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David Samson, I made a promise to you that I was going to give baseball a try and I have. I watched the entire Dodgers Padres game on television yesterday. I'm watching the Marlins. I'm still trying to learn Players' names. The black jerseys make it very difficult. I kind of thought this would be the part of the year that the Marlins would have difficulty fighting expectations after getting everybody excited and beating good teams. Now they're playing weaker teams. And this would just be a vintage letdown spot.

They lose the first game against the Red Sox, but they take care of business last night. This is legitimate. This is a real playoff push. I kind of get a chuckle out of it, watching Fox Sports Florida playoff push graphics, because this is such a weird mutation of what baseball is to me. I don't think this is sustainable. Right. This is just a random year and embrace it for what it is.

But do you think with success air quotes to build on from this year, Derek Dieter's plan might be working?

Well, there's a couple of things that are sustainable. And what's sustainable is their number one starter, Sanchez, the number two starter, Alcantara Al Contra, their number three starters, decent Pablo Lopez. They have a team. And right now, when you look at what the expanded playoffs mean in the short season, as long as you're hot and at the right time, you know, you don't have to last for six months. And that's the benefit that the Marlins have right now.

They're over five hundred. I'm excited. I, I don't see a scenario where they don't make the playoffs. They have a five game series against the Nationals, then a four game series against Atlanta, then a three game series against the Yankees. And the difference is that no one's playing for anything in the upper seats. Atlanta is going to make the playoffs if they don't win the division and the Marlins win the division. It's cool because the Marlins have never won the division ever, even with two World Series.

But the reality is there's no advantage because of the way the playoff seeding and the way the playoff rounds go this year.

What lessons do you think owners and executives along Major League Baseball are learning from this random year outside of the pandemic stuff in terms of fan engagement? How is this experiment going over? Because they're occupying a lot of primetime television slots going up against the NBA playoffs, the NHL playoffs now football. It's a very congested sports calendar that MLB is just going right into the teeth to. How is this from a viewership and interaction standpoint?

Well, I think they're learning that the extra inning rule is having the impact they want because no games are going 15, 16 or seventeen innings, but it's not leading to shorter games. When we knew there would be fans, no fans at games. There was one example like that during the riots in Baltimore when the Orioles played a game without fans. And the total game time, I want to say, was two twenty. It was a crisp, quick game.

But the games this year have been so long, so having no fans hasn't made a difference. So the games are still averaging over three hours. So that's something that you need to work on to get more action. Home runs are up, strikeouts are up, walk's are up. So those three outcomes are still a huge part of today's baseball. But it's like the NBA Michy because if you don't like the three point shot, you're not going to like the NBA.

There's very few elbow jumpers these days.

Well, I'm watching this show away on Netflix and I'm not ready to endorse it just yet. It just looks pretty. But there's a Russian astronaut on the ship and he's obviously very smart and he's lamenting how science has ruined the game of baseball. He's a baseball fan and how it's just made it unwatchable. You had a good thing going. It was a pleasure to watch. And then all the numbers screwed it up. And to a certain extent, I've I've echoed that trope for several years now on this show.

I like small ball. I like tactical moves made by managers or Jack McKeon just throwing caution to the wind and making random ones as you go and it working out or Nego is winning a World Series with some bad managerial decisions. I like that stuff. I like it in the gapper to bring in someone from first base because you drafted a speedy baserunner. Do you agree that analytics, in terms of anaesthetics, in terms of watch ability, has really ruined the game forever?

No, I do not.

First of all, I would never speak in such hyperbole. So I don't think that anything happened or never.

Right. Yeah, I'm sorry. Ruined is strong and forever is strong. But stylistically, I prefer the game of the 90s. And this is I mean, this is commonplace, this take. And I just don't think there's any going back.

No, there's definitely no going back because how do you have information and then not use it? It happened in the NBA. Actually, there was a play with the heat. It was with the heat when Jimmy Butler was fouled, but they were only looking at the replay of who the ball went off and they weren't able to call a foul while looking at the replay. And I think Jeff Van Gundy was doing the game and he was saying, this is absurd.

Either you use replay to get it right or you don't use replay at all and you just use the referees in what they see is what they see. I totally agree with that. Once you've got the technology, you've got to use it. So if there is a runner who's stealing second base, who can replay his foot, leaves the base for a millisecond and the second baseman keeps the tag on the runner, the runners out, we have the ability to see those things.

It's like in tennis not using that cool thing that shows that a ball was in by a tiny sliver. Why wouldn't she use that? And you just have to be used to that when you're running the team and you have to teach your players differently. Don't lose the bag is what we would teach our players, because if you do, you're going to be out. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

One of the top line items I had in my my notes app that I wanted to ask you about is you were there with a transition from Bud Selig to Rob Manfred. And I've always wondered exactly what that process is. We hear that the owners vote. Is there some sort of back channeling done between owners to sort of crown the next king? How does this go about how is Bud's announcement received by the other owners? This obviously didn't catch people by surprise, but were people sort of excited by this move and kind of felt like Bud needed to go at that point in time?

I think that we realized it was time, right.

Bud had an unbelievable run from being an owner to being the interim commissioner to being the commissioner. Not always easy, not the greatest public facing commissioner of all time, but someone who is very granpa like to the public, almost sort of where you could dismiss some of his silliness. But in person, the first owners meeting I ever went to, he dropped F bombs more than anyone I'd ever heard. And he was not politically correct. This was a room full of men, maybe a woman or two.

And he was insane in his language. When you signed a player and you overpaid that player or went against the commissioner's office recommendation, he would call you out in front of the other owners with F bombs. Looking right at you, it was insane. I didn't expect that going into the first bunch of owners meetings and then you sort of just get used to it, that he's just got a very foul mouth and he would spend owners money and he had big time ad, but did so during the meetings when anyone else was talking, he'd get up and he'd walk around the room and he whispered to his friends, You knew you were on the cool kids.

It was just like middle school. You wanted Bud so badly to stop by your chair and whisper something to you because it made you feel cool. And when he was whispering to another team's owner, you'd look over, what are they talking about?

I wonder what they're talking about. And then one time when he does it to you, you realize it's total nonsense. It doesn't matter what they're talking about. They're not curing cancer or getting these sort of equation to gravity. Right. They're just talking about crap. But that feeling of wanting to belong Bud was very into he had an inner circle. Right. And if you weren't in it, it was lonely. And I was never in his inner circle, even though I'd known him forever.

But he always looked at me because I met him when I was a kid. We always looked at me as a kid because I was married to his doctor's daughter. And the team doctor for the Brewers is the woman I was married to.

And so I met Bud Selig, the owner of the Brewers, before he was anything. He was just the owner of the Brewers. And I was a kid who was told by my girlfriend's father, that's the owner of the Brewers. You're welcome to come to a game.

But you're not allowed to talk to him. So you can only talk to. But if he talks to you, what was this anyway?

What was the weather that Bud Selig gave you?

Oh, I'd have to go back. Things were very different. I got married in nineteen ninety, so I was very young.

Where were you when you got married. Twenty two. That's young David. I mean obviously why you're saying that. I mean. Well obviously you've been open about your marriage. It'll set status a little bit, and I'm not to pry too much and see you shaking your head, let's just look at this look good things came from that. I'm not I'm not I'm not prodding.

I got married at twenty five and I married my high school sweetheart. And at 25, you're still taking your time because I was 17 years old when I met my wife. So that's that's a long time. Twenty five I would still say is young given you know, the life experience that I have now that you're of your own age right now and you have that life experience and obviously a result in hand, if you could do it over, David.

So, OK, so that switched from the right man for the conversation.

Yeah, we'll get to it in a second, but you open that door. So I got I started dating my wife at 18. All right. And she was twenty three at the time and the hold up.

So she she had a very serious boyfriend, sort of engaged when I asked her and I said to her, listen, do you want to have an ordinary life with a white picket fence and a station wagon, or do you want to get on this ride? I haven't started college yet.

And I said, yea, I want you. And if there's any chance that you will not marry this guy, let me know because I'm ready. And I'm not saying we should get married. I'm just saying let's just go on a date. And at twenty three, I mean, that is such a wide gulf because women are just generally more mature than men. The difference between a twenty three year old woman and an 18 year old man boy is he's a boy boy.

Yeah. So I look back and I and I didn't know what I was doing. It was all ego, right. Because she was the hot counselor at camp. Right. And it was at summer camp and everyone wanted her. And I just said, you know what? I'm I'm going to get her. And I and I viewed it is like this notch in my belt to say, yeah, I got her. And then it developed into this.

I had a crush on her when I was 15 and she was 20 and I would call her. There were no cell phones back then, but I would call her at college when I was like a tenth grader. And and she would she and her friends, I found out later I didn't realize this. They would totally make fun of me, like, hey, there's this little boy calling you again, because I was aggressively trying to keep a relationship with her, although it was a friendship only because, like always, why not keep all your options open?

Did you watch The Graduate when you were younger? That I what did you watch The Graduate when you were younger cuz you're not that old.

I mean.

All right, so what kind of get me from the beginning knowing what I want and going after it and not taking no for an answer, I'm getting a little more insight as to how you became the the business person you became like very early on. You started stacking successes in negotiation and yeah, no wonder you would brazenly walk around with a cowboy hat when you have certain successes under your belt.

If you're sure that you know something, you don't let other people question you when you're not sure you have to.

One of the most important lines, right, is know what you know and know what you don't know. Yeah. And if you really can not be delusional and know what you know, then there's no way that anyone can stop you from getting what you want. That's always been my philosophy and it's really worked. Now, there's so many things I don't know and so many mistakes I've made where I thought I knew something and I wasn't right. But there are certain things when you know and just because marriage is in life, it's a long life.

God willing. So, you know, being married for twenty five, thirty years, being in baseball, just being the way I am, being immature, focusing on business so much, I found it very hard to combine family and work. I never really understood how people did it so well and it was always people at work who claimed they did it well and I always saw it from the outside. They appeared to be great fathers or great mothers. They appeared to be great at what they did for a living.

But I always assumed that they knew something. I didn't know that they had this special elixir, this potions that they took that enabled them to be good at everything, because I wasn't able to be the president of the Marlins and do all the things that I was doing and be a good dad and be a good husband. I couldn't I couldn't figure out how to do it. And when given a choice, did I choose wrong every single time? It depends who you ask.

Yes.

Wow. This turned into a therapy session. I'm very sorry for that.

Let's go back to just you ass. So I've always promised you I'll answer your questions. I didn't expect you marrying a twenty three year old. Well, she wasn't twenty three when you got married, but I never expected a five year goal for 18. And it's massive. That is that is a crazy story. Let's go back to Bud Selig for just one second. Was the beginning of the end the all star game fiasco or was that the end of the end?

That was had nothing to do with the beginning, middle or the end, what we viewed inside baseball, I was there at that game and I was more focused on the fact that it was a thousand degrees in there because there's no air conditioning inside Miller Park. What? There is no air conditioning in the Miller Park. Little known fact.

It is not cooled. So it was a thousand degrees. And I remember thinking this is not a big deal. You don't need to have a winner in the All-Star Game. It's not worth it. And I was speaking as an executive. I don't want my picture out there who is on short rest? I don't want my picture of being overextended in an all star game. Who cares? It's an exhibition game. But what Bud did with the famous shrug, I think that is the image that people have to remember.

That image of him sitting next to the dugout didn't really convey leadership.

That's the problem. Right.

So you're looking at you're looking at that and you're saying here's what you do, bud. You stand firm, you put your hands by your side and you say the game's over after the tenth. And then you meet the media and you say, no problem, we're not going to do anything to endanger our players. But instead, Bud, did this shrug like I don't know what to do.

And there's one thing when you're a leader that you cannot do, you cannot be indecisive and show weakness. You don't have to be right all the time. Leaders are wrong all the time, but you just have to make decisions. And when you shrug like that and what happened is that the general public said, wow, this is the leader of baseball. But internally, we didn't view it that way. When he was ready to go, he was ready to go.

And we sort of knew and he was very good about not telling anybody who he wanted to succeed him. We all knew he wanted Rob, but he stayed very neutral, wink, wink, during the process. And it was Tim Brosnan and it was Tom Werner, the owner of the Red Sox with John Henry. Tim Brosnan ran properties, Major League Baseball Properties and Rob Manfred. Those were the three finalists they hired. And this was total eyewash.

They hired a head headhunting firm to identify candidates to be commissioner. Yeah.

Who was identified? Who are who was Rob Manfred? Stiffest competition.

That's the joke of it, right. They gave a list and they had some politicians in there. And they had some. Some.

Names some executives in there, some general managers, and there some team presidents, and they are not me. And it was it was like a joke because everyone knew the voting. The 30 voting owners knew that none of these candidates from this headhunter were going to make it to any sort of second round. This was just all about trying to make believe the process is transparent, trying to make believe the process is fair.

But in reality, it was going to be Rob versus Tom, period, because Tim did not have a chance at all from the beginning, even though he thought he did. And Rob had some problems because he had problems getting twenty three votes. And we went to an owners meeting in Baltimore to vote on the commissioner and there was a real chance that no commissioner would be voted for. It was like the pope with white smoke. We closed the doors and had very open discussions and we were fighting with Jerry Reinsdorf, who was the lead owner against Rob and trying to get eight votes to stop Rob.

And he had it. But what changed? It was getting the Washington Nationals to change their vote to rob the reason why the Nationals would not vote for Rob as they were upset about the TV network called Massen. The Nationals have been in a fight with the Orioles for a decade, and they believe that Rob has not been helpful in that fight. So they were not going to vote for Rob. Ted Turner is was the owner at that time who was really close.

I was very close to me. It's like a grandpa to me. And I remember asking Ted during those meetings because I was in touch with Rob, who is up in a room with Dan Halem. And I said, Ted, are you ever going to vote for Rob? What can I do to help you? Because by not voting for him, he's going to win anyway and it's not going to be helpful to you. He said, David, I'm never voting for him.

And Reinsdorf was right there during that conversation. So Reinsdorf thought that that was it, that there was no vote, that we were going to leave and there'd have to be another group of candidates or there'd be a delay. And finally, I got to Ted. And if you ask Rob, this is exactly what happened. We got Ted to give up his vote to mark his son. Really.

So Ted Turner, the owner of the Nationals, did not vote for commissioner at all. He gave his vote to Mark. And we got Mark to vote for Rob. And Ted could then say, I never voted for Rob. That was my son. So he got to live with himself, look himself in the mirror. Mark got to vote for Rob and we have the votes. Jerry Reinsdorf was told that the Nationals were not changing their vote from to Rob Manfred.

So I knew that vote was changing. Reinsdorf did not. I went to Bud and said, Bud, this is exactly how it happened. Bud, call a vote right now. And Bud said, I'm not calling a vote.

We don't have the votes. I said, Bud Colleyville right now. I looked at Reinsdorf. Reinsdorf looked to me. We were sitting across from each other at the owners meeting and Reinsdorf said, What are you gonna vote for? I said, because let's just call a vote. Let's just see what happens. It's just Z. So Reinsdorf said, great calling.

So Bud caused the vote. We vote and it's by writing, it's not by hand, it's not by voice, you write you a check, you do a checkmark next to the name, and they look at it, they tally it and they announce that Rob Manfred was the new commissioner. At twenty three votes, Reinsdorf lost his mind. He wanted to know what the hell was going on. He was so furious. I then told Reinsdorf what had happened.

And he looked at me and he said. You got me, David. And that is the greatest accomplishment I've ever had in my career, because this is the great honor. You know, he had won a World Series six titles. I had known him since I was a little kid heckling him at Bulls games. And to to outmaneuver Jerry Reinsdorf in that moment and to help Rob become commissioner was really the most interesting thing I did. That whole process was the most serious thing I did in all of my baseball career.

And then so the true vote was twenty three to seven, but it was never announced publicly because after the vote, John Henry, who had voted against Rob, made a motion for a revote because he said, we lost.

This is not the outcome we wanted, but we want the world to think we were united. So he called for another vote and that vote was 30, did nothing for Rob. So therefore, MLBPA could announce if you go back and look at the announcement, it will say that Rob Manfred was unanimously voted commissioner. But that's actually not true. That is crazy. OK, number one, it seems as though you're the leader of Team Rob, like you're the one that made this happen, which is or others, but I was very, very involved.

OK, who were what was Reinsdorf? What was his objection to Rob Manfred?

He thought that Rob would not was a deal maker, and he was worried that Rob would give in to the union and would not be the Labor leader that we need as commissioner because he, Jerry Reinsdorf, is a hard liner. Ironically, years later, if you ask Jerry today, he will admit to you he was wrong about Rob. And Rob has been on rail because the last labor agreement was such a win for the owners that Jerry couldn't believe it.

But that was Jerry's concern back when Rob was being voted into being commissioner.

And Jerry was the most powerful owner at the time that was lining up against Rob.

Yes, he was the number one ask Bobby and the friend of Bud and that there were only a very few Selby's. But Jerry was the number one. But there were there were others, but he was the leader. And remember, in baseball, we talk about this a lot. You only need eight to block. Yeah. He didn't have twenty three votes for his candidates, but Tom Werner.

But he had more than eight.

OK, so are you the. So you're one of the leaders here is part of this because that's just your personality. Were the Yankees in this like for example, in the NFL, it's common knowledge that Jerry Jones and now Robert Kraft is like second in terms of like most power wielded by NFL owners. Jerry Jones is essentially the most powerful person in that league because just the alpha male and he's got America's team, you would think would be Yankees ownership.

But during this process, are they taking a backseat or are you sort of a convenient ally where they know you would handle some of the dirty work? And if there are any leaks, no one can ever draw it back to the Yankees. So let's be clear.

I was not the most powerful person in baseball by any stretch, but I had been there. I was a veteran at that time and it was my view I had chosen a horse early on. I had chosen to back Rob and I wanted to be an insider because I felt it would be beneficial to the Marlins if I had sort of chips in in the game, if I went all in. The problem with going all in, you better be right, because if not, you're even further back.

If you're a very powerful, big time owner and you go all in and you're wrong, you can rehabilitate yourself the way Jerry Reinsdorf has someone like me. If I go all in. No, you go against Rob. Take a look at the people who went against Rob. Tim Brosnan is gone. Bob Bowman's gone. You go against you go against the winner. It doesn't work out for you. And so I chose Rob and then I worked with him and with Dan Halem because I'm the one who got Dan Halem into baseball.

Dan Alan was a lawyer, a Proskauer Rose in New York.

For the uninitiated, who is Dan Hellam? And Helm is the deputy commissioner now. He's the number two guy in Major League Baseball. He's the one leading labor negotiations. He's the number two guy. But we hired him to do an arbitration case for us when he was an associate of Proskauer. So Dan has been loyal to me since the beginning, and I've been loyal to him because his four intro into baseball was through us. So we have a lot of different.

When you're around for 18 years, a lot of things happen.

We have a lot of different seeds that you've planted. But no, I was not very powerful at all. But the reason I was powerful during the commissioner vote is that I was willing to get dirty in a negotiation. Right. And I was willing to. Communicate with Rob everything that was going on with all the other owners. I have all the text back and forth between me and Rob the day of the vote, and it's insane.

Why are you keeping this? Wait, wait, wait. Why are you keeping those text? You haven't switched your iPhone yet.

Well, don't they always go from iPhone to iPhone?

I mean, there's a cloud. I mean, sometimes, you know, it doesn't the transition you have all of them still or you write in a book, Mr. Samson.

Oh, I can't even tell you if I'm right. But I think, you know, it's funny. I want to write a book and I've got a title to the book already. What is it? It's first in 20. That's a football term. Exactly. You know what was first in 20 minutes?

You you got a holding on the first down, right.

So because of my reputation and because of my Google search, when people meet me, it's always first in 20. I'm always behind because people have this view of me before they actually meet me, because they've seen me on TV or they've heard me or they think they know me. And then I end up getting the first down more often than I don't. Because, by the way, you're not the worst example of this where you're able to tolerate me in a way that you'll give me the first down where in the beginning I was first in twenty with you, without a doubt.

So that's the name of the book.

I have insight into you. It's a few good men. It's Jack Nicholson's character and a few good men. And that I'm not drawing in terms of you being despicable. You are not Jack Nicholson, but you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. I'm a necessary evil in their quotes. And though people might have strong feelings about you, I wouldn't classify you as evil in any sense of the word. But it kind of feels like to me you have the respect of your colleagues in Major League Baseball.

For the most part, they kind of knew the PR that surrounded you. It'd be very difficult for one of these colleagues of yours that holds you in high regard, that know exactly what you did, for example, with Rob Manfred and getting him elected and being one of the more vocal parts of that. You're sort of not not poison, but you're a red flag, right. In terms of public relations. You're your public relations loss. David, Tamzin, no matter what, no matter his bona fides, no matter how good we know a job he did behind the scenes publicly, that's just a PR hit that we can't take.

How do you reconcile that?

You mean in baseball or you mean for nothing personal? Think? I think that now as I'm years away, when I'm doing nothing personal show and I'm watching it grow and loving the relationship with the audience or the stuff that we do, I'm not sure that that's the narrative around me anymore. And I and I and I've worked hard to try to change that narrative without losing the things that make me who I am. I still am brutally honest and straightforward and direct, and I still rubs some people the wrong way.

That part hasn't changed because I just don't want to waste time because it's the only thing I can't control in my entire life. But I don't know what you mean. I don't know. I think that if people if you ask them why I don't work inside baseball right now, is that your general question?

It seems like it's a choice. But let's say it wasn't your choice. Let's say you wanted to get back into baseball. My theory would be that it'd be very difficult for a team to hire you, given what happened down here with the public outcry over what happened with Marlins Park.

But remember, the people who do the hiring. What happened down here is we ended up doing a deal with the public to get a ballpark built. We ended up building that stadium on time and below budget. We ended up winning a World Series. We ended up selling the team at the high end. So all the things that owners actually care about. Yeah, I actually did. Well, from a PR standpoint, there's no doubt that if you're the public face in person when the stadium is being built, you're going to get some gross.

I mean, just look back at anybody who is led a stadium drive. The reason why you farm it out often is you don't want to be the bad guy because you know that being the bad guy will cost you. That's why there's no new ballpark in Tampa, because no one's ever been willing to be the bad guy there because they want to be liked. And I get that it sucks to not be liked. I mean, I I'm not going to lie to you.

I don't sit around loving the fact that people hold me in contempt. But on the other hand, given the choice, I do my job.

Yeah, no, I'm with you as someone that sort of I'll peel back the curtain a little bit. This show puts me in very difficult situations sometimes, and I sometimes have to be the bad guy. And I burn a lot of bridges because I'm just loyal to Dan and the vision of the show and other people that have surrounded this show. Look, you make enemies that way. It's not an enviable position. And there are some people that know how to play it, which is they don't burn any bridges.

It's always that bad guy. But I think every crew needs sort of someone to be the bad guy.

I don't know that I've ever run across someone who is very successful, who has. Rubbed people the wrong way or made enemies along the way, and it's born of jealousy for the most part and it's born of it, people don't want other people to succeed, not because of any other reason that it makes them feel better about their own failures. And that's the fact. So I never cared about any of that. And so I think that your loyalty to Dan is an example.

People recognize that people within baseball recognize my loyalty to Jeffrey. They did not always agree with Jeffrey. They some didn't like Jeffrey, whatever the reason is. But loyalty matters. And that's why when fans contact me at nothing personal, I'll end and I'll engage with them. I often end a end with thank you for your loyalty because I appreciate that more than anything, because people will tweet at me and say, I disagree with your take on this or that.

And I'll say and they'll be sort of ashamed to say that are worried that it'll upset me the opposite. I'm giving you information on our show for you to think about and make your own decisions. What I'm appreciating is the fact that you're giving me forty five minutes of your time. So when you look at your audience, let's say you're taking up your audience this time, you owe it to them to have the best products you can. And if that means that some people get upset along the way, who cares?

There was a great I'm watching the show all or nothing on Amazon Prime and it is focusing on Tottenham Hotspur, which I do work with Chelsea. I have a partnership with them. And Tottenham Hotspur is a hated rival. If you ask me right now as a team I dislike the most. Their manager, Jose Mourinho, is an iconic manager in European football game, a famous personality that is even even casual sports fans that have a disdain for soccer, for soccer know who Jose Mourinho is?

He was a manager of Chelsea twice when he trophy's over at Chelsea, he went to Manchester United. I didn't feel good about that. And now he's with Tottenham. A heated crosstown rival, Jose Mourinho once said that he would never manage. He was asked directly if he would manage Tottenham Hotspur. He said, no, I love Chelsea this club too much. I would never do that to its supporters. And now he's managing Tottenham Hotspur. He was asked what happened there.

You said this and why is it different? And he's like, they sacked me, which is honest, but he has a great off the cuff quote. Just it was it's a great quote. And I wonder if it's just borrowed from somebody else. Probably is, because it was just so blunt and great and efficient. But that's just how Jose Mourinho talks. So we might have just came up with it. But I always say I'm only difficult to those who don't share my principles.

And I was like, damn José. I fell right back in love. And then he started talking all sorts of shit about how Chelsea was going to choke. And Chelsea, I went to that match and we beat them to zero.

So ebbs and flows with Jose Mourinho no longer Chelsea.

But if he like Larry Brown in the NBA, where where you can where he's unbelievable, but only in short spurts, he is that why he keeps moving from team the team? It's tough.

There's always a thing about Jose Mourinho. Year three, you're three things. Start going off the rails. He is one of the more decorated, successful managers in club football. He won champions like Porto. He had he went to Chelsea and won so many trophies along his two different stints there. He won the Champions League at Inter Milan. He had some success in Real Madrid, but couldn't quite when the big one, he came back to Chelsea and won the league and then his third year, Chelsea.

We're damn near the relegation zone. It was a disastrous season. It goes to Manchester United, wins Europa League, which is a European trophy, but not the big one. Not big is not Champions League, and it goes sideways for him there. And now it's sort of he plays a very defensive mindset and he's also abrasive. So there's a big question as to whether or not the game has passed him by. But the game is much better for having that type of personality in it, because it's just it's the Jose Mourinho Show.

He's one of the more fascinating characters in all of an all sports and just be able to have insight into how he manages people. It's it was unexpected and I really enjoyed watching it. So and it's also important. And I'll watch anything in for cash. So check it out.

Amazon Prime, all or nothing Spurs, even though there are coaches in every sport, managers, coaches who are like that, where their voice is needed for a team, they bring immediate success and then their voice becomes grating and the players tune it out and you lose the clubhouse or the locker room and you've got to move on. And they always get another job. They're always successful, but they can't stay in one place forever. You know, it's the anti Popovich, right, who comes in.

And he there's just something about him that his players never get tired of. His voice. Like Joe Girardi. No, Joe. Well, Joe Girardi, it's not like Popovich.

You know, I'm saying I'm like the opposite, where he'll wear out his welcome and people will just get tired of that act. But it might I mean, you can't argue. It proves immediately it had some results to back it up. You can't argue with his track record when he first gets to a place.

Oh, he's listen, he's got he's won the World Series. He's got a. Manager of the year, he's struggling in Philadelphia this year, he's got Philadelphia fans longing for Gabe Kapler, which is a joke because they ran him out of town. Yeah, but they had to got it town.

They might make the playoffs. Philadelphia is going to make the playoffs, right.

Philadelphia may make it. And Gabe Kaplan with the Giants may make the playoffs. So, I mean, it's he's what gatekeeper's done in those great. Philadelphia has a problem. I think you're going to see a lot of changes. John Middleton, the owner there, is angry. I think you'll see the GM get fired at the end of this season. A guy named Matt Cleantech, they just have not gotten it done and they can't fire Girardi after one year.

Who would ever fire a manager after one year? So they're going to keep Girardi. But I think the GMs done. Philly is struggling.

Last question before we get to your review. What from this Major League Baseball experiment do you think sticks around for next year? I think we both agree. We feel pretty good about the extra innings rule book. Zombie was calling the Dodgers Padres game and he had a good take. The Major League Baseball doesn't really have a postseason problem. And they're doing so much there's so much focus on this postseason, expanded playoffs. It's becoming evident to me as someone who's just returning to watching these games.

Major League Baseball is a regular season problem. How do you think they address that with some of the lessons they've learned from this pandemic?

I think they're going to change the expanded playoffs next year. It's not going to be the way it is this year with one versus eight two seven three six, four or five, because there's no incentive to win the division. None of it really matters. You've got to incentivize teams to win the division and owners get upset when they have a great year. They finish in second place and lose a one game wild card playoff. Well, guess what? My answer always is.

When you're damn division, then and then you don't have to worry about it. I think you've got to give BI's to the best teams in baseball. You can't risk having the Dodgers lose two out of three to the Marlins in the first round. You just you can't risk that if the Marlins end up the AC or the Giants or anyone else. You need the Dodgers, the big markets to get through the playoffs. And the other thing you'll get, the universal will return.

I think that that's been a success. I wish that pitchers would hit. I like National League Baseball better, but I really like not having to worry about my pitchers breaking their fingers while bonding and not pointing correctly. So that's a positive. I think the three batter minimum rule will stay, although it hasn't led to faster games. I'm not so sure about the extra innings to allow that. There has been some blowback on that where. But for me, I think that's a critical rule and makes it exciting.

I love watching tenth innings. I think it's really cool. I don't feel badly for pitchers who let in runs. I don't feel badly for hitters who have to give themselves up to move the runners over. I think it's good baseball, as you said, it's small ball and it's good strategy. If you're the road team, you don't do small ball on the tenth, ending with the man on second because you have to get a crooked number. But if you're tied at bottom of the tenth, then you do do small ball because one run wins it.

I think it's the return of the specialist, really. You'll have bunt specialists, you'll have baserunning specialists again, if you keep that extra innings roll. Because this may sound stupid because, you know, chicks dig the long ball, but I've always been like no one but the guy over to third and hit a sack fly. Let's go home.

You know what would stop the shift? People who complain about the shift. We would talk to our players about this all the time. If you really don't like people shifting against you, then hit the ball the other way because you keep hitting into the shift. You think they're not going to keep shifting. They're getting you out every time because you're getting down on the knob and trying to launch the ball. And when you hit over the ball, you're doing a ground out into short right field.

Yeah, but nobody hits for contact anymore. It's it's a loss or change. It's sort of viewed as like throwing free throws, underhanded. I don't know why it's deemed less masculine. I don't know why this doesn't get over. There's a gaping hole on the left side of the field. You're at the height of your profession. Just hit it to the left.

So can you name two players who shot free throws? Underhanded the first ones. And give me what about the second NBA player who shot free throws? Underhanded.

All right. So obviously, Rick Perry's the first and second one was Bo Kimble. Did he?

Did he did it the left. It was a left. Hank Gathers.

So who you got me? Who was the second? I think it was George Johnson. I'll take your word for it. That's what I think I'm going to have to. I'm going to check it. But he shot underhand free throws. Do you remember those days? Right. Rick Barry actually shot free throws. Rick Barry, a Hall of Famer, like one of the greatest players ever. He went to the free throw line and shot underhand free throws.

Yeah, yeah. People now would not would think that's insane.

There were some players who shot jump shots for free throws. People still find them insane, and I just don't understand why, like, you'll just every now and then when someone's struggling at the line, someone will get them on a podcast and they'll just lament like it's not girly. Go ahead and just shoot. Underhanded attack. I can make you an 80 percent free throw shooter and just people will refuse always.

What is hard to imagine is when you look at the stats of games and four teams who don't shoot free throws, well, it hurts your chances of winning. That's that's real. It's much different than getting a runner over in baseball. Free throws matter much more than that, because with with baseball, if you don't get the runner over, there's still a chance for a home run. And in the game these days, there's so many more home runs that you can wait for the two or three run home run.

But in baseball, you don't get another chance to get that point back. You lose possession unless you get an offensive rebound. I'm fascinated by free throws and why players don't focus more on improving their free throw percentage.

That's a yeah, James Harden and now Jimmy Butler sort of exploiting this this market inefficiency. So I certainly am with you there. It's been a revelatory David Simpson show. We found out that David Samson married a woman five years older than he was. He was eighteen years old and he stole a camp counselor of his when she was twenty three. Amazing pool by David Samson. Credit to you. We found out how instrumental he wasn't getting. Rob Manfred elected as a commissioner of baseball.

But most importantly, we find out what he's reviewing this week. David, go ahead.

I want to talk about a band whose best song is called I Love Cecille. And it's an all girl band led by Belinda Carlisle. And it's a documentary called The Go Goes. Now, the joke of it is I thought for 15 years that their biggest song was I Love Cecille. And I learned that it was our lips are sealed. There's got to be a song that you have that you've been singing the wrong words for your entire life. And that was the Gogo song.

There's a whole documentary about the girl group and I had no idea the drama in that group. I had no idea how well how famous they were, how they got started, how they were formed. I had no idea they were back together. It was very revealing to me to learn all of this. And I've been watching a lot of music documentaries, not as good as the Tom Petty or the Bob Dylan documentaries, but it's really worth it.

It's called The Go Goes and check it out.

Invisible Touch. I always got the lyrics, that one wrong. I always thought Phil was saying physical attraction, but it's she seems to have an invisible touch. Yeah, I just always got that one wrong. I always thought I was physical attraction too.

Yeah. It's invisible. Touch you to have that physique. I didn't know. That's OK. There's like 20 songs that I have wrong in that way. But now with lyrics on your phone, you can check out lyrics. In the old days you had to have the album and that every album cover had the lyrics on it. Some did, some didn't. But now, of course, everything is a click away.

I'm going to check that out because they had they had the best behind the music. I mean, there was drug problems riddled that that band. And they were at the height of success. And, you know, there were these attractive young women in a misogynistic time and they were still very much rock stars privately, I think. Dan, wasn't that the the band member that someone lick the bottom of a bathroom floor just to feel alive?

I was I was very disappointed with the documentary that he's reviewing because I was waiting for them to wade deep into the darkness of Belinda Carlisle saying that they were so famous. And incidentally, David, they didn't have nearly enough hit songs to get the documentary that they got even as pioneering women, because they had very few. But she was so corrupted by the fame and they so were moved and motivated by the desire for fame that she tells the story of looking.

And this for germophobia like David must make him crazy, licking the corners of the floors in a gas station, bathrooms in order to feel more alive and in touch with reality.

By the way, it sounds like that's pre Tic-Tac and people doing that now. And tick tock, they're doing these challenges that are totally stupid and insane. But I think, Dennis, it wasn't about the number of hit songs. That's not why the documentary got made. It was more about how an all girls band could be successful at a time when misogyny was the rule of the day. So I think that was the point of the show.

And there are so many and I get it, they were the first band of female artists and it did show how it is that they had some difficulties making it through a male world. But there are so many women who preceded them, from Pat Benatar to Joan Jett to Janis Joplin, who were just better musicians, I guess is the part that I'm sort of like, yeah, they were they were such can you have Blondie? They were just such cotton candy as music, just going for pop, not interested in the art of it at all.

They just wanted to be famous.

Well, that that was like the record label once they. They found a hit song, they just templated that, but Belinda Carlisle does have in her own right as a solo artist, one of the greatest songs of all time in heaven is a place called Earth. Heaven is a place on Earth. Oh, my God. I botched the lyrics there. Listen, Belinda Carlisle, I thought mad about you as a Belinda Carlisle son to go, go, son.

But Dan, let me just ask you a question. When you're thinking about these women who you're mentioning but the Go Goes became famous for, it was never about anything other than the cotton candy. What's wrong when you are trying to be something you don't think punk rockers are trying to be punk by getting Mohawks or rock and rollers are trying to be rock and roll by the tattoos and and the hair and the long hair in the 80s. That's the part they played and that's the niche they filled.

And they did it better than any other group did it in history. So for me, that's worthy of the compliment in and of itself, is it not, Dave?

They didn't know how to play instruments. They started as a band and they started as punk rockers.

And then just what did Sid Vicious, by the way, he didn't know how to play the bass. They put the they put the superficial packaging in, you know, in our faces so that we would then watch their videos of them fake waterskiing. Look, I like to go go's growing up. I'm not I'm just saying the documentary felt superficial, felt empty, felt a little flimsy. I wanted it to be more. You wanted it to be the behind the music.

I wanted it to be more fair.

And that's fair enough actually, because it certainly was not as good as the other ones I mentioned with Tom Petty and Bob Dylan. I learned a lot watching the go goes. It's well worth your time, is all I was saying.

Oh, the petty one is great. It's a little long, but I'm a petty super fan and I love that the I think we can all agree, though. The number one like Rock Dog is the one on the Eagles. I have not seen that smile, are you kidding me? Wait a you've got to watch it. You've got just it is the best one ever done.

And I know because that is one of the causes where it's the best one ever. And you know what I think about the Eagles, Glenn Frey, it's all about it may not be about the Eagles. It's about the you know, I think it's named after one of their songs.

I want to get it wrong. Wrong. Hang on one second. I will get this to you.

You know, I watch a movie every day. I will watch it. No, it's a history of the Eagles. There you go. History of the Eagles.

All right. I'll find it. Yeah, interesting. That's the number one rock documentary all the time. It's really good.

Fantastic. One of the best documentaries I've ever seen. Well, now.

But now you've got the issue, though, David. You know this issue with the movies. Yes. Now, the expectations has been put in a place where, well, you won't be disappointed. You're not going to be.

I have a really good track record with David. I pull back when I'm not quite I, I really like if he liked the Go Go's documentary, he's going to like the Eagles. I got it.

I got to keep my perfect record. When it comes to recommendations for David Samson, I feel strongly about this. Stamp it seal of approval guarantee the history of the Eagles best rock doc I've ever seen.

We'll discuss it next week. Looking forward to that.

It's going to be you're going to it's going to take you some time, but I think it'll burn through it quickly. All right. David Simpson hosted nothing personal one time twenty 22 years old for his first marriage, married a woman five years old. A crazy story. Dan, make sure to listen to today's podcast. It's crazy. You get insight into how David actually got the self-confidence to negotiate stadium deals after that. I mean, pull in the camp.

Counselor, look at you. David Samson, thank you so much for joining us. We'll talk to you next week. And plenty of heat talk nationally for those that want their fill. Coming up on the national show, make sure to check out the big city. We speak to Shane Bacolod, his co-host. Harry, the horse that was crazy was not crazy. It was nuts.

This guy, I mean, more of a character than Shane, I would say. So make sure to check that out. David Samson, thank you so much for joining us.