Lou Schiff - Attorneys in the Hall of Fame, Tony La Russa, fans in Japan & Marlins

Author & Judge Lou Schiff joins Mat & Mark 

28 years on the bench

Mitchell Hamline School of Law

Upcoming book: Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame 

Plans for Marlins games in LA and Milwaukee

Visits to Japan and LA

World Baseball Classic

Caribbean baseball fans & attendance comparison with the Marlins

Past Marlins stars (Yelich, Ozuna, Stanton, Realmuto) & team-building challenges

Ownership lack of long-term commitment affecting fan engagement

The importance of consistency in building a franchise

Pitching depth concerns f(Yuri Pérez’s return, Sandy Alcantara’s status)

Junior Caminero’s dramatic home run 

Building a Competitive Team – The importance of a strong general manager and financial strategy. Discussion on past Marlins trades and franchise decisions.

Reflections on Derek Jeter, Kim Ng, and Don Mattingly's tenure. Why Kim Ng was the best thing to happen to the Marlins and the controversy surrounding her departure.

MLB’s Financial Landscape – impact of ownership decisions on team success, the need for a salary floor, and the debate over trade equity.

Should MLB Penalize Team Owners when their teams lose?

Ownership Models in Baseball – Comparing private vs. public ownership, with examples like the Atlanta Braves and the Green Bay Packers

Dodgers, Contracts, and MLB’s Future – Examining deferred contracts like Shohei Ohtani’s and how they might push MLB toward a salary cap & floor.

Rule Changes Under Rob Manfred – The pros and cons of pitch clocks, bigger bases, and the controversial "Manfred Man" in extra innings.

The Fan Experience in Japan vs. the U.S. – 

World Series Predictions & Hopes

Mat Germain predicts the Red Sox could be the next World Series winner.

Hopes for early elimination of the Dodger

Would love to see the Pirates or Brewers in the World Series.

Proposed Rule Changes in Baseball

Lou Schiff wants to eliminate the (DH) and bring back pitcher batting, bunting, and small ball.

Modern baseball has too many strikeouts and misses the era of stolen bases and more strategic play.

Mat Germain argues keeping the DH is an equalizer for small-market teams, allowing them to bring in veteran hitters like Nelson Cruz to compete with wealthier teams.

Automated Umpiring & Replay System Changes

Automated strike zones are gaining traction, with MLB experimenting by measuring players’ strike zones individually

Believes bias could affect decisions, even unintentionally, due to relationships or experience levels.

Suggests an approach, where calls are reviewed without prior knowledge of the on-field ruling.

How does bias influences umpiring decisions

Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame" is Co-authored by Lou Schiff & 10 other contributors, covering 11 Hall of Fame members who were also lawyers.

The book Includes players, owners, commissioners, & managers with legal backgrounds.

Lou wrote the chapter on Tony La Russa, the only living attorney in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

La Russa’s signed as a "bonus baby" with Kansas City but later pursued law later

Attended law school and passed the bar exam but never actively practiced law.

Lou interviewed several people connected to La Russa, including:

Prof. Charles Earhart (his law professor), Scott Tozian (law school friend), Judge Robin Fuson (former player under La Russa), Mike Veeck (his first managerial job connection), Bill Dooley (his former boss)

Appendix includes statistics on Hall of Fame lawyers: Net worth, marriages, law schools, and more

Follow Mat on Blue Sky at  https://bsky.app/profile/matgermain.bsky.social

You can find Mark on Blue Sky at https://bsky.app/profile/baseballbizondeck.bsky.social

Transcript

275 Lou Schiff Marlins Japan Mets

[00:00:00] Lou Schiff: And put the record button. That's 

[00:00:02] Mark Corbett: it. 

[00:00:02] Mat Germain: This is the 

[00:00:11] Mark Corbett: opening. That's right. Welcome boys and girls to baseball biz on deck. This is Mark. Hey, we had a great show going on before this one. It was the, it wasn't really the pre show. But we thought we were live. This is Mark, uh, Corbett. I am with Mat Germain & as we do each week.

[00:00:28] Mark Corbett: This week, we have a great friend coming back. Mr. Lou Schiff, the honorable Lou Schiff, who just retired after 28 years on the bench. And first, let me say thanks for your service, Lou. We appreciate all you did and, uh, continue to do and folks. Yeah, so welcome, dude. I mean, How you been? What do you do after 28 years?

[00:00:52] Lou Schiff: Taking it easy a little bit. , doing some podcasts. , did a program, , yesterday for the University of Wisconsin School of Law, their, uh, sports law program, did a program on the history of the baseball commissioner and the powers of the commissioner. Wow. Did a learning exercise with the National Judicial College, hoping to stay on as a faculty member there.

[00:01:14] Lou Schiff: I'm going to stay on as a faculty member and adjunct faculty member over at Mitchell Hamlin School of Law in St. Paul, just finished a new book. We can talk about that later on attorneys in the, in the, in the Baseball Hall of Fame that gets published later this year by, uh, McFarland and company and, uh, playing a little bit of golf.

[00:01:36] Lou Schiff: Try and taking some golf lessons, or as my brother says, you can't take a lesson every week and you're not getting any better. Well, sometimes that happens, uh, played this morning, only lost 1 ball on 18 holes, which is good. Yeah, that was. I was good, you know, only played two holes now played all 18, but, uh, uh, only lost one ball.

[00:02:00] Lou Schiff: , And I'm, I'm trying to enjoy life a little bit, uh, more different, uh, more time with my wife. Uh, like, like you, , my son and, his wife are expecting a child towards, , fall, so I'll be a grandpa for the 1st time. They're trying to come up with names to call me. So, uh, we'll figure that out when the time is right.

[00:02:22] Lou Schiff: Uh, doing some traveling, but I always do some traveling. I got some plans this year to go to L. A. for the Marlins, watch them play out in L. A. Going to go to Milwaukee. I've been to, I was to L. A. last year when I went out to Japan and I caught a game in L. A. and then I caught a game in Japan, I can tell you about later, uh, and, uh, going to take a Marlin series in in Milwaukee, be up in Minnesota for a few days and travel, see some friends 

[00:02:51] Lou Schiff: just kind of enjoy life and, uh, spend it with family and friends and, you know, talk to folks, you know, we've become friends over the years doing this podcast together. 

[00:03:00] Lou Schiff: You've been down to every time you come down to Marlins games and I give you my tickets and I don't get a chance to see you 

[00:03:06] Mark Corbett: know, and I'm glad I got the opportunity here because I was, it's actually my little mental checklist and 

[00:03:11] Lou Schiff: whenever you want tickets, you know, they're, they're available because there's only six season ticket holders in addition to my brother and I.

[00:03:17] Lou Schiff: So. You know, we can always get you a ticket or two. 

[00:03:19] Mark Corbett: Well, thank you, man. Yeah. Cause I wanted to thank you for allowing me that opportunity before. And, and Matt, I got to go watch the Rays play at the Marlis park. We're not going to call it that other thing that's paid. We don't get paid, but. The, uh, the thing with his man was it was a great experience and one Lou , got these fantastic seats were so I was able to be up close is right behind the visitors.

[00:03:45] Mark Corbett: Um, so it was a good evening there. You got to see Yandy and talking with some of the other guys and, uh, just, it was a great evening. So thanks again for that, Lou. You know, you bring up something that's interesting to me because you're talking about that you went to LA and you also went To Japan and I'm going to jump back and forth a little bit here because I remember being in the Marlins and you season ticket holder, you had tickets to the world baseball conference, right?

[00:04:18] Lou Schiff: I did. I, in the Caribbean series last year, I've been, yeah. 

[00:04:23] Mark Corbett: That is so cool, man. I mean, to be able to see those kinds of teams, caliber teams from across the world. 

[00:04:29] Lou Schiff: Did you see the game highlights of game seven and the Dominican series, Matt shaking his head? Yes. 

[00:04:36] Mat Germain: Go 

[00:04:36] Mark Corbett: ahead. 

[00:04:38] Lou Schiff: Go ahead, Matt. 

[00:04:39] Mat Germain: Yeah, so the, you're talking about the junior Caminero, uh, home run?

[00:04:43] Lou Schiff: Yeah, from the Rays, yeah. 

[00:04:45] Mat Germain: 454 feet, this straightaway center field, and he made it a memorable home run trot. 

[00:04:52] Lou Schiff: Took him more than a minute to round the bases. Yeah, 

[00:04:55] Mat Germain: I loved it. It was great. There's so much passion that needs to come out in baseball, and I'd love to see it. 

[00:05:01] Lou Schiff: The, the Caribbean fans. Are some of the greatest baseball fans in the world.

[00:05:08] Lou Schiff: And I've said this to Mark before, you know, we've talked about how, how poor attendance they have at Marlins games. And that's because the product is not good. The product it's major league baseball, but the product that the Marlins have is not competitive. So when the Yankees come to town, the Mets come to town, the Phillies, the Dodgers.

[00:05:31] Lou Schiff: People come because they want to see good talent, but, uh, a Wednesday afternoon game with the Marlins playing the Twins, they're more beer salesmen than there are fans. 

[00:05:43] Mat Germain: The way I always saw the Marlins, and because, you know, we have a shared history, and I'm an old Expos fan. So your 

[00:05:52] Lou Schiff: team became my team via Washington, right?

[00:05:55] Mat Germain: Owner, yeah, just ravaged both of our franchises for a while. Uh, but the, the thing that I always found was it's the lack of consist, uh, consistency will, will drive franchises into the ground because fans are not willing to commit to, you know, five, six, seven year rebuilds. And, and they don't have that attention span.

[00:06:15] Mat Germain: And it's really, it's not right to ask them to go through it, to be quite honest. Um, so I think the lack of commitment from owners in flow in Miami has been, you know, the detriment of that team because there's, there's smart. Baseball people in there and you're pitching staff right now as it stands this year, you know is one of the best in the national league If they all show 

[00:06:38] Lou Schiff: if they all show up Yeah, that's right because they've got yuri.

[00:06:42] Lou Schiff: Perez is not coming back till july. Sandy's going to be untested um Name one of our starting eight 

[00:06:52] Mat Germain: Ryan weathers 

[00:06:53] Lou Schiff: Okay. Well, okay, but I meant one of the starting Positions that aren't 

[00:06:57] Mat Germain: oh one of the starting players Name one Xavier Edwards, 

[00:07:02] Lou Schiff: uh, second. He's a, he's a local kid. He went to North Broward prep 

[00:07:05] Mat Germain: Connor Norby.

[00:07:06] Mat Germain: You have the other guy from, uh, from Baltimore that, uh, that was just brought in. You have the Los Santos that was acquired this off season. 

[00:07:16] Lou Schiff: You've got nobody there. There's no, no, as soon as fans, we had Ozuna and we had Yelich and we had Stanton all at the same time with Bour and Realmuto. You can build a winning team with those ballplayers.

[00:07:36] Lou Schiff: We, we, we had now, I wasn't a big Jazz Chisholm fan. I thought that it was more about the name on the back of his jersey, than the name on the front of his jersey with Jazz. And yeah, he started off hot with the Yankees and then he, he cooled down and I, and I, and I really believe that, that he could be a good ballplayer.

[00:07:55] Lou Schiff: But And he's a nice guy and I've met him, but it's more about him than the team. Um, they've had so many good ballplayers pass through that team. I got to see, uh, Ichiro on his last few years of his career. That was a guy that every day he came to the ballpark ready to play. It was a joy to watch Ichiro play.

[00:08:19] Lou Schiff: I know Dee Gordon, you know. Good, good ballplayers over the years, you know, recent years, uh, but they're not committed. So the Savannah Bananas come to Miami and they'll be there next month and they've sold out two games in March, which is great for the Savannah Bananas. It's a fun game. I went when they came last time, the place was sold out.

[00:08:43] Lou Schiff: It was the only sellout of the season, except for the Caribbean series, the world baseball classic. You couldn't find a ticket for the first round. You could, but once it got into those last rounds with Japan and the United States of Mexico, Dominican Republic, you couldn't get a ticket. I had tickets because I would, I get them through the, through my season tickets, but the passion that the Latin American fans have to baseball is incredible.

[00:09:16] Lou Schiff: So that home run that was hit last night, I thought it was great the way he ran around the bases. Now I know he was, we would call it, he was hotdogging it or showboating it. And if he had hit that off of Bob Gibson, you know, darn well, the next time he came up, Gibby was going to hit him on the head. Okay.

[00:09:35] Lou Schiff: And that may happen. I don't know how they, I don't know what the culture of, of, of that is, but you know, the fans loved it and the pitcher didn't charge him. You know, if that happens in a game in the United States, , the, the pitcher's gonna charge him. When Jose Fernandez hit a home run, uh, against the Atlanta Braves, uh, and as he was showboating going around the bases, he almost had a fight with the third baseman at the time and, and, and, and McCann was the catcher for the, for the Braves at the time.

[00:10:07] Lou Schiff: They almost had a fight over it. Sometimes you just got to let players play. 

[00:10:14] Mat Germain: I think it would be a really good thing for Major League Baseball to embRays that. And I think they started to for a while. With some of their eyes and some of their focus on younger peers. But was 

[00:10:25] Mark Corbett: it let the kids play? Was that the promotion?

[00:10:28] Mark Corbett: Yeah, sure. Put that out there, but actually let it happen. And I mean, I love that came with Caminero and I didn't see it live, but I did see it later. I didn't see 

[00:10:38] Lou Schiff: it. I didn't see it live either. A friend of mine from, from Minnesota sent me the tape right away and said, you got to watch this.

[00:10:44] Lou Schiff: And so I took a look at it. It was great. It's incredible. Oh man. I mean, that's baseball brother. Yeah. So the Caribbean series, I think it's in Mexico this year. , and then there'll be kicking off in a week or two and it's, it's fun. It's, it's a fun place to be at. 

[00:11:02] Mat Germain: Yeah. I've read that you're a trumpet player.

[00:11:05] Mat Germain: Like me, I played trumpet in the band as well. So 

[00:11:08] Lou Schiff: were you in the marching band? 

[00:11:10] Mat Germain: Not marching. We were sitting, but 

[00:11:13] Lou Schiff: I was in the marching band and the concert band and Jazz band. How about you? 

[00:11:20] Mat Germain: No, I was just in high school band. Basically we traveled around, but, but mostly to Ontario and Quebec and I was it.

[00:11:27] Lou Schiff: Do you still play? 

[00:11:29] Mat Germain: Uh, not so much anymore, no. I've been, I've been toying with the idea of bringing it back, but I know that as soon as I try to hit, uh, Louis Armstrong notes, I'm gonna be blowing my cheeks out and, and something's gonna go poof in my brain. So, so I decided to hold off for now. I'll wait till I'm really desperate for, uh, for something to blow off some steam.

[00:11:50] Mark Corbett: Get those big Miles Davis cheeks, man. You know, 

[00:11:53] Mat Germain: good cheeks. I don't know. I'm building them up. You're not 

[00:11:57] Lou Schiff: supposed to puff out your cheeks. 

[00:12:00] Mat Germain: It's just the picture, right? 

[00:12:02] Lou Schiff: Have 

[00:12:03] Mat Germain: you ever brought that to the stadium with you in Miami? 

[00:12:06] Lou Schiff: Never. Now there was a time. So I'm going to say 20 years ago. I was the volunteer Jazz band director at Sawgrass Springs Middle School.

[00:12:16] Lou Schiff: I did that for 13 years. And so through my connections with the Marlins, because remember I told you there were six season ticket holders. Um, I got them to invite our marching band from Sawgrass Springs Middle School to play the Star Spangled Banner twice. So I got to march on the field with the kids and help direct the Star Spangled Banner.

[00:12:40] Lou Schiff: So that's, that's the closest I've come to, uh, uh, playing my, my, my instrument, uh, on the field. Uh, 10 years ago when I turned 60, I'll be 70 this June, but 10 years ago when I turned 60, the Marlins let me throw out, uh, the first pitch on my birthday. So I'm hoping this year for my 70th birthday, they'll let me do the same.

[00:13:03] Mat Germain: That's pretty cool. Not many people get to say that. 

[00:13:06] Lou Schiff: Well, but again, there's only six season ticket holders. I have to say this, they treat us very well. Obviously, there's more than six season ticket holders, I think there's seven. But they treat us, they treat us very well. They're very respectful of the season ticket holders and they appreciate us.

[00:13:24] Lou Schiff: And they, they, Give us opportunities and, and that makes it fun, you know, to, to, to have those behind the scene look, uh, at things. I just wish that the, I wish the quality of the, of the field play was as good as the quality of the behind the scenes events that they give us a season ticket holders. 

[00:13:43] Mark Corbett: You know, go ahead.

[00:13:44] Mark Corbett: I'm sure. 

[00:13:45] Mat Germain: I'll go ahead. 

[00:13:46] Mark Corbett: You know, in the, in the past, Lou, I mean, we've talked about what it takes to build a team and you've got to have. A general manager who has a pocketbook and a good sensibility about things and with the team that you were talking about earlier and see what we were saying with Stanton and uh, You didn't have each one And regal 

[00:14:07] Lou Schiff: Ozuna, Yelich, Realmuto and Bour And for those guys, yeah, 

[00:14:11] Mark Corbett: and you're suddenly trading or letting them go Oh, they're gonna hit free agency next year and Mat i've talked about this before.

[00:14:18] Mark Corbett: I mean you're seeing when you took the um, You You took the Rays solution. It's Chaim Bloom as you may know, took him, you know, took him to Boston. And first thing he's doing, he's, he's selling off Mookie Betts. , I'm not saying it was good or bad, but as fans are very 

[00:14:33] Lou Schiff: Dodgers are very appreciative of that. 

[00:14:36] Mark Corbett: They're very appreciative.

[00:14:37] Mark Corbett: But what I'm looking at the Marlins, I've looked at, Oh my gosh. Oh, Jeter's coming in. This is going to be great. Derek Jeter's going to make this thing. He's going to make it. But what, wait a minute. He he's not there. He's not, he's not there anymore. Oh, look, they're bringing Kim Ng in for the Yankees, man.

[00:14:52] Mark Corbett: This woman, she is sharp. She used to work inside MLB and she was, she's not there. 

[00:14:57] Lou Schiff: She was the best thinig that happened to the Marlins. 

[00:14:59] Mark Corbett: Yeah. 

[00:14:59] Lou Schiff: And they let her go. And Mattingly was good too. I wasn't sold on Jeter and I don't mean to be disrespectful of his, of his, of his business side, his baseball side, without a doubt, one of the greatest players of all time, but being a greatest player of all time, doesn't necessarily translate into being a good, good, grader of talent.

[00:15:25] Lou Schiff: And one only has to look at some of the best managers in baseball who are never really great managers. Okay. So you look at a guy like Joe Torre, Joe Gerardi. Um, Jim, Jim Leland. Uh, you look at guys like Walter Austin. Uh, you look at guys that managed for a long time and they weren't great ballplayers. I don't even think Walt Austin played major league baseball.

[00:15:53] Lou Schiff: I think he was only a career minor leaguer. So it takes a different talent to understand players. And Kim, she was fantastic. She got us to the playoffs twice in three years, and then they got rid of her. It made no sense.

[00:16:16] Mat Germain: I just think they did to her the same thing that Toronto tried to do to Alex Anthopoulos, which was to try to put the handcuffs on their abilities to make decisions.

[00:16:25] Mat Germain: And she was not having any of it. 

[00:16:27] Lou Schiff: She was brilliant. She was making great decisions when she brought in, uh, who is it? Bell and Berger. Okay. She brought Bell and Berger in a great decision. Now they're gone. Luis Arráez. It's gone. All these players that she was bringing in are now somewhere else. 

[00:16:53] Mark Corbett: One quick thing. What to say, Lou, Matt brought up. A couple of weeks back about a penalty tax for losing X number of games. Was it 20, 000 a game? Is that what it was? Matt, Matt, 

[00:17:05] Mat Germain: I remember the number, but there has to be something done about, you know, this whole, you know, just pocketing the money that is there because we know they're accumulating more money than ever through gambling and gambling alone is, is probably as much as the TV deals, if not more.

[00:17:25] Mat Germain: So 

[00:17:26] Lou Schiff: they're not putting back to the team, what they're putting in the pocket. I don't know. And we've talked about this before, uh, even though the team hasn't been as successful as they wanted to do Steve Cohen, I, I, I wish Steve Cohen owned 30 teams, but I don't, you know, what I'm saying is I think an owner of a team has to be a fan first.

[00:17:51] Lou Schiff: Yes. 

[00:17:52] Mat Germain: You do bring up a good point though. What about the Braves model where you know, the ownership is more You know public than than it is, you know private that has merits as well Like the Packers are a good example in the nfl And and I still think that this is something I was going to ask you anyway Because it's all brewing towards that with the Dodgers I don't know what I want to say causing a perversion of the signing system with all the deferrals and like opening up that what I would call Pandora's box towards a salary cap system.

[00:18:24] Mat Germain: Do you think that's going to be the last straw that actually gets Major League Baseball to not see the cap system as a Uh, bargaining chip, but more as a necessity because they're going to have so many owners that are going to be like when you have even Steve Cohen not being able to spend as much as as the Dodgers do, it gets to a point where you're like, well, where is this headed?

[00:18:49] Lou Schiff: Well, you know, you can only have 26 people on a team, right? Not everybody's going to make the big bucks. Um. Let the owners spend what they want, but there's got to be a bottom line. There has to be, you can't spend too little. You have to be out, you can't, you can only get certain amount of bargain players.

[00:19:10] Lou Schiff: You have to go after some talent. You can't have a team that has 18 players with two or two or less years of playing experience, but you're setting your team up for failure and and that's that you that's just wrong. Would you want to work in an organization of 25 people? Uh, be competitive. What? And let's say you're selling light bulbs.

[00:19:35] Lou Schiff: Uh, and every team has every light bulb company has 25 employees. If your team, your company only 18 of those 25 employees have no, uh, experience. That team is going to go out of business. Now, baseball's not going to go out of business, but there's only 30 owners and they, and they split the revenues. And if Matt, if you own a team and you're not spending a lot of money and.

[00:20:07] Lou Schiff: And Mark owns a team and he's spending more money and I own a team and I'm spending not as much as Mark, but more than you, I'm okay with that because I know that I'm going to beat you. And that's one less team that I have to compete with. I, I, I, you know, you're, you're an owner. You, you do get to do what you want to do.

[00:20:27] Lou Schiff: I think the commissioner though, should force teams to, to not make these deals. You remember what happened with, with Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers when the A's Try to trade them for nobody. I think the commissioner needs to take an active role in these, I'll call the baloney deals where, you know, the teams trade really good players and they get a bag of Cracker Jacks and a scratch off lottery ticket in return.

[00:20:54] Lou Schiff: That's wrong. 

[00:20:56] Mat Germain: But that's where I expected him to step in. Like, I'll ask you, like, the question I'm going to ask you next is, what do you, what are your impressions of Rob Manfred's tenure compared to everybody else before him? But, when that Ohtani deal was signed, I really thought that somebody was going to step in and say, you know what, this is not okay, because you're paying him 2 million a year, year now, and we have no idea where the finances of the, of the league are going.

[00:21:22] Mat Germain: Long term, 

especially 

with all the TV issues that have to be sorted out. yada, yada, yada, uh, um, so I thought at that point they could have asked the Dodgers to revamp the deal in a certain way, shape or form, but I think, you know, because it's not something you expect people to do, or even though or Ohtani to agree to a contract like that.

[00:21:43] Lou Schiff: Well, you know, you go back to Bobby Bonilla, he's still making a million dollars a year. Um, and he's long been out of baseball. I don't have a problem with deferring the payment to a ballplayer because I'm sure that those payments are secured with collaterals so that the teams can't forfeit on it. So the money somehow put aside and they'll, they'll get that money later on.

[00:22:05] Lou Schiff: The part I think that bothers me as a fan is when we see trades that are unequitable. 

[00:22:11] Mark Corbett: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:22:12] Lou Schiff: When, when the Marlins traded Luis Arráez, you know, or when, when we trade, when, when the twins traded, uh, Arráez to the Marlins, we give them Pablo Lopez in return, that was, that was quality for quality, but when the Marlins traded Luis Arráez to San Diego.

[00:22:29] Lou Schiff: for the San Diego Chicken and their greatest beer salesman. That's a joke. That, that, that's a joke. Give me a ballplayer that's going to perform now. And that's some prospect that you're going to put down , in rookie ball and tell me that I should wait till I'm 80 years old to see the fruits of the labor.

[00:22:48] Lou Schiff: That's just. That's not a trade. 

[00:22:50] Mat Germain: Well, one thing that I think is a fault of that also, and it is also like a, something that I still, I've talked to Mark about this a lot. Don't understand why baseball does it. They don't allow the trade of draft picks. It's as if they're seeing franchises aren't mature enough.

[00:23:06] Mat Germain: To do that, so in the Marlins cases and everybody else's cases, there are only certain amount of draft picks you can ask for to be dealt. 

And I 

[00:23:15] Mat Germain: still don't understand that aspect and why the MLBPA allows it to continue on with every CBA that they sign. 

[00:23:22] Lou Schiff: Well, because there may be some other concessions that they're getting and a player that's drafted.

[00:23:28] Lou Schiff: Now, the number of players drafted has been cut by about 80 percent over the years. And now if you don't get drafted, they'll, they'll sign you as a, as a, as a free agent and assign you someplace. But then again, the number of teams have been reduced by, by 25%. 

[00:23:46] Lou Schiff: Uh, and so that, that did, uh, There was some litigation involved in that when some teams lost, uh, some cities lost minor league teams.

[00:23:56] Lou Schiff: But Major League Baseball has the right, right to do it because Major League Baseball controls the game of baseball for, for major leagues and minor leagues. 

[00:24:04] Mark Corbett: Well, I mean, that's what Rob wanted. One baseball, you know, he 

[00:24:08] Lou Schiff: just wanted, and he's gotten, he's gotten one baseball. Um, and so some of the good things that have come out of this, uh, from rule, from fan, I think, uh, I enjoy the pitch clock.

[00:24:21] Lou Schiff: It makes the games go faster. I don't like the Manfred man. Uh, that's Craig Calcaterra , Terry, Craig Calcaterra tears. 

Yeah, 

[00:24:33] Lou Schiff: designated runner and extra innings. I don't like that. I, I think it cheapens the game guys beat their brains out for nine innings. And now you're going to put a guy on second base with nobody out now play, play the game, but you already have 26 people on the roster.

[00:24:49] Lou Schiff: And, and it seems like everybody's a pitcher on the roster now. So just, just, just play the game. Um, I like the bigger bases. Uh, it's, it's, it's helping steals. I like that. You can't keep throwing over the first base. And those were all on his watch. There's been peace in baseball. Well, relative, peace and in a couple of years, we'll we'll see what the players are demanding.

[00:25:15] Lou Schiff: And what are the owners? Well, we had the lockout for a little bit, but what are the owners going to demand? And are the owners going to lock out players and or the players going to strike? I don't know. Every time that happens, you lose half your fan base. Yeah. 

[00:25:28] Mat Germain: The last time they did it, they also took all the players' mentions off their sites and basically tried to erase.

[00:25:35] Mat Germain: Yeah. They had 

[00:25:35] Lou Schiff: shadows. 

[00:25:36] Mat Germain: Yeah. 

[00:25:37] Lou Schiff: They had their little shadow pictures. That was dumb. 

[00:25:40] Mat Germain: Yeah. But there was, it was still making a statement like, you don't matter. We can get scabs, we can bring in whatever. And 

[00:25:48] Lou Schiff: Yeah. And they, uh, you know, that's, we, you know. I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm not sure I want to see a bunch of guys that

[00:25:59] Lou Schiff: played high school ball last year. Now I want to wear Marlin's uniform. Well, let's, let's talk 

[00:26:04] Mark Corbett: about where you had a great fan experience. We mentioned this earlier about you going overseas to see baseball. Now I just got a glance at some of the photos you took from over in Japan. And anytime I've seen Japanese baseball, when I look in those stands, that fan experience seems a whole lot different than anything I see in any of the Florida professional baseball.

[00:26:29] Mark Corbett: Can you give us kind of an idea of what that experience was like, Lou?

[00:26:33] Lou Schiff: It's a carnival. So first of all, I have never been in a ballpark so clean. The, uh, people, I didn't know this, but if you eat food there, you're expected to have a bag to put your garbage in and then carry it out of the stadium and deposit it someplace.

[00:26:56] Lou Schiff: There's not a lot of garbage cans in the stadium because folks carry their own garbage. The fans are very knowledgeable. Uh, There they have the nets that go around the entire stadium. So half the stadium is rooting for one team. Half the stadium is rooting for another team. There are two bands out in the outfield, one for each team.

[00:27:19] Lou Schiff: They have songs and chants for every player when they come up. It's just nonstop music and singing and noise. And it's just. Fun. Um, one thing that happened that I, that, that, and I realized, so there was a great play. And Lou decides to stand up and say, wow. And then I realized I'm the only person standing.

[00:27:44] Lou Schiff: So people don't stand to block you even on great plays. They're they're, they're very respect the folks. There are respectful, they're friendly. I was sitting next to a couple to my left and I don't speak. Japanese and I went by myself, but I met two American guys who were at my hotel who go regularly because they're in the automotive field and they have business over and we went to a Yokohama, uh, based our game and, uh, we went by train, which was a great experience.

[00:28:15] Lou Schiff: And, and then when we got to the ballpark, we ate outside and, and had, had food outside the ballpark and there's festivals going on. And I gotta tell you, it was a lot of fun. The place I think they seat 30, 000, everything was sold. I 

[00:28:33] Mark Corbett: love it. 

[00:28:33] Lou Schiff: And, and it was a good game. Very competitive, uh, Yokohama Bay one, um, can't tell you what the score was.

[00:28:42] Lou Schiff: And then there was some young guys seated to my right. I want to say that they were probably college kids or older high school kids. And one of the kids wanted to practice English with me. And so we, we spoke and it was just a lot of fun and the fans there just, they couldn't be nicer. I didn't see any fighting in the stands, you know, it wasn't like a It wasn't like a Yankees, uh, Red Sox game.

[00:29:07] Lou Schiff: I did it. I went to, I went to Boston this past summer with my son and my brother and my brother's son. And we went to a Yankee Red Sox game. And while we saw more fights in the stands than one game than I can remember, it was certainly a lot different than watching a game in, uh, in Japan. A lot of respect that the players have towards one another.

[00:29:27] Lou Schiff: A lot of respect that the fans have towards one another too.

[00:29:33] Mark Corbett: That's amazing. I like that. I like the whole idea of the music. Of that whole experience and I know that one image that you you shared I was like my gosh had these large balloons 

[00:29:45] Lou Schiff: All the balloon stuff. Yeah, so I I try to send you a video but it was too big So so the the balloons they would they they pump up these balloons and then they unleash them They don't have a seventh inning stretch.

[00:29:58] Lou Schiff: Okay, but they unleash these balloons One side had red balloons. One side had blue balloons and they unleashed, they pump up these balloons and they unleashed them at a certain time and they're flying all over the stadium. And then if that happened in the United States, you know, they would let all the balloons sit on the floor.

[00:30:13] Lou Schiff: No, but everybody picks up the balloons and they put them in their pocket and they go throw them away somewhere else. Jeez. 

[00:30:22] Mark Corbett: So fans are part of the experience and have a certain responsibility as well. 

[00:30:26] Lou Schiff: Fans have so much respect for the game there. Uh, it's incredible and the game is good and there were some Americans that were playing.

[00:30:36] Lou Schiff: I can't tell you who, but there were a couple of names on each team that I recognized as being a former major leaguer. Uh, and uh, I think the teams are limited to the amount of, uh, former major league ballplayers they can have. Um, I think Brad Osmussen was maybe one of the ballplayers, maybe not, but there were, there were, there were some ballplayers.

[00:30:57] Lou Schiff: Oh, I recognize that name. 

[00:31:00] Mat Germain: Yeah, the CFL in Canada does the same thing for football, where they limit the number of Non Canadians that can play, but the that explains the the media following that those Japanese players have when they come back to the yard when they come over 

to 

[00:31:15] Mat Germain: baseball because they're so passionate about those players, they become almost like a family in terms of, you know, the same way that soccer fans treat.

[00:31:24] Mat Germain: Soccer players in England just becomes they're almost like a religion that they're going there. They're really enjoying it It's a weekly or monthly thing depending on how they often they go, but the media, you know I don't want to call it a circus, but the frenzy that follows around some of the Japanese players is just Awesome to watch too, because that shows the passion that they, they're trying to portray back home too.

[00:31:49] Lou Schiff: When Ichiro was on, on the Marlins, they had a following of around 20, uh, reporters that would go to the games, the Japanese reporters, and he would allow one reporter, a different reporter. Each game to basically interview him one on one and then go out and report back to the pool what was said and that's the way he he used to handle it.

[00:32:17] Lou Schiff: When Ichiro played for the Marlins, it was a tremendous draw of Japanese tourists that would come to Miami to watch him play.

[00:32:30] Mark Corbett: Wow, what a draw. Uh, I mean, in such talent. .

[00:32:35] Lou Schiff: Why he chose 

[00:32:36] Lou Schiff: Miami, I don't know, but, uh, it was great when he played, you know, it was great when he played here. Especially when he was, uh, going for his three, three, three thousandth 

[00:32:46] Mat Germain: hit. I think 

[00:32:47] Lou Schiff: you 

[00:32:48] Mat Germain: guys don't have it here. He probably wanted to play full time, to be honest, and not have to play, you know, a fourth outfielder role, or 

[00:32:56] Lou Schiff: Well, I guess he wanted to play in a stadium where there wasn't going to be much noise.

[00:33:01] Lou Schiff: So, so let me ask you guys, , predictions. I know , we're only, at the end of January, but if you had to pick the world series winner right now, who would you say right now?

[00:33:13] Mark Corbett: Two for two. 

[00:33:16] Mat Germain: Yeah, I'll, I'll go out on the limb and say the Red Sox. 

[00:33:23] Lou Schiff: Over who? The Dodgers or somebody else? 

[00:33:25] Mat Germain: I so hope somebody takes the Dodgers out. 

[00:33:31] Mark Corbett: Wouldn't that be nice. 

[00:33:32] Mat Germain: I, I, I hope they don't even make the playoffs, but that's just because 

[00:33:36] Lou Schiff: That's, that's how are they not going to make the playoffs? I know, 

[00:33:39] Mat Germain: I know, I know.

[00:33:41] Mat Germain: Yeah, if it wasn't the, the Dodgers, uh, I would almost lean towards the, you know, an outlier. Because I've always wanted to see a Cinderella story in, in You know in the world series and we don't get that I would love to see the pirates in the world series. I'd love to see the brewers in the world series You know after Bob Uecker just passed away.

[00:34:03] Mat Germain: That would be a great that would be 

[00:34:04] Lou Schiff: great. Yeah 

[00:34:06] Mat Germain: So I I would like to see a brewer's red socks world series first 

[00:34:11] Mark Corbett: That would be very cool. I'd like to see that as well. 

[00:34:14] Mat Germain: Yeah. If, um, if you had to change one rule about baseball or one way that you think they could improve the game, like with everything you're seeing nowadays and the changes you spoke about before, what would be one thing that you think Is missing and they could and you spoke about the fans quite a bit and and some of those aspects of the enthusiasm.

[00:34:34] Mat Germain: So is there one thing in particular that you think, you know, could add add to the product? 

[00:34:41] Lou Schiff: I'd take away the designated hitter. 

[00:34:43] Mark Corbett: Really? 

[00:34:45] Mat Germain: That's not a bad thought because I think major league baseball is aimed like with that golden bat rule are trying to get some of the better players repeatedly, you know, up to the plate.

[00:34:55] Mat Germain: So, no, I don't like 

[00:34:56] Lou Schiff: that rule. I want the pitchers to hit. I want bunting. I, I, I want, I want a little bit more bunting. I want a little bit of small ball. Baseball now doubles home run strikeouts.

[00:35:12] Lou Schiff: When I was a kid, baseball was less strikeouts More stolen bases and more bunting. I think that stolen bases and bunting help. There's too many strikeouts. There's just way, way too many strikeouts. We need more ball players like Luis Arráez. Yeah. 

[00:35:37] Mat Germain: So, I grew up an Expos fan and to me that would just be a nightmare.

[00:35:42] Mat Germain: Because, and I'll tell you why. So, if you have the large market teams that can afford to stack their eight players, Right, they're at an advantage because sure you have a pitcher. It doesn't really matter if he gets productive or not We can sustain a productive lineup with the eight that we have Whereas the small market teams are already at a loss with those eight and now they have to suffer through their pitcher Annihilating the bottom half of their lineup on top of it So to me, I always saw the dh as an equalizer because it gives Small market teams and a chance to bring in somebody like the Rays did, that like Nelson Cruz, right?

[00:36:18] Mat Germain: They they bring in somebody that's older That's a better bigger bad and it gives them a chance to compete with some of the better teams In those key playoff games. So I always thought a bit of an equalizer at the same time 

[00:36:29] Lou Schiff: I think i'm in a minority when it comes to bring back the designated hitter But you asked for a change.

[00:36:36] Lou Schiff: I would say bring back The designated hitter i'm not You I'm not sold with this golden rule, and I don't think that's going to go anywhere. They floated it. We're going to see more automated umpiring. I read an article. I think today that they're starting to like, literally going to measure every ballplayer when, when he comes in so they can figure out what their strike zone will be.

[00:36:57] Lou Schiff: I've seen the automated strike zone in St. Paul with the Saints, you know, with their triple A team. And it seems to work. Okay, um, we see a lot less arguments now with, with replay makes the game go faster for the most part. Sometimes it's delayed. , I'd like to see them change. The safe out call, uh, in the sense that when they report to New York, they don't tell New York what the call on the field was, they give it to the umpires that are there and say, you make the call and let that umpire almost like the appellate court say, this is what I think.

[00:37:39] Lou Schiff: The 

[00:37:39] Mat Germain: Move the headquarters away from New York, 

[00:37:41] Lou Schiff: well, wherever, wherever the headquarters are. I mean, they always say it's in New York someplace on Chelsea pier. Um, I guess that's where it is. , but I'd like, I'd like the umpire or whoever the panel is that's reviewing it. To not know what the call on the field is.

[00:37:59] Lou Schiff: I think that puts pressure, and I'll tell you why. 

[00:38:03] Lou Schiff: If it's a close call, everybody has their own built in bias without even realizing they have a bias. And I'm not saying this has ever happened, but you can understand what I'm going to say, I think. If the person reviewing the safe out call At second base is a friend or knows this person or has respect for the person.

[00:38:33] Lou Schiff: I don't know. Does that play into it? But if you don't know what the person called and you make the call, then make the call and be done with it. So there can't be any, well, I know this guy, he's been a umpire for 20 years and he's a good guy, or he's only done this for three years. I mean, there's certain plays that are quite obvious that they're just wrong from the start.

[00:38:54] Lou Schiff: Yeah. But on these really close plays, I'd like to see if there's a way that the umpire reviewing it in New York has no idea what the call on the field was. And now it's that person's job to, uh, to call it 

[00:39:09] Mark Corbett: Blind justice. 

[00:39:11] Lou Schiff: Justice is supposed to be blind.

[00:39:13] Mat Germain: There's a lot of merit to that. 

[00:39:15] Lou Schiff: What's that, Matt?

[00:39:16] Mat Germain: There's a lot of merit to that. I always thought also, like, when witnesses go on the stand, for instance, I always thought that, you know, they shouldn't get to see the jury. They should just, you know, see whatever. And the same way, you know, there should be more barriers because There's so many studies that point to, you know, how a person looks, how it is, how that there's biases that are built into all, all the things that we use our eyes to kind of 

[00:39:42] Mat Germain: see.

[00:39:43] Lou Schiff: So having been a judge for 28 years, I can tell you, uh, that looking at somebody the way we're looking at each other now, you know, when you all put your cameras on, it makes for 

[00:39:55] Lou Schiff: a better conversation. 

[00:39:56] Lou Schiff: Conversation. Looking at someone, I could ask a question of somebody. And I can have the answer before they gave me the answer based on their body language and how their eyes look, uh, you ask a certain question and you, and you can see them.

[00:40:13] Lou Schiff: There's sometimes it has a lot to do with body language and how they answer the question and how they're seeing a person that seeing a person while they're speaking is very important. If you're blessed enough to have sight. 

[00:40:30] Mat Germain: So there's a, there's a reason why poker players wear the sunglasses. 

[00:40:35] Lou Schiff: Oh, sure.

[00:40:37] Lou Schiff: And then that's a big 

[00:40:38] Mat Germain: thing because you do your, your soul speaks through the eyes. I get all that, but I do think, like you said, there's biases that come with that. Uh, 

[00:40:48] Lou Schiff: no, it, it, it, it could be, you know, make it like the old fashioned, remember the TV show, the dating game where they had a, or a bachelorette and they would ask questions of the person behind the screen and they wouldn't know who they were getting until the end.

[00:41:00] Lou Schiff: Right. And they had to do it based on, well, it's the same thing with what's that TV show about the voice, right? They don't get to see what the person looks like, right? They, they listen with their ears and then they turn around and see who they like. 

[00:41:14] Mat Germain: The way it should be. Milli Vanilli should have been that woman who actually sang the songs, right?

[00:41:19] Mat Germain: Instead of Milli 

[00:41:21] Mark Corbett: and Vanilli. There you go. Oh, you 

[00:41:25] Mat Germain: know, off topic here.

[00:41:30] Mark Corbett: Oh, Lou, we, we talk about you making decisions and judging what's going on and why you've done it as a, as a career in, in the, you've also done it as a historian and. You've got one book out and another one coming up. And then anybody who follows Lou, you can find him on X and you can find him on Blue Sky.

[00:41:52] Mark Corbett: It's baseball in law or baseball and the law. You search each one of those and you'll find him on there. And my goodness, Lou, you've given us such great of entertainment and education and baseball with, with what you provide on there. Uh, I I love it. I mean, there's topics every now and then that Matt, and I'll grab a piece of and and chat about it on the show, but.

[00:42:13] Lou Schiff: You have to do that. That's what it's there for. 

[00:42:15] Mark Corbett: You do it, you do it. Well, my friend, you know, it's, um, quick note. I probably said this before I had the gentleman on. I can't think of his name at the moment of who wrote a book on Curt Flood. And he talks about the whole court case and him going to Supreme court.

[00:42:28] Mark Corbett: And I hear all about these judges who are almost practically passing notes on the score of the game is acted during. 

[00:42:35] Lou Schiff: That's a, that's a, that's a true story. I don't know if it was during the current Flood case, but yes. Um, Cincinnati, when Cincinnati was playing the Mets in the playoffs, there was no passing going on, 

[00:42:48] Mark Corbett: but you captured some really good stories and funny stories.

[00:42:52] Mark Corbett: And, uh, tell me a little bit about this one that you guys are working on right now. 

[00:42:56] Lou Schiff: So, well, well, it's not just Bob and I, it's, it's, it, there's, there's 10 coauthors. 

[00:43:02] Mark Corbett: Oh, wow. 

[00:43:03] Lou Schiff: We're going to cover 11 members of the baseball hall of fame who are lawyers. Each one of us has has written on a certain lawyer that's in the baseball hall, an attorney in the baseball Hall of Fame, and I was thinking this morning because there's no, I don't know how many Canadians are in the, there are lawyers or barristers in the Canadian baseball Hall of Fame, but I was thinking that would be an interesting follow up to be, you know, because you have an active Canadian Hall of Fame for baseball.

[00:43:33] Lou Schiff: I don't know how many of those. Uh, men or women are in, in the Hall of Fame that, that were, that have law degrees. And, and so what we do in the book, we, we, we, we talk about the attorneys and some of them were active players and some of them were just, uh, owners of teams or, or commissioners or, um, managers or a little bit of both.

[00:43:58] Lou Schiff: Some of them really never practiced law much. Like, uh, I did the final chapter on, on Tony LaRussa. So Tony LaRussa. Is the only attorney that's in the baseball hall of fame. That's that's still alive. And I had a chance to speak with him on many occasions, which makes my chapter fun and I don't center on.

[00:44:17] Lou Schiff: We don't center on the base. We don't center on the baseball careers of these attorneys. We really center on their legal careers and how or how the study of law affected their, uh, their life in baseball. And so, for example, Tony LaRusso. , went to law school a little bit later in life after , he came to the realization that, he signed as a bonus baby for the can for Kansas City.

[00:44:47] Lou Schiff: And as a result, when you were a bonus baby, , you were on the team for that year. , and, and he didn't get to play in too many games, but he was on the team the entire year and it, he came to a conclusion after being injured. Going to law school would be a good fallback. And so I had a chance to, I not only interview him, I interviewed, uh, professor, uh, Charles Hort Hart, who is in his mid eighties, who was uh, one of Tony's favorite professors and Earhart's favorite students.

[00:45:19] Lou Schiff: Had a chance to talk to him about him. I had a chance to talk to a guy named Scott Tozian, who's an attorney over on the west coast of Florida. Who is a friend of Tony's when he was in law school, I spoke to, uh, this is in addition to the research and going through newspapers and reading books, spoke to a guy.

[00:45:39] Lou Schiff: That's a judge in Florida circuit judge by the name of Robin Fuson. 

[00:45:44] Lou Schiff: . 

[00:45:44] Lou Schiff: And Robin made it as far as triple a. But, uh, Tony LaRusso was a coach when, when Robin was playing for the, for the A's, and Tony gave him some pretty good advice. So I talked to him. Uh, I also talked to, uh, Mike Veeck, who's a real, his, his father is the one that gave Tony his, uh, first managerial job.

[00:46:04] Lou Schiff: So I had a lot of conversations with Mike, and he filled me in on so many of the things that I'd never read about before. And Tony gave me some information about his practice. And then I also spoke to a guy by the name of Bill Dooley. Who, , was Tony's boss, and Mr. Dooley is, , probably in his late 80s now, and he talked to me about how he hired Tony, why he hired Tony, you know, what the purpose of hiring was, and so I was able to, you know, Talk about the, uh, the, the, the work, the, the law side of his life and, and we do delve into the bad side of people's lives too.

[00:46:42] Lou Schiff: We, we don't sugarcoat things, uh, as you'll read in, in the, in this chapter that he, Tony, over the years had some issues with the law, uh, and we don't sugarcoat it. We, talk about them, , we don't ignore it. , and so we try to paint a picture of, of these hall of famers. That, that if you were talking to them, this is what you would learn , if they were an open book.

[00:47:04] Lou Schiff: And we, the, the book really is about their law careers and how baseball, Tony's case, he didn't have a big law career, but how did baseball influence him in being a manager and a player, things like that

[00:47:17] Mat Germain: , it's interesting that , you, you point to the , the law career versus the baseball, you know, and their interaction and they are intertwined in a lot of ways in terms of how the personal reacting each and every situation will be.

[00:47:32] Mat Germain: Completely different than if they didn't have that law background. It was one name that popped up and I started thinking about it when you were speaking, did the, I know you have a Mets background as well in terms of your, you know, younger fandom. 

[00:47:46] Lou Schiff: And I was a kid. I rooted for the Mets. Yes. 

[00:47:50] Mat Germain: So Adam Crony was a guy that, you know, almost became their GM, and that was after he pursued his law degree, uh, you know, after leaving the Nats.

[00:48:00] Mat Germain: So he's another example of somebody that actually, you know, came, I don't think he got the job, and I don't know what he's doing now or what he's working 

on. 

[00:48:08] Mat Germain: But, you know, there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot of, I don't know, intertwining between law and baseball, and more so I think than people realize, especially if you dive into the front offices.

[00:48:20] Lou Schiff: Well, because baseball's a business that goes back to where we started our conversation a while ago. Baseball's a business and businesses need lawyers. And, uh, whether you like lawyers or not, some people do, some people don't mark cracking up. I can ask why you like, like them or don't like them, but you know, it's a love, hate relationship.

[00:48:41] Lou Schiff: People love to hate them. 

[00:48:43] Mark Corbett: I've got two in the family. I just, I think lawyers and baseball, there you go. And they still speak to me. I mean, I look at Kennesaw mountain land is I look at Rob, I look at some other ones and I'm thinking like 

[00:48:57] Lou Schiff: he may be the 12th. Person. He may be the 12th lawyer in the baseball hall of fame.

[00:49:02] Lou Schiff: Jeez. 

[00:49:04] Mark Corbett: Oh, well, you know, I don't of course any commissioner, whether a lawyer or not already has won me over right now. So, uh, that, that's why I was smiling. Lou is like, so as soon as I hear, uh, lawyers and I think baseball, my mind goes to commissioners and how some of the commissioners are not, sometimes not been my favorite people.

[00:49:24] Mark Corbett: Yeah. 

[00:49:24] Lou Schiff: What one person we write about is is is John Montgomery Ward and the reason he went to law school was he was upset that the Providence Graves traded him to the New York Gothams, who became the New York Giants, and he was trying to figure out a way to. He didn't want to go along with the trade, but he had to.

[00:49:50] Lou Schiff: And so when he got traded, he went to Columbia law school and, and after, you know, he, he, he started the players league and he represented players and he represented a couple of owners in his lifetime too. Uh, and he, and he's, he's in the hall of fame. Uh, and so we talk about his, his legal career. One of the things that we've done.

[00:50:10] Lou Schiff: Is we have like a table of statistics, but it's not the kind of we not really batting averages. We in the back of the book, you'll find what their net worth was upon their death. Things like that, how old they were, where they went to school, how many marriages they had, things like that. So it's, it's kind of like the back of the baseball card, but it's, it's not a baseball card, but it's an appendix of things that we try to put together to compare them because some of these, uh, folks were extremely wealthy and some of them died very poor.

[00:50:44] Lou Schiff: Uh, uh, it's like some of these famous painters that we see, you know, they, now that they're famous, but they made nothing during their, their, their lifetime. 

[00:50:53] Mark Corbett: Was there a common thread though? 

[00:50:56] Lou Schiff: No, there really is. That's a great question. Is there a common thread? No, because some of them went to law school.

[00:51:03] Lou Schiff: Going back to the 1800s, early 1900s, and then some of them with Tony was that was the last one. He went to law school about the same time I went to law school. He was in the 1970s. And so we have a different era. Some of the members that are in the Hall of Fame never had to take a bar exam. So when you graduated law school, you were deemed an attorney and.

[00:51:29] Lou Schiff: You automatically, you know, were licensed to practice in whatever state you went to law school. Right. It's still like that in Wisconsin. Graduate the university. If you graduate a law school in Wisconsin, you're deemed to have passed the bar there if you went to a Wisconsin law school. So some of the, some of them, , And some never practiced like, like I, even though Tony passed the bar, he, he, he never spent a day in court.

[00:51:56] Lou Schiff: Uh, and then we, we tell a story about how he almost, how he almost had a case, but he got a managerial job and that ended his, his law career. 

[00:52:08] Mark Corbett: Oh, man. Well, Lou, I want to, I want to come back to your, uh, what your postings are on Blue Sky NX with Baseball and Law. What do you got cooking? Something new that we're going to be able to see next week?

[00:52:22] Mark Corbett: Something that's exciting?

[00:52:23] Lou Schiff: I, you know, so what I've been doing now on Fridays is I've been introducing another author of the book. So every, every Friday, uh, I'll, I'll drop a post about one of the authors of the book where, and the authors we have are all law school professors or, or law school administrators or librarians.

[00:52:42] Lou Schiff: And so it's written, I think it's pretty scholarly. There's not a book like this out there. Uh, there's the same thing was true when Professor Jarvis and I wrote our first book, uh, Baseball and the Law. It was the first book written specifically for law school use using law. Baseball cases, uh, and this is not going to have cases in it like the other one.

[00:53:05] Lou Schiff: This is going to be a fun read. You can start at the beginning or you can start in the middle. You, it doesn't matter where you start reading. There's basically 11 magazine articles, , on the members of the hall of fame who are attorneys and you can, we, we go from the earliest to the latest, uh, but you can pick it up anywhere.

[00:53:23] Lou Schiff: So if you want to read about Kennesaw Mountain Landis, but you don't want to read about someone else, uh, You Jennings, you know, you, you don't have to read about them. You read about Tony La Russa first. You read about La Russa. You don't want to read about Bowie Kuhn. You don't have to read about him, but he's in the book.

[00:53:39] Lou Schiff: And we also have one picture of each of the members of the hall of fame in the book, but they're not in a baseball uniform. So we have pictures of them wearing suits as lawyers. Right. And so, for example, the picture of Tony La Russa. never practiced law, but we have a picture of him being sworn in to the Florida bar by a federal judge in Chicago, which is part of the story.

[00:54:10] Lou Schiff: And you can, you can read the book and find out why a Chicago judge swore him in, uh, to the bar in Illinois. Wow. And so, uh, and that's part of a, that's part of a Bill Veeck story, that's part of, uh, the chapter. So, uh, Matt, you're right. You know, the baseball and law, they intertwine, but we're, we're more heavy on the law side than the baseball side, but we can't tell these stories without the baseball stories.

[00:54:39] Lou Schiff: Otherwise, otherwise it wouldn't have the sizzle, uh, that you want. Just one fun fact about Tony La Russa. And I mentioned this to him and he didn't the last game that Tony La Russa ever played. He was put in as a pinch runner and he wound up, uh, I think he wound up scoring like the winning run in the game, but he was put in as a pinch runner.

[00:55:02] Lou Schiff: You know how many stolen bases Tony La Russa had in his career? 

[00:55:06] Mark Corbett: I have no idea. 

[00:55:07] Lou Schiff: He had none. 

[00:55:08] Mark Corbett: No, 

[00:55:08] Mat Germain: I

[00:55:10] Mat Germain: was close. 

[00:55:11] Mark Corbett: Well, you know, you say, Tony, I always pay attention because one, you know, he's from the Tampa area. He's 

[00:55:18] Lou Schiff: from your area. Sure. He went to high school in Tampa. 

[00:55:21] Mark Corbett: He went to, I think to Jefferson and see.

[00:55:23] Mark Corbett: He's 81, I believe, and who else is from here at 81? Lou Piniella. These two guys faced one another in high school. One was Jesuit, one was Jefferson. They played on American Legion teams together. It's, it's, it's wild when you, it all comes together sooner or later. 

[00:55:41] Lou Schiff: And we do tell the backstories of their families.

[00:55:44] Lou Schiff: You know, we talk about Tony's dad and Tony's mom and Tony's grand. parents and the same as with, with all, all of these, some folks came from, from, from very wealthy families. And some folks came from very modest beginnings, like, like Tony's father, Tony's father was a truck driver. Uh, neither one of his mom or dad ever went to college.

[00:56:04] Lou Schiff: And when, in fact, if it wasn't for his parents, but he signed with Kansas city because he signed right out of high school, he was about 17 years old when he signed. The parents made Kansas City save money for him to go to college. So part of the deal was he got a college scholarship and, and, you know, and so that's, you know, he went to college because of that.

[00:56:26] Lou Schiff: I guess this is 1960s, 62, somewhere in there, uh, ballplayers, many of those ballplayers never had a chance to go to college or when they signed as a bonus baby, that was, that was the end of it. And they, you know, they, they fell flat on their face. They were stuck with no college But his parents had the foresight to demand that, uh, that they give him a college scholarship.

[00:56:49] Mat Germain: That just proves the intelligence was there already. 

[00:56:52] Lou Schiff: What's that? 

[00:56:53] Mat Germain: That just proves the intelligence was there already. You know, just because Your family in the good trades, right? Well, you know, 

[00:57:01] Lou Schiff: I can say this about my mom and dad. My mom and dad Or depression babies. So mom was born in 29. Dad was born in 27 and neither one.

[00:57:11] Lou Schiff: My mother graduated high school. My father never finished college, but I knew from the moment I was old enough to understand what education was that college wasn't about. In option college for me and my brother was mandatory. The same with my wife. My wife's mom and dad graduated college and they were both educators and and and my wife graduated college and the same was true with our children.

[00:57:43] Lou Schiff: For us, and I know that things have changed a little bit because people college is expensive, but I, I really believe that that that you that the 4 years of college, you mature as an individual and you learn, even if you, you don't take the degree that you have in college. But you learn the maturity and the discipline and if you get that, you can pretty much do anything you want to after you get out of college.

[00:58:12] Lou Schiff: You don't have to, I was a journalism major. I use my writing skills all the time and I wrote a little bit and I published articles and stuff and that helps, but my primary in life wasn't journalism. You know, and I think it's important that, uh, that we try to, and I know that, you know, in some other areas, you know, college is given to students.

[00:58:35] Lou Schiff: Like, I wish we had more of that here. I think that's important. And if you don't want to go to college, that's okay. But I think we need to afford our young people because when you become 18, you're not ready for the world, you know, it takes, and I saw that as a judge, but, uh, Between the time you're 18 and 25, your brain is still growing, your brain is still maturing, and we need to make sure that we have in Canada and the United States, that we've set up learning opportunities, that learning doesn't stop when you get your high school diploma, that I think that we owe it to our kids.

[00:59:11] Lou Schiff: And we owe it to our country that the more educated we can make our, our people, the better the country we're going to have, but that's, 

[00:59:22] Mat Germain: I've always told my daughters that the, the reason that they are going to university isn't just because I want them to go to university. It's not because they want to go to university.

[00:59:31] Mat Germain: It's to open as many doors as possible for their options in terms of what they want to do with their lives after that. 

[00:59:38] Lou Schiff: That's right. 

[00:59:38] Mat Germain: And after that, whatever door they walk through, we'll support them. It's 

[00:59:41] Mark Corbett: right. It's exactly right. And to be able, when that door is open, be able to have a vision, have enough experience, even from those four years of college, hopefully to have an expanded mind to see things that maybe an 18 year old walking in that same door without college would not be able to see.

[00:59:58] Mark Corbett: So, Wow, guys, we got serious for a minute there. What's that about? So, so tell me about the book. Uh, is it out now? Is it, uh, is it pre order? What, what, uh, 

[01:00:15] Lou Schiff: it's pre order now. Um, it's. It's 45 for the hard, it's not a hardcover, it's a softcover book. It's also, I think, 27 for like an electronic edition. And I believe that, I know that this past December, And I don't think that would not this past December.

[01:00:39] Lou Schiff: McFarland ran like holiday sales. So I don't know what their plan is for next December, but the book is supposed to come out around November. So there may be some holiday sales where they do give a discount and there may be some discounts right when the book comes out. I'm not certain, but if you want to preorder it now, it's it's it's on McFarland's website.

[01:00:58] Lou Schiff: I know it's on Barnes and Nobles as well. Uh, but And I think there may be a discount on Barnes and Nobles if you have a subscription with them. And so there may be a little discount on that as well. I'm, I have nothing to do with the price setting of the book. Um, I could tell you that, uh, it's not going to get us rich.

[01:01:20] Lou Schiff: Neither did the last book, but I have, it was just so enjoyable. I never thought I'd be writing books this late in my life. You know, it's, it's just, it's been a real fun thing to do, you know, and I, I'm a believer in continuing to learn. And I love law and I love baseball. So put them both together. I had a, I had a 10th grade teacher.

[01:01:41] Lou Schiff: I wasn't getting good grades in English. And my father went to see the teachers. Truth. And he brought my papers and he goes, I don't understand why isn't, you know, what's wrong with his writing? And she said to him, all he wants to write about is baseball. And my father said, so, so what? Let him write about baseball, you know, let him write about it.

[01:01:59] Lou Schiff: That's what he likes. 

[01:02:02] Mark Corbett: Oh, wow. Well, It seems to have served you well, sir. And it served us well too, but I said, if nothing else, if folks haven't checked you out on Blue Sky, you actually should keep it up the stories there, and I'm looking forward to reading your new and upcoming book as well. You and the other folks that are involved with that match, Matt, you got any other questions or anything insights?

[01:02:26] Mat Germain: I want to know when I go to Miami, you know, where should I get seats? Where are the best seats in the house to, to try to, you know, see a game and where's the best place to buy the tickets? 

[01:02:38] Lou Schiff: Call me, call me and I'll give you a couple of tickets, man. All right. You call me and I'll, I'll make sure. You and I go to a game together.

[01:02:45] Lou Schiff: There's this, there's plenty of seats. Uh, my seats, I share with my brother. We're in section nine, uh, row one. And I, and like I said, Mark has sat there, 

[01:02:57] Lou Schiff: We're, we're on the pitcher's mound between home and first base and the lower bowl and the first row, and it's got extra leg room. It's not right behind the dugout.

[01:03:06] Lou Schiff: It's about it's elevated six. feet up or so, which I've happened to like those seats better than right front row on the dugout because you can't see as well. That's true. And these are just really great seats. The only place you can't see in the ballpark is down the right field line. There's a little sliver that, that you can't see, but everything else is coming right at you.

[01:03:30] Lou Schiff: Next 

[01:03:31] Lou Schiff: time you come down, uh, Mark will give you my phone number. And, uh, call me, and I'll make sure that I meet you there. 

[01:03:41] Mat Germain: Sounds good, Lou. Thank you very much. 

[01:03:43] Lou Schiff: It'd be my pleasure to take you to a ball game. 

[01:03:46] Mark Corbett: Alrighty then. Well, again, well, thank you everybody being here today on baseball biz on deck. Uh, I've been here with Mr.

[01:03:51] Mark Corbett: Matt Germain and our very special guest and friend Lou Schiff. Thank you, Lou. And again, congratulations. And thank you for 28 years of service on the bench and, and, uh, helping people, giving them some guidance through life. So thank you for that as well, sir. 

[01:04:07] Lou Schiff: It's a pleasure. 

[01:04:09] Mark Corbett: Alrighty. I'll put a little footer here at the end of all this.

[01:04:12] Mark Corbett: Lou, I can't thank you enough. Let me 

 You have been listening to BaseballBiz On Deck with special guest, Lou Schiff, co-Author of the upcoming book, "Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame." Lou's book can be found on McFarland Books.com, Barnes & Noble & Amazon. You may also find Lou's baseball and the law history features on Blue Sky at @baseballandlaw.bsky.social

You can find Mat at  M-A-T-G-E-R-M-A-I-N dot bsky social. That’s @matgermain.bsky.social  or Mark on Blue Sky at @baseballbizondeck.b sky.social You may also find BaseballBiz On Deck on iheart, apple, spotify, amazon music & at www.baseballbizondeck.com

Special thanks to X Take R U X for the music - Rocking Forward!