I want to let you know that we have a second show added in Atlanta, Georgia. That's on April 5. That's right. We also have shows at Amherst and Brisbane in the Australia. All those are available now. Theovon.com tour and only get tickets through theovon.com tour. If tick it's are overpriced via a second site or something. Don't buy them from scalpers. Just wait. We'll come back around sometime. Yeah, that's the best way to do it. And thank you guys for the support. And if we're not coming to your city or country yet, then just give it time. We will do our best and we love you guys and thank you so much for the support. Amen. Today's guest is a professional pitcher for more than ten years in Major League Baseball. He was the winner of the Golden Spikes award in college for the best collegiate baseball player of the year. He's won the Cy Young. He's been an all star. He's recently played in Japan. Because of some interesting circumstances. I'm really grateful to learn about what the past few years of his life have been like and to get to know him. Today's guest is Mr.

Trevor Bauer. Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my story shine on me and I will find a song I will sing it's.

These are SM seven, SM 70. Yeah.

Okay.

I know these mics.

You know a lot about these stuff. You know more than I do.

Okay. Yeah. I got into photography back in 2017, started learning about it and then started the media company momentum in 2019. So I had to buy cameras and lenses and figure all this stuff out. So I learned about it. Your tripods are in a lot nicer condition than ours. We put them in the cage where like, baseballs are flying so the legs are all bent and.

I could probably learn from you. I could literally probably go watch one of your YouTube videos and learn more about our own equipment. So maybe I should do that. Do you like to know everything about stuff? Kind of like. Well, I guess if you're starting your own media company because you have your own YouTube channel. Yeah. You like it?

It's good. I enjoy it. Started it to try to entertain baseball fans. So that's what we try to do. I think we do a pretty good job. We can do better. Always trying to get better. But yeah, it's fun. That's what I enjoy doing. Going to work every day and try to make some sort of fun content to entertain people.

Yeah, I saw some videos on there you were having fun with some of the japanese players because.

It'S kind of interesting because they don't speak the same language. So the type of banter back and forth that you normally have, you can't really have. So the banter becomes a little bit more like body language and facial expression. So it was a challenge to get that there. But it's also fun. It's like a new experience. Baseball is kind of a universal language, so they kind of understood, and I understood it was a cool experience.

Yeah. It's fun when you don't speak the same because even you just have to make a look or do something with your hands. Everybody's like a mime all of a sudden.

Yeah. The kind of subtle cues of human behavior become more important. The facial expressions, the body language, the pauses, stuff like that.

And I love the moment when you and another person who speak a different language realize neither one of you knows how to say what you want to say.

Yeah.

So the side of it, just like, yeah.

You get to that moment, you're like, oh, okay. Maybe I should thank you for your time and try somewhere else.

And you were playing in Japan, right?

Yeah.

Hajimi maste. Have you ever heard that? What is it? Hajime Mastei.

I'm sure I heard it.

I think it means our friendship begins. Can you look it up, Nick? Just if you get a chance. I one time got to go to Japan. I was a student on the thing called semester at sea. And so you would go on a cruise ship, and it was in college, and you would go to different countries around the world.

That's cool.

Our friendship begins. Watashitashi no Yami. How did you. Marimasu. Okay, so a little off. Little off, right. But we got to go. And I worked, like, in the bookstore on this cruise ship, or this school is a floating university called semester at sea.

That's cool.

Yeah, it was pretty. Go on. We went to Kobe or Osaka, and then we got to go on a home stay where you would go and stay with a family for a couple nights.

Was that down in Osaka, too?

Yeah.

Okay. Osaka is a cool area.

Is it?

Yeah. The beef there is incredible. We played there a couple of different times throughout the year. And there's a hotel that all the NPB teams stay at because they serve the dinner and stuff. There is like, kobe beef and specialized to Osaka area. So good. It's so.

Yeah, because that wagyu beef that came out of there, right? Japan. Where's that from? Bring it up, Nick. Yeah. That wagyu beef and everybody's like wag. Like three years ago people started going crazy. What is wagyu? Beef? A japanese beef cattle derived from native asian cattle. Wagyu refers to all japanese beef cattle where wa means japanese and gu means cow. Wow. Wagyu were originally draft animals used in agriculture and were selected for their physical endurance. Wow. So they picked some real gangster meat.

You know it's the intermuscular fat cells marbling. You get that really rich texture.

God, I want that.

It's delicious.

Yeah.

Maybe not be the best thing for you for like an athlete but it's taste wise it's really hard to beat.

And when you say NPB, what is the teams in Japan called?

So there's twelve teams Nipone professional baseball. So NPB, just like major league baseball. There's two leagues, there's Pacific League, central league, six teams in each. You got different team names like the Bay Stars, Giants, Tigers, stuff like that. So everyone kind of similar to MLB, just smaller, not as many teams.

And how was your team?

We were good. We made playoffs. Unfortunately we lost our first two game of playoffs and got eliminated. But we had a good team. A lot of talented guys, a lot of funny guys. They were super welcoming too, which was great. I mean the organization as a whole making sure that foreign players have translators around even down to like hey, what kind of food do you guys like? Trying to have that in the meal spreads.

Just welcoming.

Yeah, yeah. And Japan, I mean if you've been there, you know it's super clean. The people are super polite, super nice culturally. It's very different than the United States in a lot of different ways. And that was one of the things that really stood out is how nice the people are.

Oh yeah dude. On the homestay that I went on. So you got to go stay with a family for a couple of nights. So I show up over there, they speak Japanese. I barely speak English.

Right.

It's like real quiet. And they made like a little meal for me and we just sat around this little table on the floor and ate.

Did you have to sit on the floor?

Yeah, I think they might have put some wick like a thin mat. And we sat there and then I guess when I walked in I gave the lady just a hug and a kiss just on the cheek just kind of how I am. And throughout the next couple of days she would have her friends come over just so I would hug and kiss them on the Linda, Linda. And like the doorbell would ring and she'd be like do to and she just kept having friends come, so I would give them. I think they just thought it was interesting, and then they let me sleep in their room, I think. And I think they slept in the wall or something. I swear they stood up in the wall all night and just didn't sleep.

That's crazy.

So I could sleep. It's just a lot of. I don't know if it's, like, sacrifice or just extreme respect. What do you feel like it is?

You don't try to explain respect, deference. What I learned, and I could be wrong about this, is just what I've been told and explained, because obviously, I didn't grow up there and all that stuff, but they care a lot about the good of the group as opposed over the good of the individual. So if the individual needs to sacrifice something to make the group environment better, the individual is expected or used to offering to sacrifice. So it makes sense. Like, if you have a guest in your house and they could be more comfortable sleeping on the bed, and you can spend a couple of nights not sleeping on the bed, I can totally see how that would be a thing.

Yeah, it was baffling, man. I felt so respected. It was pretty fascinating.

I had a similar experience. They were so respectful that I was like, no, I'm no better than you guys. We can just be person to person here, and it's not that I'm above you or something. I almost felt like I was viewed as being above other people, and I don't like that. I'm not better than you or anyone else. I'm just another normal person. Let's just interact on a fair playing field. Level playing field here.

Yeah.

I don't like being looked down on by people, and I don't like being put on a pedestal by people. And I know they didn't do it intentionally, but it almost felt like half the time, the interactions I did have with people, even just fans out in the community, taxi drivers, waitresses, hosts, stuff like that, I almost felt like I was on a pedestal, and it was a little uncomfortable for me. Yeah. But it's cool that there is that respect and there is that deference to the other person. Yeah.

They're excited. They're almost so excited to respect you or to show you how respectful it can be.

That's a good way of putting it.

Yeah. Wow. What an interesting experience just to get to go and be there. How was it overall?

It was great. I've always wanted to do that. So I had an experience in 2009, played on collegiate Team USA, and we had a five game series against the collegiate Japan team. And so we played over in Japan, played at like five different stadiums. We were there for, I think, twelve days. They were packing stadiums, like 40,000 people for a college baseball game. Now, I'm coming from West coast baseball, which doesn't have the type of fan following as, like, the SEc does. We'd draw, like some nights, 50 people to a game, some nights, like a couple of hundred people at UCLA. And I'm going to this stadium, this professional stadium, the Tokyo Dome, and there's 40,000 people or something in the Tokyo dome for a college baseball game. It was crazy. And I remember in 2009 saying, before my career is done, I'm going to play baseball in Japan. I'm going to experience this, because the fan culture is so crazy there. It's like european soccer. There's like packed and chanting and the passion, everything like that. Wow, look at images for a baseball game. Bands playing nonstop.

And that was college ball.

That was college, the japanese style. They had a band for the japanese team, but they also provided a band for the american team. So we had a band playing for us, even though we were the visiting team, which is the most japanese thing ever. It was awesome. So, yeah, I've always wanted to do it. I was happy to have the opportunity to do that. The travel is different, the baseball, even, like, the technical little details of the game, like the way it's played, what's emphasized is different fan culture. It was such a great experience. S the food. I'm a huge sushi fan, so the first time I went in 2009, I didn't have sushi, and it was because I didn't have a translator with me and I didn't know what I was ordering. And I had heard back then that if there are certain types of fish, that if you eat it and it's not cut right, you can die. Like puffer fish or something.

Oh, yeah, I heard that rumor going around, too. People were saying that in our neighborhood and shit. I'm like, dude, none of us are going to eat any puffer fish, you know what I'm saying?

But I couldn't tell what it was on the menu because I didn't read Google translate, didn't exist back then in 2009, so I didn't have sushi, and that was one of my regrets. So I ate a lot of sushi this past year to make up for it.

Yeah, dude, I remember people like, bro, can't have any puffer fish, man. If it ain't cut right, you could die. And I'm like, dude, we're lucky to split a Jimmy John tomorrow. Nobody's bringing pufferfish into our neighborhood, dude. Some people are just obtuse, man. So I want to know how you kind of started in baseball, because I think everybody kind of, like, there's this ambiance in the universe. There's a lot of information in the world about how you ended up having to go to Japan or some of the overall reasons because you weren't allowed back in major league baseball. But how did you get into, like, who brought it to you first? What brought baseball to you?

I think my earliest memory of baseball is I had this little plastic bat called fat bat. It was maybe a foot and a half long, had a big old barrel, plastic bat, wiffleball bat. And I remember being out in the front yard at my house, and my dad would toss me a whiffle ball, and I would hit the ball and run around the yard, and we had this little brick wall that was maybe like one cinder block or two cinder blocks high, so I'd always try to hit the ball over that for a home run. So I must have been two years old or something at that point. I think I was always just drawn to, like, when I was growing up, what I wanted to go do was play baseball, practice baseball. I was always out in the front yard playing pickle or three flies. You're up with some of the neighborhood kids. Some people go out and play basketball or football or whatever. Like, we played baseball on my block.

And where was that at? Where were you guys living?

I was up in Valencia in California.

What's it like there? What's Valencia like?

Dude, there's tumbleweeds when we moved out there. Like, open plots, and now it's all malls and shopping centers and stuff like that, but really nice community. Lots of trees, but, like, planned neighborhoods and stuff. So we actually lived maybe, like, a five minute bike ride from one of the public parks up there. So when I was growing up, I would just ride my bike with a bucket of baseballs up to the park. Safe community, everyone. You just run around. This is a different world back then. I'm 33 now, so I'm talking 30 years ago. I'd be up and down the paseos and out all day. Yeah, I love Valencia. Parents still live there. I still go back all the time.

Oh, nice, man.

Yeah.

So you get out there and ball, and that was just the sport that you kind of took to?

Yeah, I played soccer, I guess, or football, depending on where you are in the world, but played that until high school. But when I got to high school, I was in AP classes and playing baseball, and I didn't have time for soccer, and I was always just much more drawn to baseball anyway, so, yeah, never really played any other sports. Just been baseball pretty much my whole life.

Did you collect the cards, too?

I collected baseballs and autographs more than cards. So my dad and I would go to spring training every year. We'd make the drive. It's like 6 hours from La to Arizona for the diamondbacks. Diamondback. There's a bunch of people out there. Diamondbacks. I remember when they just put the Royals and the Rangers facility out there and they started moving in. But the Oakland A's, Cubs been out there forever. Brewers. Like, a whole bunch of teams. I think there's 15 or 16 teams out in spring training in Arizona.

Now. Here we go. Right here you have White Sox, A's, giants. Wow, some great teams. Did you ever get to see mark Grace out there?

No, I don't remember if I saw Mark Grace, but I remember when ichiro came over, I guess, kind of drawing the japanese connection, but I remember when Ichiro first came to the Mariners, and we're like, oh, there's this new guy from Japan that's supposed to be really good, and it's just kind of sensation. And then I remember standing there with a ball outside of the fence at spring training, like Ichiro, each row trying to get an autograph. And then he went on to be, like, just the best hitter that's ever lived or something. And we had no idea that he was going to be that successful. But I remember being a little kid and just standing there at spring training watching the guys.

Did he sign the ball?

I think he was off to another field or something. I don't remember.

We had to know. That's why I had. Yeah, that was your world. And then you just became good at it. Did you just love practicing it so much? How did it.

Yeah, I love practicing. I just like doing anything baseball related, so I was always thinking about it. I was always out playing it. So I think I developed some skills that way. And I was always good ish. But I was never the best guy. I never made the best tournament team or the best all star team. Even in my freshman year of high school, I was not the ace pitcher, but I also love math and physics, and I took a class in 9th grade with a guy, Martin Kirby, as a physics class. Kirby. Martin Kirby is a british guy.

Okay.

So he had this accent and he made class really fun.

Yeah, the Brits, dude, you just fucking believe know, you know, they go home and drink.

But he had a picture, so he used to be a smoker, actually, and he quit cold turkey one day, but he put two packs of cigarettes in his mouth, lit them all at the same time. So he had that picture on the wall, like, just him with two packs of cigarettes in his mouth. And he said he got so sick after that that he just never wanted to smoke again.

Damn.

But, yeah, it was such a fun class. And I started learning about physics and how leverage works and velocity, energy transfer and momentum and all that. And I started trying to take class and apply it to baseball. And at the same time, I went down to a training facility in Texas, actually for the first time. It's a Texas baseball ranch. And they were talking about some of the same concepts, momentum and energy transfer and whip and all this different stuff. And so that was really when I started my true, devoted baseball development, where I was trying to take academics and apply it to baseball and use a scientific method to get myself better.

Oh, damn. So you brought some real home school energy to that deal, man. So that was something that once that got added in, like, this other kind of world of it that you could start to see while you were doing it and stuff and equate. Then I really kind of lit you up.

That's how my brain works, too, because I need to have something that I'm chasing. I'm here. I want to go there. I need to plot a course. Am I getting closer to my target or not? That's how my brain works. So as soon as I had, I knew I always wanted to play in college. That was my goal. Well, my goal growing up was just to play on the high school team. Then once I made my freshman team, I was like, okay, I want to play in college. And that was really when my development was starting. So I was like, okay, I want to get to college. I'm currently a freshman in high school. I'm throw this hard, I have this pitch, I have this command, whatever I need to improve these skill sets. And so then I would wake up in the morning at, like, 533 times a week and go to the YMCA and do, like, pool workouts.

I love the YMCA, don't you?

Yeah, we had a membership there. I used to lift there and spend a lot of time there as a kid.

Always love it. It just makes you feel like just part of their universe.

Yeah.

I'm sorry, I interrupted you. So you would go there and you would just train, practice, get ready.

I'd do that, yeah, prior to school. And I'd go do school, go straight to practice. After school, we'd get done at 435 o'clock, go home, do some homework, and eat, and then usually, like seven or 08:00 I'd go up to the local park, and I'd be there for an extra 3 hours doing whatever workout I was doing or throwing or videoing myself or whatever, trying to find some way to get better. And that's just what I didn't really do anything else. I didn't have interest in anything else.

Did you have a lot of friends? Did you have a social world, or was that kind of a choice you think you made, or you just kind of get locked in on something? Because a lot of people that have become great at something, there's sacrifices to it. People don't realize that.

Yeah, I think it was partially that. What I wanted to do was baseball. So given the choice of going to the mall to hang out on a Friday afternoon or going and doing baseball, I was naturally gravitated towards baseball also. I'm not really the most social person. A lot of my social interactions I learned a little later in life, starting in college and pro ball and stuff, I viewed things differently as a kid. I was kind of different. I dressed differently, I thought about different stuff. My sense of humor was different than the normal kid. So I struggled socially in high school, junior high, all the way up into high school, I didn't have a large peer group. I was part of two different groups. I was like part of the athlete group, right. But I didn't fit in with them because I was also a nerd.

Oh, yeah.

And I didn't really fit in with the nerds because I was a jock. And so I kind of got pickled between both of those where I didn't really have a group that I fit.

In with, like Clark cant, almost in.

A mean, not quite as super, but.

Well, you would turn out to be.

Oh, here you are.

Right. Go, Trevor. In this throwback to when the Astros didn't have to cheat to win. That's it. That's cool, dude.

Does that kid look like someone that would fit in? So that's actually a uniform. Like, I would wear my baseball pants and uniform and stuff to school. I got picked on a lot.

But also, dude, if you slid in the fourth period, you were a fucking legend. If you're the only person that slides head first into social studies, you fucking win. As far as I'm concerned, today's episode is brought to you by Prizepix. If you like firing on sports, then Prizepix is the app for you. Instead of choosing teams, you choose individual players. That's what I like about it. It's unique. Each player has a set projection, and you either choose more or less than that set projection. For example, you could choose Isaiah Pacheco more than 51 yards or Brock Purdy more than two touchdowns. That's right. Prizepix is America's number one fantasy sports app and my favorite place to fire on sports. If you're smart with sports and know what players are going to perform on what nights, then prize picks is the best app for you. Download the app and use code Theo. Prize picks will match your deposit up to $100. Keeps baby, you want to keep your hair, don't you? Yeah, you do. Even animals want to keep their hair. Everybody wants it. And if you're a husband or just a man or even a woman, you might want to keep your hair.

And I don't blame you. I like keep in mind. That's for sure. Get expert care for hair loss from the comfort of your home without ever visiting a doctor's office or pharmacy. Keeps helped me. They can help you. All treatment plans are personalized to address your unique needs and recommended by a licensed medical provider. That's true. Keeps offers both of the FDA approved hair loss treatment options, as well as a two in one gel that combines both treatments. To date, keeps has helped nearly 1 million men keep their hair. Hair loss stops with keeps. For a special offer to get started, go to keeps.com theo or click the link in the description. That's keps.com. T-H-E-O. Wow. So you just loved it that much? It kind of became almost, or it seems like I'm just being judgmental, but it became like a sense of pride that you had then, or like you.

Really identified as like, I think it was my backstop. Anytime something would happen in life, if it was I was picked on or bullied or whatever in school, I would go to the park and I would do baseball. If something was going good in my life, I was like, okay, I'm excited. I'm going to go do baseball. I bonded with my family over on the weekends growing up. We'd have tournaments all the time. So you'd travel on Friday evening or Saturday morning, two or 3 hours away. You'd play four or five games in a couple of days. I was out there with my mom and my dad, my sister, whoever was going most of the time it was my dad. Sometimes my mom sister would come along. So I have really good family relationships because of baseball. Baseball has always kind of been my coping mechanism. When something's going wrong, I just go do baseball because that's what I know, and I'm good at it, and I feel a sense of accomplishment or progress towards a goal or something like that.

It's fluid to you. It becomes part of your makeup. And so I'm going to go get back to a good homeostasis. No matter what's going on. Highs or lows?

Yeah. I think exercise tends to help with that in general. So because baseball is an active thing, I think I got kind of the benefits of both the exercise, but also that centering of myself. A lot of people have video games that they go play or they go watch a Netflix show or something like that. Not saying those things are wrong, but I also think that baseball, because it was something active, I got the physiological benefits of exercising, too, which I think helps stabilize.

Yeah. And why the pitching was the pitching because you have some cool pitches, man. I stayed up last night, I mean, actually really late, and then I couldn't sleep. I'm, like, eight days off nicotine right now, so I didn't know it was going to affect, bro, it will not let me sleep.

Are you on, like, you doing, like, patches or what's the.

I'm on nothing, dude.

Straight up.

I'm on just light prayer and just doing my best.

Yeah.

But I thought it was, like, three days. It's out of your system. It is, like, haunting at night. And so you're awake, and you're like, what should I do? And then your brain is like, maybe you should do some. It's gone, but it won't let you sleep. And then it just starts to be like, what about maybe a puff or two?

You think that's, like, a physiological thing, or do you think it's a mental thing, like, your mind wants it, or do you think your body's craving it?

Man, it's a good question. Some of it is a little bit of a bore. It's a habitual. Like, it had become a boredom thing. I can't do anything else right now. I might as well do this. So maybe a little bit habitual. And I think my mind. My mind is like, oh, I'm frustrated. I want to be sleeping. I can't. What can I do in frustration? Because a lot of times, if things were going good or bad, vape became, like, a little bit of a habit. I would use interesting it's interesting to think about, though. Yeah. Because sometimes people just do things they don't even start to think about. Why am I doing it? What inside of me is beckoning me to this?

I'll find myself walking down the street. Nothing happens. I think that my phone vibrated, so I reach in my pocket and check it. I'm like, oh, no, notification. Put it back in my pocket. No more than 30 seconds later, I'm like, oh, someone just texted me, but it's not vibrating. There's nothing there. And it's just I'm so used to reaching for my phone because of text call, social media, notification, like, whatever you get programmed over the years to reach for your phone so much. I have the same type of experience with the habitual side of things.

Yeah, I think a lot. Yeah, I had, like, pornography. I got into pretty badly when I was in my bad habit. Vaping has been the tougher one as I have gotten older, but I don't drink or do drugs, so it's like sometimes I give myself a little bit of a leeway, but I just like my own energies better. I'm able to sit and have a more comfortable conversation with people. And so at a certain point, it's like I have to give it up just because I'm missing out on. I'll be short with people. I won't want to stay in a moment because I want to go vape. Just shit like that.

Do you self reflect a lot on things? Do you look at your own behaviors and stuff and analyze yourself, or how do you get that feedback?

Yeah, I started doing that more. I've done some ayahuasca over the years, and I bring that up a lot. But that plant medicine, that stuff is really interesting for exactly that. It helps me learn. It's not as much time that I spend learning something like, say, I'll read or write something or be in a class, but it's the time I go sit back with what I've written and have an integration. That's what I'm learning is so much more crucial, because for so long, I was kind of learning and getting information, but a lot of things weren't sticking because the big part I was missing out on was integration.

Interesting.

And so I think that's where some of that comes from. And being in conversations with, getting to be in conversations with some neat people over the years and makes me start to think more and leads me into wanting to be more introspective and wonder why I do things. I have a brother that helps me think about that kind of stuff a lot and make me kind of question. So I start to not only be myself, but also see myself a little bit, if that makes any sense.

Yeah, no, for sure. The studies on the ayahuasca and the mushrooms and stuff like that for brain function, like treating PTSD and past experiences and stuff like that is pretty interesting. I follow it decently closely just because I'm very interested in the effects of the brain. And how do you learn something? How do you get over something? How do you change behaviors, stuff like that. The last couple of years, there's been a lot of cool stuff that's come out about that stuff that was like ten years ago, kind of demonized and looked at this really bad thing. Now we're starting to learn a little bit more like, oh, this could be useful in these certain areas. Yeah, there's like shades of gray in there. Right. It's not just like it's good or it's bad. It's like it could be a useful tool in certain cases. It could be abused in certain cases. Yeah, it's interesting.

Yeah, I love that. I love that kind of stuff. It's becoming like a new modality or whatever term people use for people to try and get well because it almost goes really back to our roots, literally back to. It's like native american root medicine that they would use to really have a better look at themselves, kind of. But I recommend it. I think it's helped me a lot in just having different ways to think about things. When did you start being good at bait? When did it start to add up? Because if you're doing all those unique pitches, you just have such a cool assortment of pitches. I almost feel like somebody's rolling up to the mound. This is from your channel right here?

Yeah. This is back in. Eleven years ago? Yeah.

Wow, you've had your channel for a long time.

Yeah, I started, I think, 2011 to do, like, try to connect with baseball fans and give some information, and then I actually stopped it for like, six or seven years there. From 2013 through maybe 2019 or 2020. I should have kept it going. I'd have a lot more subscribers.

You got a great amount of subscribers. 690,000 is amazing. Yeah. And what made you stop? What was the break? Were you getting busy with baseball?

No. So I actually got in trouble when I was growing up in high school and college, I watched a guy named Tim Linsukum, and I studied everything about him.

Wait, do you play for the.

And I. His college film, his Giants film, minor league film. I can still close my eyes and picture the exact delivery from a video from University of Washington. And he was throwing. It was like 40 degrees that night, half long sleeve. I can see the video in my head, but I studied him nonstop. And one of my most fun things to do in college was every time he pitched, I would go on MLB.com and I would see the highlights and I would just watch them over and over and over. And I got a lot of enjoyment out of it. So I actually started putting a segment up on my channel. When I signed, I was in the minor leagues. There was no way for fans to watch me pitch in the minor leagues and have that same experience of highlights. So I would take video clips from the games, make a little highlight reel. I called it weekly whiffs, and I would put it up on YouTube channel and I did two episodes of it. And then the organization that I was with at the time was like, yeah, you can't do that because it was just different.

No one was doing that. It can be looked at as like you're trying to embarrass the other hitters or whatever. It had nothing to do with the hitters. I was just trying to entertain the fans. And so I made a couple more videos after that, like the pitch grips video in 2013 and a couple of slow motion videos here or there. But in a way, it took a little bit of the fun of trying to entertain fans out, and so I was off of it. I went more towards Twitter at the time, which is now x, but trying to just have that back and forth connection with fans and grow it that way, and that ended up getting me in a lot of trouble as well.

Unfortunately, people don't like you to have your own voice a lot of times, which is where if you're involved in something that's bigger, like when you have to go into organizations like major league sports, college sports, where there's a lot of big business interests on the back end of things, they really don't like a lot of guys to have their own voices. It seems like you're allowed to, but are you really allowed to?

Yeah, it's an interesting, my perspective on that has changed a good amount recently. So coming up, I was like, okay, I'm my own person. I'm going to have my voice like you as my employer, don't control me. I'm going to say what I want, whatever. And I was very kind of bull headed on that. And then I started a business and I have employees, and I deal with employees who remind me very much of myself. And they have their own voice and they express stuff in certain ways. And I'm like, okay, I got to handle this a little bit differently as a business owner than I would as an employee. And now I can understand the different perspective. I'm very protective of trying to tell my employees, you can't say this or you can say this or putting guidelines on it. But I do see how someone like me coming up that has these opinions, especially when I would be critical of the league. Here's an employee of the league who's being critical of their boss publicly. And at the time, I was like, well, this isn't right and this isn't right, and I disagree with this and blah, blah, blah.

And so I would just say it and then without considering the opposite perspective, and I think I was a lot more like, I can identify this problem and I'm just going to say that there's a problem and blame instead of now what I really try to do is look and say, okay, I identify a problem, but what are some potential solutions? Let me present the solutions that I think and have a discussion about it instead of just like, hey, you're wrong, you're wrong. Do this this way. So some of that evolution over time, growing up and getting older and learning from past mistakes, starting a business, seeing other perspectives in your business.

You're talking about your YouTube channel, Trevor Bauer channel.

Yeah.

Well, cool channel, man.

Yeah. We have Trevor Bauer channel. We have also Momentum channel and Eric Sims channel. We're kind of like a content group. So momentum is the company and it started in 2019 to grow baseball, entertain baseball fans. And so we bring people in.

Wow, you have a lot of subs, the kids call them. You get a lot of subs on there, man.

Yeah. Eric just passed. I think he's at like 520 now as well. So I'm at 690. Momentum is at 567. Eric's over 500 as well. We got a couple of other creators that come in. The idea is basically you bring guys in that love baseball, that have a good personality. You have a group channel where they can get exposure to a lot of people, entertain a lot of people, and then they end up growing their brands and can go in their own different directions. You have someone that does gaming, you have someone that does action, you have someone that does card reviews, you have someone that does whatever. And so you start branching out and entertaining all factions of baseball fans and growing the game organically where the audience is. One of the things that I think NBA was probably the first sport to really adopt it is the social media push, like delivering content to fans where the fans mean you go on NBA or you go on Twitter or x or whatever social media platform. When the playoffs are going on in NBA, it's like the second Steph Curry hits a three. It's everywhere.

You have the same opportunities in baseball where it was hard to find content. And so I was like, okay, this is a problem, but instead of just blaming, I'm going to try to actually do something about the problem. So momentum is kind of my attempt to help impact the marketability of players, help impact the growth of the game. Young people aren't playing baseball nearly as much anymore. There's so many other opportunities. You got streaming services so they can watch on their iPad. You got gaming. That's huge. Esports, people aren't outside as much playing, so the game is, like, shrinking a little bit at the youth level. So trying to grow it in ways where kids will consume the content and get interested in it.

Yeah, man. Dude, that's so kudos, bro. This should be doing something, your job, but then also wanting to create this other, more of your job, kind of. This is not a lot of guys that have. That have their own channels like that.

Yeah, baseball has given me a lot. Oh, yeah. This chart is sad.

This is share of children aged six to twelve who participate in baseball on a regular basis in the United States from 2008 to 2021. And in 2008, it says 16 and a half percent. And now we're down to 12.6%, down.

Like 25% in the last 15 years.

I'm kind of shocked because I know we have a larger growing latino culture, and I know baseball is big in latino cultures. Why do you think that is? Why do you think there's been, like, a tail off like that?

I think baseball has gotten expensive. The equipment's very expensive, the travel team's very expensive. Also, baseball doesn't have the cool factor that NBA has. NBA has sneakers, and, like, rap culture, pop culture, they blended the two together in a very cool way.

That's a good point.

And so when you're going through high school and you're trying to figure out who you are, you want to be part of the cool crowd. And it's the sneakers, it's the new rapper, the new album, it's the entertainer. And that's synonymous with NBA. Baseball hasn't had the same success in blending and getting the cool factor for young.

Yeah, baseball always was like, the kids would go off and do it in high school, but you didn't really know. And a lot of times they wouldn't be a part of the pep rallies a lot of times and stuff. So, yeah, there was always missing a little bit of football.

You have the crossover, you have like the cheerleaders, and you have the football players. There's like integration of the whole school, right? And it's one game and the school shows up and it's our school versus your school. And so there's a lot of involvement around football. NBA has the pop culture integration. Baseball's struggled to get their, uh, there's a lot of games. So it's not like if you miss out on this game, there's not going to be a game tomorrow.

Right? That's a good point.

And it's always been that baseball has like, an older demographic. It's a slower game. I think his attention spans are shrinking. TikToks around shorts, YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, all this stuff. Attention is shrinking. The cadence of baseball is slow. Right. Where NBA, it's like 20 seconds, and then there's a new play and then this and then that. Football, it's like there's always something going on. Baseball, it's like, well, there's four minutes in between innings and then there's 30 seconds in between a pitch. One of the things they tried this year is like a pitch clock, so it shrink the time in between pitches, which has seemingly made the game more popular.

Yeah, I felt that energy when I went to some games this year. It felt faster, it felt a little bit more, and it kept you a little bit involved because it was just enough time where you didn't kind of zone out and go get onto your phone of that extra five or 6 seconds. Like even we're saying that extra habitual moment where you kind of start to check out. I would stay know. We went to see Zach Gallon pitch a couple times, which was really cool. Who else did we go? Oh, going to a Padres game is so much fun, man. That park is so much.

Do you go in San Diego?

Yeah, dude, that park is so much fun.

They do a good job down there. So Padres and Dodgers were.

Oh, yeah.

A lot of rivalry going back there. Dodger players won't say it's a rivalry, but it's a rivalry. In 2021, I was with the Dodgers. We'd go down play in Padres, and it was like so loud and so the stadium is like pretty compact. You got the industrial building out there that kind of squeezes things together and they pack it full. It's really energetic and, yeah, we played some really fun games down there.

It is such a fun place to be a part of.

It's cool. It's right downtown. The backdrop's really cool. You're right by the ocean. The weather's always literally, you leave the stadium and there's bars right there. Right downtown, like the best area.

They got some great players down there too, man. Yeah. No, no, Joe is one of my buddies who pitches over there. He's awesome.

You darvish, Machado Tatis.

Yeah, it's fun. That's a fun place to see a game. When did you be like, okay, I've got the mechanics. I've been working on this so much myself. I have my own interest in it. When did you start to be good and what was that like?

So I was good my freshman year. I was good my sophomore year in high school. I made varsity team towards the end of my sophomore year, but then I really exploded my junior year of high school. My velocity jumped a lot. I was throwing in the, struck a lot of people out. I had like a sub one era for the year. Wow. Started getting a lot of, yeah, I think I was like zero point, 79 era or something. I don't remember the exact number, but gosh. Yeah. Struck out like 106 people, I think, in 72 innings or something along those lines. So I had a really good year. I went twelve. And that year our team was really good. Actually, there's a senior pitcher. I was a junior. Mike Montgomery was a senior. He was getting a lot of looks. He ended up getting drafted in the first round by the Royals that year. So we had a lot of scouts out at our games.

Wow. So you had a lot of influence to see that this could really happen. Right? I mean, he's right there ahead of you, and this happens in front of you.

So baseball is such a small world, too, that in the 2016 World Series, the last person to throw a pitch for the Cubs, Michael Montgomery. The last person to throw a pitch for the Indians. Me.

Wow.

High school teammates. We're the last ones to throw pitches for our respective teams in that World Series. And so he was good. And I don't like losing to people on my own team. I don't like losing, period. I'm a super intense. So, like, he would go have a start and I'm like, okay, I got to be better than that. And then that really drove me to be better. And so actually, I ended up graduating high school half a year early. And so I never played my senior season in high school.

Why?

I just went to UCLA. Oh, you went straight to go start? Yeah. So I graduated December, I think 18th and I started UCLA January 4. And then I played what would have been my senior season of high school as my freshman year in college.

You must have been one of the younger pitchers that year.

Yeah, one of the younger pitchers. I was actually the freshman pitcher of the year in all of NCAA that year. And that's after that year is when I made Team USA and went played in Japan in 2009 as basically a high school senior.

So what happens in that space and pitching is so perfect for you then it sounds like because it's your own little war that you're in. You're like this orchestra, you're this guy, but you're also the guy playing the. It's you versus them. It's very clear cut how things go. Oh, dang. I had a great question. It probably wasn't that great, but I thought it was pretty decent. This is my brain checks out every now and then. But hold on, I'm stay with this. Did ego start to build up? Because that's one thing I always talk about a lot in here. Just like our ego and what that's like. Because what was it like when you start to get a claim for that if you kind of have this social uncomfortability?

Yeah. I've always tried to separate ego on and off the field. I haven't been great at it, but I think having an ego on the field is super important. Like when you walk out there, you got to know that you have to believe that you're better than him and him and him. And you got to feel like you're the best guy out there to be the true competitor off the field. Like going around telling everybody that you're better than them and acting like that's not great. Right. So I'm not naturally inclined to be egotistical because the way I view things, it's never like a static point. Everything is, I'm improving or I'm getting worse. It's a fluid situation. And so if I'm either getting better or getting worse, I'm on a journey just like you're on a journey. You have your struggles and your successes. I have my struggles and successes. I view myself as even with every other person. But on the field, when it's competition time, I am the best person on the field. And if I'm not that day, it's because I didn't work hard enough or I need a better process.

But every time I step on the field, I have to believe that I'm the best person there, and I've had times in my career where I lost that belief, and those were very dark times performance wise. I was terrible on the field, and I had to trick myself and fake it in my own mind that I was still good. And then when I started doing that, the results came back. Wow.

Yeah. It's interesting levels of success, how you have to sometimes trick yourself to stay there, how you have to use little manipulations, life hacks, all those. There's so many different things that so many different people who are top performers in their world or sport or whatever it is, line of work do.

I think I'm a little predisposed to depression for whatever reason. I don't know if it's something chemical or what it is. I'm a very kind of flat personality. I don't have a ton of highs and lows. So when baseball would go bad, my mood would go really bad, and I had to find a way to kind of pull those two things apart and be. Regardless of baseball is up or down, I need to be able to be okay in my life.

And would you do to go when things got bad? Would you booze a little? Like, how would your world know?

I've never been drunk. I've never done drugs.

Wow. Bro, you are riding the freaking world. It's incredible, man.

I didn't have friends to invite me to the parties in high school. I never got started, but, yeah. When I would have early in my career, let's say, prior to, let's say, July 2017, I would have a bad outing, and I would go home and I would study it for hours and hours, and I would be up till four or five in the morning, and then I wouldn't sleep well, and then I'd be miserable the next day because I'm like, okay, I should have done all these things I didn't do, and now my results are bad, and we lost the game, and I'm this and that and whatever. And then the start of 2017 was, like, the worst half of baseball that I've had, and I had, like, a seven or eight era.

That's a lot. I could have.

That probably could have any number of people.

Yeah, some people could have done that. Let's just say some people could have it.

Yeah. Sorry, man.

That was kind of offensive.

No, I mean, it's true. It's just a fact. I was bad, and I had to trick myself into believing that I was good.

Wow.

Because I'm so analytical that I was like, I am the worst pitcher in major league baseball right now, factually. And I had to pull myself out of that and somehow trick myself on the field to thinking that I was good. And then I also had to pull myself, split myself from baseball so I could find a way to be okay personally in life. So I had to start developing some other interests, some stuff that when I went home, I would get interested in that thing instead of studying baseball so much. And then from 2017 on, outside of two months, at the end of 2019, I was probably like a top ten pitcher in baseball. But that split of being okay personally and finding a way to kind of level out that depression and some of those really down moments made me better and more stable at doing my job on the field as well.

And would you go spend time with the guys after the games, or would you still kind of do your own thing a lot?

So baseball is because games are played at night. When you get out of the field, it's 1115 1130. So if you're going to go spend time with the guys, it's like, what bar are you going to? What club are you going to? There's not a whole lot of other options on the road. Sometimes you go back to the hotel room, go play cards, have a glass of wine or something in someone's room, and hang out with the guys. But it's not like you're just going to dinner at 07:00 and having a nice night. So I would typically just go from the field back home. Most of the time you spend with guys during a season is, like, prior to the game. So you get there at noon or one, play cards in the clubhouse, play some video games, joke around, whatever, or day games when you get done at four and you can go to dinner. Those are usually, like, Sundays if you're not traveling.

Do you find yourself in social atmospheres? Do you feel pretty uncomfortable? How do you feel like in social atmospheres? Has it changed over time?

Yeah, it's definitely changed. I'm very uncomfortable around large groups of people that I don't know. I'm not very good at starting a conversation. I think too much. And so when I look at another person, I'm like, well, they don't want to talk to me, and what am I going to say? I don't want to come off awkward and disturb them, but I also kind of want to talk to them. And then I just think too much. Where I watch some guys, they just go up, hey, how's it going? And they have a great conversation. I'm like, damn.

Yeah.

I can't marry them. And you're like, God.

Great, man. That's awesome. Yeah, dude. Sometimes I would always marvel at people that just had that disposition to be able to be comfortable. Yeah, man. I remember there's a WWE wrestler, the Miz is his name, and he was always so comfortable wherever he was, and I never saw anybody like it. The guy just. And it was just effortless. And that was one thing I was always so envious of. Certain people that had. They didn't have to fight inside of themselves to be comfortable, and that was always, like, something I just noticed a lot.

Yeah, I'm comfortable with myself, right. But I'm not comfortable going into unknown groups and just somehow integrating myself. Now, if I know a couple of people and we're out, I'm fine meeting one of their friends and having a conversation, talk to someone all night, but I'm not the one that's like, I don't know how to go start those conversations.

You might have a freaking hit of the tism. I got it. You know what I'm saying? No judgment, dude. Some of the greatest people of our time now have, I think, a low key dose. Seven, 8%, I think.

I wouldn't be surprised.

Yeah, it's awesome, man. Yeah, I mean, Elon Musk definitely is riding. He's riding. Some bezos has it for sure. A lot of the greats have it. Some people think that Mike Tomlin, is that his name, the football? You know, you don't see a lot of dark tism going on, but I bet he's got a dose. But, yeah, I think there's a lot of it out there. It's creeping up on all of us, but I think it's helping in some ways. It's because I think some of us are having to evolve. We've gotten into such a digital and a world that if you are able to conceptualize things almost a little more electronically, sometimes it's a light word I'm using, but that you have more success because we're just becoming more hypothetically like robots as people. So it just kind of makes sense. Does it make any sense to you?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, prior to social media, if you're going to get information, you're going to read a book, you're going to ask people around, you're going to be in the community and learn from people around you. So your habits of ingesting information were reliant on being able to have those interactions. You were outside more, there was less to do on your phone personally, like, less connection digitally. There was no connection digitally for a long time.

Your grandpa was like, shitty Google, remember you go to your grandpa?

Yeah. Remember a thesaurus?

Yeah.

Got to go look up in thesaurus now. You just Chat GPT or Google it or whatever.

Yeah, you can go to myfakefamily.com and pick out a family on there, and they'll send you a picture of you.

In a family, and you can frame.

It and put it. You're like, who the fuck are these people? It's a different universe, but it's kind of fascinating if we don't look at it that kind of stuff as a negative. I think sometimes we look at it as we're part of evolution in a way. So sometimes that's kind of interesting to me. This episode is sponsored by Betterhelp. If you're struggling with something, if something, there's a specific thing, maybe you can't handle it anymore. Or maybe it's just a general feeling of depression or uncertainty. Some of that's normal, but some of it isn't. And if you feel like you need help, then Betterhelp is a great place to try. That's for sure. I've used betterhelp. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Become your own soulmate, whether you're looking for one or not. Visit betterhelp.com theo today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelphelp.com theo. Betterhelp.com theo. You know that little guy with the hat and glasses when you open up incognito mode for a little late night research?

Well, that guy has seen some things, hasn't he? Good thing to know he can keep a secret. No, he can't. He doesn't. Even with Mr. Incognito on duty, every single thing you've ever clicked on is fully visible to anyone who owns your wifi. Who's that, you ask? I don't know. Your work, your school's it department, your parents. Sounds like you need ExprsVpN. That's what we're using. ExprsVPN is an app that sends 100% of your traffic through their encrypted servers, so your eclectic tastes in cinema cannot be seen by anyone. It's like a super incognito mode that actually works. I love ExprsVpN so much, I even got them to give you an incredible deal. If you use my special link exprsvpn.com theo, you'll get three extra months completely free. That's ex pres svpn.com theo. To help support the podcast and get three extra months of expressVPn absolutely free. This episode is sponsored by Blue Chew. Let's talk about sex. Yeah, fellas, remember the days when you were already ready to get going and you were just ready to do some sex? But maybe something's changed. Who knows? Well, now you can increase your performance and get that extra confidence in bed.

Bluechew.com that's right, Blue Chew is a unique online service that delivers the same active ingredients as Viagra, cialis, and Levitra, but in chewable tablets and at a fraction of the cost. That's right, blue chews tablets are made in the USA and prepared and shipped direct to your door in a discrete package. Chew your way to that freaking wonderful wiener baby. You can do it. We got a special deal for our listeners. Try blue chew free when you use our promo code Theo at checkout. Just pay $5 shipping. That's bluechew.com promo code theo. To receive your first month free, visit bluechoo.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Bluechu for sponsoring the podcast. It must be interesting to be you, though, because I feel like when there's more going on in your head, as much as it is a curse, it's also kind of, there's enough of a world going on where you're dealing with that.

Yeah, there's a lot of stimulation. I don't do well when I'm bored. My mind needs something to be working on, so there's never a shortage of that. But I think that's why getting into business has been very beneficial for me, because I don't have those blank moments or blank hours where I would fill those early in my career. I'd fill them going on Twitter for 3 hours.

So much fun.

It was so much fun and I had fun with it. But I think me having fun with people is usually like playful banter. I'll kind of throw a little jab your way and you throw them back my way. And it's like because this jousting match, and I like that because it's witty and it forces me to think. And I'm having these conversations with people and I'm like laughing and joking with them in person. And you get a sense of like, I'm not being serious, and you can tell very clearly that I'm not being serious. But on Twitter doesn't come across that way. And especially not even though the person that you're doing it with may feel that way, may not, other people reading it might get really confused. And so I would banter with a lot of people. And I think it got construed negatively by the media. I know it got construed negatively by the media, the larger media as a whole. And then I get this reputation of being combative and stuff, and I was never doing it from a combative standpoint. I understand how it looks that way and came off that way.

And so those blank hours where I just had nothing to do and I was just, like, joking with people on Twitter, firing stuff off, got me in trouble.

Trump has a great Dave port, and I interviewed Donald Trump, and he goes, you ever just like, he was he asking Nick about proofreading some of his tweets or something? And Trump's like, yeah. You ever just fire something off and just go to bed and just hope it's, yeah, all the know and you're like, what the hell is going on?

Yeah, but you do that if you think about Twitter being a parallel to real life. Someone says something to you and you just fire away. Because if you pause for 5 seconds to think about what you're going to say, it almost gives you the yips. Like, you almost don't know how to respond then, because we're so conditioned. Like, you say something and I'm like, I have a response, right? But have you ever thought about what proofreading in real life would look like? You would ask me something and I would think of my response, and then I would pause for five or 6 seconds and really think through my response, and then I might say something slightly differently. Can you imagine a conversation like that? If it was like, you say something and I pause for, like, 10 seconds and then say something back to you, and then you pause for, like, 10 seconds and really actually think through it.

Could we be, like, processing our answer and then it'd be printed out for the person? It'd be so bizarre.

It'd be so bizarre.

It'd be almost like a script then, yeah, probably.

It would be a very awkward conversation. It's not like a normal human tendency to have an interaction like that. So when you read something, it's like, oh, someone just said something and I'm going to say it. Now. It takes longer to type it, but you're still having the thought, and so you never have the option in person. To like, okay, I just said this. Now let me proofread it. Let me read it again. Let me check for this.

Think about this, my friend.

Right?

Is this okay? Is this weird?

Yeah. But on Twitter, then, it's like, the expectation now for people in the public eye is that you would proofread it, and then you would check with the publicist, or you would check with someone or whatever. You would make sure that it was everything and just not the normal flow of conversation. Now, it might be in the future as humanity moves more towards a digital presence, like, maybe that's what happens. It's going to be, uh. It's not normal.

Yeah, it's certainly abnormal. What was that thing? Did you bring it up, Nick, with Trump had. Oh. Portnoy asked the president if he ever regrets any of the content he posts. Often. Too often. Trump said, it used to be in the old days, you'd write a letter and you'd say, this letter is really big. You put it on your desk and you go back tomorrow. You say, oh, I'm glad I didn't send it. Right. We don't do that with Twitter. Right. We put it out instantaneously. We feel great. And then you start getting phone calls. Did you really say, yeah.

Half the time it's like, damn, I never would have thought that that would be interpreted that way.

Thought twice about it.

Yeah.

Oh, it's ridiculous. Now and then people are like, take it down. People say it's weird. It's weird the way that we communicate now, how foreign it is. And I think also how, as humans, we're not supposed to adapt to the way we communicate. It's so abnormal to nature, our nature. I think that a lot of it ends up making us feel sick or confused. Sometimes I'll send stuff to Nick and I'll be like, is this know, do I seem chilled? Does it seem crazy? Am I gay? He's like, dude, this is just. You're doing fine, but it's. Yeah. And as you have some notoriety, especially for your sport, I'm sure the microscope gets even tougher. Okay, so you're going to the major leagues. Yeah. There's some great videos of you out there, like, impersonating other players and stuff. Dude, so funny, man. When did you start to get the entertainment aspect? How did that kind of come into you?

Do you feel like, I think when I got comfortable that I was good and that I had largely established myself where I was going to be able to have a career. Like, early in your career, you're just fighting to stay there. And it's like if you have a bad outing, you might not be there the next day, but once you get to a certain level, it's like, okay, I have some leeway here. I can't be bad forever, but if I have a bad start or two, it's not going to be like I'm gone. And so that gives you a level, becomes manageable. Yeah. And it gives you a little sense of settle in. You can take a breath, you can be a little bit more comfortable, and then you start having some of these longer standing relationships with guys on your team because now you've been teammates for two, three, four years, and you have some of those jokes, and each game and moment becomes a little bit less serious because of that comfortability. And then you can start joking around and you can start having fun. So really, like 2018, I had a really good second half of the year, 2017, really good start to 2018.

And I started feeling more comfortable and settled with the team, and I started entertaining. I like the banter like we talked about. I like the kind of witty interactions. And so I like figuring out the puzzle of how do I take this normally mundane thing and just put a little twist on it, like, make it more entertaining for people. And then, yeah, starting in 2020, really? After I started the media company momentum in 2019, it was like, okay, this is an attention economy, so in order for baseball to grow, there have to be clips that are viral enough to get to the youth that they see it. Like, oh, baseball is fun, right? And then I'm like, okay, how do I start making some of these viral clips? Well, let me study NBA. What goes viral in NBA? Oh, when people do something like, they dunk on someone and they celebrate it. Like, when LeBron's flexing on someone. That's everywhere. Right. When Curry hits a three, but before the ball's in the bucket, he's already running down the court, like, celebrating it because he knows it's in. That's everywhere. It's like, okay, how do you apply some of that to baseball?

It's like, all right, what can you do in baseball? Are you going to celebrate a strikeout that'd be comparable to flexing on someone when you dunk on them, right. Are you going to call your shot on the day before the game? Oh, I'm going to do this with this person. Are you going to have some sort of, what does that look like in baseball?

It's a good point.

Yeah. And so I started getting the entertainment aspect of it because I was settled with the performance. Like, I can entertain and compete at the same time.

Right?

So I can compete and just not do any entertainment. And you're going to get the same level of performance out of me that you'll get if I'm also doing a little bit of entertainment because my base operating level is intense competition.

You're an interesting dude, bro.

I'm all messed up. My mind's. It's cool.

It's just neat to get a look at how you operate, man. It's really interesting. I appreciate you talking with me, man. Yeah. But you're right, though. If you're trying to build this sport, that's what you have. You need some of those moments. There's a video out there, and it's a bunch. It's of you just impersonating some of the other players on your team.

I think when you're with the Indians, we're in Pittsburgh with the Indians.

It was shout out sunshine. Clevenger over there, too, dude.

You know Mike.

Yeah, definitely been around Mike, man. He's such an entertaining.

This is. This is a funny story. A lot of people don't know the follow up to this story. So you can see the guys in the background of this video have rain tarps on or whatever. So it's raining, right?

So you're in a raining game. And this is here, Cleveland versus Pittsburgh. What year is this?

This is 2018, maybe.

And as you come up to bat here, you keep kind of impersonating, I guess, different players on your team, their batting stances.

Yeah. So we had a lot of unique batting stances this year. And so always, like, we get four days off in between starts as a starting pitcher. So we're in the dugout just messing around. Like we don't have anything to do. And so I was always grabbing something and trying to impersonate Micah V list. Jason, Kipnis, Rayburn, Brantley, like, some of these guys that had really unique characteristics. And so at one point, I think it was Micah V was like, hey, when are you going to do that for real? You won't. And I was like, I'll do it. So I go and I have this at bat. Where know do Rayburn and Kipniss, were they all? All. If you look at the duck, I don't know if there's a view of it. They're all, like, laughing. Yeah, that's Mike right there. Yeah.

Kip seems like such a neat guy.

Kip's awesome. Yeah. So the follow up to this, though, is I walk in this at bat, and so I'm on first base and I'm just this stupid pitcher running the bases and whatever. And so the catcher, obviously, Pittsburgh wasn't.

Super, like, they're applauding.

Pittsburgh wasn't super pleased with that because.

They'Re like, you guys are joking around out here.

Yeah. So right after that, the next pitch, I take my lead off first, and the catcher catches the ball and fakes like he's going to throw it down. First baseman was nowhere close, but I'm not used to being on base because I suck as a hitter. I'm never on base, right? So he goes to throw it down to first, and I freak out and I dive back, and there's no first baseman there, and it's muddy, and I stick in the mud, and I don't even make, like, my hand sticks and I don't even make it back to the base. I'm just laying there by the base, looking around. There's no one there. The catcher never threw the ball, and I'm covered in mud, and he just pointed at me and threw the ball back to the pitcher. I'm like, all right, that's good. You got me. That's good. I respect that.

That's classic. That's such a neat thing about life, too, how it works. It's like the second you start to get on your high horse, even just.

A little, life knocks you down.

Here you go.

There's another really good example that we're playing the Padres, 2021. We're at Dodger Stadium, and I'm facing Eric Hosmer. Now, I knew Haas from, he was in Kansas City when I was with Cleveland. So we played each other a lot. So we have a little bit of a history, like playing each other. So the first at bat, I throw him a ball. He like, half swings at it and strikes out, and I hit him with my sword. Celebration. And the next, that baddie comes up, I throw him a curveball. Instead of missing it, he hits a rocket right back at my face. It would have killed me if I didn't get out of the way. I end up laying on my back, and I'm like, laying on the mountain, like, what just happened? Fortunately, it didn't hit me. And he's over at first base, and I start to sit up and there's actually a picture of me. Yeah, this is probably it. Yeah, that. Right. And I don't know if this video clip goes long enough, but see if I laugh. Right here. Yeah, right there. So he's at first base. He like, hey, and I look over at him, and he gave me the sword, the.

I got him the pitch, the bat before, and then he just got me back, and then let me know about it. Tatis had a great one. He hit a home run off me, like, put one hand over his eye, because in spring training, I had, like, thrown in with one eye closed. And then against the Padres, and then they waited, and then when he got me back, he put his hand over.

Do you mind the stuff? Do you think it's fun?

I love it.

Yeah, it's cool. Actually, dude, if people.

If people would celebrate on me all the time, I don't care. That's good for the game.

Yeah, dude. And it would be so kind of. There's one thing, like, you know, you see them.

Yeah.

Some of the shit's gotten crazy. They're, like, doing the newsies, the musical between fucking second and third inning. Jesus Christ. Like a 90 minutes musical. Let's get the game going. But there's something that's just fun about just a little bit of the adding more to it. And I think you're right. I think if, you know, there's a little bit more ambiance between some of the players, it definitely right there, you're like, oh, shit. It's almost like when you know that Gary Payton was going to guard Michael Jordan or something. Like, oh, I want to tune in because I know that four times they're going to face each other. Let's see how this shakes mean.

Strickland and duplexi just fought, right?

Yeah.

That fight was not really interesting until they had the little skirmish in the crowd, and Strickland, like, threw the elbow, and they fought. And then everyone's like, oh, we got to watch this fight. And the fight. It was great fight. I thought Sean won personally, but what.

Did you think about it?

I thought it was three two. I thought he outstruck him. Didn't think that duplexi got much out of the takedowns. A lot of takedowns, but not a whole lot came from them. I don't hate the decision. Like, very close fight. Could have gone either way. I had it. Three two, Strickland. Judges had it. Three two, duplexi.

You like the fights?

Yeah, I'm a big UFc fan.

Yeah. Oh, cool, bro. Me, too. Yeah, I feel like there should be a little more gravity if you're going to give the belt away. That's what it felt like to me. I was like, it's this close, and you're going to give the belt away if you're going to beat somebody for the belt. There should be a little more gravity to it.

It should be, like, definitive. You beat them? Yes.

If it's a regular match, I get it. And maybe I'm just somebody who sits in the crowd and wishes they could be tough enough to be out there. Yeah.

I wouldn't want to be in the.

Ring, but one of the things you said earlier made me think what I've heard a lot of guys say. They're like, they can be great guys, neat guys, but they have to believe when they go in there that they are the baddest motherfucker in the world. Because if they don't believe that, what can happen is just they're not giving themselves any sort of a chance. Yeah. God. And that's just got to be.

I can't imagine what the walk must be like. It's you and another human, like in a death match. It's got to be a crazy adrenaline rush, but it's also got to be super scary. Walking out to play a baseball game. You win, you lose. It sucks if you lose, but there's not that visceral consequence.

Yeah.

You walk out there. I don't think they've ever had a death in the UFC, but you get seriously hurt. Like, bad.

Yeah. And some of the guys, they seem already hurt before they ever fought. You're like, damn, this guy, he needs to keep whatever he's got still in the tank. He's got it. He can't lose anymore. Yeah, but, yeah, the fact that they. And they love it, that's the crazy thing. Some of them, they love it. You could see sometimes like Gaethje or Poirier, just how, like, just fucking.

That's their thing. Yeah, that lights them up.

Imagine only getting to perform like twice a year, too. That's the toughest part.

I hate baseball cadence, where I only get to play once every fifth or 6th day. I can't imagine. Twice a year. Once a year?

Yeah. Imagine once a year Trevor Bauer gets to come out and throw some pitch.

And pitch a game for like 20 minutes. Can you imagine training for a year and then you get 20 minutes and it could be over in 30 seconds?

I think penguins are only fertile for like eleven minutes out of the year.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

That's a crazy stat. I never heard that before.

So it's almost like that, but yeah. If you find anything on that, Nick, let me know. I got a budy said he had some. I shouldn't say this, but he had the option if I wanted to get a little bit of penguin meat, which would be crazy to eat.

But I've had puffin.

Have you really?

In Iceland? Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Trevor. Puffin, kangaroo puffin. Icelandic horse shark. Shark was fermented shark, so they ferment the shark and they freeze it and they serve it in these little cubes. It's like a delicacy in Iceland. And they love it. It tastes like was. I don't know. I've had a little acquired taste for.

Yeah. And if you've had real gasoline, you don't want an.

Yeah, yeah. You want the real thing.

But yeah, I've had reindeer somewhere. I've had owl. What else have I wanted to. Wouldn't. I don't know if you want to have penguin, though. People just love them. They're kind of like the french bulldog of the North.

I feel like. Yeah.

Like you couldn't imagine eating french bulldog.

No, Frenchies are way too cute.

Yeah, that's the thing. People would be pissed.

Yeah.

Now it would taste good, I bet.

I'm not even going to go down that route. I know some frenchies and I know people that love their frenchies. I can't even imagine.

But yeah, let's don't even say anything else about it. So your career is going to. You were a saw young winner. That had to be unbelievable. Are you chasing that at a certain point to the season? Does it get like where you're almost like the drivers in NASCAR where it's like you're.

I chased that for ten years.

Wow.

So I went to college and like I said earlier, I studied Tim Linsicum and he won a Golden Spikes award, which is basically the Heisman trophy of baseball, goes to the best college baseball player. And I went to college and my only goal, not my only personal goal, I wanted to win the College World Series and everything like that with my team, but my personal goal was to win the Golden Spikes award and I won that my junior year of college. So check that box off.

Did you really?

I didn't know that.

Congratulations. You were the best player in college baseball. Yeah, the one. One.

Wow, bro, that was pretty cool. Mainly because I set a goal and I spent literally all of my time. I should have gone to class more. I just did not go to school. But it was like baseball and just my thoughts, my training, everything was just like on that and I accomplished it. And it's like a sense of pride that I could set a goal and accomplish it. It wasn't the ego of being the best guy, it was the fact that I set a goal and worked my way and actually accomplished that goal. And so after that, I was like, okay, what's next? I'm like, well, Tim won two young awards. He might have had three. I know he has two. And I was like, okay, that's the new goal. And so from 2011, when I won the Golden Spikes for the next ten years, I was chasing the Cy Young award. And everything I did was like, okay, who's the best pitcher in baseball? What do they do better than I do? And let me go work on that. Did he get. Oh, yeah. Three time World Series champion, two time Sai Young award.

Yeah. Back to back. Eight and nine.

Dude, he was, you're halfway there.

Those two years were gas.

I remember that.

Something different. It was just so unique what Tim was able to do.

Tim Linsicum.

Yeah. And so, yeah, from 2011, he had.

The long hair too, remember?

Yeah.

God, to be able to do so well with long hair too. Randy Johnson did that or Eckersley did that. It's a special to be like, yeah, my hair fucks and then go out there and throw total gas on people. Crazy.

Yeah.

What are you saying? He won?

So he won two of them. So I won the Golden Spikes 2011. I was like, all right, I want the sigh young. And so everything I did for the next ten years was centered around like, what does the best pitcher do that's better than I am and let me develop that skill set. What pitch does he throw? How hard does he throw? Is he durable? What's his command as his nutrition? Like all this stuff. And so I just worked at it. And then 2020, I won the Sal Young, which is like the pitching coach with the Reds, Derek Johnson. I've known Derek for. He's like one of my guys. I've known him since two thousand s. I was getting recruited to college. I wanted to go to Vanderbilt and play for him. He's at Vanderbilt at the time, but he's like in the baseball circles that I kind of run in. Caleb Cotham was the assistant pitching. Uh, I trained with him for dogs.

He got three dogs.

Eric Jagers was, um, I trained with him. And one of my, like all my people, Sonny Gray was there. All my people were there. And to have that year, it was super special.

Do they get also a copy of the.

No. So they give out award. They give out one award. But for my catchers, I got them. They are both kind of like watch guys. So we all got like Rolexes. I let them pick their watch and it all has like 2020 NLCI Young engraved.

Wow. Dude, look how happy you look, man.

Yeah. And actually we were playing the Reds this day, so Sonny and Louis Castillo and DJ actually came over for the ceremony. I have some pictures with them.

So you won it with the Reds, but you didn't get the awards till the next season when you were playing with the Dodgers?

Yeah.

Wow.

And then for, you were playing against.

The Reds when you got it. Yeah.

I think they scheduled the ceremony for that day for that crossover.

Dude, that must have been so crazy.

Yeah, go on. For ten years on my phone, I had a picture of a Cy Young award. I think it was. I don't remember exactly whose sai Young award it was. I used to see the name every day and then every time I opened my phone, that was the background picture of my phone. Every time I was looking at it, I just would see it in my mind. And then I replaced that picture with. Now the background of my phone is my sci Young award because I want another one. But, yeah, I chased it for ten years and finally accomplished it, which is a pretty crazy. To chase something for ten years and finally get it is like such a cool feeling. I didn't even know how to feel. It was like, I can't believe this actually happened.

Yeah. Are you able to feel pride? Like kind of. Well.

Not in the moment. And by the time I win something, I've already set the next target. And I was like, I won it. And I was like, okay, but anyone can win one. Wow. How many guys have won two? How many have won three. It's one of my struggles. I need to get better at. It is like actually enjoying the fact that I did this really cool thing.

What a trickster. Your brain is such a. Because sometimes our brain is like a trickster. It's like, oh, well, it's like, and what about this? Sometimes if I can look at that almost like, yeah. And try and enjoy it, not be too hard on myself, not constantly be pushing the goal line, but sometimes if I can just look at myself and be like, what a fucking trickster you are, brain, you're going to go and meet. We just did it.

Yeah. Let me hang out here for a little bit and enjoy this.

But if I can at least laugh at that part of me that does it instead of look at it like, man, it just keeps moving and I'm never able to have any fun. Sometimes that can help me have a little bit of a different space there.

I get long term enjoyment out of it. Little hits of it here and there. So the award is actually up in my room at my parents house, like, where I grew up. And this is where I still have artwork that I made in high school that's on the walls and hats that I had signed by people that are hanging there. It's, like, my room. And so the award is, like, hanging up in my childhood room because I feel like that's where it belonged. Most people will put it in, like, a case, and that's where the journey started.

Got it?

And that's where I feel like it just belongs. Like the young kid that never thought he'd play big league baseball, because big league baseball players are superstars. They're different than me. And all of a sudden, I end up being one of those people and have this thing that only the best of the best get. And it's like, still, when I see it up there, I'm like, this is crazy. I have a note from my high school coach threatening to kick me off the team next to the Cy Young award. The disparity between those things is such an interesting contrast, bro.

That's so many feelings. That's so much at once.

Dude.

What? Was he threatening to kick you off?

Or do you remember, dude, I have, like, four or five of them. I got thrown out of a game one time. I was hitting, and umpire made a bet what I thought was a bad call. So I flipped my bat, and I drew a line in the sand of where the ball crossed the plate. Didn't say a word. I got tossed. And then, of course, you're getting thrown out of a game. Not good. Look, for the high school program, there's times where the park I mentioned earlier where I'd go up and do practice, I would go up there and throw base. There's a tennis court with, like, a really high fence next to a big open grass field. And so I would throw long toss on the open grass field, and the ball would hit the fence and die there. And I had to throw by myself. So I'd have two buckets of balls, and I would throw them all and then go pick them up and keep throwing. And then one of the local tennis instructors didn't like the noise of the ball hitting the fence, and so he would go. And we had this years long feud, and he would come out in the middle of his tennis lessons and grab my buckets of baseballs and steal them so I couldn't throw.

And then he would call the cops on me and all this stuff. But the thing is, there was no signs. It's public park. No signs. On the fence, saying that I couldn't throw against it. We'd gone to city council and cleared it and made sure it was okay. He just didn't like it.

So a lot of just technical back and forth. Yeah, but you like to make sure that you're kind of like me, I think. It seems in some ways, I think I always wanted to make sure how I felt was known. I always wanted to have my say in things or be able to have my say. That's what I felt like. And sometimes it's a blessing and sometimes.

It'S a curse, for sure. I remember the morning that that kind of changed for me. I was 17 in high school. I had gotten up in the morning to go to the YMCA, did my preschool workout, came back, showered, was looking in the mirror. I was like, what is it about me that I don't have friends, that people don't like me, that they bully me, that they pick on me, all this stuff? And I just made the decision that day. I was like, I like myself. I'm good in school. I treat people well. I'm hardworking. I'm whatever. I like what I see looking back at me. So I'm going to be okay with that, and I'm going to stop chasing approval from other people, and as long as I can be proud of myself, I'm cool with it. And so that gave me the freedom internally to have a voice. And when someone would say something to me, I'd fire back and I would feel better about myself because I felt like I was defending myself and standing up for myself. And my life got a lot better through the rest of high school and into college because of that, because I felt like I had a voice and I was being heard instead of just being swatted down all the time.

And then as my life situation changed, something that can be good at one point can be bad at other points. As my life situation changed, as people stopped picking on me as much as I got into professional baseball and my profile in baseball grew, I was still very quick to just fire back at people and fans, normally in the bantery, good natured way, but media people, on air personalities, writers and stuff like that, they would write something about me that I didn't like or that I disagreed with or I felt was untrue. That's one thing that really bugs me, is when someone writes something that is not true about anyone because it affects the person's reputation and stuff. So I would just fire back at them, and I was like, okay, I'm justifying this to myself because they attacked me first and they said this stuff isn't true. They set the terms where they're going to just come out of. They're going to go out of their way to, like, I wouldn't pick on them. They're going to come after me. Well, okay. Unleash it, like, fire back.

Yeah, I think makes good sense.

Yeah. I would just unload on people, though. Said some pretty hurtful things, and then I get the reputation of being this combative person, which I'm not, but that's how I appeared online, and I don't think I updated how I behaved and interpreted the world. I don't think I updated that as quickly as my life situation changed.

I see.

And so I got to a point where I didn't need to be doing that stuff. And there's a much more mature way to handle those things, like, just have a conversation with a person instead of just online firing back. So that's one thing. Over the last couple of years, I've really tried to update, evolve in, update how I perceive the world and how I operate in the world to match my life situation.

Well, sometimes it makes sense that sometimes the world doesn't take into account that we have to get to certain places where we have enough space to look around at our environment and update our own software. Right. And sometimes that takes time, and that's just what it is. But the media is also gross. I'll say that. You don't have to say that. And I think the media is very gross these days. There's countless things that are printed all the time and said that have no. Jurisprudence. Is that a word, Nick? Why am I saying that?

Sounds right.

Jurisprudence.

I don't know. What?

Oh, it just means a legal system. Oh, yeah. I don't know. Merit. I don't know. I think I remember just reading scarlet letter, and that popped into my head for some reason, but I'm forever stuck on whatever books I read. Like fucking 9th grade, bro. Forever, dude. People, you have a good vocabulary. I'm like, dude, if it wasn't in fucking the scarlet letter, dude.

I don't know it.

But no, it's interesting, man. And especially, I think, learning more about you. You see, like, oh, well, this guy has had to kind of create his own operating software to fit what works with him and his world. And a lot of people, you don't get to know that about him.

I think society, there should be more. The way society is right now is everything's, like, very short attention span and very final. It is this or it is that. And then that's true for the rest of time, where in reality, it's like this might have been the case at this specific moment in time with these circumstances. This person feeling one way on that day because of this other thing, this other person feeling this other way, and then that situation changes. So the people change the next day, the next week, the next year. But you look back at something someone said five years ago, and you're like, oh, well, he's a terrible person because of this, or, oh, I love him because of this one thing. When it's a tiny snapshot of a brief moment that doesn't describe the whole of the situation, the person, the intent, anything but society, I think, is, like, so short with forming an opinion.

Well, especially with athletes, you only get to see certain amounts of them. And when they go on to a lot of long form conversations, a lot of times there's a lot of fear about saying certain. They don't want to say, too. They don't want to get in trouble. You only see certain snapshots of them on the sideline. You see a guy get upset two times, you have no idea what's happened or what's going on, but suddenly you're like, oh, that guy's the problem, dude.

I saw the best example of that. It's NBA game. I think it was Durant. It might have been someone else, but I'm just going to say it was Durant because that's what's in my head. But he's doing an interview right on the court, right after the game, right? And the reporter asked him a question. He's got a microphone in his face. Oh, yeah. The team this and that and the other, whatever. And he's got this polished. You can tell he's been trained, like, how to talk to the media, say words without saying anything at all.

Not a whole lot of anything at all, basically, but say something.

So in the middle of one of his answers, one of his teammates, or I think someone from the other team comes up to like, hey, good game. And he steps away from the microphone for, like, 3 seconds and completely changes, just like, oh, what's up, brother? He's great. Going into this whole thing with someone that he's comfortable with in a different way, and he comes back to the interview, right back into the media mode, and I'm like, if that's not the perfect example of how what you see is not always what is true, right? I don't know what is.

Yeah. There's a certain protecting of the realm in a lot of ways. Which part of it makes sense, too, especially, I think, with baseball, because baseball has this. I have to pee so bad, man. Is that okay?

Sure.

Do you have to pee? Are you okay?

I'm good.

Wow, that's amazing when people don't have to pee to me. So your career was going great, and then you had the incident that happened with the allegations. Right? Is that the best way to say it? How do people.

Yeah, I mean, there's allegations against me, stuff I didn't do, but Dick gets out in social media. The media writes about it, and to be fair, they were very serious allegations like what was alleged should be investigated and should be taken very seriously. Just the way the system works. Those allegations get made, there's an open investigation. I'm advised not to say anything. So it's a very one sided discussion for a long period of time.

Right.

And then that influences public perception over it. And then when the facts start coming out, when the truth starts coming out, it's a much smaller. There's a lot less buzz around it. And so the public perception has already been influenced in a certain way.

It must have been harrowing to go through.

Yeah, it sucked. It sucked. It still sucks.

And it doesn't even sound like it was that. It sounds like there was just, you messaged with a woman online. You guys both agree to spend time together. You spend time together. It's later revealed that she had the idea that she had a plan or a strategy to. Did it say, like, to take from you? I'm trying to think what the strategy was.

There's texts about taking my money, getting in. Yeah, stuff like that.

Yeah. Next victim, star pitcher for the Dodgers. And what's so crazy is Trevor is like, three months ago. I'm looking at some stuff online. Am I okay talking with you about this? Yeah. Do you feel okay?

For sure.

All right. I'm looking at some stuff online. I see pictures of the girl, and I'm like, how do I know this? Had. She had connected with me over social media at some point, and we met up. She came to a comedy show, and then she came afterwards. We went to my hotel. We just sat in the lobby and chatted. And she knew some friends. We had some mutual friends and stuff, but we just sat there and chatted. And then I got her an uber home. Thank goodness, I guess. But I'm, like, looking at. I'm like, how do I. But even that to me, because I know she. I felt like she wanted to stay over and spend time. It just blew my mind. I'm like, was this person doing this kind of stuff regularly, or was it just happenstance that anyway, and that got me even more into your world, kind of. And I really started to look back at what had gone on. And, man, I think a lot of people felt like it was just a really raw deal.

Yeah, I certainly feel that way. I can't change it, obviously, at this point. It is what it is. The situation happened. I've had to. I've had to do, like, two, like, two main things. One, I've had to self reflect, how did I get into this situation where something like this is even possible? And then two, I've had to look towards the future and try to have something that I'm moving towards or something that I'm trying to accomplish, because if I don't and I would just get mired in this really negative stuff, and that's not good for mental health, it's not good for productivity or the people that I'm around or, wow, stuff like that. So I've done a lot of reflecting and looking at mistakes that I made. A lot of that. There's a lot of components to this whole situation. Number one, my interactions with females in general. I paid very little attention to my personal life because I was so focused on baseball. And then when I started my businesses, it was baseball and business, and I didn't pay attention to anything else. I didn't think any of it. Someone would hit me up on instagram and like, oh, yeah, do whatever.

I didn't think anything of it at the time. It was like, well, I treat people well and I'm respectful, and I'm not doing anything improper. And so that's fine.

Yeah, that's a way to live. I'm living the way you're supposed to be living.

Yeah. And it never even crossed my mind that something like this could happen. But I was associating with people that were not, that didn't see. People were, like, hitting me up on Instagram because they knew me somehow, but I didn't know them right. I would just meet up with them. I knew very little about them. That was dangerous in my position. Part of discuss about the software update, I see myself as just this guy that's like, even with everybody else. And then I get into a position in life where that's not the case, and I become a target, and I just didn't see the signs of being a target or whatever. And so I didn't update my software early enough.

It's a bummer. Yeah, it's a bummer because you want to be able to meet people on even terms. That's the toughest thing about sometimes having some popularity, I think. And something that's sometimes kind of like, I don't want to say sad because nobody's like, hey, look, man, you get to have a lot of neat.

Yeah. I don't ever want to come off like a victim. I was treated.

No, I don't think it's this way or whatever.

It's just like there are realities to the certain situations, right? Definitely. Very positive, like being a professional athlete and having that opportunity. There's so many positives to it. I don't ever want to come off like I'm complaining, but there are certain realities that go along with it that you have to be cognizant of. I didn't update quick enough to be cognizant of them before it happened. I've updated now. I've changed a lot of things. How I do things in my personal life, I'm very careful of who I meet and how I meet them. I'm not having the same type of just casual sexual relationships. And I'm not agreeing to do the same types of sexual things. I'm not dating a bunch of people. I've really locked down my personal life and gone back to the square one. What do I care about in a personal relationship? Okay? I want someone that's ABCD, whatever. Okay. Let me go try to find those things actively instead of just being okay with anybody that's approaching me. Just to have someone around in those blank moments where like, oh, I have 2 hours at night and I have nothing to do, so I'll just have someone.

I'll meet up with somebody.

Exactly.

Yeah. Oh, dude, look, I can relate. I'm not trying to take your conversation here, but just young men can relate to that. Just the same type of thing. And even young women, it's like it just becomes a habitual thing. People think there's. But it's like, yeah, sometimes the reason why maybe I haven't landed exactly where I would like to be if I just kind of take whatever shooting star passes through the sky as opposed to going out and looking for somebody that's the real fucking sunshine and not you, Mike Clevenger, but like, preferably a female. But yeah, I feel you, man. It's like I can all day because people just kind of come and go all the time. And that's fine. You can do that. But if you really want to go out and emulate what you want into the world and then hopefully get that back.

Yeah. I think long term wise, it's just a much more healthy situation for me personally to be surrounded by people that are interested in the same things that push me in a positive way, to get better, to learn more, to achieve more or whatever, that support me in moments. That's one of the biggest things, is getting through the last couple of years. Even today, it's still a struggle today with. There's still ongoing ramifications of everything, but just having the support group around you that, you know, these people care about you and not the attributes, not the bank account or the fame or the notoriety or whatever, the lifestyle, having that support group, weeding out some of the people that were around that didn't feel that way and really locking down the people that you vibe with and that, you know, have your back and are going to give you some of those free spaces to mess up. And as long as you learn and continue getting better, they're not just gone when one bad thing happens.

Right.

That's been so important, and I'm so thankful for those people. My family, my business partners, my agent, Rachel. There's a lot of other people, friends. I can't name everybody, of course, but those people, the support group that are there, it's so important.

Yeah. Like when shit hit the fan, right? Was it totally a shock to you?

It was pretty bad, yeah. I went from focusing on my next start to then, like, this article came out, and then I'm having all these conversations, and then I'm not allowed at the field, and I'm still going to pitch in two days, but then I'm not going to pitch in two days, and then I can't take the team flight back because I'm not allowed to be with the team right now. And then I can't take a commercial flight back home because my name's everywhere and it's such a big story that it's going to be a disaster. Taking commercial flight to renting a car and driving from DC back across the United States in the middle of season, not knowing when I'm going to rejoin.

Who drove with you?

I drove with my agent, Rachel. Yeah, she was in DC, and then we were there for two or three days and then drove back across country. Yeah, it happened pretty quick. And then obviously you have the legal stuff that plays out. You have investigation and was never arrested for anything, never charged with anything. Yeah, there was never any that drug out for. Drug out is the wrong word, because the allegations are serious and they looked into them thoroughly, and I respect the hell out of the police for doing that. I think all allegations like this should be looked into with that amount of thoroughness. But it lasted for nine months before the decision was made that there was going to be no charges whatever. The whole time I was not able to be with a team. There was no resolution. I didn't know when any of those decisions were going to come out. So I'm just in this holding pattern. And then there was MLB suspended me, and then we appealed the suspension, and then that took another, I don't even remember how long that took. Another period of time. Things move slowly as they go through courts and as they go through arbitrations and stuff like that.

Who was really there for you while you.

Have been? Parents have been great. Rachel, I've mentioned she was there. My business partner, tosh. A lot of my employees that I consider close. Eric, you know, we've hired more people along the way as well that have been there all the time. Yeah. Friends. I mean, there's people that I just know that since high school or whatever that would check in with me. Coaches, I don't want to name names because I don't know, whatever, but a lot of coaches that I've known through baseball, a lot of players, teammates, you.

Had some good support.

Yeah. And I think it's because people that I've played with, people that I've been in the clubhouse with, people that I've known personally, looked at their experience with who I am and what they know of me and what's being said, and they just like, nope, there's no way. There's no way that think, you know, publicly, it's been seen as, like, there's reports that Dodgers organization doesn't want me around and teammates don't this, and I'm not welcome here and all that stuff, but what's been seen publicly and my experience of what's been going on kind of behind the scenes and my interactions with people and stuff like that have been completely different.

Wow.

So it's been good knowing that the people that I know that have been around me have that amount of, I guess, trust or have had a good experience with me. Believe.

Yeah. I saw Mookie Beth said some nice things. That's what they put out in the articles. You just don't know with a lot of these articles, man. And the lawyers, too. That's the shadiest part. Sometimes it seemed like in your instance, the lawyers use the media to make you look worse.

Yeah, that's exactly.

Why wouldn't you just do what the rule, man, that fucking made me. It was sickening.

I don't know enough about the legal system to warrant having an opinion, so I don't want this to come off as, like, I am advocating for one thing or another, but it seems like there's this loophole, having been through it, where you can make a domestic violence restraining order request. You can file for one of those, and you can write a whole bunch of stuff, and that's fine because you have to be able to write what happened and make your claim, and then that is filed, that becomes a public document. You don't have to attach your name to it, but you can attach the other person's name to it.

Wow.

And then it takes time for that to go through, to get scheduled, to get heard, to get decided upon. But the damage in today's society has already been done. As soon as that becomes public that we went to the domestic violence restraining order court, which is like, the lowest standard of proof that you have to in order to get that, to win a domestic violence restraining order. It's the lowest standard of proof. We went to that and won. There was no restraining order granted, but in the month, or I think it was actually like a month, and I think it was like six weeks in between when the initial filing and articles came out and when that happened. That's six weeks of one side of the story being out there. And damage is done. I can't tell you not to say anything. Yeah. And I've had great legal representation, and they've advised me well along the way. And the advice is don't say anything. And it kills me because I want to defend myself. I want to get the truth out there. And then it's like, okay, well, what's the reparation for the damage that's been done here?

And it doesn't seem like there's any sort of. Maybe there's some sort of update that can be made to that process. I also see the other side of it where for people that are in those situations that need a place to be able to go and get help and to get out of a bad situation and to protect themselves, we never want to discourage that from happening either. No, I don't know what the solution is here, but just like, having talked to people in professional sports, a lot of people have reached out and like, hey, man, I went through something similar. This is what they did to me, or this is what happened in my case, or this seemingly was helpful or whatever. This is a thing that happens a lot. Again, I just know what happened with me from what I've been told. Right, this is your instance. Yeah. The general way is like you make these allegations and then tell the person you're going to file this thing and in order and the implications is going to be very bad for you. And so then money exchanges hands and I've talked to multiple people where that's been the case.

Right. So it's just like people can do that and then you have to pay to get rid of it.

Yeah.

I don't know how they have data and it's tough that they don't have to attach their name to it because then there's no real repercussions for them. I'm sorry you had to go through that, man. I know that doesn't help or anything, but I think a lot of people probably feel that way.

We all have our struggles and I'm very fortunate to be in the position I am even with all this stuff. I'm not blind to that. And so again, I never want to come off as like, oh, woe is me. And I was victim. I don't think anything like that.

I mean, I believe that you were a victim there and I'll just say that for myself, but I don't think you sound like that at all.

It was a tough situation. We all have tough situations in life and hopefully something that I say about how I got through it or how I am trying to learn from past mistakes and be better is helpful to the next person that goes through it. So it makes their time a little bit easier than my time was.

It's thoughtful of you. It's kind of a powerful to get to that place. I'm sure it's been an interesting journey.

It's been interesting. I think in like ten years, when I look back on it, I think there'll be a lot of things in my life that have happened because of changes that I made during this time period that I'll be very happy with. It's just very hard to see off into the future when you're so in it and when you feel like everything you knew about your world is completely gone, you're basically just torn down to zero. Where do I go from here? What am I doing? But as far as updating the software and stuff, I think I'll be happy in five or ten years. That changes that I've made because of this experience have helped me grow as a person.

Fuck, dude. It is a high road attitude to hear from you.

For me, I can't go any other road because it's poisonous.

What's next then? What's next? How do we get to see you? Because I want to see you go for that second sight. Young, I'm going to be really honest with you.

Yeah, I'd love to. I mean, that's the goal I'd like to play in MLB. Looking for a contract? I've been training the whole time. We talked earlier about how baseball is like my backdrop. When things go bad, I go back to this, and this has been one of the most difficult things is when baseball is taken away, what do I fall back on? So I just fell back on training. So I've improved since last people saw me. I'm throwing harder. I've developed new pitches. My command is better. I'm still one of the best pitchers in the world. I'd love to prove that. Obviously, I realize there's a lot of other considerations besides just talent at this point. So I'm hopeful that I get a job and I get an opportunity to go out and prove that I'm good and I have a lot to offer. I think I got a lot to offer the baseball community as a whole, with content, entertainment and all that. I have a lot to offer a team. One of the things I'm really passionate about is helping young baseball players have their journey be easier than mine. So we actually train.

I think we got like 20 guys that we train for free at my facility in Arizona in the offseason, pro guys that come in. I've been working with all the pitchers there and developing pitches and feel and mindset and all that stuff. I love that stuff. So I have a lot to offer from that perspective, I think, to a team and clubhouse that I'm with, obviously, like performance, like, you got to win games. I know I can do that. That's not even a question in my mind.

What was like the financial. Because you were making good money, right?

Yeah. So I won the Saiyang in 2020, and then that was your contract year. I was a free agent after that. Yeah.

Wow, that is a dream.

Very fortunate.

And look, I love it when dudes get paid. That's what George Kittle told me. He goes where everybody's happy when somebody gets paid, man.

Yeah, for sure.

You had three years. 102,000,000.

Yeah. So it was a kind of a unique structure. I had opt outs after every year. The plan was always to play the first two years and then opt out and be a free agent. After the third and I would have been two years for 85 million, the way the contract worked out. So an average value of 42 and a half million a year. Wow. Which was the highest annual average value at that time for any baseball player. I think showhay just crushed it.

No way. You were like the top of the heat.

Yeah. Wow.

And did they still have to pay you a certain amount of that?

Yeah, I got some of it. I also lost some of it in the, I don't remember exactly what the numbers shook out to be, but I lost a significant amount of it with the suspension and stuff like that.

And was it expensive, like the attorney fees and all that?

Yeah, man. Lawyers are very much needed. Like very specialized and you need them, but very expensive. Yeah. Obviously baseball has given me a lot. Financially, I'm doing fine. I don't want to come off like, I'm not. I don't think you sound like, but it's been a heavy hit for sure.

And how do your agents do you try to go back at the same rate? How does that even work? Is that fair to ask you about? Ask you about.

Yeah, that's fine. I just want to play. That's where I'm at. I'll play for league minimum and earn my money based on incentives. I don't care. Whatever the structure for the team is that makes them most comfortable, it's fine with me. You heard I just want to go.

Play incentive based, right? Yeah. I'll show you. Yeah.

If you sign me and something's not going right and you don't like the reaction or you don't, whatever, you can cut me and then you don't have to bear the brunt of signing this. Let's say it's a $10 million contract and something's not going right and you still have to pay the 10 million. I don't need that. I want a job. I want to go play. And let me just prove that I'm still one of the best pitchers. Let me prove that I have a lot to offer the organization and then I'll get paid an incentives I'll earn based on what I perform. I'm happy with that. I've always wanted to be that way, too. I've only wanted to sign one year contracts because I never want to be the guy that signs a long term deal and then is like, okay, well, I'm getting paid regardless, so performance doesn't matter and I'm just going to play out my years or whatever.

Yeah, I'm just going to get massages or whatever. Paint my nails or whatever.

Yeah. Shout out to the guys that paint their nails. No problem with it.

Yeah, no judgment. Yeah.

But I'm an intense competitor, and I just want to go compete, and I would like to be compensated fairly for what I produce. So if I produce nothing, I don't feel like I should be compensated anything. If I'm the best pitcher in the league, I feel like I should be compensated for being the best pitcher in the league. And the easiest way to do that is just, like, minimum risk for the team. I'll play for the minimum, and then if I pitch really well, then have incentives that reward me for pitching really well, and the value that I give to the team is equally shared, and both sides feel like they won.

Wow.

I'm happy to have any sort of, like, I want to work together with the team. I want to be a positive in the community, in the clubhouse, on the field, Overall, for the game of baseball, I know that I can be, that. I have no questions about it, which is why I have no problem taking an incentive based contract, because I know that I can go out there and deliver. I know the type of person that I am. I know the type of results that I'm going to be able to produce, and I'm willing to bet on myself in that way.

Amen.

But at the end of the day, I just want to compete. I just want a chance to go compete and do the thing that I've spent 30 years becoming one of the best in the world at, and the thing that I love to do.

Bro, if we had a spot here, I'd hire you right now. I'd hire you to pick.

What would you call it? What'd your team name be?

Oh, that's a great question.

Put you on the spot.

What's a good team name? Probably maybe the reverb or the lisps.

The lisps?

Yeah. One of my best friends growing up, Douglas, had a lisp, and I would impersonate him because he had the unique voice. One of the teachers one time thought I was making fun of him. I'm like, what do you. He's God. Put that remix in him like he's doing something different. I just thought it was so know. So the list could be kind of cool because it's like, taking something that can be considered kind of, like, maybe not the best, but making it positive be pretty dope. What else?

The Nashville Lisps, dude, it's got a.

List.

I sign up, dude.

That'S not like, howie Mandel saying that joke. But, dude, if we could afford you, even at basic minimum, we'd pay you to pitch here. But we don't have a team. We don't have a field. But, God, dude. Yeah. We just got to see you back out there. There's no valid reason why you shouldn't be back out there.

Yeah, I appreciate you saying that.

There's no valid reason. It doesn't even make nothing. If the universe doesn't make this happen, it doesn't even make any sense anymore.

Yeah. I'm hopeful that it will. I'm hopeful it will. I would like to entertain people. I'd like to pitch. I'd like to win.

When does spring training start?

Usually, like second week around Valentine's day. Second week of February. Some teams are like February twelveth. Some teams like February 16. They all kind of report at different dates, but yeah. Middle of February, bro.

Date with the diamond.

Yeah.

And that's not Dustin Poirier. I'm talking about baseball diamonds. Yeah, we could see it, bro.

Yeah. Just looking for an opportunity. I want to play in MLB. I love Japan. I have absolutely nothing negative to say about Japan. And at some point, being separated from the culture that I'm comfortable with and I'm used to it was tough. And being away from friends and family and stuff like that, everyone there made it so much better than it could have been. And I'm very appreciative. But yeah, I would like to play an MLB. I would like to chase the second sigh. Young. I'd like to try to win a World Series. I finished second.

Oh, yeah. You guys came in second place with the Dodgers.

No, with Cleveland in 2016. And I finished second in college. We lost to TCU in the national championship or not TCU to South Carolina in national championship. So I finished second twice. I'd like to actually win one.

Wow. Yeah, dude, it would be so cool. What if you got to play with the Padres? What if you got to play with the Dodgers? Walker Bueller plays over there.

They just went and signed Shohei and Yamamoto.

Right.

I talked to Yamamoto when I was in Japan through an interpreter. He's a pretty special pitcher. I'm excited to see how he does. Would love to play there.

Shohei is a pitcher over there too, right? Shohei is Shohei Yamamoto. Bueller.

Bueller. Kershaw is a free agent. Still. I don't know if he's going to sign back.

I'm not sure Spine's going to hold.

It, but I mean, he's pieced up in the spine.

He's amazing, but you got to massage that. You got to get him into that Wagyu shape because his body turns so much.

He's got so many innings under his belt at such a high level that no one's body can take it forever. Right. But I mean, even so, with all the years and the mileage, he put up a fantastic season last year. It's incredible. Seeing what the longevity that he's had and the consistency of results. It's crazy.

And their head coach, who's the Dodgers head coach?

Dave Roberts.

Yeah, dude, that guy's cool, man. Bring up a picture of Dave Roberts, dude.

UCLA?

Yeah, bro. Oh, do you play with him at UCLA, too?

I didn't play with him, but he's a Bruin. Yeah.

Wow, dude. Yeah, he's cool, man. He's funny. Yeah, they got some funny guys over there. It's a cool organization.

It'd be cool to play. I'd obviously love to play for him. It'd be cool to play against them, too, because of the big. They just went and spent like $1.2 billion in free agency. Like, okay, this is the juggernaut. Let's go see if we can take them down type of thing. Yeah, I could get up for either one of them. Mainly I want to play, man, I miss competing.

Yeah. Was there certain parts of the season that are tougher to watch? Like when it gets in a playoffs or it's all just kind of tough.

It's been tough to watch baseball because I know I'm good enough to be out there and I want to be out there, and I haven't had the opportunity to be out there. When I was in Japan last year, I watched a lot of games because I was like, okay, I'm here, I'm playing. I'm like, in it. I can respect what the other people are doing. I can learn from it. I'm like, figuring things out, and that was nice to have some of that back. I don't think it's been healthy for me to consume MLB content the last couple of years, which is sad because everything that I've tried to build is grow that entity and to help build it, and then I'm still involved in doing that, but I'm just pursuing it in a slightly different way where I'm not really watching games and I'd like to get back to a place where I can watch and be interested and appreciate the great things that other people in the league are doing. I've just had to be a little bit protective of my mental health on that front.

Yeah, because it would just break your heart, probably.

Yeah, it was tough, man. Like, seeing what other guys are doing and not being able to be happy for them, feeling that resentment of like, well, I should be out there being able to compete, too. God.

You should have been. There's no reason.

Yeah.

I can't even imagine.

I don't like being negative towards other people and of other people's accomplishments. I like to look at things and be like, wow, this person is really, really good. And I can appreciate it because I do it in all other sports. Like, I watch Brady play and I'm like, I'm going to watch as much of this as possible because he's going to be gone at some point and you got to appreciate what this is.

Yeah. Same with Saban.

Saban and Mahomes Clark.

I do that with and Kaylin Clark. Me and Kayla Presley want to come to your game, so if he can help us. Sorry, I just had to say that out loud, dude.

Love it.

Misty Pete. That's what I call a. I love watching. I think because there was no criminal wrongdoing. There was nothing wrong. There was nothing wrong. You can find things that, if you look at yourself. Yes, I could adjust some of these behaviors and stuff, but as a human being behaving in the world, to not have done anything wrong and to have. It's really just a trial that you've been through. It's almost like a fucking scarlet letter. It was like a scarlet letter in a way.

Yeah. You get branded with something and then I'll carry it the rest of my life. I'll always be known for this in some way. And hopefully over time, it'll be less. And the positive things that I do will get more attention and be more synonymous with my brand, but this will always be there, which is tough. It's tough to.

I can't even imagine.

I can't think about it, too.

Such a. It's such an. We don't have to do any. I can't do shit. But it'd be like the. I would love to see you get to play with the padres, too, dude. They got Benny Snell over there on. They.

He's a free agent right now. I think they got. I love. I love.

They got Musgrove.

Yeah. They got a great team.

Yeah. And they just got a new head coach on football, too. Who was it they got?

Who? The Harbaugh. The Chargers. At Harbaugh? Yeah, from Michigan.

They got Harbaugh. He might come out to a game that would be cool.

Go blue. I got some friends that are big.

They were. All those people were so geeked recently.

They had a crazy season. All the adversity they went through as a team. Yeah. It's crazy when you watch that and you're like, okay, adversity either tears you apart or makes you so much stronger. They really came together, and they put together a hell of a run.

What do you say? What are your thoughts? Because you're almost relatable to, like. I mean, it's very scary. Like somebody being in any sort of public Persona or something or popularity. It's very scary. Right, man. God. But there's probably guys who are imprisoned right now for things that they didn't do, for sure.

And I try to keep that perspective. This has sucked.

I'm not trying to belittle what you went through.

It could be way worse.

But you're a person who is able to set goals and set and really get through some of the tougher parts of life by your own manifestations and game planning. Right. It seems like in your life, what did you do? Because I'm sure there are guys sitting in a cell right now who might be able to learn some stuff.

Yeah. I think one of the biggest things is talking about it. That was one of the toughest things is I couldn't talk about it publicly. So having someone privately that you could just talk to about it, to at least hear yourself vocalize what you're feeling. If I didn't have someone to talk to, I would not have made it through this. That's a huge thing. It's scary to talk about things a lot of times and be viewed as vulnerable or to be viewed. You don't know how the other person is going to view your perspectives, but it's so important. So I'd say, first thing, find someone to talk to, whether it's a therapist, whether it's a friend, a family member. A lot of people aren't fortunate enough to have family members around to talk to or they don't have those relationships. But find someone that you can talk to and be honest with. Yeah. Be able to just tell it how you're feeling it.

Yeah. Be honest about how you're feeling.

Yes. That's the biggest thing I'd say. And then having something, some goal. Humans need a purpose. We don't do well when we're just existing for. We don't have anything to do. And if you can find some purpose that's controllable. For me, it was business. I had a business. So I woke up in the morning, I'm like, okay, how do we get this thing firing? Or how do we make a better video? Or how do we edit this way? Or, okay, I got to figure out, what higher do we need to make? So there was something that I was in control of, that I was actively doing, that I could distract myself, in a way from the negative stuff and focus on something that was aspirational, like, okay, in the future, when all this stuff is done, because it's going to be done at some point, it may be a day, it might be a year, it might be ten years. It's not going to last forever. So at some point in the future, when it's done, what is it that I have that I've been building that I can aspire? What position do I want to be when this is done, and can I make progress towards that?

That's how I was, like, talking about it and having some sort of aspirational goal that I was chasing. But, yeah, the support group is so big, man.

Yeah.

Just being able to vocalize your feelings is important.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm in a lot of support groups, dude.

Yeah.

Fortunately and unfortunately. But some of those moments are the best moments of my life. Dealing with addiction and learning about recovery and stuff, it's given me some of the greatest gifts of my life, which are great conversations with people and learning how to be around people and feel and stuff like that.

I think that humans learn by failing first and then adjusting behavior and then growing. And it's a sense of pride to be able to feel like you've gotten better at something or you're in a better place or a better person because of something. But the moments where you're failing when you're in that, those are tough. But being able to have that comeback is so important because that's where you feel that sense of accomplishment or that sense of purpose or whatever it is. You get something from that. If you never fail at anything, life's just like, there's no richness to it. So I can understand how some of those moments, you fail at something, you end up in a bad place, and you find a way to pull yourself back up, and it feels a sense of pride.

Yeah, man. It's interesting how much you work with your own integrity and your own setting goals for yourself, and it seemed like you have probably a knowledge of yourself on a unique level that some people don't get to have, man. And I think that's.

I think being an introvert, I don't do well, in the social situations like we talked about. So I spend a lot of time thinking, and a lot of it's about external stuff, but I try to think internally, too, and try to figure out why a lot of time, okay, I did this thing. Why did I do that? What prompted me to react this way emotionally to this situation? Or what prompted me to go, want to do why do I like cars? Or what is it? Right? Yeah, I'm trying to figure out that puzzle. Because I'm a puzzle.

Yeah, you're the puzzle, and you're the guy doing the puzzle. That's kind of cool once you realize that, because it can make your life kind of richer in a way, when you start to, like, not only am I me, but I'm also. I can look at me.

Yeah. And it's a challenge because you want to look at yourself very surface level and be like, oh, yeah, I'm good. I look good today. I'm in good shape. Like, oh, things are good. But when you start digging down, maybe I'm not good in this area. How could it be better? Or, like, I don't know if I like this part about me. Is it bad? Is it good? I don't know. How do I actually feel about this? Maybe I want to try to do this a little bit better. Those are conversations I have with myself all the time.

Like, fucking interesting dude, bro. You're a strange dude.

Yeah, I dig it. I'm aware that I'm a little bit.

And I mean that lovingly, bro.

Yeah. I appreciate it.

I really mean that respectfully. We got to order us a Trevor Bauer bobblehead, dude. We got to get one in here on the shelf, man. We want to.

I got some. You do? Somewhere.

Yeah, we're going to make sure to hit up your Rachel and make sure she sends us over one, even if she has to drive it across country to get it here. We want it over here.

I think I have a couple unreleased bobbleheads. So I was supposed to have a bobblehead day with the Dodgers, and so they had sent me some samples as we were, like, designing it, and then I got put on administrative leave before it happened, and so they never ended up releasing the bobbleheads.

Wow.

But they had ordered some stock because they were going to do an in stadium giveaway. So I got my hands on a couple of those that had never actually been released, which I think will be a cool collector item if you happen.

To have one you want to part with or even let us host in here for a while. We're also willing to get one that has a blank jersey on. And when you get your new deal.

All right.

We're happy to put that one in, too.

Yeah. Let me see what I got. I got something for you guys. I haven't looked at the inventory in a couple of years, but I got something.

That'd be sweet, man. Yeah, dude. Yeah, bro. I wonder. Yeah, dude, there's so many teams. How many teams are they? You could play for so many teams.

Yeah, we got 30 teams out there, bro.

Some of them are bad, dude. They need you. Some of these teams are dang bad. Or they could be doing. You could maybe help.

Yeah, I don't think there's a team out there that I wouldn't help in some way. Right. But I also seeing the other side of things, there's a lot of potential distractions, pr concerns. I don't think they would be as much as people think they would be. I think it'd be like a couple of days story, and then it'd be gone. Personally, I could be wrong, but you.

Think there would be some publications out there that would feel like, hey, a way that we could be supportive after maybe leading the charge with not being as supportive with trying to even the score, but I don't know. That's my thoughts.

Yeah. I mean, it'd be nice, of course, but I'm not going to.

It's out of your control.

Yeah. If it happens, it happens. Like, Mookie coming out and saying some stuff publicly was like, I would never ask him to do that.

He just did that.

It meant a lot to me.

Wow.

Mookie's my guy. I love that guy.

Yeah, dude, he built a house in Nashville.

Yeah, that's what I heard.

Anyway. Somebody might have lied.

I texted him the other day. I'm like, what have you been up to, Mooc? He's like, just out here bowling, man.

He likes to bowl.

Yeah, he bowls 300s. He bowls professionally in the offseason.

Some people get all the luck, dude.

Yeah. Have you seen. He can dunk. He's, like, good basketball player, great baseball player, bowler. I'm like, I think he golfs.

Oh, my God.

Dude, he's one of those guys that just, like, you put him in anything athletic, and he's just going to be one of the best guys. Look at that.

Wow. Look at him.

Look at him. He's got the walk.

He's got the walk. Let's look at Mookie bas.

Look at that. You see that little fist pump before the. That's that curry, like, he knows when he let it go that. That's the one.

It's just built into him. It's built into him. Yeah, dude. It's a little bit of Tiger woods esque, too.

The fist pump right there. You could probably overlay those and be.

That's wild. Did you guys ever have some games? Like, is Mookie a card player? Would you guys do stuff?

Like, we had this debate one day. If you took the Dodgers position players and they had to pitch and the Dodgers pitchers and they had to hit, who would win?

This should be a spring training thing.

It should be.

You were always thinking about this kind of stuff.

I was, like, poking at him a little bit. I'm like, dude, we would dominate you guys, for sure. You throw like, 72. He's like, well, you guys wouldn't be able to play defense if we got one hit. And we had this, like, 45 minutes discussion in the clubhouse. It was just like, back and forth half the clubhouse was involved in. It was a big argument. It was great. I hope at some point we get to test that out because it'd be fantastic content.

You're right.

Yeah.

It's a great idea, man. I like the way you think, man. I really do. And I'm grateful to get to spend time with you today, man. And we wish you the best of luck, man. We're going to get that bobblehead in here, and we'll be cheering you on, bro.

I appreciate that. Thanks for having me on. It's been great.

Yeah. That second sigh young baby that's right. Get in there, Trevor Bauer, guys. Thank you, Trevor. Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves I must be cornerstone but when I reach that ground I'll share this piece of my life I found I can feel it in my bones but it's gonna take.