When most people think of baseball legends, they imagine home runs, golden gloves, and towering trophies. But Billy Beane became a legend not because of his swing—but because of his brain. The story behind Moneyball shows how one man’s data-driven strategy forever changed how baseball teams build winning rosters. From Pro Prospect to Front Office Visionary Born in 1962 in … Read More
The True Story Behind Moneyball
Episode Transcription
00:00 Hey man, happy to be here. Welcome to an episode where we're not going to do any bits. Tim's going to tell the story and I'm not going to say anything. Go ahead to all right. Have you ever heard of Billy Bean? 00:16 What do want to say about William being first in Billy last name beam? You don't you got anything to say about Billy B. You got any jokes to make about that name? You can't. You're just going to let that name lie. You're just going to be okay with the fact that this guy's birth name is Billy Bean. I need you guys understand. I need you to see right now. I'm done being gas little this podcast. I'm not doing any bits right now. 00:48 Why'd you say it like that? 00:53 We've been bad. 00:58 Would you come make us good? I promise we're worth it. 01:09 Things I learned last night. 01:18 just wasting your time. Okay, fine. Billy being born, Marsha, twenty nine, nineteen sixty two to Orlando, Florida. 01:33 I need you to engage with these jobs. I need you and I need you to be here with me. I'm here with you. They're just not fun. You just went Billy Bean in that funny in that one. It is you guys. It's really funny. I'm do an episode about God ain't Billy Bean. It is funny. I mean didn't even say funny. You just went Billy Bean say with a funny voice. Try it with a funny voice. Try it. 01:57 We'll start over. Ready? Try with a funny voice. I'm not gonna do. I'll laugh. I'll laugh. got it. No, no, no, do it. You're not gonna laugh at it. You're gonna do the exact same thing you did when I said it normally Billy B. No, see, I don't even do it turns out. It wasn't funny, so oh 02:16 So Billy being born in Orlando, Florida, born to Orlando, Florida, as his dad's name Orlando, Florida. No, I just like the idea that okay, so he's born to Orlando, Florida, Orlando, Florida in nineteen sixty two. Yes, okay. What did William Bean do? So Billy Bean, he was a born and raised baseball player. He loved baseball uh and all throughout his William Garbonzo. 02:45 Okay, he tried not to. He tried to hold it in, but it came out so he played baseball. His dad was in the Navy though, and so he did not know sure there's a point. There's a down in the Navy though. Okay, he played baseball though. His dad was in the Navy. There's a reason why I said though 03:12 so he did it get to play with one team for a long time in his youth. His dad taught him how to pitch the moved around a lot. um Finally, okay high school hands up in San Diego Navy town. um That's what they call it right, San Diego, San Diego, Navy town where he starts playing. I San Diego is more known for the marine base there Pendleton. I thought it isn't that a Navy base with a marine base really yep. I thought that was a Navy base. Are you serious yep? 03:41 There might be a Navy base there. 03:45 that's the one like right on the shore right and yep marine on coronado. I know because I was in the marine. No, that's a naval base. That is a marie. That's a marine base. No, I'm looking at it right now. It's a navy base right here, naval base on coronado. That is yes, the naval and 04:09 Green Core Base. 04:12 It's got both. Yeah. Okay. 04:18 guys. I need you to listen. I need somebody to reach out to me in my DMS. Send me a message. See like tell me that I'm not crazy. I didn't say they didn't have a Navy base. I said I think they're more known for Camp Pendleton and then you went yeah, that's a Navy base and then you googled it. It wasn't and you were like yes, it is on Coronado. That's not Camp Pendleton. What I said 04:48 So I just need to me an email. It's my email is tim at tillin dot com and just send me an email very detailed about how I'm not an insane person. I just say how much you had that other guy on this part every day man. Our phone calls, our podcast, 05:12 Every morning I wake up to an audio message that says hey good morning you small little man Nothing you think is correct the other day you sent me an audio message You you say you sound tired and you were like hey good morning, man I just want you to know that nothing you think or say is ever right and that every thought you have is wrong And I just want you to second guess yourself all along the way. All right. Anyway, Billy bean. See you later 05:39 That's how you make it funny Tim. 05:44 take note. So Billy goes to San Diego. His dad's the Navy. He's working at the Navy base, not the marine. Yes, but there is a there's both his mom worked at the marine base, but he went to high school because he was a t a soldier and he goes to Mount Carmel High School in San Diego and he and there being a teenage boy in the what would this be? He was born in sixty two, so seventies seventies 06:13 he school doesn't matter. What mattered to him was baseball, football and basketball and cigarettes. uh Yeah, I live for four things. Baseball, football, basketball and cigarettes in reverse order. Last night, 06:32 You're gonna hate me for this. 06:36 last night during fast money five minutes in bringing up family feud. All right, let's hear it last night during failure, failure feud. The grandma of one of the families was doing fast money. The worst fast money round I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, there was a question where it was like what is a part of your body that regenerates hair, skin, skin. She said hips 07:05 And then there was a question, what's the first thing you reach for in the morning? And in this voice she said, cigarettes. 07:16 BUT 07:18 cigarettes was the top answer. She literally got fourteen total points in that fast money round. It was the worst I've ever seen and her son came out and ended up getting the total score to one ninety seven, so he all cleared the gap. Yeah, the gap. It was crazy, but yeah, the first thing you reach for the morning cigarettes oh kills me. I will never forget that moment. Anyways, 07:44 it was just think so relaxing about watching this old lady see cigarettes on tv and see there's something about that that that's funny, but there's decorum to that. You saw that like he's trying to stretch it now. I was looking. I was like okay, that was only a minute and he's like yeah, but also yeah too much too too much. So I'm interested in William Garbon so bean 08:07 So being is playing baseball, football and basketball, yeah and smoking cigs smoking looking cool and so he and he was really talented. He got named to the varsity team as freshman year on all three sports. Okay, he batted a five o one his sophomore and junior year of high school, so he was good um his senior year there. He ended up deciding to drop both football and basketball, which was a controversial decision for him because he was already being scouted by Stanford and they were talking 08:36 about giving him a joint baseball football scholarship to succeed John Elway, who was a sophomore at the time. They're like, we're going to need to replace him in a couple of years. And we think you're our guy. Wow. And so that's like high praise, obviously. uh But he was like, no, he's like, if I play, if I keep playing football, I risk a career ending injury. And he's like, baseball is a safer sport. I feel like I'm better at that game uh because his senior year, his batting average dropped. uh 09:06 to 300 and felt like he was distracted. So he's like, I'm going to focus on baseball. I'm to just pursue that. So he dropped everything else, just pursue baseball um and it paid off. He ended up being the New York Mets first selection and the 1980 major league baseball draft straight out of high school. Okay. So he was a first round draft pick, went to go play for the Mets um and spent four years playing in the minor leagues and then went on to the majors, had one year. It's one of my favorite things to watch. 09:34 the videos or guys getting called up. Oh yeah, yeah, so fun to watch. Yeah, it's yeah, it is fun. So he goes, he got to love watching people's dreams come true. Yeah, it is, you know, it is exciting and it's it's even more exciting watching them get the call that they are getting cut. That is there's nothing better than watching someone's James get slashed. 09:59 I there's nothing I hate more than this bit that you do sometimes where you just decide to not engage with me or you just decide I'm going to make you look crazy this episode and it works every time because I can't stand it so much and it makes me go more crazy, but I can't stand it. All right, that was thirty seconds you can cut out. Oh my God, so he does the year with the Mets the Mets were so he doesn't you with the Mets. He doesn't you with the Mets. 10:29 and the meds are like ah, you batted a two eighty four oof not great. We know we just called you up. We know we spent a first round draft pick on you. It's not hot anymore. You're not that hot. You stop smoking and now you're not cool anymore. Yeah, and so they trade them to the twins. The twins hold them for a year. They do the same thing. They trade him to the tigers. The tigers hold them for a year. They do the same thing. They train him his oh he's 10:51 Is he bouncing around in the minor leagues or he to get this is made so he's okay, so he's in the majors, but he's not getting to stay on it. He at least got to play in the majors exactly. It's a beautiful fun thing yeah, and so he goes to the athletics and he spends a year with the athletics and the athletics are like hey going into nineteen ninety season. We feel like you've lost a step. We're going to downgrade you to the miners and so he goes to the GM Sandy Alderson of uh the open the Oakland A's and he says hey I 11:20 Oh, wait a minute. Okay, I know who Billy Bean is. Keep going. He says, he says, hey, was like, know this name is familiar. He says, Hey, I, I know, like I could go do the minor league thing. Yeah. And he's like, but let's just, let's just cut this middle storyline out. Like I don't need to go to the miners. I can just retire now. And he's like, I'd like to come be a scout. And he says, all right, you got a deal. And so he becomes a scout. 11:48 for the Oakland Athletics. Yeah, and he comes in kind of like a lower level scout. His job is what's called an advanced scout, so he's going to not to high school students, not to colleges, but he's going to the minor leagues and he's scouting for other players and I to a guy on a delta flight that did this. Did he tell you about it? Yeah, I mean like loosely. I mean he was like, you know, I'm a scout for he was for the race. Yeah, they have anybody on his radar that day. 12:15 I was like how you're going to watch somebody and he said no, I'm going vacation my family right now, and so he's like don't talk to me. No, he started the conversation. I think he wanted. I think all he wanted was for me to know he's a scout. You were like you want to see me. I can do some gassers down the aisles. You want to see my job. hey, I'll run right now. I thought I was a catcher. I got a hip flexor issue right now, like my hips are kind of tight, so can't actually fully get into the squat position, but like it's like take off. 12:39 And the flight attendants like, you got to sit down. We're trying to take out my dream. I'm trying out for the right that I yelled off Mike and Tim yelled into it. He doesn't understand my control. He's not very funny. Um, and so he's just really bad at this. We've been podcasting for almost 10 years and I was still hasn't got the hang of it. I'm trying to talk over you is what I'm doing. I'm trying to make it to where my joke is the one that people 13:06 because when you hear this back, when you hear this back, show this to your counselor, ask your counselor to listen to the last two episodes and then be like which one of us is the crazy one is a deal. I've had a crazy day already. It started at like six AM and it hasn't stopped. What happened? Oh, you're not a site go down. Well, I mean that was the sixth thing that happened today and it's just it's been one of those and so I am a little a little high strong. I will, I will admit I'm a little tense. 13:37 anyways, so do that again. I'm a little got some tension in my banks. Thank buddy. What the heck is wrong with you? 14:02 I don't know how else how else would you how else with your body would you try to illustrate the fact that you're tense show me another way you would try to illustrate tension without just flexing 14:16 that does like different. That does look different. You're right. There was another way to do that and you went that was weirder though. I think that was you posted up to your problems like you were like gonna be like yeah, that's how men fight their problems. They fit. you go. So so you think that 14:34 just I sort of make sure that we understand. So you think that addressing your problems in a masculine way yeah, it's gotta be mass is to puff your chest and and tell your pops your force or the was to tell your pops. No tell your problem. Oh, tell your pops. You're the was you're the one you're the weak one. That's a big five ten energy over there buddy. 15:00 Okay, so Billy Bean is a scout for now the Oconais yeah, and so he's working underneath. What year is this? Nineteen okay, and so he's working underneath Sandy Alderson and Sandy is teaching him about this new stuff. That's like it's not really new. This has been around for a little bit called hold on to me the right Saber metrics, S A B R metrics, which stands for Society for American Baseball Research. 15:28 which was 1971. So relatively recent. It's this new way of doing analysis on players that was pretty like groundbreaking, which is weird, where instead of looking at a player and being like, that person's good at baseball, I'm going to offer them a bunch of money to come play for my team. They would look at their stats, right? Be like, these are good stats. This is good on paper. So we know they're a good player. 15:54 but a lot of scouts had a lot of problems with safer metrics because the scouts were like because the scouts were like no, no, no, it's a feeling. It's a vibe. That's guess. We're like I've got a hold, you know, because every player has that gold necklace, that little chain right and they take it off. I hold it in my hand and I go he's like. No, you're not going to make it to the league. I hate when you ruin my bits. I hate when I'm about to do something funny and then you go wow. 16:26 so Billy Bean is a guy who is now working for the Oakland A's. I want to know your version of that bit. I want to tell me your version of that bit. It was. I was going so basically the same yeah, but you went the sound you made is like if oatmeal came to life and was like a monster in the bowl and was like a sloppy monster. 16:55 the sound I made was more like a psychic looking at the thing and trying to go to a different route and be like you will do and I was going to do a whole like I see you playing ball and also you know and I was good. I'm not even going to a punch line. I'm not going to let it. We got to let it flow to the ether because Tim was like wow, wow, wow, because Tim was like you know what's funnier. What if I speak over Jaron 17:24 and I do my bits. You don't know what is funnier is that the psychic so Billy Bean is a guy who works for the Oakland A's and he Oh make my mic louder. He braids cut him out. Take him out of this podcast. You just hear Tim really quiet. 17:47 All right, Saber is a on paper kind of way of looking at things. Yeah, they're evaluating their actual staff. Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's like it's like what do they look at off? So they're looking at pretty much every stat and baseball and what's interesting is those in those early years. They're just like what are all the possible stats we're going to start tracking them and chart start to see what has the most um connection to players who actually succeed right league because what 18:13 happened all the time and it's very interesting. Baseball is different than pretty much every other professional sport. They have a twenty round draft yeah and they just pull in a baseball will draft kids straight out of high school. Yes and instead of letting them to put him in the minor. Yeah they put him in the minors. They let him develop from there but the problem is like what happens so often is they will spin these first few rounds. I love to do like I don't know if it's time in this episode but a side tangent on the way that minor league works because like they're not paid a lot 18:42 Yeah, well, what happens if they get drafted, right, they get drafted, get a signing bonus, they get a lot of stuff, but minor league players don't make a lot of money and they have to pay for a lot of their own stuff. It ends up being like a lot of them have other jobs. Yeah, I don't know exactly how it works in the MLB, but I do know I knew a guy who was in the minor leagues for the NHL and they lived in a team house and so they had a house that was like a frat house essentially. that Andy? No, I don't know if you've met. 19:11 him, but it was like essentially a thing he's made up. I know everybody that Tim knows and Tim's lying right now. I really don't think his name was Nate. I don't think he met him, but it was like a teen house. I really live in this team house. He did have another job. He sold insurance for State Farm. I bought some from him and then and then he would put us in sweets every time he played at cable domer and so 19:39 they definitely weren't making enough like when just that like the NFL cheerleaders make nothing. What did you watch the season of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders? No, they they campaigned. They got raises and so I think it, I think they, why would I have one minimum salary? Watch that. It's interesting. The minimum salary I think they get now is eighty thousand for the cowboys. Oh well, to be fair though, they're worth it. I was gonna say 20:06 Okay, that's out there. Let me explain. Let me explain. I need to explain. 20:15 Hey, join us on Patreon if you want this to be ad free and also there's a bunch of other perks you get to all episodes are ad free. You get next week's episode right now and you get to do monthly hangouts with me and Tim. Like we really look it's like a virtual just hangout room and we play games together. We talk we have show and tell sometimes we've made a lot of good friends through this and so it's a really good time to do that. So either way please share the episode tell somebody about it. These are all those ways to help us grow the show because we love doing it. We want to keep doing it. So thanks for being here. 20:50 say that. Oh, I love this. My favorite moment of the whole show. Wow, Tim, they provide a lot of value for the team. Oh my gosh, that is the value they provide for their worth. Yeah, I they're worth it. 21:15 that's crazy. No, I meant like they've now spun that like whoever was the marketing director for the cheerleaders of the Dallas Cowboys. That's what I'm saying. They're a brand. Let me finish right. I'm trying to save you right now, buddy. What I said they they became a separate entity exactly that exists alongside the Cowboys ah because of like their Netflix series. They had a TV state, a reality. They were they were their own reality show 21:44 you know, and so they've they're a valuable brand and enough right separate from so now that is the elite. Honestly, you could start on another team yeah and be a cheerleader and then hopefully become a doubt like that's what you want to yeah, but as a process they talked about the process of becoming an NFL cheerleader, at least for the chiefs. I mean I've had a couple friends who have auditioned for it and tried and it's 22:09 pretty aggressive like you have not easy to make and you have to know the entire roster for several years back to you have to know you didn't know a lot of stuff about the chiefs yeah. I mean what's crazy it. I don't know. I don't mean entire roster like all the starting players. You got to know you got nobody every position yeah yeah you know which is crazy. It's crazy because that's not what you do on a day to day basis at all. That's nothing. No, no, no, I mean you will you're too poor to sit close when you sit up front by him 22:37 they're doing this and stuff and you're like hey, who's the back up right tackle and they have to tell you the stats yeah, that's actually their go. Where do you go to high school? You know, do I know him? Are we friends on Facebook? You are so worth it. 22:57 because they're war. I was uh all right supportive yeah, but also they do provide a lot of value. They used to make like thirty thousand a year, which is crazy, so they they pulled a pretty big. I think they made way less than that. Hold on because I don't they're not salary or at least about the chiefs. Yeah, they were hourly. They know they are salary now with benefits. 23:27 the cowboy shoes are yeah, because that was the whole thing in the show is like they all had cheerleaders make you know an average of seventeen thousand a year. They earn a flat rate per game. They were they earn a hundred and fifty per game. Yeah, that's what I saw because because when this happened in practices pay ten to twenty dollars per hour and then public appearances like if they send three cheerleaders out to an event that's like fifty to seventy five dollars. Yeah, I remember looking wow 23:55 because they pay for all their own costs like uh their hair and make up their travel to and from events. No way there's no way they're paying for the flights. Isn't that crazy? Does the visiting team doesn't say so they only do home games and they well local events. We stayed when I was when I was in what year was that? I think I was in fifth grade greatest time of my life because we stayed at the same hotel as the kids, chief cheerleaders 24:22 when we went to see the Hall of Fame game in Canton, Ohio, they play Green Bay Packers nice, so they might travel for games like that. Well, yeah, it's the Hall of Fame game interesting yeah. So we can, I both teams took their cheerleaders to Brazil right. I think so yeah, like big things like that yeah, Super Bowl, Super Bowl, both teams gets cheerleaders obviously yeah and they're worth it. 24:51 and the word that you get what I was trying to say though, right? Yeah, do I need a no, I think you don't gotta explain anything to me, but breathe and breathe doesn't listen to this, so she's not even gonna have any questions. I watched it with her. Your mom might tell her though your mom's gonna be because your mom listens and watches thanks Terry and but she's gonna text breathe like you need to listen to this episode. Go ahead and skip forward a minute forty five, but 25:22 So Billy B, so Billy B, what's that? So they focus on what I'm saying. Like they're, they determine that there's these stats early. Then what were the stats they were focused on? I've got, sure they're batting average, they're so running speed. I'm sure it was what they were. They were trying to focus on all these. I know which stat they have initially ended up like what they ended up going to. Yeah. 25:47 I don't know what Saber Metrics focused on in the early days of Saber Metrics. I know that early on they were like whatever they were looking at all stats, trying to figure out what was the one that actually influenced the ability to win games. Like what stat do you need the most of? But I don't know when they because the way that baseball contracts worked, some of these players like star players were getting incredible amounts of money. Yeah. And so 26:12 And I guess it kind of works the same way with the NFL. I mean, you'd have players making crazy contracts to play third base while your second base, your second baseman is making one 20th of that. Yeah, there's huge, huge discrepancies across the roster. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting with baseball too, because even to this day, like you will have contracts that are multimillion dollar contracts for some players in the team and then other players in the team will have six figure contracts. Yeah. And so there is like a 26:42 there's a disparity where, like if you look at a lot of other leagues like the NFL, for example, like played on the NFL, there's they're all still millionaires. They're all still doing really well, but there are some that are doing significantly, definitely exceptionally well yeah and so well, it's like when my homes first when they first won that first Super Bowl and there was a I think it was a video that they were talking about. They were in the locker room or whatever and some of the other guys were like hey. Did you go watch that movie yet? Oh yeah, he was like he's like can't go to movie theaters yeah. 27:10 Yeah, you know and it's just like a different level of like when I was at the Starbucks by my house, there's I don't even know the guy's name, but I know he plays the chiefs because he would walk in and that's there. He's pretty visibly not a normal person. You're like oh yeah, you are a truck and so but he was like I think he was like a defensive lineman coming to Starbucks, drive a pretty nice car, yeah, you know, but no one in there was like oh my gosh, yeah, you know same thing with who was our bald sorenson 27:40 we have a chick flay right a bit, but no one will be like really. I would think people recognize him. I mean I think I think one person working but go because I think that's so you know like I think it would be one of those things like I think that people who know now it's like with his family and like but someone would go. It's not like undeniable. He walks in and you don't go that's sorens. You know we walks in you go. I think that's I was speaking of. I thought of this new bit the other day um 28:11 I haven't got to do this to anybody yet, but I'm really looking forward to it. This is like a nice bit. This is a fun bit to do to your friends. But like when you see your friend in public act like they're a celebrity that no one else in the room knows who they are. so you're just like, Oh my God, is that Alex Garnett? And then you just take, you're like, can you take a picture and get someone to take a picture and be like, you want me to take a picture with them? And then you get like, 28:36 see if you can get a group of strangers to take a picture with your friend who's not famous at all. I love the idea. I haven't got to do it. I think that's funny. My favorite thing to do is if you're at Disney or something, this is uh a a ask someone to take your picture. I told you this one where it's like if you and I were at Disney together, we would go hey sir, would you take our picture and then you and I and I take a picture and you go you should be in this. Well, you 29:01 will you take a picture of us and then get a stranger in the picture with you? That's really I didn't go you should be in this and then just see how many people you can do that to you can. That's really funny. That's really funny. I like that a lot too. Those are two great bits, two great bits you can do yeah. Have some fun. You know another really fun bit is a go audition for the Kansas City Chiefs. They let they let anybody out. They let anybody out. 29:33 uh They can't just I tell you what they can't turn you away. So anyways, while we were doing all these bits, I looked up what cyber metric started out with and it started with batting average. That was yes. They thought was the big one and then eventually they started looking at the correlation between batting average and run scored as a team. Like the whole team's batting average, the whole team's run scored, um but eventually uh they ended up landing on on base percentage. 30:03 So by the time uh Billy Bean became the scout, uh Sandy Alderson was looking for players who had good on base percentages, meaning they got on base a lot because they said this is the thing that correlates to teams being able to win games, uh which is a pretty big change for scouting in the major leagues because like I said before, scouts would go watch high school players play. 30:30 and say this kids got it and it was based on a feeling and a vibe and a lot of times it was not. It didn't pan out because it was vibes yeah and usually these kids were kids that were doing good in high school, but there wasn't like any concrete data behind the fact that they were good. It's just they're doing well. Oh, speaking of kids that do well, uh no, no, no, I got to you this is crazy. Later, I have to tell you now we're not that far in. I do not consent to this story. 31:01 So uh you know, Derek Henry, yeah, if you don't, he's the running back for the Baltimore Ravens. ah This is going to change this season, but he's been in the NFL for nine years. I saw this on another podcast and and then I went and watched so much game footage, ah but he's been in the NFL for nine seasons, okay, and he has just under twelve thousand yards in the NFL from nine seasons. Okay, 31:30 in his four year high school football career. He had twelve thousand one hundred and forty five yards and so he has more seasons in his high school career or more yards in his high school career than he has in nine seasons in the NFL, which is bonkers and you look it up. You look up the stat sheet, Tim. Why is that bonkers? 31:51 Well, okay, okay, because no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, oh 32:16 You're telling me this force of a person gigantic guy. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's why he made the league. I would expect it. I would expect it to take someone who is exceptional or than double the time in the league is insane. It's not insane. I think it's insane to every team you're playing has 11 professional athletes on the other side of the ball. When you're in high school, you got 32:40 idiots. He was averaging two hundred and fifty yards a game. There are games in his high school career where he is over five hundred rushing and that's crazy because playing against high schoolers and as a high schooler, he looked forty two. I watched a bunch of game footage of him playing in high school and he's a head and shoulders taller than everybody else in the field. I can't believe he's five hundred yards of these people, but also that's not crazy. After watching a bunch of game footage, I spent 33:10 a couple hours watching game footage of him in high school. After I saw this, I genuinely don't know if he got tackled in high school, like watching this footage like nobody could bring him down. I genuinely don't think he got tackled in high school and I don't got that rose got tackled for the first time. He's man, this sucks. I didn't like that. I do this all the time. You guys like get tackled. Where do you go to college? The worst? I don't know. Actually, let me see 33:42 he went to the University of Alabama. Yeah, that's crazy. That's not that crazy. He the highs in his freshman year. That's crazy. That's nuts. What is psychopath? I mean he really is paid a lot of money and he's worth it. 34:04 Hahaha 34:06 never gonna hear the end of that he's so okay, so so so so see me. messed up on the story here though, because I thought that Billy Bean had to like fight the team to get this to be so sandy. So sandy teaches him this thing yeah and what he teaches them. It's kind of this thing where sandy is doing this as the GEM and when he's looking at players 34:33 but scouts are still doing what scouts do and that's going and watching college or high school and college and mightily players play and just vibing them out yeah and then they tell the GM they say hey. I like the vibe of this guy. The GM was looking at also if you're a travel ball parent like if your kid plays baseball and you travel for that, you should know that college scouts and pro scouts are also watching how the parents act in the stands yeah because like your kid could be really talented, but if I'm a college scout and I see you in the stands, I'm like 35:02 I don't want to put up with you yeah yeah like you could ruin your whole kid's career just by being who you are at these little things. That's actually one hundred percent true and it's crazy. These people are there's nobody worse than a travel ball parent. These people will load their family into the suburban. They'll drive states away for a baseball game, but they won't drive twenty minutes to a counseling appointment. That's true. It's a good joke. That is true. 35:38 So Billy Billy learns all this stuff about Saber Saber metrics from Sandy and he's a scout for Sandy for a few years. And then in 1997, Sandy leaves the athletics and then Billy is offered the job as GM. So he takes the job as GM. 36:01 and he immediately is like, okay, I know this guy who's really good with Saber metrics and stats and stuff like this. He's a total nerd. He's like, I'm to call him up. His name is Paul de Podesta and he's like, I want you to be my assistant GM and he's like, all right, done. And so then he comes and joins the team and then he sits all the scouts down and he says, Hey, no more of whatever you guys are doing. I don't like it. He says, we're only going to do metrics from now on. Okay. And the movie makes it seem like it does. 36:31 and that's not what happened. No, you're saying that saying he was already doing this saying he was already doing okay, but it wasn't. It wasn't. I will say because the movie makes it seem like Jonah Hill brought this to the A's or like that Joe Hill was like. You should be looking at this, which Jonah Hill plays Paul. They put that's what I'm saying, um but yeah same person whatever that's not yeah. That's not what happened. Also did Paul look like John Hill? I wish I could do pictures today. Our computer TV's not working 36:59 No, he does not because Billy Bean got played by Brad Pitt. I will say which is pretty sick. This is here's a here's a picture of them, so they not even close, not even close. There's a lot of a lot of people who like a lot of people who knew this story ahead of the story and were close to the athletics didn't like the movie because it it made a lot of people like a lot of individual people with the team look pretty bad that 37:26 did not look that bad in real life. Well, because the scouts were like we're fighting you on this. We're not going to do it and then Billy Beans like yeah, you're out, you're cut, I'm done. I'm not mess with this stuff. We're doing this system and it seemed like the way that the movie we're referencing is money ball. If you don't know ah and the way the movie portrays this is that Billy Beans, the GM trying to figure out the team sucks, trying to figure out what's going to work and then Paul Despacito or whatever his last name is. What is it day Podesta day Podesta ah 37:56 somehow he and Billy Bean their their paths cross yeah at some office thing or whatever. Well, he's not a play and he finds out he's a scout and he's like you want to see me run down the aisle yeah and then so Paul goes hey you should be looking at the on base percentage and Billy Beans like what he was you should be looking at the on base percentage. That's how what's what's the that's the correlating factor and then Billy Bean goes back to the A's and he's like we got a lot of the on base percentage and then fires the whole staff and brings in this guy 38:26 is what the movie makes it seem like yeah yeah, but yeah, no he had already been looking at it before that holly the guy before him had been looking at it. It's not a compelling story though, and you know what it's kind of like this football movie. I watched where like the kicker's name is David. His dad's in a wheelchair, great story and I'm standing for my son and don't touch me. I'm standing for my son 38:56 and every youth group watched that they're playing the giants at the end. Beautiful, beautiful moment. Yeah. 39:06 Hey, if you love the show, a great way to serve support is by getting some merch. We got lots of great stuff. I'm going to showcase some of it right now. This is like our little till in QVC. You can get a it's not a call. It's a podcast sweatshirt. Very sweet. The nice thing about this is no one knows what podcast you're talking about. So you were in public and you can tell them about your Lord and Savior to a podcast. We also got the this is one of my favorite things we've ever made. The fiddle off fest hoodie. It's got uh the devil. 39:36 playing a fiddle. It's not really the devil's a skeleton. And then all of the bands on the back of it like it's a festival. But spoiler alert, these aren't bands. These are jokes from episodes. So worth checking out. And this is one of my favorite things we've ever done. This is for the real fans. This is an old one. We've got a Tim Stones get well quick trick shirt. And it's very cool. We've got some really good designs. Darren is good at designing stuff. So support his dream. No one will hire him as a designer, but you can by buying his merch. 40:04 It's our merch, but it's his designs. so leave a comment, say, Jared, you're good at this. um We like your art. He really needs it. He needs your support so bad. Please make him feel better about it and buy some merch. It helps make this show keep happening. You can tell people about how much you love this show with it. So. 40:27 Did you hear it? Did you hear what I said? Yeah, you're to do a two minute merch ad. wasn't a two minute merch ad. Oh, Jaren's a good designer. Give him a high five. Make him feel good about his art. 40:42 and then you're going to make them listen to two minutes of ads. We got to do all that and then it's going to be like back to school this fall like 40:52 I don't want to be. I hate skippable ads. They're not skip. They are skippable. Yeah, you too. Pretty you leave all this in that 41:08 that never mind. We don't have to even that movie wasn't that bad. It was their cop movie they did. That was pretty bad. Their fire, their firefighter movie and yeah, there was just so many in that series. They were just so 41:20 christian entertainment's pretty bad yeah. You know yeah and that's it's because here's why is that uh they don't allow you to be funny ah and they also it has to have a message. Otherwise it's not worth it and the standards are really like true. The standards are low, but I would say like I'll do comedy shows that I'll feel like uh 41:43 like I do. I do a serious part of my show, not like a whole like hey come forward and give your life to Christ kind of thing. Yeah, but I do a serious part of my show and there is a certain group of people at my show who will kind of politely laugh through the first thirty minutes of my show. When I do the serious part after that, it's almost like they go oh okay. This had a purpose yeah, you know, it's like where they're like oh okay, it's okay to laugh because this had a point yeah and if you don't do the 42:09 the point it's like it's like that guy in san antonio when we first started, we did the homeless shelter and we did. It was you know is three hundred homeless people. They packed out this whole so they're there for the food and I get up and they didn't know that they allowed a comedian. So I'm joking and these homeless people are like what happened was the director hired us, but he wasn't there that night. That's right. It running it and he did not know that you were a community. He's yes. You were a preacher thought I was a speaker and so and they're all laughing. We're having a really great time. 42:38 and and he goes over to Tim is like what's this guy joking around the whole time and it was very mad like very wise. This guy joking around the whole time and you're like they what he said. He said these people come here to get fed spiritually and physically and I was like oh I was like well he's just he's just joking crazy dude. It was like crazy. This guy was in my face yeah yeah and you're like all right dude we're dumb kids yeah 43:07 but the homeless people are laughing so chill out. I think I literally said that I was like I was like I think that I think they're having a great time. We were having a good time yeah and so anyway, but that's what it so Christian entertainment ends up being like what happens in and ah me and some other Christian creators have had conversations with people to make productions and 43:32 very quickly into the conversation. It very it ends up being the people who fund it wanted to have a certain message. Yeah, they wanted to have a slant. They wanted to be inspirational and what a whole stuff and they end up just making it so it's like oh, I'm shackled by this and like I don't want to veggie tales this story like what do you like? I just want to tell a good story that's worth it and you want it to be like and at the end that we watched the movie at the end you go wow. I feel uplifted. It sucks man and it's just like dude. Just let art 44:02 we are like it's the whole thing of like is it is it valuable if you if you can't turn it upside down and it be Jesus is it still a valuable piece of art yeah anyway drives me nuts yeah. I was if you watch my comedy specials upside down it's it looks like Jesus the whole time crazy. If you could do that with some cool crazy anyway. 44:28 No yeah. I mean I agree with you. We could yeah. We could talk about this more than the the fiddle, because I was actually think about this this morning and I spiraled pretty hard great, so we could talk about that, but you know anyway, so the movie is what I mean. The money ball movie portrayed the story differently than reality is what you're saying yeah yeah absolutely okay like every movie. So then tell us what happened then after although so he gets the job and he calls up Podesta Podesta joins the cheat 44:56 joins the team, he does go to all the scouts and he says, this is what we're to do from now on. Some of the scouts decided to leave because they're like, I want this to go off my vibe. I don't want it to go off of the first. Oh my vibe bro. No, I quit my T I quit my job as a MLB scout just cause I was harsh in my vibe. 45:18 You know, yeah, yeah, exactly. And there was a little bit of scandal about it because what what he did is he he made this decision. This is how they started scouting. Yeah. And then he essentially was like, hey, there's a disparity in the MLB where the teams that have a lot of money to spend, yes, spend a lot of money to go get the best players. Right. And the teams that don't have a lot of money to spend are kind of left with for lack of a better turn the scraps. 45:45 um because they don't have the budget and we're have to compete against each other yeah, but they are. We still have to say it's the same thing of like colleges. If you have a rich college versus the small like the small local college, you know yes, and so he found this on base percentage thing and he said. I think if we assemble a team that has this the highest on base percentage, we could win and we can actually play at a similar level and we can save money. We don't have to pay these guys that much money. It costs us less and then yeah and then we can actually 46:14 a team that has a couple superstars. We have a bunch of decent players. We can come up against a team that's true couple superstars. And so it's the difference between example. You're a running back. 46:29 and the defense has two star players and nine goobers nine. I don't know. High school nerd or you're up against a defense of eleven pretty decent guys. 46:47 I'm pretty sure, and this is going to sound crazy. You might not get as many yards against the 11 pretty decent guys as you would have the two all stars and nine goobers. 47:07 fine, but I will say this. If any one of those nine goobers had the right resources and was born at the right time, the right coaches, the right diet plan from the time they were born, they could have made, they could have, and a sure Derek Henry was a foot and a half taller than all of them, but they could have made it. I think they could have, could they start? Maybe not. Could they be Derek Henry's level? Probably not, but could they make it? 47:37 if you went to a Lutheran high school in Colorado, you too could have twelve thousand rushing yards. They played third graders. We did play the Colorado school, the deaf and blind and we did lose that game. Now you did. Yes, we did. You did what I saw my freshman year, my freshman and sophomore year freshman year. We lost sophomore year. We won junior year. We went up the Colorado stop deaf and blind. Yes, we stopped and you lost. Yeah, we did lose 48:06 My freshman season we lost. Yeah. Sophomore year we beat them and they put us up a division. Can't make any statements about that. 48:18 they only know that's all right. 48:26 that is crazy. It is crazy. It was embarrassing, but we got rid of our coach. Why is it embarrassing? We got rid of a say why it's embarrassing. They can't see us and they're beating us, so they they start scouting with this method, looking for players that have a high on base percentage. They amy, they completely abandon high school kids. They say we're not had a look after high school students anymore because there are too long to 48:55 get to the league. You have to develop them in the minor leagues and that's a waste of our time. What's the minimum age they can go to majors? Do you know there's not a minimum age, but there's a skill level they want to see him get to really? I don't think there's a minimum age. I mean eighteen probably yeah. I wonder what's the youngest in a leaf player is your fun. I was major league baseball. There isn't a strict minimum age. Players have to be seventeen to be eligible to be drafted or signed okay, so so there is a minimum age. 49:24 it's so sure that you all heard that there is an minimum age players had to be seventeen to be eligible. Okay, so seventeen then seventeen sounds like it. Oh wait, wait, wait, so US has to be at least eighteen years old or out of high school. So if they graduate before they're eighteen okay uh international have to be at least seventeen to be eligible for the draft interesting, but a wow and then 49:54 college players, which is interesting. So if they're in college, though, if they go to college instead of be drafted straight out of high school, they have to uh they're eligible after their junior year or when they turn twenty one, whichever comes first, yeah really interesting. So there's like weird, so you either have to commit to not going to college, yeah or you got to commit to going to college, yeah, but inevitably, unless you're just amazing. If you get god, you're going yeah, you're going to the miners, and so he says I'm not going to draft a player that I'm not going to get to use right away. 50:23 I'm not going to use early draft capital on one of those players. I'm going use my early job capital on a player that has a higher likelihood of being a success in the league. Okay, these high school players so often don't pan out. Sometimes they do, but it's a gamble and it's very interesting because so much of the league historically has brought on these high gamble players in those early rounds. Yeah, and then the later rounds are the sure things interest. So he's like we're pushing all the sure things up and we're aiming for players with that specific on base percentage of what we're aiming for. 50:53 Um, and he goes and he clears out the highest salary players trades them away so he could free up cash. So he can go get a ton of these on base percentage players in the draft. And so his draft was deeply ridiculed this season, the, years, he had years where his drafts were ridiculed because his drafts looked like compared to what the league was used to bad drafts. Sure. Um, but over the course of a few years, he started to put together this team that had this high on base percentage. 51:23 because he was able to start getting these players that were at the level where they were ready to go straight into the majors, or had gone to the minor for a couple of years and they went to the majors and then they started to to pan out like they were played like. Obviously some of them ended up being Mrs. Some of them ended up being hits and so he put together this team that was didn't have a ton of stars. There was a couple didn't have a ton of stars was mostly players that were 51:51 good players, not incredible players, but they had this one specific staff that they were great at on base percentage. Okay. And so the 2002 season is when this all kind of came together and they started having a, a really good year and he is getting a lot of flack going into the season. And there's an interview where he responds to it. And I love this quote from him. He says, it's all about evaluating skills and putting a price on them. 30 years ago, stock brokers used to buy stocks strictly by field. 52:19 Let's put it this way. Anyone in the game with a 401k has a choice. You can choose a fund manager who manages the retirement by gut instinct or one that chooses it by research and analysis. I know which way I choose. And so he said, forget it. I'm not just going to guess. I'm going to look at the numbers. Yeah. And I'm to look at a number that we know pants out. And so they put together this team and coming into this season throughout the nineties, the A's had been a mediocre team at best at many years had been a bad team. Right. And they were not known for being 52:48 successful in the eight in the seventies and eighties, they had a few championship runs. They were a team that was a great team, but a new owner bought them in the nineties and said, this costs too much. And so they just slashed their spending and they became a bad team pretty much overnight. And so they go into that 2002 season and it starts out pretty rocky, but over the course of the year, they go on, they end up going on this legendary 20 game winning run, which 53:17 few teams have ever done this in them. And it's interesting if you look at like the records and this is another thing like work of them, I'll be if you look at the record books, they track records from the old National Association. So the last team to cross 20 wins was the St. Louis Maroons in 1884 and also the Providence Grays in the same year in 1884. Both those teams cross 20 wins. And so over a hundred years prior to that was when someone hadn't 53:46 got I done this yeah, so they got the twenty wins, obviously a huge accomplishment and now everyone's like oh, the athletics figured something out and they end up going on to have a hundred wins that season and how many games they play then let ah me look a hundred sixty two. That's the thing about baseball dude. Some people play fantasy baseball and it's like do so stressful. I played one season and it is you to check it twice a day. Yeah, yeah, it is 54:16 Exhausting. Exhausting. And if you forget one day, you're done. 162 games. 54:25 Yeah, it's crazy, uh but it's like if you go in the middle of the season, stadiums are not full because uh you can't sell, but the stadiums are that big for when you get to the end of the season and you're doing well, then there's every game sold out. Every game is yeah full. It's very interesting. It's a very interesting. Yeah, it's a very interesting sport in general. Like it's just so different than every other professional sport. I'm so fascinated by the Samantha Bananas as well. Oh yeah, they crushed it 54:55 so I was in contact with them and do you remember me emailing them in the twenty twenty one and they did a they did Kansas City. They did the monarchs stadium, yep, yep, which is our small, not even minor league. It's a what league is that I think it's minor league. I think it's they're not minor league. They're not affiliated with the they're not like they're not the official minor league. They're not an a team or anything. I thought they were like a triple a they're not a triple a for who for the royals, not for the royals. 55:21 other than monarchs now, I forgot their American Association of Professional Baseball. That's what I'm saying. They're not in the MLB miners. Yeah, you're right. I thought that so it's an MLB partner, but I don't know if it's a partner, but it's not an official. It's not like an a double AAA yeah, and so it's a small baseball stadium is what I'm saying, and the spanna bananas were playing that I had emailed them and was talking with them about like. there anything we can do together that kind of stuff and then end up? got booked that weekend for a show 55:50 So I didn't get to work out with anything. A year later, they're all of sudden huge. And then now here we are a couple of years after that and they're selling out football stadiums, dude. It's wild. Yeah, it's crazy what they were able to do. And it really is like they did, they're doing the Harlem Globetrotter. Yeah, the Globetrotter. it's different because the Harlem Globetrotters is all scripted and it's kind of like the whole thing is like to bring kids onto the field and do all that stuff. They're playing an act, they just made a new game. 56:20 Yeah, they made a baseball adjacent game. Yeah, they made baseball but different, which is interesting because I feel like this has been a thing like they've been changing some rules with baseball to try to make it a faster game to appeal to a younger generation lately. And I feel like they were just like, oh, you're not going far enough. Oh yeah. Banana ball is not. Do you know the rules of banana ball? Do you know about this at all? I know about it, but I've never really like sat down to 56:46 banana ball is a different game. There's only seven innings and then so it like. Let's say that in this inning, one team scores three points. The other team scores two instead of scoreboard reading three to it'll read one zero because that team won the inning gotcha and so that's and the game oh has a time limit on it. If the you know the time limits like two hours right interesting and so if the game's not over by then games over and so they just took out a bunch of like if a fan catches a foul ball, it's an out it counts. 57:15 and so it was just they've done some really yeah fun and also all the tick tock dances and all their stuff. Yeah, they do crazy stuff. I like back on catches and like they do little silly stuff, but like they're developing to the business brain of the stuff they've got a bananas. They got the party animals, they have the firefighters. They're introducing two new teams. They're gonna buy this time next year. They're gonna have six teams that they're having their own league. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy and they're they're they're expanding. Yeah, 57:43 and each of those teams has their own fan base and those games will outsell the average MLB game. It's crazy man, granted the MLB has a lot more well and they they've priced ticket like they've priced tickets and they've capped what they're like. They're not charging insane. Oh really? I didn't know they capped them yeah. They only charge like forty dollars a ticket. That's crazy and he doesn't said he goes. I never wanted to be where he goes. There's because people are saying we're missing out on millions and millions of dollars. He goes. I don't care 58:10 that's crazy. He said he said he's trying to have banana ball fans for fifty years. That's pretty crazy, so it's like yeah. I mean it's pretty crazy. I didn't know that that's interesting and all the game ticket includes the snacks and stuff. All the snacks and drinks and stuff are included in your ticket price. That's really interesting. I didn't know, but their wait list is insane. It's hard to get to a game. I didn't know that that he kept it. That's crazy. It's interesting. Look at maybe we could do a little side episode or a smaller episode on the on Savannah Bannas because 58:38 how they developed that is crazy and it's almost like what you know there's the John Oliver episode where they're talking about the minor league teams and the crazy stuff that minor league teams do to try to get people to come to games. You know yeah, it's very interesting stuff. So anyway, interesting, interesting, interesting. Okay, well, what was I talking about? 58:59 We were talking about how now they're on a legendary run. It's been a hundred years since anyone's done this. Now they've won twenty games in a row. There's a hundred and sixty two games in a season. They went so honestly twenty games in a row. Yeah, you know, is a is a feat, but it's also like you know, they still I don't think they won where it mattered that season right. Well, they won a hundred three games in the year. They won the division title, um but they didn't make it through playoffs right and so they 59:28 they had a winning season. They had a season where they were one of the top teams in the league, but they didn't obviously win it all, but it's still enough for them to end up on the map. And now all of a sudden every team is like, what are you guys doing different? Yeah, because all of a sudden you guys just got really, really good out of nowhere. um And this kind of changed every sport because from this point forward, every sport started looking at advanced analytics. 59:54 right and saying how can we bring numbers into the game towards not just a feeling and we see this in literally every single game now where teams have stopped doing what he said. Let stock brokers used to do where they'd go off just the fides yeah and now it's concrete data to prove whether or not you're a good bet or not, which makes sense because, especially in most of these leagues, they're spending millions on these players and so you're not going to just say right or seem good. 01:00:23 and hope that that pans out. And so he ends up getting an offer at the end of that season, the Red Sox come to him and they say, Hey, we've been bad for a long time. 01:00:38 Why did you say it like that? Hey, we've been bad for a long. 01:00:47 Would you come make us good? 01:00:54 I promise we're worth it. It's like a homecoming proposal. bad for a long time. 01:01:03 Oh, I've been bad for a long time. 01:01:11 Ah. uh 01:01:18 Why did you say it like that? You freaking weirdo. I don't know. Hey, we've been bad for a long time, so so they say, hey, we'll give you twelve and a half million to make us good. I go one season pretty good. How can you not be romantic about twelve and a half million dollars? He ends up turning it down, which is crazy, and he said he said, you know, had I got offered that a few years before that, I would have taken that 01:01:46 But he had recently gone through a divorce and he's like I just want to spend more time with my daughter and he's like I don't want to move across the country ah And so he declined twelve and a half million dollars for his daughter Which seemed to have been a bad decision because the A's moved anyway 01:02:03 No, so he stayed and he stuck around as the general manager in twenty until twenty twelve and he got promoted eventually to be the executive vp of baseball operations of baseball. He be of baseball. Yeah, I work at baseball. 01:02:26 the VP of baseball. Yeah. And so, and he ended up getting an ownership stake in the company or company, the team. And then the athletics ended up purchasing the San Jose earthquakes, which is the major league soccer team out there. And they gave him a percentage share of that to do the same thing for them. And then Arsenal, the soccer team called him because they were like, Hey, we saw what you did. Could you do that for us? And so he became a consultant. 01:02:55 and they're like great job. We're going to give you a percentage there of what we've got um and then Dutch Soccer Club did the same thing and he got to share that company. So he's became essentially like a consultant yeah and then net suite in two thousand seven the software company put him on the board of directors because they were like we like the way you think okay and and then so he's very rich in two thousand three Michael Lewis wrote a book about that two thousand two season called money ball yeah and it kind of 01:03:24 outlined the whole method and how that worked and then that got made into a movie in two thousand and eleven, starting brad pit and it has been named a top hundred movie by a lot of lists. It's a great movie. It's a really good movie. It's a very good movie, not accurate, but it's a good movie. Yeah, it's close. There's some inaccuracies, but it's close. It's a great movie though. So obviously he made money off of the movie in the book. He got a ton of consulting gigs teaching other teams how to do this and 01:03:54 It's very interesting to see here is a guy who went pro at baseball, didn't have the best baseball career, and he really was emblematic of this issue. He was drafted highly in high school because he was a great high school player, did not pan out in the league. Sure. He had this chance. The athletics were basically like, we're going to downgrade you to the minors. You could develop back into the majors. And so he had this opportunity where it was kind of this life crossroads of 01:04:22 do I try to get back to the majors and extend my baseball playing career or do I try to make something else out of my life and he decided to pivot and that pivot ended up making him so much more money than he would have had if he tried to stay in the league because yeah and have the chops, but even if he did, he probably still made more money doing this method than he did. He would have as a pro because he got all these ownership stakes in all these teams. That's very crazy and so it's just interesting to see situations like this where you know sometimes 01:04:52 your life goes out of crossroads and you got to make a choice. Sometimes the choice that seems like the better choice is the worst choice. 01:05:01 Okay, yeah, which is why the show is ending. I'm pivoting that's crazy. Yeah, so it's crazy. The life of the Billy Bean, you will fiddle off then as crazy. Hey, thanks for watching this episode. Please share it. It really helps our show grow, and if you like this episode, you should check out Jose Canseco. It'll help you look at the time in the league when it was the best when uh 01:05:30 what's that called? Steroids? We're just prevalent and everyone was juicing and it was just a great time for the MLB. So check that episode out. ah If you like the show again, support us on Patreon. We'll see you next week for that episode of Things Happened Last Night.