Neighbours, Friendship, and Baseball over a Cup of Coffee

Baseball Author, Craig Calcaterra of Cup of Coffee visits the show

• Past interview on CBA & Ohtani
• Pete Rose to be pardoned 
• Jackie Robinson – What is the way forward
• MLB, does what power wants
• Example of Rob Manfred &  decision to pull the MLB All-Star game from Atlanta due to how the wind was blowing at the time
• How will the wind blow from Washington, DC
• Will teams cancel Pride Night & rework other promotions?
• Could Jackie Robinson Day be downplayed, Would Trump unretire Robinson’s number
• Buffalo Blue Jays & how will we see fandom react at the Atlanta / Toronto game
• Canada is standing their ground 
• Whitewater rafting – leaning into the wave – counter intuitive but successful strategy
• Canadian military general rule – don't talk politics in the war room.
• Mat feels the need to speak-up during these times & reflects on when growing up his family would discuss timely topics at the dinner table with perspectives from hippie-ish to the hard line right wing 
• US folks find discussing politics taboo
• Information Ecosystem has been hit with a perfect storm
• Social Media can be poison
• Google reflecting  -  'reinforces what it thinks you like or what it thinks you know.'
• Bluesky may be a small part of getting out of it. Reflections on The Athletic
• Educating people &  making them aware of what's actually going on, presenting facts in a logical way without being antagonistic
• Create a trust that funds media outlet 
• Small Local News outlets like Columbus Ohio, Matter News, can make a difference
• Could Bluesky be shut down?
• Community – there are less places where people have to come together
• GOP Speaker instructs party members to not hold in-person town halls
• How Trump has impacted the separatist movement in Quebec
• One country threatening another country’s sovereignty
• Republicans bad behavior & talk veiled as a joke, only to later become a planned reality
• No nation or combination of nations could face a Russia / USA alliance
• Craig’s Pandemic Diary & Music
• MLB Spring Training – Media Training for players on how to answer questions that could get you in trouble
• Tommy Pham
• Humor as Self-Defense in serious situations - Laugh in the face of Horrors
• AI Robotics & manual labor being replaced
• Tim Hortons, Hot Dogs & Canadian Ash Bats
• Will laid off Federal Employees be able to afford to go to game
• Mar-a-Lago – Unfrosted Marjorie Post, Jerry Seinfeld & EF Hutton
• Sponsorships across the border - Kubota, Molson 
• Ky Bourbon & Crown Royal 
• Eggs are less expensive in Canada
• Freedom Fries – will Poutine be renamed Freedom Kurds
• Americanos v Canadianos coffee
• the 11th province 
• Spring Training games feel like practice
• Columbus Clippers & robo-ump – will it be in MLB by 2026
• The Human Element - Robo doesn’t recognize Max Scherzer
• AI Politicians

Craig Calcaterra's Cup of Coffee, newsletter is definitely a must read

Follow Mat Germain on Blue Sky at https://bsky.app/profile/matgermain.bsky.social, 
Mark on Blue Sky at 
https://bsky.app/profile/baseballbizondeck.bsky.social
Special thanks to XTaKeRuX for the music “Rocking Forward

Transcript

281 BaseballBiz Cup Of Coffee with Craig Calcaterra

[00:00:00] Mark Corbett: Welcome to BaseballBiz On Deck. I am Mark Corbett with me, of course, this Mr. Mat Germain. And we have a very special guest today, Mr. Craig Calcaterra.

[00:00:09] Mark Corbett: Hey, how's it going, Craig? It's going great, guys. Thanks for having me on. Man, it is a pleasure. I mean, I know we had you a while back and we were talking about your book at the time, rethinking, fandom, you know, how to beat the Sports Industrial Complex in its own game. Oh gosh, Mat, I wish you were there.

[00:00:28] Mark Corbett: It was, it was a fun conversation. And see, one of the things, well you've got another book out now stars of, of Major League Baseball, don't you? 

[00:00:35] Craig Calcaterra: Yeah, those are like kids books. They're like two that, uh, that came out. I mean, they, they really are, they're the sort of books that, um, when you're a kid and you'd go to like the Scholastic book Fair and get, that's, that's precisely what it was aimed for.

[00:00:49] Craig Calcaterra: Um, they had the publisher that I worked with as a series for various sports and I did stars of Major League baseball, which was like the top. 24, 28, I can't even remember now. Players of the day as of, you know, end of 2023, I guess. And then legends of Major League baseball was like the best of all time.

[00:01:05] Craig Calcaterra: And, you know, just a, a big page with a picture, a a little, a little sort of bio aimed at like the. 10 precocious eight year olds, but more like 10 to 12 year olds who wanna learn a little bit about baseball. And, uh, that sold way better than my big adult book about, uh, you know, how to rethink your fandom and everything.

[00:01:24] Craig Calcaterra: So, Hey, who am I? Who am I to judge? 

[00:01:27] Mark Corbett: Oh, no, I'm glad to hear it's, you know, it's continued to do well and of course, uh, Mat knows that just had our first grandchild, so I'll probably buy one. Thank. I said it on the shelf, so as she grows, I can sit down and educate her on the Legends, man. So that's fantastic.

[00:01:42] Craig Calcaterra: Yeah. Yeah. Don't, don't read the Stars ones because like even a year later, it's already so bad. I have like Sandy Alcántara in there. It's like, it, it was really good when I wrote it, but 

[00:01:51] Craig Calcaterra: like, guys get hurt.

[00:01:53] Craig Calcaterra: Oh gosh. Isn't that the case? Hey, you know, other thing we talked about I'm thinking was, um, we were talking about, uh, uh, CBA.

[00:02:04] Craig Calcaterra: There was a lockout at the time. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was saying, man, isn't it so great? I see this one, this one employee of the Angels. He's gonna be, he's stepping away from the team. 'cause he wants to be able to help our players that he's really. Likes and he works with And who's that player? Oh.

[00:02:19] Craig Calcaterra: Ohtani. And it's, it's his translator. Yeah. So, well, yeah, a a lot of things 

[00:02:25] Craig Calcaterra: change. God, that feels like it was a hundred years ago, but it was like last year, wasn't it? 

[00:02:30] Mark Corbett: Yeah. And it, it, I mean, and it goes to show you, you know, the, the man was actually just an opportunist. He wouldn't let a gravy train go away from him with all that going on.

[00:02:38] Craig Calcaterra: What blows 

[00:02:39] Craig Calcaterra: my mind about that is if he was even just like. 75% careless as opposed to like 95% careless the way he was, he could've got away with that for years. Yeah. Yeah. Not that I'm advising that. 

[00:02:51] Mark Corbett: No, no, no, no. But, and we forget, I forgot. You can give us some legal advice, can't you? 

[00:02:57] Craig Calcaterra: I, in some states, yeah, sure.

[00:02:59] Craig Calcaterra: No, I'm still licensed. Actually, I, I, I have been a baseball writer longer than I was a lawyer at this point, so, um, I've probably forgotten most of the things other than just, you know, don't talk to the cops. That's, other than that, that's all I can tell you. 

[00:03:13] Mat Germain: That's always a good starter. What? Mat ? Don't give 'em any ammunition.

[00:03:17] Mat Germain: They've got it up already. 

[00:03:18] Craig Calcaterra: Yeah, exactly. They wouldn't be asking you questions if they had you dead to rights. Oh gosh, 

[00:03:23] Mark Corbett: man. Oh man. But you. I said I wanted to talk about some things like the, the Ray Stadium and the owner keep hearing rumors about own ownership, sasaki, even the MS A-M-A-S-N, what's going on with them between the nationals in Baltimore.

[00:03:38] Mark Corbett: But what I've seen on TV lately, just feel like I got to talk about this. I mean, once I hear the, the, the chief of chief says, we go and we need to go ahead and, uh, give a pardon to Pete Rose it. Seems like, yeah. Yeah. 

[00:03:54] Craig Calcaterra: The only people that really liked that were people like me who create content on the internet, because that is, there is nothing that is more designed to get people like remembering arguments from 17 years ago and getting nowhere than a Pete Rose item.

[00:04:08] Craig Calcaterra: So I hate it. I, I don't like the, the realities of it, but, uh, you know, that's, that's really good for a slow, uh, baseball news day. 

[00:04:17] Mark Corbett: Well, you've, you've had plenty to work with on those slow days in the last couple of weeks. Man, I tell you what, um, Mat and I were kind of going over a few ideas and Mat , do you wanna hit that first one?

[00:04:27] Mark Corbett: You were, you wanted to ask about the, uh, diversity and the DIE and, and baseball and the stadiums and such. 

[00:04:35] Mat Germain: Well, it's funny you talk about the Pete Rose thing because to me it, it's also detracting from the, the fact that, you know, uh, they're doing a lot of work to kind of, uh, attack the DEI, uh, things that have been put in place, uh, across the country.

[00:04:53] Mat Germain: So. It it from a baseball point of view, when you look back at the history of it, I know you know it very well, um, in terms of the impact that Jackie Robinson and that relationship had with baseball and it, he, it, I don't wanna say it healed a lot of wrongs, but it also helped America progress. I. Beyond a certain point that it may not have as easily without that kind of influence.

[00:05:17] Mat Germain: So looking at the sport today, knowing that we don't know where, how far all of this nonsense is gonna go, is there somebody that you know like that or that you can envision being that face or that kind of person that would, you know, move things forward on that front? 

[00:05:35] Craig Calcaterra: At, at the moment. I, I will cop right now to being very, very cynical about all kinds of things, as I'm sure a lot of people.

[00:05:43] Craig Calcaterra: Yeah. I mean, I already skew, I already skew grouchy. So when you, it doesn't take much to push me to cynical. Um, right now I. I'm actually trying not to think, okay, well what's the way forward or what, who, what figure will arise to help us through? Because, um, I'm not trying to be defeatist. I'm not thinking like, oh, there are no solutions or anything, but my mental health and anybody's capacity to take in everything that's happening right now is limited.

[00:06:09] Craig Calcaterra: And right now I'm still feeling like I'm in the. Catch everything that's going on and trying to process it rather than think about good ideas. So it's hard for me to see that right now. Um, I, I think if you look at history, it's more likely that it'll implode under its own weight and then people will be looking around to try to figure out, you know, okay, now who leads?

[00:06:29] Craig Calcaterra: Um, so. I guess that's optimism. I have no idea. But, uh, you know, you mentioned in context with the sport and with baseball and I, this was a particularly cynical thing I wrote about a month ago. Um, I have, I'm really worried about Major League baseball because in the last 10 or 15 years, it's been an institution that.

[00:06:51] Craig Calcaterra: Depending on your point of view, either very sadly or very cynically, uh, does what power wants. Ultimately, you know, Rob Manford didn't move the All-Star game out of Atlanta that year because he had convictions about voting rights. He moved out of Atlanta. 'cause that's the way the wind was blowing. Yeah.

[00:07:08] Craig Calcaterra: Uh, that time it was from advertisers and people like that. But if something's blowing from Washington, I can also see him and he has in the past. Um, sort of bowed and they, they, they will dutifully go to DC and, and, and eat whatever crap gets flung at them because they want to keep their antitrust exemption.

[00:07:23] Craig Calcaterra: We all know this history. Mm-hmm. Um, in light, in the backdrop to all of that with what's going on politically, I'm really wondering if we're gonna see teams like cancel pride night. Or, or, uh, change subtly change their promotions that they have this year? Um, I, I sort of keep a count. There's 29 baseball teams that have a pride night.

[00:07:44] Craig Calcaterra: The only one that doesn't are the Texas Rangers for various reasons. I don't know. Um, I, I, I wonder if anybody's gonna cancel 'em. I wonder if they're going to downplay April 15th and Jackie Robinson day, maybe a little bit. I wonder what the publicity angle will be around, uh, the game like they played last year.

[00:08:02] Craig Calcaterra: I think they're doing it again down at the Negro League stadium in Alabama. Um, I. I could look when, when companies like Target and anybody else all of a sudden start adhering to this stuff just because they don't want to catch hell from Donald Trump's Twitch account or whatever he posts from, uh, I, I don't know that Major League baseball will be the bravest, and I hope I'm wrong about that though.

[00:08:25] Mat Germain: So, so I, I kind of, I asked that because to me, okay, you, you're, you're Donald Trump is pushing for Pete Rose to get, you know, back into the good books in terms of the, of Major League baseball. What if he pushes to unretire Jackie Robinson's number, for example? 

[00:08:43] Craig Calcaterra: Oh, wow. That, well, that would be even, even, I am not so cynical to think that they would do that, but I.

[00:08:51] Craig Calcaterra: Uh, wow, that would be insane. Um, he wants to show his 

[00:08:55] Mat Germain: power, right? He wants to show that he holds all of the power. So to me that would be the most power move that you could ever think of, right? 

[00:09:04] Craig Calcaterra: Yeah. I'm trying to think. I'm trying to think if even he would be that way, but, uh, yeah. You know what? But we'll see a million other little aggressions.

[00:09:13] Craig Calcaterra: Look, baseball's been. In the off season right now, and we know how this stuff works. When things are in the headlines, when the NF L's playing, then political figures will, you know, reach out to the NFL. So to find the next little political war, they'll do it with baseball season too. Um, the first time there's a fight between players of two races on the field.

Oh, lord, 

[00:09:32] Craig Calcaterra: there's going to be horrible political crap thrown in there. Um, the first, 

[00:09:36] Mat Germain: yeah, the Toronto angle, the, you know, oh yeah. Before they become the Buffalo Jays or. You know. 

[00:09:43] Craig Calcaterra: Oh, geez. No. Yeah, I think I, I think I saw today like Atlanta is gonna visit Toronto like in mid-April. Like it's pretty early in the season.

[00:09:52] Craig Calcaterra: And, uh, you know, let, let's be honest, if there, if there's a fandom that's maybe gonna not, I. Take kindly to Canadian stuff because of the political wins, is gonna be Atlanta fans. Hey, look, I wasn't Atlanta fan for like 30 years. Please. Um, you know, it just, there's gonna be a million little opportunities for this kind of stuff and sometimes it's gonna be just dumb.

[00:10:11] Craig Calcaterra: Sometimes it's gonna be like unintentionally funny and sometimes it's gonna be toxic. 

[00:10:16] Mat Germain: Exactly. But I think there's one thing I want to point out, like, because in the last 24 hours to 36 hours, I think there's been a momentum shift towards like the whole tariff nonsense going on between Canada and the United States.

[00:10:28] Mat Germain: Canada really stood their ground and, and had a cohesive, you know, agenda, which helped. So is that an indication of how. Entities that would be, would want to keep promoting, you know, have the pride nights, have all the things that they want to have, they need to kind of get together and be cohesive in that stance and kind of go with like-minded states, like-minded teams, yada, yada, and present themselves as a group instead of, uh, individuals.

[00:10:58] Craig Calcaterra: Oh, a hundred percent. And it's this, in every aspect of life and history, the people that try to stand in the middle or not be noticed or you know, go path of least resistance are the ones that get bowled over. And the people who have their dignity and stand up and have solidarity win, that's just how it works.

[00:11:18] Craig Calcaterra: Or if they don't win, for whatever reason, they win with dignity. Mm-hmm. And, you know. I, I, I just think of this analogy like I literally, I used to go whitewater rafting when I was a kid and like in high school and stuff. I lived in West Virginia. We had whitewater rafting and the hardest thing to learn is when you go into like a class four or a class five wave, you, you want to lean into the wave and over the side of the boat because you push down with your ore will push you back.

[00:11:43] Craig Calcaterra: It's, it seems counterintuitive. Everything about you wants to cower in the middle of the boat. And it's the worst thing you could do. 'cause you get bounced out anything and anyone who is going to take a stand needs to do it boldly and needs to do it in solidarity. 

[00:11:59] Mat Germain: I agree. Yep. Completely agree. 

[00:12:02] Craig Calcaterra: And I'm on Team Canada, by the way, as far as all this goes.

[00:12:05] Craig Calcaterra: Look 

[00:12:05] Mat Germain: most, yeah, most people that understand what is actually going on. But Craig, this is the other part, the follow on I wanted to ask you because as a Canadian and as somebody who serves in the military as an officer in Canada. Like, one of the things that we have as a general rule is we are not allowed to talk politics amongst ourselves in the war room.

[00:12:24] Mat Germain: You walk in, there's no talking about politics. Right. But I do do it now, like online because I feel it needs to be done and I, and I am more pointed than I ever have been. Uh, but, but my family growing up. Was very loud, very boisterous. All questions were open. Even though we had everything from, you know, the, the hippie-ish kind of model to the hard line right wing, Michael J.

[00:12:50] Mat Germain: Fox and Family Ties, kind of, you know, Republican gleaning person at the table. We shared ideas and it, it was like educating ourselves Yeah. About how things work, what's real, what isn't real. And so with that information sharing, it tempered all of the anger down. Yeah, and so what I'm finding right now with the United States, when I look at it from outside, there's a lot of people that refuse to talk politics, and they think it's such a personal thing that it's taboo.

[00:13:22] Mat Germain: That is the worst thing that you could ever have. All it does is lower the political IQ of the entire populace. Who then have no idea what they're actually voting about and voting for. Angry about. Nice about they, they just don't know where things actually stand. And then you mix in a media that's been attacked in terms of truth and dishonesty and angles and 

Oh yeah.

And 

[00:13:46] Mat Germain: then that just. Compounds the problem because you're not talking about at home, you're watching the news, you're getting bombarded with ads with this, that, the other thing. So then you're completely lost. So that's the way I see the United States. You talked about the white water rafting. I see you guys in that wave right now.

[00:14:02] Mat Germain: And you're trying to fight your way out of it, but it's a heck of a battle. 

[00:14:06] Craig Calcaterra: Well, the, the problem, and you nailed it, it's, it's what I call the information ecosystem. Mm-hmm. And whether that is from political socialization when you're a kid talking with your family or your friends or whatever, or the information you see through the media.

[00:14:20] Craig Calcaterra: It, the, the United States Information Ecosystem over the last 20 to 25 years has just been hit with. A toxic bomb. Um, it's, I hate to use a cliched analogy. It's a perfect storm of, uh, you know, we, we had some, we had a law here called Fairness Doctrine back in the eighties that used to require balanced political stuff and the Reagan repealed it.

[00:14:45] Craig Calcaterra: So that doesn't exist. That leads to the rise of Fox News. So that's like a huge thing. Um, and you know, then of course how social media works. Don't wanna sound like an old complaining man, but that's. I've been on social media, I know that it is poison. Uh, I, I just happen to have low level immunity, I think, you know, so you, you put all that together against our sort of baseline tribalism in this country, um, which I think is.

[00:15:13] Craig Calcaterra: I think we are unique in countries that have actually been around for a long time and just sort of how balkanized our cultures and subcultures are. Um, and of course our racial history and everything else. you throw that all together and then turn us dumb and, and what's gonna happen, and that's kind of what's happened.

[00:15:34] Mark Corbett: We, we've become so insular. Insular. I mean, the whole thing about the social media, I, Mat and I've talked before, uh, talk about what on Google, they're gonna show you what they think You are already thinking anyway. They're, you know, your mindset. So you're not going to have some expansive, above and beyond what you're, you're already think thinking about.

[00:15:53] Mark Corbett: It's, it's really funny. 

[00:15:53] Craig Calcaterra: I, again, I just had this conversation. My, my dad is like 81 years old, uh, and I was sitting and talking and he's fairly tech savvy, but you know, whatever. 

We're having 

[00:16:03] Craig Calcaterra: this conversation, but he doesn't watch TV or things like that at night. He watches YouTube videos and he. He's 82.

[00:16:09] Craig Calcaterra: So he likes to watch YouTube videos about naval ships and about, you know, how they built a dam and things like that. And he'll sit and watch them and he'll click through them, uh, until he gets sleepy and then he goes to sleep. And he asked me the other day, he said, I can't find anything new. I. Anymore because every time I click, I just keep getting more of the same, sort of like he's tech savvy, but not enough to know how algorithms and how the, the whole things have changed to feed you and reinforce what it thinks you like or what it thinks you know.

[00:16:41] Craig Calcaterra: And if it does know for sure what you know, it will reinforce it in a major, major way. And that's how like political stuff has happened here. We've gotten into these little vacuums where we're seeing more and more. Reflected back of what we already believe, but just amped up a little bit. Yeah. And there's nothing like a, a negative feedback loop like that to create some really extreme positions.

[00:17:01] Craig Calcaterra: It's like the, the source of our political polarization, and I don't, I don't know how you get out of it. I'm 51 years old, I'm guessing we don't get out of it in my lifetime. 

[00:17:11] Mat Germain: So I think Blue Sky is an example of how you get out of it, but it, it's a tiny little speck. I'm not saying it's the, you know, the solution, but when, when sports writers kind of got attacked by all these major outlets and newspapers, whatever, and the athletic was created.

[00:17:27] Mat Germain: Right that, that's an example. Another example of a group of people getting together and creating that. I think the same needs to happen on the news side of things and be funded at arms' length with trusts, if at all possible. So like a 

[00:17:42] Craig Calcaterra: nonprofit model for sure. 

[00:17:45] Mat Germain: So if you're a Democratic billionaire, right?

[00:17:47] Mat Germain: Mark Cuban, whoever else, yada, yada, and, and you happen to think, you know, I wanna invest in something like this 'cause it's worthwhile and it'll be long lasting. What I would do is I would get together with all the other Democratic billionaires who want to spread the truth. I would create this trust that funds this company and you put the right people in charge at the beginning, then you let it run.

[00:18:08] Mat Germain: But a trust that sell feeds. At a certain level and is then hands off and you just let it go. Right? It would be, 

[00:18:16] Craig Calcaterra: that would be ideal, right? That's like the, the, the total platonic ideal of you want news people and information people to not. Be subservient to business needs. And you want the people who can fund that sort of thing.

[00:18:30] Craig Calcaterra: That's, here's the weak part. You need to find those people who are truly altruistic. Yeah. Um, even the ones who we believe have good hearts or who tend to be right more than they're wrong. Uh, I, I just, I'm not trying to go all. Class warrior here, but I, I really do think that once you get to a certain level of wealth and once you get to a place where there aren't a lot of people around you who tell you no very often, uh, it's very hard to let go of the impulse to make more money or to have more control over something.

[00:19:01] Craig Calcaterra: So, yeah. I love that idea. I, I like to think it could happen. I don't know if it could on small, in small ways. I think it can, a small outlet here, you see it locally. Actually, there's some local news, small local news outlets that you know that, that they're run on a, on a shoestring. There's one here where I live in Columbus, Ohio, that called Matter News, which it's literally a two person operation.

[00:19:23] Craig Calcaterra: Uh, it's funded, but it's not profit seeking. It actually does really good news and investigations. Um, on a small level, it works. I'd like to think it could scale. 

[00:19:33] Mat Germain: I would just love to see it to the point, 'cause I think people would gravitate to it. Like even people who, who watch Fox News sometimes they just think that's the only place Yeah.

[00:19:42] Mat Germain: Where they can get good news. Right. I, I think if you build it big enough and large enough and with the right marketing scheme, you can probably get it to compete with at least on level. Right. Which at that point, you know, when you talk about educating people and having them be aware of what's actually going on, presenting facts in a logical way without being antagonistic or, uh, you know, uh, skewed in your, in your views.

[00:20:09] Mat Germain: I mean, just presenting that I think would cure a lot of, of. You know, the issues. 'cause my fear with watching what's going on is the more and more and more Donald Trump aligns himself with how Russia runs things, the less and less and less control there will be. Um, you know, I. I would not be surprised if at some point there's an attack on Bluesky and it gets shut down, for instance, 

[00:20:31] Craig Calcaterra: like, oh yeah, I'm, I'm waiting for that one.

[00:20:33] Craig Calcaterra: Yeah. 

[00:20:34] Mat Germain: So, so what, you know, to what level do we let it go before we put that other kind of system in place? And, uh, I say we, there's somebody. 

[00:20:44] Mark Corbett: Yeah. What are, what are you doing up there North anyway, 

[00:20:46] Mat Germain: now? 

[00:20:47] Craig Calcaterra: If, if I, if I was an insane billionaire, I would fund that in a second. I'll say that much. 

[00:20:52] Mark Corbett: You know, I mean, the challenge is, I mean, I drop X.com and all that, and I'm on blue sky, and I know it's much more limited, but I also know that now I'm still putting myself in another bubble and I'm seeing what I already think come back to me all the time.

[00:21:05] Mark Corbett: My mind goes to the idea of, of community events, um, those can be dangerous, but a city hall of open forum and then you hear was, was it the speaker of the house the other day told, uh, the other GOP folks, you don't need to have town halls, you don't need to have town halls. It's like, good lord, man. It's the one place where we can.

[00:21:27] Mark Corbett: Face to face, talk these things out. Now, do people get irrational and angry at those things? Yeah, but you know, it's at least a place where we can start to try to have a forum, have a conversation, and it's not happening. It's, it's being pushed away. I. 

[00:21:44] Craig Calcaterra: Uh, I, I could go, I mean, I don't think you guys have four hours, but I could definitely, I've got this.

[00:21:50] Craig Calcaterra: If someone said, right now you have four hours you gotta fill, and it wasn't about like sports or movies, it would be about this idea that we just don't have community anymore. And I don't mean it like in a nostalgic sense. It is the way our lives are set up are almost inter-communal. And, uh, we don't, you know, even.

[00:22:07] Craig Calcaterra: Weirdo middle class people like me, if I want to treat myself, can buy my way out of a lot of inconveniences that the world has to deal with. I can get this class or I can buy, you know, advanced entry or whatever. And we don't have a lot of places where people come together. Like there used to be a day when, look, everyone had to go to the bank, everyone had to go to the post office.

[00:22:30] Craig Calcaterra: Everyone had to wait in line for a train. 

Yep. 

[00:22:32] Craig Calcaterra: People would mix of various different backgrounds and socioeconomic classes and things. We just don't have that level of human interaction. I'll stop now 'cause I will go four hours. 

[00:22:42] Mat Germain: Okay, well, look, there is a point I wanna make though, because my daughters are, you know, they're on Roblox, they're on this, they're on that.

[00:22:51] Mat Germain: The other thing there, there's different types of community, whether it's gaming, whether it's, they, there, there is, you know, 

[00:22:57] Craig Calcaterra: it's, it's different, right? Yeah, you're right. It exists. I, I have a million friends, they all live on my computer and I would say, 

[00:23:07] Mat Germain: what? Comes out to bind them can be surprising. So in a good example is in Canada, right?

[00:23:13] Mat Germain: The separatist movement in Quebec. Has almost been quelled forever because of what Donald Trump is doing to Canada. The, the, the amount I saw 

[00:23:21] Craig Calcaterra: the polls, I saw the polls went from like liberals 20 down to like break even in this course of a couple of weeks. And it's all because of Trump being a jerk. I.

[00:23:30] Mat Germain: And they, because they, and, and intuitively they know that the conservatives in Canada are very friendly with the Trump movement. Right? Right. Yeah. They're afraid that they'll be sold out if they vote the conservatives in. So when you talk about community and it binding together, and then all the booing and all the, you know, waving Canadian flags, buying Canadian flags, yet that's an example of how they got motivated.

[00:23:53] Mat Germain: So my, my point would be like for the United States, it's almost like they need an. External threat. 

Yeah. 

[00:23:59] Mat Germain: To get that kind of, you know, cohesive mindset once again and stop looking at, you know, 

[00:24:07] Craig Calcaterra: the problem though is when you're, the global military hegemon, like the United States has been, you can go find external threats and make 'em up all the time without it being a concern.

[00:24:18] Craig Calcaterra: And so we've done that in the past too, so it's dangerous. Um, I mean, 

[00:24:22] Mark Corbett: looks like we're seeing the beginning of that right now, Craig. And. It just, it's scary to live in daylights outta me. So I'll tell you that it's, 

[00:24:28] Craig Calcaterra: I, I don't. It, it, this is, I'm a big idiot 'cause I look at maps that are flat all the time and I forget about how Globes work.

[00:24:35] Craig Calcaterra: But you know what? Russia's here, the United States is here and Canada's right here. And I don't think a lot of Americans appreciate, like even I make jokes. Like I've gone on blue sky just this evening and I was making jokes about, you know, when, when the Canadians put us all in reeducation camps, can I have a nice one?

[00:24:51] Craig Calcaterra: Things like that. But it's not funny. Like it's not a joke. This is like. A country literally threatening another country's sovereignty. And like anything else, the Republicans in this country do they, they do it in a way that is deadly serious, but that they'll say afterwards, well, we're just joking. You're not getting the joke.

[00:25:10] Craig Calcaterra: But then they, they carry through with what they were doing and it was never a joke. And that doesn't mean that I think Donald Trump is going to send, you know, the United States Army over the border, but it does mean that this is serious. They're not treating it like it's serious, but they are being just.

[00:25:25] Craig Calcaterra: Horrible and threatening. My, 

[00:25:27] Mat Germain: my military mind wants to take over right now, but I mm-hmm. I'm not gonna go too deep into it. What I will say is, if you took, if, if Donald Trump is actually aligning the United States with Russia, there is no nation on Earth or com combination of nations on earth that can do anything to stop.

[00:25:46] Mat Germain: That's a fact. 

[00:25:48] Craig Calcaterra: Yeah. I mean, I, I, I don't, it just, we'd be in a completely different world. In, in so many ways. Like we still have a residual nuclear deterrent in the world. Right now. It's not well managed, but we have one in that, you know, the two most stocked up countries in as far as nuclear weapons go, do have the ability to annihilate the other one.

[00:26:13] Craig Calcaterra: Um, once you change that and that the, that that aligns. You know, that that changes the world in a lot of ways and, but it might not change it in expected ways either. And, and so we'd be so far off of what we, the three of us in our lifetimes have considered a world order that I don't even wanna speculate how bad it could be, but yeah.

[00:26:34] Mark Corbett: No, I'm with you. Hey, there's a couple things I wanna thank you for Craig. And pardon me. 

[00:26:39] Craig Calcaterra: Oh God. 

[00:26:42] Mark Corbett: Well, one, I was probably gonna put the end of the show, but I, I wanna say it now is. And usually I think at the end of each one of the cup of coffee newsletters, you've got some music for me, babe, you got something good for me and I can feel a little better.

[00:26:54] Mark Corbett: A little Boss, Bruce Springsteen.

[00:26:55] Mark Corbett: I started doing that like five years ago. During the pandemic. I wrote, um, on my own like personal blog that I. Baseball stuff. Uh, I wrote something called the Pandemic Diary where I kept a, an actual diary from like the beginning of February of 2020. Mm-hmm. And I, I stopped around, you know, may or whatever, um, about what was going on every day, just 'cause I figured I might wanna know someday.

[00:27:17] Mark Corbett: And people started reading it for whatever reason. And then. Uh, I put songs on the bottom. I just embedded a YouTube with a song because it was a very moody, sort of atmospheric sort of writing. I was sort of crawl into my head a lot and things, and so I would put things that reflected my mood and people started liking it for whatever reason.

[00:27:36] Mark Corbett: So when I started the newsletter later that year, um, I just started throwing the songs at the end too, to sort of play out music because I don't know. If, if it was really heavy all day in the, in the content that I wrote, I like to put something lighter at the end or, uh, you know, if I'm feeling in a crappy mood, sometimes I signal it through this sort of mu uh, music I share.

[00:27:55] Mark Corbett: It's just a thing that I like to do and readers have responded well to. So thank you very much for saying that. Yeah. 

[00:28:00] Mark Corbett: Yeah. I mean, I love it. Bob Marley, one day the Boss, another day, and something obscure another. I love it, brother. So thank you for that. 

[00:28:08] Craig Calcaterra: Uh, we got The Clash tomorrow morning as we're, uh, as we're, as we're recording this, on Wednesday, Thursday morning's, cup of Coffee ends with the Clash.

[00:28:15] Craig Calcaterra: "Know Your Rights". 

[00:28:18] Mark Corbett: Like it. I'm loving it. Oh, you, uh, talking about Cup of Coffee. Looking at it again today. I thought you gave some good advice we were talking about earlier. Um, Mat , you were saying. What are some of the things people are going to say? And Craig, in your newsletter today, you pointed out, Hey, here's a good response when people ask about Canada.

[00:28:40] Mark Corbett: Can, can you tell us a little bit about what you wrote today? 

[00:28:43] Craig Calcaterra: Yeah. Well, and I, I won't take credit for the, the quoted response in there, but you know, the idea we, we saw already with the Four Nations and everything else, there's gonna be booing during national anthems because that's just how it works. And, um.

[00:28:57] Craig Calcaterra: People are gonna try to stir up stuff with that media. People are gonna try to stir it up. Fans will try to stir it up and someone's gonna go to either a United States player who plays for the Blue Jays or a visiting team in Toronto and the United States National Anthem will get booed and. They're gonna ask him how you feel about that.

[00:29:16] Craig Calcaterra: Probably to try to generate some sort of response or some controversy or whatever. 'cause you know, they're ballplayers, they're young kids and they don't know anything. And so somebody's gonna say, that sucks. They should respect us. And it's created an international incident. Mm-hmm. Um, and the advice that I saw, it was the, um, on, I only know his blue sky handle and where he writes under the, the Dallas, Steve.

[00:29:39] Craig Calcaterra: You might know who that is, I'm assuming. Well, you Canadians know each other, right?

[00:29:44] Mat Germain: No fan. But he and I are blogging about the Blue Jays about the same time, like before we followed the radio. Okay. 

[00:29:49] Craig Calcaterra: It's a small community, so I sort of figured that would be okay, but it totally came off as like anti Canadian.

[00:29:54] Craig Calcaterra: That's awesome. Good job. Um, anyway, you know, there's a way to answer that question that doesn't offend the fans. And I, and, and I can't remember what it was, but he wrote, wrote it out from the point of view of a, of a, of a player saying something like, oh yeah, hey, you know, I, I, I'm proud of my country and, you know, I, I.

[00:30:14] Craig Calcaterra: Of course, I don't like to hear my national think of food, but hey, I understand what's going on in the world. I understand that people here are passionate and blah, blah, blah. And then you just talk out of it like any athlete would talk out of it. I really hope everybody takes that to heart. Um, I, I will say when I was back covering spring trainings, I used to, when I worked for NBC sports, I would go to spring training every year and on the first day of spring training, there's like a half hour where you can't go in the clubhouse and it's media training and they do that.

[00:30:39] Craig Calcaterra: Over and over through spring training with all the guys, including the minor leaguers, training them how to answer the kinds of questions that you should to get guys in trouble. You don't see that very often anymore. That's why everybody's so boring and bland when they give their, well, you know, I just saw a pitch I could hit and whatever.

[00:30:53] Craig Calcaterra: No one ever says, yeah, his stuff wasn't good today. And I beat the crap out of it because they had media training and uh, so I'd like to think that. Big part of that media training is gonna be anyone who's gonna be playing games in Toronto this year. 

[00:31:05] Mat Germain: I'd like to see Tommy Fam get that, uh, media training and be in the room in the back, just listening.

[00:31:11] Craig Calcaterra: He's, he's immune. He, he, he is one of the few that you could tell went to every media training like this, boxing my arms. Yeah. But I love him. I mean, is he, he's totally shot himself in the foot a million times, but I love guys like that because it's funny to me. 

[00:31:27] Mark Corbett: Tommy's honest, whatever, whatever else he's honest about what he, you don't have to worry about how he feels about things.

Mm-hmm. 

[00:31:33] Mark Corbett: Oh, you know, the other thing I, I've been with Mat and I, sometimes I'll do a little comedy bit for the first minute or so before the show, you know, a mockery of the, the, the president and some other things, and a musk. But I'm looking at that. I'm looking at Kimmel, not that I'm Kimmel. Look at at him, and I see all these pieces.

[00:31:54] Mark Corbett: Start thinking about feeding the beast, you know, is, is what we're doing? Are we actually taking a very serious and dangerous situation? And, but through satire, which gives us a voice, but at the same time, are we diminishing what's actually there? You know, are we not giving enough? What am I say? Real attention to?

[00:32:16] Mark Corbett: What, what's going on? 

[00:32:17] Craig Calcaterra: I, I, what do you I, I, I worry about that sometimes. Um. But I also, on some level in my, the way I have always viewed humor is like self-defense. Yeah. And, you know, partially is a defense mechanism. And, uh, also sometimes there are things, the internet has sort of convinced us all on.

[00:32:36] Craig Calcaterra: Social media has convinced us all that we need to be sort of authorities on everything. That we need to have an opinion about everything. Um, that we need to have an idea about everything we, we doubt though some things are big and we're all just idiot individuals. There are all kinds of things that happen all the time that I feel I should weigh in on because I'm on social media, but God, I don't know.

[00:32:56] Craig Calcaterra: And all I know is that makes me feel scared or that makes me feel happy or whatever. And so a lot of the humor I. See out there about these very serious situations and, and what's going on in this world. Um, I just presume, unless I have a reason to think otherwise, that it is meant as sort of a laugh in the face of horrors kind of thing.

[00:33:21] Craig Calcaterra: 'cause that's what I'm doing. I, I still try to drop jokes about this stuff, but, you know, it's driving me crazy and, uh, you know, the humor's gotta be there, I think. Just figure out the line between humor and then sort of mocking other people being worried. That's the one thing I don't care for. 

[00:33:38] Mat Germain: It does point though to, to the sensitivity being different now, I find because, uh, you're, you're looking at a.

[00:33:46] Mat Germain: Probably the quickest evolution ever of industry and, and, and things that will attack us already before we even look at the pol political side. Uh, when you're talking AI robotics, uh, you know, manual labor basically disappearing and, and being taken over within the next 10, 15 years. Uh, the thinking trades.

[00:34:08] Mat Germain: Also being under attack, whether you're an author, a painter, a writer, I get, I get offers every day about five of them on LinkedIn asking me to teach AI how to write. 

[00:34:19] Craig Calcaterra: Oh God, yeah. I've 

[00:34:20] Mat Germain: gotten this too. No, like, come on. Like at, at some point there's, there's going to have to be, so it might, the way that I see the attacks that are going on right now is.

[00:34:30] Mat Germain: You're talking about a government that is never going to be empathetic enough to provide basic income as an as one example, right? Canada has already spoken about it and said, yeah, it's a reality. We're going to have to do it. We just don't know exactly when and how and at what scope and whatever it's going to happen, so.

[00:34:47] Mat Germain: If you know that and you're not willing to go there and it's living up north of you, and things that happen in Canada usually leach down to the states eventually. Whether we're talking about legalization of marijuana, whether we're talking about a whole bunch of other issues, the Tim Hortons. Yeah. Hey, there you go.

[00:35:03] Mat Germain: Yeah, hockey's made it all the way to Tampa and Miami. I mean, you know, we, we spread like fire. So, um, so my point would be, you know, if, if you're, if you know that is coming and that's pressuring your government and your, your, um, uh. Your views on how people are going to work in the future to be not the way you want them to be.

[00:35:29] Mat Germain: Uh, as a government, you're going to react and you're gonna try to attack it before it ever comes to fruition, right? Yeah. 

[00:35:35] Craig Calcaterra: Yeah. The United States has always been really good at that. And again, I don't wanna sound like some sort of like college dorm Marxist or whatever, but you know. Yeah. The, the fact is, you know, capital wins in this country.

[00:35:52] Craig Calcaterra: Um, we, the parties have flipped back and forth several times for various reasons. In the last 200 years, there are two major parties, um, but there are always reinforcing power. In capital and money and industry. Um, that's the number one thing. And anything that is perceived as interfering with that, uh, in this country, more so than most, I think, um, there's an active attack to snuff it out as soon as they can.

[00:36:23] Craig Calcaterra: Sorry guys. And, um.

[00:36:27] Mark Corbett: Must have lost him here for a second. Okay. 

[00:36:29] Mark Corbett: You know, one of the things that Mat was going to ask, I think, before he left, and that is, you know, rising costs of pork and beef. How's that going to impact concession costs and how does it work out for federal employees being able to even, , afford to attend a, a game in the future? 

[00:36:46] Craig Calcaterra: Oh, yeah. Forget it. I mean, everything's gonna be more expensive. You know, I, I'm, I'm sure we have a bunch of bats made with, uh, Canadian Maple Wood at this point, you know, we don't use the ash anymore.

[00:36:57] Craig Calcaterra: It's, it's, there's gonna be, it's not gonna, it's gonna touch every aspect of life. I. And, uh, I think the most notable thing other than the national Anthem stuff we talked about that you'll see at baseball games. Yeah. When the Js go to Seattle. Uh, Minnesota, Detroit where they, where they draw. 'cause like a lot of Jay's fans will come to, I go to Tigers games a lot.

[00:37:16] Craig Calcaterra: There's tons of Jay's fans there. When Toronto was in town, you're gonna see a lot less of that fan traveling either because they don't want to or because it's this inconvenient to do so. 

[00:37:26] Mark Corbett: Well, I'm, we will give mad another moment or here, but, um, uh, here's just another thing I'll just throw out as a random note.

[00:37:34] Mark Corbett: You know, I was looking at, uh, watch it. There's a show called Unfrosted. Have you heard about this? 

[00:37:40] Craig Calcaterra: Uh, I, I've heard the name. I don't know anything about it though. 

[00:37:42] Mark Corbett: Unfrosted. It's on Netflix and it's a show with all these standup comedians and it's about Post and K Kellogg and the creation of Oh, yeah, yeah.

[00:37:52] Mark Corbett: The Pop-Tart. Well, at the end they show some of the different characters, who they really are and what they've happened. And one of 'em was Marjorie Post, and she was like this heiress. She was the woman, uh, who had Mar-a-Lago built. And Oh 

yeah. Yeah. 

[00:38:10] Mark Corbett: And her husband was EF Hutton. Everybody listens to him.

[00:38:14] Mark Corbett: Right. 

[00:38:14] Craig Calcaterra: So, yeah, I remember reading about that. 'cause you know, back when Trump got in office the first time, I was like, what's the deal with Mar-a-Lago? Yeah, I remember reading about that. Amen. And I just said that to Jerry Seinfeld voice, and I think Jerry Seinfeld's an unfrosted. So there you go. 

[00:38:27] Mark Corbett: Yep. Yep.

[00:38:28] Mark Corbett: Unru. Right. Oh, Mat , we were just chatting a little bit before you, you, you're back now, buddy. Uh, I. We mentioned about the hot dogs. Uh oh. Yeah. I don't know, brother. I don't know. You know, I wonder about the tariffs and I wonder about sports sponsorships Now. I know Kubota is big with, if that's how you say it, properly, uh, doing a lot up, up north with you guys, I think with the Blue Jays.

[00:38:56] Mark Corbett: And I'm wondering how some of that's going to translate, uh, with the sponsorships across, I don't know, with different companies. 

[00:39:04] Craig Calcaterra: Like, I think the Tigers until a couple years ago anyway, like the Tigers was, were the only major league baseball team in the United States that, like Molson, I think was like the big poor at, at, uh, Comerica Park.

[00:39:17] Craig Calcaterra: Yep. Um, they, they might've changed that in the last year or two, but they had beers gonna get a little more expensive all of a sudden, uh, for some folks. 

[00:39:25] Mark Corbett: I think I need to send some bootleg bourbon up to, uh, to Mat up there for my friends in Kentucky. But this, oh yeah, I'm sorry. 

[00:39:33] Craig Calcaterra: We got you beat on that.

[00:39:34] Craig Calcaterra: The, the, the US bourbon is better than the Canadian stuff, so if we're gonna fight a war, we'll fight over that. 

[00:39:40] Mat Germain: That's alright. If you've ever tried Crown Royal, I think it's, you know, it does the trick. It's made in Gimli, Manitoba and it's, uh, you know, it's one of those things that 

[00:39:49] Craig Calcaterra: those the little purple velvet bags.

[00:39:51] Craig Calcaterra: Yes. Yes. 

[00:39:53] Mat Germain: I used to have the Triple Ryan Gingers and, uh, I was a much younger man. But the, um, the, the good thing I think with all this is that it, it creates opportunity, right? And, and if you're gonna. You know, not be able to buy eggs right now, for instance, because it's 2025 and we haven't figured out eggs yet.

[00:40:15] Mat Germain: Right. So if you're not able to, you're gonna have to figure something else out. So my, my question was gonna be, so what, what are we gonna sell at the ballparks that is affordable once the hot dogs cost, you know, 15 bucks a piece. Yeah. 

[00:40:29] Craig Calcaterra: Well, I mean, wait, are, are you talking in Canada or are you talking here in 

[00:40:33] Mat Germain: the United States?

[00:40:34] Mat Germain: Our eggs are cheap. I think I got a dozen for nine bucks, uh, or sorry, a flat of 24 for 12, uh, for nine bucks, uh, recently, so. Yeah. 

[00:40:44] Craig Calcaterra: Yeah, that's pretty good. It's, it's, if, if you can find a four 50 dozen of eggs down here, uh, you're doing really, really well. Yeah. Um, now, I don't know, I, I remember though, during the Gulf War, they did the whole Freedom Fries thing here because that was like, I.

[00:40:58] Craig Calcaterra: A, a typical stupid United States thing to do. Um, I I, I could see some, you know, border war stuff, uh, with, uh, renaming, renaming stuff. 'cause there, there are ballparks here that do Poutine now. Yeah. That's not just the Canadian thing. They'll, they'll call it, they'll call it, I don't know. Free freedom. What?

[00:41:17] Craig Calcaterra: Freedom Mash, that's what we'll call it. Freedom Nash. Freedom Kurds. 

[00:41:22] Mat Germain: So, you know, the Americanos are now Canadianos up here. Right. Oh man, I did see, wait, 

[00:41:30] Craig Calcaterra: I think I saw that. Did they do that somewhere? 

[00:41:33] Mat Germain: Yep, they did. I don't know, I don't think it's widespread yet. Starbucks isn't on board with it, obviously, but I, well, I'm gonna 

[00:41:39] Craig Calcaterra: be in, I'm gonna be in England in uh, May and I always have to settle for Americanos over there 'cause it's hard to find like drip coffee anywhere.

[00:41:47] Craig Calcaterra: And I'll see if, uh, we'll, we'll see which side England's on by then. 

[00:41:53] Mat Germain: Oh 

[00:41:53] Mark Corbett: my. 

[00:41:54] Mat Germain: My, my wife was asking me, you know, if, if, if ever there was a conflict between the United States and Canada that was military, would, would they come to your rescue? I said, you know, we had to help them as Canadians, uh, across the ocean.

[00:42:07] Mat Germain: No, I mean, I, I don't think we can do that again this time around. 

[00:42:11] Craig Calcaterra: Well, look, also, you guys never needed England's help to kick our ass because most of the losses we had in 1812 were to y'all. So, you know, whatever 

[00:42:22] Mat Germain: they, they don't know that Jim Carrey's a covert spy. 

[00:42:28] Craig Calcaterra: Well, I mean, it's like we talked about earlier.

[00:42:31] Craig Calcaterra: You guys are united and we're. Completely spastic and schizophrenic. So, uh, there, there, there's, there's an easy side to gravitate to at this point, 

for sure. 

[00:42:39] Mark Corbett: I keep saying we should be the 11th province, you know, that should, that would solve everything. 

[00:42:44] Craig Calcaterra: I said that to someone like in real life I was like, just casually acting like that was a thing and they looked at me and then I had to remember, wait, I'm internet poison.

[00:42:53] Craig Calcaterra: They are not.

[00:42:58] Mark Corbett: Oh goodness. Oh, any other, uh, topics we should cover that we've missed? 

[00:43:05] Mat Germain: So, have you been able to enjoy any spring training? Like I find 

[00:43:09] Craig Calcaterra: this, I haven't watched, I haven't watched any games yet, and I, I, I have a pretty low threshold for spring training games to begin with, just because they just feel like practice to me after all these years.

[00:43:19] Craig Calcaterra: Um, but I haven't really watched any yet, which is, this is probably the longest time I've gone and not just at least idly had it on. 'cause I have like a little MLB TV package where you can get most of the games and, uh. I haven't watched any of 'em, man. I gotta, this weekend, I'll fix that. 

[00:43:33] Mark Corbett: Yeah. You know, I've watched a couple, watched the first couple of inning, whatever, Scherzer, when he first went out there and, and said, he's only gonna be there for two innings.

[00:43:40] Mark Corbett: I can't, I'm not Got to watch a whole game. 

[00:43:42] Craig Calcaterra: Yeah. Plus he was fighting, he was fighting with the, uh, with the robo, um, during that first game yet to 

[00:43:49] Mark Corbett: that the, that I, well see that if all this other stuff wasn't gonna go. On today. That was gonna be a real topic with you. So maybe another time we'll address that.

[00:43:59] Craig Calcaterra: I'll give you the really short answer is I live in a AAA town. We have the Columbus Clippers here. So we've had the robo, the challenge system for the last two or three years. It is great. It, I'm generally anti that stuff. It's great. It works quickly. It, uh, it doesn't interrupt the flow of the game. You don't even notice it happening.

[00:44:18] Craig Calcaterra: At sometimes. So it'll be, it'll be in MLB in 2026 is my guess. And no one will care after, after a month. Wow. 

[00:44:24] Mat Germain: My take has always been this, and I've watched baseball very closely for a long time. I've always found that the human element, right, favored the veterans. The ones who had the track record, the umpires were, that's why 

[00:44:37] Craig Calcaterra: Scherzer doesn't like it, by the way, is because he gets the benefit of the doubt.

[00:44:40] Craig Calcaterra: And that's why he was talking up the big storm the other day about thinking it's not good because the robo doesn't know you're Max Scherzer. That's 

[00:44:47] Mat Germain: right. Exactly. It's exactly right. And so the young guys, to me, I always saw some guys come up not get any credit. They have a bad start because of it. 'cause they're getting angry, they're throwing strikes and they're not getting the credit.

[00:45:00] Craig Calcaterra: Right. 

[00:45:00] Mat Germain: Yeah. Umpires used to talk 

[00:45:01] Craig Calcaterra: about, well, he hasn't earned that pitch yet. They used to say that all the time. I'm like, oh my God. Human 

[00:45:07] Mat Germain: elements. 

[00:45:08] Craig Calcaterra: Oh man, I hate, have you seen humans? We've been talking for an hour about how horrible humans are, and all of a sudden we're gonna venerate the human element in baseball.

[00:45:16] Craig Calcaterra: God, no. Bring on the robots in everything. Oh 

[00:45:20] Mat Germain: gosh. I agree. I agree. Oh, brother. Ai politicians.

[00:45:28] Mat Germain: Oh man. 

[00:45:29] Mark Corbett: Oh well, gentlemen, I'm glad I 

[00:45:31] Craig Calcaterra: kept you guys on track so. Well, 

[00:45:34] Mark Corbett: we had fun, brother. I'll tell you. Oh, we're gonna talking with Craig Calcaterra and if you haven't looked at cup of coffee, you should, you can get it five times a week and it's Craig's newsletter to the world. Those of us who enjoy baseball and who enjoy a little comedy and also a little insight into what's happening.

[00:45:52] Mark Corbett: Um, sometimes it's painful too, but he always ends his newsletter with his song, so. Thank you for that, Craig. I appreciate it and 

[00:46:02] Craig Calcaterra: thanks for having me today. It was a lot of fun. I love chatting guys. Okay. 

[00:46:07] Mark Corbett: Alrighty. Well, thanks again brother and I, I'll, I wanna thank everybody for joining us here today, and we'll, uh, talk with you again real soon.