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Speaker 1: Well here at the Chuck Podcast, when you get a

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Speaker 1: book proposal to interview somebody and the book is called

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Speaker 1: Dodgers to Damascus, it's almost as if the publication was

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Speaker 1: trying to identify me as the target's interview e as

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Speaker 1: a Dodger fan, growing up as a political junkie. Now

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Speaker 1: policy junkie a story, and this is a biography. The

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Speaker 1: book itself as a biography of my guest today, David Lesh,

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Speaker 1: who is who began his studies of the Middle East

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Speaker 1: by being a prospect for the Los Angeles Dodgers. We'll

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Speaker 1: let him, I'll it's ways, that's exactly what it was,

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Speaker 1: that the dream of baseball. Like a lot of of

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Speaker 1: aspiring baseball players, injuries can sometimes get in the way

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Speaker 1: of a career. And you use another part of your body,

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Speaker 1: your brain to pursue another passion, which is what David

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Speaker 1: Lesh did. And it's a fascinating story. And the book

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Speaker 1: is fascinating but sort of lessons from baseball to help

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Speaker 1: resolve the Middle East crisis or crises plural. So David

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Speaker 1: Lesh joins me now the subject of the book, David,

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Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. It's nice to meet you.

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Speaker 2: Nice to meet you, too, supposed to be. I'm glad

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Speaker 2: the book sound its way across your desk. That's great.

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Speaker 1: So let me ask this what's it? I mean it

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Speaker 1: is this. You didn't write the book, you participated. It

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Speaker 1: is an authorized biography. That's it's almost like your.

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Speaker 2: You you you.

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Speaker 1: I always say it's sort of it's going to be

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Speaker 1: awkward with It's like you are willing to expose yourself

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Speaker 1: to the to the world. And I think when you're

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Speaker 1: when somebody writes a biography of somebody that's still alive, right, You're, You're,

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Speaker 1: that's a lot of you got to You're You're always

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Speaker 1: being asked to give more and more. What did it

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Speaker 1: feel like to read about yourself through a third person?

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Speaker 2: It was weird. You definitely are identifying the awkwardness of

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Speaker 2: it for me. In fact, Catherine Nixon Cook, who did

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Speaker 2: such a wonderful job as an accomplished author, who wrote

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Speaker 2: this book, and she called me one time she said, David,

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Speaker 2: I'm having trouble writing the last chapter. And I said why,

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Speaker 2: and she said, because you're still alive, you know you're That's.

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Speaker 1: Wuld be my challenge as a writer if I had

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Speaker 1: this assignment. You know, you're you're you. You want to

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Speaker 1: make a conclusion about somebody's life or legacy, and if

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Speaker 1: they're still alive, how do you word it in a

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Speaker 1: way that doesn't make them either feel like you're doing

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Speaker 1: their obituary or you're taking a shot at them.

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Speaker 2: Well, that my wife is over now, you know, I

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Speaker 2: can't do anything else. But I'm still active and I

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Speaker 2: have a lot to look forward to, I hope. But

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Speaker 2: she did a good job. In fact, the last chapter

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Speaker 2: is entitled Stay Tuned, which hopefully as a metaphor for

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Speaker 2: better and bigger things that I can accomplish in my

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Speaker 2: life as we go forward. In all ways, but it

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Speaker 2: was a very weird experience, and I was compelled to

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Speaker 2: be introspective in a way that you know, at this

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Speaker 2: age of my life, I didn't you know, figure I'd

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Speaker 2: be doing. And it forced me to look at a

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Speaker 2: lot of situations throughout my life. It was interesting to

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Speaker 2: see because she interviewed like fifty sixty you know, colleagues

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Speaker 2: and friends, family acquaintances, and it was interesting to see

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Speaker 2: what they thought of me, and which was much better

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Speaker 2: that I had anticipated, by the way. But so it

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Speaker 2: was in a writing experience. It was emotional at times

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Speaker 2: because I had to revisit some periods and events in

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Speaker 2: my life that you know, had a great deal of

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Speaker 2: impact in positive and negative ways. But was it was

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Speaker 2: really I thought, you know, well done by Catherine. A

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Speaker 2: very positive experience overall.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk about what's drawn you to become, you know,

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Speaker 1: the essentially to do all the scholarship that it takes

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Speaker 1: to become a Middle East expert. And I always I

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Speaker 1: put experts in quotes because an expert of what these days, right,

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Speaker 1: it's almost in some ways you're an anthropologist, right, You're

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Speaker 1: a civilization. You're trying to understand and what it really

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Speaker 1: is is. You know, I have my own opinions about

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Speaker 1: how we just don't people don't understand the history of

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Speaker 1: the Middle East before nineteen forty eight, right' that's my

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Speaker 1: largest frustration in sort of the coverage of stuff. But

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Speaker 1: what drew you to it? Why did you want to

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Speaker 1: make this your area of expertise?

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Speaker 2: Well, I struck out it everything else chuck.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, oh, there you go. There's the dad pun

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Speaker 1: striking out there.

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Speaker 2: It is no I think as in most cases, and

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Speaker 2: what I hope I'm doing to some of my students

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Speaker 2: as a professor now is I had a couple of

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Speaker 2: wonderful professors after I, you know, flamed out at baseball

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Speaker 2: with the injury, and I went back to undergrad school

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Speaker 2: and I had two wonderful, wonderful professors. It was just

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Speaker 2: pure luck. I was always interested in international relations. Lou

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Speaker 2: Cantorre and Robert Freeman were the two. They were well

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Speaker 2: known in the field, and they just turned me on

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Speaker 2: to a subject that at that time, you know, the

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Speaker 2: late seventies, early eighties, as you well know, it was

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Speaker 2: not covered very well or objectively. And so I did

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Speaker 2: the more I started studying it, and more importantly, when

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Speaker 2: I started traveling there, I just became enamored with that history,

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Speaker 2: with the people and why things you know, went off

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Speaker 2: the track, so to speak. So much in so many

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Speaker 2: areas in the Middle East. I wanted to understand that

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Speaker 2: and hopefully later on as I as I hope I've

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Speaker 2: done in my books to help explain it to an audience.

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Speaker 1: So I have a bit of a snarky sort of

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Speaker 1: take on when it comes to sort of are what

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Speaker 1: I think is our ignorance about the Middle East, which

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Speaker 1: is and it comes from being a Jewish American, and

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Speaker 1: I'm not a very religious person, but I get I've

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Speaker 1: always felt I've never felt as if that part of

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Speaker 1: my identity mattered until a whole bunch of other people

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Speaker 1: want to tell me it's supposed to matter, and I

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Speaker 1: get sort of if I get my back up, I

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Speaker 1: joke anytime I hear the word populism, whether it's left

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Speaker 1: wing populism or right wing populism, I know the first

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Speaker 1: thing they're doing is coming for the Jews. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I realize in sort of the in the this began

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Speaker 1: before October seventh, but certainly post October seventh, the amount

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Speaker 1: of people that didn't understand the Middle East pre nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty eight, and that really the biggest problem we had

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Speaker 1: generationally was and then it realized, well, how are we

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Speaker 1: taught World War One and World War Two. And I

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Speaker 1: think about World War One and we're I'm guessing you

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Speaker 1: had a similar grade school experience that I did. You're

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Speaker 1: a little bit older than me, but we basically, I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, probably that fairly consistent education there, which was

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Speaker 1: we're taught World War One through the prison of World

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Speaker 1: War Two. You know, we screwed Germany too much, made

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Speaker 1: him angry and it started the Second War. We never

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Speaker 1: talk about the other part of World War One, which

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Speaker 1: was the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and the fact

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Speaker 1: that in some ways, and a couple as I joke,

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Speaker 1: a couple of drunk Frenchmen and Brits decided to draw

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Speaker 1: straight lines and say you get a country you don't

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Speaker 1: you do?

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Speaker 2: You know?

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Speaker 1: And all of a sudden it's the United States. It's

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Speaker 1: left to deal with this mess. Again I'm being it's

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Speaker 1: a bit of a snark, but it's it does get

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Speaker 1: at what I think is the root issue of our

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Speaker 1: misunderstanding of a lot of the Middle East issues, which

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Speaker 1: is not understanding how it all broke apart after the

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Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. My pet peeve is that Americans in general,

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Speaker 2: Westerners especially Americans, had this telescopic view toward the Middle East,

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Speaker 2: and we need a microscopic view, and the telescopic view

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Speaker 2: is quite prejudiced and biased in many different directions.

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Speaker 1: Incomplete, absolutely, and complete is the best description I think.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and you need that microscopic view. But in today's

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Speaker 2: especially as time has gone on, in today's media, as

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Speaker 2: you will know, and sound bites and social media and

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Speaker 2: so forth, people want information in small bytes and small packets,

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Speaker 2: and even foreign leaders, you know, they want that one

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Speaker 2: page brief, less than one page brief instead of reading

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Speaker 2: a whole executive summary, even of a particular problem, especially

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Speaker 2: a country like the United States, which has so many

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Speaker 2: issues all over the world and responsibilities and objectives. If

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Speaker 2: we're a president, to focus on one single thing and

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Speaker 2: really understand it is very very unusual unless they have

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Speaker 2: a background in it. But yeah, I mean the Automan Empire.

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Speaker 2: You talk about the two drawing Frenchmen that Jordan was

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Speaker 2: always said a joke was that Winston Churchill had a

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Speaker 2: hiccup and drew that partage ordinate sticks out. But the

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Speaker 2: reality is it was to connect pipelines from the Version

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Speaker 2: Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. So there was all strategic

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Speaker 2: reasons behind all of this. And one of the things

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Speaker 2: people understand, I think the British and the French obviously

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Speaker 2: allied on the Tient powers in World War One, but

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Speaker 2: they always saw each other as potential enemies.

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Speaker 1: After the war, they were competing for pieces of the

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Speaker 1: Middle East.

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Speaker 2: Right exactly, And so you know, Syke's Pico and all

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Speaker 2: these infamous secret wartime agreements were always you know, from

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Speaker 2: each side aimed at the other for what they hope

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Speaker 2: would be victory and defeating the central Powers, including the

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Speaker 2: Ottoman Empire. But you're right, I mean, the fall of

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Speaker 2: the Ottoman Empire is sort of glossed over, and it's

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Speaker 2: the Eurocentric orientalist view of World War One and what

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Speaker 2: happened with the artificial divisions in the Middle East.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's interesting. This is also this week

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Speaker 1: is the anniversary of Panamanian independence, and essentially Panamanian independence

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Speaker 1: came because Teddy Roosevelt kind of deal because he wanted

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Speaker 1: to a strip of land to build animal canal. So

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Speaker 1: they basically created Panamanian independence, right, And it reminds me

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Speaker 1: of sort of how the Europeans dealt with the Middle East.

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Speaker 1: It's the same way the United States has dealt with

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Speaker 1: Latin America essentially for the last hundred years, which is

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Speaker 1: what can you do in the region for us, not

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Speaker 1: what can we do for you in the region. Is

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Speaker 1: that a simplistic view, But is that how you would

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Speaker 1: sort of describe sort of the Eurocentric relationship with the

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Speaker 1: Middle East over the last hundred years.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought you were going to say, not the

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Speaker 2: one hundred year but the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration,

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Speaker 2: as we were there to that coming up too, agreements,

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Speaker 2: But yeah, absolutely. I mean, all countries act in their

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Speaker 2: own national interests and if they have leverage in terms

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Speaker 2: of those interests, that are going to exercise that leverage.

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Speaker 2: And what Israel has done, you know, ever since it

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Speaker 2: came into being in nineteen forty eight, and what all

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Speaker 2: countries do the British, the French, the Americans, the Russians,

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Speaker 2: and without taking into consideration or very much consideration, the

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Speaker 2: wants and needs of the local populations other than that

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Speaker 2: which will feed their own strategic interests. And so that's

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Speaker 2: that's very very true. And it's you know, the countries

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Speaker 2: in the Middle East, they lack in many ways in

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Speaker 2: national identity, They lack, the rulers lack legitimacy. A lot

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Speaker 2: of that goes all the way back to the artificiality

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Speaker 2: of the heartland of the Middle East.

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Speaker 1: We just created monarchies right out of these tribal leaders.

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Speaker 2: Right monarchies and so called Arab republican regimes that act

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Speaker 2: like monarchies because they want to be. You know, the

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Speaker 2: Mcadafi and Nasir and Mobark and Asad, they all want

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Speaker 2: to be. They all wanted to be and were in

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Speaker 2: some cases succeeded by their sons, so they turned out

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Speaker 2: to be monarchies in effect.

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Speaker 1: So who did you have which aside did you have

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Speaker 1: did you start to strike up I don't want to

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Speaker 1: say relationship, but sort of a conversation with.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that was Bashar al Assad, who came to power

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Speaker 2: in two thousand after his father died. And you know,

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Speaker 2: I'd been going to Syria quite some time, and and

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Speaker 2: you know, I like to consider myself a Middle Eat

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Speaker 2: specialist in media trant areas, but Syria's is definitely my

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Speaker 2: number one specialty. And I traveled the ore over thirty

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Speaker 2: thirty five times over the years, and so I knew

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Speaker 2: I had a pretty good network in Syria. Particularly in

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Speaker 2: mine academics, and when Oside came to power in two thousand,

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Speaker 2: he brought academics into the government, which some fought as

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Speaker 2: you know, hope for the future, others I was.

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Speaker 1: Just going to say, there was a brief period where

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Speaker 1: they thought maybe he'll be a modernizer, maybe he'll be

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Speaker 1: king using right, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah, and or a faisal in Saudi Arabi even

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Speaker 2: the back day in the seventies, and and you know

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Speaker 2: he was young. He liked Western music, he liked Western

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Speaker 2: you know, technological toys. You know, he was a computer nerd.

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Speaker 1: And everyone was educated in London, right educated.

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Speaker 2: He received you know, he was trying to get his

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Speaker 2: what is essentially his Boord certification ophalmology in London. But

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Speaker 2: people have to remember he only spent you know, two

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Speaker 2: years in London. And even though he liked the Electric

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Speaker 2: Light Orchestra and Phil Collins and the Beatles, you know,

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Speaker 2: his upbringing was molded by, you know, being a child

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Speaker 2: of the ar of Israeli conflict, a child of the

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Speaker 2: super power conflict when Syria was on the side of

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Speaker 2: the Soviet Union in Russia, and most most importantly, a

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Speaker 2: child of Hafaz Alalasad, his father, who had a very

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Speaker 2: particular brand of authoritarianism in Syria. So those are the

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Speaker 2: things that shaped his worldview. And I was very interested in,

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Speaker 2: you know, his transition from enthalmologists to ruler. And so

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Speaker 2: I contacted one of these academics he brought in who

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Speaker 2: happened to be the good friend of mine, who was

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Speaker 2: in the Minister of Higher Education, and said, hey, you know,

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Speaker 2: I like to write a book on him. Can I

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Speaker 2: meet with Charlasad? And that's how it all started, and

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Speaker 2: a couple of years later, in two thousand and four,

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Speaker 2: came into being.

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Speaker 1: He's done this with a few Americans over the years,

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Speaker 1: like he seems to constantly. You know, there's there's been

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Speaker 1: a handful of Americans that I feel like I've had

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Speaker 1: that he does want to reach out to the Western side.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and so timing, Yeah, when you reached out

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Speaker 2: to me in two thousand and four through his ambassador

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Speaker 2: to the United States, he was also a friend of mine.

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Speaker 2: It was not a coincidence at that time because it

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Speaker 2: was right after the US led invasion of Iraq and

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Speaker 2: Syria was slowly turning into a target, not slowly, actually

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Speaker 2: quickly turning into a target. Whereas before the invasion, right

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Speaker 2: after nine to eleven, American officials were saying Syria was

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Speaker 2: helping to save lies with intelligence cooperation on al Kaeda.

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Speaker 2: After two thousand and three, now Syria was costing American

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Speaker 2: lives because they were allowing Jahadas to go through their

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Speaker 2: country and into Iraq, which caused problems for the US

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Speaker 2: and its allies. And so, you know, I was very

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Speaker 2: interested in that transition, but he was interested in portraying

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Speaker 2: a more positive image just when Syrian US relations, I

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Speaker 2: think were deteriorating quite a bit.

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Speaker 1: So let's fast forward. What do you think of what's

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Speaker 1: happening in Syria right now? And what kind of faith

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Speaker 1: do you have in this new leader? You know, to

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Speaker 1: go from a you know, essentially the insurgency to the establishment,

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Speaker 1: right whether no matter your political situation, no matter your country,

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Speaker 1: insurgents usually have a tough time governing.

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Speaker 2: That is the question, isn't it? That is the one

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Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars question. I get asked it all the time.

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Speaker 2: I ask other people who know the president much more

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Speaker 2: intimately than the new president, much more intimately than I do,

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Speaker 2: and I still get different responses. Because we really don't know.

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Speaker 2: As you just said, going from revolutionary to ruler is

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Speaker 2: a trying process. It's not always successful. The revolutionary can't really,

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Speaker 2: you know, rule in a way that is different from

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Speaker 2: the way that he handled things beforehand. Plus, and this

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Speaker 2: is throughout history. When rulers of opposition movements they come

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Speaker 2: to power, those that help them come to power want dividends.

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Speaker 2: They want you know, they want positions in the in

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Speaker 2: the government. They have a certain way of looking at things,

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Speaker 2: especially if they come from.

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Speaker 1: S superpowers, what believe they should get a little little

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Speaker 1: extra something as.

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Speaker 2: Well all the time. Yeah, they want not just a little,

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Speaker 2: they want a lot on everything. That So Ahma Shadda,

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Speaker 2: the new president. You know, on the one hand, the

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Speaker 2: Israelis quite frankly, they're skeptical and after October seven, twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty three, and this mcpunker mentality that they have right now,

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Speaker 2: they're want to air in the side of caution. And

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Speaker 2: most of the Israelis I've talked to in the military

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Speaker 2: and politically, you know, they see that Ahma Shada's turn

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Speaker 2: toward moderation, pragmatism, wanting inclusive government is more a tactical

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Speaker 2: maneuver than something that represents a true change, and that

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Speaker 2: he's going to revert to his Jahada's roots at some point.

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Speaker 2: And yet others I've talked to that know him actually personally.

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Speaker 2: One NGO in London knew him for ten years and

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Speaker 2: they are convinced he is pragmatic, he has changed, you know.

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Speaker 2: They he's going to be visiting Washington a week from

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Speaker 2: today and meeting with Trump and they'll probably serial will

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Speaker 2: sign on to the Anti ISIS coalition, which is supposed

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Speaker 2: to be a big deal. But they've been helping in

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Speaker 2: terms of intelligence cooperation with the US and tracking down

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Speaker 2: Okada and ISIS operat Is when he was an indlab

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Speaker 2: for the last decade. Now, he did that because he

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Speaker 2: wanted to clear out and he helped clear out any

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Speaker 2: any opposition or a competition.

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Speaker 1: And I was just going to say, this is a

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Speaker 1: classic case. The enemy of my enemy is my ouse

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Speaker 1: exactly exactly.

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Speaker 2: But we've had this relationship with him for a while

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Speaker 2: that has been tactical and opportunistic. I mean all leaders

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Speaker 2: are opportunistic, they want power, they're egotistical. But if it

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Speaker 2: could be molded, and it couldn't way, so to speak,

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Speaker 2: in a way their population stability than Okay.

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Speaker 1: There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like

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Speaker 1: there's a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury

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Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact,

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Speaker 1: insurance company originally offered. That original offer six hundred and

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Speaker 1: So with more than one thousand lawyers across the country,

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Speaker 1: unless they win. So the first person that popped in

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Speaker 1: my head when you were talking about this debate, you know, No,

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Speaker 1: he's a secret jehatis No, he's a pragmatist was air

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Speaker 1: to one. Yeah. Right, We've had the same debate about

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Speaker 1: air to one now for almost twenty years. No, he

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Speaker 1: can be dealt with. No, he's you know, at the

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Speaker 1: end of the day, he's still Muslim brotherhood, right Like,

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Speaker 1: there's this and yet you know Israel at times doesn't

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Speaker 1: want to deal with them. But he's a necessary you know,

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Speaker 1: he's also the head of a country that's a member

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Speaker 1: of NATO, right, Like, there's this necessity. How would you

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Speaker 1: characterize the new leader of Syria through the prism of Erdiwan? Like,

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Speaker 1: is he is at the same type of unsureness about

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Speaker 1: where their real biases lie.

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I think so. I mean, I think we're on

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Speaker 2: the road to a sectarian majoritarian state where his Sunni faction,

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Speaker 2: particularly a much more conservative branch of Sunni Islam, are

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Speaker 2: going to dominate things in Syria.

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Speaker 1: If the actually does this mean he's going to get

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Speaker 1: a lot of funding from MBS ANDBZ and oh the

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Speaker 1: entire Oh yeah, as.

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Speaker 2: He did as they did during the opposition times. And well,

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Speaker 2: you know, this reminds me you were talking about. This

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Speaker 2: reminds me nineteen fifties, when you're talking about history in

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Speaker 2: the Middle East. There was a wonderful political science term

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Speaker 2: that the US applied to these authoritarian leaders. It was

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Speaker 2: called transitional authoritarianism, where you know, we support these guys

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Speaker 2: because they support US interests with military, political aid to plays.

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Speaker 1: It's why they all hate us. In Latin America, we

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Speaker 1: always supported whoever was on our side, not whether they

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Speaker 1: were spading democrats.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and we thought they would transition, right, that they

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Speaker 2: would transition to democracy. But yeah, oh wow, they live power.

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Speaker 2: They want to stay in power. And this is how

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Speaker 2: we got with the Shavaran as well, you know, all

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Speaker 2: these other guys. So, you know, I see this playbook

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Speaker 2: again happening with Syria. We're going to be acting in

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Speaker 2: our strategic interests as well as Israel. We want to

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Speaker 2: keep Iran out, we want to keep the Russians at

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Speaker 2: bay in Syria and hope that it just doesn't implode

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Speaker 2: into another civil war.

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Speaker 1: So can Syria become a democracy pledgling democracy all our raq?

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Speaker 2: Can it?

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Speaker 1: Sure?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely? They all can become democracies under certain circumstances. It's like, well,

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Speaker 2: those circumstances ever arrive, and not just the you know,

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Speaker 2: the larger ones, big ones, but in terms of literacy,

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Speaker 2: literacy rates, in terms of civil society, all of these

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Speaker 2: things that happen, in terms of economic output and economic opportunity,

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Speaker 2: all these things have to happen before we get to

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Speaker 2: the big questions of you know, who can vote and

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Speaker 2: how many people get to vote, So you know it

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Speaker 2: can happen. But you know, ninety percent of the country

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Speaker 2: is in the poverty rate. The country has been dealing

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Speaker 2: with fifteen years of withering international sanctions. It's a population

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Speaker 2: that's highly fragmented and militarized, with independent militias, with drug mafias,

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Speaker 2: with a rapacious warlords roaming around that have more power

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Speaker 2: than the national army. And you have these sectarian fortresses

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Speaker 2: which were created with the breakdown of the state during

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Speaker 2: the serians of a war. They you know, you naturally

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Speaker 2: retreat into your sectarian fortress and you look at the

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Speaker 2: other sex as a heathen scum that must be eliminated

432
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:58,320
Speaker 2: from the world. And so how do you piece all

433
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:01,879
Speaker 2: that together? And it's it's going to take a long time,

434
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 2: a lot of patients. It may have to go through

435
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:09,560
Speaker 2: various iterations of who is in power, and hopefully not

436
00:23:09,760 --> 00:23:11,080
Speaker 2: another all out of civil war.

437
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:15,439
Speaker 1: So the what is I mean, what country has a

438
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:19,920
Speaker 1: shot at trying democracy next after Iraq? And why are

439
00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:23,399
Speaker 1: you surprised that Iraq is still sort of a democracy.

440
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:25,359
Speaker 2: Sort of being the operative No.

441
00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:28,000
Speaker 1: I mean it's not not a democracy. You know, it's

442
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:28,680
Speaker 1: not Egypt.

443
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:31,320
Speaker 2: You know what are we a democracy?

444
00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:31,560
Speaker 1: You know?

445
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:33,560
Speaker 2: We got electoral college? You know something?

446
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 1: I mean, do the people have an advanced to change

447
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:40,520
Speaker 1: the government in this country? And I still say the answers.

448
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:44,800
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah. And so in Iraq. One of the problems,

449
00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:47,119
Speaker 2: and this may be the future of Syria is you

450
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 2: have the Kurdish Autonomous Zone in the north.

451
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:52,159
Speaker 1: I want to bring up the Kurds in a minute here, Yeah.

452
00:23:52,359 --> 00:23:55,720
Speaker 2: Which is virtually an independent country and actually doing much

453
00:23:55,760 --> 00:23:57,000
Speaker 2: better than the rest of them.

454
00:23:57,320 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 1: I don't know why we don't support a Kurdistan. I mean,

455
00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 1: I know why we don't because Turkeys.

456
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:05,159
Speaker 2: Turkey, Walt and Iran Walton, Iraq Walton.

457
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:08,159
Speaker 1: I you know, all those countries don't want it. But

458
00:24:08,800 --> 00:24:14,439
Speaker 1: you know, isn't the isn't the exposure of Iran at

459
00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:17,560
Speaker 1: being a paper tiger make the idea of a cur

460
00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: to stand more possible.

461
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:22,160
Speaker 2: I think so in the sense that they won't cause

462
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:24,480
Speaker 2: as much trouble in a rock. And that goes for

463
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 2: what you were saying earlier, the possibility of Rock becoming

464
00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 2: more of a democracy. I think Iran's being exposed and

465
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 2: being severely weakened has helped or increase the possibility of

466
00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:37,359
Speaker 2: a Rock becoming a functioning democracy, has increased the possibility

467
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 2: of Lebanon becoming a functional democracy, and maybe maybe Syria,

468
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 2: you know, down the road. But you know, at this point,

469
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:48,639
Speaker 2: you know, I have a low bar of successors.

470
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 1: How any Middle East expert is it going to ever

471
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:52,400
Speaker 1: be too?

472
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 2: Sadly? I just want stability and uh, you know, benevolent governance,

473
00:24:57,640 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 2: uh in these countries.

474
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting. I have a colleague who just came

475
00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:04,400
Speaker 1: back from Iran, spent about two weeks here doing some reporting,

476
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 1: touching base with some sources again, and he came back

477
00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:11,440
Speaker 1: pretty convinced that the Iatolas are not going to be

478
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 1: able to hold power when this one dies. That is

479
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 1: that this is the next big crisis in the Middle East.

480
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:21,680
Speaker 1: Is going to be Iranian instability and that it's sort

481
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:24,960
Speaker 1: of the It is, on one hand, something we've been

482
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:28,520
Speaker 1: wanting right as a policy outcome, and yet are we

483
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:29,479
Speaker 1: really ready for it?

484
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:32,760
Speaker 2: What say you, Yeah, be careful what you want right, right,

485
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:34,679
Speaker 2: and careful what you wish for. I guess that's one

486
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:37,800
Speaker 2: of the reasons why you know, NBS in Saudi Arabia

487
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:41,199
Speaker 2: wants that security pack so desperate, as well as access

488
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:45,640
Speaker 2: to nuclear technology because of that anticipation of instability perhaps

489
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 2: in the future in Iran, and what might what might

490
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:51,560
Speaker 2: take over in Iran if the iotolas fall? You know,

491
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:54,679
Speaker 2: will it becomes Sometimes when the boogeyman falls, it's not

492
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 2: necessarily what we want comes into power, something even perhaps worse.

493
00:25:58,720 --> 00:25:59,879
Speaker 1: Well, we saw that in Egypt.

494
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:02,159
Speaker 2: We saw that in Egypt. Yeah, suddenly they're.

495
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: Like, well, wait a minute, we'd like that military dictatorship back.

496
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 2: Please. Yeah. Democracy is great as long as they elect

497
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 2: the person we like, right, And but Iran I agree

498
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:14,400
Speaker 2: with that. I agree with your colleagues observation. I think

499
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,120
Speaker 2: Iran is on the precipice. You know that this was.

500
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: A really it's really the unpopularity of the of the

501
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:23,959
Speaker 1: iotolas are huge, the distrust, and then the fact that

502
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 1: they so easily folded, right there was just there's no longer.

503
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, they're still brutalizing opposition, domestic opposition, they're

504
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: still trying to be an authoritarian state, but they've certainly

505
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of fear anymore of the Iotolas. Yeah.

506
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 2: And it's not so they folded. It's not so much

507
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 2: that they were beaten, they were obliterated.

508
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 1: Yeah.

509
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 2: You know, despite all of this, you know, supposed deterrence

510
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 2: between Israel and Iran, and then Israel goes and takes

511
00:26:56,560 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 2: out his belah and the most and most unique way uh.

512
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:04,440
Speaker 2: And then a side falls and the only viable and

513
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:07,360
Speaker 2: then Hamas of course is terribly weaken the only viable

514
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,080
Speaker 2: you know, proxy militias, the Huthis now and Yemen. But

515
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 2: Iran is weakened their image, I think even more importantly,

516
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 2: their image has just gone down the tubes with regional

517
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 2: powers uh. And I think we can see a realignment

518
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:22,399
Speaker 2: of this. But what will happen in Iran. Iran has

519
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:25,199
Speaker 2: always been reviewed as the prize, along as already Arabia

520
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 2: and the Gulf, So there are gonna be a lot

521
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:28,480
Speaker 2: of eyes the prize.

522
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:30,360
Speaker 1: I mean I look at it as if Iran ever

523
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:33,400
Speaker 1: decides to be a Western democracy, watch out. They're going

524
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:35,879
Speaker 1: to be an economic powerhouse.

525
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And I mean they got the largest natural

526
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 2: gas reserves in the world, large oil reserves, and they

527
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 2: have the minerals if they can just get their act together.

528
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:46,120
Speaker 2: Of course, we could say it about Venezuela, we could

529
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 2: say it about you know, you didn't even say it

530
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 2: about Syria, you know. I mean, Syrians for years have

531
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,400
Speaker 2: always told me we'd be much better allies than the Israelis.

532
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:55,239
Speaker 2: Would you know, we would, We wouldn't undercut you as

533
00:27:55,320 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 2: much as the Israelis have done, and I'm sure the

534
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 2: Iranians would would try to do it after all. I mean,

535
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,879
Speaker 2: it's a you know, far coo. It's Arabic script is

536
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 2: an Indo European language, you know, and they have this

537
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 2: past that aligns with the West in some ways. So

538
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 2: what do you.

539
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 1: Make of the of this, of this idea that the

540
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: Middle East is essentially now the rules are being written

541
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: by the Israelis and the Gulf States.

542
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's a lot to that. I think

543
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 2: Israel is at its at its apex of power in

544
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 2: the region.

545
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 1: It's funny apex of military power, but at a nator

546
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 1: in influence, right.

547
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 2: I don't know. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that because

548
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 2: military power speaks a great deal on that part of

549
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 2: the world, and they are isolated internationally. But how long

550
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 2: does diplomatic isolation last when you need them, you know,

551
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 2: when they when they are on your strategic side, and

552
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 2: that goes out, that goes out the window. So I

553
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 2: don't I don't think the Israelis ever really worry about

554
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 2: that too much. They're going to do what they want

555
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 2: to do. They want, They're going to do what they

556
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 2: feel is is in their strategic objectives. And they have

557
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 2: done that. I mean, look at this, Chuck, I mean

558
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 2: that they bomb Cutter.

559
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: I think it's remarkable. You know, look, it's really frustrating

560
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 1: to me because you know, look, if they had the

561
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 1: way they managed, the way they did the war in

562
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 1: Gaza versus the way they did Hesbelah, it's like night

563
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:20,280
Speaker 1: and day, right, it was the you know, you could tell,

564
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 1: as I said, bbe let idf do its thing with

565
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 1: Iran and with with Hesbela. They micro managed all things

566
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:31,120
Speaker 1: Gaza through the lens of domestic politics, which is why

567
00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: that's turned into an utter nightmare.

568
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 2: Right, No, I agree. I mean they strategically took out

569
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 2: his blow in a very phase step way, very strategic way,

570
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 2: brilliant way, in the same.

571
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 1: Thing the way that we had come to be exactly

572
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:48,680
Speaker 1: that many admire the Israelis about like they did with Munich.

573
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 1: They treated Hesbelah like they did the Munich terrorists, you know.

574
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and these the bulldozer in Gaza and.

575
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: Right, which is why they have this weird moment where

576
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:02,840
Speaker 1: they have maximized military very power. Yeah, but problems with

577
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 1: you know that they're pretty isolated in the in the world. Yeah.

578
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 2: Again, they bomb Cutter, and no Arab countries that are

579
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 2: at peace with Israel break relations with it, you know,

580
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 2: not even Cuting.

581
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 1: You're right, it's astonishing. It was so brazyishing moment.

582
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 2: It's an amazing moment. And and talks about how those

583
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:25,800
Speaker 2: shifts have occurred in the region uh and uh and

584
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 2: the and the importance of the Gulf state's intelligence cooperation

585
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 2: economic cooperation that they've had with zur Reel for for

586
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 2: years prior to you know, some of them establishing relations.

587
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 2: So this is this is absolutely a sea change for me,

588
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 2: and I see Syria coming on board if this current

589
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 2: uh UH government stays in power and follows along the

590
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:51,719
Speaker 2: line they're doing at least signing a security arrangement with Israel,

591
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 2: and then once society has crossed the line, which they

592
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 2: were they were gonna do, probably if Oxtober seventh didn't happen,

593
00:30:58,240 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 2: which is one of the reasons, as you know, the

594
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 2: did October seven.

595
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: No, it was the you know, it was interesting. It

596
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 1: was you know the way Washington works, you know, in

597
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: the sort of everything is a deal. You know, the

598
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: Saudis were going to give Biden this. Yeah, this was

599
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 1: going to be Biden's like they weren't going to hold

600
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 1: you know, the Trump people were pressuring them to to

601
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 1: basically wait until Trump was there to add Saudi to

602
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: the Abraham Accords. And they were gonna because the Saudi's weren't.

603
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: They're not stupid. They want to play bipartisan American politics here.

604
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 1: They want everybody because they frankly knew, unlike Bebe, the

605
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 1: Saudis knew they had a problem in America's left and

606
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: that they were better off trying to appease the American

607
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 1: left rather than fight it. BB wants to fight it

608
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: rather than a peace. But I'll but we could set

609
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 1: that aside. And October seventh obviously made that impossible. But

610
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 1: where talk to my friends that are going to be

611
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 1: listening to this and say, I can't stomach MBS. Why

612
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: should we help him? What say, give me the give

613
00:31:56,440 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 1: me the academic view of why we've why they're a

614
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:01,840
Speaker 1: necessary partner.

615
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 2: Oh, he's the only game in town right now for

616
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 2: a very important strategic country. And and you know, I

617
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 2: don't at all like some of the things he's on,

618
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 2: especially to you know, Kashoji in assassinating and dismembering him,

619
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 2: some of these things. But you know, I'm more of

620
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 2: a realist to understand that. You know, tomorrow is a

621
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 2: different day, and the Saudi is An NBS may be

622
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 2: very much needed. You know now that now that you

623
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 2: know Iraan is perhaps weaken We always thought of them

624
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 2: at the Saudis as a counterway to Iran. But we

625
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:40,600
Speaker 2: have to see what's going to happen with Iran. It'll

626
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 2: be interesting in the future. This will be interesting if

627
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 2: ten fifteen years from now, Iran does get rid of

628
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 2: the Ietolas, does stabilize, does become this this potential economic

629
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 2: power is you know, much like Germany in mainland Europe.

630
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 2: You know, what will happen with the Saudi relationship and

631
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 2: so forth? Can the two mutually coexist with US interests? Right?

632
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:08,719
Speaker 1: You could see three economic powers in the Middle East Israel,

633
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 1: a democratic Iran and this sort of religious monarchy in

634
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 1: the golf right with the Saudi's and they are they

635
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: going to be alliances or are they going to be competitors? Right?

636
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly, and that will be interesting to see

637
00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:27,240
Speaker 2: and so many, so much more history will occur before

638
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 2: we can even answer that question.

639
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 1: So let's move backwards about your baseball career and how

640
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 1: you you know, tell me how you fused it? You know,

641
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 1: what is it? What are the lessons? You know. I'm

642
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 1: a huge advocate of sports in general, youth sports. It

643
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 1: teaches human interaction, it teaches there's so many lessons from

644
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 1: team sports. In particular. I think football is ideally the

645
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:57,600
Speaker 1: most incredible team sport to deliver because eleven people have

646
00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:01,959
Speaker 1: to do their job for success. In baseball, everybody has

647
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 1: to do their job. There's a little bit of individual talent, right,

648
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: you know that you can, but ultimately you don't win

649
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 1: with that, you could be the greatest player in the

650
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 1: world head Wlliams. But if you don't have enough good

651
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: baseball players around you, you're not gonna win a World Series.

652
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 1: So you know how when somebody says the lessons of

653
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:22,960
Speaker 1: baseball helped me become a better give me better perspective

654
00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:25,400
Speaker 1: about the Middle East? You answer this question half.

655
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 2: Because I failed so many times in baseball, I mean,

656
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 2: as you and.

657
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:30,960
Speaker 1: Still in the Middle East. Is a lot of failure,

658
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:31,960
Speaker 1: A lot of failure.

659
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 2: I mean failure is at the core of sports. I mean,

660
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:37,439
Speaker 2: you know, what do you have to hit to reach

661
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:39,800
Speaker 2: the Hall of Fame in Major League Baseball?

662
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:41,840
Speaker 1: You only have to fail seven out of ten.

663
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 2: Times, exactly, And so you have to keep coming back.

664
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 2: As a pitcher. Of course, I was a hitter as

665
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 2: well early on, but in professional baseball was a pitcher.

666
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 2: And you know, one inning you give up a home run.

667
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:52,839
Speaker 2: The next inning, you know you have a chance to

668
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:55,799
Speaker 2: rectify the situation or the next game, and so you

669
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:59,239
Speaker 2: constantly fail. And I played basketball and tennis and all

670
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 2: that in football when I was young, and you you

671
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 2: were constantly tested, and you develop this resiliency which Sanjay

672
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 2: Gupta I read the other day says resiliency is like

673
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:14,480
Speaker 2: strength training for the brain, you know, and it helps

674
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:17,479
Speaker 2: you get through personal traumas, it helps you get through

675
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker 2: failures later in life. And as I've become a conflict

676
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 2: resolution person involved in high helvem negotiations and arabisareeli stuff, steering,

677
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,799
Speaker 2: civil war. You fail all the time, I mean, but

678
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:29,759
Speaker 2: you have to learn from it, and you have to

679
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 2: have that resiliency, that persistence, perseverance to get through it

680
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:37,040
Speaker 2: and try again, and try again and try again. Now

681
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 2: you don't want to make you know, Einstein's theory of

682
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:43,359
Speaker 2: insanity correct, but you you, you know, learn from it

683
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 2: and adjust. And sometimes things just out of out of

684
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:51,479
Speaker 2: your control, ruins everything and brings you back to ground zero.

685
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 2: And that's what happens in sports as well. And you

686
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:56,799
Speaker 2: just have to have that resiliency. And so, you know,

687
00:35:57,640 --> 00:36:00,360
Speaker 2: one of my mantras is keep trying, don't know, eliminate

688
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 2: yourself and keep trying. And that I had to think

689
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:06,880
Speaker 2: that's what I got from baseball and sports in general.

690
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:10,399
Speaker 1: When you you know, do you look back on your

691
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 1: injury and think, boy, if it happened today, you know,

692
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:17,719
Speaker 1: the technology would have given me another chance.

693
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 2: Jock, you be interviewing the lead commentator of the World

694
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 2: Series right now, the lead analyst after a twenty year,

695
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:26,280
Speaker 2: brilliant Hall of Fame career at the injury.

696
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 1: Now that's the what if in your head? How do

697
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 1: you not think about that?

698
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 2: What if? Yeah?

699
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: I'm all the technological advancements. I mean, you know, Sadi

700
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 1: Kofax's career ends. You know, show has already had two

701
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 1: Tommy Jones, Yeah, I think, right, you know, it's it's remarkable, right,

702
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:49,800
Speaker 1: like Sadi Kofex might have had another five great years.

703
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:51,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, I had a rotator cuff

704
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 2: injury and rotator cuff surgery by Frank Job, but the

705
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:58,720
Speaker 2: Dodgers didn't really perfect itself for another five ten years. Yeah,

706
00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 2: I mean, I really don't think that because I've had

707
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 2: a fulfilling, you know, career in many ways more fulfilling,

708
00:37:05,239 --> 00:37:08,160
Speaker 2: and I have a wonderful wife and family and so forth,

709
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 2: so you know, all those If I become a major

710
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 2: league player, that wouldn't have happened and wouldn't met these

711
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 2: one of the people. But I don't really think of that.

712
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 2: But but you know, sometimes, you know, I think I

713
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:22,839
Speaker 2: would have made a lot more money, that's for sure

714
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 2: being a major league pitcher. But but drafting pictures is

715
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:29,400
Speaker 2: the worst investment in all of sports. That's why you

716
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:32,320
Speaker 2: got a draft about ten or fifteen of them. Hopefully

717
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 2: one gets through because of all the injuries, because everything

718
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:40,880
Speaker 2: you do physiologically picture is wrong against normal you know, physiology.

719
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny you say that I got you know,

720
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: I think I told you off came raight.

721
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:45,480
Speaker 2: I was.

722
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:47,799
Speaker 1: The Dodgers were the team of my youth, so I

723
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 1: used to just I know a lot of the history

724
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:53,800
Speaker 1: of the Dodgers in general, and any any individual player

725
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: that sort of had made a name for themselves. I

726
00:37:56,160 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 1: always have some curiosity about and the relief pitcher Marshall,

727
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:02,320
Speaker 1: who I believe is the first ever release pitcher to

728
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 1: win this I young. He spent the last twenty years

729
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 1: of his like obsessed with changing the motion of pictures

730
00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 1: for the very thing you just said said, like the

731
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:20,440
Speaker 1: way that we've taught pitching is actually asking the arm

732
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 1: to do something it shouldn't be doing, and that if

733
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:27,960
Speaker 1: you change the motion, you could actually limit injuries. And

734
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:31,719
Speaker 1: I believe his method did produce one major leaguer who

735
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: got into the majors. But given when you came up

736
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:37,479
Speaker 1: it was sort of tail end of Marshall's career there.

737
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:43,319
Speaker 1: Did you ever follow that that whole? Like, oh, ire

738
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:44,319
Speaker 1: the case he had?

739
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:46,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's funny. I was. I was just thinking

740
00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 2: about this yesterday when I was talking to someone. If

741
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:52,600
Speaker 2: I had to change something with my motion while I

742
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 2: was in college and then drafted in the pros, it

743
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:58,920
Speaker 2: would be throwing more side arm. I was a straight

744
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:01,960
Speaker 2: overhand pitcher, and straight overhand you throw the more pressure.

745
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, it's right on your shoulder, like this

746
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:07,200
Speaker 1: kid at the Blue Jays just now. I just heard it, right,

747
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: this kid with the Blue Jays, you savage, And don't

748
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:13,919
Speaker 1: you watch him throw and think, yeah, buddy, in about

749
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:15,280
Speaker 1: two years, you're going to have soldiers.

750
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 2: It's going to happen, and they're all throwing so hard

751
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:20,759
Speaker 2: and putting so much stress on their their flexer ligaments

752
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 2: and their forearm that they're all getting Tommy John surgery.

753
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 2: I mean, as you said, Otani had too. It's like

754
00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:27,720
Speaker 2: everyone has one. They're having them now in high school

755
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 2: and college. It's like, you know, you know, it's something

756
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 2: that has to happen before well isn't it.

757
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: You Now, rarely will an MLB team draft a high

758
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:42,319
Speaker 1: school pitcher anymore. They almost want the college level. Get

759
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:44,799
Speaker 1: your Tommy John out, Get LSU to pay for the

760
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 1: Tommy John right, Get cal State Fullerton to pay the

761
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:51,320
Speaker 1: Tommy John, you know that sort of thing, and then we'll.

762
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,000
Speaker 2: Off, you know, and come back for twenty three or

763
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 2: you know, something like that. And it's so much stress

764
00:39:57,200 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 2: on the body in the arm. But throwing side arm.

765
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:01,399
Speaker 2: If I had to go back, I do that because

766
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 2: I did throw a sidearm every now and then just

767
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:05,400
Speaker 2: to cross up the hitter. I crossed up my catcher

768
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 2: as well. But yeah, it was effective, and I threw

769
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 2: actually even harder. I mean I had a low nineties,

770
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:15,399
Speaker 2: high eighties fastball, you know, peaked at ninety five, which

771
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 2: in those days actually meant something. Can you believe change

772
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 2: ups today are ninety miles an hour change The whole

773
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 2: goal of.

774
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:24,640
Speaker 1: A changeup is what it has to be ten miles

775
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: less than fastball exactly right. So if you're throwing a hundred,

776
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: then yeah, right.

777
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 2: That's just unfathomable to me. And sliders at ninety miles

778
00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:35,279
Speaker 2: an hours, I don't know how these hitters are doing

779
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 2: it how they can hit these things.

780
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:39,239
Speaker 1: But I know there's this point where you wonder when

781
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 1: does the ligament, just when does the body? We have

782
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: reached the peak performance of the body.

783
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:49,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think, you know, I think there's going

784
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 2: to be a trend. This is getting so it's a

785
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:55,480
Speaker 2: pandemic of Tommy John surgery. I think there's going to

786
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:57,759
Speaker 2: be a trend to go back to the great Maddis

787
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:00,440
Speaker 2: Maddox type of pitching. You know, high eighties, maybe low

788
00:41:00,560 --> 00:41:04,760
Speaker 2: nineties at best, movement on the ball, placement, pitch longer.

789
00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:08,360
Speaker 2: I mean we were talking off camera with Jim Palmer

790
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 2: and right Bob Gibson news guy. They for three hundred

791
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 2: innings year after year, twenty complete games.

792
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:17,880
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Speaker 2: So I.

822
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 1: I love Fernando. Fernando was you know, I was ten

823
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:02,200
Speaker 1: when he came up, right like that was peak, you know,

824
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 1: and he was so much fun that World Series in

825
00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:07,879
Speaker 1: eighty one and following his career and you look at

826
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:11,360
Speaker 1: his year stats and it was always like I always

827
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:13,920
Speaker 1: thought he was. I always thought he belonged to the

828
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame before everything else he did. And when

829
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:19,759
Speaker 1: you look at his eight year sort of his eight

830
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:23,280
Speaker 1: year peak, Nope, he always threw three hundred innings.

831
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:23,480
Speaker 2: You know.

832
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,359
Speaker 1: The joke was Tommy, you know, ruined his career by

833
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:28,840
Speaker 1: leaving him into always way too long and that he

834
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 1: that he basically his eight years was the equivalent of

835
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:36,520
Speaker 1: what would be a seventeen year career today per number

836
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 1: of innings you pitch.

837
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 2: Exactly, exactly. Remember the Braves, you know, when they had

838
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 2: Smolds and Maddocks.

839
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 1: And Glavin Gavin, Yeah, they all.

840
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,400
Speaker 2: Pitched, you know, every four days. They pitched long, you know,

841
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 2: deep into the game. And analytics have, in my mind,

842
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:52,680
Speaker 2: screw things up with that regard. And you know, you

843
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:54,920
Speaker 2: can't face a batter more than two times or the

844
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 2: third time, they're going to catch on to you. But

845
00:43:56,960 --> 00:43:58,920
Speaker 2: this is what pitching is all about, if you have

846
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:02,280
Speaker 2: enough pitches and and uh yeah, Maddox.

847
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 1: I love those stories of Maddox, you know, and hear

848
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:07,040
Speaker 1: stories and he says, yeah, I let this guy see

849
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 1: this pitch because I know I'm facing him in the

850
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:10,680
Speaker 1: playoffs and he's gonna think I'm gonna throw it again.

851
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 1: And I'm never going to do like Maddox was always

852
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 1: game planning on that bat. The next at bat when

853
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 1: he was facing the current batter, I'm going to make

854
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:20,719
Speaker 1: him pop this one up. And sure enough he could

855
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 1: do that. Like that's just that's pitching. That's that's strac.

856
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 2: Actually thinking, actually thinking on the mound, you know. And

857
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:30,279
Speaker 2: and maybe that's why I'm into academia, Chuck.

858
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:34,439
Speaker 1: They always thought think can you imagine do they having

859
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 1: an earpiece, oh where somebody's telling you what pitch to throat?

860
00:44:38,160 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 2: That would be insulting to me, you know, I call

861
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:42,680
Speaker 2: the game that I think is it? Shirt ser you

862
00:44:42,719 --> 00:44:45,719
Speaker 2: mentioned him searcher actually surets his own game. Don't ever

863
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:47,120
Speaker 2: get me one of these things, you know.

864
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:50,279
Speaker 1: And now Max is the last Max. It feels like

865
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:52,920
Speaker 1: we're about to see the end of the last era

866
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:57,320
Speaker 1: of sort of the twentieth century style of pitching. We're

867
00:44:57,360 --> 00:45:00,200
Speaker 1: moving to this, right. Suger was always a throw back.

868
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 1: You know. He never wanted to go less than seven, right,

869
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 1: He always wanted to keep going. Your Verlanders, your your Surgers,

870
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:10,759
Speaker 1: your Kershaws, and here they are. They're all basically probably.

871
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:14,440
Speaker 1: I kind of think Max, I want him to retire.

872
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: Now he gets to say he pitched the last gave

873
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:19,200
Speaker 1: me pitch was an old series, but it's hard to

874
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:21,680
Speaker 1: walk away, right, Like, how often did you wish you

875
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:22,520
Speaker 1: had one more year?

876
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 2: I wish I wish I had I wish I had

877
00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:28,920
Speaker 2: one year in the majors. I mean, as you know,

878
00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 2: I flamed out the miners. I wish I would have

879
00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:34,320
Speaker 2: stayed healthy enough to God, because I went up against

880
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 2: these guys in spring training and batting practice, and and

881
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:39,399
Speaker 2: you knew you.

882
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 1: Had your stuff. It was just the injury that never

883
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 1: gave me the shot I help.

884
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 2: So, you know, I mean lots of ifs and what ifs,

885
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:47,960
Speaker 2: and sure I think I had the basic stuff. That's

886
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:50,200
Speaker 2: why I was drafting number one. I think and and

887
00:45:50,239 --> 00:45:53,200
Speaker 2: by the Dodgers. So I like to think, I you know,

888
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:53,879
Speaker 2: if not.

889
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 1: They were always a little bit better at identifying young pitchers.

890
00:45:56,840 --> 00:45:58,959
Speaker 1: I mean that was their thing. That's what they did.

891
00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:00,839
Speaker 2: That's what they did. But you still got to get

892
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:02,640
Speaker 2: a bunch of them because you just never know when

893
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:04,480
Speaker 2: the body's going to give out, and it will give

894
00:46:04,560 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 2: out unless you're Clemens or Nolan Ryan, who has to

895
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 2: be bionical I read.

896
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:13,359
Speaker 1: Is it Nolan Ryan that doesn't have the the the

897
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 1: tendon that would snap or like he was basically literally

898
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 1: a gift from God type of.

899
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:21,600
Speaker 2: I know, I know, elbow it's the key. You know,

900
00:46:21,719 --> 00:46:23,359
Speaker 2: if you want your kid to become a pitcher, take

901
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 2: out take out the flexor tendon or something like that, like.

902
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 1: Don't even have it. It turns out it's an impediment.

903
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:31,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, I mean, but look at his legs,

904
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 2: you know, Nolan Ryan and Tom c they're huge, and

905
00:46:35,200 --> 00:46:37,240
Speaker 2: he got a lot of his power. It got low

906
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 2: and pushed off and that's what a lot of pictures it.

907
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 1: Certainly it looks like he's built that way. Yeah, exactly,

908
00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:47,319
Speaker 1: He's built bottom up. And if you told me, if

909
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 1: I told you, he never It's interesting, by the way,

910
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:51,799
Speaker 1: a guy like Max Scherzer's never had a Tommy John

911
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 1: and neither's Kershaw Right, what does it tell you if

912
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 1: you've never had one these.

913
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:02,560
Speaker 2: Days that if he if you pitch the right way,

914
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 2: if you don't worry about throwing your legs, now use

915
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:08,400
Speaker 2: your legs, use your body. And there's all sorts of

916
00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:12,440
Speaker 2: mechanics now to align your body. There's so much more technology.

917
00:47:12,640 --> 00:47:14,879
Speaker 2: Perhaps when I was playing, if they had that technology,

918
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 2: they would have aligned my body, my motion more. I

919
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 2: put less stress on the elbow shoulder for me. So

920
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 2: you know they can do these things. But man, if

921
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 2: you're throwing one hundred miles an hour, your arm is

922
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:29,240
Speaker 2: going to give out. You just cannot take that type

923
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 2: of pressure. And the thing is, you know, hitters are

924
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:35,040
Speaker 2: they catch up, they're hitting these balls. And I've lewis

925
00:47:35,239 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 2: how many teams your favorite teams? And a guy Jamie Moyer,

926
00:47:39,600 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 2: you know who's forty He pitched forever eighty two miles

927
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:45,920
Speaker 2: an hour, eighty five miles an hour, and he pitches

928
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:49,000
Speaker 2: a shout out because hitters aren't used to that type

929
00:47:49,040 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 2: of thing, you know, they're not used to eighty eighty

930
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:54,480
Speaker 2: with with motion and with the motion in the ball,

931
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:59,640
Speaker 2: and with targeting, you know, target to pitching. So it's

932
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:02,359
Speaker 2: I think think there's room for both, and I think

933
00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 2: I agree with you. I think we're going to trend

934
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:06,720
Speaker 2: sort of in another direction. I hope, I hope.

935
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:09,399
Speaker 1: Well, it was exciting to see Amamoto throw a complete game.

936
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 1: You're like, hey, that used to be a big that

937
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 1: used to not be as big of a deal. A

938
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:15,400
Speaker 1: complete game of the World Series.

939
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 2: It must be a different Yamamoto, you know, at some point.

940
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:20,120
Speaker 2: But and then it comes back the day after and

941
00:48:20,160 --> 00:48:22,400
Speaker 2: throws you know, three innings, you know, after he throws

942
00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:26,719
Speaker 2: a cop. I mean, it's unbelievable, and uh, you know,

943
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:30,399
Speaker 2: I hope his arm is okay. You know, I'm sure,

944
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 2: having invested gazillion dollars in him, they're not going to

945
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:34,080
Speaker 2: ruin him.

946
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:36,919
Speaker 1: But I'm sorry as a as a Nats fan who

947
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:40,879
Speaker 1: watched the team make the decision not to use their

948
00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 1: young star pitcher in a run to the playoffs, and

949
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 1: then they decided to over use them in their eventual

950
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 1: run to the World Series. They you know, the price

951
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 1: of a world I mean, Steven Strasburg never recovered from

952
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:54,239
Speaker 1: that overuse.

953
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 2: That's true. That's true.

954
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:58,200
Speaker 1: I mean it ended his career. Now, the question is

955
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:02,239
Speaker 1: as a franchise, the ultimate prize is winning the World Championship.

956
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:03,359
Speaker 1: Is it worth it?

957
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 2: Would you take that? Is that? Is that?

958
00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:08,400
Speaker 1: Is that a well they did, that's the disc Basically,

959
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:09,400
Speaker 1: the Nats made.

960
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:11,560
Speaker 2: That worth it. As a Gnats fan, are you is

961
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 2: that worth it?

962
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:15,800
Speaker 1: It's a great question. I'm glad to have had. I

963
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 1: I tell this to my son because he's so depressed

964
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:21,680
Speaker 1: about the state of the Nats and it's an ownership

965
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:23,719
Speaker 1: group that doesn't look like they want to keep up

966
00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:25,799
Speaker 1: with the Joneses or the Guggenheims, et cetera.

967
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:27,719
Speaker 2: Right, right, But.

968
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 1: I tell him, you know what's what makes fandom fantastic

969
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 1: because you experience a low for so long that when

970
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:40,960
Speaker 1: you get the taste of the high, it's so much

971
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 1: it tastes so much better.

972
00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:44,560
Speaker 2: Well, you're talking to as I said before, I grew

973
00:49:44,640 --> 00:49:47,120
Speaker 2: up in Baltimore, a lifelong Orioles fan. We haven't won

974
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 2: the World Series since eighty three. If we had an opportunity,

975
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:52,399
Speaker 2: if we were in the World Series this year, throw

976
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 2: caution lit win, throw right the top pictures every every

977
00:49:56,560 --> 00:49:59,440
Speaker 2: inning I don't care, you know, as you know, and

978
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 2: I'm a pitcher, I realized what could happen with overuse?

979
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:06,080
Speaker 1: You know, So let me ask the Otani question to you,

980
00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:07,799
Speaker 1: because I'm sure you get a version of it, But

981
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:10,799
Speaker 1: let me ask it this way. Why is this so unusual?

982
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:14,960
Speaker 1: I why why haven't more pitchers been more successful hitters

983
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:15,560
Speaker 1: in the past.

984
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:17,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think I think you're going to see this.

985
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,360
Speaker 2: And one of the things that most people don't realize

986
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 2: is that major league pitchers, almost all of them, I

987
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:26,960
Speaker 2: would say, were really great hitters.

988
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:28,920
Speaker 1: In little they were probably the best team in their

989
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:31,720
Speaker 1: little league. But they played every pity if they weren't pitching,

990
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:32,760
Speaker 1: they were playing shortstop.

991
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:35,200
Speaker 2: Right my high school team, I was the best hitter.

992
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:38,160
Speaker 2: I was the best pitcher in college. It happens. But

993
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:40,799
Speaker 2: in college you start getting weeded out and you get

994
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:44,359
Speaker 2: into specialization. I remember, even when I was playing in

995
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:47,560
Speaker 2: the minor leagues, only the Cincinnati Reds, even in the

996
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 2: minor low War leagues, allow pitchers to hit. But otherwise

997
00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:55,040
Speaker 2: you're you know, you're DH four, and you never practice,

998
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:57,360
Speaker 2: you never take hitting practice, and so just like anything,

999
00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:02,360
Speaker 2: you daturally skill. And so the specialization of it, but

1000
00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:04,680
Speaker 2: I did in a little league game. I did pitch

1001
00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:07,040
Speaker 2: a complete game, six inning shutout and hit a home

1002
00:51:07,120 --> 00:51:09,320
Speaker 2: run in the game. So and it was a legitimate

1003
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:12,239
Speaker 2: home run, not a little league Yeah, you get a

1004
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 2: show exactly, but I do.

1005
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 1: It was always one of those I never understood why

1006
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:22,719
Speaker 1: more pitchers couldn't take batting practice on their off days.

1007
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:26,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know it. I don't know. Maybe the Union

1008
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:29,439
Speaker 2: got together and this is this is conspiracy theory talk,

1009
00:51:29,520 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 2: and they said they want these older guys who can

1010
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:32,200
Speaker 2: want jobs.

1011
00:51:33,040 --> 00:51:36,480
Speaker 1: It's even conspiracy theory. No, no, no, no, The DH

1012
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:37,960
Speaker 1: is more jobs.

1013
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:41,680
Speaker 2: He Aaron, Tommy Davis. You know, these these older guys

1014
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 2: that can't play in the field, and and they want

1015
00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:46,080
Speaker 2: more offense. I mean that's the that's the key, you know,

1016
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:48,080
Speaker 2: they want more runs, they want more offense. It was

1017
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:51,480
Speaker 2: a business decision. And all the National League, of course,

1018
00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:54,920
Speaker 2: is designated hit her and I missed this the strategy

1019
00:51:54,920 --> 00:51:56,799
Speaker 2: of the picture hitting and all of that sort of thing.

1020
00:51:56,880 --> 00:51:58,960
Speaker 2: And but and there were some good there were some

1021
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 2: good pictures some you know who who hit as well.

1022
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:03,239
Speaker 2: So I'm miss same.

1023
00:52:03,320 --> 00:52:07,920
Speaker 1: So could you know there's there's a team Israel in

1024
00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:12,840
Speaker 1: the world Baseball Classic. But baseball's never really taken in

1025
00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:16,680
Speaker 1: the Middle East. There is some cricket. Could you ever

1026
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:20,160
Speaker 1: imagine being able to get more people interested in baseball

1027
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:20,879
Speaker 1: in the Middle East.

1028
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 2: I think I'd like to get more people interested in

1029
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:25,640
Speaker 2: baseball in the United States.

1030
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:28,680
Speaker 1: With first, well, I know my son is My son

1031
00:52:28,719 --> 00:52:29,640
Speaker 1: tells me this all the time.

1032
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:29,920
Speaker 2: He goes.

1033
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:31,920
Speaker 1: You know, I'm the only one of my friends that

1034
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:35,600
Speaker 1: actually follows baseball like they're Nats fans, but they weren't

1035
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:39,000
Speaker 1: really Like he's now at school in Dallas, and the

1036
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:40,920
Speaker 1: first thing he did was he wanted to go check

1037
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 1: out a Rangers game. He'd never been. And he had

1038
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:46,319
Speaker 1: the hardest time convincing somebody to go with them to

1039
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:47,320
Speaker 1: a baseball game.

1040
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:50,000
Speaker 2: Because it's it's long, it's you know, to some that

1041
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:52,960
Speaker 2: it's boring, there's not as much action. There's a lot

1042
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:54,799
Speaker 2: more thought into it. I mean, you know, I take

1043
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:56,360
Speaker 2: the George Will you know view.

1044
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 1: Toward I do too, Yeah, Wills my North Star base I.

1045
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:01,960
Speaker 2: Think about every pitch where the fielders are, and so

1046
00:53:02,200 --> 00:53:04,520
Speaker 2: it's a lot of fun in my mind. But we're

1047
00:53:04,640 --> 00:53:07,799
Speaker 2: baseball aholics, you know. But for this generation and the

1048
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:13,000
Speaker 2: recent generations you know, they want more action, more scoring,

1049
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:15,759
Speaker 2: which is why baseball, you know, went to the home

1050
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:17,839
Speaker 2: run and steroids and looked the other way and all

1051
00:53:17,920 --> 00:53:19,680
Speaker 2: this stuff to get more runs on the board. But

1052
00:53:20,880 --> 00:53:22,839
Speaker 2: we'll take in the Middle East, I don't know, I mean,

1053
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:24,440
Speaker 2: the Saudi's play it. But that's a bunch of a

1054
00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 2: Ramco kids. You know that that's all right.

1055
00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:30,120
Speaker 1: It is cricket close enough that you could use it

1056
00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:31,359
Speaker 1: as a gateway or not.

1057
00:53:31,800 --> 00:53:37,319
Speaker 2: No, it's a very different game. And people look at

1058
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:39,360
Speaker 2: the history of baseball and they think it comes from cricket.

1059
00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:42,359
Speaker 2: It really doesn't. It comes from rounders, which is much

1060
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:44,560
Speaker 2: more like baseball. But I don't think I can't even

1061
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:47,279
Speaker 2: understand cricket, and cricketers can't understand baseball either.

1062
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:50,480
Speaker 1: But I've tried to. I've like, you know, you know,

1063
00:53:50,520 --> 00:53:53,400
Speaker 1: sometimes you're just traveling overseas and you're stuck in a

1064
00:53:53,400 --> 00:53:55,600
Speaker 1: hotel and there's nothing to watch other than either a

1065
00:53:55,640 --> 00:53:58,359
Speaker 1: rugby match or a cricket match. So you know, I

1066
00:53:58,400 --> 00:54:00,840
Speaker 1: would sit there and try to figure it out, and

1067
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:03,160
Speaker 1: you're just like, well, you know, you know.

1068
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:05,279
Speaker 2: While you make an interesting point, show, maybe in the

1069
00:54:05,280 --> 00:54:08,360
Speaker 2: Middle East and elsewhere, maybe baseball has more of a

1070
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:12,360
Speaker 2: chance because their favorite sports, you know, soccer or football,

1071
00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:16,000
Speaker 2: uh and cricket. You know, they're they're long soccer and.

1072
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:19,200
Speaker 1: They're low scoring. So maybe right, and it is about

1073
00:54:19,239 --> 00:54:22,880
Speaker 1: strategy that you know, in some ways the mentality of sports,

1074
00:54:23,560 --> 00:54:26,640
Speaker 1: especially in sort of Southeast Asia with cricket and soccer,

1075
00:54:26,719 --> 00:54:29,359
Speaker 1: and at least with cricket and soccer. I mean, you're right.

1076
00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:32,839
Speaker 1: I mean maybe we're stumbling onto something and that they

1077
00:54:33,040 --> 00:54:34,960
Speaker 1: enjoy the patience of the success.

1078
00:54:35,360 --> 00:54:38,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, we just we just need baseball. I mean, obviously

1079
00:54:38,120 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 2: it's it's very popular in Latin America and East Asia.

1080
00:54:41,160 --> 00:54:43,920
Speaker 2: We just need baseball to enter into Europe and the

1081
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:46,680
Speaker 2: and the Middle East and do what the NFL I

1082
00:54:46,680 --> 00:54:48,520
Speaker 2: think has been doing. You know, we of course we

1083
00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 2: hold games in Mexico and and uh and have exhibitions

1084
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:55,120
Speaker 2: in East Asia and so forth, or actually had some

1085
00:54:55,239 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 2: regular season games in Japan this this past year. So

1086
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:00,560
Speaker 2: you know, I think one of the things, one of

1087
00:55:00,560 --> 00:55:04,439
Speaker 2: the things which changes everyone's perception in the particular region

1088
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:06,879
Speaker 2: world out of sport United States, if someone from that

1089
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:10,239
Speaker 2: region becomes a star and it becomes a guiding light

1090
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:13,360
Speaker 2: like a show Antani or you know, earlier Japanese players

1091
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:16,600
Speaker 2: and Korean players. We just need some some Middle East

1092
00:55:17,040 --> 00:55:17,359
Speaker 2: you know.

1093
00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:21,640
Speaker 1: We almost had it in you Darvish, Yeah, Japanese, Iranian.

1094
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:25,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly. So you know, if we get one

1095
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:28,680
Speaker 2: of those these these you know, lightning rods that can

1096
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:32,520
Speaker 2: that can act as a uh, you know, a form

1097
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:36,319
Speaker 2: of attraction to your day, and and then you start

1098
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:38,840
Speaker 2: to get youth baseball and stuff like that. And it

1099
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:41,120
Speaker 2: may take a generation, but that's what it'll take.

1100
00:55:41,360 --> 00:55:42,759
Speaker 1: Let me get let me get you out of here.

1101
00:55:42,840 --> 00:55:48,040
Speaker 1: On the issue of Islamophobia, Okay, because as somebody who

1102
00:55:48,120 --> 00:55:51,400
Speaker 1: spent so much time in the Middle East, in the

1103
00:55:51,440 --> 00:55:55,960
Speaker 1: Arab world in general, and obviously there's you know, not

1104
00:55:56,040 --> 00:55:58,520
Speaker 1: all Arabs are Muslim, and not all Muslims or Arabs

1105
00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:03,040
Speaker 1: and and and so for it. But Islam a phobia

1106
00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 1: is one of those phobias that is like anti Semitism.

1107
00:56:07,800 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 1: It has it's on the left and the right. It

1108
00:56:10,480 --> 00:56:13,640
Speaker 1: can be a type of unifier that's not a healthy

1109
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:17,280
Speaker 1: thing for a democracy.

1110
00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:17,600
Speaker 2: You know.

1111
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:21,760
Speaker 1: Just tell me about your experience of sort of learning

1112
00:56:21,840 --> 00:56:26,479
Speaker 1: the culture that sort of got rid of or didn't

1113
00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:28,960
Speaker 1: allow a phobia to take to take in you.

1114
00:56:29,880 --> 00:56:32,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's because of travel. And this is

1115
00:56:32,280 --> 00:56:35,480
Speaker 2: why I'm such a big advocate of travel abroad in college,

1116
00:56:36,040 --> 00:56:38,959
Speaker 2: just to go places and not to an English language place.

1117
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:41,480
Speaker 2: See they were in a language. Go someplace that makes

1118
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:43,799
Speaker 2: you feel uncomfortable, Go someplace where you don't know the

1119
00:56:43,800 --> 00:56:47,600
Speaker 2: culture or learn the language. Immerse yourself, and that's when

1120
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:50,880
Speaker 2: you really start to understand that these people, even though

1121
00:56:50,920 --> 00:56:54,320
Speaker 2: they follow in other religion and have many different habits

1122
00:56:54,320 --> 00:56:57,399
Speaker 2: and customs, they're like you in many different ways. They

1123
00:56:57,400 --> 00:56:59,800
Speaker 2: want many of the same things. And I bring students,

1124
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:02,640
Speaker 2: brought groups over to the Middle East, and that's what

1125
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:05,040
Speaker 2: they find out when they really interact with people and

1126
00:57:05,120 --> 00:57:08,239
Speaker 2: not just stay in the five star resort hotel. They

1127
00:57:08,280 --> 00:57:10,359
Speaker 2: go around to the rural areas they need people. They

1128
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:14,400
Speaker 2: spend you know, an evening or even overnight at some house,

1129
00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:17,760
Speaker 2: and they learn about their lives. And that is the

1130
00:57:17,800 --> 00:57:21,880
Speaker 2: best way to get rid of these phobias and all

1131
00:57:21,920 --> 00:57:25,440
Speaker 2: of this misinformation that exists regarding Islam.

1132
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:29,320
Speaker 1: I mean, look, there's we're seeing more Muslim Americans run

1133
00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:31,840
Speaker 1: for office over the next ten years, and you're going

1134
00:57:31,920 --> 00:57:34,600
Speaker 1: to see it. It is the tension that shows up

1135
00:57:34,680 --> 00:57:37,320
Speaker 1: in these communities and it ends up being it could

1136
00:57:37,360 --> 00:57:39,360
Speaker 1: be New York City, it could be Minneapolis, it could

1137
00:57:39,360 --> 00:57:45,600
Speaker 1: be La like it's you do in it. It's definitely

1138
00:57:45,600 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 1: a tougher barrier to break than I think I fully appreciate.

1139
00:57:48,800 --> 00:57:51,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Jimmy Carter said something that was very

1140
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:55,760
Speaker 2: interesting when the Batlan Barack Obama became president and a

1141
00:57:55,760 --> 00:57:58,120
Speaker 2: lot of this latent racism came out because he was

1142
00:57:58,160 --> 00:58:01,280
Speaker 2: the first African American president, and Jimmy Carter said, you know,

1143
00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:03,440
Speaker 2: this is a good thing. People were afraid. He said, no,

1144
00:58:03,560 --> 00:58:05,920
Speaker 2: this is a good We needed to come out and

1145
00:58:05,960 --> 00:58:08,040
Speaker 2: only then can we address that. So maybe all of

1146
00:58:08,040 --> 00:58:11,280
Speaker 2: these things, more Muslims becoming involved in the community. Yes,

1147
00:58:11,400 --> 00:58:15,600
Speaker 2: it's causing some distress intentions and people are afraid of this,

1148
00:58:15,680 --> 00:58:17,520
Speaker 2: that and the other thing in Sharia law coming in,

1149
00:58:17,520 --> 00:58:20,840
Speaker 2: which is ridiculous. Maybe all of this has to happen.

1150
00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:24,320
Speaker 2: We need to get through this and have these discussions

1151
00:58:24,360 --> 00:58:28,600
Speaker 2: and hopefully through education and reasonable people making reasonable decisions

1152
00:58:28,600 --> 00:58:30,120
Speaker 2: that we can get past it. Yeah.

1153
00:58:30,120 --> 00:58:32,520
Speaker 1: I remember Colin Powell when he endorsed Oboba the first time,

1154
00:58:32,600 --> 00:58:36,040
Speaker 1: and he said, but his answer to that is lucky

1155
00:58:36,040 --> 00:58:36,760
Speaker 1: he's not Muslim.

1156
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:39,880
Speaker 2: But so what if he was, yeah, yeah, exactly right.

1157
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:43,200
Speaker 1: He tried. It was like, why it doesn't If he was,

1158
00:58:43,280 --> 00:58:45,000
Speaker 1: it wouldn't matter, right, this is it.

1159
00:58:45,280 --> 00:58:47,960
Speaker 2: And there are many Muslims that are as Muslim as

1160
00:58:48,000 --> 00:58:51,680
Speaker 2: I am Roman Catholic, which is not very much anymore, right,

1161
00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:52,520
Speaker 2: called it's.

1162
00:58:52,400 --> 00:58:54,600
Speaker 1: More about how it was more about your upbringing, not

1163
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:55,840
Speaker 1: your prep Now.

1164
00:58:55,880 --> 00:58:57,800
Speaker 2: How you live, what type of person you are, these

1165
00:58:57,840 --> 00:59:03,240
Speaker 2: type of values, and you know, it just takes understanding,

1166
00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:06,640
Speaker 2: it takes listening, it takes empathy, and we're in short

1167
00:59:06,680 --> 00:59:09,400
Speaker 2: supply of all these things these days. But hopefully that'll change.

1168
00:59:09,520 --> 00:59:11,280
Speaker 1: So you still hang your hat in San Antonio.

1169
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:14,760
Speaker 2: I do. I do, and probably we'll It'll be on

1170
00:59:14,840 --> 00:59:17,640
Speaker 2: my grave my grave site as well, because I love

1171
00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:20,600
Speaker 2: it here. It's a you know, big city with a

1172
00:59:20,600 --> 00:59:21,720
Speaker 2: small town atmosphere.

1173
00:59:21,760 --> 00:59:24,720
Speaker 1: I have to say San Antonio, this San Antonio, Austin

1174
00:59:24,880 --> 00:59:29,080
Speaker 1: megaopolis that's developing, right, I mean, you know it feels

1175
00:59:29,120 --> 00:59:33,400
Speaker 1: like it's feels very similar to d C Baltimore or that's.

1176
00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:36,640
Speaker 2: What Dallas Fort Worth. You know. Yeah, it's coming together,

1177
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:40,800
Speaker 2: much more dominated by Austin in the last decade than.

1178
00:59:40,720 --> 00:59:43,120
Speaker 1: But I feel like, you know, maybe Wemby will change things.

1179
00:59:43,160 --> 00:59:45,919
Speaker 2: Right, I think so, hopefully the team stays here long enough.

1180
00:59:46,520 --> 00:59:49,280
Speaker 1: Well, I know, I mean, you know the Austin desperately

1181
00:59:49,320 --> 00:59:51,240
Speaker 1: wants a basketball team. I think they have a better

1182
00:59:51,240 --> 00:59:53,560
Speaker 1: shot at getting a baseball team. Like I love the

1183
00:59:53,560 --> 00:59:56,480
Speaker 1: idea of San Antonio getting having football and basketball and

1184
00:59:56,560 --> 00:59:58,280
Speaker 1: let Austin have the baseball.

1185
00:59:58,440 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 2: I would have a lot of San Antonio's of building

1186
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:03,680
Speaker 2: their recent basketball arena where it is in the east side,

1187
01:00:04,200 --> 01:00:06,640
Speaker 2: to build it like about not maybe not halfway, but

1188
01:00:06,640 --> 01:00:08,880
Speaker 2: a little bit more closer on I thirty five North.

1189
01:00:09,080 --> 01:00:12,840
Speaker 1: Well, is it that halfway between Austin and San Antonio

1190
01:00:12,880 --> 01:00:13,880
Speaker 1: becoming its own city?

1191
01:00:14,160 --> 01:00:16,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, San Marcos and le bron Fels. It's it's as

1192
01:00:16,720 --> 01:00:19,720
Speaker 2: you said, it's a megalopolis. And that would have drawn

1193
01:00:19,760 --> 01:00:22,880
Speaker 2: from both cities, and therefore, you know, each team. I

1194
01:00:22,880 --> 01:00:24,800
Speaker 2: don't even care if they call it the San Antonial

1195
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:27,919
Speaker 2: Austin Spurs or something. Just right, keep them here, draw

1196
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:29,920
Speaker 2: from both cities, and that would have been great. But

1197
01:00:30,320 --> 01:00:33,560
Speaker 2: now we have a proposition going out to being elected

1198
01:00:33,560 --> 01:00:36,280
Speaker 2: on tomorrow that will decide whether or not the Spurs

1199
01:00:36,280 --> 01:00:40,200
Speaker 2: build a downtown arena, And if it doesn't pass, who knows,

1200
01:00:40,240 --> 01:00:41,560
Speaker 2: they may become the Austin. Yeah.

1201
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 1: Boy, the timing of that with Wemby on the rise,

1202
01:00:44,000 --> 01:00:46,400
Speaker 1: my guess is that probably helps it a couple of points.

1203
01:00:46,600 --> 01:00:49,320
Speaker 1: I mean, cities usually reject this stuff though they don't

1204
01:00:49,360 --> 01:00:50,240
Speaker 1: like taxpayer dotas.

1205
01:00:50,240 --> 01:00:52,840
Speaker 2: We don't like it, especially San Antonio. But you know,

1206
01:00:53,080 --> 01:00:54,520
Speaker 2: Spurs are on team in town.

1207
01:00:54,840 --> 01:00:56,680
Speaker 1: I'm going to put this on my list of races

1208
01:00:56,720 --> 01:01:01,120
Speaker 1: to watch on the proposition A and D. They're both

1209
01:01:01,200 --> 01:01:05,160
Speaker 1: key fantastic. Hey, Dave, this was great. I appreciate it

1210
01:01:05,160 --> 01:01:06,280
Speaker 1: getting to know you well.

1211
01:01:06,320 --> 01:01:07,920
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed it too, Chuck, thank you.

1212
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:10,520
Speaker 1: All right, Well, people should check out the book Dodgers

1213
01:01:10,520 --> 01:01:13,880
Speaker 1: to Damascus. Uh, it's more of a Middle East book

1214
01:01:13,920 --> 01:01:14,959
Speaker 1: than it is a baseball book.

1215
01:01:15,320 --> 01:01:17,520
Speaker 2: It is it is I spent a few years in

1216
01:01:17,520 --> 01:01:19,280
Speaker 2: baseball and the rest of my life in Middle East,

1217
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:21,280
Speaker 2: So yeah, proportionally appropriate.

1218
01:01:21,640 --> 01:01:23,920
Speaker 1: But you know, it's a it's a reminder that that

1219
01:01:24,040 --> 01:01:28,240
Speaker 1: sports is part of your education. It's you can't have

1220
01:01:28,280 --> 01:01:31,560
Speaker 1: a complete life in some ways, a complete education without

1221
01:01:32,680 --> 01:01:33,760
Speaker 1: without sports.

1222
01:01:34,120 --> 01:01:36,680
Speaker 2: That's sports and having other life experiences. You know, there's

1223
01:01:36,720 --> 01:01:38,960
Speaker 2: competition and discomfort and failure.

1224
01:01:39,440 --> 01:01:43,320
Speaker 1: So no, it's terrific. Lesson congratulations and like I said,

1225
01:01:43,760 --> 01:01:46,760
Speaker 1: I appreciate you exposing yourself because that's what that is,

1226
01:01:46,800 --> 01:01:49,200
Speaker 1: when you let somebody else write about you while you're

1227
01:01:49,240 --> 01:01:49,840
Speaker 1: still alive.

1228
01:01:50,120 --> 01:01:52,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks, Thanks Chuck, I'm a regl in the end.

1229
01:01:53,000 --> 01:01:55,439
Speaker 1: But anyway, David, great to know you.

1230
01:01:55,520 --> 01:01:56,600
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you about