The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 584 - Chris von der Ahe - Part 2

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine 1880's baseball owner Chris von der Ahe.  Tour Dates Redbubble Merch Sources   Squarespace Helix Sleep

You're listening to the Dull Up on the All Things Comedy Network. This is an American History podcast where each week I, Gareth Reynolds, read a story from American history to a guy who's so beautiful. Name Dave Anthony's dad. What? Who has no idea what the topic is going to be about and is alive living in Big Bear. What are you talking about? What do you mean?

You just said my dad is alive and living in Big Bear? Did I say that? Yeah. I said he's renting a cabin. No, no, you added that. Oh, okay. Yeah. No, your father passed away.

So whatever. What are you? Your father's gone. He's not with us. All right. Let's do the intro. Three, two, bingo. No, no, no, no, no.

There's a lot of stuff going on. There's a lot of stuff being dropped right now. Did your dad like Big Bear when he was living? No. He was sworn in in Tahoe as the president of the Nadesons of the Golden West, but you know that. That's one of the reasons you killed him. I didn't kill him.

He's alive. I mean, whatever. He passed away. You couldn't allow him to be in that powerful of a position. He passed away. And I will say he was a fantastic dad and man. And he continues to be that. This is the worst podcast I've ever done.

You messed with the intro. Now you found out your dad's still alive, living in Big Bear with a woman named Janice. Hit it. And called it, quote, his jam patch. Jam patch? I'm the fucking hippo guy. Steve, okay. My name's Gary.

My name's Gary. Wait. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to Tiggly Podcast. Okay. Now hit him with the puppy. You both present sick arguments. No, sleep down, hippo.

No, sleep down, hippo. Actually, partner. I don't like Gary. No. Nicely done, my friend. No, no. Roder, Roder in the car. What are you looking at?

I'm trying to see when this song ends, but the little thing isn't coming. When does the did it end? It's over. All right. We're back. Okay. On today's episode, we are going to pick up on the, come on, say something. Hi.

My name is David. And I'm Dave's dad. No, we're going to first say that we have shows coming up. That's right. We'll be live in San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, Boise, Salt Lake, Boulder, Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, the tour starts July 24th and it ends August 12th. Go to dolloppodcast.com for ticket links and information. And yeah.

Well, actually go watch my crowd work special on the All Things Comedy YouTube page. Or at this point, you can probably go to my website, garethrolls.com. Kong? Kong? Yep, garethrolls.com. Yeah. And click the link to go watch the crowd work special. It's arrogant.

That you started calling yourself. King of Kong. Derek. King Kong. Derek Reynolds. Derek Kong. Derek Reynolds.com. Derek Reynolds.com.

Kong. Guys, I keep getting it. I keep getting it. Kong. Kong. Also, if you want, you know, extra fun stuff, small ups and quizzes and other sorts of things. We have a Patreon.

Yep. We talk about the topics. Yeah. A week also. Yeah. We give and we give if you go to our Patreon. I think that's it. I don't think I have anything else to say to you or anybody else.

Yeah. Yeah. I just found out that this guy who does the sound for this podcast. There's a liar? Roots for a team in the town of St. Louis and he's never been to St. Louis. Yeah. And he just told us he didn't know the cardinal was a bird. He's a liar.

You're a liar. Goddamn liar. So we're in part two. The dollop is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Obviously, I hit the sleep part pretty hard, but that's because I hit the sleeping really hard on my Helix. Nice. Helix, if you're listening, Dave's crushing this ass.

Helix, of course, mattress situation for people who love to sleep on things. That's who we are. Yeah. We both have Helix mattresses. Yeah. I have the Helix Dusk Luxe. I have the King Dusk Luxe as well. What are you, firm?

What are you? What are you, firm? Medium. I think I'm medium. Yeah, I'm firm. I'm firm. It's great though. Oh, God.

Fantastic. I sleep so well on my Helix. The bed is amazing. The bed's amazing. It's online. Do you know anything about it? With people? I actually, what I like to do is get two of my friends, they come in the bed.

We put on nightcaps and we sleep like the Stooges. Go ahead. How do the Stooges sleep? So, Helix, what you do is you go to their website. You take a quiz. You go through it. It takes a couple of minutes, and then it tells you what the best mattress is for you, and then that's the mattress you order.

When I took my quiz, they just wrote in handwriting, see after class. That didn't sound right at all. I know. It sounds like you maybe took the wrong quiz. Fract it. So, it comes to your house. It comes in a box. You open it up.

The box, it comes to life. The mattress, it expands, and it, I would say. Fought my uncle. It fought his uncle. Yeah. And then you sleep on it. Yeah. It's as easy as it could be.

Yeah. I actually am at the point where I'm starting to forget what it was like to go get a mattress. Yeah. I used to be thinking about it. Oh, totally. It actually used to be terrible. Yeah. It was one of the worst things ever.

Yeah. So, you'd have to pretend to be friends with a truck guy. Yeah. Yeah. And, like, the Helix mattress is just a huge upgrade over my previous mattress. It's just much, much, much, much more comfortable. Same. It's the best mattress I've ever slept on.

Same. So, look, here's what we're going to say. We're going to say Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners. And their pillows are amazing. Yeah. Now I'll shut up. I'll stop.

Go to helixsleep.com. This is their best offer yet. It's not going to last long. With Helix, better sleep starts now. Nice. Did I hit that right? Yeah. We're also brought to you in part by Squarespace.

Squarespace, of course, is a website situation. Oh, just website. No, Gareth. Domains, websites, online stores, marketing tools, analytics. Bye. And I know you love analytics. I'm a numbers guy. I think anybody who listens to this show knows that I'm a numbers guy.

I do, obviously, use Squarespace because it's a very user-friendly. However, I like to roll the sleeves up and dig into the numbers. Yeah, you're numbers. I'm a big numbers guy. When I first met you, you were like, I love eight. Well, that was before I knew there were a bunch of other ones. Yeah. So Squarespace is everything you need.

Gareth and I have our websites with Squarespace. We also have the dollopodcast.com. We can get all your... The sources page. And the sources page. You can get all your tour ticket links on our dollopodcast.com. Squarespace. It's super easy to use, especially for a dummy like me.

You don't have to ever update anything. It's all taken care of. They got 24-7 support if you need that. And it's great. It's great for dummies like me. I just want to point out quickly. I know I've said this before, but the support line is specifically for issues with Squarespace. Yeah.

I called them because I had an argument with a pal of mine. And while they wanted to help, that is not what the support is there for. So it is support for the websites. But outside of that, you probably want to reach out to somebody else. Yeah. It's just Squarespace. Very nice about that not being the place to call. Yeah.

It's specifically a Squarespace. And just quickly, when you call, if you say, this is about a website, and you just kind of push the argument into making it sound like a website thing, they'll see through it pretty quick. So it's thin. Call them about website stuff. Just Squarespace stuff. Squarespace-related stuff, exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. They're not, for instance, can't help you get a hat out of a tree. So go to squarespace.com.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code DALLOP to save 10% on your first purchase of a website or domain. And thank you for all the help you tried to give me, Landy. Thank you for being a friend.

So wherever we were last week, our hero, Chris Von Der Ah, he's had a championship team. It's starting to come apart a little bit. It feels like everything's falling apart. Yeah, we're on the, we're in the, we've done the first part of Boogie Nights, all the fucking and the good stuff, and now we're moving into- Right. Now he's in the guy's house with the firecrackers. We're not quite there yet.

You know, it's when, it's when William A.C. sees his wife getting screwed in the driveway by other dudes. I think that's when it turns, right? It did for me. Jesus, God. What have you created right there? Don't worry about it. My lap bad.

So he wants to redo Sportsman's Park, and he says he's going to do 50,000, but the problem is, the team is now bad. And he needs money, right? He needs 50,000, but he does, they do an exhibition game, like pre-season game, and 10 people come. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh man.

That's got to be crazy. Maybe part of the reason is, Barton and Bailey are in St. Louis for the whole summer. So they're drawing away fans. Sure. So Chris, now it's like I got to get draws. So he trades for a big slugger, a well-known hitter, and then immediately screams at him, and the slugger quits and doesn't come back. Wow.

So Chris- I mean, I think things are a rock bottom. Chris starts, it's going to get a lot more bottom. Oh God. Chris starts finding players now for no reason. Interesting. And if he finds a player for drinking, he sends a detailed report to the paper to print. Okay.

Really going to help team morale. Yeah. Right. So it's public. Yeah. Your drinking night is public. Right. Picture Toad Ramsey.

Is there a problem? Are you flagging anything? Picture- How big is his neck? Toad Ramsey is such a known drinker that he had a drink named after him. He's amphibious. That was a pint of whiskey poured into a picture of beer. Oh my God.

Oh, that's just like, literally, that would be the worst thing to drink ever. Ever. A pint of whiskey. A pint of whiskey. Into a picture. He supposedly had three of those a day. Oh my God. What a person.

So he is Toad because he's able to basically breathe underwater essentially. It's probably where the nickname came from. He's full of liquid. So Chris offered to sell Toad to any team for a nickel and no one accepted the offer. What is going on? This team was winning championship. Two years ago. And now he can't trade a Toad for a nickel?

By the end of the season, several Browns were staying out drinking every night, all night long. He released Toad. Oh no. So after that season. Did he take him to like a lake? Go on now. You get out of here.

You're free. You go back to where you're from. I'm a desert Toad. Go back to where you're from. I'm a desert Toad. Get in the water now. It's too wet for me here. Get in the water Toad.

So after that season, he goes out to dinner with Komiski and they make up. Okay. Should we kiss? Komiski then talks four other ex-Browns into coming back. Okay. I love that he's learned like life. Like he's now like, you know what? You might actually have been part of this special.

Yeah. He spent a whole year saying he was the reason that the team was good. And then he's like, what if you come back? Why don't you come back? I think you said some stuff. I said some stuff. We learned a lot of stuff. Mostly you said some stuff.

We both said a bunch of stuff. Mostly it was you though. Toad drowned. Did you hear? What? He can't swim, but he went into a lake. So the old winning gang is getting back together. But one ex-Brown had signed with Pittsburgh.

And his name was Marcus Elmore Baldwin. And so he started coming to St. Louis to try to talk Browns into joining him in Pittsburgh. Okay. So Chris had Baldwin arrested when he was in St. Louis for conspiracy to break up the team. Because the baseball judge is just like, sorry, unfortunately. I don't know if it's a law or not, but you are guilty of trying to break up the team. I mean, I'm not sure it's a law, but it sounds really good.

I mean, look, it's got conspiracy. Yeah. And that's just kind of the highlight. I am right there, so. Guilty. What are we doing? Electric chair? Death penalty?

So he spends 24 hours in jail. What are you in for? They made up a law. They invented a crime for me. The charge is thrown out the next day because it's not a crime. I'm going to throw it out at the beginning of the game. So Baldwin steps out of the courthouse and Chris has him arrested again on different charges. There you go.

Yeah. He had illegal steps. He took two. So when Baldwin eventually gets back to Pittsburgh, he sues Chris for $20,000 for false arrest. Well, I don't understand how it all played out. Can you imagine the time when you could just go up? He has the cops on his side.

Sure. But the cops are like, what do you want to do? You want to arrest this guy for? Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, he's talking shit. So how about breaking his fucking face? Illegality of brown herding.

He hurts the browns. He's bad. Bad man. Evrest him? Super bad. Bad guy. So it's like, yeah. Okay.

Intent of herding the sports. That's workable, right? Can we fudge around that? Yeah, we can do that. Yeah. Go get him. Again, I mean, my head talking to myself. Why are you debating?

Stop debating. I'm in my head again. You're just a cop. Okay. No, that's you pretending dead. No, I ain't talking about it. Ah, you got you again. Come on.

Stop it. I said, hate my id. So the browns, I'm a pretty good team and manager again, right? The cranks are back into it. They're in first place in July. Okay. And you know, he's like, where, where, where? Look who knows what he's doing.

Yes, totally. So it's all, all's looking up. It's great. They're on a run. And then. Renovations? One day, two players go on a drinking bitch in Atlantic City. Okay.

And they're gone for days. Okay. And then Chris kicked a good pitch off the team for no reason. No one knew why. And then another player quit to help out his widowed mother. And then two players got hurt. So suddenly the team is just going from first place to just complete collapse. Good news though.

I signed a penguin. We're going to be okay. Okay. I'm drunk. Chris now was like, I have to have exhibition games to make money. One was a fat man's game between two teams of fat guys. This is going to be absolutely hysterical. There's a big fan.

The big guys. They're playing each other. I love it. Oh, instead of bats, we use tongues and balls. We use pie. Yay. Another exhibition he had was with armless legless and blind players. Okay.

Sorry. Oh my God. I read this several different times. I might need a seventh inning stretch. At first I was like, well, it has to be this guy doesn't have legs. This guy has no arms. This guy can't see. But the more I read it, the more I was like, no, he put out...

All three? The teams of guys, all three. This must have been a traveling team that are potatoes as far as being able to play baseball. I mean, they don't have any. I don't know. It was two teams of them? Yeah. So what...

I don't know. This game is taking forever. Pick up the ball! God damn it. This is only the first inning and it's been 40 hours. No one has picked up a ball. I know. These guys are uncoachable.

All right, guys, huddle up. Look, we got to figure this out. This is crazy. I said huddle up! Oh my God. All right. Stay where you are. Fine.

Well. God. What? I mean, they had to not have all been. What? What? What? What?

I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. So the Baldwin case is going on. Baldwin's the one who he got the... The false arrest. And Chris's lawyer keeps delaying the trial with different, you know, things. And Chris refuses to go to Pittsburgh. In September, the two players who had run off to Atlantic City run off again to go drinking.

So they did return. Okay. And the third player with them. Oh boy. Chris permanently blacklist one from baseball and publicly blames him for losing the pennant. Even though it's clear that there's a lot of other shit going on. Sure. So Chris suddenly announces he has signed Cy Young and Arlie Latham.

Okay. He has not signed Cy Young and Arlie Latham. Interesting. The secret. Nice. One night they're on a train going to a game and a drunk player comes into Chris's car and tweaks his nose and says, quote, say, how much did it cost you to color that? Well, because he got a big red drunk nose.

Yeah. He grabbed his big red WC fields nose, comes into his cart. Not good. Obviously bad. How much did it cost to color that thing? They're 50 miles from Chicago in the middle of nowhere. Oh no. Chris has the train stop.

Stop. It's like 3 a.m. and kicks the guy off the train. Walk. See you in Chicago maybe. Hey, you know what? We're going to call you a ball four because you're walking. Can you imagine? What a great...

He must have wanted... He must have had to deal with another team or something. It's like, you know, I'm going to get fired. Go pull his nose. How much did it cost to get at that color? So after the season, Chris decides to blame Kamiski for the losing, even though it's clearly not his fault. And the AA is close to collapsing, the American Association.

On a road trip, before the season ends, Chris buys a Stanley sash. A Stanley sash? I don't know how to describe it, but it's basically like a pirate belt. You know, they have the big... He buys this for himself? Yeah. It's like a big like... Pirate belt?

Like a... Yeah, sure. Like a giant handkerchief belt thing. Sure. Sure. Like a buccaneer. A buccaneer. So, it's flaming red because that was the trend.

Were more people wearing this? Yes. Okay. So this is a... You know, like in New York City. Sure. People were just pirating it down. So he wears it to a game in Cincinnati.

Okay. Quote. I'm just... It sounds like a good will came to life. He... I didn't go into this too much, but he always dressed terrible. Right. And gaudy.

And like... What are duck pants? I don't... I bet they're really tight. Yeah. They sound like they would be tight. What did you think? Yeah, they do sound like they would be tight.

It's like a duck's legs. Famous player, King Kelly, loudly laughed and yelled at from... He's down on the field. Yells up at Chris. Quote. With that makeup, you'd look like a cross between a barber's pole, a pousse café, and the star-spangled banner, and the entire stadium laughs. Well, I'm sure that it made a lot of sense back then.

Part of it makes sense. Oh, yeah. Oh, they're these. They're those sort of... Oh, so they're wide at the thigh. Yeah, it looks like your quads took roids. Yeah. So...

He... I bet Chris was cool with that. He's horrified. And he leaves and goes back to his hotel and changes, and then he comes straight back to the stadium. Who's laughing now? Instead of just staying at the hotel. And Kelly sees him walk in and yells, quote, you're all right now, Chris.

That charge of disturbing the peace with your clothes I made against you is dismissed, and everyone laughs again. It's great. It's great. It's really good. Yeah. Now, he's still drunk all the time, Chris. Yes.

Right. So this is very difficult. You're changing your outfit and getting everyone laughing at you again. So I mean, he's just a laughing stock. He's just a total joke. So they finish second to last, everyone bails. He blames Kamiski for the loss. Ex-players are once again saying they're never going to play for Chris.

One ex-player writes a comedic play about him called Mr. Von Grabb of St. Louis. The league is more shuffling of teams. The American Association breaks up and four teams join the National League, including the Browns. Okay. Now, the National League still has their rules. Well, the National League would now allow Sunday games, selling booze, and teams can only charge a quarter.

Okay. So it's basically the AA rules. Yeah. Right. So he's happy. Yeah. He goes to his first National League meeting in New York. A paper wrote of his appearance when he came, quote, but the St. Louis Magnate continues

to grow and he will yet fill out the Macintosh as the stuffing of a balloon fills out the silk bag. So it's just fat. The color of the wonderful garment scared most of the streetcar horses, a sort of cross between a hectic flush and New Jersey clay, but it is most becoming to the St. Louis boss's maroon complexion. Oh, my God. So he just walked around like a cherry?

A Macintosh is like an apple. Well, it's like a two-piece raincoat type thing. Okay. It goes halfway down. But the color was like burgundy. But they're just saying it's very filled out. Yeah. He's big in it and it's burgundy and he's burgundy essentially at this point, too.

So he just kind of, yeah, I mean, he looked like a big berry. That's right. Okay. So he would always be mocked for how he dressed. At the meeting, quickly, he realized that the National League didn't want him. They wanted the browns because they're famous. Well, I'm brown. I'm brown.

I'm very brown. Look at my outfit. I'm turning. I've become the color of bourbon. So as much as he wants it, the other owners just don't respect him. The fans don't. The players don't. And now he has less money than he had in quite some time.

So it's time to get creative. I mean, what's great about this moment is I'm trying to think of like, there's so many options for when someone pardoned the turn of phrase, but is born on third base and acts like they hit a Homer. So he's really locked himself into a lot of this. So reinvention is not going to be as simple as like, he's like, look, I did it once. But it's like, you kind of just, I mean, like we were saying before, like you just opened a beer spot.

Yeah. You just opened a bar. And now you're like, I managed rock band. Really? He opened a bar. Yeah. He opened a bar. And now he's like, how do I get my baseball team popular again?

It's like, buddy, this is not, you never were the part of it. You fired everyone. It was good. Yeah. So leave it to me. Now fans noticed the free spending days are over. He used to brag about having the highest payroll in baseball. And now it's like, he's like.

Now a dog's on the team. And now he's like, we're not the lowest. So put that on an advertisement, huh? Not the lowest. He's now signing older, pastor, prime players. I'm 71. And he thinks, he thinks, because of what Kamiski did. He's like, he thinks he knows how to find good players.

That's what I mean. He thinks he does. Yeah. Yeah. So he's like, what you got to do is just find weird people. The people who you don't think will be good are the good ones, okay? So it's on the picture, Darby O'Brien. And right before the season started, he died, he was 24.

God damn it, Darby. Put him on IR. This is not starting. I just had a conversation with Darby. He's dead. What? Yeah. No.

Starting picture? I still think I can convince him to play. But I don't think it's going to be as good. Did you find him? Yeah. Ah, fuck. Yeah. No.

He, his head is, his head is just open like a melon. But I still think we can at least use him for relief, a minimum. Can I ask you a question? I mean, I paid the guy a lot of money. He died of dropsy. So why is his head open like a melon? What? Well, when I found him, I'll be quite frank.

I tried to kick him awake for about an hour. Oh, Jesus. And I don't know if you could tell, I've invested in some narrow boots. Yeah. And his head just started to split. And I thought, well, any second he's going to wake up. But at some point, the whole thing just kind of made like a bit of a burst, squished out like a fucking water balloon.

Are you saying you killed our pitcher? No, no, no. He was dead for sure. Well, then why were you trying to wake him up? Well, I didn't know he was dead at the time. I thought he was in a deep sleep. So how do you know you didn't kill him? He's dead.

Because there's no, I mean, I mean, I'm covered in brain. The guy's head is, man, what are you talking about? Oh, sorry. Did I sign the coroner? Anyway, I think the position for him is not, not the first space. Not the other side base, but in the middle of the bases. Okay. Where you put the best player?

Where? I don't know where. Between second and third. Oh, okay. Great. So he'll go there. No, he's dead. He could catch the balls in his head.

Okay. I'm not going to think about it. No, I'm not going to think about it. He could be the one who looks like he's squatting for a poop in France. Because then he can just stop the ball with his, well, what do you want? I put a lot of money into his fellow. So despite this, Chris is optimistic. I got a good feeling about this.

He said the team was sober, but he didn't care if they drank away from the park. Quote, I do object to his appearing on the ball field in his stupid or groggy condition. It's just great that this is when you're like, look, don't be drunk when you play. Like he's gone from like having them fall around to now just being like, just don't come in, just don't be drunk on the field. But the team loses, and they lose a lot. The cranks started attacking the players, the manager and Chris. No one comes to see them play at home or on the road, which means less and less money,

obviously. So Chris also decided he's going to be the manager. I honestly, I'm not kidding. I have been hoping that this was going to happen. It's just everything's falling apart and he's like, the problem, I'm not involved enough. Well, two reasons. No one wanted to manage the team.

Right. Because no one wants to work for him. And he saves money that way. Right. But he knows nothing. Nothing. Okay, boys. Here we go.

So he's constantly yelling at players to do stuff that makes no sense. Hit the ball, Ferdinand. Hit the ball. One game, the right fielder looked up as a homerun sailed over his head. So Chris yelled that he should have thrown himself against the fence, quote, and how to shake a fist as that ball went over. You should be mad at the ball. You find it.

Save a pair of tights shared and that's it, two grand. So the nationally, the nationally are ordering like salary caps. So in the middle of the season, they're like slash salary, slash salary, because they've had so much debt from when the players league and everything was going on. So Chris keeps having to tell his players, you're making less money. So during the season, he's like, you know, you were making 500 last month, now it's 400. Obviously this isn't helping team morale. And this is when he's like, he'd already said, I'm going to redo the park.

Yeah, right. 50 grand. He's going further now. He's going to build a brand new ballpark. Okay. So he's telling them they're going to take less money, but he's also got the money for a brand new park. He gets a 15 year lease.

Oh my God. For $50,000, 14,500 seats, private boxes, a clubhouse, a pavilion, rooftop press boxes, a ladies powder room, tons of concession stands, a long bar on the ground floor so cranks could drink at the bar and watch the game at the same time. These are all obviously good ideas for a team that's good. They only went 56 out of 150 games. And Chris then quits as manager. I fired myself.

Then in 1893, his son Eddie is run over by a cable car and almost dies. And Chris spends tons of time in his bedside as he recovers for a year. He did go to the league meeting in March. He hired a new manager, Bill Watkins, who's a good player, X World Series winner. And the new season starts in the new ballpark. And they're bat. Okay. And the new crop of players really, really like to drink.

To make money, Chris starts scheduling. I mean, we've sort of talked, what percentage of people are alcoholics? Any idea? I mean, it's... 40? Or more. I mean, honestly, it's a massive amount of people are alcoholics. It's crazy.

So he needs to make money because he's put all this money into this new ballpark. So he starts scheduling other events, a bicycle tournament, and that leads to just being dust and stuff all over the field, and the players are getting annoyed. Chris promises the team, because they're getting annoyed, he says, I will give you the receipts from the Civil War reenactment I'm gonna have, but you have to win 20 of the next 40 games. He's saying he'll give them... All the profit. From the Civil War reenactment that he had on the field.

That he's gonna have on the field. That he's gonna have on the field if they win 20 of their next 40 games. Right. And they just lose a ton of games. And just to be clear, they're having a Civil War reenactment on the field. They're having so many crazy events that the playing service is just a shit show. There's tons of animals, divots in the field. There are firework cases all over the place because they keep having firework shows.

Players are making errors because the balls are bouncing all over the place. They do the Civil War reenactment show, nobody comes that loses tons of money. And he has not paid the building contractors for building the stadium. So it's kind of, it's like German Trump. So the contractors start suing for non-payment. The men's business gymnasium also sues for non-payment because he had a boxing exhibition and didn't pay them. For July 4th, Chris hires a pyrotechnic company to do fireworks and they don't show up.

So he has to give everyone their money back. In August, he trades one of his best players for a not good but much cheaper player and fans are pissed as is the team. And realizing Chris doesn't care, the team starts drinking more. So in summation, things have gone from bad to way worse, way worse. In July, Marcus L. Moore Baldwin comes to town with his New York Giants to face the Browns. Nothing about the lawsuit has been resolved, but there's no issues, like nothing happens.

Now their best pitcher, Ted Breitenstein, who's best pitcher, the Giants, the Browns, gets into a really heated argument with his teammates and says he's going to quit baseball and open a saloon. It's amazing to have the backup plan on deck. Well, I'm going to retire and open a bar. That's what everyone did. Yes. I had an idea to open a bar.

They all just succeed. I mean, I'm always in a bar. I feel like maybe I should just, I don't know, open a bar considering everyone's a raging alcoholic. I get how it works. Yeah. Like, I really get how it works. And then he just vanishes for four days and then he comes back.

At the end of the season, Chris admits he has been paying his players in IOUs, not Paychex. Wow. God damn. It's like bar rescue the team. IOUs. The league decides to have large universal fines for drinking because drinking is becoming such a problem.

So any players who are in the saloon business are going to be banned from baseball. So you can't own a saloon. Okay. Is that just because you could not, you could not control yourself? Like they were 100% that if you owned a bar, you'd be drunk? Yeah. And then I think influence the other players. Cheap places to go hang out.

So those rules, these rules against drinking, finding them and it causes the talent lack level in pro baseball to plummet. So people, it's almost like concussions in the NFL except it's alcohol. People if they can't drink are like, I mean, that's the reason I play for love of the booze. So in the next season, Chris picks an outfielder named George Miller to be his new manager. George Miller has a serious reputation as a boozer. His nicknames are Foghorn Doggy and Calliope. Foghorn Doggy?

Foghorn Doggy. What is Calliope? What is that? I don't know. How are you spelling it? C-A-L-L-I-O-P-E. Calliope? Is that what it is, Calliope?

What is a Calliope? Is it one of those wind things, the color of the wind? Like a wind? Like a wind? Yeah. Oh, like the, like a, that goes on top of like a barn or something like that? Yeah. We're kids out there.

Okay. Calliope. Sure. He also has no coaching experience. Who? The new manager. That's who he, that's the guy who hires? The drunk.

Right. Okay. Right. Right. But he vows he's not going to drink. Sure. Of course. I promise, baby.

To win over his team this season, Chris orders each one a new set of clothes. It's just, it's just they're like pay us. So I heard your clamors for money to be able to buy your stuff and feed your family. You're all getting suits. Well, you know we had a deal with someone. Right. And the clothes are all the exact hideous style that he wears. And you can finally be like a hero, me.

Now he hires PIs to follow the players around to see if they're drinking. Just save money, pay them and then. And if they're drinking, they're fined $25 each. So the players think that he's trying to get back the money he spent on clothes by finding them. Oh, wow. It's just, it's just, I mean, it's to be like, I know where I can get money. My team.

What are you doing? I'll attack my team. So as the team keeps losing, there are more and more fines. The post dispatch reports he fined players thousands of dollars to recoup financial losses. It's just, I think, get out of the business. Get out. Sell it.

In the first six weeks of the season, he lost $15,000. The Browns press agent left and Harry hires, sorry, the Browns press agent leaves and Chris hires Harry Martin, who is a New York cartoonist to be the press agent. What? So we have a question about all the injured players. Okay. What are you guys going to do? How are you guys going to fill those holes?

One second. What are you doing? I'm drawing a couple of the players on a skateboard, and then they're going to be jumping over a wave. How long is this going to take? About 20 more minutes. Can you answer the question? I am.

And then they'll be jumping over a big wave, and the answer is pretty much right. I don't remember the question. There. All right. There you go. Okay. All right. Any other questions?

I didn't think so. Have a good day, everybody. On the... You handled that great, aren't you? Yeah. On a road trip to Pittsburgh, Marcus Elmore Baldwin and a cop show up in Chris's box. And Baldwin has Chris arrested for false imprisonment. Which is an actual crime.

Yes. Chris isn't in jail long because the Pittsburgh owner pays his bail. The sporting news is also not doing well at this point. They're under new management, and they drop everything but baseball coverage, and they get rid of patent medicine ads. Okay. So they didn't do that because they didn't get rid of the ads because they're non-sense. They just felt like it was making poor people read the paper because it was appealing to

poor people. Anyway. The Lenny Dykstra route. Yeah. So the paper's losing money. So to turn things around, they start attacking the clown of baseball, Chris. Okay. How he ran the business is private life, everything.

The paper also pushes for a booze ban at the ballpark just to piss Chris off. So they have become the troll times. Yes. They're just full on trolling. Yeah. So Chris had been cheating on his wife Emma for years. Who was married to him? She's still there?

Yeah, she's still there. And she always put up with it. One night, he was on a horse and buggy ride with a woman, and the horse somehow stopped right in front of Chris's and Emma's house. No. Hey, he was bad. He was a bad pony. Bad horse.

Yeah, but here. Come on, horse. I haven't had anybody, oh gosh. And she looked out and saw her husband on a date, and she probably looked out because he was making noise to try to get the horse to go home. Hi, kid. I don't want her to see this hand job. And so she sees her husband on a date and she runs out.

It said she started whipping them, so I don't know what she was hitting them with. She's got like a rider crop or something. I don't know. So things aren't great in the marriage. Sure. Bad horse. So Chris borrows $11,000 from his son, Eddie. Oh, God.

Eddie got the title of Six Houses on St. Louis Avenue for collateral, and one of them was Chris and Emma's house. But Eddie had mortgaged some of the houses without telling his dad, and when Chris found out he's furious, so he fires Eddie as the team treasurer and sues his own son. This guy. This guy is amazing. So his wife sides with the son, and Chris bans Eddie from their home. I mean, he's running his family like his team.

And his son is doing what he would do. And his son had money. Yeah. So maybe not, but he had enough money to loan his dad money. Yeah. He's like, what are you doing? You're terrible at this. Like, you're borrowing money from me, asshole.

So to bring in more money, Chris buys Buck Taylor's Wild West show. Is he involved in baseball technically anymore? It feels like he's not. It feels like he's just kind of grabbing at anything. It feels like everything's just like, I've got, I know what we're going to do. Sign players, fix the stadium, actually come up with some sort of game plan, change the uniforms, have good PR, hire good people, get a good infrastructure. We're going to have cowboys.

What do you think of that? The famous Buck Taylor. Buck Taylor's cowboys. You can't believe how cheap I got him. And he's just buying the cheapest shit trying to get the most, but it's like, bro. So in the show, there's 60 cowboys and 40 Native Americans. Oh my God. The new team manager.

Can any of you play baseball? The new team manager, George Miller, is in the show, but that's just because he owes Chris money from gambling and stuff. So you're also going to be in the show. Are you familiar with lassos and things of that nature? He would shoot blanks from the back of a stagecoach. So you're standing in a stagecoach and fired a gun a little bit like that, okay? You're not going to believe this.

The Wild West show loses money. He's like, oh my God, what am I going to do? And then on top of that, the Native Americans sue because he didn't pay them. Oh gosh. It's so strange because I just figured they were okay with us taking everything. So now, by now, stories of Chris cheating on Emma are so well known. Partially because of the sporting news now that it's just... That the sporting news starts calling the Browns the Coochie-Coochies.

Oh my God. And the Washington Post writes up a big piece on Chris' personal life. Now Chris ends up suing them for $50,000 and the paper prints a retraction. But still, the damage is done. It's out there. Page six retraction, page six retraction. Chris now opens a grocery store with a new partner. I love that he's going back to that, groceries.

At the opening, he has a 12-piece orchestra. Save your money. What are you doing? What is he doing? See, Albertson's nine, let's go. And also at the opening are two of his mistresses. Oh my God. Della and Kitty.

The sporting news wrote that the store was financed by the $11,000 loan from Eddie. So around this time, Chris hires a 22-year-old German immigrant named Anna Kaiser to be their housemaid. Housemaid. Housemaid. And Emma's furious. Yeah, she's like, what? And she's like, Vod, she's the best.

She's sexy. She's beautiful. What else do you want? She can't dust. She's got a great ass. Emma files for divorce. For what? What's her deal?

Can't a guy just let loose a little bit? She formally charges him with adultery. Eddie backs his mom and said he has seen his dad with over eight women and that he also beat Emma. But besides that, I was the perfect husband. So in the trial, in the divorce proceedings, his worth is shown to be around $50,000, which is about $1.8 million today. But for what he was, probably kind of nothing.

Yeah, yeah. So Emma gets $3,150 in alimony. So the team situation somehow becomes worse in the next season. How? But now just hours. He hires an ex-pirate's manager. I'm sorry, an ex-pirate. He used to be a pirate.

Yeah, I got an idea. The players are pretty good. So Chris trades one for money. Okay. And he told the team. A starting shortstop is a stack of 20. So the team's mad, so he tells them, I'm going to use that money to buy a good player. Don't worry.

I know I got rid of a player, but I'm going to get, I'm going to. I got some money and then we're going to buy a better player, me. He doesn't. Okay. He goes to a league meeting in an expensive new suit. Sure. So he's, yep. And the fans are furious.

Sure. And he needs a new groundskeeper. And an experienced guy comes down to look at the field and he's like, okay, I'll take the job. They don't talk salary. Later that night, they're talking. And the guy's like, how much is the pay? And Chris is offended.

I'm losing my appetite. Did you say the pay? What do you mean the pay? Yeah, I need money to, it's a job. So I need. It is a job. Yeah. But do you have any idea how inappropriate it is for you to ask your boss how much

a job that you're doing pays? No, but I need to know how much I'm going to make for. How about this? The job pays. Okay. Thank you. Why does it? No, but I need to know because I got to pay rent and I got to make a family.

Okay. So there you go. So we're going to give you enough money for you. How about this? All the grass is whatever you want, whatever you cut yours. What? You get all the grass. Neither one grass.

I want money. You can bang my ex-wife. Okay. Okay. I can't. She won't do that. Stop being. You get, how about this?

I'm in. Oh, well, she's like, I can't, okay, let me make a call. Okay. Huh? Hmm. Hmm. So, um, the crisis has ended and, uh, he's like, you're going to work for one month for nothing first.

So we'll see how you do. I'll tell you what, you clean up everything and then we'll see how you're doing. So the guy leaves and never comes back. On March 12, 1895, Chris suddenly, for no reason, attacks a black guy who's just walking down the street. Sure. So he's fully gone. He just walks up and starts punching the guy in the face and then pulls out a gun and

starts shooting at the guy's feet to make him dance and shoots the guy in the heel. Oh my God. And then he gets arrested. The guy sees him for 5,000 and Chris is like, it's justified because black people are stealing cases of booze from my saloon. But Chris's employees say the booze was being taken, but it was being sent to his mistress's house and anytime the treasurer asked Chris about it, he'd say he was being robbed. So he basically drank too much of his booze and then because of the time was just like,

this black people are doing it. No, I think that he, I mean, maybe he was that drunk. Okay. I didn't think about that last week. No, I think I'm pitching that it is a plan that is calculated. Okay. Your pitching is calculated. Yeah.

Because like you just said that. And I think it also could be that he's so delusional. Drunk that he doesn't. It could be the sort of thing where like he's convinced, yeah, your brain is rotted. Yeah. So he's like convinced himself that's true. Yeah. Yeah.

And drank it all. Totally. So any, so yeah, so he gets away with shooting the guy though. Wow. Because. Well, not wow. Shocking that it. Because to sue someone you have to put a deposit down for the court and the guy doesn't have

any money to put a deposit down to secure the, it's a normal system. I mean, as good as now or what? Same. So Chris often would take money from his cash registers and the ballpark receipts. So bills from the Browns are not being paid. Right. And he goes, the season starts, he's back to his old ways, he's yelling at the players. He's threatening, finding them for all kinds of things.

They were fined if they were caught reading the sporting news. Oh my God. So the team is losing like crazy. Players are getting. How about how absurd your fines are? That's it. That's it. You're fine.

Oh, Jesus. When players get injured, he's finding them, he's withholding their pay. Come on, get stronger ankles. Because he's doing that one player plays on a bad knee and ruins his career. So. Well, now, I mean, your career's over to find it's going to be pretty bad. What? You find it's bad because you need.

No, I'm not on the team anymore. $650. What are you talking about? No, I'm by you can't find so you still you find. Why are you here? By the way, this is. I'm on a blackout. I don't even know.

So the 22 year old housemaid, Anna, thought it was improper for her to remain as the only woman in the house after the divorce. Yeah. I mean, talk about a hellish situation. Yeah. This guy drunk on power and on rum and you're just like 22. I mean, how old is he at this point? Like 40.

He's in his 40s. Yeah. 40s. Yeah. Just like crazy. Yeah. It's not good. You missed the spot on the globe.

Yeah. What? Can I interest you in a little bit of a vodka? So she is not. She's not. Now she was a living. Now she's not. So she's working the other day and going back to her parents house at night.

And then Chris proposes. I was thinking it is a problem is that you missed the spot down here. Let me show you the spot you've missed. Oh, fuck. I put a ring on here at some point. Oh, wait. I remember. I put this ring inside of a strudel and then you're going to have a bite.

But last night I got hammered and it's a strudel. So in the next few days, I'm going to pass a wedding ring for you to look at. So the plan, darling, come here and we will go through this. Yes. Yes. Wakes up and he's bloody on the rug. I feel again. So she's younger than his son.

Sure. She says yes. She says yes. Yep. But he keeps delaying the wedding. He's delaying the wedding. I don't know if I can commit 22 hot and look at me. I'm like a WC field for the sauerkraut.

One day, Chris's Saint Bernard attacked Anna, biting her face and throat. You know, you're not as hot as you were. She was advised to sue Chris, but she did not. Wow. He continued to keep their engagement a secret. So did she like him? Yeah, she likes him. Oh, my God.

In May, Chris has to appear in a Pittsburgh court to face false imprisonment charges. He is. Can I bring my Saint Bernard? He is a shit show on the witness stand. Okay. At one point, he said, quote, John, he's eating the bobble. I never pay a man that works for me. Oh, excuse me.

I don't pay a man that works for me. Baldwin wins and he gets 2,500 in damages. Now when the, when it's read in court, he's already gone. He's on a train and he decides he's never going to go back to Pittsburgh. Does that mean he's not going to pay? Yeah. Okay. And a big thing that comes out of this now is he does not trust pitchers anymore.

Well, how it's happening. He doesn't got the guys at pitchers. What? They got one strong arm and then they use it to shove it up your ass. I don't trust pitchers. It's why they shouldn't have a mound. They should have a regular flat areas as they pitch from. They think they're better than everyone because they got a little hill to stand on.

So as a result, contract negotiations with pitchers become an absolute nightmare. Okay. That's got to give me a kid. So Chris tells the manager to suspend players and cut salaries and instead the manager quits. It saves us some money. And Chris now decides he wants his players spied on. So a bunch of spies volunteer.

Go on. What? And Chris calls them as private watchmen, but they're really just shitty dudes. But why are they volunteers? Who drink all day. Oh, okay. And this is a way to make money. They're just drunks with a spy fantasy.

They can make money. Oh, but I think he's a volunteer. Oh, volunteer in the sense that they're up for it. Yes. Right. So they're conning him and he's like, you're some of the best I've found in the bar. If they don't have any juicy stories about the players, Chris would be furious and he would fire them.

So they can make them up. So they start making up stories. Right. You're telling me he's a robot? That's right, Chris. Wow. This is some good stuff. So players are now constantly being fine.

His mood swings up because he's pregnant. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You guys are digging up some big stuff. You're telling me the catch is a zombie? Yeah. Wow.

You guys are really doing good stuff. I'm putting money in the right places. So now the players are constantly fine for stuff they didn't do and the fines, drinking fines are whiskey, five dollars, beer, two and gin up to 50. What's the deal with that? Gin's rad. Why gin so hot? Because I think gin, it was, I don't know if this is still about you.

Higher proof? Yeah, it like made you crazy. It was like a... Gin made you crazy? I think that that was the belief back then. It like made you like nuts. Gin's sanity. The team at this point is just horrifying to watch.

I can't imagine drinking gin back then. Chris gets a whistle. And now he sits in his box and looks with binoculars and when he doesn't like a play, he whistles. Oh my God. Oh my God. I just... The wheels were already off.

In July 95, Chris's announces he's going to put a racetrack in the ballpark. I've been... You've been what? I've been waiting for this. You're like, I've been calm until now. I've tried to keep it together. But the back to back. A whistle?

I'm still recovering and now a racetrack. And he's going to add another bar so people could drink and bed at the same time. Okay. There's already three racetracks in St. Louis. Okay. So now everyone thinks he's nuts and sports writers from all over the country are telling the National League to drop the Browns. Right.

Now, his new partner, Fred Foster, has talked him into this racetrack thing. Okay. And the deal gives Foster use of the park for $10,000 and concession rights for two years. During the races. Yeah. And Chris thinks he's going to make 20,000 from the racetrack. Right. From like tickets and stuff.

And gambling. Right. Right. And local papers are now calling for fans to boycott. The groundskeeper quits because of all of the events he's having. Oh, yeah. Are ruining the field. Okay.

So you've got to get it ready for the race tomorrow and then we have baseball at night. Trying to think what else you've got to do. Well, we have a reenactment. We have a reenactment. Plus we have the horses. The elephant stampede. Elephant stampede. We've got the camel show.

Camel show. We're doing the pyramid thing. The pyramids. I forgot about the pyramids. Oh, jeez. We're doing a lot of stuff. So yeah, basically get it ready for all those things, skanks. But whenever he would scream at the groundskeeper because the ground was bad, even though it

was all the... Yeah, he's like, well, a race car drove over it. The racetrack opening is delayed because it rains. And Chris is now getting so many death threats that he starts target practice shooting every day. So okay. So now we're... I mean, it's a Paul Thomas Anderson story.

And one day, there's 200 players and he asks them to come down and stand at first and third base. Quote, I shoot at you and you tell me how close I come. And he pulled out the pistol, but the two men charged him and disarmed him. You tell me how close I come. What the fuck? What? The idea that they were both like, we got to charge him.

Go, move, or we're going to die. We will die. How about you to come down to first and third? I'm going to shoot at you. Tell me how close... And tell me how close I am. That is the most threatening way of saying I'm going to shoot you without saying I'm going to shoot you.

I'm going to shoot at you. Tell me how close I came. You hit me. Okay. Chris said... They said if Chris tried to use them as targets again, it would quote, would result fatally to him. So the fans are now wondering about his mental health.

Was there any rationale behind that? I don't know why. Was there anything that was evidence? I can't think of anything. I mean, aside from the race track and the fact that he wanted to try to shoot two players on first and third. Chris hires a new manager. Base is loaded, so are the guns.

Chris hires a new manager. What? A whip and a butler outfit? A saloon on her and a bookie. Oh my God. He has zero baseball experience. Oh my God. It turns out Chris's main mistress, Della, had apparently told him to hire the guy.

He's still keeping the mistress with the 22-year-old? Yeah. These mistresses are hanging in there. And she's more... She's closer to his age. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. The mistress. Yeah.

Right. So Chris then goes flying crazy. He find a picture for looking frightened. You're going to shoot me. Yeah, I didn't like it. He fired a picture for looking afraid. He almost got into a fist fight with an injured catcher because he was screaming at him to play.

The saloon on her manager was fired after six weeks. And then Chris appoints himself the manager. I mean, you thought he was a bad manager before. Now he's, I mean... He believed it was best to hit hard ground balls and yelled at any player who had a fly ball. Quote, keep them on the floor, them fearless catchers, it's the high ones. The idea of, first of all, he's never played.

And he's just yelling to... Only grounders. Yeah, dude, it's a... Fuck. It's hard. This is a hard thing to do. Why do you keep hitting them for being big and high? Yeah.

The 1895 Browns were an embarrassing baseball team. I remember, well, I just said, like, was it three years ago, like, maybe the greatest baseball team in history. Yeah, now, but now there's a race car. Now a short stop is a race car. The racetrack opens. Okay. It has a flower garden, a beer pavilion, water fountains, also stuffed bears.

What do you mean? This is a big display of stuffed bears. Is this all on the field? Yeah, it's around the... Yeah. There's a water fountain? Yeah. On the field?

Yeah. Water fountains around... I'm just... On opening day, a young jockey... Like, when they go from, like, hockey to basketball and an arena, you're like, that's impressive. Yeah. They're like water fountains and racetrack. Yeah.

On opening day, a young jockey is killed. A jockey? A race car driver? Oh, a jockey, a horse jockey. Oh, a horse jockey. I'm sorry, when you say racing, I'm picturing cars. Oh, no, there's no cars yet. I know, right.

Yeah, it's horses. So, a jockey's dead. A jockey dies on the first day. At first, I was thinking, a jockey got hit by a car. What's he doing there? Papers immediately call for the racetrack to be shut down. The National League does nothing. They say, well, the season's over, so we can't do anything, technically.

The idea that this... You're... Well, what can we do? It's outside of baseball. We can't do it, it's that baseball season. A jockey's dead. Players go to the NL meeting and give a speech and complain about the fines that are crazy, and the NL does nothing.

I've actually been one. I'm a player. My name is Greg Lewiston, and I've always found Chris to be an unbelievable manager, just so you know. And a nice dresser. And quite a snazzy dresser. Excuse me while I'm in my baseball garb. Really, yes, a pirate scarf around my waist, which he so generously gave to me.

Jockey was so little, I feel like he didn't matter. Maybe harder times? It's probably. And then fell on the racetrack? I see. I'm not sure what happened, but if you did so little, it's like another life. How small are you before you're officially dead? That's the question.

Anyway, I'm a baseball player. Chris trades for Arleigh Latham. Arleigh is back. The racetrack is a failure. People just go to the old racetracks. There's three racetracks. They just go to the ones they like. So Chris announces he's going to add an amusement park to the ballpark that is going to be called

Shoot the Shoots. Shoot the Shoots? He called it a boat waterslide with a lake. A boat? What? What? What are you even talking about? What are you even talking about at this point?

It's like a toboggan ride, kind of. With a lake? Yeah. Well, I think that like, it's no different. Is that what they're called? Toboggan? What are they called? The log ride?

Log ride? Yeah. It sounds like it's just a log ride and then it ends in a big lake. Like you. In the stadium? Yeah. It's going to be, yeah, in the stadium. Okay.

Where else could it be? Anywhere? And then in the winter, the lake could be used for ice skating. What about baseball? So you, if you're thinking like me, money, money, money, I'm prittin' money, money, money. Is it still going to be baseball? Yeah.

So okay. $25,000 to build and he thinks it's going to bring in $50,000 a year. He was quickly informed, someone already owned the patent to shoot the shoots. Someone already said shoot the shoots? So that was like a term back then. Yeah. And he just took it and said he was going to do it. And then someone's like, will you owe me money if you do that?

Because that's my patent. Oh, God. Yeah. And the guy wants $100,000. So Chris said he'd get his own patent. Of shoot the shoots? Yes. Okay.

Not possible. Okay. When shoot the shoots opens, big crowds for three days. Okay. And then that's it. Then they stopped coming. Okay. Because how many times can you go to the log ride?

Yeah, it was. The patent owner sues. Okay. When winter arrives, Chris advertises ice skating. Sure. So the day it's supposed to open, Chris tells a worker to go out and test the ice. Oh, no. And the worker goes out.

And falls through. And falls through. Damn it. Okay. What is skating? Oh, no. There happened to be a cop over by that side of the leg. He pulls the guy out.

Chris then screams at the worker saying he jumped up and down. What the fuck? The cop has to restrain Chris from attacking the worker. The guy who fell in the ice that he told him to walk on. And then he cancels opening skate day. No, at least he did that. Yeah. I know, right?

Stay till the edges. Yeah. You know they land. To make more money, he tries to do horse racing at night. Okay. But there's not electricity. It's dark. It's new.

Electric lights are very dim. Okay. So the horses couldn't see. It's basically dark. Okay. On top of that, winning tickets aren't really paying any money. Right. You did a trifecta and you're like a dollar.

Right. And then gamblers on both day and night racing realize they can write the winning horse's name on a ticket after the race. Just write it. And Chris wouldn't know the difference and he would cash it. How did everyone pick Lucky Strike? This is unbelievable. Boy, oh boy.

I had drowned myself in my ice rink, but it froze over finally. Chris announces you can rent out Sportsman's Park for picnics. Okay. So listen to me. If anyone wants to just, do you have to avoid the racetrack, the log ride, the lake that is sometimes frozen over, but most of the time, like me, is on Sin Ice. This is a teddy bear area, but if you want to take your family on a picnic, come on down. Come on down to the stadium.

Your family can have a picnic. Look, I'll suck the dad's dick. I don't care anymore. I just need money. Somebody help. I ate my son over a fire, help. So the ballpark doesn't even look like a ballpark anymore. Yeah.

Imagine playing baseball in it. I mean, they had moved the diamond back from the stands so far the fans are furious. Okay. Because this is a time when you're really close to the, and all of a sudden it's way far away. It's just a smaller version. In 1896, he hires a new manager who is a sports writer. Arlie Latham is back on the team.

He's now so old that he just kind of waves at hard hit balls. He doesn't, there goes the ball. Other players don't like Latham also. And he accuses the manager of drinking too much, and then they have a clear the air meeting and Latham says, quote, from now on, we'll divide this work. You do the managing and I'll do the drinking. Wait a minute, wait a minute, nice try, Latham. Yeah, I was happy.

Very close, very close. We're both drinking, right? That's right. So Chris's other midges, Della Wells, they want the manager fired, her relatives want the manager fired. Who cares? They're rich. Her whole, she's clearly a money, she's after the money a bit, but she's got her whole

family working all over the place. At the place. All over the business. So Chris fires him after he's found drunk after falling of a streetcar at 3 a.m. in the morning. But you can't fire people for being drunk anymore. I mean, your whole thing is drunk. He's still, yeah, I know, but he was looking for a reason to fire him, because the- Right, all right, right.

So he makes Arlie Latham the manager. Okay, the guy who just agreed to drink only. And he fires him after three games. Okay. And then right around now, Della finds a $44,000 credit note, and it's due in a few months. And because she's just after the money, she loses her shit. Almost ends the relationship. Also, Della and Anna don't know about each other.

Right. And one day, Anna and Chris are in his home, and Della comes in. And Anna's just sitting there reading, and Della's like, what the fuck are you doing? You're the maid. Oh, Della didn't even know that he was married to her. Right. He's not married to- Well, engaged.

Engaged. Right. Not married. Right. And she's like, what in the fuck are you doing? You're the maid. Oh, hello. And Anna's like, well, it's none of your fucking business.

That's right. So Della hit her with a chair. Jesus Christ. Hold on. Wait. Do that at the park. Save it, ladies. I've got an idea.

Frightening my chair fights. Hit her with a chair. Anna runs out of the house as Della chases her, screaming. Chris comes out and hops into a carriage and gets Anna in, and Della yells at the cowered Chris to come face her, but he doesn't and takes off in the carriage. And once they're riding in the carriage, he tells Anna that he doesn't care about Della. Well, did you know that crazy woman? I sure did.

Hit her with a chair. Hit her with a chair. The new manager lasted 44 games. That's pretty good. Chris has absolutely no money. The players are not paid for six straight weeks. On top of that, he's finding them. Oh my God.

Sorry, you don't have any money. I got to find you. For lack of getting paid, we're going to find you. So I have to find you $50 for not getting a check from me? So unfortunately, you broke a rule and didn't get paid. It's going to be 70 bucks. No, but you didn't pay me. All right.

How about this? Not going to find you. Then we're even. No. You owe me money. You're complaining. That's another 70. All right.

How about this? It's a varsh and you get nothing and then we're even. No, but that's not even. I'm playing for you. You have to pay me money. I did, but you're fine. You look, you're fine again. Sorry, buddy.

It's just messing up. Now you do actually owe me $50 and I'm going to give it to Hank because I haven't paid him in a year. Okay? Okay. Great. I don't know. At this point, the reserve clause is really fucked because I can't just leave.

Did you ever want to know the best way to go? Did you ever think you could go to the baseball show? Did you ever have a body, a body, but you guys, you're the boss. Did you want to go to the baseball show? I don't even remember what we were talking about. So it's like I said, 44 games, six weeks and paid guys, and outfield to get to Malaria and Chris finds him. What?

Said you got it pretty bad. Yeah, I feel really terrible. You look so sick. What do you think it was? It's Malaria. The doctor said it's Malaria. Yeah, I guess it's going to be $100. What?

No, I said I have Malaria. I know, yeah. Whenever you get a second, here's the bill. That's the fine. Gosh. You get better soon. You need to play here on the contract. It's going to be months.

It's Malaria. Maybe on the contract. Pay the fine. Don't be an asshole. I'm pretty good at this. One day Anna and Della both walked in a Chris's stadium box at the same time and Della locked Anna inside. Then after, pulled the pistol on Chris and said she'd kill him if he didn't marry her.

Della? Yeah. I do. I never thought you'd pull a pistol on me. In September 1896, they eloped to Erie, Pennsylvania. Della? Yeah. Wow.

After the season, he sold his best player for $10,000. The Browns only won 40 games that year. Anna was not told. That he eloped. Right. I don't know how this happens, but he leaves Della in Erie after eloping and comes back. Anna comes to work on Monday and the team secretary is there. The team secretary tells her he eloped and got married.

A couple of days later, Anna tells her story to the St. Louis News Dispatch. She had kept a diary of everything and she said she's suing Chris for breach of contract for $25,000. Oh, man. They eventually settle out of court for $3,000 and then Chris's lawyer sued Chris for not paying. Chris's lawyer sued? Oh, my God.

That's Trump. Yeah. Everybody sues. That's what Trump's lawyer is. Yes. Yes. So in January, 1897, Baldwin has still not gotten the money from Chris. The money from the illegal imprisonment.

Yeah, the judge said he had to pay. So he sues him again and this time gets $10,000 in damages. Jesus Christ. So he's got the 44 looming. He owes the lawyer, he owes Anna, he owes Baldwin, and now the Baldwin fee is $10,000. Yeah. Plus, he's not making any money. So Chris keeps appealing that and it goes all the way to the Pittsburgh Supreme Court

who are like, no, you owe him the money and Chris still refuses to pay. Can we do the trial at the park? Just wait until the ice skating rink pays off. I got a good feeling. I blame that dead jockey. Now the other owners are watching this and like he's got to just walk away from the team at this point. Yes.

Like it's a disaster, but he doesn't. Chris and Della move into an apartment over the saloon in the ballpark. Great. Let's get him living there. And he hires Buttermilk Tommy Dowd as manager. No I could not figure out why they called him Buttermilk. It doesn't really matter. The cranks are not coming to games.

Buttermilk Tommy gets fired in May. The next manager lasts seven weeks. Oh my God. The team is drinking incredibly hard and there is a, quote, mutinous atmosphere. They lose 18 games in a row. Another owner gives Chris money to cover players' salaries. Wow. He feels that bad.

He fires the next manager and Chris manages the team for the last 14 games. Oh my God. So he gives speeches to the team and the players would laugh. At one point, Buttermilk Tommy, who is still a player, he just got fired as manager, crammed a handkerchief into his mouth to try to keep himself from laughing and Chris fined him. He fined him. Every one thing is a fine. And the players have no money.

Are they paying the fines? I don't know what's happening with that because they're not getting paid. He's like finding them and they're like, yeah, dude, you're not paying us. That's going to be a fine. Buttermilk, this is tough, a hundred bucks. The groundskeeper convinces Chris, playing without a manager would save money. So Chris fires himself and there's no manager at the end of the season. I guess you're wondering why I called you into my office.

Yeah, what's going on, Buck? I feel like we've been doing pretty good for the last few games. There's few games you don't even know what you're talking about. Sure I do. Absolutely. There's so many times that I've been coming up with good strategies and things of that nature. Yes, but unfortunately, lately, you've just kind of seemed a bit checked out.

But of course I'm checked out. All you do is find me, but you keep breaking and bending the rules. Boss person? Yes, what you need. Are you talking? I mean, please, we're coming up with a new strategy. We? What we need to do is move in another direction.

If you're telling me you're going to throw me out on the street, let me tell you something. You better, better think about what you're doing. There's nobody as good as me. Who? There's no doubt you're good. You're obviously the best. Well, thank you. That means a lot.

But we can't afford the best anymore. Well, then I suppose I know what you're going to do and I respect the hell out of the move. Go ahead. Why don't you say it? If I had. But who is going to manage the team? I'll try to do it. Well, I got to say, you got balls.

That's the one thing I can say. Well, yeah, if you want a baseball team, you got to have balls. You son of a bitch. Get over here. You get over here. Oh, look at you. Huh? I kissed him at it.

You little rascal. Nuggy patrol. You give me nuggies. I give you a nugget back. Oh, whoops. The hell just happened. Did we just have a moment to just kiss me? I guess I did all of a sudden I'm learning all these new things about myself.

Oh, hey, boss. I just wanted to. Well, maybe you should get out of that manager's outfit for a second. Boss. I guess I do owe you the clothes. Yeah. What do you want? Hold on a second.

Maybe take your pants off. I mean, they are technically. Boss. There we go. That's nice. No, boss. That's nice. Okay.

I'm going to step out. You feel good. You feel good against me too. We can't tell anyone what's going on. Boss. We're going to have to kill the guy who walked in. What? After we do this.

Give it to me. Give it to me. Oh, my God. This feels so right. I think this is what happened after all along. The emptiness inside my soul has finally been filled. What I've been looking for the whole time with me. What did you want to talk to us about?

Nothing. Okay. Fine. Wow. I hope I land on my feet. I hope you don't. Oh, man. At the end of the season, he sold a bunch of players.

When the ball parks. We have a seagull. When the ball parks are enclosed at night, Chris would take the money up to the apartment with him and in the morning, the bartender would come and whistle and Chris would lower the money through a hole down to him. But some crooks figured out the things and came in the morning and whistled and Chris lowered the money down to the crooks and they made off with the money. He just didn't want to go down.

He was just too tired. I don't know what. Too drunk. What is his... Yeah, it must have been. He just didn't want to... Have you heard about the money window? Okay.

He soon discovered that the crooks were Della's relatives. Oh, my God. In November, Della's mom, who rented a house from Chris, didn't pay and he evicted her and sued her for $60. Okay. Oh, and he's still seeing Anna. Wow. So he's married to Della, right?

Yeah. So he's seeing Anna. She sued him and won. But what... This is like, why is she... This man is such a loser. He filed for divorce from Della in January, 1898. She found out when she came home and all the locks were changed.

Nice. So she went to the saloon and six employees kept her out and one gave her, quote, a release from the marriage. A release? He released her like a baseball player? What? I'm not going to belabor this point, and I think you... You know where we're at as an organization.

What are you talking about? We got to send you down to the miners. We have to let you go. I'm not going to lie. A couple suitors have called about you, so hopefully they sign you soon. Della hired an ex-governor as her lawyer and countersued. She said he was always drunk and called her terrible names and once threatened to throw her out a window, the divorce was granted that same month.

Chris is now defaulting on his $44,000 in loans and creditors are lining up. He is apparently about $70,000 in debt, which is about $2.5 million today. He has nothing nowhere near that. He also doesn't own the land that he built the new ballpark on. Oh, right. He never paid. So he couldn't sell it. Right.

So he's nothing. And now there's a lot of pressure to sell the team. But what is the team worth? I mean, it's got to be worth something because it is still... I mean, I don't know because you're... It can't be worth the amount he owes. I mean, the biggest failure here is to not own the land. So two men, Cincinnati team owner John Brush and a retired grocer, give him a loan to extend the $44,000 deadline.

And Chris then gives up 25% of the browns to those guys. Right. Sort of like the government. Yeah. So once later at the winter meetings, Chris asked the other NL owners for money, and they're like, no. What an amazing thing to bring up at the owner's meeting. I propose you all give me a little bit.

All in favor? Yeah. He offers every player up for sale. So he's going to sell everyone? He's put every player up for sale. He's going to have babies play. And he's constantly getting offers from people to buy the browns. The new loan deadline is January 15th.

So he starts doing... I don't understand what the business thing is. He starts doing all these financial shenanigans. Manoeuvres. He becomes the trustee and the creditor of the business, which causes all sorts of confusion. They try to audit, nothing makes sense. In February, 1898, a group of men meet at the Carnegie Building in Pittsburgh. Two of them were attorneys for Mark Baldwin. And then another two are attorneys for the bondsman who paid Chris's bond.

Chris Baldwin moved real bad. They decide Chris should be taken by force from St. Louis in order to force him to pay the money he owes Baldwin and the men who paid his bail. A baseball extradition. It's a kidnapping. It's a baseball kidnapping. So men were sent and they arrived in St. Louis on February 7th. They set up a fake meeting with a New York writer to talk to Chris.

A PI that meets Chris and gets into a carriage with him, and the carriage goes to where he thinks they're going for the meeting, but then it keeps going, and all of a sudden it's in East St. Louis. I mean, it's crazy. We leave in St. Louis. How are we going for this? Arch? Yeah.

So you said we were going to go to the library? Where are we? It's like a dog going to the vet. And then when they're in East St. Louis, the PI is like, you're going to Pittsburgh. Quote. As Vanda Aja struggled for freedom and bellowed with rage, he was handcuffed to Detective Brendel. He suffered a smashed hat and a torn coat and vest.

What, the X-rays? He's hat smashed, his coat's torn here, he's not looking good. And Illinois cop hears him screaming and stops the carriage, and then the PI shows him a legit writ of arrest, and then that's it. It's off. And they take Chris, they put him on a train. He tries to break the windows in the train, and then finally he gives in and just starts sobbing and crying.

Oh my God. The bondsman's lawyers then hold the press conference and say that Chris has been captured. Oh my God. When Chris is put into a Pittsburgh jail, he goes to court the next day, he looks horrendous. I mean, that's saying something. Local laws state that if someone did not pay a judgment, they could be held for up to 60 days. Okay.

Wow, he's not going to do well there. So, yeah, so he's back in jail, and he gets no special treatment, obviously. He spends most of his time- I have a Mai Tai? He spends most of his time in jail wiring the team secretary asking for money. Now there's no sympathy for Chris with the public or the press. Friends refuse to help him, and then the NL is like, this looks really bad for us. So the league is like, let's get him out of there, so they post the bail and get him out. Oh my God.

In return, he has to agree to leave baseball forever. Oh my God. This is, I mean, there's never been a worse person involved in sports, right? Steinbrenner may be- No way! March shot Steinbrenner very close. But as far as just, I ain't like racist, terrible people, no doubt- Well, shots got way ahead on the racer for March shot. That's what I- But I don't agree.

I can see- Steinbrenner is very close to this. Dude, this is- Yes, he is. I cannot imagine. Yeah. I mean, this guy is like- I mean, this is award-winning shit. It's nuts. He's so bad that baseball's like, you gotta go. So they hold their March meeting, and Chris manages to get a $4,000 loan from the NL to

keep the Browns going through the season. He's supposed to walk away. Yeah, but they agree it, but I don't know if there's a timeline for wet, or he's just not doing it. It's like he's Jason Voorhees. But the league installs the team secretary as president now, so he's out as president. Over the winter, the horse race track and the shoot-the-shoots are removed. Yeah, I mean, someone was like, look, it really is.

It does remind me of Bar Rescue, where it's just like, you know, at some point you're just like, well, we do trivia night, and it's also, we do skeet shooting, and then we do Battle of the Bands, but we're also a restaurant that's a tiki bar. So the original design is restored. On April 10th, a fire broke out in the stands during a game. It's a big fire, like players are pulling people onto the field to get them out. Everything is burned out except the right field bleachers. No one dies, but like a hundred people are injured, some really badly.

Chris's saloon and apartment are gone, all of his private possessions. Quote, a frantic Chris von der Aha ran around the streets screaming like a madman. He had to be physically restrained by friends. In the fire, Van der Aha lost all his personal effects, including trophies, correspondence files, and his finery of clothes and his dog. So he had nothing, but now he has nothing. The manager of the team gets a gang of men together, ex-players, construction workers, and they work all night removing debris and putting up temporary stands for 4,000 to have

a game the next day. Chris, of course, appoints himself the construction foreman. Well, you're going to need a leader, because nobody who knows how to build something from the ground up more than me. What? I'll be the foreman. Oh, and by the way, fire extremely suspicious with everything that's going on, the money videos.

You think he did it? Well, or someone mad at him, like, you know, but also like on the other hand, Tenderbox City at that time, right? But a lot of people are like, this is suspicious. So 7,000 people came to the game that day, a lot of them just stood around the ropes on the outside. Of course, they doubled ticket fee for that day. The entire stadium would be rebuilt and finished by the 4th of July.

Perfect for fireworks. I just, like, it's so crazy that they could build something in there. This is sued by a bunch of people who are injured in the fire. In June, the St. Louis Circuit Court steps in and takes over the club. In August, the Browns are forced into the hands of a receiver. Chris Marisana. Wow. He's 47.

She's 24. How is she? I just cannot. Every, every, God, there's nothing, God is stepping in. There's nothing good here. God's telling you no. There's nothing good. God's like, look, I'm trying to kill him.

In December, the bank forecloses on the ballpark. Foreclosure park. A judge rules Chris is incompetent and a detriment to the game of baseball. I mean, who is the judge? Well, that's a baseball court judge. Is it an umpire? Yeah. You're bad for baseball.

Yeah. Quack, quack. There's more hearings and trials. March 14th, 1899, he officially loses control of everything. The Browns, everything he's at. The Browns are auctioned. An attorney buys the club and team for 33,000 and then immediately sells it to the owner of the Cleveland Spiders, who then transfers the Spiders to St. Louis and the Browns to

Cleveland. So he swaps? Yeah. He swapses the teams and the Browns who are now. The Cleveland Browns or the Spiders, whatever, they play in Cleveland and would have the worst record in baseball that year. The Browns. Yeah.

Imagine you're in Cleveland and you have a decent team that you like and all of a sudden it's replaced by the shittiest team in baseball, why would you go? It's hard to imagine a team named the Cleveland Browns sucking. So they have the worst record in baseball that year. The St. Louis team's colors are changed from brown to cardinal red and the team name changed to the perfectos. Oh my God. I'm forever Aaron calling your team the perfectos.

You guys should wear capes. Chris believes there has been a massive conspiracy against him and he files a $50,000 lawsuit against the league. In 1902, Anna filed for divorce. What happened? What possibly could do it? He went into seclusion in St. Louis. He's in St. Louis, but he's in seclusion.

It turns out he's working as a bartender. Wow. How? On May 1st, 1907, there's a baseball banquet which takes place at a big fancy hotel to commemorate the anniversary of a special St. Louis event 30 years earlier. There was a 0 to 0 15 inning tie between the St. Louis Browns and Syracuse Stars. So they have a big... The worst game ever.

May 1907, Chris is one of the speakers and he gets a massive thunderous applause. The next year it's reported he has pneumonia and is unemployed and is filed for bankruptcy. So the owner of the sporting news organizes a benefit baseball game and they raise $5,000 and creditors immediately try to come and take the money, but everyone stops them. Five years later, Chris is sued by the St. Louis Brewing Company for $850 in debts just from getting drunk. In 1913, he was bedridden as the years of boozing have caught up with him and he dies on July 5th of dropsy and cirrhosis of the liver and is survived by his wife, Anna.

So somehow... What's dropsy? I think dropsy is tuberculosis. Everything's tuberculosis. Is there a disease that has more nicknames? I do think it's tuberculosis, but it could be wrong, but it's a respiratory, usually respiratory type thing. And Anna's still hung in there.

Well, they got divorced, but she was still... They must have gotten married. Being married. Like that's the... Of all of this, the Anna thing to me is the one I just go, what? That's saying something. There's more that I'm puzzled by, to be honest. There's 40 other things before that.

That one's puzzling, but that is just... I mean, this is just the craziest... This is the craziest man in the world. This is... What did he look like? Okay. Let me... Let's have a look.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. The source is Chris Vonderaha and the St. Louis Browns by Thomas J. Hettrick. And then are the Cleveland Browns... Is there any... Did they turn into a football team? No, I just...

It just was like in the... I think that he actually kept the name, the Spiders in Cleveland, and I think so. I don't think it had anything to do with that. They just didn't know how to name teams a long time ago. I think there's no more names. Well, actually, another team came to St. Louis and called themselves the Browns in 1902. Oh, really? And eventually moved to Baltimore to become the Orioles.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Wow. Wow. And then Cleveland was like, Browns has a good vibe. I can't wait to see this guy. Oh, my God. I love him.

Oh, my God. It's just amazing to sort of see him just because the madness that took place in that head. Yeah. That big head. I mean, look, it's just a... It's a drunk guy. I mean, that's really what it is at the end of the day.

Yeah. He's just shit-faced all the time. It is also... It's also a guy who made money, however he made money, and then because of that initial success... He thinks he knows. ...thought he could do everything. Elon Musk.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Man. Yeah. Hold him up. Oh, God. He just... It's just amazing.

He's got big ears, too. He's big features. Yeah, he does. He's got a big old honker nose. Yeah. What kind of nose you want to twist and ask, how much you paid to get at that color? God, dude, that is so... That guy is wild.

I feel like it should be said that the Cardinals go on to be the second-winningest franchise of all time. Oh, shut up. Oh, Jesus Christ. 11 real-time. Shut up, Presto. 11 real-time. Shut up, Presto.

Nobody cares about your dumb team. Shut up, Presto. The St. Louis Presto. Presto. Perfecto. Perfecto. Perfecto, guys. Get it right.

Oh, man. I just cannot get over that. This really did, and he would like it, have the escalation of a roller coaster. Yeah. It was build, build, build, build, build, build, build, build, build, build, brrrraaah. I mean, the fun thing about alcoholism is that's kind of how it works. Yeah, I guess, right? It's all sort of, you're the fun life of the party and then you're not.

And it really always has a dark, terrible ending if you don't sober up. You know who I honestly think the hero is? Me. No. The guy who fell in the elevator. They fell in the elevator shaft. My favorite thing about reading old baseball stories like this is they're just like, and Jimmy Franco fell in an elevator shaft and then no one, you're like, okay, talk more

about that because that's, I want more. What do you want? The second leading cause of death that year. Shaft passings. God damn, I am like processing this man still. This man is. He's something else. He is really something else.

He's a hero. I honestly. He's in the baseball hall of fame. Of course he is. Yeah. And Pete Rose? No. Nope.

Barry Bonds? No. No. And by the way, if they were all betting on their teams, they would bet on themselves to win. Well, that was his fatal flaw. Which? Why is that illegal to bet on yourself to win?

That argument has been made before. Why can't you? I don't know. I guess because it's. You're going to try harder? Yeah. It isn't one of those things where it's like, you should be able to. Yeah.

I mean, over the top and made a movie about it. That would make me less inclined to think there's cheating. Yeah. If you're betting on yourself. Betting on yourself. Yeah. But it's so. Can't.

Can't you do that in boxing? I feel like you can do that in boxing. Well, no, I don't think so. No. That wouldn't be surprising. Because boxing is rule list. Relax, asshole. Well, I don't know what to say.

By the way, I looked up Calliope. It's not a pinwheel, as I was describing it. It's like a circus organ on a cart. That's what I saw. Circus organ on a cart? Yeah. Yeah. Portable organ.

I think I was right. It's a cow. It's a cow. It's a cow. It's a cow. I think it's pronounced cow you. I think that little weird cartoon kid. All right, well, um, oh, man, I just, I don't know, I'm a bit of a shock, a bit of a shock

over this guy. Nobody wins. I think, I think that guy wins. Oh, my God, that is insane.