Episode 287 - Brad talks Baseball

A special mini episode where Brad talks about his love of the Philadelphia Phillies while driving his car.

He also mentions how cool he thinks Paul Francis Sullivan is.

Episode Transcript

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positive email, Cosmic you talk aboutcoomcast, dot comics, music, books
and whatever else we feel like.Please welcome your host. Hey a okay,
London Hall crush your enemy. He'sdriven for forty here's a lemon.

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Hey kids. It is episode toeighty seven of the Cosmic Grupetto podcast,
and it's sort of a weird onebecause I'm recording this while driving home from
dropping my son Chase off at middleschool, and it's gonna be a short
episode, but it's and it's gonnabe weird because you're gonna hear Lake the

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clicker going off from my turn signaland all that. But I wanted to
take a second to talk about baseballbecause as it's as I've talked about in
the past, I am a lifelongPhillies fan. I grew up outside of
Philadelphia and follow the team my wholelife, which in general, just being

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a Philadelphia sports fan is not easy. They don't win a whole lot.
They've had some dreadful eras, butI and all you can do is persevere.
And what else could be frustrating andit could be a little challenging is

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the players you love sometimes aren't peoplethat you want to be a big fan
of when you find out about them. Otherwise. As a child, I
was a big Pete Rose fan,and yikes, and Pete Rose inarguably a

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great player. But the gambling scandaland just how arrogantly and poorly he handled
that controversy in the following years,and it just turns out Pete Rose is
was and is a jerk, doesn'tmake him any less of an amazing player

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and a hard playing player he was. His nickname was Charlie Hustle because one
of the iconic pieces of lore surroundingPete Roses whenever he would walk, he
would run the first base. Hewould get a walk and he would run

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the first base. He would like, hustle down and we get and I
don't you don't see that sort ofrun out every play, play as hard
as you can run as hard asyou cant on every play from too many
players. I remember specifically during thetwo thousand eight World Series, which was

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the last World Series at the Phillieswon Pat Burrell, who was a pretty
good He was a pretty good powerthat was sort of the only thing he
did well. He hit for okaverage, was bad defensively, but when

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he hit the ball and he gotthe bat really on it, it was
going to be a home run.And there was this one at bat that
he had during that World Series wherehe knocked the heck out of the ball
and he's doing a slow trot whilewatching the ball because he knew he hit
a home run. But it turnsout the ball was just about an inch

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or too shy of clearing the fenceso bounced off the top of the de
fence, so it ended up itwasn't a home run, and he could
see it where he had this lookto say, oh shit, and all
of a sudden, he has torun as fast as canon. Pat Barow
was not a fast runner to barelysqueak out a double off of what he

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thought was a home run, Andit was even commented by the announcers that
if he had run hard the entiretime. He might have been able to
squeak out a triple because the ballwas very high. He was in the
air a long time, and hecould have been on second by the time
the ball hit the fence. Andit's a very common thing. I have

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seen a lot of Phillies home runsthis postseason because they've hit a lot of
them that they hit the ball andthey sort of know, so they just
hit the ball and they sort ofpose a little bit and watching this is
not specific to the Phillies, andthey watch and you know, flip the

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bat and everything. And I thinkduring the postseason, I would love to
see a Pete Rose like player whohits the ball and then just runs like
hell, regardless of if they thinkit's a home runner. Now, especially
in the postseason, I think therewould be a lot of value to that.
During the regular season, there's onehundred and sixty two games, I

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pose, all you want whatever,but postseason, where you just don't know
and every base you get could bea game changer. I would love to
see a player who had that sortof run everything out. But you know,

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Pete Rose had that, but alsokind of a dick. I also
was a big fan. In nineteenninety three season and the seasons before and
after. Lenny Dykster the center fielderfor the Phillies, and he was his
nickname was Nails because Lenny Dyster wastough as nails and he was another player

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that ran out every play and justwith reckless abandon Uh he injured himself because
of how hard he would run intothe center field wall going after going after
a flyball. And he was notthe most physically gifted player. Uh really

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had mediocre or average MLB athletic abilities, which is nothing to nothing to nothing
to wag your finger up at,but regardless, because he played so hard,
because he had this amazing intensity,and because he was a very very

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smart ball player, he was ableto take that, you know, league
average ability and turn it into allstar seasons. But after he left baseball,
he got involved in the world offinance and prided himself on being this

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business savvy savant, but he wasrevealed he was ripping people off and wildly
overstating his financial acumen. And thenthere were also accusations of sexual impropriety and

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in interviews, interviews where he's tryingto present himself as well as possible came
across as a sleeves bag. Iwas like, it's depressing. Also from
that same area, and probably myfavorite baseball player at the time was pitcher
Kurt Schilling, And this was anotherguy who loved baseball. Named his son

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Garrig after Loui Garrick and had aroom full of memorabilia from the game.
Like there are some baseball players,there are some athletes who, regardless of
the sport, you get this senseand sometimes they even come out and say
it, where whatever sport they're playingis a means to an end. They

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were touched by the Almighty to havethis incredible ability to excel at sports and
got good at it, but theynever really loved it. It was just
something they were preternaturally good at.So they can make a lot of money

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doing it, and it beat whateverother job they could they could get their
hands upon. And yeah, I'mnot belittling that, I understand, but
it's a shame. But it's notthat it's a shame, but it gives
me an especial fondness for players likeKurt Chilly, even Alice Rodriguez, who

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I think he sort of has repairedhis reputation but even before that, say
whatever you want about a Rod.He's definitely played a little fast and loose
with the rules, and it couldbe kind of arrogant or unlikable, but

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he loved baseball. And Kurt Schillinghad that same thing also. I remember
very specifically every year WIP, thesports talk station in Philadelphia, would have
a fundraiser and they would have stufflike, oh, this bat was signed

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by Darren Dalton or this glove thatwas worn by Mike Schmidt, whatever,
and that's great, and fans wouldcall in and bid on it. Kurt
Shilling actually put up forbid dinner atKurt Shilling's house with Kurt Shilling and his
wife. He offered to open hishome to a fan to come and he

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and his wife would cook dinner andthey would serve drinks and you would get
to hang out with Kurt Shilling.And that impressed me because he showed an
awareness for how privileged he was andgiving back to the fans. And I
always like Kurt Schilling for that.Since his retirement, Kurt Shilling has sort

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of gone alt right, has lostemployment as a commentator because of some anti
Muslim tweets, and I don't havea problem with It's not that he's Republican.

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I don't like him because he's Republican. It's he seems to have publicly
embraced the worst parts of the ultraright viewpoints, and I find it a
shame And it just as the sameas if I was a fan of someone

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who embraced the taking the left ideologyand going in an unhealthy or dangerous or
direction, I would be equally asoff put by that. I always feel

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like you need to justify I don'tlike people, and that's a little silly,
but here we are. So anyway, Yeah, long time Philadelphia fan,
and they are currently up in theNational League Championship Series. They want
to get to the World Series.They're up two games to one against the

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Arizona Diamondbacks in a best of sevenseries. They need two more wins.
They're gonna play two more games inArizona against the Diamondbacks and then if it
goes to it, then there wouldbe two more games in Philadelphia. Philadelphia
Citizens Bank Park is viewed as oneof the best home field advantages in sports.

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My belief is they lost last nightas I'm recording this, two to
one in ten innings. I feelthat while you certainly always want to win,
I feel that loss sets up areally good next game because the Diamondbacks

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had to throw out all their bestrelief pitchers who are going to be worn
out, and I think this upcominggame, the Diamondbacks don't have another really
strong starting pitcher to throw out.I think the Philadelphia players are going to

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be acclimated to the environment. Itwas a little bit of a come doown
game after winning ten nothing the previousgame. I don't think you're going to
be able to keep the Philadelphia bats. Bryce Harper, Schwarber, Real Muto
Castianos. These are guys who hita lot of home runs. You're not

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gonna get two games in a rowwithout those guys hitting the long ball or
if nothing else, you're not gonnakeep them from being effective. And without
a strong starting pitcher and with abullpen that's gonna get start, this a

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gonna start getting worn out, andb the Phillies are gonna get a couple
more chances to look at. Eventuallythey're gonna figure it out. They're gonna
get dialed in. I think thisseries is going to go five games.
I think the Phillies are gonna winthe next two. I think I think
they're gonna I think this next gamecould be a shootout. Uh. The

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Phillies going with their forced uh withtheir four starter, they have a couple
of good options for for starter,and they have a stronger bullpen. But
still I think finally we're gonna havethat eight to five, nine to six
game that uh, we have reallyseen in these playoffs with the Phillies as
much. I think we there wasone sort of high scoring game when they

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played Atlanta. But I think thisis going to be the game where the
bats are going to be really cracking. But I think the Phillies are going
to win that. And then thefollowing game, You're going to have a
Wheeler starting for the Phillies and hehas been really good, and I think

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that I think you're going to haveI think they're going to finish it up.
It could go six. You know, maybe maybe that shootout goes the
other direction. But I don't thinkthe Diamondbacks will be able to sweep three
games and then go into Philadelphia andyou know, and win again in Philadelphia

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where they just looked intimidated last time. Baseball and other sports are all strange
and things can go in different directions, but I just don't see it happening.
There was a statistic that once ateam wins the first two games in
a seven game series, that teamgoes on to win the series eighty six

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percent of the time. That issome pretty cool odds. Now, the
one thing I've said is, ifyou found out that a lottery you had
a sixteen or fourteen percent chance ofwinning, you buy a lot of tickets
because you know those are not insurmountableodds. So that's why they play the

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games. I think the Diamondbacks area good team, and they certainly have
had a great postseason. I justsort of believe in the Phillies. I
think they're gonna go into the WorldSeries and play the Rangers, and that'll
be exciting stuff. The Rangers havelooked really good. I would be reluctant

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to make a prediction at this point, one thing at a time. So
yeah, that was my uh,that is my take on the National League
Series, Go Phils. I wouldhave loved to have Paul Francis Sullivan on
to talk about it, but it'dbe too hard to get that turned around,
and by the time the episode wouldbe out. The series will be

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over Paul Francis Sullivan, who didthe Bull Durham Minute and also has a
wonderful podcast talk about Major League BaseballSully. I love Sally. He is
one of my favorite people in podcastworld. I just find him a really
impressive guy and a good guy.And I got a chance to meet him

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at the Philadelphia Minute by Minute Convention. And I've met so many cool people
doing this, but Sully is oneof the people where I am just I
just think he's such a great guyand I wish I could hang out with
him all the time. So I'mgonna try to do a few more of

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these many episodes, shorter episodes.It was something that I always wanted to
do. When I started the podcast, I wanted I thought I was going
to do a lot more just metalking directly to the audience, but I
ended up getting such good guests andsuch good contributors and such a great panel

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that I never did in a lot. I always sort of viewed my goals
to be sort of like the DanaGold Hour, a great pot podcast with
comedian and writer and actor Dana Gould, where he would have his uh true

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tales of Hollywood. I might beit's a section of each episode where he
would go into the history of aHolly. Of go into a section of
history of Holly, I would tellsome great stories. I always sort of
wanted to do that, but itjust never happened. But as we're sort
of winding it down, I figureit'd be fun to have these direct talks,

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these sort of driving talks. Idid those a few times with movie
reviews, but the pandemic happened andI saw less movies and it didn't occur
as often. But I'll be doingthis a little bit more as we get
towards the end of the year andepisode three hundred. So thanks, thanks

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so much for listening, Go fills, and, as Jarf likes to say,
seeing the funny pages. Subscribe tothe Cosmic Japano podcast on iTunes,

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Okay, well it is the secondbest part of podcasting. Crush your enemies,
see them driven before you hear thelamentations of their women. Is not

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an is no enemy? No,don't think ste s not The stark starts

(23:06):
young st ETAs young step Step staysthese things speaking. The sting step snaps
and produce snap sticks and b