism in baseball. Baseball is not separate from what the world does. As long as there's an educational gap, there will always be haves and have-nots. So I think that you're never going to get baseball free of that, but you could certainly help baseball.

This idea that there should be one guy who's kind of a mediary between the two parties, I don't know if I necessarily agree with that because then it just shows that there are two parties that need to be one guy who's kind of a mediary between the two parties. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that, because then it just shows that there are two parties that need to be mediated, and I think that might go the other way very easily. Make them two, like, you know, two in separate houses with the guy whose job it is to communicate the wishes of one to the other. They have to mix. In fact, I remember I played with, I think it was Benji Molina.

No, no, no, I'm I played with, I think it was Benji Molina. No, no, no. I'm sorry. Ogilvy. I played with Benji Ogilvy when I was in Eugene, Oregon, my first year in. And he would say, Mecla, Mecla, Mecla, all the time. And basically, it was just mix, mix, mix, mix. White guys, go hang out with the Latinos. Latinos, go hang out with the white guys.

You guys got to mix. Do it. And they would be like, no, I don't want to, but that's what has to happen. I think group functions and stuff like that, God's sakes, icebreakers, crazy stuff. I know it sounds like this is so not baseball, we're so tough, we don't do that crap, but if you did, if it was forced on you, there might be some benefit there even though you reject it. And the masculine mind likes to reject things that it doesn't immediately see the benefit of. So yeah, I think there's definitely some positives to be reaped from forcing the guys to mix

through outside baseball and even inside baseball functions. Following on from that, let's say that you have a guy either on the team or a coach or something like that who is, let's say, bilingual in English and Spanish and is able to kind of bridge that communication gap. So chemistry is wonderful, but then does it have an effect out on the field? I'm wondering what your take would be on that as to whether a guy like that who might be able to bridge some of these gaps that we're talking about, does then that have some sort of direct corollary on the field that at some point we might be good enough to be able to measure? Well, I think that chemistry for why teams fail is a great narrative device for lazy journalists. I hate to say that because it's incredibly hard to quantify. And teams that win are always granted, oh, such great chemistry. Yeah, because they're winning. You can love your neighbor when you're winning all the time. That's the goal of baseball. When you suck, it doesn't matter if you like the guy,

you hate being at the ball field because it sucks to lose. So I usually think that good chemistry is generated by winning and bad chemistry is generated by losing. And teams that get along when they're losing, that's nice. But at the end of the day, you still want to win. People are always going to look for that quantifiable element. I can't address the fact that having a guy that speaks both English and Spanish, we did. We had Rick Renneria for a couple

years in the minor leagues. And it was better to have him than not have him. But it was just a guy who could speak both languages. Really wasn't anything more than that. And it was great having a guy that could speak both languages. But he wasn't trying to make us one homogenous race of bilingual people that understood each other's customs and desires and education levels. That wasn't addressed. So I don't know that if you just had somebody there that could translate one side to the other, if it would necessarily make us all a well-oiled machine, and that would really be the measure, too. I mean, you might have incredible things happen thanks to some bilingual speakers. Some guys would make friendships for life.

Some guys might understand the other culture. I mean, the bigger picture stuff outside of the game would probably be helped. But at the end of the day, people would still say, well, they didn't win anymore, so mission fail. And that's unfortunate. Mm-hmm. All right. Well, we will link to all of the articles that we've discussed today

at Baseball Perspectives and in our Facebook group, and we encourage you to go check them out. Also encourage you to read Dirk's book if you enjoyed listening to him today. I mean, it's the same voice in print minus my voice, which is an improvement. So, you know, start out with the bullpen gospels, go through bigger than the game. And you can follow him on Twitter at the Garfus, where you can keep track of anything he does in print or on TV. So thanks, Dirk.

Thanks for giving us all this time. Boys, it was my pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity. All right. Please support our sponsor, Baseball Reference. Go to baseballreference.com. Subscribe to the Play Index using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. And we will be back with another show tomorrow. I'm the kind of person who, like when my editor sends stuff back to me, I want to punch the editor. It doesn't even matter what it is. Like if this was awesome, you're the best writer ever. What do you know? I just get mad.